(); bool isFile = false ; bool isFileName = false ; bool isSHA = false ; bool isLength = false ; string curFile = " " ; string curLength = " " ; string curSHA = " " ; while (reader.Read()) { switch (reader.NodeType) { case XmlNodeType.XmlDeclaration: break ; case XmlNodeType.Element: if (reader.Name.ToString().Equals( " Dir" ,StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { myDir.Add(reader.GetAttribute( " Name" )); isFile = false ; } else if (reader.Name.ToString().Equals( " File" , StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { isFile = true ; } else if (reader.Name.ToString().Equals( " Name" , StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { if (isFile) { isFileName = true ; } else { Console.WriteLine( " error on Line {0} Name <{1}> Value{2}" ,reader.LineNumber,reader.Name,reader.Value); } } else if (reader.Name.ToString().Equals( " Length" , StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { if (isFile) { isLength = true ; } else { Console.WriteLine( " error on Line {0} Name <{1}> Value{2}" , reader.LineNumber, reader.Name, reader.Value); } } else if (reader.Name.ToString().Equals( " SHA256" , StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { if (isFile) { isSHA = true ; } else { Console.WriteLine( " error on Line {0} Name <{1}> Value{2}" , reader.LineNumber, reader.Name, reader.Value); } } else { Console.WriteLine( " Unknown Element {0} Name <{1}> Value{2}" , reader.LineNumber, reader.Name, reader.Value); } break ; case XmlNodeType.Text: if (isFileName) { curFile = reader.Value; } else if (isSHA){ curSHA = reader.Value; } else if (isLength) { curLength = reader.Value; } else { Console.WriteLine( " Unknown Text Line {0} Name <{1}> Value{2}" , reader.LineNumber, reader.Name, reader.Value); } break ; case XmlNodeType.EndElement: if (reader.Name.ToString().Equals( " dir" , StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { myDir.Remove(myDir.Last()); isFile = false ; } else if (reader.Name.ToString().Equals( " File" , StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { isFile = false ; Console.WriteLine( " Path: {0}" , string .Join( " \\" , myDir.ToArray())); if (!curSHA.Equals( " " )) { Console.WriteLine( " File: {0} Length: {1} SHA256: {2}" ,curFile,curLength,curSHA); } else { Console.WriteLine( " File: {0} Length: {1}" , curFile, curLength); } } else if (reader.Name.ToString().Equals( " Length" , StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { isLength = false ; } else if (reader.Name.ToString().Equals( " SHA256" , StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { isSHA = false ; } else if (reader.Name.ToString().Equals( " Name" , StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { isFileName = false ; } else { Console.WriteLine( " Unknown End element {0} Name <{1}> Value{2}" , reader.LineNumber, reader.Name, reader.Value); } break ; } } }
(Note: string.Join()-Line destroys coloring)
Even it is not nice as it's not mucht better than just textparsing and manual decoding the XML , it works:
Copy Code Path: Tmp\ConsoleApplication1\bin\Debug File: ConsoleApplication1.exe Length: 4608 Path: Tmp\ConsoleApplication1\bin\Debug File: ConsoleApplication1.pdb Length: 11776 Path: Tmp\ConsoleApplication1\bin\Debug File: ConsoleApplication1.vshost.exe Length: 9568 Path: Tmp\ConsoleApplication1\bin\Debug File: ConsoleApplication1.vshost.exe.manifest Length: 473 Path: Tmp\ConsoleApplication1\obj\Debug\TempPE File: ConsoleApplication1.csproj.FileListAbsolute.txt Length: 322 Path: Tmp\ConsoleApplication1\obj\Debug\TempPE File: ConsoleApplication1.exe Length: 4608 Path: Tmp\ConsoleApplication1\obj\Debug\TempPE File: ConsoleApplication1.pdb Length: 11776 Path: Tmp\ConsoleApplication1\obj\Properties File: AssemblyInfo.cs Length: 1454 Path: Tmp\ConsoleApplication1\obj File: ConsoleApplication1.csproj Length: 2546 Path: Tmp\ConsoleApplication1\obj File: ConsoleApplication1.sln Length: 937 Path: Tmp\ConsoleApplication1\obj File: ConsoleApplication1.suo Length: 10752 Path: Tmp\ConsoleApplication1\obj File: Program.cs Length: 269
If anyone has a better solution: youre welcome!!!
I'm still serious if theres not a easyser solution to revert back this (my current test) 1-Liner:
C# Copy Code return new XElement( " Dir" , new XAttribute( " Name" , di.Name), from d in Directory.GetDirectories(source) select CreateFileSystemXmlTree(d, progress), from fi in di.GetFiles() let myProgress = DoProgress(progress) select new XElement( " File" , new XElement( " Name" , fi.Name), new XElement( " Length" , fi.Length), new XElement( " SHA256" , GetChecksumBuffered(fi.FullName)) ) );
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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.
Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal May 21, 2016 - Fatimata Deme (right), a first-generation Muslim African American Memphian and Whitehaven Tiger, jokes with classmate Darriell Smith as they get ready for graduation at the Cook Convention Center. Before the ceremony, Deme put her yellow mortarboard over her hijab and graduated second in her class with a 4.4. grade-point average. (Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal)
David Waters Columnist SHARE Fatimata Deme (Photo by Micaela Watts/Chalkbeat) May 21, 2016 - A beaming Fatimata Deme (center), first-generation Muslim African American Memphian and Whitehaven Tiger, marches in procession during Whitehaven's graduation ceremony at the Cook Convention Center. Before the ceremony, Deme put her yellow mortarboard over her hijab and graduated second in her class with a 4.4. grade-point average. (Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal)
She was born here. She grew up here. She went to school here.
Saturday, she put her gold mortarboard over her hijab and graduated second in her class at Whitehaven High, proud if just slightly disappointed.
"My goal was to be valedictorian," said Fatimata Deme, a first-generation Muslim African American Memphian and Whitehaven Tiger.
She came up a tenth of a point short. She completed her studies with a 4.4. grade-point average, good enough to give her the honor of being class salutatorian.
She took seven Advanced Placement classes. She made the National Honor Society and the National English Honor Society. She received more than $4 million in academic scholarship offers.
Still, people stare.
They make judgments about her because of what she wears, how she always covers her head and neck with a colorful scarf or hijab, her arms and legs with a long gown or abaya.
They make judgments about her based on what others have done, people she doesn't know, never met, never in a million years would agree with or support, no matter what they claimed was their motivation.
It used to bother her a lot the stares, the questions, the negative assumptions. It made her feel like she wasn't welcome, like she didn't belong in her own country, her own hometown.
She got over it. So did they when they got to know her. They stopped staring and started asking better questions.
"I used to hate all of the questions," Fatimata said. "Now I welcome them. People are curious. They want to know more."
So she explains.
Her parents are from Senegal, one of Africa's model democracies and most stable countries.
They came to America in 1996 and to Memphis in 1997 seeking like so many immigrants before them a better life and more opportunities for their children.
"We are very proud of Fatimata and her education," said her father, Baba Deme, the imam at Masjid Taqwa, the mosque on Winchester.
You think being a preacher's kid is a challenge? Try being the American teenage daughter of a clergy leader whose faith tradition discourages or disallows teen dating.
Fatimata is proud of that tradition.
"When boys ask me out, I just say no," she says without a trace of resentment or regret.
She believes modesty is a virtue. She believes she should be judged for what's in her mind and heart and soul, not for what's on her body.
She believes in praying five times a day and regular fasting, especially during the holy month of Ramadan.
"When I get into test mode, I don't even notice that I'm fasting," she said.
It helps that she isn't entirely alone.
There are as many as 20 other students at Whitehaven High who are African immigrants or first-generation Africans. Several other girls cover their heads.
There are four Muslim teachers, including a Muslim woman whose hair no one at school has ever seen. Arabic is one of the foreign languages offered.
"I thought I would be tormented or teased when I started going to Whitehaven, but I haven't been at all," she said. "Everyone makes me feel welcome. It makes me feel good."
It also helps that she has attended a school run by Dr. Vincent Hunter, the Whitehaven principal, who runs a tight ship and sets a tone of inclusion and respect.
"Fatimata is a tremendous young lady who has helped our children learn to respect another culture," Hunter said.
Fatimata wanted to be valedictorian, but she has other goals. She loves science, especially biology and chemistry. She loves to view the world at the micro level.
"In medicine there is only one race, the human race," the New England Journal of Medicine declared three years after she was born.
"All God's creatures are His family," the Prophet Muhammad declared centuries ago. "And he or she is the most beloved of God who tries to do the most good to God's creatures."
Fatimata is a form of the name Fatima, who was a daughter of the Prophet.
Fatimata, the daughter of an imam, plans to go to Rhodes College, then to medical school.
Someday she hopes to go to Senegal and help people who don't have access to advanced medical care.
"I want to show that a Muslim woman can do anything," she said.
Contact columnist David Waters at waters@commercialappeal.com.
In July of 1969, when Richard Nixon was in the White House, U.S. District Judge William C. Keady ruled that the Cleveland, Mississippi school district was illegally maintaining segregated schools.
In January of 1985, President Ronald Reagan's Justice Department intervened in the Cleveland school case and accused the district of continuing to operate a dual system that inherently discriminates against African-American students.
Now it's 2016, and Cleveland schools have made few, if any, substantive changes to address court-ordered desegregation. Keady's original ruling, along with subsequent consent orders by succeeding judges, have done little to change things despite the fact that today the superintendent and two of the five school board members are African-American.
Last week marked the 62nd anniversary of the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision in which the Supreme Court said so-called separate but equal schools were unconstitutional. In Cleveland, however, the anniversary served as an ironic backdrop to yet another court ruling in which U.S. District Judge Debra Brown ordered Cleveland's two high schools, as well as middle schools, to consolidate thereby forcing desegregation once and for all.
Brown, who is African-American and a native of Yazoo City, did not question the Bolivar County community's sincere desire to provide a good education for all its students. But her 96-page ruling was emphatic. Decades of foot-dragging to avoid full desegregation must end.
For me, the Cleveland case underscores the sheer reluctance by many in our society to work toward supporting education systems where students of all races come together, are taught together, study together, play together, grow up together and hopefully graduate together.
Just last week, a report released by the federal Government Accountability Office, said segregated schools remain the rule, rather than the exception, across the American landscape.
The result is that kids living in impoverished communities are more isolated than ever. They never experience the richness that racial diversity can add to their lives. And for many of them, education becomes an afterthought which leads to deeper poverty and a gravitation to crime.
The GAO report made the point that minority students in high-poverty, low-performing schools are deprived of educational opportunities that more affluent students enjoy.
We see that in Memphis, where Shelby County Schools, which are more than 76 percent African-American, are saddled with financial woes and underperforming students. Meanwhile, the new suburban school districts are doing just fine, both financially and academically.
I was taught at an early age that a well-rounded education is the one great equalizer. I still believe that's true. I also believe that racially diverse classrooms make a world of difference in creating healthy communities.
And 62 years after Brown vs. Board of Education, it shouldn't take one more federal judge forcing us to come together.
May 13, 2016 - Construction workers labor on a new parking area at Methodist University Hospital. The facility is making room for a parking garage that will expand parking that will have 700 spaces, increasing parking at MUH by 100 spaces. (Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal)
Ted Evanoff Columnist SHARE Methodist University Hospital's master plan includes a new tower and parking garage at Union and Bellevue. (courtesy of MUH)
Tommy Pacello counts 270 acres of parking in his slice of Memphis, a part of the old city that held off decay and still lost lots of residents.
About 36,000 people lived on the blocks between Cleveland Street and Danny Thomas Boulevard half a century ago, he said, compared to 15,000 today.
He figures new houses and apartments one day could reclaim some of the asphalt and cement.
First, hell tackle litter, weeds in the sidewalk cracks, building code violations. Then hell encourage folks to move in.
Were considering incentives for people across the socioeconomic spectrum to move back to where they work, said Pacello, president of the Memphis Medical District Collaborative.
In a city concerned the middle-class migration to the suburbs could speed up, leaders in the cluster of health care institutions central to the Memphis economy want to give employees a reason to move into the urban core.
If we want people to invest in the district it needs to be clean certainly and it needs to be safe, Pacello said.
As it zigzags along Union Avenue and Poplar Avenue, the Medical District covers 2.5 square miles between Midtown and the edge of Downtown.
Six hospitals and four colleges in this stretch employ more than 17,000 people. Eight institutions form the collaborative.
Its urban renaissance strategy is unfolding even as city government embraces a frugal era. Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland took office in January, insisting he'd keep to the basics in a city still recovering from the devastating recession that wiped out 50,000 jobs.
Rather than tourism projects like Bass Pro Shops at The Pyramid, which received more than $105 million in public funds, Stricklands City Hall would focus on crime, blight, the budget. Hed leave transformational projects to the private sector.
Now the private sector actually, the nonprofit sector is stepping up in the Medical District. Its transformational model could serve neighborhoods across the city.
Thousands of commuters drive into the Medical District each workday.
Then they drive back out.
Six thousands dwellings remain in use in the district, and rentals such as the relatively new Bristol on Union apartments are 98 percent occupied. Yet only 500 students live in the district, Pacello said, and only 4,000 employees reside within five miles, an area that reaches the new apartments on South Main Street.
Together, the eight collaborative members employ 16,000 workers and enroll 8,000 students.
Getting them to relocate starts with a simple task: Erase graffiti, install flower planters, report building code violations, and hire ambassadors to do all this and look out for the streets. If one of the 1,000 patients in the hospitals or their family looks lost, a uniformed ambassador can put down a broom and kindly guide him or her to the right place. It all starts with policing weeds and litter.
Weeds growing in the sidewalks really bother me, Pacello said. Thats one thing that just really sends a signal no one is paying attention.
Organizing the ambassadors is Louisville, Kentucky, nonprofit Block by Block, retained on similar missions by Detroit, Nashville, San Antonio and other cities. It will recruit, train and coordinate up to six ambassadors theyre also called stewards paid by the collaborative, whose members have raised roughly $230,000 for the project.
Each institution will continue to tend its own buildings and grounds (University of Tennessee also cares for Health Sciences Park), while the ambassadors clean streets, gutters, sidewalks, benches and neglected space between buildings. Along with food trucks and other events meant to encourage students and workers to make use of the park and the streets, the collaborative is trying to build a sense of community in a place where most people have gone home by nightfall.
Theres really not a precedent for this type of program in Memphis, said Pacello, a lawyer and urban planner who earlier served on the Innovation Delivery Team formed by the city in 2011 to administer Bloomberg Philanthropies $5 million grant. It was earmarked for improving neighborhoods and reducing gun violence.
This is part of a much larger strategy for the Medical District, Pacello said, noting the collaborative members want residents as well as vendors and retailers to relocate to the area.
While the eight institutions spend $2.7 billion per year collectively, only about $50 million goes to Memphis firms, he said. The collaborative intends to find ways to spend more locally, and also encourage vendors to open shops on the districts 150 vacant acres or build on the parking lots.
There are all these opportunities to think about in-fill development, Pacello said, pointing out new buildings could contain apartments over shops and stores.
Workers streaming back to live in the district could spur development. Detroit has had some success repopulating its New Center area, where Henry Ford Hospital and other institutions funded housing incentives. In Memphis, collaborative members are considering pooling money for a similar mission, Pacello said.
Incentives could encourage long-range commuters to move into the district along with the new group coming in the next few years.
About 2,000 more workers are expected to be hired as the $1.5 billion in expansions are completed at St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital and Methodist University Hospital.
While the Medical District could support a flourishing residential community someday, for Pacello, the steward of 2.5 square miles of urban core, a housing renaissance starts not with hammer and nails but flower pots and weed diggers.
The first thing we have to do, he said, is make the public spaces more appealing to people.
Ted Evanoff, business editor of The Commercial Appeal, can be reached at evanoff@commercialappeal.com and 901-529-2292.
Memphis Medical District
Area: 2.5 square miles bounded by Cleveland Street, North Parkway, Vance Avenue, Danny Thomas Boulevard and blocks west
Employees: 17,000
Students: 8,000
Medical District Collaborative office: 656 Madison Ave.
Medical District Collaborative anchor members:
ALSAC-St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital, Baptist College of Health Sciences, Bioworks Foundation, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, Regional One Health, Southern College of Optometry, Southwest Tennessee Community College, University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center.
Medical District institutions include:
HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital, Memphis VA Medical Center.
May 17, 2016 Dale Sanders, director of research, The Wolf River Conservancy, trims debris blocking a path along the Wolf River during an expedition Tuesday. The Wolf River Conservancy has completed some major land purchases creating an almost unbroken buffer of protective acreage along its namesake river. (Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal)
SHARE May 17, 2016 Jim Gafford, professional river guide, The Wolf River Conservancy, takes in the view as he takes a break on a sandbar along the Wolf River during an expedition Tuesday. The Wolf River Conservancy has completed some major land purchases creating an almost unbroken buffer of protective acreage along its namesake river. (Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal) May 17, 2016 Wood shavings float with freshly cut leaves as an expedition team from The Wolf River Conservancy clear paths along the river Tuesday. The Wolf River Conservancy has completed some major land purchases creating an almost unbroken buffer of protective acreage along its namesake river. (Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal) The Wolf River Conservancy purchase completes 11.5-mile buffer of protected land along the Wolf River. (Jason Viera/The Commercial Appeal) Related Photos Wolf River Conservancy
By Tom Charlier of The Commercial Appeal
Gliding on the gentle current past downed limbs and around one hairpin bend after another, Ryan Hall is looking for a sand bar just a nice, wide spot to park a canoe.
Instead, he sees only trees: towering silver maples, pignut hickories and swamp chestnut oaks. From the channel of the Wolf River, they rise to form a lush green curtain draped along the south bank.
This mature forest is part of a 215-acre tract that Hall, as land protection associate with the Wolf River Conservancy, helped acquire for public protection in recent months. It formed the "keystone piece," or final segment, of an unbroken corridor of protected land along 11.5 miles of river in western Fayette and eastern Shelby counties, he said.
"You can only imagine what might be here probably more hunting shacks and maybe a gravel mine" if the land hadn't protected, Hall says as he paddles past the acreage.
The completion of the purchase linking nearly 3,900 acres of public land extending from Tenn. 196 westward to a mile or so east of Houston Levee Road in Collierville marks a significant milestone for the conservancy.
Since its founding in 1985, the nonprofit conservation group has been working with local and state agencies to assemble blocks of public land to create buffers that protect its namesake river from development and pollution while providing space for trails and other recreational facilities.
Acreage along the Wolf is considered important for a variety of reasons. The wetlands there filter pollutants and provide habitat for a wide range of plants and animals. The river also drains the area where rainwater recharges the Memphis Sand aquifer, the deep, relatively pristine source of drinking water for Memphis and other cities.
With support from foundations, corporations and other benefactors, the conservancy has methodically bought tracts up and down the Wolf totaling 15,000 acres. Coupled with purchases by other agencies, the effort has brought a total of 63 miles of river frontage into public ownership, including 37 miles in which both sides are in public hands and 26 miles where one bank is.
Like many of the other purchases by the conservancy, the 215 acre track on the eastern edge of Shelby County will be sold to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, which will add it to the existing Wolf River Management Area in Fayette County for hunting and fishing. The agency will pay for the land with money from the state's wetlands-acquisition fund, which derives revenues from real-estate transfer fees.
"It'll be public land, and its going to be multiuse and it's going to be (for) watershed protection," said Tim Churchill, chief of real estate for TWRA.
The agency's partnership with the conservancy is "a good one," Churchill said. "They're in a way better bargaining position (to buy land) than the state is."
The conservancy paid $460,000 for the tract, which was formerly owned by Triple Z Development Inc. Half the money for the purchase came from a challenge grant made by Ring Container Technologies, a firm headquartered in nearby Oakland that makes plastic bottles.
Ben Livingston, president and CEO of Ring Container, said his firm, as the largest employer in Fayette County, seeks to improve amenities and the environment the benefit of its workers and the larger community.
"It's really about Memphis and trying to improve the outdoor and health-related opportunities and protecting drinking water," he said.
After finding a spot to beach his canoe, Hall hiked into the forest to show one of the many sloughs and oxbow lakes secluded in the acreage. There, cypress trees rise from the clear water, and an owls another creatures can be heard in the nearby trees.
The forest, subject to frequent flooding, is mostly open and free of the Chinese privet and other exotic vegetation found in the underbrush of woods closer to Memphis.
Hall expresses gratitude that the land was left in such good shape by Triple Z.
"Before they sold it, they could've clear-cut it," he said.
That, in fact, is exactly what happened to a slightly larger tract also purchased in the past year by the conservancy just across the river from the Triple Z lane. That acreage, since resold to TWRA, will be allowed to regenerate on its own, Churchill said.
With the completion of the Triple Z purchase, the conservancy is pursuing other targeted tracts, including a large area that would extend the buffer westward to Houston Levee.
"We go for contiguous tracts. We go for tracts that fill in the gaps," Hall said.
The Wolf River Conservancy from The Commercial Appeal on Vimeo.
May 19, 2016 - Students, their parents, and faculty from Church Health Center's Perea Preschool, which shares a building with Klondike Elementary School, board a bus for a field trip to the zoo. Indictments were recently handed down in a heroin conspiracy case in the vicinity of the school. (Brandon Dill/Special to The Commercial Appeal)
By Katie Fretland of The Commercial Appeal
A Shelby County Sheriff's Narcotics Unit detective watched a man exit a bus from Chicago at the Greyhound station on Airways Boulevard. The man got into a black Kia Soul driven by another person and left the parking lot March 5.
A sergeant tried to pull the Kia over for traffic violations, but the driver fled passing a vehicle in the emergency lane, according to a court affidavit. During the pursuit, a rectangular bundle flew out of the window.
The sergeant recovered the package. It contained 1,072.1 grams of heroin. The street value of the package would be in excess of $225,000 after it is cut, said Sgt. Charles Eldridge of the Shelby County Sheriff's Narcotics Unit.
The men in the vehicle, David "Big Dave" Reed, Jermaine "Trell" Edwards and Derrick "D" Bond, were indicted in federal court this month on charges they conspired to possess more than a kilogram of heroin with intent to distribute. A fourth man, Carl "C-Dub" Douglas, was also federally indicted in the heroin ring. The defendants are among 19 people indicted in March in Shelby County Criminal Court on charges they participated in a group that conspired to possess with the intent to sell heroin within 1,000 feet of Klondike Elementary School, Caldwell Elementary and Northside High School.
The Shelby County grand jury charged that Edwards acquired heroin from Chicago and delivered it to Bond and others for distribution. Another defendant, Johnny "J-Dollar" Dunn, would store and distribute heroin from his residence within the school zone. The grand jurors also charged that Master Roy Jefferson, who is still at large, served the drug-trafficking organization as a mid-level distributor who would buy heroin from Bond and re-distribute it from his residence, also in the school zone.
During interviews near the schools, people talked about the impact of a heroin operation near children.
Rudell Funzie, 62, said the indictments were "a good thing."
"I'm against anything they're trying to do wrong around the kids," he said. "School is where our kids need to learn."
Klondike Elementary is located on Vollintine next to Northside High School near Klondike Park and the North Library. The elementary school is connected to Perea Preschool, a ministry of the Church Health Center. Caldwell Elementary is on Chelsea about a 15-minute walk west of Klondike Elementary near Guthrie Park.
Sandra Bowles, 54, said a heroin organization operating near the schools is "crazy."
"It's like with all this shooting going on," she said. "They keep shooting and killing up all our kids. We won't have anything for the next generation."
Eldridge said heroin abuse and trafficking affects people across socioeconomic lines, causing deaths and driving crime including robberies and shootings.
"Heroin has become an epidemic," he said.
The range of punishment on the state charges is 15 to 60 years, due to the amount of heroin and the allegation the crime occurred in a drug-free school zone. Some of the defendants are scheduled for bond hearings this month before Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Chris Craft, and others have court dates in June.
For the federal charges, the range of punishment is 10 years to life.
U.S. Attorney Edward L. Stanton III said heroin is "ravaging communities across West Tennessee."
"It is one of the top priorities for this office to dismantle and bring to justice any individuals and organizations that are responsible for providing this poison and spreading this poison throughout our communities," Stanton said.
According to the affidavit, defendants Reed, Edwards, and Bond were captured after the sheriff's sergeant stopped to recover the thrown package of heroin. Detectives continued to follow the vehicle and stopped it on Interstate 240 near Lamar. Detectives ordered the men out of the car, and then physically removed them when they refused.
"In a post-Miranda statement, Reed stated he had been approached by Edwards and Bond, who offered to pay his rent for a month to accompany Edwards to Chicago and transport a heroin shipment back to Memphis," the affidavit states.
SHARE
By Daniel Connolly of The Commercial Appeal
A student was arrested this week at Wooddale High in southeast Memphis and charged with attacking a teacher.
"A 16-year-old student assaulted his teacher and he was charged with simple assault and taken to Juvenile Court," said Sgt. Mickey Keaton of the Shelby County Sheriff's Office. A sheriff's office school resource officer made the arrest.
Keaton said he couldn't release many details about the teen because he's a juvenile. Another student made a video of the Tuesday assault. The video appears to show the boy wrestling the teacher to the floor and dragging him into the hall, where the scuffle continues. The video shows other students trying to pull the boy away from the teacher and stop the attack.
February 18, 2015 - Memphis' version of the Liberty Bell is stored inside the Mid-South Coliseum. (Mike Brown/The Commercial Appeal)
By David Royer of The Commercial Appeal
The city of Memphis is opening up the long-shuttered Mid-South Coliseum to allow citizen-led groups with qualified experts to evaluate the building's potential for renovation.
Four-hour tours will be scheduled for June 6-10, according to a release sent by the city Friday evening. Interested groups must submit their request for access to the city of Memphis' Division of Housing and Community Development in writing by May 27. The Division of Housing and Community Development will coordinate the tours.
On Monday, a team of architects, engineers and others put together by the groups Coliseum Coalition and Save the Mid-South Coliseum toured the Coliseum to examine its condition.
"I'm delighted that after spending three hours looking at all of the challenges, our team's preliminary opinion was that the issues were solvable and certainly not insurmountable," architect and Coalition board member Charles "Chooch" Pickard said in a statement Friday. "When creative minds come together to create solutions to the challenges in old buildings, it often leads to a change in perception about the feasibility of renovating a historic structure."
Team members said Friday they plan to produce a preliminary assessment report of the building to determine the feasibility of reopening it. With market studies and community input, they hope to present to the city a business plan for a renovated Mid-South Coliseum.
The multipurpose arena and concert hall was built at the old Fairgrounds in 1963 and closed in 2006.
For more information on the tours, contact Livia Carter, performance analyst for the city of Memphis' Division of Housing and Community Development, at 901-636-7341 or livia.carter@memphistn.gov.
Having recently endured bridge-replacement work that took nearly three years to complete, motorists heading to and from Memphis International Airport soon could encounter another disruptive construction project. (Mike Brown/The Commercial Appeal)
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By Tom Charlier of The Commercial Appeal
Having recently endured bridge-replacement work that took nearly three years to complete, motorists heading to and from Memphis International Airport soon could encounter another disruptive construction project.
At a cost of $43 million, the Tennessee Department of Transportation plans to replace the outmoded Interstate 240 interchange at Airways Boulevard. TDOT has scheduled a public hearing on the design of the project for 5-7 p.m. June 2 at the Airways Boulevard Transit Center, 3033 Airways.
No timetable for construction has been set because the only funding that has been secured is $1 million for right of way acquisition. Whenever work does begin, the impact on traffic could be considerable: Some 143,000 vehicles a day travel I-240 in that area, while about 48,000 cars and trucks use Airways daily.
The purpose of the project is to "resolve safety and capacity issues" at the half-century-old interchange, TDOT says in a notice. The diamond-stye interchange will be replaced with what is known as a single-point interchange so named because through traffic on Airways, as well as traffic turning left onto or off the interchange, will be controlled by a single set of signals. Examples of single-point interchanges can be found along Tenn. 385 at Kirby, Riverdale and other locations.
The new Airways interchange also will feature a flyover ramp connecting westbound I-240 with southbound Airways, eliminating the need for vehicles headed to the airport from that direction to sit through a left-turn signal.
"This project will improve operational and safety inadequacies and will address future traffic needs," Jane Jones, TDOT's director of project delivery, said in an email.
The interchange project, which follows the completion earlier this year of the replacement of the Airways bridge at Nonconnah creek, is the second recent initiative focused on improving safety and access for traffic heading to and from the airport.
Ground access to the airport is becoming ever more important, local officials say. Several years ago, when Memphis International was an airline hub, it accommodated much greater passenger traffic, but most of those travelers were just transferring from one plane to another.
Today, although passenger totals are significantly lower, nearly all travelers are originating or ending their trips here and need ground transportation to and from the airport, said Scott Brockman, president and CEO of the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority.
Memphis International, already the world's second-busiest cargo airport, saw a 17 percent growth in passenger traffic during the first three months of this year compared with the same period in 2015, Brockman said.
"Our traffic is now in growth mode, and they're all local," he said.
The need for a new interchange at Airways has been discussed for 15 or more years, Brockman said.
"That interchange is very outdated and, at times, very difficult," he said.
Courtesy Center for Southern Folklore; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers In May of 1926, the Memphis Bluff suffered major cave-ins, taking with it shacks, businesses, boardwalks and even a railroad spur, complete with steam engine. Heavy and consistent rains caused flooding along the Mississippi River triggering the collapse and damage.
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May 21
25 years ago: 1991
Tampa, Fla. Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, America's Persian Gulf War hero, formally became Britain's as well Monday when Queen Elizabeth II bestowed an honorary knighthood on him. "It was marvelous. She is a lovely lady. She just said, 'I would like to present you with this medal,'" Schwarzkopf said after the private ceremony. The knighting was the latest honor for the 56-year-old general. Since his return from Saudi Arabia last month Schwarzkopf has been touted as a potential political candidate, addressed a joint session of Congress, received accolades during a Kentucky Derby Parade, and was feted at a Tampa Stadium welcome. The knighting capped a two-hour tour of the city by the 65-year-old queen, her husband, Prince Philip, and an entourage.
50 years ago: 1966
Commissioner Hunter Lane Jr. said yesterday he would support a move to hold a public hearing on the question of naming a city facility for entertainer Elvis Presley. The Commissioner's comments were in reference to a letter to Mayor William B. Ingram from attorney Robert V. Bickers requesting a special night hearing to allow the public an opportunity to express their views and reasons for wanting the Mid-South Coliseum changed to Elvis Presley Coliseum.
75 years ago: 1941
Surpassing all national records as to size of the class, some 1,600 Shelby County school children last night received Junior Red Cross First Aid Certificates at a ceremony at Overton Park Shell.
100 years ago: 1916
The announcements of new buildings literally poured out of the offices of architects and contractors during the past week. South Main Street is signally placed to the fore by the announcement of a six-story hotel building to cost $125,000, to be built at Main Street and Calhoun Avenue.
125 years ago: 1891
Police Station-keeper James L. Burdick is the possessor of a well, the water of which possesses great curative power, that was never discovered until a couple of days ago. The well is at 105 Elliott Street, where Mr. Burdick lives.
JMay 1, 2016- During a ceremony to unveil a new marker honoring those who died in the 1866 Memphis Massacre, Rev Keith Norman, President of the Memphis Branch of the NAACP, hugs NAACP Board Member Phyllis Aluko who drafted the marker's original text. Religious and city leaders gathered in remembrance at the National Civil Rights Museum before marching to Army Park where the marker is located. (Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal)
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By Sydney Neely, sydney.neely@commercialappeal.com
The new marker in Army Park recognizing the victims of the Memphis Massacre may be the first of many markers acknowledging attacks against African-Americans in the country and Memphis.
The Memphis Massacre marker, sponsored by the Memphis branch of the NAACP and presented by the National Park Service, is the first in the nation to commemorate a Reconstruction-era event.
"It's been long overdue," said Robert Sutton, the recently retired chief historian of the National Park Service who flew from Bethesda, Maryland to speak Friday at Memories of a Massacre: Memphis in 1866, a symposium exploring slavery, emancipation, and Reconstruction at the University of Memphis.
Memphis was one of the first and bloodiest events of the Reconstruction era, according to Sutton. The National Park Service has more than 400 parks, but none that focus on that era. Sutton said he thinks the Park Service is trying to deal with the both the positive and negative aspects of the Reconstruction period.
"We think it's important to tell the story and tell how it was, not trying to sugar coat anything," Sutton said.
The Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to indigent defendants, is making an effort to mark all the sites of mob atrocities and Southern lynchings, including those in Shelby County.
Sutton said when he retired in January, marking lynching sites was not in the mix, but he thinks bringing attention to it is important.
"We have to be alert to this so it doesn't happen again," said Madeleine Taylor, executive director of the Memphis branch of the NAACP.
Between 1882 and 1930, 214 people were lynched in Tennessee. There were 21 lynchings in Memphis and Shelby County, easily exceeding any other county in the state.
The public and gruesome lynching of Ell Persons in 1917 was one of many major physical attacks against the African-American community in Memphis before the 1920s that has yet to be recognized.
Persons was convicted of the rape and murder of Antoinette Rappel, a 16-year-old white student at Treadwell School who was found decapitated in a wooded area. Although a white man was seen leaving the scene, police focused their investigation on the arrest of a black assailant. Persons lived less than a mile from the murder scene, and after police arrested several black men, they concluded Persons was guilty. While Persons was in police custody, a mob seized him.
Persons' lynching was broadcast and seen as a major attraction for white Memphians. Vendors sold beverages and food, and parents wrote notes to school teachers requesting their children be excused to watch the lynching, according to "Unhidden" Transcripts, an essay by Kenneth W. Goings, an African American history professor at Ohio State and Gerald L. Smith, the director of the African American Studies and research program at the University of Kentucky.
About 5,000 spectators came to Memphis to watch Persons be tied to a stake, burned alive, and dismembered. Men, women, and children snatched pieces of his clothing as souvenirs.
The Lynching Sites Project of Memphis is having a prayer service Sunday for Persons at the site where he was lynched on the corner of Shelby Oaks/Bartlett Road and Summer Avenue. "It's not a protest, but just a recognition that it happened. It should not have happened," Taylor said.
The Memphis Massacre symposium continues from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday at the U of M. It is free and open to the public.
In this May 13, 2015 photo, the landscaped front of East Side High School in Cleveland, Miss., could possibly undergo a name and mission change depending on the results of a five-day hearing in federal court in Jackson starting Monday. A judge could settle whether one Mississippi town's two middle schools and two high schools are merged into one each as part of a 49-year-old desegregation lawsuit. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
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By Ron Maxey of The Commercial Appeal
A federal judge's order that Cleveland, Mississippi, must merge its two high schools and two middle schools to achieve racial integration is only one example of a bigger problem not just in Mississippi, but nationally, education observers say.
U.S. District Judge Debra Brown determined that after 51 years of litigation and three desegregation plans, problems remain in the Delta town's public schools. District officials said Friday they're likely to appeal the order.
Several experts say the situation in Cleveland isn't unique, however, and that segregation and disciplinary inequities remain a widespread problem that has much to do with economic disparities not easily fixed by court orders. A report issued last week by the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog agency, bears out the claim.
The report finds that the percentage of U.S. schools in which most students are black and Hispanic, and also from low-income backgrounds, has risen in recent years. The rise, the report finds, is associated with some schools having fewer resources and fewer academic opportunities for students.
In other words, those contacted say, parents with means are finding ways to get their kids out of schools with fewer opportunities and into schools that meet their desires, whether that means private schools, charter schools or home schooling. Those without the means or parental involvement are left in public schools that are segregated and with diminished resources.
Not surprising news, says Amy Wells Dolan of the University of Mississippi, but until issues of disparity in communities are addressed, it's going to be hard to fix schools through court orders.
"It'll depend on how Cleveland responds," Wells Dolan said of the situation there. "They could create a strong, diverse district unless those with privilege work to protect that privilege."
Wells Dolan, associate dean of the School of Education at Ole Miss, said there's a natural tension between the desire to desegregate schools and the desire of families of all races and economic classes to send their children to neighborhood schools. The trick that families and school systems nationwide deal with, she said, is how to come up with neighborhood schools that everyone will want to use when the communities they draw from aren't diverse.
"As poverty grows and isn't addressed, it makes these conflicts more prevalent," she said.
The GAO report, released May 17 on the 62nd anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court school desegregation ruling, found that not all the racially segregated schools are public schools. Most are, but the report said the share of charter and magnet schools qualifying as racially and economically isolated also increased.
"An extensive body of research over the past 10 years shows a clear link between schools' socioeconomic (or income) composition and student academic outcomes," the report said.
In addition to schools failing to desegregate, or becoming resegregated, the report found disparities in disciplinary practices a problem that has bubbled to the surface in Mississippi schools.
The Meridian school district became one of the most notable examples of disciplinary disparities, with a "school-to-prison" pipeline that resulted in Justice Department action to correct it. The DeSoto County school system is the subject of a current civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education over its disciplinary code.
Jadine Johnson, a staff attorney with the Washington-based Advancement Project, said earlier correcting disciplinary inequities is "a very local problem" that requires partnering with local groups to correct. Advancement Project has worked with a DeSoto County group of parents on the complaint there.
"Federal guidance has been helpful, but it's driven by the local decision-makers," Johnson said.
Diverse schools and fair disciplinary practices within those schools all depend on fixing bigger problems in communities throughout the nation that go beyond court orders, everyone agrees.
As Vanessa Meyer of the Atlanta-based Southern Education Foundation notes: "I think everyone would agree we still have a long way to go nationally in achieving student equity."
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By Catherine Rampell
WASHINGTON If you're disturbed by trigger warnings and cultural-appropriation freakouts, consider this new piece of evidence on the fragility of today's college students.
The University of Oregon has published its annual report from the school's "Bias Response Team." The report summarizes all 85 times last school year that students (and some faculty and staff members) formally sought help from administrators over instances of perceived bias against them or their peers.
In a handful of cases, students alleged that actual crimes such as vandalism or physical assault had occurred. Mostly, though, the complaints involved asking the university administration to cocoon students from upsetting but constitutionally protected speech. Or, sometimes, to compel offenders to proffer more appeasing, apologetic speech.
Among the incidents for which Oregonians sought redress or punishment:
A poster featuring a "triggering image" displaying "body size" bias.
Sexually explicit doodles on Post-its.
Too little coverage of transgender students in the newspaper.
A professor writing "an insulting comment on their online blog."
A professor joking that a nontraditional student was "too old to answer a question about current events."
In some cases it wasn't clear what the offense was, or why "bias" was alleged. One student "reported that a tutor consistently ignores him," and tagged the incident as "Bias Type: Age, Ethnicity, Gender, Race."
When in doubt, blame any unsatisfactory encounter on bias, and call in the authorities.
Oregon is one of more than 100 schools with a formal system for reporting such noncriminal "bias" complaints. These systems have been implemented over the past decade in part to help schools take the temperature of racial and ethnic tensions on campus. Which seems like a worthwhile goal, given high-profile incidents involving racial slurs, swastika-laden vandalism and the like.
But many such programs have mission-crept into disciplinary, pseudo-parental roles.
They have encouraged student informants to rat out peers (anonymously, if they choose) for building a phallic snow sculpture; playing a party game called "mafia" (which one student complained was anti-Italian); or chalking sidewalks and marking whiteboards with support for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Students have also asked administrators to regulate speech in other ways. The University of Minnesota's recently introduced free-speech code, for example, has been opposed by students who want the school to guarantee "special opportunities for those who are not well-spoken," as City Pages' Susan Du reported.
I applaud students who want to create a diverse, welcoming atmosphere on campus. I admire their drive to make the world around them a better, more inclusive place. What puzzles me, though, is this instinct to appeal to administrators to adjudicate any conflict.
Rather than confronting, debating and trying to persuade those whose words or actions offend them, students demand that a paternalistic figure step in and punish offenders.
Adult students, in other words, are demanding more of an in loco parentis role from their schools. And administrators appear ready and willing to parent.
The cause of this evolution is unclear. Perhaps the culprit is the consumerization of higher education, or the rise of helicopter parenting. Maybe it's the consequence of administrative bloat on campuses.
The advent of social media may also play a role. Sensitive to bad PR, administrators may encourage students to report problems inward and up the food chain rather than potentially megaphoning their complaints outward.
Whatever the cause, infantilizing students does them and the social causes they support no favors.
Colleges are supposed to be places where young adults develop the critical thinking and social skills to peacefully, productively engage with people with whom they disagree, whose ideas they may even find detestable. But today's students and tomorrow's workers are discouraged from resolving such conflicts on their own.
They are not learning to use their "logic and reason and words," as President Obama urged in his Rutgers University commencement speech, during which he chided students for forcing Condoleezza Rice to withdraw from an earlier talk.
And missing this developmental milestone is detrimental not only to the continued production of knowledge but also to the functioning of a democratic society.
Much is written about our siloed, polarized political debate, and our refusal to empathize or engage with our ideological opponents. It's hard not to see a sort of caricature of this problem on campuses today, where students don't learn the tools they would need to engage even if they wanted to.
What happens when today's students graduate and no longer have a designated authority figure to appeal to? What becomes of public discourse then?
Catherine Rampell's email address is crampell@washpost.com.
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By Chris Cillizza
Donald Trump effectively locked up the Republican presidential nomination on the night of May 3 when he won a sweeping victory in the Indiana primary. Ted Cruz ended his campaign that night. John Kasich followed suit the next day.
Since that night, Trump, the least orthodox presidential nominee in modern political history, has made a number of very smart moves to coalesce the GOP behind him while also setting the terms of the general election fight to come against Hillary Clinton.
Here are five examples of Trump being smart:
1) Traveling to D.C. to meet with Paul Ryan
This was a win-win for Trump. His past condemnations of many of the party leaders in Washington, and their doubts about his ability to lead the party, made it very hard from an optics perspective for people like Ryan to simply throw their support behind Trump once it became clear he was the nominee.
A gesture was needed, something that these members of Congress could point to as evidence that they had brought Trump to heel or, at the very least, that they had expressed their concerns to him, he had heard them and both parties were satisfied with the outcome.
The mood in the wake of Trump's visit, from Ryan to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, was ebullient. And, more important for Trump, it was clear that Ryan would, at some point in the not-too-distant future, be for him.
2) Hiring a pollster
Trump made much of the fact that during the primary process he had no pollster. It was a point of pride and proof that he was different (and better) than all of the calculating politicians he was running against.
The decision to bring on Tony Fabrizio, a well-known pollster within GOP circles, is a mature decision by Trump. Here's why: Winning a primary fight without a pollster is one thing. The calendar is laid out months (years?) in advance. Most of the time, a single state or, at most, two to four states vote on a single day. It's a sequential process where momentum matters. A lot.
Winning a general election is something different. The electorate is much broader and, therefore, more complex when it comes to targeting messages and the like. All of the states vote on the same day, too, meaning that you need someone with actual hard data to help justify spending and travel decisions.
Then there's this: There's no downside for Trump. Do you think one person who was for him in the primary is going to care (or even know) that he hired Fabrizio? Answer: No.
3) Making nice with Megyn Kelly
Trump has a theatrical/dramatic approach to most things. That includes his feuds, which play out as three-act plays: The introduction of the tension, the formal falling out, and then, of course, the high-profile making nice.
Trump finished that three-act arc with Fox News' Megyn Kelly this week when he shared a TV studio with her for a prime-time interview, not on Fox News but the big Fox network. The interview was largely easy on Trump it was no interview with Sean Hannity, but what is? and he came out looking none the worse for wear.
Plus, he was able to show the world how magnanimous he is, how he never holds grudges and how he can make up with anyone. Win, win, win.
4) Rolling out a list of potential Supreme Court picks
There's nothing that unites the disparate elements of the Republican Party base like talk of future Supreme Court nominees. That has long been true, but is even more so now in the wake of twin decisions over the last few years that legalized same-sex marriage and upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.
If you are looking to unite a fractious party, then, proposing a list of judges you would consider naming to fill the vacancy caused by the death of conservative hero Antonin Scalia this year is a very smart strategic play. Trump made no secret of his goal with the list: to put 11 names on it that would be totally unimpeachable in the eyes of conservative activists. Look at the kind of judges I would put on the Supreme Court, Trump is saying to doubting conservatives. And imagine the kind of judges Hillary Clinton would pick. See?
5) Making clear there are no boundaries in your planned attacks against Hillary
Trump's willingness to suggest that Bill Clinton had raped Juanita Broaddrick in his Wednesday night interview with Hannity is only the latest signal he is sending to Republicans that he considers absolutely nothing off limits when it comes to drawing a contrast with Hillary Clinton in the fall campaign.
That's a stone-cold winner for his efforts to unify the GOP. Why? Because large swaths of the Republican base have spent the last almost-20 years frustrated that their party leaders weren't willing (or willing enough) to directly confront the Clintons about their moral character (or lack thereof). That Trump won't apologize for calling Hillary Clinton an "enabler" of her husband is exactly the sort of rhetoric that conservatives have been waiting the last two decades for.
It is literally impossible to be "too nasty" to Hillary Clinton (and Bill Clinton) in the eyes of the Republican base. The more Trump amps up his rhetoric toward the former first couple, the more loyalty (and unity) he engenders from a party base badly in need of a rallying force.
Chris Cillizza writes the The Fix political blog for the Washington Post.
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By Leonard Pitts
The first flash came at 8:15 on a Monday morning. Eyewitnesses remember it as a bolt of soundless light as if the sun had somehow touched down to the Earth.
And suddenly, Hiroshima was gone.
The second flash came that Thursday morning at 11:02. Eyewitnesses recall two thumps possibly the sound bouncing off the mountains that cradled the city and a flash of bluish light.
And Nagasaki was decimated.
Japan surrendered the following Wednesday, ending the Second World War.
Last week, when it was announced Barack Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, everyone from Salon to the National Review raised two important questions:
Will the president apologize for what America did 71 years ago this August? Should he?
The White House says the answer to the first question is no. For whatever it's worth, the answer to the second is, too.
It is a measure of the deep emotion this subject still stirs that that will be a controversial and divisive opinion. Many good and moral people will find it abhorrent. Of course, the opposite opinion would also have been controversial and divisive and would have appalled other people, equally good, equally moral.
In the end, then, one can only answer to conscience, and this particular conscience is disinclined to second-guess the long-ago president and military commanders who felt the bombs might obviate the need to invade the Japanese home islands at a ruinous cost in American lives. Remember that the Japanese, inebriated by the "bushido" warrior code under which surrender equals shame and dishonor, had refused to capitulate, though defeat had long been a foregone conclusion.
Indeed, even after Hiroshima was leveled, it still took that nation nine days to give up.
That said, there is a more visceral reason the answer to the second question must be no: Any other answer would defame Americans who endured unimaginable cruelty at Japanese hands.
Should America apologize?
Ask Ray "Hap" Halloran, a B-29 navigator from Cincinnati who was beaten, stoned, starved, stripped naked and displayed in a cage at the Tokyo Zoo.
Ask Lester Tenney, a tanker from Chicago whose sleep was forever riddled with nightmares of a twitching, headless corpse a man he saw decapitated in the death march on Bataan.
And by all means, ask Forrest Knox, a sergeant from Janesville, Wisconsin. He was trapped with 500 other prisoners in the hold of a Japanese freighter where the heat topped 120 degrees and there was barely any water. Some of the men broke out in gibbering, howling fits of madness, prompting a Japanese threat to close off the hatch through which their meager air came if there was not silence.
The maddened men could not be reasoned with. So American men killed American men. Knox saw this. And participated. And for years afterward, he was haunted by dead men walking the streets of Janesville.
Should America apologize? No.
This was not slavery. This was not the Trail of Tears. This was not the incarceration of Japanese Americans. This was not, in other words, a case of the nation committing human-rights crimes against innocent peoples.
No, this was war, a fight for survival against a ruthless aggressor nation. Japan committed unspeakable atrocities. America did the same. Such is the nature of war. Seven decades later, the idea of an apology feels like moral impotence, a happy face Band-Aid that denies the awful immensity of it all.
There are two words that should be spoken, in fact, reverently whispered, with regard to Hiroshima and they are not "I'm sorry." No, the only words that matter are this promise and prayer:
"Never again."
Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald. Contact him at lpitts@miamiherald.com.
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The World Health Organization recently gave its verdict regarding the recent occurrences of another deadly disease, Yellow Fever, other than Zika Virus, which is currently spreading in certain regions of Africa like Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. According to the health agency, the Yellow Fever is not a state of emergency, as the international spread of the disease is under control. But, the organization confirmed that the fever still can be considered as a serious public health concern.
During a press conference in Geneva, the chief of the Outbreaks and Health Emergencies Cluster at WHO, Bruce Aylward, said that the urban Yellow Fever is a cause of major concern because of the possibility of rapid spread, reported Vice News. Bruce said that once the Yellow Fever situation elevates like Zika Virus, then it would be an emergency for the whole world.
DNA India reported that the Yellow Fever has already spread to an African capital, Kinshasa with millions of inhabitants. It is also reported that the some Yellow Fever infected patients have also been noticed in Kenya and China.
With that said, the chairman of the WHO emergency committee, Oyewale Tomori, has instructed the Yellow Fever affected countries to take appropriate measures in order to prevent the Zika virus-like situation.
"The affected countries need to make absolutely sure that visitors are vaccinated against the Yellow Fever virus," said Tomori, as reported by NY Times. "Also, the surveillance needs to be intensified, mass vaccinations should be organized, and the risk communication needs to be improved."
Even though the information suggest that Yellow Fever has been tamed for the moment, a former infectious disease specialist at Duke-NUS Medical School, Duane Gubler, has warned that the fever still poses a grave danger. "I think it was the correct decision," said Duane, as reported by CNN. "However, the threat is there and needs to be recognized, not ignored like we usually do."
Meanwhile, there are reports that the Yellow Fever is caused by a virus spread by Aedes Aegypti, which is the same mosquito that spreads Zika virus. "The symptoms usually begin three to six days after a bite from an infected mosquito and last about three or four days," reported Market Watch. "They include fever, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite. Yellow fever can be confused as dengue fever, malaria or another illness."
To date, more than 2,400 people have been reported to be infected with Yellow Fever out of which 300 people have died.
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Researchers have discovered the gene responsible for causing diabetes mellitus in humans with the help of mice models. The gene responsible for defects in secretion of insulin in patients with diabetes mellitus and Down syndrome were spotted, reports a study published in journal PLOS Genetics.
Researchers from Flinders University in South Australia in association with many other researchers from United Kingdom, United States and Sweden studied around 5000 possible gene candidates to find the RCAN1 gene responsible for causing insulin defects in diabetes mellitus and Down syndrome patients.
According to Flinders University cell physiologist Professor Damien Keating, cross-referencing the genes from Drown syndrome patients was helpful in narrowing down to one particular gene candidate from the whole lot. He also noted that since Down syndrome patients had an extra copy of chromosome 21 they were prone to various health issues including diabetes, reported ABC News.
For the purpose of the study, investigators analyzed four mouse models affected by the disorder in which two models had high blood sugar while the two others had no high blood sugar issues. The researchers cross-referenced the resultant 38 genes obtained with that of the genes overexpressed in case of diabetes mellitus.
"The comparison identified a single gene, RCAN1, which, when we overexpress it in mice, causes them to have abnormal mitochondria in their beta cells, produce less cellular energy and secrete less insulin in the presence of high glucose," Professor Keating said, according to Medical News.
The researchers are hopeful that discovery of RCAN1 would be of great help in developing treatment plan that target RCAN1 gene. He also noted that they have now reached the stage of testing series of drugs that target RCAN1 to find out whether or not the drugs help in improving insulin secretion in diabetes patients.
"Given that we've identified this gene as important for reducing insulin secretion in type 2 diabetes, we are now at a stage where we have a series of drugs that target RCAN1 and we are now going to test to find whether these drugs can improve insulation secretion in type 2 diabetes," Prof Keating said. "We don't understand what changes in our pancreas or in our insulin secreting beta cells to cause that transition from just being insulin resistant and having metabolic syndrome to transitioning to full-blown type 2 diabetes."
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Package foods will now be presented to the public a new Nutrition Facts label as prescribed by the Food and Drug Administration in order give consumers a more detailed account of the calorie intakes.
According to The New York Times, the packaging makeover will have focal points of the modified Nutrition Facts Label that has: a refreshed design as the type size for "Calories," "servings per container," and the "serving size" announcement, as well as the reflection of updated information about the "added sugars," in grams and other nutrition science in the label, also the modernized serving sizes and labeling requirements for certain package sizes by law - as serving sizes is built on the amounts of foods and beverages that one actually consumes and not what one should be eating.
Marion Nestle, a professor in the department of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University said. This has to be scored as a huge win. The F.D.A.'s final rules confirm what the agency proposed originally on the most important elements. The big ones - calories, added sugars - survived."
Such a consuming variation will acquaint consumers who still may find it confusing on how to make the most of the nutritional facts label in order to make a much healthier choice for their body.
Nutrition expert Dr. David Katz, founding director of Yale University's Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center and founder of the True Health Initiative was quoted in ABC News congratulating the government for the recent edict.
"Overall, these changes are timely and represent an update that is in accord with the evolving understanding of nutritional priorities," he said. "But most people don't know how to put that all together and make the decision 'Is this product a good choice - is there something else I should eat instead?"
The fulfillment dates for this FDA directive is that manufacturers will require the issuance of the new label by July 26, 2018. However, manufacturers with less than $10 million in annual food sales will have an additional year to meet the terms.
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India Records Highest Temperature Ever As Drought Drives Despair
By Countercurrents.org
21 May, 2016
Countercurrents.org
India recorded its hottest day since records began on Thursday amid a scorching heatwave. The city of Phalodi in Rajasthan state recorded 51 degrees Celsius (123.8 degrees F) beating the nation's previous record of 50.6 Celsius set in 1956.
Yesterday (Thursday) was the hottest temperature ever recorded in the country ... 51C in Phalodi, said BP Yadav, a director of Indias meteorological department, on Friday.
Temperatures in northern India regularly hit the high 40s in May and June the hottest months of the year but topping 50C is unusual.
The record for India is thought to be 50.6C (123F), recorded in 1956 in the northern town of Alwar.
BBC reported:
Murari Lal Thanvi, an eyewitness in Phalodi, told the BBC he had struggled to stay outdoors on Friday. "Even my mobile phone gave up and stopped working when I was trying to take pictures today," he said. "I was able to switch my mobile phone on after putting a wet cloth on it for about 20-25 minutes." The weather office has issued warnings of "severe heat wave" conditions across large parts of India's northern and western states through the weekend. India declares a heatwave when the maximum temperature hits 45C, or five degrees higher than the average for the area in previous years.
Many areas are experiencing severe heat waves and state governments estimate more than 370 people killed so far.
And relief isn't coming soon.
According to Laxman Singh Rathore, director general of the IMD, look to climate change for the cause in the increasing temperatures. "It has been observed that since 2001, places in northern India, especially in Rajasthan, are witnessing a rising temperature trend every year. The main reason is the excessive use of energy and emission of carbon dioxide. Factors like urbanization and industrialization too have added to the global warming phenomenon," he stated.
Weeks of high temperatures have "also led to acute water shortage in many areas of central and western India which has seen water riots, government-monitored rationing and armed guards at reservoirs," the Hindustan Times reports.
There is a prolonged drought as well, withering crops and sprouting hopelessness in farmers. Seven states are declared as drought affected.
Printer Friendly Version Obscured American: Michael The Philly Jesus By Linh Dinh 21 May, 2016
Countercurrents.org Philly is blessed with a generous allotment of public space at its very center. On any day of the week, weather permitting, there are throngs of people at Love Park, Dillworth Park and near the Clothespin. Around this 45-foot-tall sculpture by Claes Oldenburg, Ive seen an assortment of petty hustlers selling everything from loosies to oddball T-shirts, such as one that said, IF YOU SMELL SOMETHING STINKING ITS ILL-ADELPHIA BECAUSE WERE THE SH!T. Black Israelites can often be found nearby. Wearing studded wrist bands, studded belts and studded vests over studded, knee-length, fringe tunics, they rail against white people and gays. Ive seen these guys not just in Philly, but Washington D.C. and Minneapolis. Today, a beefy dude sporting a chain necklace with the Star of David thundered, God is going to destroy this homosexual land! God is going to destroy this lesbian land! Barack Obama has done as much as he could, to push the homosexual agenda. I remember the dont ask, dont tell, in the military. Obama started that! You all love that stinking African, but hes disgusting. Hes not your people, black man! Hes a conniver! Stop having sex with the big whore called America. Among the displays, theres a plastic kneeling Virgin Mary with DEVIL on her forehead, 666 on her right cheek, a moustache drawn with magic marker over her lips, WHORE on her chest, and SLUT! over her crotch. A board with a white Jesus had 666, Image of the Beast and IMPOSTER as captions. Another board, ISLAM IS IDOL WORSHIP AND A LIE!! A WE ARE NOT AFRICANS board features unflattering photos of Africans, such as a boys face caked with animal feces, a terrified girl being held down and about to have her clitoris sliced and several people with huge lip plates. An explanation, MUST read and think about this: There were many Dark skin Nations which were created but not all Dark Nations are the same. The original Ishmaelites are dark skin but are not Africans, the East Indians are dark skin but are not Africans, the Natives of Australia are dark skin but are not Africans, neither are you so called Negroes which are dark skin are not Africans according to biblical history and prophecy. Jesus is black, and only blacks, Hispanics and Amerindians can go to heaven. The white man is the devil the Bible speaks of. The white man will join the cops to kill the black man! The white man will become a politician to pass laws to kill the black man, the Hispanic man and the native man! The white man will kill us because we have no protection! The white man was a murderer from the beginning. When Cain murdered Abel, you know that story, God put a mark on him, and the mark is his blood showing forth through his skin. Thats why white people look red! So-called Caucasians aint white, theyre red, and its not just their necks thats red, theyre red all over! A couple years ago, a black lady told me, You know, they used to only talk about black people as the chosen people, but now they include Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Mexicans. They just want more followers. Today, the Black Israelites had an unwelcome guest, and thats Michael Grant, better known as Philly Jesus. Twenty-nine-years-old, Michael has become a fixture around this area. As he pranced and smiled in front the Black Israelites, a old black woman screamed, Cut that shit out! You aint Jesus! Hey people, he got arrested last week! Jesus doesnt get arrested! The old woman forgot that Jesus was arrested. I mean, that was the denouement of his earthly visit. Other blacks took photos with Michael and tipped him. A smiling, suited black man shook Michaels hand. Two kids around 15 asked Michael to bless them, which he promptly did, free of charge. As they walked away, I noticed they were handcuffed to each other. It was some kind of fashion statement. When Michael wasnt riling up the Black Israelites, he was dancing among the jets of water of Dillworth Park. Done, he stood in the shade of dwarfish trees and told me about his life. After two weeks of unseasonably cold weather, it finally warmed up, so more skin was showing, and more smiles. There were bright colors everywhere. Knowing they wont freeze that night, even the homeless cheered up. I dress like this to remind people about Jesus. Im a Christian, and this is a way for me to share my faith. Ive been doing this for two years. Sometimes people get angry. People look at me and they dont know what to think. Theyre like, Is he serious? Is he joking? So they come up to me and find out, and I tell them Im sincere. Im sincere about what Im doing. Im not doing this to mock Jesus. Im a Christian. Watching Bible movies, you know, watching Jesus movies? God, He led me to do this. They bring Jesus to the movies. I bring Jesus to the streets. I use my passion for the theatrical art to bring Jesus to life. I was raised in the theater, on stage. When I was young, my mom would put me in, like, plays, musicals, so Ive always had that in me. My mom was an actress, and Im an actor too. I just use that talent for acting to bring Jesus to life. This is America, so, you know, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, people can express themselves, and dress any way they want, so, you know, thats what Im doing. Im expressing that right. You shouldnt care what people think of you, you should only do what makes you happy. God, he knows our hearts. People dont like what they dont understand, you know. People are quick to judge. Sometimes I get spit at. People spit at me. I get death threats. People say, Ill kill you! One time I was in a bar, someone took a drink, spit it all over my face, like a glass of wine. They put it in their mouth and spit it all over me, on my white robe, because they were offended. This was at Howl at the Moon on 15th Street. Its a nightclub. I went in there dressed like this because I want people to know that Jesus was a friend of sinners. He was a friend of everybody. I go to nightclubs to dance, I love dancing, and to drink wine. I only drink wine. I dont drink hard alcohol or beer, I just drink wine. Red wine. I dont drink every day. I drink, like, probably two or three times out of a week. I like to have a glass of wine with my dinner. Jesus drank wine. Jesus first miracle, He turned water into wine, and at the last supper, He had blood and wine. When I drink wine, I eat bread with it. Before I had Jesus come into my life, I drank the hard stuff. When I used to shoot up heroin, I used to drink bottles of vodka. Hard stuff. Hennessy. Just the other day, I was arrested at the Apple Store. Im an Apple customer. I have an Apple phone. I go into the Apple Store nearly every day for the last two years. Never had a problem. When I went in there that one time, an employee looked me up and down. He said, Come on, dude, youve got to take this somewhere else! And I said, No, Im allowed in here like everybody else. So I stood my ground, and I got locked up. They twisted the story. I carry a little cross. Its a little bigger than me. They said it was blocking an aisle, which is not true. I carry my cross everywhere. I take the bus with my cross. I go into restaurants and bars with my cross. I go everywhere with my cross. My cross is in the garage today. Now Ill have to go to court. That wasnt the first time I was locked up. I was locked up in 2014, because someone handed me money at Love Park. I dont charge. If someone comes up to me and says, Yo, can I take a picture with you? I dont charge, but tips are welcome, you know. Its a donation. Someone handed me money, and a cop saw that, so he said I was soliciting, You have to leave the park. I said I wasnt leaving because its a public park, so I got locked up, for two hours. People who like what Im doing, they give me donations. Its enough to survive. I get something to eat, and I use it for transportation. I bounce around. I dont have a house of my own, I dont pay bills, I couch surf. I bounce around between my friends and family. I have a lot of friends. Before this, I used to shoot heroin and smoke crack. I used to rob and steal from people. I used to break in everywhere. I was hooked for seven years. I was run over by a car when I was 19, so the doctors were giving me pills for the pain, and thats how I got hooked on drugs. I wasnt an addict before. I did start to smoke marijuana when I was twelve. I was born in Philly, in the Northeast, around Cottman Avenue. I finished high school. I went to college for a little bit. I studied recording engineering. Im still doing music. Im a rapper. The first single to my album is coming out soon, this summer. Its called High. It has nothing to do with drugs. Im high on God. I was raised Roman Catholic. I still go to church, but I dont consider myself a Catholic or follower of any religion. Im a believer of Jesus. I want to do this forever, until I leave the earth. When I stop looking like Jesus, Ill turn into Moses. As I get older, and have gray hair, and wrinkles on my face, Ill be Philly Moses. I dont know if the country is in trouble. No one knows. Only God knows. God can come back any second. No one knows. It says in the Bible that God will come like a thief in the night. Hell come when hes least expected. I just live my life one day at a time and just hope for the best, you know, and try to keep a positive mind. This is the worst it has ever been in human history. With all the wars, you know, all the diseases, it seems like its building up. The earth is getting overpopulated with people. Theres more stuff, more technology, which is hurting the earth. Human beings are like parasites to the earth. See all the cars? And theyre, like, giving out all the gas, the carbon monoxide? Its bad for the atmosphere. The earth is, like, you know, wanting to cleanse itself. Thats why the earth is acting up. Thats why you have these earthquakes. Thats why you have these tornadoes. Its the earth trying to cleanse itself. The Bible talks about this. These are the signs. The signs will come. These are the warning signs. The signs are all around us. The end of the world can happen right now. As were talking, you can see a big tidal wave just wash over everything, or an asteroid, you know, it can just boom! You never know. The same thing that killed the dinosaurs. Remember the dinosaurs? Theyre extinct. Something drastic happened to them. Im a Democrat. Im registered as a Democrat. I believe that human beings have the right to vote. I voted for Bernie Sanders. I voted for Obama, yes. Obama is the best president weve ever had. Ever. Personally, I dont agree with the transgender stuff, but it is what it is. In the Bible, you know, it does say youre not supposed to do stuff like that, according to the words of God, but the Bible also says, everyone is a sinner. No ones perfect. Only Gods perfect. Jesus saved me when I was at my lowest. Im a lot better than what I was, Im off the drugs, but I still have my struggles, you know. As a human, I have doubts, fears, anxieties, like how am I going to get married? Have kids? Sometimes I worry about the future. Im trying to travel the world, you know, stuff like that, and it takes money to do those things. Im trying to figure out how to generate an income. I used to be a banquet server. When I was in high school, I used to serve wines and hor doeuvres at special events. I used to be a dishwasher. I used to work in a restaurant as a waiter. Stuff like that. Ive only been to Florida, Delaware, New Jersey and New York. Last week I went to Times Square for the first time, to scope it out. I was dressed normally. Now I want to go back as Jesus once a week. I like New York because its bigger. I like to be around lots of people. My parents dont agree with this, they dont like it, but were still talking. The last thing I want to say is, Peace and love. Love one another. Treat others the way youd treat yourself. Linh Dinh is the author of two books of stories, five of poems, and a novel, Love Like Hate. Hes tracking our deteriorating socialscape through his frequently updated photo blog, Postcards from the End of America.
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UN Assessment: Global Destruction Of Mother Earth On Fast Track
By Andrea Germanos
21 May, 2016
CommonDreams.org
A little girl searches for recyclable materials in a garbage dump with smelling gas evaporating around her in Mandalay city, Mandalay province, Myanmar. (Photo: Nyaung U/United Nations Development Programme)
With no region of the Earth untouched by the ravages of environmental destruction, the state of the world's natural resources is in a rapid downward spiral, a comprehensive assessment by the United Nations has found.
Published Thursday, Global Environmental Outlook from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) involved the expertise of more than 1,200 scientists and over 160 governments, and exposes through reports on each of the world's six regions that the rate of environmental deterioration is occurring faster than previously thoughtand can only be halted with swift action.
"It is essential that we understand the pace of environmental change that is upon us," stated UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.
One threat many of the world's inhabitants are facing is that of water scarcity. For North America (pdf), for example, it "is of increasing concern," though it's just one of many "worsening pressures."
The report points to the recent five-year drought around Texasa problem exacerbated by climate change. It also notes how the impacts of climate change were vividly felt when Hurricane Sandy struck in 2012.
"The 30 centimeters of sea level rise off New York City since 1900 likely expanded Hurricane Sandy's flood area by approximately 65 square kilometers, flooding the homes of more than 80 000 additional people in New York and New Jersey alone," UNEP states, adding: "Climate change is generating impacts across the region, and aggressive hydrocarbon extraction methods bring the possibility of increased emissions, water use and induced seismicity. The coastal and marine environment is under increasing threat from nutrient loads, ocean acidification, ocean warming, sea level rise, and new forms of marine debris."
And even with successful efforts to rein in carbon emissions, the outlook for the region isn't bright, the report notes:
A wide range of potentially catastrophic impacts are built in to the near and medium term climate, so that climate change impacts are highly likely to increase regardless of how fast the region reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and how fast it supports global emissions reductions. The consequences for human lives and livelihoods will depend on measures to adapt to climate change and increase resilience that, while showing signs of promise, are not yet sufficient to meet the threats. The region has been surprised by the emergence of major failures in traditional environmental issues, such as drinking water safety, suggesting that past successes are in jeopardy.
Or take the Latin American and Caribbean region (pdf), where greenhouse gas emissions are growing, a problem fueled in part by agriculture. UNEP notes:
>> Agriculture has had a strong impact on the emission of nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide emissions - from soils, leaching and runoff, direct emissions, and animal manure - increased by about 29 per cent between 2000 and 2010. The abundance of beef and dairy cattle in the region has also increased methane emissions, which grew by 19 per cent between 2000 and 2010. >> Andean glaciers, which provide vital water resources for millions of people, are shrinking and an increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events are affecting economies.
In Asia and the Pacific, meanwhile,
Increasing unsustainable consumption patterns have led to worsening air pollution, water scarcity and waste generation, threatening human and environmental health. Increased demand for fossil fuels and natural resources - extensive agriculture, palm oil and rubber plantations, aquaculture and the illegal trade in wildlife - are causing environmental degradation and biodiversity loss.
Spreading desertification is a key threat for West Asia, while Africa's land degradation, due, in part, to deforestation, are among the environmental challenges for those regions.
And, of course, there's the Arctic region"a barometer for change in the rest of the world" with dropping levels of summer sea ice extent and glacier ice loss.
Among the recommendations UNEP calls for are scaling back fossil fuel dependency and increasing sustainable infrastructure investments.
While the UN body said there was still time to address many of the threats, urgent action, it stressed, was key.
"If current trends continue and the world fails to enact solutions that improve current patterns of production and consumption, if we fail to use natural resources sustainably, then the state of the world's environment will continue to decline," Steiner said, emphasizing the urgency "to work with nature instead of against it to tackle the array of environmental threats that face us."
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Six Pygmy Hogs Released In Bornadi Wildlife Sanctuary Of Udalguri
By Shajid Khan
21 May, 2016
Countercurrents.org
TANGLA,Assam May 21:In an effort for conservation of Pygmy Hog in its natural
habitat six babyPygmy Hogs(2-3 years old) that include 3 male and 3 female were
released inBornadi Wildlife sanctuary of Udalguri district of Assam on Saturday.
The Pygmy Hogswere captive breeded in state capital Guwahati Daniel Craven
and his two colleagues fromDurrell Wildlife Conservation Trust based in Jersey,
were present on the occasion.
BTC Secretary Rabinsan Musahary present on the event said " The release of
the Pigmy Hogs is a great step for the conservation of the species which is
a good news for the nature loving people."
H.K Sarma Director Manas National Park said "Barnadi provides very similar
habitat for Pygmy Hogs as to Manas .It is a timid animal . We have been
successful in breeding it in Manas"
Pygmy Hog is the worlds smallest and rarest extant suid and only a handful
of people can ever claim to have seen it in the wild. It is 55 to 71 cm.
long, weighs around eight to 11 kg. and stands just 12 inches (20 to 30
cm.) tall. The days when the pygmy hog was common along the foothill plains
of the Himalaya in India, Bhutan and Nepal are long past.
By the 1980s, it was already known to be endangered with only two isolated
populations on record in the Manas in Barpeta and Barnadi Wildlife
Sanctuary in Udalguri of Assam.
The pygmy hog featured in the first IUCN/WWF (1984) list of the 12 most
threatened animal species in the world. The population in Barnadi was
believed to have been lost by 1981, due to extensive habitat burning, until
a small number was rediscovered in 1990. However, no pygmy hog has been
recorded there since 1994. By the mid-90s, the situation was so grim that
it was classified as critically endangered by the International Union for
the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). But this was one species, a small group
of committed wildlife researchers and conservationists were just not ready
to lose.
In 1995, a group of organisations, including the Durrell Wildlife
Conservation Trust based in Jersey, Channel Islands, the IUCNs Pigs,
Peccaries and Hippos Specialist Group, the Assam Forest Department and the
Indian government, initiated the Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme (PHCP).
PHCP researchers began a seven-year study of the pygmy hog to understand
its conservation issues and suggest solutions to revive its population in
the wild. The study initiated field study surveys to determine the
species distribution, search for any other surviving remnant populations
and identify suitable sites for future reintroduction. It also aimed at
establishing a captive-breeding programme as a safeguard against
extinction, as a source for reintroduction and as a beginning to long-term
field studies on the pygmy hogs behavioural-ecology and habitat management
requirements. Dr. Goutam Narayan, a wildlife scientist who had earlier
worked for the Bombay Natural History Society, knew just how vital this
project and its recommendations were as it presented the last hope for the
pygmy hog. He therefore chose to dedicate his life to the resurrection of
the species.
The pygmy hog is an important indicator species whose rapid disappearance
is intricately linked to the degradation of Assams grasslands.
Historically, its preferred habitat has been the tall, dense, riverine
grassland areas where it feeds on roots, tubers and other vegetable matter
and, occasionally, insects, earthworms and other invertebrates. The
modification and destruction of its habitat for agriculture, settlements
including those by illegal immigrant settlers from Bangladesh and Nepal,
overgrazing by cattle, thatch-grass harvesting, uncontrolled seasonal
burning and flood-control and forestry projects, had led to its systematic
eradication.
The PHCP began its captive-breeding programme in 1996. Six animals were
captured from the wild and bred in custom-built enclosures in Basistha in
Assam, in environs as close to their natural habitat as possible. Their
food was buried in the soil so they would learn to search for tubers and
succulents as they would need to in wild grasslands.
Others present on the ocassion were Dr. Parag Jyoti Deka Project manager PHCP
Goutam Narayan Project Director PHCP besides a handful of media persons.
It is to be mentioned that the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust based in
Jersey, Channel Islands, the IUCNs Pigs, Peccaries and Hippos Specialist
Group, the Assam Forest Department and the BTC government initiated the
Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme (PHCP) and preliminary survey regarding
the same was conducted in 2014 as a part of which 6 Pygmy Hogs were
released today. The 6 Pygmy Hogs are equipped with transmitter and there
movements would be tracked.
Shajid Khan is a Journalist from Assam.Currently
pursuing his graduation in English literature .In his stint of
journalistic experience he has contributed numerous political,
socio-political stories for bountiful national,international as well
as Assam based publications. He also pens analytic commentary on
print and web based publications. Email: itsshajidkhan@gmail.com
Brahmins Attack Kancha Ilaiah , A Dalit Writer, Activist And Philosopher
By P Victor Vijay Kumar
21 May, 2016
Countercurrents.org
It was a cloudy afternoon. Wind was blowing over the shadows of fig trees. He asked me to see him at 1.30, when hunger was blazing along with the summer. The simmering heat in the University campus in the cloudy afternoon was not seen but felt like how implicit casteism cannot be sensed in modernized society. I knocked the door and entered his cabin and saw him having his lunch. He smiled and greeted and said in telugu randi randinenu diabeteskaabatti tvaraga annam tinaalsi untundi ( Please come.I have diabetesand so need to take lunch in time ). Kancha Ilaiah is the author of Why I am not a Hindu Buffalo Nationalism Untouchable God.. etc and a leading activist for dalit and human rights. A Professor, by profession, in Maulana Azad National Urdu University, is a voracious writer encompassing issues mainly around Hindutva and casteism. He was the one who spearheaded Dalitvadam in early 1990s in the Marxist-Leninist circles and human right organisations for the cause of Dalit representation and leadership. He has been waging a vehement fight against Hindutva philosophy in all the fora at India and international level. The entire intellectual and progressive sections of Andhra and Telangana States were taken aback when he was fiercely came under attack by Brahmin organistions for his remarks on Brahminism and Hindutva.
I cordially greeted him too and after a brief personal enquiries, I asked him What happened,sir?. He, while making the lumps of rice and dal, explained I attended a meeting organized by CITU in Vijayawada and I was talking to them, in the course of speech, on evolution of working class in India and was broaching that Brahmins were never part of production and they, as a community, never participated in labour. This was slightly extended by the media next day hitting headlines that Brahmins are lazy and slumber class . Some Brahmin organisations came to my cabin and squabbled with me demanding apology. I never uttered apology but tried to explain them how they must understand my statement. They never heeded to my version and thereafter, I have been receiving threatening and menacing calls on my phone for the past few days. I was also told that Brahmins are reacting through organization formed with the spirit of Parusuram (Brahmin warrior) . I nodded my head in congruence. He stopped for a while and enquired, Is it?. I said in affirmation yes sir, I have been watching all online attack going on against you. And through hearsay, I was told about some Brahmin Terrorist Organization, which is campaigning for teaching a lesson to you . He was listening to me in the same unfaltering mood. I am just trying to search in my hand set. And, I would forward to your mail all the stuff
Ilaiah : See, I am nearing 65 now. I really want to take on the brahminsim head on. Enough is enough. Jesus was 33 when he died but he could accomplish a change what he wanted. Mohammad died at 63 and changed the eastern worlds thinking . Ambedkar was 65 when he died. I dont really care for all this and whatever is happening and the polarization I am seeing is for good. It has to come out in open and public.
Me : Sir, you have been in this unflinching fight against brahminism for a long time and has been centre of wrath for brahmin sections all along. Have you ever observed these Brahmin sections coming openly and reaching in person to intimidate you ?
Ilaiah : No, it never happened earlier. See, When Congress and Y S Raja Shekhar Reddy was ruling, the Hindutva could not get the adequate support, as it aspired for, though it was spreading its tentacles. After Modi Government took over, these people have got the moral boost to resort to such acts. Of course, I dont really mind about this. End of the day, we need to expose their attitude.
Me : I am in complete agreement with you , sir. The thick-skinned attitude of this Govt. is very apparent as is seen in case Rohith Vemula issue and FTII issue and other issues as well. I want to ask you you are so focused on Brahmins. Though I have an answer for myself, still I want to know your perspective, are there no good Brahmins ? ( I smiled )
Ilaiah : Look, that not a question at all. I am not talking about a Brahmin at an individual level. Thats not the criterion.We are talking about this Brahminism as a social issue. Idol worship and consequent social inequalities are resulting in untouchability. This mentions about attitude of Brahmins, as a community, as a matter of collective attitude and approach. I have my colleagues and friends as Brahmins who know their mind very well. They keep visiting me and we have get together on friendly occasions. But, thats not the point. A Brahmin is a good Brahmin only when he realizes that Dalits and BCs have larger share in the labour and production and they deserve an equitable share in the fruits of production in all respectsbe it..education, employment, entrepreneurship or leadership whatever.They must give a due regard to this in all their attitude and heartfully admit this fact. They must acknowledge that people who are in working class living in poor conditions is just not warranted. You may still care less if someone is living in poor conditions because he is not participating in production. Without raising their unconditional voice on this, simply claiming that they have worked in some Marxist organisation or worked on some writings or some struggle does not mean anything.
Me : Why I have asked you this is the present attack on you has also given rise to many liberal Brahmins raising their voice as your opinion is too extreme and needs to be cut down, as their goodness in few of them needs recognition.
Ilaiah : Yessthat the best thing that I can expect in my life. It makes out advancement clear. Let them separate themselves in this argument. See, Brahminism has caused serious injury to the Indian social system. Unless we break temple system and grow beyond vernacular languages to the level of English , the Brahminsim cannot be toned down. I told in the same meeting that Chandrababu Naidu constructing state capital in the name of Amaravathi and I had found it to be nothing about Buddhist symbolization and purely like a capital of Rama. What is this ? Why do they want to use Buddhas name for this ? I have demanded that they must make worlds largest large shrine of Buddha in Amaravathi, else there is no meaning for the same. Buddha is an international figure. We will appreciate Chandrababu for naming the capital in the memory of Buddha. This shrine would attract international attention. Places like Tirupathi are meant for local superstitious people. Such kind of Buddha Vihar is going to pose a threat to place like Tirupathi and a world class Buddha Vihar put Chandrababu Naidu too on the world famous figures. This is how we must , in a planned way, destroy Brahminism. The legitimacy they earned over the years shall have to be shun out.
Me : How do you correlate all these attacks happening on Dalits by non-Brahmin upper castes with that of influence of Brahmins.
Ilaiah : You see the basic problem is Hindutva , this structure and idol worship. Once you change religion, you must be largely getting insulated. We must break this first. There are elite sections all over the world in all the countries. We need to look at the issue where is the fundamental equality ?
Me : How linguistic war can help ? Dalit sections growing to English , as a language of communication ?
Ilaiah : See, Dalits and all backward castes need to get internationalized. They need not confine themselves to these limited boundaries. They must look beyond this. English would definitely will come handy to them. All these Brahmins are into English while they want others to speak in Sanskrit or other local languages. I have been fighting in all the fora that Telangana Govt. must promote English medium schools. I think they are gradually considering it. I have been promoting English medium school in my village with about 600 students and developing a chain of schools. I take only SC, ST and BC students. Last year, an ST student topped while lowest score being above 80%, which is quite decent.
Me : Sir, as you see, the cultural system in India is coming under great attack after the new Govt formed at the Centre. The students, Professors and intellectuals like you are under continuous attack. Rohith Vemula case has become a classic case of deeply rooted isolation of low caste sections in the education system. Dont you think we can have a better demand like establishment of exclusive Dalit-Adivasi Universities without being confined to Rohith Act kind of stuff, which is a marginal improvement over existing rules and regulations.
Ilaiah : Yea..thats fine. As and when Dalits keep growing into elite sections and people like you can raise funds and do the same. We have Urdu universities and we can have these too. As I said, I have been taking only non-forward caste sections only as students in the school I am promoting.
Me : Sir, I have seen you as the one who batted for Dalit vadam and refinement in the Marxist organisations too. Dont you see Dalit vadam could not catch up to the next level and has been entangled where it has got originated ?
Ilaiah : Yeacould be. We must recognize its fantastic contribution to the human rights movement. You seeRohith Vemula is a product of Dalit vadam. See.. the Dalit vadam would take some more time to pick up to the next level.
Me : Sir, I have taken much of your time. Nice of you for sharing with me several things. We shall stand by you. I shall see you tomorrow at the public meeting.
Ilaiah : I have put enough material against Brahmins in English. Should they kill me only to spoil themselves.
It is always invigorating to talk to him. A man who hated caste system to the core and steering the cause in his own style and fashion with grit. He has been voicing several high level concerns which are controversial statements for main stream media. There has been a threatening climate surrounding him. Brahmins and their lobby are resorting to all possible vulgar steps to cut down his voice in all undemocratic ways possible. He holds a clear high level over view of casteism in India and the roots of brahmincal conscience prevailing here. Numerous writers of Andhra and Telangana vehemently condemned the attacks on him containing his freedom of expression. Through Countercurrents, the writer of this article urges every democrat to stand by Ilaiah and ensure there wont be any continuing incidents of Kalburgi, Dhabolkar , Pansare etc.
P Victor Vijay Kumar, by profession, is a CFO of a an infrastructure company based out of Hyderabad. He has been a critic, analyst and writer. The author can be reached at his face book account P V Vijay Kumar or at the email pvvkumar@yaho.co.uk
Russia Proposes Joint Strikes In Syria, Will US Listen?
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava
21 May, 2016
Countercurrents.org
Russia has proposed to USA that it should come together with it for joint strikes in Syria to attack the rebels but the idea does not seem to be of much liking to the USA. USA on the other hand believes that this is proposed by Russia to elevate its standing in the global politics and this may harm the US interests. The fact is that Russian attacks since last September have forced IS to lose much of its strength. US has its own national interests which it cannot compromise but at the higher level it is harmful for whole of the humanity. US aims to remove the Assads government at any cost and has supported the stand of Turkey in whole of the developments. For US it appears that Assad is main issue not the IS which has thrived due to such policy perception of the USA. For the removal of Assad US and its allies have emphasized several times.
Russia started its air operations which were more effective than the US led coalition because the sorties made by the Russian air forces were quite much higher than the US which had direct impact on the containment of the IS. US never gave a thought to be associated for the joint strike because its perception is that all the ills in the region is due to Assad hence he needs to go. This may not be disputed completely but along with it there is urgent need for the joint strike on rebels Nusra Front who are associated with the al Qaeda. Nusra Front has been opposed by Russia and US both in equal manner. The US does not give any support to the Russian idea although the cease fire has been broken by the al Nusra, why is it so?
The US policy in this region is focused on the removal of Assad and the elimination of IS comes thereafter. Turkey is its main ally in this respect but US fails to grab the substance that it is not Assad but the IS which is more dangerous to it. IS has extended its area of influence quite much and in several countries its affiliates operate as Boko Harem In Nigeria and Pakistan Taliban in Pakistan. Moreover it may attempt to develop more lethal weapons and may aim to use against US. The same folly was committed by the US during the 1990s when it did not take threat of al Qaeda seriously and its base in Afghanistan when emerged with the support of the Taliban, it did not deal it effectively and could not contain Pakistan and its supported group Taliban in Afghanistan just on the ground that Russia wielded more influence Afghanistan in the previous years , hence this aspect of Taliban- al Qaeda association was ignored by it. Thus its policy development is influenced by the Russia than any other factor. This view follows the cold war psychology where both used to be arch enemy and US had all the policy focus for its containment. In post cold war age where terrorism has emerged as the most serious threat, its policies are still governed by the same notion. This is a great fault at its policy level where it needs to analyze the real threat strength of the IS than another thing.
Russian proposal therefore carries much merit but the way US looks it is not good for the world as well for the US. There is no coordination between both countries when issue of the air strikes come except communication about saving each other during the air strikes. If they carry the joint air strikes much dividends may be obtained. Even the UN can initiate the process. It has a system of collective security which is yet to be operationalised but it can be initiated now.
There are several intricacies in the region as Turkey and US are close allies but on the US support to Kurds, Turkey express displeasure. US carried nuclear deal with Iran which is not liked by Saudi Arabia, Israel. In Iraq it has failed to provide a stable government. It sells the weapons to Saudi Arabia which are used by it to maintain its orthodox government. At one place it talks about peace at other it does just opposite. It says that IS a big threat but its focus is to remove Assad, this can be dealt in due course as there are traces of peace talks and a roadmap for the Syria can be prepared. The present need is to respond positively to Russian proposal by the US but it will have to move out from the perception of the cold war age and to think in more broader and global way. Can it doo so? Over emphasis on non genuine ego determined national interests and wrong analyses of the ground realities often lead to problems. This is lesson in the international political history. US may need to learn from such mistakes.
Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava, presently Assistant Professor in CSJM University[affiliated college],Vice Chairman CSSP, Consultant CRIEPS, email: vpy1000@yahoo.co.in
Britains Defence Secretary Michael Fallon: Cheerleader For US Aggression,
Pushing The World To The Nuclear Brink
By Colin Todhunter
21 May, 2016
Countercurrents.org
Michael Fallon is British Defence Secretary. He is adept at making the types of statements that epitomise the pro-neoliberal, militaristic rhetoric that people in the UK have become tired of.
Following Jeremy Corbyn being elected as leader of the Labour Party in Britain, he stated:
"Labour are now a serious risk to our nation's security, our economy's security and your family's security. Whether it's weakening our defences, raising taxes on jobs and earnings, racking up more debt and welfare or driving up the cost of living by printing money - Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party will hurt working people."
Continuing with this theme, speaking on Britain's Radio 5 Fallon last year argued for the need to spend less on some things like the welfare system and to spend more on things that really matter to keep our country safe.
With a 12 billion saving on cuts to the welfare budget, this statement by Fallon was attempting to justify a 12 billion increase to the military budget to help pay for eight BAE warships, nine Boeing maritime patrol crafts, surveillance drones and Lockheed Martin jets.
Thats 12 billion of taxpayer money diverted from helping fellow Brits most in need into the pockets of rich armaments manufacturers.
Fear mongering and swindling are convenient bedfellows in the neoliberal dystopia.
Keeping our country safe is part of Fallons wider rhetoric about containing Russian aggression.
Following the US-instigated coup in Ukraine and with no hint of irony intended, Fallon says Putin could repeat the tactics used to destabilise Ukraine and the Baltic states and that NATO must be ready for Russian aggression in whatever form it takes. He added that that Russia is a real and present danger.
One aim of the coup in Ukraine was to oust Russia from its Black Sea Fleet base at Sevastopol in Crimea. And now NATO is increasing pressure on Russia over its Chernyakhovsk naval airbase in Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian enclave on the Baltic coast sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.
Aside from an agreement to use the Cam Ranh air base in Vietnam, Russias only military base outside former Soviet Union territory is the naval base at Tartus in Syria. There too, Western backed attempts at regime change include dislodging Russian interests. It seems that the US will not tolerate any Russian military bases abroad yet it can have 800 military bases/installments of its own scattered around the world, including the encirclement of Iran, Russia and China.
In recent days, Fallon has been in the news again after three Russian aircraft were seen approaching Baltic airspace. The British RAF responded by sending its Typhoon fighter jets to intercept them. Thejets were launched from Amari air base in Estonia. The RAF made the decision to scramble the jets after the Russian crafts apparently did not transmit a recognised identification code.
Fallon called the incident an act of Russian aggression and said:
This is another example of just how important the UKs contribution to the Baltic Air Policing Mission is. We were able to instantly respond to this act of Russian aggression demonstration of our commitment to NATOs collective defence.
The NATO Baltic Air Policing Mission is a NATO initiative in which members cooperate to help Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania guard their air space.
Fallon continued:
This deployment underlines our commitment to the sovereignty of the democratic nations of Eastern Europe. 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the next four months, our RAF Typhoons will be ready to respond instantly to Russian aggression in Baltic airspace.
When discussing whether or not Britain should leave the EU, he continued with his rhetoric to depict Russia as a dangerous enemy standing beneath the standards of decency by stating that leaving the EU would only bring comfort to our adversaries, whether they are in Raqqa or in Moscow.
By attempting to link Russia with ISIS in the minds of the public, he conveniently chooses to ignore that in Syria it was Russia which helped drive back ISIS in a matter of months, while the US and its allies have been facilitating it and other terror groups for years in their attempt to topple a sovereign government in Syria that has led an estimated 400,000 deaths. And let us not forget the death tolls in Libya and Iraq as a direct result of illegal wars or conflicts that were fuelled and assisted by NATO countries and its allies.
Since when did Russia become an adversary, we might ask. The answer is when Washington decided to break prior agreements with Moscow and then encircle it with troops and missiles, as described here by Eric Zeusse.
Putin has stated that Russia will react appropriately and proportionately to the approach of NATO's military infrastructure towards its borders.
But in the warped world of Fallon, not rolling over and accepting Washingtons duplicity and NATO intimidation and aggression makes you an adversary. Zuesse writes:
The expectation and demand is clearly that Russia must allow itself to be surrounded by NATO, and to do this without complaint, and therefore also without taking military countermeasures, which NATO would call yet more aggression by Russia. Any defensive moves by Russia can thus be taken by the West to be unacceptable provocation and justification for a pre-emptive attack against Russia by NATO.
It seems wild claims and fear mongering comes natural to Fallon. He is currently facing legal action after saying, during London mayoral race, that a Muslim cleric supported ISIS. Fallon has apologised to the cleric, Suliman Gani. Gani is suing Fallon.
If Fallon wants to offer soundbites about Russian aggression, he would do well to contemplate what the situation would be if Russian aircraft, troops and missile systems were stationed close to US borders; if Russia had destabilised Canada and placed a neo-fascist regime in power there; if Russia had slapped sanctions on the US, attacked its currency and had rigged global oil prices to undermine the US economy; if Russia had destroyed Libya with its jets or had trained, bussed in and armed death squads in Syria to invade what is a sovereign state.
According to the twisted logic of Michael Fallon, this would constitute American aggression. Yet this is the situation in reverse concerning what the US-led West has done.
Fallon and his associates and backers are recklessly plunging the world to the precipice of nuclear confrontation by breaking agreements with Russia, lying to the public and keeping the public in the dark.
To put this Russian aggression into perspective, the US spends more on its military than the next eight countries combined. Also, compare this rather short list of Russian bases abroad with the US militarys colonisation of much of the world.
But regardless of actual facts, the psych-ops about Russian aggression being directed at the public is unrelenting and is encapsulated by retired General Sir Richard Shirreff, who served as NATOs Deputy Supreme Allied Commander. He says:
I have this awful vision of the Baltic States being seized, NATO unable to respond, Putin then blackmails using nuclear weapons what is called chillingly nuclear de-escalation and NATO is unable to do anything about it The alliance collapses and at a stroke, Putin has destroyed the organisation perhaps he most fears the most, NATO. America is decoupled from Europe and the world is changed irrevocably.
Referring to events in Crimea, Shirreff said of Putin:
What weve seen is an adventurer, an opportunist whos able to make decisions very quickly to seize opportunities as theyre presented.
Putin could hardly be called an adventurer when the US acted to destabilise Russias immediate neighbour. Consider the US and its ongoing actions to protect its own national interest: its unrelenting atrocities across the globe, as outlined by William Blum here and here.
Then there is former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Admiral James Stavridis who deems Russian aggression a greater threat than terrorism. He argues that NATO needs to step up its defence systems if it is to provide enough of a deterrent to Putin who is depicted as an adventurous leader capable of disregarding international law and seizing situations to his advantage.
This from someone who represents the US, a country that has flagrantly abused international law to carry out illegal wars, torture, drone assassinations and mass murder as and when it deems necessary. The hypocrisy and deceit are palpable.
General Breedlove, Chief of Staff of the American European Command, continues the theme with his twisted world view and dangerous, inflammatory propaganda about Russia and Putin, as discussed here.
Aside from the as yet unofficially declared war against Russia, the US is now increasing pressure on China, another nuclear armed state. If the US does not pull back and accept the reality of a multi-polar world (which it currently does not - and its entire foreign policy is geared to securing global dominance), there will be but one outcome: war with Russia and China that would very likely escalate to involve nuclear weapons.
Here are some thoughts for Michael Fallon to consider.
When your governments policies have already jeopardized national security by inflicting terror on other countries; when the policies you support have already helped sell the economy to the lowest bidder and have attacked welfare, unions and livelihoods; when the policies you support have allowed massive levels of tax evasion/avoidance; when you and your neoliberal policies have allowed national and personal debt to spiral; when you have driven up the cost of living by handing over public assets to profiteering cartels; when you have flittered away taxpayers money to banks; when you allowed the richest 1,000 people in the UK to increase their wealth by 50% in 2009 alone while you impose austerity on everyone else then what else can you offer but to roll out a good old dose of fear mongering about Corbyn and Russia simply because you have no actual positive argument or policies to offer the public?
People like Fallon talk about protecting Britain and boosting national security by standing shoulder to shoulder with Washingtons bogus war on terror and the destruction of sovereign states like Iraq, Syria and Libya. They do of course sell this to the public in terms of humanitarianism, rooting out terror or securing the safety of the nation.
Fallons propaganda and sound bites about democracy and respect for sovereignty only work as long as folk remain ignorant and apathetic; and only as long as people fail to challenge and hold such politicians to account.
Fallon, David Cameron and assorted pro-Washington establishment mouthpieces will continue to try to fool the public about Russian aggression because they have signed up to Washingtons plan to undermine and destroy Russia. Britain stands solidly behind US foreign policy aimed at undermining and attacking Russia.
The pro-Washington brigade of senior politicians in Britain are following the US into a dead end as its economy continues to flatline. There is only jobless growth, if there is any growth at all. Stock market bubbles like real estate bubbles, like creating money out of thin air, like rentier capitalism that produces nothing but only extracts royalties or interest, like treasury bond imperialism that has allowed the US to live beyond its means at the expense of other nations is ultimately a dead end for US capitalism. It is unproductive and parasitic.
Militarism is but one arm of a neoliberal agenda that seeks to bend all working people and regions to the will of Western capital. Politicians such as Fallon are merely bidding on behalf of the rich interests they ultimately represent: whether these interests are readily identifiable individuals like Soros and Murdoch or are in more general terms 'corporate America' in Africa, for example, or are those that seek to benefit on the back of war and violence in places such as Ukraine and Iraq.
Ultimately, political managers of a system designed to maintain and increase the power and wealth of their backers are conditioned to act in a way that deceives the public; not only that, they must act in a manner that mirrors the scant regard for human life exhibited by the elite they serve.
Notwithstanding all of the other bombings, wars and conflicts over the decades, there are well over a million dead in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya as a result of direct military intervention or covert actions by the Western powers and their allies (the death count for Iraq alone between 1990 and 2012 could be 3.3 million as a result of Western economic sanctions and illegal wars). All for geopolitical gain, power and wealth buried beneath the deceit of humanitarianism or a war on terror. And, for those who enrich themselves on the back of violence, all "worth it" no doubt.
It is ordinary working people who ultimately pay the price of a corrupt neoliberalism underpinned by rampant militarism, whether refugees fleeing from conflict, civilian deaths in war zones or those subject to the types of structural violence that austerity or other forms of economic plunder bring courtesy of the IMF, World Bank, WTO or trade agreements like NAFTA, TPA and TTIP.
But the ultimate price for everyone - both rich and poor - will be a World War fought with nuclear weapons.
Colin Todhunter is an independent writer
Outgoing Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon Says Extremists Have Taken Over Israel
By Dr. Ludwig Watzal
21 May, 2016
Countercurrents.org
Israel's defense minister Moshe Ya'alon was replaced by one of the most extreme politicians in Israel: Avigdor Liberman. The rift between Ya'alon and Netanyahu seems irreconcilable. Right from the start, Ya'alon supported the IDF prosecutors who charged Elor Azaray with the murder that caused an outcry in Israel. A right-wing crowd proclaimed Azaray "King of Israel". Netanyahu distanced himself from Ya'alon. Azaray executed a helpless heavily wounded Palestinian in cold blood at point-blank range. The other incident that made Netanyahu furious was Ya'alon's defense of deputy of the chief of general staff Yair Golan for his courageous speech in which he mentioned similarities between the rise of fascism in the 1930s in Germany and Israel. Ya'alon encouraged his generals to speak out on moral issues.
Although Ya'alon is a veteran Likudnik, he still has kept his liberal viewpoints. In his resignation speech in Tel Aviv he expresses his deep concern about Israeli society. "Extremist and dangerous forces have taken over Israel and the Likud movement and are destabilizing our home and threatening to harm its inhabitants. At the beginning of his harsh verdict of Netanyahu, he stressed the harmonious cooperation with Netanyahu, especially during of "Operation Protective Edge" in which the Israeli army massacred over 2100 Palestinians, many of them women and children.
After this kind words, Ya'alon gave a startling analysis of Israeli society in general and on the current government in particular. To his regret, Ya'alon found himself "in deep disagreement over professional and ethical issues with the prime minister, a number of ministers and a few members of Knesset". "I have fought with all my strength against radicalization, violence and racism in Israeli society, which threatens its resilience and percolates also into the IDF, already causing it harm. He also resisted the attacks on the Supreme Court and Israeli judges by members of the Netanyahu cabinet. Both will cause great damage to the rule of law and could have disastrous consequences for Israel.
Ya'alon thinks that Israel is a "healthy society" and the majority is sane and seeks a "Jewish, democratic and state" that accepts each person as a person. Israel has the duty to protect and embrace minorities and not to "incite" against them. "But to my great regret, extremist, and dangerous forces have taken over Israel and the Likud movement and are destabilizing our home and threatening to harm its inhabitants."
He fears a division among Israelis caused by "cynicism and lust for power" that could be critical for the country and future generations. And he continued saying: "I do not regret whatsoever thesis professional and ethical views, even if they have led to the end of my time as defense minister. I am comfortable with my path and will not turn away from it. I am afraid for Israel's future, and will continue in this struggle going forward because We have no other country. " He has lost faith in Netanyahu. And Ya'alon exposed the moral bareness of Netanyahu to the whole world.
Avigdor Liberman is not a military man. He has no credentials whatsoever. As a former bouncer, he behaves like a Rambo and shoots from the hip. For years, he has been calling for the expulsion of Palestinians. Palestinians who are disloyal to Israel should have their heads chopped off. "Anyone who's with us should be given everything - up to half the kingdom. Anyone who's against us, there's nothing to do - we should raise an ax and cut off his head; otherwise, we will not survive here." Years ago, he called for the bombing of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt.
Netanyahu has chosen the most unpredictable, unreliable and dangerous man for the most crucial and sensitive position. It's easy to predict that the Israeli security establishment and especially the military will not accept Liberman as their commander-in-chief. Amir Peretz, the dovish ex-Labor Party leader who was also a non-General defense minister failed miserably. The self-proclaimed "most moral army in the world" could not have gotten a better man at the helm than Liberman. He will be the guy who is going to expose this fantasy as a myth.
Dr. Ludwig Watzal works as a journalist and editor in Bonn , Germany . He runs the bilingual blog between the lines. http://between-the-lines-ludwig-watzal.blogspot.de/
U.S. NPR & OSCE Smear Campaign: Russia Bombs Syria To Force Refugees Into Europe!
By Eric Zuesse
21 May, 2016
Countercurrents.org
The Morning Edition program of the U.S. National Public Radio network which is Americas most-trusted American source of news as measured by the ratio of people who trust a news outlet to those who distrust it included on May 20th a segment, Russia's Involvement In Syria Worsens Migration Crisis, Zannier Says, in which the interviewer, Renee Montagne, opened her interview of Lamberto Zannier, the Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), by saying:
There is actually a theory out there to do with the migration crisis in Europe, that Russia may have purposely been bombing Syria with an air campaign in order to send more Syrian migrants into Europe, to destabilize Europe. Now, Im wondering whether you think thats far-fetched, but, at the same time, it sort of fits the picture of a Cold War?
He answered:
Yeah, certainly Russia dealing in Syria had a number of goals, but then of course, the impact of the bombings on civilian infrastructure, hospitals etcetera, has created an additional wave of refugees. It is very difficult to tell whether this was intended or not, but certainly it would fit the picture in a way.
The wikipedia article Refugees of the Syrian Civil War said, right after the Russian bombing had started on 30 September 2015, that as of 15 October 2015 there were shown to be "4,052,011 registered by UNHCR (29 August 2015)[1]. As of today, 20 May 2016, that same site says "4,812,993 refugees (registered, March 2016)[1]. The idea that this 19% increase was one of the reasons or goals which had motivated Russia to start its bombing-campaign in Syria is ludicrous. Thats during around a six-month-long period. But at about six months prior to August of 2015, on 25 March 2015, there were shown to be "3,922,860 registered by UNHCR (18 March 2015)[1]. Not many new refugees were generated during the six-month period prior to Russias entry (and that wasnt a Russian invasion, because the government of Syria had requested this assistance from Russia). But then, many refugees were generated during the first six months after Russias entry. This could have reflected Russias having enabled many Syrians to escape from ISIS, Al Qaeda, etc., but it also could have reflected damages caused by Russias bombing, but even if it had been the latter, this wouldnt likely have been part of Russias motivation for its bombing, such as NPR and OSCE were insinuating. However, on 11 March 2014, a year prior to that 25 March 2015 wiki article, there had been shown to be "2,429,146 registered by UNHCR(February 2014). Thats around 1.5 million new refugees during about a years period. None of that was during Russias bombing campaign.
Americas bombing campaign in both Syria and Iraq, called Operation Inherent Resolve, celebrated its first anniversary on 27 August 2015, and so, based on the above figures, the question arises as to whether Americas invasion of Syria (it wasnt friendly; it was hostile toward the Syrian government, not requested by Syria; unlike Russias bombing, it was an invasion) might have contributed as much or more to the refugee-numbers than did Russias assistance to the Syrian government.
That NATO statement was unusually honest, however, in noting that, "The Defense Intelligence Agency, said that documents conclude that the yearlong campaign has done little to diminish the ranks of IS committed fighters, which has now expanded its reach to North Africa and Central Asia in the past year. DIA had said this to The New York Times. The statement seemed to be a clear indication that if the American campaign had been about reducing the numbers of ISIS fighters, then it had drastically failed. But maybe that wasnt necessarily its purpose in Syria, because all of the jihadist groups there were fighting to overthrow Assad, and because that was always the Obama Administrations stated main goal, in addition to its rhetoric against "terrorists.
And yet both the U.S. NPR, and the OSCE, are accusing Russia of having intentionally flooded Europe with Syrian refugees, and neither of those is alleging that the U.S. had contributed to that problem, and essentially created the bulk of it, by its invasion of Syria and by its insistence upon overthrowing Assad. Could the reason for the quiescence on that be that both are mouthpieces for the U.S. White House, and for its NATO alliance?
In any case, what NPR and OSCE said there was deception instead of information. This is one of the reasons they didnt state explicitly Russia is to blame for Europes refugee crisis. It would have been too easy to nail them on that type of lie; its too blatant for professional liars, and therefore innuendo is used by them instead.
Relevant further context here is that "NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) work together to build security and promote stability in the Euro-Atlantic area. They cooperate at both the political and the operational level, whereas "In Istanbul on 19 November 1999, the OSCE ended a two-day summit by calling for a political settlement in Chechnya and adopting a Charter for European Security. According to then Minister of Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov, this summit marked a turning point in Russian perception of the OSCE, from an organization that expressed Europe's collective will, to an organization that serves as a Western tool. For some reason, the U.S. is not charging that the OSCE is a Russian tool. Perhaps OSCE officials such as Lamberto Zannier are among the reasons why. After all, NATO is coming out more and more explicitly in favor of war against Russia. Lots of propaganda will need to be part of the buildup toward that. These people (Renee Montagne and Lamberto Zannier) are doing what they are paid to do.
Its all in service to a broader objective.
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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The phrase "Never Again" first appeared on handmade signs put up by inmates at Buchenwald in April 1945, shortly after U.S. forces had liberated the camp. Since then, the world drafted the 1948 Genocide Convention, which embodied the moral and popular consensus of the entire international community that genocide should "Never Again" be perpetrated while the rest of the world stands idly by. Sadly, since then, the international community has allowed genocide and mass killing of civilians to occur again and again. In Cambodia, northern Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda and now in Syria, the international community has failed to prevent the systemic mass killing of civilians.
The Syrian crisis began in early 2011 with attacks and counterattacks that escalated into a full-fledged civil war between the Assad regime with allied militias and an array of opposition groups. On August 21, 2013, the crisis took on a dangerous new dimension with a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian regime that killed over 1,400 people, according to a U.S. intelligence report. The death toll has reached over 240,000 and almost half the country's people 12 million men, women and children have been forced to flee their homes. The majority of civilians have been killed at the hands of the Assad regime, which has targeted schools and medical centers with crude barrel bombs.
Currently, the city of Aleppo, the largest city in northern Syria, is under intense assault by the Assad regime. The Syrian and Russian air forces and artilleries have killed hundreds of civilians just in the last few days, indiscriminately bombarding the city. One of those attacks targeted a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders killing scores of patients and medical staff including the only remaining qualified pediatrician in the entire city.
The interfaith community in Evansville has been watching with horror the escalating and never ending tragedy playing in front of our eyes in the media. We cannot stand by and simply watch while this tragedy continues to unfold. We cannot allow indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians that plagued the last century to be repeated. The Evansville Executive Interfaith Partnership is calling on our government to do everything in its power to condemn the latest escalation of killing and to put an end to this brutal war and to provide protection to the millions of innocent civilian inside Syria and to the refugees scattered across the globe. We are calling on the American government to expedite and expand the admission of more Syrian refugees to our country in accordance with our history, faith and values. And finally, we are calling on all people of faith to keep the Syrian people in their prayers and to encourage our representatives to do what our faith and conscious mandate.
Trusted websites are below if you would like to provide resources to the people of Syria.
Global Jewish Nonprofit: hias.org/faq-hias-response-refugee-crisis-europe
Rahma Relief Foundation: rahmarelief.org/index.php/donations
Syrian American Medical Society: sams-usa.net/foundation/
United Methodist Committee on Relief: umcor.org/umcor/resources/newsstories/2016/April/0415syriaaid
Peace and Love to All,
The Evansville Executive Interfaith Partnership:
Rev. Joseph Easley, United Methodist Church, retired; Jennie Ebeling, University of Evansville, archaeology professor; Rev. Kevin Fleming, First Presbyterian Church; Rev. Mitchell Gieselman, Aldersgate United Methodist Church; Rev. Tamara Gieselman, University Chaplain, University of Evansville; Dr. Mohammad Hussain, Islamic Center of Evansville; Ray Kedia, Tri-State Hindu Temple; Rabbi Gary Mazo, Temple Adath B'nai Israel, Sr. Jane Michele McClure, Habitat for Humanity of Evansville; Alan McCoy, Director, Kunzang Choling of Evansville; Karuna Pandit, Tri-State Hindu Temple; Douglas Reed, University of Evansville, University Organist Emeritus; Saiyid Masroor Shah, Islamic Center of Evansville and Surendra Mishra, Tri-State Hindu Temple.
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EVENTS
St. Meinrad Archabbey: will have pilgrimages to honor the Blessed Mother at the Monte Cassino Shrine. Speakers and topics for the pilgrimages are: Barnabas Gillespie, "Mary's Nurturing Love for Us" on Sunday and Maurus Zoeller, "Marian Shrines and Pilgrimages" on May 29. Services begin at 2 p.m. The shrine is 1 mile east of the Archabbey on Indiana 62 in St. Meinrad. Call 812-357-6501.
Revival Services: Vann Avenue Baptist Church, 2608 S. Vann Ave., is beginning their Revival Services at 10:30 a.m. Sunday and will continue each evening at 6 p.m. Monday through Wednesday.
Barbecue fundraiser: Bethel United Church of Christ, 3029 N. Green River Road, will have a special barbecue fundraiser to honor Bob Dodson and Big Bob's Barbecue team from 1-3 p.m. June 4 at the church. Dodson is a longtime member of the church who passed away last year. Tenderloins are $15 or two for $25 and ribs are $25. All orders are presale and need to be made by May 27 by calling the church office at 473-0135. Proceeds will be used for the youth mission trip this summer and the restoration of the grill.
Saint Meinrad Archabbey Library Gallery: St. Meinrad, "Mirrors and Masks," an exhibit of portrait paintings, through June 30 (free). For library hours, call 812-357-6401 or 800-987-7311, or visit saintmeinrad.edu/library/hours/.
The Mighty Acts of God in Zion: The Storyline of the Bible: 7-8 p.m. on Tuesdays in the fellowship hall of St. Ananias Orthodox, 4411 Washington Ave.
Old Friendship Church Celebrate Recovery Program: 7 p.m. on Fridays at Oak Hill Christian Center, 4901 Oak Hill Road.
Traditional Roman Catholic Latin Mass: 3 p.m. every Sunday at St. Paul's Chapel, 629 E. Louisiana St.
Rummage Sale: St. Matthew's UCC, 3007 First Ave., is hosting a rummage sale from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. June 11. The presale, with a $5 entrance fee, is from 6-8 p.m. June 10. Everything inside the hall will be 50 cents, items outside will be priced individually.
music
Robinson Sisters and Brother in concert: The Male Chorus of Greater St. James Missionary Baptist Church, 465 S. Elliott St., is inviting the public to a concert at 4 p.m. May 29 at the church featuring Robinson Sisters and Brother, from Cleveland, Ohio, and Fort Wayne.
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By Staff Report
Evansville police are searching for a man they believe fired shots into an apartment Friday morning.
Seth Matthew Wrinkles, 29, is suspected of firing gunshots into the ceiling of an apartment in the 1600 block of East Franklin Street. Police believe he fired three rounds into the ceiling and fled, according to Evansville police news release.
Wrinkles is a white man with brown hair and hazel eyes. He is considered armed and dangerous. Anyone who sees him or knows of his whereabouts is asked to call 911.
Wrinkles is the son of Matthew "Eric" Wrinkles, a convicted triple murderer who was executed in Indiana State Prison in Michigan City in 2009.
He was convicted of the July 1994 murders of his estranged wife Debra Jean Wrinkles and two of her relatives her brother, Mark "Tony" Fulkerson, and Fulkerson's wife, Natalie Fulkerson.
By Megan Erbacher of the Courier and Press
Citing concerned calls from parents, guardians and community members, Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. Superintendent David Smith wanted to make one thing clear: school district officials "never have, nor will we ever" allow guys in the girls' restrooms and vice versa.
And if someone attempts to do so, Smith said the person will be disciplined and face possible legal consequences.
At Monday night's regular EVSC School Board meeting, Smith wanted to clarify how the school district will handle guidelines the U.S. Department of Education sent to school districts on May 13.
The guidelines issued by the Obama administration stated that federal law requires school districts to allow transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their chosen gender.
CANVASS PODCAST: Weighing in on transgender bathroom guidance
Before reading consent items, Smith said the guidelines are simply that guidance.
"All of this is very, very new. ... The bottom line is we operate under Indiana law," he said.
Smith said if students identify as the opposite gender, the school district will provide a private, single-stall restroom, which he said would also be open to any student.
"We've had people before that perhaps have a concern about their body image, or whatever or concerns they have, so then we've made accommodations for them during gym class," Smith said. "This is nothing new for us. What we will do and will continue to do is protect the privacy of all of our students."
The guidance isn't law. However it tells schools how the Department of Education intends to enforce Title IX, which is directly tied to federal education funding, and carries an implied threat: Follow the federal guidelines or risk losing those funds.
The letter was sent to schools that receive federal funding, including 16,500 school districts and 7,000 colleges, universities and trade schools.
Smith said while there has never been an issue with a female or male entering the restroom or locker room of the opposite gender, he thinks parents are concerned the guidelines give people a "free pass to behave in ways that are not acceptable."
"I think there was a misinterpretation," EVSC spokesman Jason Woebkenberg said about comments Smith made after the guidelines were first sent. "When we said we were making accommodations like we always were with any student I think some people read that to mean we were going to let anyone go in any restroom, as opposed to the private facilities in the nurses office."
At the May 16 school board meeting, part of Smith's comments included him stating parents are concerned that individuals would dress as the opposite gender to gain access to the other restrooms or locker rooms.
"I think it would be difficult," Smith said on Friday about knowing if a student was genuine or acting out of malice. "But my concern is when you have these things that are hot button topics that then you have some people that act out of emotion instead of out of good common sense. We were all kids once. And sometimes kids don't make the best choices."
EVSC attorney Pat Shoulders reminded board members that federal law doesn't require nor prohibit school districts from developing or implementing policies regarding discrimination, harassment or bullying of transgender students. Shoulders said the issue now is whether prohibitions in federal law both Title VII and Title IX encompass sex discrimination, gender identity or gender expression.
"You all have been very proactive in prohibiting discrimination and bullying for all of your students," Shoulders said. "... We will try to encourage and protect all of our students in their individual right to express themselves."
Smith said the EVSC will continue to do what's right for all students.
"We're not changing our practice," he said. "And we're definitely not mixing up our restrooms where we'll have females and males using the same restroom at the same time."
Earlier this week, Shelbyville, Indiana Rep. Luke Messer introduced legislation that would, if passed, prevent schools from losing federal funding if they don't follow the guidelines.
___
The USA Today Network contributed to this report.
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By Staff Report
Indiana State Police are investigating the death of a Winslow woman.
Rachel Boarman-Jones, 47, was found unconscious just after 4 p.m. Thursday in a residence at 107 East Washington Street in Winslow. Pike County EMS responded and transported her to Jasper Memorial Hospital. From there, she was flown to St. Mary's Medical Center in Evansville where she died early Friday.
An Indiana State Police news release said the incident is being treated as "suspicious." An autopsy was performed Friday afternoon, but results were inconclusive, according to police, who said their investigation is ongoing. No other details were released.
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By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY
Taliban leader was likely killed Saturday in a U.S. drone strike in a remote area of Pakistan, a U.S. defense department official said.
Mansoor assumed the leadership of the Taliban last year following the death of Mullah Mohammad Omar.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the attack, said Mansoor was believed killed when the drone hit a vehicle in which he and another militant were riding. The second person was killed by the strike, the official said.
The airstrike by U.S. Special Operations forces occurred along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, southwest of the town of Ahmad Wal.
Pentagon press secretary earlier announced the U.S. conducted a strike aimed at Mansoor but said officials were still assessing the result of the attack.
Cook said Mansoor was "actively involved with planning attacks against facilities in Kabul and across Afghanistan." He said the Taliban leader presented a threat to Afghan civilians and security forces, as well as U.S. and allied forces.
Mansoor, who is believed to be around 48 years old, was elected head of the Taliban in July, 2015.
Women showed their support for Planned Parenthood outside a clinic in Lafayette in 2011. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky is asking a federal court to stop Indiana's new abortion law.
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IU says new law requiring burial or cremation of aborted fetuses could criminalize its research efforts, but state contends those concerns should be considered separately from Planned Parenthood lawsuit.
By Michael Anthony Adams, IndyStar / USA TODAY Network
Indiana's attorney general is opposing an effort by Indiana University to join a federal lawsuit challenging the state's new abortion restrictions law.
IU recently filed a motion to intervene in the Planned Parenthood suit, saying a provision of the law mandating that aborted fetuses be cremated or buried could subject its researchers to criminal charges, because they use fetal tissue for research into autism, Alzheimer's disease, and other conditions.
The motion, filed by IU on May 16 in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Indiana, requests a preliminary injunction that would prevent the state from enforcing House Enrolled Act No. 1337, which, among other things, imposes criminal penalties on anyone who "intentionally acquires, receives, sells, or transfers fetal tissue."
In their motion, IU's attorney's argue that the new abortion law "criminalizes millions of dollars of ongoing, federally-funded IU research regarding Alzheimers disease."
But Indiana's attorney general's office says the state does not have a right to meddle in the suit, saying the school's argument and the lawsuit are "distinct legal issues" that shouldn't be heard in the same case. It asks the court to deny IU's request.
Bryan Corbin, a spokesman for Indiana's attorney general, said the school "can and should raise their legal claims by filing a separate lawsuit rather than joining an existing one."
These two separate disputes do not sufficiently overlap to justify litigating them together; IU is not making the same legal argument as Planned Parenthood or even challenging the same statute as Planned Parenthood, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller said in a statement Friday, after the state filed its objection.
The state also is arguing that IU does not have the right to intervene in the lawsuit because its motion "is not timely." After Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky asked a federal court to stop Indiana's new abortion law last month, "IU waited 39 days before filing its motion to intervene."
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Private Equity Firm Buys Solution Provider To Capitalize On Telco Infrastructure Upgrades
Jimmy Sheridan
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Looking to capitalize on infrastructure upgrades in the cable industry, private equity company Soaring Pine Capital said Friday that it has acquired Chicago-based cable installation services provider Technology Solutions Inc.
After the acquisition earlier this month, Technology Solutions was rolled up into a holding company, Tikoo Solutions.
"The cable industry is undergoing dramatic changes," said Jerry McCoy, CEO of Tikoo, in a statement released by Birmingham, Mich.-based Soaring Pine.
[Related: Time Warner Cable Making Big Channel Investments As It Mounts Partner Recruitment Offensive ]
McCoy said the acquisition will help Technology Solutions grab a bigger part of what he sees as a major opportunity in the cable market.
"Cable operators [are] projected to spend billions in the next five years on infrastructure upgrades," he said, "relying more heavily on third-party field services, which provides a great opportunity for growth for companies like Technology Solutions."
In a statement from Soaring Pine, the company said that Tikoo will continue working with Technology Solutions' management in order to expand the company into new geographies. Technology Solutions currently has business in 12 states.
Technology Solutions founder John Urso became a co-owner of Tikoo Solutions after the closing of the deal. He shares ownership with Tikoo's management team and Soaring Pine Capital Growth Fund I.
McCoy and cable and wireless industry veteran William Fenton now serve as the new entity's CEO and chief operating officer, respectively.
Soaring Pine funded the acquisition with a combination of equity, mezzanine and senior debt. Further financial details about the deal were not disclosed.
This acquisition is the latest in a string of private equity acquisitions of solution providers, including the acquisition of Hewlett Packard Enterprise's majority stake in India-based Mphasis by private equity behemoth Blackstone Group last month and a record number of similar deals in 2015.
According to a statement released by Soaring Pine, Technology Solutions will join modular housing provider Vesta Housing Solutions and IT consulting firm Vixta Solutions as one of Soaring Pine parent company Simon Group Holdings' investments in "high-caliber management teams."
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BRIDGEPORT City officials say police will be out in force Saturday for the wake and the funeral of a city man shot to death as he sat in a car a week ago, a homicide that has left the city on edge
Kah'Lil J. Sloan-Diaz, 18, was shot several times as he sat in a silver Audi on Madison Avenue, just after noon last Friday in what police said was a gang-related killing. It was the citys second homicide of 2016.
Funeral services are scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday at Calvary Temple Christian Center, 319 Barnum Avenue. A viewing will be held from 9 to 11 a.m. at the church. Baker-Isaac Funeral Services is in charge of arrangements.
Burial will take place at Lakeview Cemetery on Boston Avenue in Bridgeport.
The Bridgeport Police Department has a full security plan for the funeral and is using every available resource to make sure that it will be safe for all attendees, said Av Harris, spokesman for Mayor Joe Ganim.
Friends and relatives of Sloan-Diaz reported on social media sites that the victim had been set up by an unnamed woman or that Sloan-Diaz had been waiting to make a drug deal when he was shot to death. Police sources confirmed that a large quantity of crack cocaine was found on Sloan-Diaz.
Nearly 100 people tried to get into the courtroom for the arraignment Monday of 19-year-old Deonte Tomlinson, who has been charged with Sloan-Diazs murder.
The homicide also led to some tense moments earlier this week at the Fairfield-Wheeler Interdistrict Science Magnet School on Old Town Road. There were fights at the school, and sources told the Connecticut Post that cops and school security officers cut padlocks off lockers in the building after several students rushed past the metal-detector check point. Police, the sources said, wanted to make sure that the there were no weapons being hidden.
In addition to the murder charge, Tomlinson faces charges of carrying a pistol without a permit, unlawful discharge of a firearm and altering identification marks on a firearm. He is being held on a $1 million bond and is next due in court on June 14.
Sloan-Diaz had been acquitted in February on charges related to a fatal shooting of 21-year-old Ryan Hernandez on a downtown Bridgeport street on Aug. 10, 2014.
Police said Sloan-Diazs murder appears to have been in retaliation for the earlier shooting. Sources said Tomlinson was at the courthouse when Sloan-Diaz was acquitted. Both young men attended Harding High School.
Police contended Sloan-Diaz was the getaway driver when Hernandez was shot and killed. The man they charged as the shooter in that case, 17-year-old Fabian Fab Francis, was also found not guilty of the crime.
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BRIDGEPORT More than 500 mourners, many weeping openly, packed the Calvary Temple Christian Center on Washington Park for the funeral of KahLil Sloan-Diaz Saturday morning.
Several prominent members of the Bridgeport clergy addressed the gathering, and all had the same message that the cycle of violence and retaliation must stop. Sloan-Diaz, 18, was shot dead May 13 while sitting in his car while it was parked on Madison Avenue. Deonte Tomlinson, 19, who police said is a member of a rival gang, has been charged in the slaying.
There are some who say that we, as clergy, dont know what were talking about because weve never experienced anything like this, said Bishop John R. Thompson Sr., senior pastor at Calvary Temple. But Im here to tell you today that, maybe, I had a brother who was shot dead, too.
He said that after his brothers murder, he went through a dark time in his life in which he, too, was out to kill the man who shot his brother.
Its easy to retaliate thats the weak thing. Thats the wide path, he said. But the harder thing to do is to break the cycle.
Thompson said that soon he was told who killed his brother.
And all I could think of was payback, he said. I followed this man for two weeks, and all the while, I could think think about was retaliation. But then I thought about may family and my ministry and everything that I worked for and I thought to myself: If I do this, all of that will be out the window,
He told the gathering, many of them teenagers like KahLil, that it seems like a kind of mental disorder has taken hold in our society today. If we keep doing the same things, and expect a different result, well, my friends, thats the definition of insanity.
He said that it was only from the strength of God was he able to drop his scheme of retaliation.
I am so tired of seeing our young men shot down in the streets like they were animals, Thompson said. We have to break the cycle.
Pastor Anthony Bennett of Mount Aery Baptist Church told mourners that the feelings of anger and revenge have to be channeled into productive
Imam Lyle Hassan-Jones, of the Al-Aziz Islamic Center, has plenty on experience dealing with gang members because he runs a prison ministry.
Imagine someone has a gun on you and youre pleading for your life, he said. Now, if the tables are turned, and if you have a gun on someone else, you have to put yourself in his shoes and spare his life.
He said that life is too precious to wind up in prison or worse.
Theres a man I know in prison hes in there for a 999-year sentence, Hassan-Jones said. He was 17 when he was convicted and hes 43 now. So, we have two lives lost here, really his life and the guy whose life he took. So we lose two.
KahLil Sloan-Diaz is survived by his mother, Toya Diaz; his infant son, MaKah Sloan-Diaz; his sisters, Kahlese James, and PaQuasha Sloan, all of Bridgeport; and brothers LeLonne Sloan, of Shelton, and Alonzo Sloan Jr., of Jacksonville, Florida.
He is also survived by his grandmothers, Avis R. Godbolt, of Andrews, S.C.; and Millicent Moore, of Bridgeport; a grandfather, Henry Sloan of Bridgeport; and a great-grandmother, Julia Moore, also of Bridgeport, as well as several aunts and uncles.
He was buried in Lakeview Cemetery.
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BRIDGEPORT The last thing Fire Chief Brian Rooney might have wanted was a City Hall reception, but members of the department he led for 10 years insisted on a chance to say thank you.
So Rooney, his wife Adrianna, and their two grown children greeted well-wishers and listen to a proclamation declaring Friday Chief Brian Rooney Day in Bridgeport.
The 44-year department veteran has completed the two five-year terms the City Charter sets as a limit, and Rooney will work his last day on Tuesday.
Since he joined the city fire department in August, 1972, and answered his first call, five Bridgeport firefighters have died in the line of duty, Rooney said.
Others have died from heart attacks and the department will bury popular firefighter Jimmie Jones on Saturday. Jones died in a car crash last weekend.
Rooney was visibly moved in recalling the fallen members of his department Friday, just as Deputy Chief Dom Carfi, Rooneys good friend, choked up while addressing the audience of about 30 people.
He is one of the greatest leaders the city of Bridgeport has ever known, Carfi said. When he started, it wasnt unusual to have three or four house fires a day. Arson was rampant. Baptism by fire is a real thing.
Mayor Joe Ganim said Rooney was instrumental in starting the Safe Asleep program that, in a partnership with Regional Youth Adult Social Action Partnership, has handed out 50,000 free smoke detectors to city residents over the past 10 years.
Think of all the lives saved just from that, Ganim said.
The open chiefs position has already been advertised, the mayor said, and while he said he expects to appoint an interim chief soon, a Civil Service test will be administered and a committee will winnow down the eight top candidates, giving Ganim three names to choose from.
As for Rooney, his immediate plans are to stop and smell the roses
Im learning what that expression means, he said. Well probably travel at some point.
While he said he enjoyed the reception, Im the kind of guy who would like to just walk out the back door and thats it, Rooney said. I didnt expect this, but I owe the city more than it paid me over the years.
Pa. is about to vote. Here's what to know about voting and ballot access in 2022
The University of Colorado this week officially launched Connect, an online platform that links prospective students to all online course and degree offerings across CUs four campuses.
The website, formerly known as University of Colorado On Demand, is a hub for fully online degrees, online certificate programs and online classes. The website had a soft launch last fall.
We want to get people in the front door and then they can determine which room they want to visit, said CU spokesman Ken McConnellogue.
At a CU Board of Regents meeting in February, Pam Shockley-Zalabak, chancellor on the Colorado Springs campus, said there were 780 courses with roughly 1,020 sections being offered online in the spring semester. The number of students enrolled exclusively online was more than 4,000, she told the board.
McConnellogue said Wednesday that the CU system plans to significantly increase its online offerings in the next two years.
The official launch this week coincides with a marketing campaign geared toward new traditional students, non-traditional students, community college students, transfer students, high school students and homeschool students, as well as former CU students who only need a few credits to complete a degree.
Current CU students will be able to take online classes from other campuses through concurrent enrollment.
CU plans to spend $1.5 million on marketing efforts for the web portal over the next three years. President Bruce Benson has committed $9 million from his special initiative funds to the online platform.
The Connect portal stemmed from discussions by members of CUs elected Board of Regents about CU being competitive in the online learning marketplace. Though each campus had some form of online offering, the board wanted the campuses to increase and enhance those offerings, and make them easier for prospective students to find.
All of the campuses already had various online offerings that were branded and were in various stages of development or implementation so we were creating a single point of entry, McConnellogue said.
Sarah Kuta: 303-473-1106, kutas@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/sarahkuta
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
Almost 25 years ago, the body of the newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell was found floating in the Atlantic ocean near his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine.
Shortly afterwards, the rogues publishing empire collapsed and it emerged that he had stolen hundreds of millions of pounds from his company pension funds.
Not surprisingly, many in the City are comparing this notorious financial scandal with the recent collapse of High Street retailer BHS.
Sir Philip Green, the former owner of BHS, has not broken the law. When he bought BHS 16 years ago, the pension fund was fully funded and there were no concerns for its future
As with Maxwells publishing empire, it is not merely the business that has gone bust. The pension scheme of the firm once known as British Home Stores is also in terrible trouble.
It looks as though it may have to be bailed out by as much as 300 million, while the potential liabilities exceed 500 million.
It is essential to stress that Sir Philip, the former owner of BHS, has not broken the law. Unlike Robert Maxwell, he did not steal from the company pension fund.
But for members of the BHS pension scheme, the outlook is similarly appalling.
When he bought BHS 16 years ago, the pension fund (which financed the retirement of approximately 20,000 employees) was fully funded and there were no concerns for its future.
However, that was no longer the case last year when Sir Philip sold BHS to Dominic Chappell, a former racing driver who had been bankrupted three times.
According to a Financial Times estimate, during his time at the helm of the firm, Sir Philip Green and his family took more than 1 billion out of the BHS business. (A spokesman for Sir Philip last night challenged this figure and said it was much less than that.)
Much of the money was paid as dividends to Sir Philips wife, Tina, in the offshore tax haven of Monaco, where there is a zero per cent rate of income tax and where she has set up home on a superyacht.
To the couple who live a life of unbelievable luxury, I would ask one question: Can you not see how utterly reprehensible it is to take hundreds of millions of pounds out of a business then allow the pension fund to sink into such a severe deficit that its members no longer have a secure financial future?
Sir Philip called me late yesterday to say he had made an offer to the pensions regulator which he claimed would have solved the problem. But the regulator rejected it.
His spokesman had told me that the fall in values after the 2008 financial crash was to blame. I dont think this explanation is anything like good enough.
Almost 25 years ago, the body of the newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell was found floating in the Atlantic ocean near his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine
I believe in the capitalist system. However, Sir Philip appears not to acknowledge that capitalists have obligations.
While reports suggest he previously proposed a rescue plan two years ago, and offered to put 80 million into the BHS pension scheme, he appears to have focused on making money for himself without due regard to his wider duties to society and, above all, to his employees.
Yet this man has been widely celebrated. Tony Blair sanctioned a knighthood for him. And David Cameron appointed him to head a review of government waste.
So the story of BHS and its pension fund reveals a great deal about the kind of country that the United Kingdom has become, and the values we espouse.
That is why as with the Maxwell scandal the collapse of BHS is not just a financial but also a political scandal. So how was Sir Philip able to conduct himself in the way that he has without breaking the law?
It is only right that MPs have launched an inquiry. Next week, the first of two parliamentary committees will begin collecting evidence about BHSs collapse.
However, tempers have already frayed, with Sir Philip reacting angrily to the suggestion of Labour MP Frank Field, chair of the work and pensions select committee, that he should pay 571 million to the pension fund or be stripped of his knighthood. The embattled tycoon called for Field to step down as he was clearly prejudiced.
FORGET BORIS, HERE'S A SURPRISE CHOICE AS NEXT PM Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt rarely finds himself in the headlines Who will be the next Prime Minister? This subject increasingly dominates conversation at Westminster. Three big names are in the frame: Boris Johnson, Theresa May and George Osborne (with the latters prospects widely agreed to be fading). This week, following the settlement of the dispute with junior doctors, I would like to put another contender into the mix. Unlike May, Johnson and Osborne, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt rarely finds himself in the headlines. Yet he has a very impressive track record in business and a hinterland outside politics. He has proved a remarkably successful or at any rate lucky Health Secretary. There have been no great disasters on his watch and he has also made some important reforms. Not only has he secured a seven-day NHS, but he is going on to the very brave step of taking on the hospital consultants, who operate a virtual cartel at the heart of the health system. Though he wants the UK to stay in the EU, hes avoided any strident role in the bitter Tory civil war over the referendum and would be well placed to unify the party whatever its result. If Mr Hunt continues in his style of understated success and emerges victorious from the coming clash with the consultants, I can see him (especially if Osborne implodes) as the preferred choice of the Cameron wing of the Tory party when the time comes.
Undeterred, the respected MP recruited to the committees panel of financial assessors Lord Myners an arch enemy of Sir Philip, whose attempt to take over Marks & Spencer he famously foiled in 2004. Crucially, the committee must find out why alarm bells failed to go off the moment Sir Philip announced that he was selling BHS to Dominic Chappell, a three-times bankrupt with at best a dubious reputation.
MPs will hear from a number of witnesses. First and foremost, huge questions surround the role of Goldman Sachs, the most powerful and influential investment bank in the world, whose former directors include Bank of England governor Mark Carney. Again and again, Goldman Sachs has been involved in unfortunate and even disreputable business transactions over the years.
It was an adviser to Robert Maxwell at the time of his death, and bid jointly alongside Sir Philip for Marks & Spencer. (Indeed, one wonders what might have become of that greatly loved national institution and its pension fund had Sir Philip got his hands on it.)
Goldman Sachs was also involved in the fateful BHS bid.
Anthony Gutman, Goldmans co-head of investment banking, advised Sir Philip on an informal basis.
MPs must discover from Mr Gutman what informal guidance he gave. Was Goldman Sachss management aware of his role? Was he acting only out of friendship? Did he discuss the future of the BHS pension fund? Most importantly, what assurances did Mr Gutman give about the suitability of triple-bankrupt Dominic Chappell as a buyer for BHS?
They also need to know what care the firms pension trustees took to protect the interests of its pensioners. What was their opinion of the terrible deal between Sir Philip and Dominic Chappell? Did they raise objections? Or were they too scared of Green a notorious bully?
Similar questions surround pensions regulator, Lesley Titcomb. Why didnt she hit the alarm button in March last year when Sir Philip announced he was selling it to a dodgy, serial bankrupt?
But the biggest questions face Sir Philip Green himself when he appears before the parliamentary committee on June 15.
Why did he apparently carry out inadequate due diligence on Dominic Chappells suitability as a buyer?
In the light of all this, Parliament has the right to demand that Sir Philip Green also gives a crystal clear update on the group pension fund for Arcadia, the retail group he chairs. It is much larger than BHSs and the scope for disaster is even greater.
It is only fair that we wait to hear Sir Philips version of events before reaching a final judgment on his conduct.
But Sir Philip is a very rich man indeed. Reports say that he and his family are worth more than 3 billion. He could easily afford to write a cheque that would guarantee the financial future of every BHS pensioner, and scarcely notice the dent in his bank balance.
Alistair Darling: 'Brexits big idea is a total Turkey'
If evidence is needed that Vote Leave campaigners have abandoned the economic argument, take a look at their fearmongering over new countries joining the EU. Their wild predictions are designed to deceive rather than inform.
Under current proposals, Turkey wont join the EU in the foreseeable future. If this ever became a realistic prospect, the UK government could veto it, as could all EU countries.
The idea that Turkey and others are on the brink of joining is such a far-fetched notion that even Boris Johnson has said it is simply not on the cards.
So why is the Leave campaign reaching for the Ukip playbook? Because they cannot win an argument that Britains economy will prosper outside Europe.
Analysis by the Treasury, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation all underline the scale of the risk we face.
Overwhelming evidence shows that if we vote leave, the UK would be permanently poorer. The case is unanswerable.
Assuming we were to follow Vote Leaves policy of negotiating a new free-trade agreement, the annual cost of leaving to the economy would be the equivalent of 1,800 per person per year.
This cost will fall most harshly on our children and grandchildren.
And its a cost they will face every year of their lives. For those born between 2012 and 2014 the cost over their lifetime would be a staggering 145,800. Not a land of opportunity outside, but the next generation weaker and worse off.
The Governor of the Bank of England and the IMF have both said that if we leave, the result could be recession for the British economy. The prospect sends shivers down my spine. I was there last time and I dont want our country to revisit the experience.
New 'Out' poster: Vote Leaves provocative claim that Turkey is on the brink of joining the EU is dismissed by Alistair Darling as fearmongering
If there is one thing I know about, it is how it feels when a country faces potential financial ruin.
As Chancellor in 2008, I saw the catastrophic effects of a breakdown in confidence and deep uncertainty after the banking crash. I saw confidence drain and jobs threatened, forcing everyone Government, businesses and families to take dramatic steps to keep the economy going.
Historical evidence and recent experience show that, when we suffer recession, then insolvencies, repossessions unemployment particularly among young people all soar. Between 2007 and 2009, insolvencies rose more than 60 per cent, repossessions almost doubled and the number of businesses being set up collapsed.
Do we want to go through such pain again, with working peoples life chances and livelihoods under threat just as they begin to recover? Never again do I want to see people queuing to take their life savings out of cash machines or carrying boxes out of their workplaces. But that is the reality of the Vote Leave offer.
If evidence is needed that Vote Leave campaigners have abandoned the economic argument, take a look at their fearmongering over new countries joining the EU, says Alistair Darling (pictured)
Vote Leave wants Britain to leave the EUs single market, which was the reason we joined in the first place to pool our sovereignty and reap the benefits of having an equal part of the worlds largest free-trade area of 500 million people.
Within the single market we trade goods and services freely and set the terms of doing business. This brings 250 billion of additional trade, investment, three million jobs and lower prices.
Given those benefits, it is no wonder a majority of businesses large and small want us to stay. If we leave, we will be erecting barriers to trade that would hit half our exports.
Where is the sense in that? You cannot walk out of the worlds largest free-trade zone one minute and expect all its benefits to fall into your lap the next.
The idea that Turkey and others are on the brink of joining is such a far-fetched notion that even Boris Johnson has said it is simply not on the cards
Nigel Farage may not have won the official designation, but he is certainly writing the script for the Leave campaign
Norway, outside the EU, has access to trade but has no say over the rules it has to play by. It also must accept free movement of people the very thing the Leave campaign has set itself against. Switzerland has even more limited access, and Canada, which Boris says we should follow, will not have the full access to Europes markets that we have today.
What about trade with the rest of the world? There is nothing to stop us selling more right now to the likes of China or India. Germany, which has a highly successful export trade in engineering goods, does very well while still being a major player in the EU.
The single market works. It protects jobs, which in turn generate money for public services such as the NHS. Vote Leave campaigners want to pretend otherwise, but they cannot counter this argument.
That is why they are betting the house on the age-old strategy of blaming immigrants for everything. Yes, we must control borders, and we do, but recession is no answer to pressures on public services.
As we enter the final five weeks of campaigning it is close, but we in the Remain camp can feel confident. People vote with their pockets and we are winning the arguments over pounds and pence.
She's a socialite, handbag designer and model with more than one million Instagram followers.
So when Nicky Hilton is pictured with your bag on the streets of Beverly Hills, it's kind of a big deal.
Just ask Anna Lutkajtis, the manager of a small fashion design business from Sydney, whose tote was recently pictured adorning the arm of the pregnant Hilton heiress.
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Exposure: Nicky Hilton carries her custom-made tote from Skipping Girl, a small Australian designer based in Sydney
Lady in red: Fashion designer and TV personality Whitney Port loves her cherry tote
Skipping girl: Model and actress Erica Heynatz toting the red skipper bag
Ms Lutkajtis, 34, runs fashion company Skipping Girl and said they approached Hilton to see if she would like one of their colourful totes.
'We love Nicky's style and we actually got in touch and asked if she would like one of our totes,' Ms Lutkajtis said.
'She requested a custom one with her name on it so we sent the tote to her, but didnt know if we'd ever see it in the media.'
The mostly blue tote is embroidered with pink cocktail glasses at the bottom and 'nicky' embroidered in white in the middle.
No forgetting her name! The 32-year-old hotel heiress turned heads as she strolled through Beverly Hills with her own unique bag
Dying for it! Radio personality Bianca Dye loves her custom made skull bag
Vibrant: It's not only celebrities like Nicky Hilton who can get an embroidered bag, with similar ones available to the public from the Skipping Girl website
Hilton, 32, was snapped with the custom made bag by paparazzi as she stepped-out late last week, and was kind enough to let Skipping Girl know about their incredible publicity.
'She's so lovely and polite that she got in touch with us to let us know the Daily Mail had done a story over the weekend. It was very exciting,' Ms Lutkajtis said.
'It was very surreal seeing the tote being papped like that and it was sweet of Nicky to let us know.'.
Hilton, who is currently pregnant, was more than happy to promote the Australian designers work despite having her own handbag line.
A-list audience: Celebrities such as Poppy Delevingne, Nicky Hilton and Model Harley Viera-Newton (pictured) have carried Skipping Girl bags
Fashionable fan: Fashion blogger Natalie Joos is a huge fan
Skipping Girl was initially created in the late 1990's but was taken over by Ms Lutkajtis and her brother after it had been pushed into a short hiatus by the previous owners.
Their totes have also been used by other celebrities, including UK 'It' girl Poppy Delevingne, Model and DJ Harley Viera-Newton and fashionista Natalie Joos.
Since taking over the business and relaunching it via social media, Ms Lutkajtis has looked to spread the Skipping Girl name far and wide.
However she said the exposure celebrities such as Hilton, Delevingne and Newton brought to their small business was invaluable.
Colourful: The fashion designers like to create vibrant bags such as this 'bondi' bag
Girls of all ages! The Sydney designers bags are available for fashionistas young and old
'Its amazing because these girls have access to so many labels and can wear whatever they want, so to have them choose our product and to have them promote us on social media is really great,' she said.
'Harley Viera-Newton bought one of our bags in New York and then tweeted to us so that was very cool.
'We've sent her several more since then and she's been a big supporter of ours on Instagram, which is great because we're just a family business and a small one at that.'
For many members of so-called 'Generation Y' the battle to find regular work is real.
But Natasha Pillion eliminated that problem altogether, instead deciding to quit her job at the age of 22 and open her own business.
Now 24, the young entrepreneur is the head of The Brunch Lady, a popular salad bar and cafe in the Sydney beachside suburb of Bondi.
The Brunch Lady: Natasha Pillion, 24, quit her office job and opened her own salad bar, The Brunch Lady
After initially completing a communications and media degree, she scored a job straight out of university.
But just two months in she decided it wasn't for her and with the backing of her parents took a risk, a decision that's now paying dividends.
'I went to the University of Technology Sydney and did media, communications and marketing, but to be honest it was one of those degrees where I'm not really sure what I studied,' Ms Pillion said.
Entrepreneur: Ms Pillion's salad bar in Bondi Junction has been an instant success and she plans to open another franchise in Sydney's CBD within the next six months
'My Dads always had the opinion that you should look at a market place and see whats missing. I love food so a salad bar was a perfect fit.'
After coming up with the idea two years ago, Ms Pillion took the bold move of going directly into competition with takeaway salad giant, Sumo Salad.
She opened her salad bar in March and now with her largely female staff sees people queue out the door for her food daily.
'I think I've surrounded myself with a great staff,' she said.
'Weve got one guy, but even having a female barista is a difference to most other cafes. I think the secret to The Brunch Lady is having a womans touch.'
For a first time business owner, Ms Pillion has a solid understanding of her market and future goals.
Her current aim is to tap into a salad market that is already big in America and set to grow in Australia.
'Takeaway bars and salad bars, they do really well in the United States,' she said.
Yummy, yummy: 'It started as a salad bar but its a lot more than that now,' Ms Pillion said
Female domination: Ms Pillion has employed mostly women at her salad bar/cafe, something that she says stands her eatery apart from the crowd
'I wanted to tap into the market for cheap affordable option for lunches. It started as a salad bar but its a lot more than that now.'
Ms Pillion said that getting people to move away from the notion that eating greens wasn't a 'normal' lunch had been her biggest battle.
'I wanted anyone with an office job to be able to eat healthy, but without being bombarded by buzz words,' she said.
Divine: Health coach, vegan and yoga teacher Sami Bloom is a regular face at The Brunch Lady
Success story: The first cafe was opened in March and a second is set to open in the coming months
Salad Heaven: 'I wanted anyone with an office job to be able to eat healthy, but without being bombarded by buzz words,' Ms Pillion said
'People dont associate salad with a main meal, but by making protein the hero of the dish it can be.
'We start with that, instead of just filling the bowl up with veggies. But weve got vegan options as well - we really cater for everyone.'
With plans to open a second Brunch Lady store in Sydney's CBD, this 24-year-old is definitely doing something right.
'Hopefully I can open my second store in the next six months in Sydney,' Ms Pillion said.
Babes that Brunch! Miss Universe Australia Monika Radulovic and international model Cassie Matthews enjoy lunch at The Brunch Lady
'I'm just open to learning opportunities. I'm still young and I just want to take in as much help as I can get, even from customers.'
Despite having been open for just 24 months, the young entrepreneur's restaurant has been an instant success with a number of well known models and fashion icons among her frequent customers.
But for Ms Pillion, the goal is far more simple than cosying up with well known celebs.
'At the end of the day, looking out at lunch and seeing a line out the door is pretty rewarding,' she said.
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The Duchess of Cambridge cut a relaxed figure as she went for a casual look after showing off her skills in a high speed boat race.
Pictures show Kate Middleton dressed down in a black woven jumper, jeans and trainers - her third outfit on what was a busy day in Portsmouth for the 34-year-old.
Her hair, which had been tied back, looked windswept as she stepped into a car to head home after showing her prowess on the water with Sir Ben Ainslie.
The footwear she opted for was black, with aqua-coloured shoelaces. FEMAIL Fashion Finder has spotted that they were 90 Adidas trainers.
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The Duchess of Cambridge cut a relaxed figure as she went for a casual look after showing off her skills in a high speed boat race
She was wearing her third outfit of the day - a black woven jumper, black jeans and trainers - which was her 'dress down' outfit to wear on the journey back to London
Her hair, which had been tied back, looked windswept as she stepped into a car to head home after showing her prowess on the water with Sir Ben Ainslie
Kate, 34, went out in the team's test boat T1 - a foiling AC45 catamaran - and took control, steering the boat out on the race course for the forthcoming Louis Vuitton America's Cup World Series event in Portsmouth in July.
And the yachtsman, 39, who is the most successful Olympic sailor in history was so impressed by her skills that he said he would happily give her a place on his team.
Speaking after returning to base, Sir Ben said he had been 'amazed' at how well Kate had taken the helm.
He said: 'I think the Duchess had a great time, it certainly looked that way. It was perfect sailing conditions, we had about 15 knots of wind, we were going up to 33 or 34 knots which is close to 40mph.
'The Duchess was steering the boat for about half of the session and I think the guys were all really impressed with how well she had sailed. She had done a bit of sailing before.
'We had a great sail, it was a blast and she thoroughly enjoyed it.'
He continued: 'There were a few moments from the front of the boat that she was a better helms person than I am so I wasn't too happy about that so you never know I might give her a place.'
See Kate Middleton updates as the Duchess of Cambridge goes casual in a jumper, jeans and trainers in Portsmouth
The footwear she opted for was black, with aqua-coloured shoelaces. FEMAIL Fashion Finder has spotted that they were 90 Adidas trainers
Pictures show Kate Middleton dressed down in a black woven jumper, jeans and trainers - her third outfit on what was a busy day in Portsmouth for the 34-year-old
Sir Ben said the conditions were perfect and Kate had steered the boat at 40mph.
'It was great. We had a fantastic sail. It was perfect, quite strong winds, and reaching up to 40mph lifting out of the water, or foiling, as we do and the Duchess was steering the boat for about half the session.
Asked if the Duchess will one day bring her children one day, he replied: 'I hope so! She's certainly keen to get the Prince and Princess sailing at some time in the future.
'Whether that's down here or elsewhere - I'm sure there are some fantastic locations around the country and it would be great to see them sailing. It's always encouraging to see the next generation to come through.'
A blustery wind whipped Kate's hair around (left), but she sensibly tied it back in a ponytail to keep it under control beneath her helmet (right)
THE BAR team took the Duchess of Cambridge on the training circuit of The Solent
Like old friends: The Duchess has visited Sir Ben in Portsmouth to see his work on three occasions in the last year
Sir Ben showed the Duchess a full size model of his racing boat and introduced her to his technical team
Sir Ben said it had been fantastic to have the royal patron join his team for the day
The Duchess was all smiles as she boarded one of the sailing champion's vessels and got a helping hand fastening her helmet from Sir Ben himself.
The keen sailor clearly relished the opportunity to get out on the water with the most successful yachtsman in Olympic history in a Land Rover catamaran.
Kate put her skills in the water to the test by joining Sir Ben and the crew of the Land Rover BAR to complete the training circuit on the Solent.
And she looked calm and confident as she chatted to Sir Ben before embarking on the thrilling high-speed ride in a racing yacht.
The Duchess donned a waterproof black sailing jacket and trousers having changed out of the Alexander McQueen outfit she arrived in yesterday morning, and she sensibly swapped her navy suede pumps for a pair of trainers.
After the outing on the water Sir Ben added: 'It was fantastic to take our royal patron onboard T1 during our training session on the Solent yesterday.
'It was also great to have the Duchess's support with opening the team's new Tech Deck and education centre.
'A lot of work has gone into developing the facility for young people and we hope to inspire more young people to consider opportunitities and careers within Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects and the marine sector in future.'
The Duchess carried a quilted clutch bag which matched her naval style Alexander McQueen outfit
The gold anchor buttons on Kate's blouse and skirt were the perfect touch to her nautical style ensemble
The Duchess's session on the water came after she visited Sir Ben's Land Rover BAR team headquarters in Portsmouth and met young sailors and school pupils learning about sailing technology.
Arriving in Portsmouth this morning, Kate wore a 580 nautical style pencil skirt with flirty kick pleats by Alexander McQueen, and a 795 blouse by the same designer.
She's known for her down-to-earth fashion and true to form Kate had thriftily recycled the outfit from her existing wardrobe.
It was a third outing for the ensemble which Kate first wore on a visit to Birmingham with Prince William in 2011 to meet with communities affected by the riots that summer.
The two-piece also made an appearance when she visited Bletchley Park, where her grandmother was a code breaker, in June 2014.
Kate was in Portsmouth in her role as royal patron of the 1851 Trust, a charity set up as part of the Ben Ainslie Racing (BAR), which is aiming to win the prestigious racing tournament the America's Cup in 2017.
Sir Michael Lockett, pictured, has revealed he has been given the all-clear over his cancer after undergoing experimental treatment using the cold sore virus as a vaccination
The business brain behind the biggest public spectaculars in recent British history from the Queens Diamond Jubilee pageant to the London Olympic opening ceremony in 2012 has become one of the first patients to be cured of neck cancer by a pioneering treatment that uses the cold sore virus to vaccinate the body against tumours.
Events organiser Sir Michael Lockett was placed on the UK-developed medicine in 2009 when it was in early trial stages, and has now been given the all-clear by specialists.
The drug is the first to use a genetically engineered virus to stimulate the immune system and has eliminated tumours completely in some patients.
After performing well in safety studies the drug, talimogene laherparepvec, also known as Imlygic, was given the green light for use in Europe last year.
However, patients were dealt a blow in March when the NHS prescribing watchdog the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) refused to recommend the 1,670-per-vial drug to patients with advanced malignant melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer.
Last week campaigners called on both drug manufacturers and the NHS to review the way in which it prices and approves new cancer treatments.
Specialists believe that medicines to harness the bodys own defences will transform cancer treatment, allowing some patients with previously inoperable cancers to be effectively cured.
Sir Michael, 68, was diagnosed with head and neck cancer after he discovered a lump below his jaw.
At first it was put down to a tonsil infection and treated with antibiotics, but tests revealed it was cancer and had spread to his lymph glands.
Within weeks he was having aggressive radiotherapy treatment at Londons Royal Marsden Hospital in addition to chemotherapy, which was to last six months.
The married father-of-three says that at the time he was prepared try anything to beat a disease that claims the majority of its victims within 12 months.
Sir Michael said: I was convinced there must be something out there that might help as there was no guarantee that chemotherapy and radiotherapy would do the job.
Eventually he contacted Professor Kevin Harrington at the Institute of Cancer Research.
He persuaded Harrington to include him on an early trial of Imlygic, which was developed by two scientists at University College London.
Harrington injected the virus directly into the growth in the tycoons neck.
Sir Michael has helped organise events ncluding the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony, pictured
The procedure triggers a two-pronged attack. Through genetic engineering, herpes is modified to infect cancer almost exclusively, bypassing healthy cells.
As the virus multiplies inside the cancer cells, they rupture, spilling the virus into the surrounding area, and the bodys immune reaction is triggered to neutralise any remaining cancer.
Within the first few treatments, Sir Michaels neck tumour began to shrink. By the time he received his third injection there was no sign of the tumour.
He says: It was no more. Kevin said he had to stop because he had nothing left to inject. I couldnt believe the tumour had gone so quickly. It seemed like a miracle.
Prof Harrington said: The herpes virus appears to be a very powerful killer of cancer. Larger trials are now under way and experts believe Imlygic could also be used on liver, bowel and kidney cancer.
Sir Michael has helped set up Oracle, a charity to raise awareness of head and neck cancer. Nigella Lawson, who lost her first husband to neck cancer, is vice president.
Model-turned-presenter Lisa Snowdon has revealed a rather unpleasant habit: she cant stop biting her nails.
The 44-year-old beauty, who famously dated George Clooney, said: Its a lifelong habit, as I used to bite my nails when I was younger.
Today, its more a stress thing. I get nervous before I do interviews.
Model-turned presenter Lisa Snowdon, pictured, has revealed she bites her nails when she gets nervous
Her advice to those who want to stop? A good manicure. If my nails arent painted, then I do pick and chew them. If they are looking beautiful, I leave them alone, she explained.
Lisa, who since leaving her regular show on Capital Radio in December has launched a jewellery range on shopping channel QVC, also worries about having a flat tummy.
I would like to have a flatter stomach, she admitted.
I try to keep my posture upright and it makes your tummy look flatter. I dont go running as its not good for your joints and it drags your face down, so I do yoga instead.
Baby boomers are outrunning younger generations when it comes to staying fit.
Research from gym chain Nuffield Health, which has venues across the UK, revealed that the average age of their most frequent gym users is 67.
Members in this age group were shown to work out eight times a month, whereas those aged 27 visited an average of five times a month.
Norman Brown, 66, a personal trainer at Nuffield Health Warwick, said: While you may expect younger people to be in the gym more, its actually those in their 60s who are exercising more.
They know that keeping fit and healthy is a key factor in ageing well and choose to embrace a healthier lifestyle to maintain or improve both their physical and mental wellbeing.
Going green at least when it comes to choice of lighting colour could help reduce migraines.
Photophobia, or sensitivity to light, is associated with more than 80 per cent of migraine attacks, and gives sufferers little choice but to isolate themselves in dark rooms.
But a new study from Harvard Medical School reveals that exposing patients to pure-wavelength green light significantly reduces the sensitivity and the severity of headaches.
Scientists there asked patients having acute migraine attacks to report any change in headache when exposed to different intensities of blue, green, amber and red light.
In the presence of a high intensity of light (as in a well-lit office) nearly eight in ten patients reported intensification of headache in all colours but green. They also found, unexpectedly, that green light actually reduced their pain by about 20 per cent.
Professor Rami Burstein, lead author of the study, said green light generated the smallest electrical signals in both the eyes and brain.
Long and short of fertility
Having an index finger that is longer than your ring finger may be a sign of fertility in women.
Females with these proportions who featured in a study had about 20 per cent more offspring, were fertile for longer, and gave birth at later ages, compared to other women.
Having an index finger longer than a ring finger, right, may be a sign of fertility in women say scientists
Relative length of the index and ring fingers may be affected by hormones during embryonic growth.
A shorter index finger, relative to the ring finger, is a marker of higher levels of exposure to testosterone, while a more feminine ratio, with longer relative index finger, is a marker of higher oestrogen exposure.
Choker for e-cigarette fans
Smokers who turn to e-cigarettes in order to break the habit may be wasting their time.
A nationwide survey has found that although four in ten regular smokers want to quit, using e-cigarettes was among the least successful methods.
The findings contradict last months recommendation from the Royal College of Physicians to encourage people to use the devices as a cessation aid.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 4
Lunch with my ITV colleague Phillip Schofield at the new Ivy restaurant in Kensington.
Its a little known fact that I was once Phils unofficial biographer.
To Dream A Dream: The Amazing Life Of Phillip Schofield was arguably the most sycophantic tome ever written about a celebrity, but to my astonishment he took severe umbrage and its taken us 25 years to sit down and break bread together.
Its a little known fact that I was once Phils unofficial biographer. To Dream A Dream: The Amazing Life Of Phillip Schofield was arguably the most sycophantic tome ever written about a celebrity
Im sorry, I told him. I never meant to offend you.
No, IM sorry, he chuckled, my over-reaction was ridiculous. Lunch is on me.
He then called a waiter over and said: Can you bring us the most expensive bottle of Bordeaux you have, please?
Lunch lasted four hours and was such fun Im now planning a sequel to my Schofield biography: The Dream Continues.
THURSDAY, MAY 5
Stopped at a motorway services to indulge in a sly Cornish pasty behind my kale-obsessed wifes back.
I soon noticed a young man a few tables away furtively photographing me with his iPhone, which kept poking up over his laptop like a sneaky submarine.
When it happened for the fourth time, I decided to tweet-shame him.
To the creepy guy secretly filming me at Reading services, stop invading my Cornish pasty munching.
I was trying to get a snap of the pasty before you ate it, replied the miscreant, who included a deeply unflattering picture of me in mid-mouthful. Im Cornish. PS, my mum loves your work.
SATURDAY, MAY 7
Another day, another shocking breach of my motorway-eating privacy this time at Beaconsfield services.
As I devoured a Big Mac and large fries in the sunshine outside, I spied a young lady secretly papping me and tweeting her handiwork.
For everyone who was wondering what Piers Morgan looks like eating a McDonalds, she wrote.
Who on earth has ever wondered that?
Send your Twitter questions to @piersmorgan using the hashtag #askpiers and every week Ill answer the most amusing
SUNDAY, MAY 8
Appeared on Channel 4s Sunday Brunch show to promote my Killer Women series.
Hollywood actress Olivia Munn was also a guest and proved to be a hilarious handful, swigging copious amounts of wine and verbally smacking me down every few minutes.
I sat with Radio 1 DJ Clara Amfo during one commercial break and pulled out my phone.
Selfie?
NO! she yelped, literally diving for cover. Ive seen steroid-injected greyhounds move slower as she raced to get out of shot.
Inexplicably, Ms Amfo clearly doesnt perceive me to be a positive enhancement to her cutting-edge youth-music brand.
Afterwards, I asked for some wet-wipes to cleanse my face.
Try these instead, said one of the make-up artists, pointing to bright blue steaming towels in a bowl. Special treat.
I took one and ran it all over my face and hands.
Nice!
Then she screamed in horror: Oh my GOD! Youve turned blue! I looked in the mirror and she was right; I was bright blue.
I said we shouldnt have got those towels from Poundland, she sighed.
Half an hour later, all three make-up artists were still frantically scrubbing the virtually indelible dye off me. By which time my language had also, ironically, turned blue.
MONDAY, MAY 9
Ant and Dec lost out on winning a Bafta last night. I dont have any comment to make about this astonishingly rare failure by my trophy-guzzling friends. I just want to make sure as many people know as possible.
TUESDAY, MAY 10
Hilarious yarn in the papers today about lingerie tycoon Lady Michelle Mone, who mistakenly swooped up and cradled a tiny 22-year-old estate agent at a PR event in Vietnam assuming he was a child.
It was only when his furious wife screamed Hes my HUSBAND! that the penny dropped.
Possibly my favourite story ever, I texted her.
OMG, I cant believe I picked him up! she replied. I almost died on stage when I realised. Ive now got guys running up to me at Euston station shouting, Pick me up, Shelley.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 11
Boris Johnson was a guest on Good Morning Britain today and I noticed that hed neatly combed his hair a sure sign hes officially planning to usurp David Cameron as PM.
This was confirmed by the fulminating flurry of indignant denials that spewed from Boriss mouth when I dared to suggest it. In my experience, the more furiously Mr Johnson says he hasnt done something, the more likely it is to be true.
Boris Johnson was a guest on Good Morning Britain today and I noticed that hed neatly combed his hair a sure sign hes officially planning to usurp David Cameron as PM
By contrast, the next guest was endearingly honest Long Lost Family host Davina McCall.
I cant watch your show, Susanna Reid confided to her off-camera, the tears wreck my fake tan.
THURDAY, MAY 12
Ive flown to New York to interview Donald Trump, and for the first time used the new Global Entry system to bypass queues.
Ive flown to New York to interview Donald Trump, and for the first time used the new Global Entry system to bypass queues
The official U.S. immigration description of me that appeared on screen when I inserted my passport? Piers Morgan: Exceptional Alien.
Ive been called worse.
FRIDAY, MAY 13
Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne have reportedly split up after she caught him having an affair.
Ive known this crazily tempestuous couple for two decades and would bet all my houses they wont divorce. Sharon knew what she was marrying, and Ozzy cant live without her.
TUEDDAY, MAY 17
Katie Price gets a lot of stick but Ive always liked her brazen honesty and self-aware sense of humour.
Today, I met her and her severely disabled 14-year-old son Harvey on Loose Women.
Undercover Sunday, BBC1
Rating:
Eating Well With Hemsley + Hemsley Monday, Channel 4
Rating:
Going Forward Thursday, BBC4
Rating:
There was a great drama to be made from those real-life undercover police officers who trick women into relationships, have children and family, live with them and then disappear, but Undercover was not it.
Undercover, which finally concluded this week, and overly involved itself in all manner of absurd conspiracies, was a turkey.
That said, at least it was a big, fat, glistening turkey rather than a dismal runt, and I do quite enjoy a big, fat, glistening turkey, as there is some fun to be had, and we will embark on that fun now.
Undercover had a fine cast, and fine leads in Adrian Lester and Sophie Okonedo, but watching them try to save this from itself was half the fun
So the plot holes and implausibilities, all of which were so magnificently gaping that, given my fondness for turkeys, had me gasping with joy, and laughing until I snorted my drink out of my nose.
Aside from the matter of the disappearing dog, Rocco who disappeared this dog, who? I especially loved asking myself the following, in no particular order Can I apply to be Director of Public Prosecutions as it must be well paid but only seems to involve looking into one historic case while flying off to America all the time?
Why was the mystery Scotsman a mystery when he was highly visible everywhere? How come Rudy was suddenly, and miraculously, fine? What was the point of Mayas epilepsy? How come Mayas kids rushed to hug her as soon as she came in the door when we all know kids that age barely look up from their phones?
Why on earth were we interested in the Mayor of Baton Rouge? Mayas best friend, the journalist who was sidelined to the royal beat yet didnt do any royal reporting and this didnt land her in trouble?
She didnt have her editor shouting: I think youve just missed the birth of Charlotte, you clown. Please look for a job elsewhere. I could go on and on and on and on and on this was quite a turkey but will now restrict myself to that almost final scene, the one in the forest.
Here is my understanding: Nick told Dan who cannot lie, conveniently that he was about to meet a reporter to tell him everything.
Nick knows Dan will tell Lola, the Special Branch honey trap, and that she will tell the highly visible mystery Scotsman who, indeed, turns up in the forest to shoot Nick while knowing a reporter is there? In front of a reporter? Fabulous. Beautiful.
It had a fine cast, and fine leads in Adrian Lester and Sophie Okonedo, but watching them try to save this from itself was half the fun.
That American courtroom scene, when Maya tried to talk the judges out of the constitution by using sixth-form debating techniques was hilarious.
This has been left open for a second series Im going to go bigger, said Maya and Im kind of looking forward to it, if only to find out Nicks true name. Im thinking Dougal. I dont know why, but I am.
The Hemsley sisters are sensationally photogenic and promote clean eating, even though my liver cleans my eating very nicely, thanks very much
The misogyny inherent in TV presenting such that any man can look like a bit of old shoe whereas the women have to be hot, hot, hot has been well documented, and now its horribly evident among chefs too.
I mean no personal offence but Jamie and Hugh and Gordon and Tom Kerridge and the like are hardly eye candy, while Nigella, Sophie Dahl, Lorraine Pascal, Rachel Khoo, Ruby Tandoh You get what Im saying.
Mary Berry is the exception, I suppose, but if it werent for Bake Off I very much doubt shed have her own show. So trying, all this, especially as plain women are perfectly able to cook. I cook every day, for example, and am very plain indeed.
Anyway, the latest to join this beauty parade with recipes are the Hemsley sisters who are, indeed, sensationally photogenic and who promote clean eating, even though my liver cleans my eating very nicely, thanks very much.
This was typical of all such cooking shows, as they attended farmers markets and went woozy with happiness over tomatoes its a tomato, get over it then repaired to the kitchen to talk abject nonsense, as in: If its good-quality meat the fat is very nutritious.
The sisters also delighted in whatever the other one had to say, which is not how sisters behave, in my experience.
My sister and I would boss each other until only one was left standing, but youre unlikely ever to see this on television, as shes just as plain as me. (I love her but its the truth.)
Going Forward works because of the comic tension between the horrors of going forward when youre old, when youre poor and the levity needed to do so
I have left Going Forward to last, even though it was the highlight of the week, if not my life, because whatever I say wont do it justice, so Im hoping that running out of space will save me.
Its the follow-up to the brilliant Getting On, which was a comedy of sorts set in an NHS geriatric ward, but now Kim (the blissfully unvain Jo Brand) has stopped being a nurse and works as a care assistant in the community.
The moments with her family seem true to life who doesnt sniff bread to check if its still a goer? while the scenes with her patients were wonderfully moving.
This works because of the comic tension between the horrors of going forward when youre old, when youre poor and the levity needed to do so.
The BBC security correspondent was shot six times by a gang of terrorists as he finished a television report in Saudi Arabia in 2004, and his cameraman Simon Cumbers was murdered
'If he or his family had said, Were so sorry, he went down a bad route. Nobody did that. So forgiveness is not an option. No. Ive just moved on with life,' said Frank Gardner of the man who tried to kill him
Frank Gardner says he felt nothing when he heard that the man who tried to kill him and left him with paralysed legs, confined to a wheelchair, had been executed.
No relief, no pity, nothing at all.
All I cared about was that he should never walk the streets again. That man was psychopathic and dangerous.
The BBC security correspondent was shot six times by a gang of terrorists as he finished a television report in Saudi Arabia in 2004, and his cameraman Simon Cumbers was murdered. Gardner was left for dead with a shattered body and a severed spinal cord.
After a year in hospital he showed incredible bravery and determination to return to his job, reporting from terror spots around the world in a wheelchair.
Now he is about to publish a thrilling debut novel called Crisis, about a terrorist attack on Britain.
The other members of the real-life gang that ambushed him later blew themselves up or were killed in shoot-outs with police, but Adel Al-Dhubaiti was captured and condemned to death, a sentence carried out by the Saudi authorities in January.
He was not a good Muslim. He and his gang had murdered God-fearing Muslims, they had killed innocent people, ruined lives they should never be allowed to walk free, that was all that mattered.
'So I dont give him any thought, says Gardner, whose blank stare and tense jaw actually suggest a cold rage, suppressed.
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Ive got really very little natural padding now, I have a bony, skinny a***, which is emaciated from the injuries, from nerve wastage, so Im in almost constant discomfort from that, and long-haul flights are not easy,' he said
This is the first time he has spoken publicly about the execution. Before it happened he told me he could never forgive his attacker, but I wonder if he feels any different now?
About forgiveness, the lack of? No. Just to be clear, we would be having a very different conversation if that guy had repented.
'If he or his family had said, Were so sorry, he went down a bad route. Nobody did that. So forgiveness is not an option. No. Ive just moved on with life.
Was there not even a sense of closure when he heard that Al-Dhubaiti was dead?
Well, it does draw a bit of a line under it. But I think thats more of a question for the Cumbers family. Im still alive, but my cameraman is not. They have lost someone incredibly dear to them and we have too.
Were at Broadcasting House in London, sitting in a cubicle in a gallery overlooking the vast, open-plan newsroom.
Frank Gardner looks skinny and slight in his dark-blue business suit and pale-blue shirt, but his handshake is a vice.
He was once a captain in the Royal Green Jackets, as an Army reservist, but insists he has only ever been to the Gulf in peace, as a journalist.
For seven months after the attack his abdomen was held together by a membrane.
I could see my insides moving like a python digesting its food, he told me in 2014.
The drugs made him grow breasts, so he stopped taking them and now lives with the pain in his lower torso, which he compares to that of someone stamping on his foot.
Really hard. Many times.
But Gardner overcame his injuries and disability to return to work and was awarded an OBE for services to journalism in 2005. He continues to cover stories in dangerous places like Afghanistan and Colombia, the inspiration for his new novel, which has a vengeful drugs cartel seeking to explode a dirty bomb in London.
The plot is so vivid and the details so convincing that it reads like it must have been written with the help of serving spies, but he insists not. Isnt that just a necessary fib to cover them?
Oh God, no. This is me, Frank Gardner, you know? Theres something incredibly liberating about a near-death experience. I dont have to bulls*** to anybody, I really dont. He stares hard, offended at the idea.
Frank was once a captain in the Royal Green Jackets, as an Army reservist, but insists he has only ever been to the Gulf in peace, as a journalist (pictured in Indonesia in 1981)
How long have I been doing this security thing? Forty years, with the year off malingering in hospital.
Hes only 54 so Im not sure thats right unless the explorer and family friend who got him interested in Arabic culture as a teenager also recruited him as a secret spy? No, it turns out I misheard and he said 14 years.
Gardner worked as a banker specialising in Saudi Arabia before he joined the BBC in the Nineties. He became security correspondent in 2002.
I do get to meet a lot of these people [in the intelligence services] and I have some idea of how they work, but I never went to anybody serving to say, Can you help me with this book?
'The input was from ex-spooks and what I learned in my day job.
And what a job that is. Even if he did write Crisis just by keeping his eyes and ears open, Gardner has far greater access to the intelligence community than almost any other author.
A lot of the book is very accurate in terms of what goes on behind the scenes in Whitehall. The conversations are very realistic. I have run them past people who have sat in MI6 board meetings and theyve said, Thats exactly right.
Gardner did not go back to Saudi Arabia for nine years after the attack partly out of concern for the fears of his mother and father, who had both been with the diplomatic service.
I knew it would scare my parents. Their worst nightmares had come true. I didnt go back to Saudi for a long time, until after my dad died. I didnt tell my mum until I got back. She said, Im glad I didnt know.
Did he ever get the 1million the Saudis offered in compensation?
No. Never got a penny out of them. It wasnt a joke, I think they genuinely wanted to do it. I had a solemn promise from the ambassador in London.
'It was blocked by the foreign minister before this one, for whatever reason. Maybe he feared it would lay them open to blame.
What would he have done with the money?
I would have given a portion of it to charity and done something strategic like buying a future flat for my kids, but I would have used a lot of it to ease travel.
Ive got really very little natural padding now, I have a bony, skinny a***, which is emaciated from the injuries, from nerve wastage, so Im in almost constant discomfort from that, and long-haul flights are not easy.
The BBC kindly puts me in business class so that I dont get a pressure sore, but when I go on holiday with family I have to pay myself of course and its not cheap.
Frank lives in west London with his wife Amanda and their two children (pictured together at the London BFI Film Festival)
There is a note of exasperation in the clipped tones so familiar from his reports.
It really wouldnt have killed the Saudis to do that.
Gardner lives in west London with his wife Amanda and their two children. There was a hugely supportive reaction on social media earlier this year when he and Today presenter Nick Robinson set up The Survivors Club with George Alagiah and Andrew Marr, all of whom had survived cancer, a stroke or serious injury.
I looked around the newsroom and thought, Bloody hell, weve all survived something quite traumatic. It took three months to find a day all four of us could make the lunch, so I fear that may be the first and last meeting.
Gardner seeks no pity for his injuries.
I never say stuck in a wheelchair because Im not. Im not sitting in one now, he says, having lifted himself across to the cubicle chair.
There are still aspects of adventure I can do.
He offers his phone and a photo of himself on an adapted ski-bob, hurtling down a scarily steep slope in France earlier this year.
I dont feel so bitter about being in a wheelchair when I can do things like that.
Work brings its own challenges: like being with the Colombian special forces in what they call the Killing Room, where they train in close combat with live ammunition.
'They were using fragmentation rounds, which dont go far but will kill you if they hit you, so you watch from a gallery above.
'The captain had to put me over his shoulder to go up. This is the same guy I had just been asking hard questions: I hear youre killing civilians and dressing them up as terrorists to hide it, is that true? Now I was asking him not to drop me.
Why write about Colombia?
I want to take people by surprise. I have been to some dark and dodgy places there.
But there are also things he loves about it.
Colombia is back on its feet, the scenery is amazing, the music is fantastic, the people are very good-looking.
Did he avoid writing about Isis because he was scared of what they might do?
No, not at all. I mention Isis in pretty much every broadcast. They are a fact of life. Theyre losing on the battlefield but they are still a real danger to the public and the world.
'But this book is not about that. The only mention of a Muslim is someone on the side of British counter-terrorism.
Is there anything in his thriller that he has not been able to report in real life but could be used in fiction?
Yes. The particular weapon that is a threat to Britain in the book, that is real.
This is an explosive device that releases a deadly substance into the air.
I checked with some very senior people in Whitehall, Will this put British lives in danger?
'They were relaxed about it and said, Theres nothing in what you describe that isnt already out there on the internet.
Why have we not already faced something like this dirty bomb in Britain?
Technically it is feasible but bloody difficult to do. That kind of device is hard to handle safely.
'The sort of people who would be fanatic enough to use something like that against a Western country tend to opt for plain old guns and bombs.
The big concern right now is the kind of attack we saw in Paris.
Thats what security services fear: three or four hardened people who are not afraid to die, walk into a shopping centre and just open fire until they themselves are killed.
'Ultimately it comes down to good intelligence and acting early to stop it from happening.
But the authorities are ready, he insists: They have rehearsed and rehearsed and massively up-gunned the police.
'There are a number of vehicles driving around London at any one time, each with a loaded armoury in the back. They can be there in minutes.
What we all want to know is this: how scared should we be? Not unduly, says Gardner with a thin smile.
But why not, given all we have talked about?
The chance of another terrorist attack happening here in Britain in our lifetime is very, very high, he says, looking around him.
But I always say this in a big room: the chance of any of us being caught up in that attack is infinitesimally small.
I have to take his word for it. We all do. But whatever apocalyptic scenarios he dreams up in his fiction, its a relief to hear the real-life Frank Gardner say: Youve got more chance of being run over by a bus.
George Osborne may think there is nothing wrong with selling a 54.4 per cent majority in the London Stock Exchange to Frankfurts Deutsche Boerse, but the Chancellors French opposite number Michel Sapin thinks otherwise.
We know France has a much more rigorous approach to overseas takeovers than Britain having declared a decade ago that yoghurt giant Danone was part of a strategic industry.
Britain had no such worries when it allowed Dairy Crest to sell its yoghurt operations to Germanys Muller leaving UK dairy farmers at the mercy of decision makers in Bavaria.
Nevertheless, the case that Sapin makes against the 21billion London-Frankfurt tie-up is convincing and shared by Spain and leading politicians and businesses in DBs home state of Hesse.
Man in the middle: (L-R) German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, Chancellor George Osborne, European Economic and Financial Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici and French Finance Minister Michel Sapin
Sapin argues a tie-up between the biggest boerses on the continent would have consequences for the real economy of France and Europe.
If consummated the deal would leave French-based Euronext, which controls exchanges in Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Lisbon, so far behind that they would find it difficult to compete.
In Sapins view the enlarged Anglo-German exchange would hold within it the majority of tools that make our markets function effectively.
In particular, DB and the LSE through the respective Eurex and LCH Clernet clearing systems will be dominant in the derivatives, swaps and clearing areas.
Under current plans and to quieten German opponents of the deal, the two clearing systems are to be operated separately.
But with a single top company and a promise to slash the costs of the joint exchange by 6billion there must be questions as to how feasible that structure will be over the longer term.
Sapin has been in his shell in the last week or so after apologising to a woman reporter for acting inappropriately.
After the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair one would not expect anything less of a French finance minister.
But the European Commission, which has shown admirable bravery on anti-trust issues, should rightly take a long look at the LSE-DB love-in.
And if the regulatory delays cause the deal to be held up or permanently postponed, then so be it.
The origins of the LSE date back to the coffee houses of the 17th Century and an institution which has in the past seen off would-be boarders from New York, Sweden, Australia and DB itself is capable of standing alone. That is why LSE shares have quintupled under the leadership of Frenchman Xavier Rolet.
It is known that Rolet wants out and will leave the LSE in comfort because he will be able to cash in his fully-owned shares and exercise some of his outstanding options.
That is perfectly acceptable and good luck to him if, as speculated, he has political ambitions.
Allowing shareholders and the chief executive of DB, Carsten Kengeter, to take charge of the whole caboodle is a lazy solution for LSE chairman Donald Brydon. He has an important responsibility to plan for succession irrespective of whether the merger goes cold.
Greed is good
Maybe I have been wrong about stultified Rhineland-Westphalia capitalism.
It seems employees at Deutsche Bank were every bit as capable as Barclays at hiving off assets in the aftermath of the financial crisis, providing funding and allowing staff or former staff to make some money on the side.
At Barclays for those who have forgotten Bob Diamond, with the assent of his then chief executive John Varley, hived off $12billion or so off toxic mortgage assets into an offshore vehicle run by former Barclays employees, as part of an attempt to clean up its balance sheet for regulators.
It subsequently bought the package of securities back at a nasty loss of 532million to shareholders.
The Protium incident, highlighted as unacceptable in a letter from then Financial Conduct Authority chairman Lord Turner to Barclays, was a key factor in Bob Diamond being given the heave-ho after the intervention of former governor Lord King.
And Barclays wonders why the Bank of England keeps such a close eye on its behaviour and became heavily involved when the bank sought to dictate a blueprint for separation of retail from casino banking.
We shouldnt be that surprised at the shenanigans being uncovered at Deutsche Bank. Bad stuff was going on everywhere.
Credit Suisses chief executive Tidjane Thiam was blissfully unaware of the risky positions taken on by some of his traders since he took on the top job. Perhaps he was too busy making sure his generous pay package remained intact.
Sure bet
Someone, it seems, became a little over-excited about the Competition and Mergers Authority green light for the 2.2billion link-up between Ladbrokes and Coral and bought up option contracts on Thursday night.
One wouldnt expect anything else but some knowledgeable speculation ahead of deal between two firms of bookies. N
ow they must come up with a plan for flogging 400 shops. There is one other delicate issue for Ladbrokes. What is it proposing to do with toxic Coral boss Andy Hornby who has still to be fully exonerated by regulators over his role in the collapse of HBOS?
Savers fear their cash may be locked up as property funds close their doors. In a move reminiscent of the property crash of 2007 several major property funds have started to bar savers from escaping.
Property funds at Henderson, Standard Life and M&G have all invoked their right to charge investors to redeem their cash in a bid to stem outflows.
The move to so-called bid pricing means investors may be forced effectively to pay up to 5 per cent of their savings to access their cash, or could be blocked from getting it altogether.
Property funds at Henderson, Standard Life and M&G have all invoked their right to charge investors to redeem their cash in a bid to stem outflows
Most property funds own bricks and mortar across the country, including retail parks, warehouses, offices and blocks of flats. As the value of the property increases, so does the fund.
On top of that investors are paid a juicy dividend from the rental income the fund receives from letting its buildings.
Unsurprisingly, as the property market has soared in recent years, so too has investor interest in these funds.
The sector has been among the best-sellers for some time, according to figures from trade body The Investment Association.
Because the funds money is tied up in property, managers tend to keep a cash buffer to allow for the regular inflows and outflows of investor money from the fund it takes time and money to buy and sell buildings.
It is a system that works just fine until there is a run on the fund. If a flurry, investors all want to redeem their cash at the same time, the manager is forced to sell buildings to meet those redemptions, which means he has to sell quickly and probably at depressed prices.
If the number of redemptions appears to be gaining momentum some of these funds have a rule whereby they can start charging investors heading for the exit.
It is usually a temporary measure although it can last several months to put savers off taking their cash out unless they really need to. Not all funds are able to do this. Those which can are known as dual-priced funds.
Lock-up: Property funds at Henderson, Standard Life and M&G have all invoked their right to charge investors to redeem their cash in a bid to stem outflows
Typically savers will lose around 5 per cent taking their cash out when the fund has moved to this type of pricing, which means for every 1,000 you withdraw you lose 50.
Others have a 5 per cent charge for buying the fund instead.
So what has caused firms to start putting up these barriers? Money is starting to come out of the funds. Many savers will be taking profits after a good run some of these funds have doubled investors cash in only a few years.
The Schroder Real Estate Investment Trust would have turned 10,000 into 21,690 in the past five years.
Others may fear property prices are starting to reach their peak or may be concerned about what Brexit could mean for UK property values. If funds look to stop investors taking their cash that could cause more panic.
In 2007 and 2008 many property funds locked their doors because too many savers were taking their money out and the funds couldnt sell their assets quickly enough to meet redemptions.
But Darius McDermott, director at Chelsea Financial Services, doesnt think savers should be worried just yet. We think there is still some money to be made in the sector, he says.
He likes the Henderson UK Property fund, regardless of its pricing. It has returned 24.5 per cent over the past three years and yields 3.1 per cent.
Among its properties are a Travelodge in Londons Kings Cross, a commercial park in Derby and a Windsor office park.
McDermott also likes M&G Property Porfolio, which yields almost 4 per cent. Its assets include a designer outlet mall in Wales, a retail park in Northampton and offices in the City of London.
A spokesman for Standard Life, which has put a 5.5 per cent charge in place, says: It is our objective to prevent investors being disadvantaged by transaction costs associated with an increase in inflows or outflows.
A spokesman for Henderson says: This is about being fair both to clients selling units and those who remain invested in the fund.
There are not many British companies which can trace their roots back to the 18th Century. Even fewer are still run by the same family. But Bangor-based Watkin Jones is one of that rare breed.
Starting out as a joinery business in 1791, the group is now among the main players in the student accommodation sector, having built 88 sites across the country with a further 31 in the pipeline.
The company has also moved into the burgeoning private rental sector, building modern apartment blocks that are specifically aimed at people who want to rent.
A class apart: The student properties have games rooms, gyms and high-speed wi-fi
In March, Watkin Jones joined the junior Aim market at a price of 100p a share. Today the stock is trading at 109p and should continue to gain ground.
There is a generous dividend policy too, with annual dividend income of around 6 per cent pencilled in for next year and the year after.
Most companies in the student accommodation sphere buy the finished sites from developers and go on to manage them for their young tenants.
Watkin Jones operates a different model, building student accommodation from scratch. Handled the wrong way, this could be an expensive and risky business. But Watkin Jones works with a network of large institutional investors, who are keen to invest in the student property sector.
Watkin Jones finds sites, pays a deposit on them and secures planning permission but its investment partners then put up the cash to develop the accommodation.
Once the properties are built, the institutions own them but frequently ask Watkin Jones to manage the sites and pay the company a fee for doing so.
The business model means that Watkin Jones does not have to commit large sums of money to developing the student properties but it is deeply involved at every stage of the process. The group works across the country and recent sites range from Edinburgh to Bournemouth, with a smattering in London, too.
Watkin Jones moved into the student market in 1999, a decision that has proved to be astute. There are 1.7 million full-time students in the UK, around a quarter of whom live in purpose-built accommodation.
Most of that is owned by the universities themselves, with only 6 per cent owned by the private sector. Over time, those percentages are expected to shift considerably.
Universities are increasingly keen to focus on education rather than accommodation, while students increasingly prefer the comforts of clean, modern purpose-built apartments with en suite bathrooms, high-speed wi-fi and even gyms and games rooms to dingy digs in converted Victorian terraces.
While managing these properties, Watkin Jones came across numerous students keen to move into similar accommodation after graduating.
NINTH GENERATION BOSS WHO STARTED AT THE FAMILY FIRM AGED 12 'Passion': : Mark Watkin Jones In every generation of Watkin Joneses, one member of the family has stepped up to the plate and taken over the family firm. In 1990, almost 200 years after the business was founded, it was Mark Watkin Joness turn. A ninth generation descendant of the founder, he inherited a local Welsh business turning over 17 million. Today, the group is a national listed company, turning over 250 million. It is a far cry from Ysgol Friars, the comprehensive in Bangor where Watkin Jones went to school. But even in those days, the family firm came first. He says: I was helping out at the business from the age of 12 and running construction sites at 17. I only went to uni for a breather. Immediately after graduating from Portsmouth polytechnic, Watkin Jones returned to the fold and has been there ever since. Floating the firm in March made him and his family 115 million, but theres no sign of him hanging up his hard hat. This is my passion and my hobby. Sad but true, he says. As for the tenth generation, two teenage daughters and a son are not in the business yet but there is still time.
This, coupled with an awareness that demand for purpose-built rental accommodation is growing, inspired the company to begin the construction of its first build-to-rent development last year, a 322-apartment block in Leeds.
The company has used a similar model to its student properties and is likely to develop more such sites over time.
The group is expected to deliver a 20 per cent increase in pre-tax profits to 39.5 million in the year to September 30, with 43.6 million pencilled in for 2017. A dividend of 4p is scheduled for this year, rising to 6.3p next year and 6.6p the year after.
Midas verdict: Watkin Jones is an attractive, well-managed business in a growing part of the property market. Mark Watkin Jones and his immediate family still own 48.5 per cent of the shares so he is certainly incentivised to perform and pay out decent dividends. Buy.
Traders bet big on bookmaker Ladbrokes ahead of a crunch competition decision about its 2.2billion merger with rival Gala Coral.
Industry experts spotted a sudden surge in bets on Ladbrokes ahead of the announcement gambles that will have paid off after shares spiked yesterday to close up 6.5 per cent or 7.8p to 127.3p.
The rise was due to an announcement from the Competition and Markets Authority outlining how the two chains should sell between 350 and 400 High Street shops to ensure they do not overwhelm competitors but this was far less than the 1,000 that experts had previously feared might have to shut.
Up for sale: Ladbrokes and Coral must unload shops after unveiling a long-awaited merger last July
Ladbrokes operates 2,231 betting shops and Gala Coral has about 1,850.
The combined group will be larger than current leader William Hill and is likely to seek to aggressively grow its share of the online market.
CMA inquiry chairman Martin Cave said: Weve provisionally found that the merger may be expected to reduce competition and choice for customers in a large number of local areas.
Although online betting has grown substantially in recent years, the evidence weve seen confirms that a large number of customers still choose to bet in shops.
The CMA said a healthy rivalry would mean bookies continued to offer free bets and discounts to lure punters.
An overly dominant company could also see consumers offered worse odds, it said. Ladbrokes and Coral are in talks with several potential buyers, with Betfred widely seen as a front-runner.
This is a significant step forward, a Ladbrokes spokesman said. Our focus now will be agreeing the remedies with the CMA and finding the appropriate buyer or buyers for the shops.
The announcement followed a day of comparatively heavy trading on Thursday which saw 6.7million shares worth around 8.1million change hands. This was the highest volume for around two months.
And there was also a flurry of activity on the options market, which allows traders to place bets on whether prices will go up or down.
Thursday saw bets on 134,000 shares that the price would rise, according to data from the Intercontinental Exchange group after a week in which none were placed at all.
It suggests there was a high degree of confidence that the deal would be approved and share prices would jump, although experts dismissed any suggestion of insider trading.
There were suggestions that Ladbrokes and Coral would have to sell some of their greyhound tracks, but the Competition authority has left them alone
Steve Clayton, head of equity research at broker Hargreaves Lansdown, said: The proposals from the Competition Authority are actually less onerous than many had feared.
'The merger between Ladbrokes and Coral could create a huge opportunity for the group, if they can execute it properly. The combined company would have a dominant retail position, even if many shops have to be sold off.
Ladbrokes and Coral announced their merger in July, and it follows a previous attempt which was blocked by regulators in 1998.
A German takeover of the London Stock Exchange poses a grave threat to international competition, a French politician has warned.
Finance minister Michel Sapin said the 21billion deal with Frankfurt-based Deutsche Boerse could pose a serious risk to global markets.
His comments will come as a major embarrassment to LSEs boss Xavier Rolet, who sees the takeover as the crowning glory of his seven years at the helm.
Fears: French finance minister Michel Sapin said the 21bn deal with Frankfurt-based Deutsche Boerse could pose a serious risk to global markets
Sapin called on the European Commission to carefully scrutinise the potential takeover of the 215-year-old exchange.
Sapin said: We have doubts about the consequences this could have for the financing of the real economy in France and Europe.
'The merger will result in a large group which could hold within it a majority of the tools that make our markets function efficiently. That poses a competition problem.
Both LSE and DB insist their tie-up is a merger of equals.
The famous staff bonuses at John Lewis could be hit if Britain quits the EU, according to sources close to the group.
Annual payouts to employees at John Lewis department stores and its upmarket sister supermarket business Waitrose have been falling for the last three years. Staff could now face the prospect of further bonus cuts in the event of Brexit vote, which could damage the business and cut earnings.
The group, whose performance is widely seen as a barometer for the UKs retail industry, has avoided taking a high-profile stance on the EU referendum. But its chairman Sir Charlie Mayfield made his view plain in a statement in the John Lewis staff magazine The Gazette earlier this year that Brexit would damage the business.
Brexit fears: The group, whose performance is widely seen as a barometer for the UKs retail industry, has avoided taking a high-profile stance on the EU referendum
One insider told The Mail on Sunday that cuts to the staff profit share would be the obvious knock-on effect. The company declined to comment this weekend.
The 92,000 staff at the group are all part owners of the business through a trust and they each take an annual share of the profits.
The latest payout announced in March was the equivalent of 10 per cent of salary an average of 1,585 each. That was slightly lower than the previous years figure of 11 per cent, which was also down on the 2014 figure of 15 per cent of salary.
The risk to the John Lewis staff payouts combined with the public pro-EU intervention by the former chiefs of Tesco, B&Q, Sainsbury and Marks & Spencer this weekend brings the focus of the debate to the day-to-day effects of a potential Brexit.
Last week, the CBI called on businesses to talk to their employees about the effect of the UK leaving the EU on their company and the prospects for staff.
The CBIs call prompted a furious response from Brexit campaigners. John Longworth, chairman of the Vote Leave Business Council, said: Its highly regrettable to see big corporate bosses plotting to gang up on their staff and lecture them on how to vote.
John Lewis has strenuously avoided any statement that might be seen as trying to influence its staff.
Earlier this year, chairman Sir Charlie Mayfield wrote in the staff magazine, in reply to a letter, that if the UK voted to leave it would mean a period of perhaps five years, during which it is likely that currency impacts, terms of trade and possibly less inward investment would affect the partnership negatively.
But he also emphasised that it would be quite wrong [for the board] to suggest to partners how they should vote.
Trading profits at John Lewis rose last year but after higher pension and property costs the final pre-tax profit fell almost 11 per cent to 305million, so prompted the cut in staff bonuses.
Bidders for Tata Steel's beleaguered UK business believe the Government is ready to change its much criticised carbon tax to cut energy costs, while Tata is expected to contribute to a clean-up bill of up to 1 billion in the event of closure.
The sweeteners could be critical to lure bidders ahead of a looming deadline for offers for the ailing business, which includes the giant Port Talbot works in South Wales.
Potential buyers must submit bids before a board meeting of the company's Indian-based parent in Mumbai on Wednesday.
On the same day hundreds of steelworkers are set to march through London to demand the Government ensures a responsible sale of Tata UK and draws up an industrial strategy. More than 15,000 jobs are at risk if Tata's UK steel operations cannot be kept open.
Countdown: Steelworkers will march in London on the day of the deadline for bids
The Government has been criticised for failing to respond soon enough to the crisis caused by cheap Chinese imports and longstanding, high energy costs, with green taxes cited as a key reason for Tata's decision to sell its UK division.
The 'carbon price floor' introduced by Chancellor George Osborne in 2013 taxes CO2 emissions and makes up more than half the UK power bills for industry. Prices in France and Germany are half those here.
The tax is 18 per tonne of carbon dioxide and is due to rise to 70 per tonne of CO2 by 2030. British carbon emitters pay the tax on top of levies imposed by the European Union's carbon emissions trading scheme.
One potential Tata UK bidder, which said it had been in regular discussions with the Government, said it was 'increasingly optimistic' that the Government was prepared to modify the carbon tax regime 'because of the competitive disadvantage it causes'.
Stephen Kinnock, Labour MP for Aberavon which includes Port Talbot, said the Government should consider treating Port Talbot's use of waste gases to provide power as a form of renewable energy, which would reduce costs. He said: 'If using waste gases from the steelmaking process isn't using renewable energy, I don't know what is.'
He has met Business Secretary Sajid Javid and Business Minister Anna Soubry to discuss the issue.
A spokesman for Tata Steel UK said: 'The Government has heard a lot from us on that subject over a long period of time. We hope it would realise a change would be important for any potential bidder.'
Since 2013 Germany has handed over 40 times more in energy subsidies to heavy industry than the UK. It has granted 9 billion (7 billion) to its most intensive energy users, while the UK has given just 160 million to British producers over the same period.
The Government declined to comment, but Treasury sources said the situation for UK steel was difficult because of the nature of the global steel market, and noted that Tata UK had received more than 60 million in compensation for energy levies since 2013 while further exemptions from renewable energy costs would save the steel industry more than 400 million by the end of this Parliament.
Sources also said the Government was 'looking at all viable options'.
Another bidder told The Mail on Sunday that Tata was considering underwriting any clean-up cost in the event of a buyer having to close some or all of the operations.
The risk of having to foot a clean-up bill if some plants cannot be kept open is a major disincentive to buyers. Such costs in relation to Port Talbot have been estimated at 1 billion.
Tata Steel UK owes 1.4 billion to other companies in the Tata group. It is understood part or all of this could be written off by Tata to tempt buyers. Tata declined to comment.
The Government has said it would be prepared to take a stake of up to 25 per cent of the business, making 'hundreds of millions' of pounds available to a buyer.
But at least one bidder has indicated it would be unhappy with the Government as a fellow shareholder, fearing it would make it hard to push through job losses and plant closures.
There are understood to be seven potential bidders who have submitted letters of intent to Tata. They include one of India's largest steel groups JSW, British steel firm Liberty House and private equity firm Greybull, which has already agreed to acquire Tata's Scunthorpe steelworks.
A Chinese group and US steelmaker Nucor are also thought to be on the list, along with Excalibur, which is a group formed of UK backers and existing Tata UK management, and Albion Steel, formed of steel industry executives, which is interested in Tata UK's specialist steel unit in South Yorkshire.
Defiant: Paul Lynam refuses to pay for something that is 'anti-competitive'
The leader of Britain's challenger banks hoping to loosen the stranglehold of the big high street names has a damning response to last week's competition probe into the sector.
'It was just a waste of time,' declares Paul Lynam.
Lynam chairs the British Bankers' Association's Challenger Bank Panel in effect the voice for the smaller newcomers to the sector such as Virgin, Tesco, TSB and Secure Trust Bank, where he is chief executive.
The Competition & Markets Authority's long-awaited report delivered last week rejected radical calls for a shake-up of the sector. Instead it introduced a raft of measures which it said would increase transparency.
Rarely the diplomat, Lynam has some choice words for the team at the CMA which drew up the report.
'They are very nice, very intelligent academics. But none has spent a single day working in the front line,' he says.
Among the CMA's proposals was the setting-up of a website to allow bank customers to compare the benefits of various bank accounts more easily paid for by the banking industry. Again Lynam has a blunt reply.
'They're not going to get a penny out of me. There's no way I am paying for something that is anti-competitive.'
You would think that the smaller, 'challenger' banks would welcome a report that will enable them to better benchmark their products against their bigger, arguably complacent rivals. But that would be to misunderstand the nature of competition issues in the banking sector, Lynam argues.
'The CMA said it was well aware of the issues inhibiting the challenger banks. Professor Alasdair Smith, the chair of the inquiry, said it was the inability to highlight our offers relative to current deals.
'None of the challenger banks has ever said to the CMA that was holding us back. We have always said it was capital, funding, tax and payment advantages,' he says.
Big banks have to set aside substantially less capital to issue mortgages. They pay rock bottom rates for funding because they are sitting on hundreds of billions of pounds of current accounts and other balances paying no interest.
They control access to the payments system, and on top of that, challenger banks now have to pay an eight per cent corporation tax surcharge introduced to lighten the load of the bank levy on the biggest banks.
With that in mind, Lynam argues that measures to increase transparency comparing costs will actually strengthen the hold of the biggest banks because those advantages mean they can undercut all their rivals on lending.
Criticism: The Holborn-based CMA's inquiry into challengers was led by Prof Alasdair Smith, right
If it comes down to marketing, there will only be one winner, Lynam says. 'Who has the biggest marketing budgets? The BBA challenger bank panel already expected the CMA to do nothing. Some of the challenger banks didn't even bother engaging with the CMA. They took the view that it had been a waste of time in the past and would be again,' he says.
The capital advantages create a dysfunctional market, in his view. Big banks can use internal models for calculating how much capital to set against a mortgage, whereas smaller banks have to use standard models which require up to ten times more capital.
'The large banks make more profit from writing lower risk mortgages than the small banks make from writing higher risk mortgages,' he says.
Lynam himself has worked at some of the UK's biggest banks including RBS and has a dim view of the concentration of the industry that he argues helped stoke the eventual crisis of 2008. He points out that nearly 30 banks failed in the 1990s, but there was no crisis because the sector was diversified.
'Roll forward to 2007. The failure of just one large bank, Northern Rock, partially led to a domino effect that required the state bailout of Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds, who between them control getting on for half of the UK banking market.'
Tackling competition in banking, then, could solve many of the policy issues around banking of recent years. Some argue we should worry less about competition in banking because financial technology will soon sweep the banks away altogether.
Lynam suggests challenger banks are the 'financial technology businesses of the future' (or fintechs as the jargon goes). As such they should be encouraged.
'Challenger banks are fintechs with banking licences. Recently we did 400 million of motor finance and not a single piece of paper was involved,' he says. There is some good news in that other bodies recognise the issues that the smaller banks face.
'The Bank of England, the Treasury and the European Banking Authority and George Osborne himself have recognised there's inadequate competition. They recognise we need a more proportionate approach on capital,' Lynam says.
He wanted the CMA to at least acknowledge that too. 'These guys spent 5 million of taxpayers' money.
'The taxpayer deserves the competition authority to come out and articulate what are the true barriers, even if the remedies are not within their gift. We need them to say these are the barriers and these are the things we can address.'
Instead of addressing that, the report talked about increasing transparency measures and rejected a break-up of the big banks. 'I thought breaking up the banks was not the answer. Look at Williams & Glyn, which is being spun out of RBS.
'They were told to do it in 2009 and still haven't in 2016. Breaking up the banks would take up too much time and cost too much. We wouldn't need to do that if we had a level playing field.'
Transparency, meanwhile, won't get anyone very far.
'I think the general direction of travel from all banks is to be more transparent and more open. In the context of moving market shares and an oligopoly, it ain't going to add up to a hill of beans,' Lynam says.
Despite their disadvantages, smaller banks like Secure Trust are nevertheless doing quite well compared to their bigger rivals.
The bank's lending is up 73 per cent year-on-year, its profits are up 40 per cent and it will launch a mortgage for owner-occupiers in August.
There have been rumours that Secure Trust will itself buy Williams & Glyn amid speculation about consolidation among challengers. Lynam used to run a large part of what was Williams & Glyn when he was at RBS.
'We are not actively contemplating any bid for another bank but are open to M&A which is in the best interests of customers, staff and shareholders,' he says.
A keen fisherman, Lynam has a boat on the Solent and likes to catch cod, seabass and pollock.
He lives in Reading with his partner and two children, a ten-year-old girl and boy of seven.
A Financial Mail Midas tip when it listed in November 2011 at 7.20 a share, Secure Trust shares are now changing hands for 28.
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A timeless collection of black-and-white photographs dating back to the 1920s shows the immense construction effort behind Sydney's iconic Wynyard Station.
The historic images, preserved by the State Records Authority of NSW, have been revealed as builders continue major renovations of the very same railway station, due to be finished before the end of the year and costing the government millions.
From immaculate refreshment and dining rooms long since demolished, to giant escalators and crowds of commuters flushing out of train doors - the stunning photographs perfectly capture the spirit of early 20th century life in Australia.
Designed by eminent Australian engineer John Bradfield, famous for overseeing the design and building of the Harbour Bridge, excavations for Wynyard Station didn't begin until 1927.
The city railyway plans were given the green light after a Royal Commission into city improvements in 1909, but were pushed back a number of years after World War I broke out in 1914, of which over 330,000 Australians served in.
After five years of construction, which saw the huge job of excavating and rebuilding Wynyard Park, the station was officially opened on 19 March 1932 as part of the Sydney Harbour Bridge opening celebrations.
Built with six platforms across two levels (only four of which are used today), it instantly became the busiest station on the city line.
Wynyard has directed commuters in and out of the bustling metropolis for the best part of nine decades.
Serving as a perfect meeting point for city dwellers, the station has train lines stretching across the eastern suburbs, north shore, far west and city circle.
An artist's impression of the new and improved Wynyard Station reveals the 'lighter, brighter, cleaner' look of the station, which is also tipped to have an increased capacity.
The upgraded Wynyard Station will also create a gateway to Barangaroo and Sydneys financial district.
Labourers pour roof slab Wynyard Station on to the top of the train station on May 19, 1930
Rail commuters travel up and down on the escalators at Wynyard Railway Station in 1948
Rail commuters at Wynyard Railway Station in May 1948 make their way out of the station
Work on Wynyard Station takes place along York Street and Carrington Street in 1930
A look inside Wynyard Railway Refreshment Room in 1946 shows the Grill Room with its many full dining tables
A general view of the Wynyard Station concourse taken back on February 27, 1932
An artist's impression shows what the new Wynyard Station will look like after its upgrade
The new station will have a fururistic feel to it if the artist's impressions are anything to go by
A view of Wynyard Park in Sydney in 1920 shows what the area used to look like before work began on the train station
Commuters walk through Wynyard Station today as renovation work continues on a daily basis
Wynyard Station's shore track platform looking northwards is pictured here in 1932
One of the biggest jobs at Wynyard Station in 1930 was the erection of the building's escalators
A newly finished City Inner and Outer tracks platforms are ready to be opened to the public at Wynyard Station
Rail commuters entering the platform area at Wynyard Station in 1948 check the board to see the times of their trains
The departures indicator board sits high above the entry barriers at Wynyard Railway Station in 1948
Labourers continue working at Wynyard Station today as commuter walk to catch their train
While people sleep, workers labour overnight making changes at Wynyard Station including a major retiling program at platform 6
This picture was taken of Wynyard Station's concourse floor looking eastwards in 1930
A similar photograph was taken in 1930 of Wynyard Station's concourse floor level that was under construction
The large steel framing for Wynyard Station is slowly erected on February 19 in 1930
The $100 million Wynyard Station upgrade will create a new gateway to Sydneys financial district and western CBD
The Wynyard Station Upgrade is due to be finished later this year with increased capacity for the future
When it was time for some food in 1936 the refreshment room at Wynyard Station was where you'd be
Chefs go about their business in the grill room in the Wynyard Railway refreshment room in 1946
Wynyard Station's refreshment room also had a spacious reception area where commuters could wait in
Tired and hungry commuters settle down for a deserved meal at the refreshment room in Wynyard Station
A woman has been charged after a Staffordshire bull terrier ran wild and attacked 11 children in a park.
Claire Neale, 37, from Blyth, was arrested on suspicion of having a dog dangerously out of control after the animal threw children around 'like rag dolls'.
Fathers ran to help when children started to scream as they were attacked by the dog in a park on Burns Avenue, Blyth, on Wednesday evening.
The attack left nine children needing hospital treatment, including a 10-year-old girl who needed emergency surgery on her leg.
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Attack: The tan-coloured Staffordshire bull terrier (pictured) left nine children needing hospital treatment after the attack on Wednesday, during which it ran wild through a playground in Blyth
Police: 11 children were involved in the attack, with nine taken to hospital with bite wounds after the dog ran amok in the Burns Avenue area of Blyth, Northumberland
Ms Neale will appear at South East Northumberland Magistrates Court on Saturday morning.
Two other people helping police with their inquiries have been released on bail.
Superintendent Mick Paterson of Northumbria Police Northern Area Command said: 'Investigations into this incident are ongoing and I urge anyone with any information to contact the police.
'We will continue to have extra neighbourhood officers in the area speaking to those involved and offering reassurance to local residents who have any concerns.'
Schoolchildren have spoken out about the terrifying moment they watched desperate parents drag the out-of-control dog off their friends.
Among them was Brooke Nesbitt, who was playing in a park when the tan-coloured Staffordshire bull terrier entered the area.
The 11-year-old saw the dog milling about the park before it launched its attack.
She said: 'The dog was playing for a little while and then it started going very vicious. We didn't know what was happening.
Wounded: Dancers Stevie Brooke Maddison (left) and Nicole Nesbitt, both aged 11, suffered leg injuries after being attacked by a dog. Shown right is one of the cuts left on six-year-old Robbie Robinson
'I was playing on the diamond when I saw the dog attacking my friend and then a few adults came in and were trying to get the dog off her.
'My friend has got loads of bites all over her, 12 bites all together. The first girl to be bitten is only seven and she has nine bites. The dog was chucking her around like a rag doll.'
The terrier was caught and taken to secure kennels after the attack, while police began the hunt for its owner.
The first girl to be bitten is only seven and she has nine bites. The dog was chucking her around like a rag doll. Brooke Nesbitt, 11
Fiona Richards, 33, who lives opposite the park, said her husband Brett helped restrain the dog after her daughter had run into the house screaming she had been bitten.
'We were indoors and she came screaming through the door saying that she had been bitten,' she said.
'She said the dog was still biting people, so we told her to stay at the door and we ran over.
'My husband went straight in and there was already a dad in there trying to lift the kids out of harm's way.
'The dog was running around super-fast biting every kid in there, I saw it grab a little one by the shoulder.
'It was bedlam, they were all screaming and there were loads of kids as it's a new park.'
Eventually her husband helped back the dog into a corner and they used their own dog lead to tie it to the railings.
She said her daughter Isabel, 11, suffered puncture wounds to her thigh and was given antibiotics after being seen in hospital.
'It was so scary as the dog was contained within the park, so it had nowhere to go,' she said.
Rescue: Parents ran to the scene of the chaos when they heard their children start screaming. Pictured, father-of-three Neil Wilkinsonwith his son Kayden, left, and Robbie Robinson with his mother Michelle Laws
Shock: The terrier was caught and taken to secure kennels after the attack, while police began the hunt for its owner. Pictured, the Blyth park where the children were attacked
'One of Isabel's friends is still in hospital and is going in for surgery.'
Six children were driven to hospital in Cramlington by relatives while three were taken to the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, by the North East Ambulance Service.
None was thought to be seriously injured though three were kept in overnight.
Anyone with concerns or any information is asked to contact police on 101.
Neil Wilkinson, 43, went straight into the park and lifted children to safety over the railings as the dog was running around.
'There was about 30 kids in there and the dog just arrived from nowhere,' he said.
'I got in and started lifting them up and out of the park. As I was doing it the dog leapt up and bit my son on the arm.'
He said Kayden, six, suffered a small puncture wound which he had bandaged.
Treatment: Paramedics had to set up an emergency triage station at the scene to deal with the children's injuries before they were ferried to hospital. Pictured, the Blyth park the morning after the attack
Caroline Kisko, Kennel Club secretary, said: 'The Kennel Club is saddened to hear about the recent incident. Whilst we do not know the circumstances regarding the incident, our advice to dog owners is to always ensure that children and dogs are supervised when together and that dogs are kept under proper control at all times.
'Whilst media coverage tends to focus on speculating about the breed of the dog involved, we would stress that this is largely irrelevant and that far more important is the way that any dog is reared, socialised and trained.
'Any dog breed can be a wonderful pet or potentially dangerous in the wrong hands, which is why it is critical to have the correct training and socialisation.
Testimony about an abusive childhood and the psychological damage it caused didn't sway a jury in Cleveland that recommended Friday that an Ohio man should die by lethal injection for killing three women and wrapping their bodies in garbage bags.
The jury earlier this month convicted Michael Madison, 38, of multiple counts of aggravated murder and kidnapping.
It deliberated less than a day before delivering its death penalty recommendation.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy McDonnell is scheduled to sentence Madison on Thursday.
Michael Madison (pictured) listens to Judge Nancy McDonnell as she reads the jury's sentence recommendations Friday in Cleveland. The jury recommended that he receive the death penalty
Michael Madison (pictured was convicted of killing three women and wrapping their bodies in garbage bags in an impoverished Cleveland suburb. The judge will now decide whether to sentence him to die or to life in prison
Searchers found bodies in the basement of a vacant house and in the backyard of a home nearby in 2013 (pictured). Madison killed the women and wrapped their bodies in garbage bags
She can either accept the jury's recommendation or sentence Madison to life in prison with no chance of parole.
Madison, dressed in a suit and tie, showed no visible emotion as McDonnell read aloud the jury's decision.
Deputy sheriffs handcuffed him as soon as the judge finished reading the verdict. Madison's lead defense attorney rushed past news reporters without commenting afterward.
The families of the victims 38-year-old Angela Deskins, 28-year-old Shetisha Sheeley and 18-year-old Shirellda Terry were relieved that Madison cannot victimize any more women, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty told reporters afterward.
The women's bodies were found near the East Cleveland apartment building where Madison lived in July 2013.
'If anyone was ever due this sentence it would be a cold-blooded serial killer like Michael Madison,' McGinty said.
The bodies of Angela Deskins, Shetisha Sheeley (right), and Shirellda Terry (left) were found in July 2013 near the East Cleveland apartment building where Madison resided
The case began when a cable television worker reported a putrid smell coming from a garage shared by Madison at the apartment building.
Inside, police found the decaying body of a woman wrapped in garbage bags that were sealed closed with tape.
The next day, searchers found bodies in the basement of a vacant house and in the backyard of a home nearby.
Madison - who was classified as a sex offender in 2002 when he was sentenced to four years in prison for attempted rape - was arrested at his mother's home in Cleveland after a two-hour standoff.
Victim Angela Deskins (pictured)
Experts hired by the defense testified during the weeklong mitigation hearing that Madison suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after being physically abused as a child by his drug-addicted mother, stepfather, his mother's boyfriends and other family members.
A children's service agency sent Madison to live with his grandmother as a young boy in the 1980s after doctors reported injuries caused by the abuse.
Experts said the lack of nurturing relationships with adults led him to develop an alternate world in his mind that fueled hatred toward women.
Madison told police during an interrogation after his arrest that he strangled two of the women during fits of rage.
He said he couldn't remember killing the third woman.
His attorneys didn't dispute Madison killed the women and instead focused their case to jurors on his psychological and substance abuse problems.
When fully functional the plant produces enough power for 140,000 homes
However, the damage caused two-thirds of the tower to be shut down
The fire was small and put out by
A fire shut down a generating tower at the world's largest solar-thermal power plant, leaving the facility operating at only a third of its capacity, authorities said.
Firefighters had to climb some 300 feet up a boiler tower at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in California after the fire was reported on an upper level around 9.30am Thursday.
The plant, which is on the California-Nevada border, uses mirrors to focus sunlight on boilers at the top of three 459-foot towers, creating steam that drive turbines to produce electricity.
A fire in a boiler tower at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in California caused enough damage (pictured) to shut down a third of the plant
The plant uses mirrors to focus sunlight on boilers at the top of three 459-foot towers, creating steam that drive turbines to produce electricity
But some misaligned mirrors instead focused sunbeams on a different level of Unit Three, causing electrical cables to catch fire, San Bernardino County Fire Captain Mike McClintock said.
David Knox, spokesman for plant operator NRG Energy, said it was too early to comment on the cause, which was under investigation.
The fire ignited about two-thirds of the way up the tower, said Jeff Buchanan of Nevada's Clark County Fire Department, which also responded.
Plant personnel had the fire out by the time firefighters got there.
Photos showed melted and scorched steam ducts and water pipes.
Knox said the tower was offline while crews assess the damage.
The plant was already running without one tower due to maintenance and the fire caused the facility to run at only one-third capacity
He could not immediately say when it would restart.
When fully operational the plant can produce enough power for 140,000 homes, but a second tower is shut down for maintenance, leaving only one running.
It was the first fire at the plant, which opened two years ago on federal land in the Mojave Desert about 45 miles southwest of Las Vegas.
However, the fire comes at a pivotal moment for the plant. Reports from the Wall Street Journal say the plant isn't producing the energy that it initially promised to create and could be shut down.
The beams have also, allegedly, fried birds flying overhead, according to Popular Mechanics.
The $2.2 billion complex has nearly 350,000 computer controlled mirrors each roughly the size of a garage door that sprawl over roughly five square miles of desert.
There are nearly 350,000 mirrors, which create enough energy to power 140,000 homes when all three towers are up and running
Members of the public today demanded the right to know the identity of the married celebrity who had a threesome with another couple as a snapshot poll suggested that one in five have already discovered who he is.
A survey carried out by MailOnline showed that 18 per cent of randomly chosen passers-by said they knew the name of the star, who must remain anonymous after the Supreme Court declined to overturn a privacy injunction on Thursday.
And even those who did not know his identity said they had a right to find out, calling the Supreme Court ruling 'ridiculous' because the man's name has been widely reported outside the UK.
Knowledge: Members of the public have called for the celebrity who took out an injunction to be named
On the streets: MailOnline surveyed 50 randomly selected people in West London about the issue
Ever since the star was awarded an injunction by the Court of Appeal in January, it has been illegal for the Press or public in England and Wales to reveal his name.
But the ruling does not apply elsewhere, meaning that much of the foreign media has reported openly on the story and even a Scottish newspaper has published his identity.
Although the Court of Appeal decided to overturn the injunction last month, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that it should stay in place to protect the celebrity's young children from learning that he had group sex.
Yesterday morning MailOnline carried out a snapshot poll in West London to find out what proportion of the English public knows the name of the star, which is widely available online after being shared by social media users.
Questions: The MailOnline poll found that roughly a fifth of people said they know the star's name
Publicity: Two tourists from New Zealand said the news was common knowledge in their home country
Out of 50 people who were randomly selected for the survey, nine said they believed they definitely know the man's identity, with one person saying she was not sure.
MailOnline did not ask the participants to tell us who they think he is, nor did we confirm or deny any names which were suggested.
Several passers-by said that the injunction was pointless given how easy it is to find out the celebrity's name by searching on the internet.
Emma and Tania, two tourists from New Zealand, said that they had read about the case in their home country and suggested that the Supreme Court's ruling was a futile attempt to suppress the information.
'It's time it came out here - everyone else knows about it,' Tania said.
In the dark: These two women outside the Westfield shopping centre said they did not know the star's name
Judgement: Shoppers in West London were asked about the injunction by MailOnline yesterday morning
Suppressed: But these two Londoners knew the name of the star despite the Supreme Court ban
One office worker said a colleague was so desperate to know that he installed software on his computer which enabled him to access US websites usually blocked in Britain.
And two friends shopping at Westfield blasted the ban, saying: 'I think it's ridiculous, personally... Everyone knows, it's all over social media.'
WHAT WE CAN REPORT ABOUT THE STAR AND HIS 'THREESOME' 2008: The star, named as PJS in court papers and married to fellow celebrity YMA, meets future lover, known as AB. 2009: The celebrity and AB start having 'occasional sexual encounters'. December 2011: The star sends a text asking AB if his partner, known as CD, is 'up for a three-way'. AB said that CD was and the three met for a threesome and had group sex. January 2016: AB and CD approached the editor of the Sun on Sunday. They told the editor about their earlier sexual encounters with the claimant. The editor proposed to publish the story. January 14, 2016: The newspaper's lawyers contacted the star's representatives and informed them of the position. The claimant says that any publication of AB's and CD's story would be an invasion of privacy and tried to get an injunction to stop the story. The High Court refused the man's initial application to muzzle the Press because his infidelity contradicted his public portrayal of marital commitment. He appealed and was given anonymity. March: The Court of Appeal overruled that decision after hearing from the household name that naming him would be devastating for him and could harm his children. April 18: The Court of Appeal overturns the gagging order - but the star says he will appeal to the Supreme Court, meaning the injunction remains in place. April 21: Supreme Court hears arguments and reserves judgment May 19: Judges vote four to one to keep the injunction in place
Some passers-by suggested that the spread of news online had made it easy to find out the information - one said: 'That's the nature of social media and things like that, you hear little snippets and you think "What's that about?" and look it up.'
The findings of the snap survey tallied with previous polls on the issue - last month a previous MailOnline survey found that 20 per cent of the public claimed to know the man's name, while research by YouGov showed 25 per cent of people were in the know.
The celebrity, who is married to another high-profile figure, had an on-off extra-marital affair which culminated in a threesome with another couple.
The man, known by the initials 'PJS' in court rulings, was granted an injunction on the grounds that publication of his sexual activities would breach his right to privacy and harm his children.
However, because the ruling applies only in England and Wales, his name was quickly published in a popular American magazine, a Scottish newspaper, an Irish-based blog and in other media in countries such as China and Australia.
The Court of Appeal agreed to overturn the injunction because reports of the star's identity were so widespread that the ban had been rendered ineffective.
But on Thursday, four judges on the UK's highest court declared that the privacy rights of the man and his family outweighed the public interest in freedom of speech.
In a dissenting statement, Lord Toulson insisted that 'anyone who seriously wanted to know PJS's identity will have had ways of finding it', but he was a lone voice on the panel.
MPs and free-speech campaigners slammed the decision and suggested that the Supreme Court had shown itself to be out of step with the public.
Conservative politician Alec Shelbrooke described the ruling as a 'cheaters' charter', adding: 'It is making a mockery of the legal system. This is just someone who got too randy and doesn't want people to know.'
And lawyers warned that the decision could mean that the public is permanently barred from hearing details of the sex lives of public figures - particularly ones with children.
Shock: The Supreme Court's decision yesterday (pictured) flies in the face of an Appeal Court ruling that said that the injunction had become pointless
However, outside England the court's ruling just reignited the storm of publicity surrounding the man involved - he was named in prominent German and Spanish media outlets, and his identity was featured prominently on a US website with a readership of many millions.
The PJS case is just one of several injunctions currently gagging the Press from revealing details of celebrities' private lives.
Recently another star was unmasked in the US after he allegedly had a fling with prostitute Helen Wood then obtained a court ruling to cover it up.
Other well-known figures such as Andrew Marr, Jeremy Clarkson and Ryan Giggs also took out injunctions against the media, but Marr and Clarkson outed themselves while Giggs was named in Parliament.
Authorities dropped a murder charge Friday against a man who had been accused of fatally stabbing an 11-year-old boy in Houston.
Che Calhoun, 31 said he was in a suburb south of Houston when Josue Flores was killed in the city on Tuesday as he walked home from school.
Detectives spoke with several witnesses and found physical evidence showing that his alibi checked out - and therefore that Calhoun could not have been at the location of the murder when it happened.
The person who did kill Josue on Tuesday afternoon 'is still loose at this point,' Houston Homicide Lieutenant Robert Blain said.
Che Calhoun (right), 31 was arrested Wednesday following the stabbing death of Josue Flores (left), 11, in Houston. But Calhoun said he was in a suburb south of the city when the little boy died on Tuesday
Calhoun was arrested Wednesday after several people said they had seen him fleeing the scene.
But investigators investigated to check whether they could verify his version of the story.
'We wound up locating several witnesses from his alibi, interviewing them, and late last night wound up recovering physical evidence and showed he was down in Pearland and could not have been at the location where the murder occurred,' Blain said.
Pearland is located about 16 miles from Houston.
Calhoun, who has an extensive criminal record, remains held on charges of assault and evading arrest in connection with a confrontation with a transit officer on Monday. Blain said Calhoun has acknowledged involvement in that incident.
Meanwhile, residents in the neighborhood where Josue was stabbed said Friday they're upset and scared that the killer is at large.
Several witnesses told officers on Tuesday they heard loud screaming and saw Josue struggling with a man.
The sixth-grader was walking home from a science club meeting at Marshall Middle School just north of downtown Houston.
He collapsed on the grass and the man ran off. A bystander alerted police and the boy was taken to the hospital with multiple stab wounds.
Josue was pronounced dead a short time later.
Court documents showed three people described Calhoun as the man seen fleeing from the scene.
Police obtained an arrest warrant and federal marshals arrested him on Wednesday.
Blain said his detectives 'don't rely solely on eyewitness identification', noting that Calhoun was identified by a witness presented with a photo lineup.
Several people identified Calhoun as the man who fled from the scene (pictured) after Josue collapsed on the grass, but detectives found physical evidence and multiple witnesses to confirm his alibi
Residents of the neighborhood where Josue was killed (pictured) said they didn't feel safe as police consider the boy's killer to be still on the loose at this point
Omar Garza, 18, said on Friday that he was the person who identified Calhoun in the photo lineup and that he still believes he identified the right person.
His mother, Patricia Garza, 39, said crime, including robberies and drug dealing, has steadily increased in the neighborhood where she's lived her entire life - and that Josue's killing has left her 'really scared'.
She is also concerned for her son's safety and fears possible retaliation against him.
The suspect police are now looking for is a black man who is about 180 to 220 pounds and six feet tall, who wore a black shirt and black pants and had a green jacket draped over his shoulder.
Police believe he likely had blood on him due to the nature of the attack.
'This was a horrendous crime,' Acting Police Chief Martha Montalvo said. 'We're going to do our due diligence. We're not going to stop. We're going to do what we need to do to resolve this.'
More than a dozen residents gathered Friday afternoon at the site where Josue collapsed and where a growing memorial of balloons, candles and stuffed animals sits under a tent.
People dropped cash in containers to help his family with expenses for his funeral, set for Tuesday.
Michael Harrison, the principal at Marshall Middle School, told KTRK earlier this week Josue was a 'very quiet, very respectful' child.
'Just a joy and a pleasure to have around. And so I just really feel saddened by the situation,' Harrison added.
Many of those who came to the vigil on Friday said they were upset and scared to learn his killer remained at large.
'I don't feel safe right now,' said Maria Tenorio, 48, who has three sons. 'As a mother, this hurt me that this happened.'
Tenorio said she believed someone saw the killer and implored them to call the police.
Patricia Cerna, 52, who lives next door to where the boy was attacked, said she heard his cries and saw the assailant run from the scene but wasn't able to see his face.
A neighbor chased the attacker in his car but lost him after the man crossed some railroad tracks, she said.
Meanwhile, Cerna rushed outside to the wounded boy.
Springfield Police Chief David Thompson (above) said the boy brought a loaded 9-millimeter handgun to school on Thursday
Police say a seven-year-old boy brought a loaded gun in his backpack to school in Tennessee.
Westside Elementary School in Springfield was placed under lockdown Thursday morning, The Tennessean reported.
The boy showed the loaded 9-millimeter handgun to another student that told a teacher about the gun.
The teacher then contacted school administrators, who called police.
'At first, he says it's a toy,' Springfield Police Chief David Thompson said of the boy to the newspaper.
'Obviously, the teacher contacted the principal's office, and the principal's office contacted us.
'We've taken the weapon into evidence, and we're checking the background on how it got there to see if anyone else will be held criminally liable for this situation.'
Thompson says the boy was not threatening anyone, but has been charged with unlawful gun possession as the investigation continues.
Thompson says the boy was not threatening anyone, but has been charged with unlawful gun possession as the investigation continues. Westside Elementary School (pictured) serves students in kindergarten through second grade
'He was not mad at anyone, not threatening anyone,' Thompson said of the child.
'So, it could've been worse, but anytime you have a weapon in a school, in the possession of a seven-year-old, there is a tremendous danger.'
Thomspon said the Department of Children's Services took custody of the child, who has not been publicly named, as the investigation continues.
The National Rifle Association endorsed Donald Trump for US president on Friday, saying it was time to unite behind the Republican - and blasted Hillary Clinton's plans to reduce gun violence.
'We have to unite and we have to unite right now,' Chris Cox, the head of the NRA's lobbying arm, said at the gun rights group's annual convention in Louisville, Kentucky.
'So on behalf of the thousands of patriots in this room, the five million NRA members across this country, and the tens of millions who support us, I'm officially announcing the NRA's endorsement of Donald Trump for president.'
Trump called the endorsement a 'fantastic honor', describing himself as a staunch supporter of gun rights and painting Hillary Clinton as an anti-gun radical.
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Chris Cox (pictured at the NRA convention on Friday in Louisville, Kentucky) announced that the gun-rights advocacy group would officially endorse Donald Trump for president
The NRA's endorsement comes months earlier than in the previous two election cycles, which suggests that the nation's largest gun-rights advocacy group wants to help the Republican Party unite conservatives over Trump.
The group's chief executive Wayne LaPierre declared it was time to prevent Clinton from gaining the White House and appointing a new justice to fill a Supreme Court vacancy.
'If she gets just one Supreme Court nomination, Hillary's court will hold that the Second Amendment is a government right, not an individual right, and you can kiss your guns goodbye,' LaPierre said.
Trump was welcomed warmly as he received the endorsement, promising: 'I will not let you down.'
'We're getting rid of gun-free zones, OK? I can tell you,' he said to loud applause.
Trump sought to describe former secretary of state Clinton as a 'dictator' who would take away Americans' constitutional right to bear arms.
'The Second Amendment is under a threat like never before,' Trump declared.
'Crooked Hillary Clinton is the most anti-gun, anti-Second-Amendment candidate ever to run for office.'
Clinton has made reducing gun violence a key plan of her campaign platform.
She pledged to build on Obama's efforts to keep firearms out of the wrong hands last week at the majority black Canaan Christian Church, also in Louisville.
She told the crowd Americans had to 'combat the culture of gun violence', adding: 'For too many people, particularly young people in our country today, they seem to think that guns can solve their problem.'
Trump (pictured at the convention on Friday) called the endorsement a 'fantastic honor' before blasting Hillary Clinton's plans to reduce gun violence, describing her as an anti-gun radical
The likely GOP nominee told the crowd (pictured listening to NRA vice president Wayne LaPierre on Friday) he would repeal Barack Obama's executive orders on gun control during his 'first hour' in office
Clinton's campaign says she supports 'sensible action' to address the issue, including expanding comprehensive background checks, cracking down on illegal gun traffickers and keeping weapons out of the hands of domestic abusers.
She also wants to repeal a law that shields gun manufacturers and sellers from lawsuits.
But the NRA, which has backed the law, is gearing for battle over the gun control issue.
'You want to turn this election into a do-or-die fight over the Second Amendment? Bring it on,' Cox challenged.
Trump also took aim at President Barack Obama's executive orders on reducing gun violence, issued after December's San Bernardino shootings during which 14 people were gunned down.
These measures include plans to crack down on unregulated Internet gun sales.
'They'll be un-signed the first hour that I'm in office,' Trump pledged.
The billionaire called himself a 'long-term' NRA member and one of 13 million Americans with permits to carry firearms.
'I happen to be one of them,' he said. 'Nobody knows that. Boy, would I surprise somebody if they hit Trump.'
He also quipped that his sons are avid shooters with so many guns that 'sometimes even I get a little bit concerned.'
Meanwhile Trump repeated his assertion that last year's terror strikes in France could have been minimized or even avoided if citizens had been armed.
'Paris is, probably in the world, the toughest place to have a gun,' he said.
Masked shooters have been caught on CCTV firing their handguns in a 'targeted attack' on a Social Services building, in footage released by police on Friday.
The armed gunmen defaced the door of the Harpurhey District Office before drawing their weapons and discharging a flurry of bullets.
Detectives are hunting the men who carried out the deliberate attack on Sunday 25 April at around 4.20am.
Caught on camera: Police have released a chilling video of gunmen firing their weapons at the door of a Social Services building in Manchester
Further footage captured the moment the men, wearing balaclavas, ran off towards Factory Lane before crossing through a petrol station.
They then jumped into a white Ford Focus and drove off.
Thankfully nobody was injured during the incident, which Detective Constable Natalia Montano said was believed to be 'a targeted attack on this building'.
Officers were called to the scene the next morning where they found bullet shell casings and graffiti on the door.
DC Montano, from GMP's North Manchester Division, added: 'The footage we have released demonstrates that these are dangerous men, they possess three firearms and seem willing to fire indiscriminately without knowing if anyone was in harm's way.'
Thankfully nobody was injured during the incident, which Detective Constable Natalia Montano said was believed to be 'a targeted attack on this building'
Further footage captured the moment the men, wearing balaclavas, ran off towards Factory Lane before crossing through a petrol station
The Harpurhey District Office houses both Manchester Adults and Children's Services, on Moston Lane.
Just five years ago, million-dollar homes were scarce in America. Now they are nothing special.
And nowhere is more saturated with seven-figure mansions than San Francisco and Silicon Valley - otherwise known as 'Billionaire's Bay'.
More than half San Francisco's properties (57 per cent) are worth $1 million or more - up from 19 per cent in 2012.
Nearby San Jose has seen a similar boom, with 46.3 per cent of homes worth $1 million in 2016, up from 17.4 per cent in 2012.
And in 14 neighborhoods clustered around the tech hub of Palo Alto, 100 per cent of homes are now priced at seven figures or more.
Rarity: Just four years ago homes worth $1 million or more were just a few mere dots across the region
Transition began: There was a noticeable shift in 2013, with significant spikes around Palo Alto, the tech hub
While million dollar homes are now more common nationally, the most dramatic shift was in the Bay Area
Huge surge: 2015 saw the biggest leap, with Sunnyvale now almost entirely made up of seven-figure homes
Unrecognizable: Today, the region is a billionaire's playground and affordable housing is a scarcity
It is the most dramatic transformation in the country.
Nationally the share of million dollar homes has crept up from 1 per cent of properties to 3 per cent.
While New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Honolulu, and San Diego have also marked an increase in expensive properties, the figures are marginal compared to the West Coast tech hub.
The maps showing the dramatic spike, compiled by Trulia, put into perspective the impact of the tech industry on the area.
Interns in Silicon Valley are paid thousands for a couple of months. Its CEOs are some of the richest entrepreneurs in the world.
Sheryl Sandberg, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jack Dorsey are just a fraction of the high profile names that call the West Coast region home.
The biggest leap in housing prices since 2012 was seen in Westwood Park, a suburb of San Francisco.
Four years ago the area had barely any million-dollar homes - they made up just 2.9 per cent of the area's housing.
Today, 96 per cent of homes are worth $1 million or more - a leap of 93 per cent.
Four areas in San Mateo recorded increases of 80-89 per cent in the number of million dollar homes since 2012.
HOW MILLION DOLLAR HOMES HAVE EXPLODED ACROSS THE BAY AREA NEIGHBORHOOD San Francisco San Jose Oakland Los Angeles Orange County Honolulu New York San Diego Ventura County Seattle $1M+ HOMES IN 2012 19.6% 17.4% 5.2% 8.0% 7.1% 8.1% 7.0% 5.4% 4.3% 2.5% $1M+ HOMES IN 2016 57.4% 46.3% 19.7% 16.3% 16.1% 15.4% 12.0% 10.7% 9.0% 7.0%
Now, seven-figure properties are almost the norm.
In nine areas between San Francisco and San Jose, 99 per cent of homes are worth more than $1 million.
Trulia's study released on Friday comes amid growing cries for politicians to intervene as the housing market explodes around Silicon Valley.
City officials in Palo Alto this year outlined an eight-year affordable housing plan - with 587 units reserved for the area's uniquely wealthy middle class as real estate prices balloon.
It said people earning $250,000-a-year should qualify for subsidized housing.
With house price averages an eye-watering $3 million, even those earning $250,000-a-year are spending two-thirds of their monthly salary (around $14,000) paying off their mortgage.
It means workers such as teachers, janitors, firefighters, social workers, police officers and more are not paid enough to afford the local rent, driving up congestion as they commute in.
Now the City Of Palo Alto has outlined a proposal to combat the issue - with price guidelines unlike any other in the country.
An ice-cream commercial is set to become the world's first Cornish language TV advert.
Family-run Kelly's of Cornwall has posted the footage on YouTube in advance of its first big box screening to be aired next week.
The bold move by the business stars a male stall-seller try to advertise the latest produce in the middle of a field of cows.
How much can you understand? Kelly's of Cornwall has released the first TV ad spoken entirely in Cornish
Rather comically his Cornish is interlaced with standard English words such as 'tasty' and 'supermarket', before a voiceover at the end reads out the company slogan.
The company, based in Bodmin, has made the ad with support from the Cornish Language Partnership.
The news comes as the government has cut funding for the language it has provided since 2003.
Yum! The company, based in Bodmin, made the ad after the government ruled to cut funding for the language
An annual 150,000 a year grant was removed in April in a controversial move.
The 30-second advert will feature from May 23 on ITV and Channel 4.
For viewers particularly keen to see the first screening, the ad will air on Monday at 8.15pm during Birtain's Got Talent.
The Advert in Common Cornish Yma res nowydh kavadow a Kelly's Cornish ice cream hag yw as tasty as. Hwi a yll kavos oll agan saweryow parledh an gwella, y'ga mysk Honeycomb Crunch, Praline Caramel, hag ynwedh Berry Eton Mess Yth yw gwrys oll gans clotted cream (dhyworth bughes leel). Ha'n pyth yw moy, ymons i yn agas local supermarket, may hyllowgh take home six new parlour flavours ... geddon! Source: BT
The English Translation There's a new range of Kelly's Cornish ice cream available that is as tasty as. You'll find all our parlour favourites, including, Honeycomb Crunch, Praline Caramel and even Berry Eton Mess. It's all made with clotted cream (from local cows). And what's more, they're in your local supermarket, meaning you can take home six new parlour flavours ... geddon! Source: BT
Bold move: The ad stars a male stall-seller try to advertise the latest produce in the middle of a field of cows
Missouri prosecutors on Friday filed their formal plan to pursue the death penalty against a Mexican national in the shooting death of a man a day after he allegedly killed four people in Kansas.
Prosecutors in Montgomery County submitted court papers saying they will seek capital punishment for Pablo Serrano-Vitorino if he's convicted of first-degree murder in the March 8 death of Randy Nordman at that man's home in New Florence, about 70 miles west of St. Louis.
Serrano-Vitorino, 40, also is charged with armed criminal action and burglary.
A judge last week ordered Serrano-Vitorino, 40, to stand trial on the Missouri charges and scheduled a June 1 arraignment.
Missouri prosecutors on Friday filed their formal plan to pursue the death penalty against Pablo Serrano-Vitorino, a 40-year-old Mexican national
Serrano-Vitorino allegedly gunned down Randy Nordman (above) at his home about 70 miles away from St. Louis in rural Missouri
A message left Friday with Serrano-Vitorino's attorney seeking comment on the case was not immediately returned.
Serrano-Vitorino, who federal immigration officials have said is in the US illegally, is accused in Kansas of killing his neighbor Michael Capps, 41, and three others - Jeremy Waters, 36, and brothers Clint, 27, and Austin Harter, 29, at the neighbor's home the night before Nordman was slain.
Serrano-Vitorino was captured after a manhunt and is jailed in Missouri without bond. Authorities have not discussed a motive for any of the killings.
In his court filing Friday, Montgomery County Prosecutor Nathan Carroz cited 'aggravated circumstances' related to Nordman's slaying that make the case eligible for the death penalty.
Among the 'aggravated circumstances' cited in the filing, the prosecutor alleges that the Missouri killing was a continuation of the Kansas shooting rampage, Nordman's killing involved burglary and robbery, and that slaying was 'outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman' in its randomness and its 'callous disregard for the sanctity of human life'.
Carroz also cited Serrano-Vitorino's previous legal issues that have included California charges involving spousal battery and threats with the intent to terrorize, as well as Kansas charges since 2012 involving domestic battery and two cases of driving under the influence.
Serrano-Vitorino is accused of shooting his neighbor Michael Capps (above) along with three other men who were at his home
Brothers Austin (left) and Clint Harter (right) were also killed while at Capps home. Serrano-Vitorino was captured after a manhunt and is jailed without bond. Authorities have not discussed a motive for the killings
It was reported in March that authorities missed two chances last year to deport the illegal alien.
He slipped through the net of U.S. immigration authorities first in June after he faced domestic battery charges and then again in September when he was arrested for a traffic offense.
Months later, Serrano-Vitorino - who had been living in Kansas City - eluded authorities yet again.
He was fingerprinted on September 14 last year at the Overland Park Municipal Court after being cited for traffic violations.
That triggered an ICE order to have him detained.
But ICE said it sent the order to the Johnson County Sheriff's Office instead of the Overland Park Municipal Court.
Court administrator Robin Barnard said Serrano-Vitorino showed up at the court the following month to pay a $146 fine.
He was never in custody of any local authorities for the traffic violations.
ICE said that had its order been sent to an agency that had Serrano-Vitorino in custody, it would have sought to deport him.
Calling actors luvvies is as offensive as using racial slurs, Tom Conti said yesterday.
The 74-year-old star was backed by fellow veterans of the stage and screen Peter Egan and Dame Janet Suzman.
The three have become embroiled in an astonishing war of words with a Labour councillor after he called celebrities livid luvvies for protesting about plans for a new supermarket in north-west London.
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Shirley Valentine star Conti, who lives in a 17.5million mansion in Hampstead, told the Daily Mail that to use the word luvvies was as abusive as Yid or n***** and its a horrible expression
The row began after councillor Theo Blackwell wrote to his local newspaper citing the endless complaints from well-heeled residents in the area, including Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson
Shirley Valentine star Conti, who lives in a 17.5million mansion in Hampstead, told the Daily Mail that to use the word luvvies was as abusive as Yid or n***** and its a horrible expression.
Its pejorative, denigrative and demeaning. I know a number of actors and certainly the actors with whom I have mixed over my entire life have been very bright people.
The row began after councillor Theo Blackwell wrote to his local newspaper citing the endless complaints from well-heeled residents in the area, including Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson.
He noted that they attacked plans from Tesco or Sainsburys but did not care about setting up roadblocks to stop Ocado delivery drivers. Mr Blackwell also accused the same campaigners of making spurious claims against the new Cycle Superhighway route.
And he ended his letter by stating: So lets have less of the livid luvvie protests not everyone locally thinks the same on all these issues.
Responding to Mr Blackwell in a letter to the Camden New Journal, Dame Janet questioned his use of the term luvvie.
The Shakespearean actress, 77, wrote: I am tempted to say less of the apoplectic apparatchik as an apt riposte to his rather low livid luvvie put down.
As residents, whatever our profession, we have a right to voice an opinion.
Dame Janet and Conti were supported by Egan, most recently seen on TV in a recurring role in Downton Abbey.
The 69-year-old former Hampstead resident said: If actors are voicing an opinion, in many cases a true opinion, the way to dismiss that is to downgrade them with a diminishing term for a name.
It was exactly the same in Vietnam. The American troops used to call the Viet Cong Charlie. Its how you degrade your enemy.
The star was backed by fellow veterans of the stage and screen Peter Egan and Dame Janet Suzman
The Shakespearean actress, 77, wrote: I am tempted to say less of the apoplectic apparatchik as an apt riposte to his rather low livid luvvie put down
Conti's former Hampstead home, the Wabe, which he put on sale in 2015. Last year he signed a petition to scrap plans for a Tesco's opening in nearby Belsize Park
Its always been regarded by actors as an insulting term. People disregard important opinion by saying, Its the luvvies at it again.
Its a cheap way of scoring points. And I do find it offensive personally. Last year, Conti, Dame Janet, Miss Thompson and actor and comedian James Corden all signed a petition against plans by Tesco to move into nearby Belsize Park.
In an open letter to the supermarket chain, Miss Thompson who lives two miles from the proposed shop wrote: Wherever Tescos goes, the local feeling is destroyed by staff who neither know or care to know the inhabitants.
The campaign was successful, with Tesco ultimately abandoning the plans despite gaining approval to open from Camden Council.
Earlier this month Conti and Dame Janet were celebrating another victory after Sainsburys pulled out of plans to move into Belsize Park.
In response to Contis comments, Mr Blackwell referred to the actors guest star role in two episodes of US sitcom Friends. Friends extra Tom Conti is well known locally for his strong opinions on a range of subjects, the councillor said
Federal Communications Minister Mitch Fifield was told months ago about an AFP investigation into leaks coming from the National Broadband Network Co, it has emerged.
The Weekend Australian revealed that NBN Co chief executive Bill Morrow had a series of meetings with the minister regarding the leaks, and had discussed the possibility of referring the matter to the AFP.
Mr Morrow had to face the minister directly a number of times as the leaks, which revealed cost blowouts and delays to the mammoth project, continued to reach the media.
NBN Co chief executive Bill Morrow (left) had a number of meetings with Communications Minister Mitch Fifield (right) regarding an AFP investigation into NBN leaks
Communications Minister Mitch Fifield was aware of the possibility of an AFP investigation into the NBN leaks months before Thursday night's raids
Sources close to NBN Co say Mr Morrow described the leaks as serious and intolerable to Senator Fifield.
Despite marshalling an internal security team to track down the source of the leaks, Mr Morrow eventually gave up and referred the matter to the AFP in December.
Senator Fifield admitted he knew about the investigation when it was launched in December, but denied informing any one else in Government in a statement on Saturday morning.
'The senior management of the NBN initiated an internal review, which identified matters of concern,' he said.
'The NBN senior management subsequently referred these matters to the AFP.
'The referral to the AFP was made by the senior NBN management. I did not instruct or request them to do so.
'As an AFP investigation was underway, I did not advise other Ministers or the Prime Minister of this matter.
'I have had no interaction with the AFP during their investigation. Nor did I have any knowledge of, nor involvement in, matters that occurred this week, as was confirmed by the AFP Commissioner yesterday.'
The AFP remain adamant that there was no political influence on Thursday nights raids.
The Prime Minister insists he was not made aware of any investigation in to leaks until Thursday, and not until after police had raided the office of a Senator Stephen Conroy and the home of a Labor staffer.
When AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin was asked if anyone in the government was made aware of the investigation before the raids, he said: no.
Australian Federal Police officers raided Labor Senator Stephen Conroy's Melbourne office on Thursday
Members of the Labor party have accused the investigation and raids of being politically motivated
AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin said no member of Government had any knowledge of the investigation
Malcolm Turnbull said Labors allegations of government involvement in the investigation was shameful.
The police are doing their job, theyre doing it independently, theyre doing it with integrity, he told reporters in Launceston on Friday.
He dismissed shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus comments about government involvement as dramatic.
Mr Dreyfus is refusing to say the government had no involvement in the raids, and insists the timing, which has coincided with the first few weeks of the election campaign, undermined confidence in the independence of the AFP.
He told ABC radio Mr Turnbull was going after whistleblowers and not wanting there to be an investigation of mismanagement.
at Harvey Norman in Everton Park, north of Brisbane
man behind bars accused of shooting security guard on Friday
A man has been denied bail after he allegedly shot a security guard outside a shopping centre.
Timothy Campbell Rowe, 26, was arrested after he allegedly armed himself with a gun and tried to steal the car of the 62-year-old security guard outside Harvey Norman in Everton Park, north of Brisbane, about 1am on Friday.
Mr Rowe said to the security guard: 'Give me your keys or I'll shoot you in the head', police claim.
Timothy Campbell Rowe (pictured), 26, was arrested after he allegedly armed himself with a gun and tried to steal the car of the 62-year-old security guard outside Harvey Norman in Everton Park
He allegedly fired two warning shots before shooting the security guard in the ankle and running away
When the guard refused, he allegedly fired two warning shots before shooting him in the ankle and running away.
The Brisbane Magistrates Court heard Rowe was already on bail for several other offences including robbery while armed in company, another attempted robbery, assault occasioning bodily harm, public nuisance and breaching a domestic violence order.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Andrea Ford opposed a bail application.
'His blatant disregard for everybody else is beyond my comprehension,' she said.
Mr Rowe was charged with attempted armed robbery, acts intended to maim and several weapon offences.
Lawyer Laura Rouse said Mr Rowe suffered from post traumatic stress disorder.
Mr Rowe said to the security guard: 'Give me your keys or I'll shoot you in the head', police claim
'That was diagnosed in 2015, as a result of being a victim of crime at the age of 17 which involved him being the victim of a stabbing,' Ms Rouse said.
She told the court Mr Rowe was willing to comply with bail conditions including a curfew and daily reporting restrictions.
Magistrate Jason Schubert said there was an unacceptable risk Mr Rowe would endanger members of the community, witnesses or his victim, who was recovering in the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital.
'There are no conditions that could adequately mitigate those unacceptable risks,' he said.
Mr Rowe was denied bail and the matter was adjourned until a committal call-over on July 4.
Queensland man, Timothy Campbell Rowe is behind bars after allegedly shooting a security guard while he tried to steal his car outside a Harvey Norman north of Brisbane on Friday
Three men and a male teen have been
The people behind a US-based website that has allegedly shared nude images of nearly 500 Adelaide women cannot be arrested.
Three men and a teenager are suspected of running the website Adelaide Girls, which has shared hundreds of photos of women - and underage girls - baring their bodies for the camera.
But an 11-month South Australian Police investigation, dubbed Operation Metropolis, has been unable to bring those responsible to account, the Adelaide Advertiser reported.
The website's US-based host has refused to help investigators identify who uploaded the images.
The people suspected of running a website sharing nude photos of Australian women cannot be charged because South Australia police cannot secure enough evidence from the site's US-based host company
'At this time, no one has been arrested or charged as a result of Operation Metropolis and the operation has now been closed, pending the receipt of new information,' said Detective Inspector Shane Addison, from SA Police's commercial and electronic crime branch.
The three men and male teenager - all from South Australia - were identified as potential suspects but all denied involvement and a lack of evidence meant they could not be charged.
Mr Addison said the website's US-based host company had refused to identify the people behind the site and South Australia Police were powerless to make them help investigators.
However, the company agreed to removed some links to the images and the user accounts that posted photos were banned, the Adelaide advertiser reported.
The US-hosted website Adelaide girls has allegedly shared nude images of nearly 500 woman
Most of the pictures on the site were allegedly taken from social media accounts or sent from spiteful ex-boyfriends.
Adelaide woman Amy Cornes, daughter of AFL legend Graham Cornes, was one of the site's victims.
Her mother, Nicole, said the Federal government needed to look at legal measures to charge those responsible.
'This is a form of abuse in many respects and ... the Commonwealth needs to work out how to contain this matter,' she told the Adelaide Advertiser.
Authorities say the case shows how careful women should be about posting photos of themselves on social media.
While students around the country are celebrating their academic achievements at graduation ceremonies, it seems the staff at one California school are letting the side down.
Students at Ontario High School, around 30 miles west of San Bernardino, were left shaking their heads after realizing the name of their school had been misspelled on their diploma covers.
While the gold embossed letters should have read 'Ontario High School', instead they said 'Ontario High Shcool', much to the amusement of its now-graduated students.
Ontario High School has been ridiculed on social media after managing to spell its own name wrong on the covers of 550 graduation diplomas, managing to get the 'h' and 'c' in school the wrong way around
Officials claimed the error was the fault of a graduation printing company the school used, and have promised the students a replacement copy
One Twitter user going by the name of Noah Edwards wrote: 'Ontario is by far the dumbest school in the IE maybe in California.'
Meanwhile another user going by the name Jenny added: 'When you want to go to shcleep but you have to go to "shcool".'
Sergio Diaz posted an image of the diploma cover saying: 'Only at Ontario High School.'
Red-faced school officials blamed the error on the graduation products company they ordered the diplomas from, though declined to name the firm they used.
The error was particularly embarrassing given the importance of the occasion as students were graduating inside the school's new 5,000-seat stadium for the first time
Mathew Holton, the school district superintendent, told NBC Los Angeles: 'The principal has informed all Ontario graduates that the company has been contacted and will mail a corrected diploma cover to each graduate along with an apology letter.'
The blunder was particularly embarrassing given the importance of the occasion since the seniors were graduating inside the school's new 5,000-seat stadium for the first time.
A law firm hounding British troops with compensation claims from Iraqis paid at least 75,000 to a Basra agent who brought them business, it was claimed last night.
Abu Jamal, 59, was allegedly given 25,000 in December 2008 and 50,000 in March 2009 for handing clients over to Leigh Day in a practice that is banned.
The referral fees were approved by the boss of the firm, Martyn Day, and his colleague Sapna Malik, according to evidence obtained by the solicitors' watchdog and handed to a tribunal which yesterday decided there was a case to prosecute the firm and the two lawyers.
Abu Jamal was allegedly given 25,000 in 2008 and 50,000 in 2009 for handing clients over to Leigh Day in a practice that is banned. The referral fees were approved by the boss of the firm, Martyn Day (pictured)
Some 19 charges were brought against them yesterday. If found guilty, they could be struck off and fined tens of thousands of pounds.
The prosecution is a victory for the Daily Mail, which has long campaigned to stop the witch-hunt against British soldiers.
Evidence published yesterday by the Solicitors' Regulation Authority said that after making the two payments, the lawyers entered into an 'improper agreement' with a person known as Z Mr Jamal from March 2009, continuing to pay him banned referral fees. Mr Jamal was also awarded 'contingency fees' for successful outcomes, which are also banned.
The lawyers are also accused of 'deliberately' hiding the fact they had breached the code of conduct by paying Mr Jamal and of failing to report 'serious misconduct'.
The allegations also referred to a key document Leigh Day shredded that could have stopped the Al-Sweady inquiry into accusations against our troops and saved taxpayers 31million. Leigh Day had failed to declare a list that showed detainees they were representing were insurgents and not villagers.
The inquiry found the most serious claims against UK soldiers were 'wholly without foundation'.
According to evidence obtained by the solicitors' watchdog and handed to a tribunal, Sapna Malik also approved referral fees
Last night Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said: 'These are extremely serious charges. Every day our armed forces show bravery and dedication in difficult circumstances. They shouldn't be subject to unfounded legal claims.'
The allegations against Leigh Day came after a year-long investigation into their alleged dodgy practices.
The Mail previously revealed how Mr Jamal has a lavish lifestyle in Basra after handing 1,000 claims of alleged mistreatment of Iraqis by our troops to Leigh Day and another firm, Public Interest Lawyers. He was also paid 40,000 a year by the Ministry of Defence to gather evidence and ferry around witnesses.
The Mail tracked down Mr Jamal to his office in Basra, southern Iraq, where his son said they were getting up to 20 new clients a week.
A Leigh Day spokesman said their legal team was reviewing the evidence on which the charges were based, adding: 'It would not be appropriate for us to comment further.'
It's a perfect excuse for men who tend to fall for married women their brains are wired differently.
The part of their grey matter involved in value judgements, decision-making and risk-taking was more active in 'mate-poachers', a study found.
Most men distance themselves when they realise the object of their affections is attached to avoid attacks from jealous husbands or simply being shunned.
Most men distance themselves when they realise the object of their affections is attached, but others carry on regardless
But some carry on regardless. Scientists from Kyoto University, Japan, showed 40 men pictures of 150 women and asked which they would most like to have a relationship with. Crucially, they were told some were attached and others single.
While 70 per cent found the single ones more attractive, the remaining 30 per cent were drawn to women who were spoken for. Brain scans of the 'mate-poachers' revealed that their medial orbitofrontal cortex was extra-active.
Their own relationship status did not affect whether he had a wandering eye with married men as attracted to other men's partners as the bachelors.
And as the cortex is also associated with risk-taking, the findings suggest the 'poachers' find the idea of an affair with someone's wife more thrilling than terrifying.
Scientists from Kyoto University, Japan, (pictured) found 30 per cent of 40 men were more attracted to attached women
Writing in the journal Social Neuroscience, the researchers said this could 'lead to mate poaching in the real world'.
Study author Ryuhei Ueda said: 'Although mate poaching is a socially unacceptable behaviour, such behaviour is not uncommon, with certain individuals willing to approach a person who has a partner.
'The findings represent an important step towards a neural explanation of socially unacceptable behaviour in love.'
Chelsea Manning, 28, the ex-US-soldier who gave thousands of secret army documents to the website WikiLeaks in 2010, is now appealing her 35-year prison sentence.
Manning was an intelligence analyst in Iraq when she leaked videos of airstrikes, U.S. diplomatic cables and 482,832 army reports that would become known as the Iraqi War Logs and Afghan War Diary.
She was sentenced on 21 charges in 2013 - but now her lawyers are appealing, saying that she acted in the interests of the public and doesn't deserve the 'harsh' sentence, ABC reported.
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Appeal: Chelsea Manning (pictured), 28, is appealing the 35-year-sentence she was given in 2013 for releasing classified documents, including videos of bombings and private correspondence, to Wikileaks
Guilty: Manning - pictured here after being found guilty, and before beginning the transition into a woman - claimed to have shared the information to reveal how poorly the war in Iraq and Afghanistan was going
'For what PFC Manning did, the punishment is grossly unfair and unprecedented,' the appeal, filed Wednesday, said. 'No whistleblower in American history has been sentenced this harshly.'
Her lawyers hope to get the court to either reduce her sentence to ten years or dismiss the charges entirely, Manning said on her blog.
The reasons she gave for the appeal were being placed in solitary confinement before her trial - described as 'deplorable' and 'unconstitutional' by her lawyers - the use of 'vague evidence' for sentencing and a 'lack of evidence on charges of theft of information'.
She also cites a 'vague definition of "exceeding authorized access"' in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and a 'lack of proof' that U.S. interests were harmed by the leak as additional reasons.
'Throughout trial the prosecution portrayed PFC Manning as a traitor and accused her of placing American lives in danger, but nothing could be further from the truth,' the appeal said.
It added that she released the documents because she 'believed the public had a right to know about the toll of the wars... the loss of life, and the extent to which the government sought to hide embarrassing information of its wrongdoing.'
Manning announced the appeal on her Twitter account, saying 'My fight is far from over. I am only just getting started.'
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has written in defense of Manning, saying that her conviction was 'unconstitutional,' ABC reported.
It said the Espionage Act is 'unconstitutionally vague,' because it gives the U.S. government a tool 'to subject speakers and messages it dislikes to discriminatory prosecution'.
It also said that the act was used unconstitutionally when the judge refused to allow the court to consider whether the leaked documents might have been so valuable to public discussion that they justified the leak.
Manning had originally been charged on 22 counts, but was acquitted of 'aiding the enemy,' which carried a potential death sentence.
She is currently serving her sentence at the army's maximum security Fort Leavenworth detention facility in Kansas.
She was born Bradley Manning, a male, and began transitioning into a woman after the conviction.
This week, British General Sir Richard Shirreff, Nato's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander for Europe until 2014, accused Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond of wanting him court-martialled for criticising the Government's military spending. Here, in an apocalyptic vision, he explains why those cuts could lead to catastrophe...
Deep inside the control room there was an overriding smell of male sweat usual in a submarine that had been at sea for days.
In the centre of the room stood Captain Alexander Ivanovich Chernavin of the Russian Navy, the commander of the Kilo-class submarine Krasnokamensk.
Despite his years of experience, Chernavin was feeling hesitant that morning, as his sonar operator was within close torpedo range of something very much larger than anything he had ever contacted before.
British General Sir Richard Shirreff outlined an apocalyptic vision for the future in his new book 2017: The War With Russia
Chernavin needed to take a look. 'Up periscope!' he ordered.
Leaning down, he grabbed the handles of the periscope as it slid up to him, anxious to get his eyes to the viewfinder.
He immediately spotted a vast Royal Navy aircraft carrier. Despite being five nautical miles away in international waters in the Western Baltic the distant ship was magnified by the powerful lenses of the periscope and filled the viewfinder.
'Down periscope!' Chernavin ordered. 'Flood torpedo tubes one to three. Stand by to fire.'
Chernavin took a deep breath. What he was about to do would surely go down as an event of the magnitude of the sinking of HMS Royal Oak, the pride of the Royal Navy's Home Fleet, by a German U-boat in Scapa Flow in October 1939.
And now, HMS Queen Elizabeth at 65,000 tonnes and at 920ft, longer than the British Houses of Parliament and the largest ship ever built for the Royal Navy was about to join them.
It would be him, Captain Chernavin, who would be responsible.
'Bearing threethreefive. Range, 9,000 metres,' chanted the sonar operator, like a Russian Orthodox priest in an incense-filled church.
'Identity confirmed. Stand by to fire,' Chernavin said to his fire controller. Krasnokamensk continued to slide silently under the waves.
'Shoot!'
There was a perceptible thump throughout the submarine as the first torpedo left its tube; a pause, then another, and then a third.
Then came a muffled explosion. The first torpedo had struck home. Another pause, then another two explosions.
In the earphones of the sonar operators, the thud of Queen Elizabeth's propellers stopped replaced by the screams of collapsing bulkheads.
Although this terrifying scenario is, of course, fictional, I believe that it could easily come true, and as soon as this time next year.
In my new book, 2017: The War With Russia, I present a 'what-if' situation in which the UK, along with her Nato allies, finds herself in a full-scale conflict with an enemy I believe represents an existential threat to the West and which is a far greater danger than ISIS.
If war with Russia does break out, then I believe that the seeds were sown in Ukraine in March 2014.
At that time, I was a four-star British General and the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander for Europe (DSACEUR).
I had been in post for three years and I confess that, along with senior military colleagues, I accepted the received wisdom that, despite Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008 in a bid to reassert Moscow's influence in the former Soviet sphere, Nato should aim to foster a strategic partnership with the Kremlin.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond was accused of wanting Sir Richard Shirreff court-martialled for criticising the Government's military spending
However, the invasion of Crimea, combined with President Putin's self-proclaimed intention in March 2014 of reuniting ethnic Russian speakers under the banner of Mother Russia, has changed my view fundamentally.
I believe that Russia is now our strategic adversary and has set itself on a collision course with the West.
The Kremlin has built up, and is enhancing, its military capability. It has thrown away the rulebook on which the post-Cold War security settlement of Europe was based.
Putin has started a dynamic that can only be halted if the West wakes up to the real possibility of war and takes urgent action.
My major concern is for the Baltic states Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia who are, of course, members of Nato. Any attack on them is considered, under the principle of collective defence enshrined in Article Five of the Washington Treaty, an attack on all Nato members.
The big questions, therefore, are these: Do the member states of Nato have the will to stand up to Putin? And, if so, do we have the military muscle to back it up?
In my book, I am afraid that I paint a very gloomy picture, in which our politicians, through complacency and a lack of backbone, fail to deter an expansionist and belligerent Russian president, and the Baltics end up being invaded.
Too many world leaders today have no appreciation of history, which tells us never to trust Russia.
It was Count Shuvalov, a Russian who was governor-general of what were then the Baltic Provinces in the Tsarist Empire 150 years ago, who said: 'The historical mission of the Baltic provinces is to serve as a battlefield for the problems of the highest politics in Europe.'
What the fictionalised politicians in my book fail to realise, just like so many appeasers in the Thirties, is that the fate of the Baltic states and, indeed, Poland cannot be simply dismissed as the concerns of 'faraway countries of which we know nothing', to paraphrase Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938.
But will it really affect us in Britain and western Europe if Nato is rendered impotent and we are unable to protect the Baltic states and Poland from Russia? The answer to that is a resounding 'yes'.
A militarily triumphant Russia able to dictate to a defeated Europe and Nato from the end of a gun barrel will be enough for life as we now know it in western Europe to come to a very abrupt end.
'To the victor the spoils.' Always.
Most worryingly, our politicians blithely continue to view the situation through Cold War spectacles.
Richard Shirreff presents a 'what-if' situation in which the UK, along with her Nato allies, finds herself in a full-scale conflict in his new book
By that, I mean they must drop their antiquated view that any attack by Moscow on a Nato member would consist of massed Soviet tanks invading across the inner German border, or biting off a chunk of northern Norway, as would have been the case in the Cold War days.
Today, through cyber-warfare and clandestine military backing to Moscow-sponsored separatists, the Russians are master practitioners of a new form of state-on-state war, in which gradually Putin ramps up the pressure on a target state, while remaining under the threshold of what would traditionally invoke Nato's Article Five that 'an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all'.
The best way to stop such a crisis from getting out of control is to meet the Russians with strength. But even if we did have the will to do so, do we actually have the required strength?
Once again, the picture is gloomy, both in my book, and indeed in reality. In his Strategic Defence and Security Review of 2010, David Cameron made an appalling gamble assuming that the international scene would remain benign.
Wars and conflicts that threatened the security of the United Kingdom were declared a thing of the past.
Britain's national strategy proclaimed that there was no threat to this country's existence. Having unilaterally decided that this was the way the world would be for the foreseeable future, the 2010 review then emasculated British military capability.
The consequences of this decision are far-reaching and difficult, if not near impossible, to reverse.
Twenty thousand experienced regular soldiers were axed from the Army. Royal Navy frigate and destroyer numbers the workhorses of any fleet were cut right back. Some ships were sent direct to the breaker's yard.
It seemed quite extraordinary to me at the time to see our warships being broken up at the very moment they were most needed.
The unravelling of Libya after the fall of Gaddafi and the deepening turmoil of the Arab Spring ought to have told any politician with any sense that the world was not as safe and predictable as they were busy assuring us it was.
Not only were the RAF's fleet of Harrier jets removed from the Ministry of Defence inventory, but that essential capability for a proud maritime nation maritime patrol aircraft was also disbanded.
This failure to understand reality was further reinforced during Britain's response to the crisis in the Middle East, caused by the emergence of the so-called Islamic State in the summer of 2014.
Both the Prime Minister and the new Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, spoke in apocalyptic terms about this threat and yet did nothing credible to confront it.
Hammond's hubristic boast that 'Britain defined itself by the extent to which it punched above its weight' was proved hollow.
So, when the Prime Minister wrote in 2014 that 'Britain should avoid sending armies to fight' strongly implying that the Army's primary task was now humanitarian relief I saw the profound effect of such a world-view on both our allies and potential adversaries.
The British General said the Kremlin has thrown away the rulebook on which the post-Cold War security settlement of Europe was based
Mr Cameron's pronouncement signalled that Britain was led by a government terrified of being seen to commit, but nevertheless yearning to be seen as bold and resolute.
A country famous for once 'walking softly and carrying a big stick' meaning British governments did not make threats they did not fully intend to implement now had a leadership that shouted loudly but, thanks to ongoing defence cuts, carried an increasingly tiny and impotent stick.
Be in no doubt, the implications of this are not lost on the man in the Kremlin.
Britain, once Europe's premier military power, is undoubtedly now set on a course of disarmament.
As a young KGB officer in East Germany during the Cold War, Vladimir Putin can well recall the respect in which Britain, under its 'Iron Lady' prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was held by Russia for its bold recapture of the Falkland Islands in 1982.
That combination of a show of arms, and quiet but grim political resolve, had given Britain huge political clout.
Clearly that stubborn resolve, so respected and admired across the world, has evaporated.
Britain is now little different from any other semi-pacifist, European social democracy; more interested in protecting welfare and benefits than maintaining adequate defences.
And it is this lack of defences that terrifies me the most.
The most horrific scenario is that, without strong conventional deterrence tanks, planes, artillery, ships and boots on the ground the only remaining line of defence for a Nato facing imminent military defeat is nuclear weapons.
However, the consequence of the release of intercontinental ballistic missiles, such as Trident, on Russia would be Armageddon; a result so terrible that the Russian President will calculate that the US, UK and France the only nuclear-armed states of Nato would never risk the near total destruction of human civilisation in Europe for the sake of three small Baltic states.
And he is probably right. Which is why he would get away with it.
I shall not reveal any plot-spoilers, but in my book, I try to show how we might stop Putin from getting away with it.
However, my fictional war is a war that could yet be avoided, if we act right now.
That is why this story needs to be told before it is too late.
Because, in the chilling words of another notorious Russian, the inter-war politician Leon Trotsky: 'You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.'
General Sir Richard Shirreffs book 2017: War With Russia is published by Coronet at 20. To order a copy (P&P free), call 0844 571 0640 or visit mailbookshop.co.uk.
Kathy Tompa, 48, has been charged with aggravated child molestation, statutory rape and enticing a child for indecent purpose
A Georgia mother walked hand-in-hand with her husband as she turned herself in on charges of aggravated child molestation and statutory rape.
Kathy Tompa, 48, has also been charged with enticing a child for indecent purpose.
She surrendered to authorities at Forsyth County Jail immediately after the warrants were served on Thursday.
AJ Richman, Tompa's attorney, said the mother-of-two and her family were 'devastated' by the allegations.
'She's disappointed, but she's keeping her head high,' Richman told WSB-TV. 'And she knows that justice will prevail.'
Richman said Tompa plans to take the case to trial.
No details regarding the allegations were released as the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office does not comment on cases that involve sex crimes or juveniles.
Tompa, who does not have a criminal record, plans to plead not guilty.
The investigation into the allegations is ongoing.
The mother-of-two walked hand-in-hand with her husband (pictured in blue, her attorney AJ Richman is next to them) as she surrendered to authorities at Forsyth County Jail after warrants were served on Thursday
Donald Trump didn't pay any federal taxes for two years in the 1970s, according to a report by New Jersey gambling regulators that was revealed Friday.
The Casino Control Commission looked into his tax returns and personal finances in relation to Trump Plaza Corporation's 1981 application for a casino license.
They found that he posted losses totaling almost $4million in 1978 and 1979 meaning that the businessman - who has refused to release his recent tax returns while running for president - was not liable to pay taxes for those years, ABC reported.
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Returns: Donald Trump's tax returns show he didn't pay federal taxes in 1978 and 1979 after claiming massive losses. He gave the returns to New Jersey regulators while applying for a casino license in 1981
In 1978, Trump posted a loss of $406,379, the report said. In 1979 he claimed a loss of $3,443,560.
A few years before, he had told The New York Times he was worth $200million, The Washington Post said.
The 1979 losses were due to issues with some of his rental properties in New York, the commission said.
The report did not include the tax returns themselves.
Trump's taxes have become a sticking point in the run-up to this election, as he has become the first major party nominee in 40 years not to release his tax returns to the public.
He had previously promised to release the returns, but later said he wanted to hold back while he was audited.
However, in a recent interview with George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America, the host pointed out to Trump that audits don't block the release of tax returns.
He also said that Trump released his returns to the Casino Control Commission while being audited in 1981.
When asked, Trump told the host that his tax rate is 'None of your business'.
The tax question has put Trump in a difficult position, The Washington Post reported.
His persona as a savvy businessman requires him to say that he avoids paying taxes where possible, it said, but that damages his appeal with working-class voters who are tired of the rich paying little in taxes.
And the Clinton campaign has made political capital out of his reticence, asking what Trump is 'hiding'.
But Trump maintains that he will release his tax information when the audit is concluded.
The gambling commission's report, which looked at Trump's earnings from 1975-1979, said that in 1975 he claimed an income of $76,210, paying $18,714 in federal taxes.
In 1976 he claimed $24,594 and paid $10,832, and in 1977 he claimed $118,530 and paid $42,386, ABC reported.
The commission 'did not ascertain any inconsistent or questionable matters,' the report said.
It is not clear which casino Trump's license was intended for.
A Hillsborough survivor has been reunited with the man who saved his life 27 years after the disaster.
Joe Smith was just eight when he was rescued from the crush by a man who was among thousands of fans in the Leppings Lane stand at Sheffield Wednesday's ground in 1989.
Mr Smith, now 35, only realised John McMahon, 43, got him out of danger after seeing a recent BBC documentary on the tragedy.
It prompted him to launch a Facebook campaign to track down his saviour which has now come to a successful conclusion.
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Joe Smith, left, 35, successfully tracked down John McMahon, right, 43, almost three decades after he saved his life at the Hillsborough disaster
The pair, pictured on ITV's This Morning, met properly for the first time in 27 years at Anfield and embraced in a hug upon seeing each other again
The pair were filmed meeting for the first time at Anfield by ITV cameras, where they were seen in an emotional embrace.
They have since given interviews on several television programmes, including This Morning and on the BBC.
Mr McMahon, who was 16 at the time of the disaster, revealed he had been on holiday in Antigua when he was inundated with messages from friends telling him about Mr Smiths search.
He added he did not consider himself a hero as there were hundreds of Liverpool fans who helped get people away from danger that day.
Mr McMahon, of Flintshire, Wales, told the Daily Post: We knew straight away something was wrong. I remember getting my foot on a barrier and the pressure of the people behind me pulling me to my feet.
I got to the fence and jumped over. I was out really quickly. I stood on the fence and I could see a little kid who was not in a good state. I grabbed him and pulled him out.
He added: I never forgot about Joe he was always in my statements but my mind was at rest with him because he was OK.
Speaking on ITV, Mr Smith added: I owe a great deal of why I'm still standing here today to John.
John's been - he doesn't like me saying the word 'hero', he finds it a little bit bizarre... but that's how I see him.
Mr McMahon, then 16, pulled Mr Smith, then eight (pictured ringed) away from the crush at Hillsborough
Mr McMahon then raised Mr Smith on his shoulders and carried him to safety. Mr Smith then saw the footage for the first time on a BBC documentary 27 years later
To get the chance to finally meet him after all this time... and say thank you - it just means the world to me, really.
As previously reported, Mr Smith, from Kirkby, initially wrote on the social media site: 'The man whose shoulders I am on is the man who helped save my life at Hillsborough!
'I've never in 27 years seen this image until the documentary just released, and it's thrown me big time.
'I would love to find this man and thank him for what he did for me that day.'
A father of one who is thought to have links to an outlaw motorcycle gang was fatally shot while taking out the rubbish at his house in Sydney.
Adrian Buxton, who is in his 30s, was gunned down outside his house in the western Sydney suburb of Colyton on Thursday night.
His wife and young son were inside at the time of the shooting.
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Adrian Buxton, a father of one in his 30s, was gunned down outside his house in western Sydney
Emergency services were called to Coral Pea Court just after 9pm, but could not save Mr Buxton
It is understood that Mr Buxton was known to police and may have had links to Nomads Outlaw Motorcycle Club in the past. He is not an active member.
Emergency services were called to Coral Pea Court just after 9pm following reports of gunshots.
Officers attached to St Marys Local Area Command found Mr Buxton lying on a nature strip with gunshot wounds.
He was treated by paramedics but died at the scene.
He is believed to have been shot in the head, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Mr Buxton was fatally shot while taking out his rubbish. His wife and child were inside their family home
A NSW Police spokesperson said it was still too early to establish a motive for the shooting
Police, including forensic and ballistic specialists, are combing the area for clues and have launched Strikeforce Thistleton to investigate the murder.
A NSW Police spokesperson said it was still too early to establish a motive and police could not say if Mr Buxton was targetted.
St Mary's Police Superintendent Greg Peters said a witness reported people running from the scene.
'He was taking out his rubbish, the garbage bin, because it was garbage night,' he told the ABC.
Investigators would also examine CCTV footage recorded at the property, Superintendent Peters said.
No one has been arrested in relation to the killing.
Police are still searching for the gunman and no one has been arrested in relation to the murder yet
The passengers on a flight from the Dominican Republic to Canada were sent into a panic after it emerged the plane had two very odd stowaways: a pair of giant tarantulas.
Catherine Moreau, of Repentigny, outside Montreal, was watching a movie when she felt a wire brushing against her leg during the flight on April 18.
'I brushed (it) away and it started tickling me again,' she told CBC News Friday. 'That's when I noticed the tarantula. I hit it to get it off me before it bit.'
Stowaway: Two spiders, believed to be Hispaniolan Giant Tarantulas (pictured), terrified passengers on a flight from the Dominican Republic to Canada in April. It's thought a passenger was trying to bring them home
Scared: Catherine Moreau (pictured) was the first to discover the spiders when one of them crawled up her leg. She said she swatted the creature off her leg so it wouldn't bite her - but then it ran to her daughter's luggage
The fuzzy stowaway - thought to be a particularly aggressive breed of tarantula - scampered off under her daughter's luggage, where Moreau's husband was able to trap it in tupperware and asked for a bag to put it in.
'It took a long time from when we screamed to get a bag,' Moreau said. But that was just the beginning of the flight's troubles, as it turned out it had a partner in crime also lurking in the plane.
Passngers screamed and stood on their seats, CBC said, while flight attendents tried to calm them down, telling them to put on shoes and pull up socks to keep the fuzzy menaces from taking a bite.
Moreau had already suffered three scratches from the spider and her 11-year-old daughter was left in shock, she said.
And while the second spider was caught after the plane made a safe landing in Montreal's Trudeau Airport, Moreau told CBC she's not happy with the service she received.
She claims the airline stopped her from taking a photo that would allow her to identify the species; that they never gave her a promised report identifying the species; and that they haven't replied to the letter of complaint she sent a week ago.
She's now asking for a refund for the four tickets her family bought.
Air Transat told the channel that passengers 'reacted calmly' and that 'staff reacted promptly and efficiently' in 'an unusual and isolated event'.
However, it admitted that it didn't have a specific procedure for such incidents, and would develop one.
Etienne Normandin, an entomologist at the University of Montreal, told CBC that the spiders were most likely Hispaniolan Giant Tarantulas, a species common to the Dominican Republic.
They're often bought for their attractive blue coats, he said, suggesting that they might have escaped from a passenger's luggage.
Their venom is not dangerous, he said, although the species is aggressive.
THE suspected head of an international people-smuggling ring which is believed to have brought hundreds of migrants into Britain illegally has been arrested.
Iraqi-born Rekawt Kayani, 34, was one of three men held under a European Arrest Warrant after a joint investigation between British and French authorities, and now faces extradition.
Kayani, apprehended at his home in Derby on Wednesday morning, is accused of organising several large-scale smuggling runs.
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Iraqi-born Rekawt Kayani, 34, pictured being apprehended at his home in Derby. He is accused of organising large-scale smuggling runs into Britain
These include one last June when 68 migrants were found inside four lorries at the port of Harwich, Suffolk, according to the National Crime Agency, Britain's FBI.
Thirty-five of the migrants were from Afghanistan, 22 from China, 10 from Vietnam and one was from Russia.
Officers also believe he orchestrated runs from Dieppe to Newhaven, the agency said, and in January 2016 seven migrants - five from Vietnam and two from Iraq - were found crammed inside a concealed compartment in the back of a van.
Kayani, who now faces extradition to France, appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London on Thursday. He has been remanded in custody until a hearing on July 5.
NCA officer Mick Pope said: 'Kayani was targeted by the UK Organised Immigration Crime Taskforce as we believe he is responsible for smuggling hundreds of migrants into the UK.
'We will continue to work with agencies in the UK and overseas to target anyone that preys on vulnerable people in order to line their own pockets.'
The two other men arrested - a 29-year-old from Derby and a 32-year-old from Gillingham - have been released on bail pending further enquiries.
Kayani, who was granted British citizenship three years ago, is reported to have arrived in Britain as an asylum seeker in 2003. He is the fifth major suspect arrested on suspicion of people smuggling by the NCA in the last year.
His arrest was made under Project Invigor, an immigration crime taskforce through which British police work with counterparts across the continent.
In one case, reportedly organised by Kayani, seven migrants hid in a concealed compartment in a van. The migrants, five from Vietnam and two from Iraq, were found in January this year
Hidden away: Now Kayani, who will remain in custody until a hearing on July 5, faces extradition to France
Kayani is believed to have travelled to migrant camps on the Channel Coast, Athens and Iraq to build a 'prolific' people smuggling network, The Times reported.
As well as using Harwich, he is believed to have organised smuggling of migrants using the Dieppe-Newhaven Channel crossing. Seven migrants were found in a concealed compartment of a van which had been stopped after making the crossing to Britain.
Under Project Invigor, British police have been working in parts of Europe including Greece and Sicily, and are also working with authorities in African countries which many of the migrants come from.
Over the last year, there were more than 1,400 people-smuggling investigations logged by Europol, involving 29,000 suspects.
Other suspects arrested in Britain for alleged people smuggling have included Jamal Owda, 26, a Palestinian.
He was detained in December last year at a Liverpool asylum-seekers' hostel, accused of running a trafficking operation which made 7 million from transporting migrants from Syria.
Owda, one of 23 people arrested across Europe in an operation coordinated by Europol, is currently fighting extradition to Greece on human rights grounds.
And Marian Shkirko, 33, was arrested in January on people-smuggling charges and suspicion of involvement in the murder of a Lithuanian lorry driver in Belgium.
A 14-year-old boy has been missing from his home for five days.
The boy, who has friends in Logan, Queensland, was last seen in Acacia Ridge, on the outskirts of Brisbane.
Police are now asking for assistance in locating the boy, who vanished on Monday.
A 14-year-old boy is missing from his home at Slacks Creek, Queensland. Police are urging anyone with information about his whereabouts to come forward
The teenager is 150cm tall, thinly built and has light skin. He has light brown hair and brown eyes.
His family say he has not contacted them since Monday and police encourage anyone who has seen him or who may have information on his whereabouts to contact Crimestoppers on 1800 333 000.
A new boutique hotel is being used to put up homeless men in New York City - on the taxpayer's dime.
The BKLYN House opened in Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood six months ago, boasting 'loft-style' rooms that go for up to $500-a-night and '24/7 Concierge service'.
But since November 23, 44 of its 113 rooms have been reserved for men who are employed or are seeking employment at the cost of $168 per night.
Boutique shelter: Since opening in November, 44 of the 113 rooms at the BKLYN House have been reserved for homeless men, costing the taxpayer $168 per night per room. Pictured: one of the hotel's rooms
New: The BKLYN House boasts 'loft-style' rooms that go for up to $500-a-night and '24/7 Concierge service'
The new hotel (lobby pictured) is located in Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood, which is slowly gentrifying but still has a reputation of being 'edgy' and 'artsy'
A spokesman for the Department of Homeless Services confirmed to Daily Mail Online that the city has 'temporarily' rented some of the rooms.
There are two men in each room. Their service management is being provided by social services company BEDCO.
The news will come as some embarrassment to Mayor Bill de Blasio just months after he insisted hotels would not be used to house homeless people.
His promise was a bid to reassure tourists and residents after a triple murder at the Ramada Inn, a Staten Island hotel, in February, that left a mother and her two daughters dead.
De Blasio is struggling to handle the rocketing numbers of homeless people in New York.
Last year, the city recorded its highest level of homelessness since the Great Depression, with 56,000 people in shelters.
But the mayor's latest blunder has been welcomed by the homeless men staying in the BKLYN House.
'Its great, especially compared to regular shelters where there is 20 people or more to a room, where it smells and you cant sleep,' Eddie, one of the men, told the New York Post.
'Here, its two to a room and I can sleep well, which leaves me more energized for work.'
Tourists complained the other occupants of the hotel in some of the reviews online.
'The halls smelled like smoke in spite of the no smoking signs,' wrote LizDeSol on TripAdvisor.
'As we were waiting for the elevator an occupant was talking about drugs on the phone pacing the halls barefoot.'
De Blasio is struggling to handle the rocketing numbers of homeless people in New York - now the highest proportion in the country
De Blasio is struggling to handle the rocketing numbers of homeless people in New York. Last year, the city recorded its highest level of homelessness since the Great Depression, with 56,000 people in shelters
And one reviewer by the name of Carlos said he liked the hotel overall but 'some strange people gathers around the hotel overnight'.
Lauren Gray, a communications officer for the NYC Department of Homeless Services, defended the set up in a statement emailed to Daily Mail Online.
'The City has made a public commitment to end the decades-old policy of using commercial hotels to shelter New York City's homeless,' Gray said.
'Given the current lack of affordable housing and wages not keeping pace with rent, these ongoing changes will require sustained financial commitment.'
If you're under the weather from a night on the town, there's new hangover cure to soothe your woes.
A convenience store in South Korea has released the world's first ice cream marketed to combat the after effects of drinking or rather over drinking alcohol.
Gyeondyo-bar, which translates as 'hang in there,' is a grapefruit-flavoured frozen lollipop containing ancient hangover remedy ingredients.
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A convenience store in South Korea has released the world's first ice cream marketed to combat the after effects of drinking
Gyeondyo-bar, which translates as 'hang in there,' is a grapefruit-flavoured frozen lollipop marketed to combat the after-effects of alcohol
The dessert contains 0.7% oriental raisin tree fruit juice, an alcohol after-effect medicine cited in a Korean medicine book from the 17th century.
A 2012 article in the Journal of Neuroscience found the juice reduced symptoms of intoxication in rats.
South Korean's are the top drinkers of hard liquor in the world and Asia's biggest per capita alcohol consumers, rendering hangover cures a lucrative business.
An array of pills, beverages to cosmetics for women who want to keep their skin fresh after a big night draw in about 150 billion won ($126 million) in annual sales.
The most popular hangover product is a drink called Hut-gae Condition which is sold in China, Japan, and Vietnam.
The beverage featured in the viral music video 'Hangover,' by Korean YouTube King Psy and U.S. rapper Snoop Dogg.
The dessert contains 0.7% oriental raisin tree fruit juice, an alcohol after-effect medicine cited in a Korean medicine book from the 17th century
A 2012 article in the Journal of Neuroscience found the ingredients used in the ice cream reduced symptoms of intoxication in rats
A woman who was hit and killed by a truck on Friday was dragged for 600 metres along a busy Sydney road before anyone realised.
Emergency services were called to the Northern Beaches just before 9am after Jo-Ann Thwaites, 61, was hit by a 36-year-old truck driver while trying to cross the road.
The driver fled the scene, leaving her lying on the intersection between Pittwater Road and Condamine Street.
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Jo-Ann Thwaites' body was dragged along a busy Sydney road for 600m before anyone realised
It is yet another huge loss for her adult children, who lost their father to suicide in 2013 after he served 40 years in the army
Almost immediately after, a second Izuzu truck hit the Sydney woman and dragged her under his truck for about 600 metres, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
This is the second huge loss in three years for Ms Thwaites' children, who lost their father to suicide in 2013.
The second driver stopped once he realised what had happened. Police escorted him to hospital for blood and alcohol testing, and he has not been charged.
The first driver has been charged with negligent driving occasioning death and failing to stop and render aid after impact causing death.
He has been granted conditional bail and will appear in Manly Local Court on June 15
Investigations by NSW Police revealed Ms Thwaites was hit by two trucks in a row. It was originally believed only one truck had hit her.
The first truck driver allegedly did not stop, while the second truck did.
Traffic diversions were in place with northbound lanes of Pittwater Rd closed after the fatal crash and motorists diverted via Old Pittwater Rd.
Busses were experiencing delays of up to one hour, according to livetraffic.com, with some services cancelled all together due to the accident.
A report will be prepared for the Coroner.
Jo-Ann Thwaites, 61, was killed on Pittwater Road in Brookvale in Sydney's north-shore after she was struck by a truck (pictured)
Investigations by NSW Police revealed Ms Thwaites was hit by two Isuzu trucks in a row. It was originally believed only one truck had hit her
The pedestrian died at the scene while the 57-year-old man driving the truck north was unharmed, NSW Police said in a statement
The meeting was moderated by property developer John Boyd in Sydney
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has taken a step towards ending a two-year feud with radio broadcaster Alan Jones.
Mr Turnbull made a last minute decision to change his campaign schedule so he could spend a long lunch with Mr Jones on Thursday, The Saturday Telegraph reported.
It is understood that the meeting was moderated by property developer John Boyd, at his ANZ Tower penthouse in Sydney.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (right) has taken a step towards ending a two-year feud with radio broadcaster Alan Jones (left)
A source said Mr Turnbull agreed to appear on Jones 2GB breakfast program on Wednesday for the first time since an on-air argument in 2014, the publication reported.
The lunch started with a fierce exchange and the chef was forced to put meals on hold in the belief that the meeting would not last long, the publication reported.
The pair settled down and began lunch after Mr Boyds wife Marley entered the room with their 12-month-old baby.
The two ended lunch on good terms at 4pm.
It is understood that the meeting was moderated by property developer John Boyd (right), at his ANZ Tower penthouse in Sydney where he lives with his wife Marley (left)
It is believed the Coalition campaign team wanted a truce to be reached before the election campaign began.
Mr Turnbull and Mr Jones were due to meet before the campaign started however the meeting was delayed.
A senior colleague of the PM welcomed their lunch on Thursday, The Saturday Telegraph reported.
The lunch at ANZ Towers (pictured) started with a fierce exchange and the chef was forced to put meals on hold in the belief that the meeting would not last long
DiCaprio, who devoted his Oscars speech to climate change, took six private jets in six weeks in 2014 according to leaked documents
But a source told Page Six the actor didn't book his own trips but instead 'hitched a ride' with someone doing the same journey
Appeared in France again the next day for the amfAR Gala, where he auctioned off a week long stay at his Palm Springs residence
Went back to New York City on Wednesday to receive an award#
The actor and environmentalist was spotted this week in Cannes
Leonardo DiCaprio took a private jet twice to pick up an environmental award in New York - before flying back to a glitzy gala in France.
The actor and environmentalist, 41, was spotted this week in Cannes, where the Film Festival is currently underway.
But he left the French Riviera for a brief trip to New York City, where he collected an honor at the Riverkeeper Fishermen's Ball on Wednesday, Page Six reported.
He then hopped back on another private jet to attend the amfAR gala in Antibes, about eight miles from Cannes, just 24 hours later.
DiCaprio has been accused of hypocrisy as he can often be heard preaching about saving the environment and fighting climate change - while taking private jets to do so.
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Monday: Leonardo DiCaprio was spotted at the Hotel du Cap Eden-Roc in Antibes, not far from Cannes in France, where the Film Festival is currently underway
Wednesday: the actor and environmentalist flew to New York City to attend the Riverkeeper Fishermen's Ball, where he and Ralph Lauren (right) were this year's honoree. Robert De Niro (second from left) and Robert F Kennedy Jr (third from left) also attended
The actor, who turned his Oscars speech into a pressing warning against climate change in February, accumulated more than 8,000 of air travel in just a couple of days.
He was seen in Cannes earlier this week, enjoying some downtime in his hotel and dancing at the Gotha club on Monday.
But he flew back to New York City on Wednesday to attend the Riverkeeper Fishermens Ball.
The environmental group picked DiCaprio and Ralph Lauren as this year's two honorees.
Andy Cohen hosted the event at Chelsea Piers, while Sting performed and Robert De Niro introduced a short film by fellows of the Tribeca Film Institute.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the group's chief prosecuting attorney, also attended the ball.
DiCaprio posted a picture of the event on Instagram - on which he describes himself as an 'actor and environmentalist - and wrote in the caption: 'It was an honor to join Ralph Lauren, Robert De Niro, Robert F Kennedy Jr & more to support Riverkeepers critical work to create and protect a healthier future for millions of people.'
The actor (pictured stepping out of a private jet in 2013 in Nice, France) took six private jets in just six weeks in 2014, flying between Los Angeles, New York and Las Vegas according to emails leaked from Sony
His foundation, which pledged $15 million to improving the environment in January at the World Economic Forum, announced plans to give a $100,000 grant to Riverkeeper.
But DiCaprio was back in France just 24 hours later for amfARs 2016 Cinema Against AIDS Gala at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, not far from Cannes.
He raised $336,000 for the fundraiser by auctioning off a week-long stay at his Palm Springs residence - even though he won't be there when the guests arrive.
The actor, who said climate change was the 'most urgent threat facing our entire species' during his Oscar acceptance speech, has been repeatedly criticized for his use of jets and yachts.
Environmental analyst Robert Rapier told Page Six DiCaprio's lifestyle 'diminishes his moral authority to lecture others on reducing their own carbon emissions.
Rapier added: '[He] demonstrates exactly why our consumption of fossil fuels continues to grow. Its because everyone loves the combination of cost and convenience they offer.
'Alternatives usually require sacrifice of one form or another... Everybody says, "Ive got a good reason for consuming what I consume".'
Thursday: DiCaprio flew back to France to attend amfAR's Cinema Against AIDS Gala in Antibes, where he auctioned off a week-long stay at his Palm Springs residence for $336,000
The amount of fuel burnt by a private jet depends on the size and model of the plane. Larger aircraft require more fuel, and more recent models tend to burn less fuel per hour than older ones.
A light jet can go through 77 to 239 gallons of fuel per hour according to Sherpareport, whereas a long-range jet will burn between 358 and 672 gallons of fuel during the same time.
The Cessna Citation Excel, a popular corporate jet with a medium size, would need 800 gallons of fuel for a long-haul flight with four passengers on board, Slate reported in 2008.
DiCaprio was slammed last year by RadarOnline, which reported he had taken six private jets in just six weeks in 2014.
Emails leaked from Sony at the time stated DiCaprio had accumulated more than $200,000 worth of private jet travel between April and May, taking two round trips from Los Angeles to New York, then one from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
The actor's private jet trips undermine his moral authority to preach reducing carbon emissions, environmental analyst Robert Rapier told Page Six.
DiCaprio (pictured) flew back to New York City on Wednesday to attend the Riverkeeper Fishermens Ball
DiCaprio's rep didn't comment to the website.
But a source close to the star said DiCaprio didn't fly the plane on his own or organize his own flights, but instead 'hitched a ride' with someone doing the same itinerary.
'Hitching a ride was the only way he could make it in time for both events,' the source told Page Six.
The actor was also criticized in July last year when he spent a week sailing around the Mediterranean on his luxury yacht - right after receiving another award for his environmental work.
Prince Albert II of Monaco gave DiCaprio the Mediation Division award in Monte Carlo, just before the actor hosted his foundation's second fundraiser in the south of France, raising $40 million.
The actor was then spotted traveling on his personal yacht in various places around the Mediterranean - including Saint Tropez in France and Sardinia in Italy.
A source close to the Oscar winner said he 'hitched a ride' to Cannes rather than chartering his own flight.
He attempted to land the plane on a small patch of open land in a Des Moines farm before it crashed into the hillside
Real Housewives of New York star Carole Radziwill is on her way to Iowa after her boyfriend was injured in a plane crash on Thursday.
Chef Adam Kenworthy, 30, was traveling in a small plane piloted by his father when they were forced to make an emergency landing.
Kenworthy was released from the hospital a few hours after the crash and only suffered minor abrasions.
Real Housewives of New York star Carole Radziwill is on her way to Iowa after her boyfriend Adam Kenworthy was injured in a plane crash on Thursday
Kenworthy, 30, was traveling in a small plane (pictured after the crash) piloted by his father when they had to make an emergency landing in Des Moines just 10 minutes after takeoff
David Kenworthy, 65, reported engine problems shortly before the plane crashed into a hill
'Adam was very lucky. He walked away from the crash,' Radziwill, 52, told PEOPLE magazine.
'He was admitted to the hospital and was released last night. He is doing well.'
David Kenworthy, 65, reported engine problems shortly before the plane crashed into a hillside in Des Moines around 7.30pm on Thursday, according to TMZ.
He suffered serious injuries and remains hospitalized.
'They were both awake and alert and were able to explain what happened,' Des Moines EMS spokesman David Edgar told KCCI.
David reported he was making an emergency landing just 10 minutes after leaving Des Moines Airport, and was attempting to land the plane on a strip of open land in a farm field before the crash.
Kenworthy (pictured with his father on a previous flight) was released from the hospital a few hours after the crash and suffered minor abrasions. His father suffered serious injuries and remains hospitalized
Earlier that day Kenworthy posted an Instagram of the clouds as his father flew them from New York to Iowa
Edgar said David 'did an excellent job' of trying to locate a place to land the plane.
'I think that they probably almost made it over this gully here but didn't quite make it,' he added. 'So I'm sure that his skill in finding a place to land saved their lives.'
The front end of the plane was destroyed in the crash.
Kenworthy, who appears on the current season of Real Housewives of New York, shared an an Instagram video of the clouds passing by as he was high up in the sky with his father yesterday.
A friend told PEOPLE magazine that Adam is currently shaken up but resting now 'at home' and that 'everyone will be okay'.
Radziwill lost her close friends John F Kennedy Jr and his wife Carolyn Bessette in a tragic plane crash in 1999.
JFK Jr was the cousin of Carole's husband Anthony Radziwill, who lost his battle with cancer just three weeks after the crash.
Radziwill began dating Kenworthy last year and has frequently discussed their relationship on the show.
Plummeting milk prices could leave dairy farmers $180,000 out of pocket but consumers are trying to soften the blow by buying expensive home-grown milk.
Dairy farmers across Australia are facing huge financial hardship after industry giants Fonterra and Murray Goulburn simultaneously slashed milk prices.
Although a movement to help farmers through buying more expensive brands has seen massive support, new figures reveal the inevitable economic toll of the cuts, reported The Age.
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As farmers stare down the barrel of a record drop in milk prices, Australian consumers are buying expensive home-grown brands in a show of solidarity. This photo shows empty shelves of milk in the farming heartland of Lilydale, Victoria
The figures come from the farming shire of Gannawarra in northern Victoria, where agriculture makes up a quarter of the economy.
The shire has calculated that collapsing milk prices will cost each farmer $180,000, leaving the region with a $25million hole in its books.
It is also estimated that 250 jobs will be slashed as farmers cut costs to stay in business.
Local mayor Lorraine Learmonth told The Age: Most of our small towns have been built on the prosperity of dairy farming over the years.
If the dairy farmers are all tightening their belts it will be felt across all our feed mills and our retailers, our vets, even down to our schools.
Its the most important aspect of our local economy.
Cheap milk has been left on the shelves of this Woolworths in the rural town of Bowral, NSW
Dairy farmer Gary Wright, a supplier to Murray Goulburn, said the price cuts would be devastating.
He said: We have to shut down spending wherever we can. I've put my weekend milkers off already. Anything that I don't have to spend on, I won't spend. I just can't, I haven't got it.
A lot of us don't have a lot of choice. Just hopefully we can ride it out and the world price will improve.
Hopefully we can have a lower cost season and we'll survive.
Josh Hargans posted this picture of himself with a bottle of Farmers Own milk to the Love My Milk Facebook page
Karen Ellul shared this photo supporting dairy farmers to the Love My Milk facebook page
With farmers staring down the barrel of a record loss, consumers across Australia have been neglecting cheap foreign milk in favour of more expensive home-grown brands.
Pictures posted under the #LoveMyMilk twitter handle show Australian brands have been flying off the shelves while cheaper milk is ignored.
Retail expert Dr Gary Mortimer said the trend was the opposite of the supermarket wars started in 2011.
He said: Shoppers have consistently and routinely been grabbing the cheap milk since January 2011 when the supermarket 'milk wars' first began.
[But now] we feel good about using social media to let others know we didn't buy the cheap milk and therefore supported dairy farmers.
This, in turn, encourages our friends and family to emulate our behaviour and to tell everyone and so the movement grows.
A facebook user shared this photo of a Woolworth's in Mudgee, in New South Wales, where cheap milk was left untouched on shelves
A Camperdown Woolworths has it's branded milk shelves cleared due to support from consumers
LoveMyMilk Facebook pageshared this photo with the caption 'Confused which products you should buy? Look out for these brands. Support dairy farmers when you buy your cheese, butter, cream, yogurt, milk Etc'
broke into the home, stealing items before starting the fire
Police have released an image of a
Police have released an image of a blackened bedroom, seeking assistance from the public regarding a possible arson attack.
Arson squad officers are investigating a house fire that broke out on Friday morning at a home in Heathridge, north of Perth.
Firefighters were called to the Balanus Way address about 11.30am after the caller reported seeing smoke coming from the roof.
Police have released an image of a blackened bedroom (pictured), seeking assistance from the public regarding a possible arson attack
Unknown persons broke into the home between 11am and 11:15am, stealing electronic devices and an engagement ring before setting fire to items in a room.
No one was home at the time of the fire.
Damage to the home is estimated at $100,000.
Anyone with any information is asked to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
A drone has captured beautiful footage showing a pod of 30 dolphins swimming off the western coast of Japan.
The pod of pacific white-sided dolphins gracefully move through the harbour in a display that looks choreographed.
The footage was captured in the Sea of Japan near the city of Joetsu on the island of Hokkaido.
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The white-sided dolphins were filmed swimming off the west coast of Japan near the city of Joetsu
The drone hovers above the harbour and captures the dolphins in a sweeping motion, which shows the sheer scale of their 30-strong pod.
White-sided dolphins can swim as fast as 20 miles per hour, with the filmer commenting that he had a hard time keeping up with the pod.
The filmer said the dolphins were likely in the Joetsu harbour to hunt for fish such as salmon and anchovies.
At least 30 dolphins were filmed swimming in the harbour - were they frequently hunt for fish such as salmon
White-sided dolphins are a social species which can live in pods of up to 100 individuals
White-sided dolphins are a social species that live in pods ranging from 10 to 100 in size.
They prefer deeper, temperate waters and are found throughout the North Pacific.
They are not an endangered species and their population has been estimated to be as large as 1 million.
Viacom's CEO and director have been kicked off the trust that is set to take control of Viacom and CBS in an apparent battle for control of the companies.
Sumner Redstone, 92, whose family owns an 80 percent stake in both companies, ejected Viacom's CEO, Philippe Dauman, 62, and director, George S. Abrams, 82, on Friday evening, notifying the pair by fax.
The move would benefit Redstone's once-estranged daughter, Shari Redstone, 62, who would take over the trust, leaving some to believe she's the brains behind the move, The Hollywood Reporter said.
Family business: Sumner Redstone (pictured, with Megan Fox), 92, has dismissed the CEO and director of Viacom from the trust that will control both that station and CBS when he steps down
Ousted: Viacom's CEO Philippe Dauman (left) and director George Abrams (right) believe the move was orchestrated by Redstone's formerly estranged daughter, Shari, as they have known Redstone for years
As well as being removed from the seven-person trust that will take over when Redstone steps down, Dauman and Abrams were also dismissed from their positions as directors of National Amusements.
That's the Redstone-family-owned holding company that holds an 80 percent stake in Viacom and CBS, and controls Redstone's $40billion media empire.
The seven-person trust includes Shari Redstone, her son Tyler, and her mom's divorce attorney, Fortune reported. If Dauman and Abrams are replaced with proxies for Shari, she will have full control.
Shari Redstone has issues with Dauman's leadership, The Hollywood Reporter said.
'These steps are invalid and illegal,' Dauman claimed through a spokesperson. 'They are a shameful effort by Shari Redstone to seize control by unlawfully using her ailing father Sumner Redstones name and signature.
'As she knows, and as court proceedings and other facts have demonstrated, Sumner Redstone now lacks the capacity to have taken these steps.
'Sumner Redstone would never have summarily dismissed Philippe Dauman and George Abrams, his trusted friends and advisors for decades.'
In charge: Shari Redstone (pictured), 62, will have control of the trust once her father steps down, assuming that Dauman and Abrams' replacements are on her side. She had long disagreed with Dauman's appointment
Dauman had been Redstone's personal lawyer and confidant before joining the company.
The move comes after Sumner Redstone stepped down as Viacom's executive chairman in February, letting Dauman take over, despite Shari Redstone's objections.
Redstone stepped down as executive chairman of CBS at the same time as he vacated the position in Viacom, but there he was replaced by Leslie Moonves, with whom Shari Redstone is said to share a much stronger relationship.
Dauman's departure also comes one week after Viacom voted to end Sumner Redstone's annual salary.
That occurred after Manuela Herzer, Redstone's former girlfriend and carer, filed a $50million lawsuit saying he wasn't mentally competent enough to dismiss her and write her out of his will.
The judge found in favour of Redstone on May 9, but didn't specifically rule on his mental competence.
Exactly how competent Sumner Redstone is at present will likely be a matter for the courts, if Dauman and Abrams decide to fight their corner by having him ruled incapacitated.
But that could be tricky.
As well as the Herzer case, Dauman talked publicly about how alert Redstone was when he supported him for the Viacom role in February.
So he and Abrams will have to make a case that Redstone's mental health deteriorated badly - and quickly.
Meanwhile, Shari Redstone's team will point to Viacom's struggling stocks and Dauman's decision to sell off Paramount stock that Redstone had fought to buy two decades ago - a decision Redstone hated.
However it plays out, it'll make for a drama that's as gripping as anything on the trust's TV stations.
A New York City police officer has been stripped of his badge and his gun after brandishing his weapon at bystanders then punching a teenager who was filming the incident.
The plainclothes detective, a member of the 32nd Precinct anticrime unit, will be on modified duty during an investigation into the incident.
He was helping a team of uniformed officers detain an illegal dirt bike rider in a Harlem apartment block on Thursday at 6.40pm.
As he walked out of the building he launched himself at 19-year-old resident Jahnico Harvey, who was filming the raid with his cell phone.
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This is the plainclothes police officer (bald head, shorts) who has been stripped of his gun and his badge after he was filmed punching 19-year-old Jahnico Harvey (right, camouflage jacket) outside a Harlem building
The officer, who was not named, was captured on another bystander's phone camera punching Harvey with his right fist, pulling him to the floor and handcuffing him (pictured). He has now been placed on modified duty
The officer, who was not named, was captured on another bystander's phone camera punching Harvey with his right fist, pulling him to the floor and handcuffing him.
People on the street are heard shouting and protesting as three officers pile on top of Harvey to arrest him.
Harvey was later charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, New York Daily News reported.
Another video taken earlier in the raid captured the unidentified detective brandishing his gun at the crowd of residents.
Calvin West, the man who filmed the incident, told NY1 the officer threatened to shoot.
'Move,' the officer allegedly said to him. 'Get out of here. Im not playing with you all. Ill shoot.'
The incident came after police stopped a driver who had double-parked on St Nicholas Avenue in Harlem.
Arrested: People on the street are heard shouting and protesting as three officers pile on top of Harvey
Charged: Harvey was later charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest
This is the apartment block where the incident took place on Thursday at 6.40pm in Harlem
As they spoke to the man, two men on bikes circled them.
The man and the cyclists then all fled, and the officers chased them, eventually tracking down one of the bikers at the Harlem apartment building.
They detained the biker as residents looked on, filming.
The unarmed black woman shot dead by police in San Francisco has been named as 29-year-old Jessica Williams.
Williams, who lived in the Bay Area, died in hospital on Thursday night, hours after being gunned down as she sat at the wheel of a car.
Her family has been notified of her death, SFGate reported.
A day before the medical examiner confirmed her identity on Friday night, the city's police chief Greg Suhr stepped down after 34 years with the force.
The officer who shot Williams has not been identified.
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Named: The woman shot dead in San Francisco on Thursday has been identified as 29-year-old Jessica Williams. She was reportedly sitting behind the wheel of a stolen car (scene pictured)
Investigators are seen at the site of the shooting on Thursday. It was the third fatal shooting of a suspect by San Francisco police within the past six months
Suhr tendered his resignation following a request from Mayor Ed Lee as a result of a series of controversies.
Police shootings have created mounting racial tensions with minorities and have led to criticism against the department.
A group of officers were also caught sending racist and homophobic text messages to colleagues.
According to reports, Williams was driving a stolen car when she was shot.
A patrol car searching for stolen vehicles turned on its lights and sirens when it one of the officers spotted Williams sitting behind the wheel of a parked car that had been reported stolen.
Police said Williams then tried to drive off, but slammed into a parked truck about 100 feet away in an industrial area.
A witness reported that the officers opened the driver's door and began grabbing her to try to arrest her.
At that point, a sergeant fired one deadly round.
It was the third fatal shooting of a suspect by San Francisco police within the past six months.
The deadly incidents have prompted critics to say police in the city are too quick to use their guns, especially when confronting minorities.
San Francisco's police chief Greg Suhr (pictured) resigned hours after an officer fatally shot Williams
WHAT ELSE LED TO SAN FRANCISCO POLICE CHIEF'S RESIGNATION? Mayor Ed Lee appointed Greg Suhr to the top job in 2011. Suhr steps down after a 36-year career and is being replaced by Deputy Chief Toney Chaplin. It comes after a spate of controversies: 1. In April, it was disclosed that three officers including a lieutenant had exchanged racist text messages. It was the second such scandal to rock the department since 2014 when it came to light that eight officers were exchanging racists and homophobic messages in an unrelated case. Those eight officers remain on duty because a judge ruled that Suhr waited too long to start disciplinary proceedings. The city is appealing. 2. Also in April, police officers fatally shot a homeless Latino man they say was advancing on them with a knife. The death of Luis Gongora, 45, prompted Mayor Ed Lee to propose adding $17.5 million to the police department's budget over the next two years to train officers in de-escalation techniques and other reforms. 3. In December, five officers shoot to death a young black man carrying a knife. Witnesses captured the shooting on video, which was circulated widely online. Suhr initially said it appeared that the suspect raised the knife in a threatening manner before he was shot. Video appears to contradict the chief's account, showing Mario Woods, 26, trying to limp away from officers with the knife at his side. 4. Last year, the city paid $725,000 to settle a wrongful termination lawsuit by a former department lawyer who Suhr fired soon after he was appointed chief in 2011. The lawyer recommended that then-deputy chief Suhr be fired for failing to report a domestic violence incident he was aware of in 2009. Instead of being fired, Suhr was demoted to captain. Source: Associated Press Advertisement
The shooting of Mario Woods, a black man suspected in a stabbing, in December promoted a backlash against the department.
Protesters demanding Suhr's resignation drowned out the mayor's second inaugural speech in January, and demonstrators forced the mayor to abandon a planned speech on Martin Luther King Jr. Day later that month.
Nonetheless, the mayor stood behind the chief, and the two announced a series of reforms aimed at reducing police shootings.
The two also called in the U.S. Department of Justice to review the department's policy and procedures.
But Suhr lost Lee's backing Thursday and asked for his resignation.
'This is exactly the kind of thing with all the reforms we are trying to prevent,' Suhr said Thursday, less than two hours after the shooting and before he resigned.
'The progress we've made has been meaningful, but it hasn't been fast enough,' Lee said in a brief statement at City Hall. 'Not for me, not for Greg.'
Suhr could not be reached for comment Thursday. Lee named former deputy chief Toney Chaplin, who is black, as the new chief.
He said in a statement: 'I have previously expressed confidence in Chief Suhr because I know he agrees with and understands the need for reform.
'But following this morning's officer-involved shooting and my meeting with Chief Suhr this afternoon, today I have arrived at a different question of how best to move forward.'
Chaplin had the confidence of at least one key supporter.
'Toney Chaplin has the charisma, chemistry and courage to lead this department,' said Rev. Amos Brown, the president of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP.
Rev. Brown had also supported Suhr through the department's difficulties, and said the police's problems 'are bigger than one man.'
Lee appointed Suhr chief in 2011. He was a 34-year veteran of the department who rose through the ranks despite several professional missteps.
Lee (left) named former deputy chief Toney Chaplin (right) as the new chief
Video courtesy: KRON
He was demoted from deputy chief to captain in 2009 after failing to file a police report after a female friend told him she had been assaulted by her boyfriend.
The city last year paid $725,000 to settle a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by a former department lawyer who recommended Suhr be fired for failing to report his friend's assault. When Suhr became chief, he fired the lawyer.
Suhr was also re-assigned from head of patrol in 2005 to guarding the city's water supply, which was widely viewed as a demotion.
Two years earlier, he was one of several officers indicted in the city's so-called 'Fajitagate' for allegedly trying to cover up an investigation of three off-duty officers who had beaten up a waiter and took his bag of Mexican food. The indictment was tossed out.
He said Wilson's speech was slurred and she had to physically be carried to the patrol car
Eitel put the flames out with an extinguisher and then heard Wilson yell 'please help my baby'
Just a minute later it blew past a stop sign and hit two utility poles before flipping over and catching on fire
Trooper Sean Eitel began following her car after he saw it swerving across the road on State Route 16 on Tuesday night
Brandy Wilson, 35, has been charged with a DUI and child endangerment
Brandy Wilson, 35, has been arrested for allegedly driving drunk and crashing her car with her four-month-old son inside
This is the incredible moment an Ohio State Trooper rescued a four-month-old baby boy hanging upside from his car seat, after his mother allegedly drove drunk and crashed in an intersection.
When Trooper Sean Eitel saw a vehicle driving erratically on State Route 16 on Tuesday night, he immediately turned his car around and began to follow it.
Brandy Wilson, 35, was behind the wheel of the car. Eitel followed her for a minute, his dashcam video capturing every moment she swerved across the center line as he flashed his lights.
Just a minute after he began following her, Wilson ran a stop sign and hit a utility pole. The impact spun the car sideways and she hit a second pole, causing the car to flip over and crash.
'Her vehicle was so out of control, it was like it was just a pinball,' Eitel told NBC 4i.
It immediately caught on fire.
Eitel grabbed a fire extinguisher from his car and put out the flames. Wilson had taken off her seatbelt and dropped to the ground, immediately heading for the back of the car.
That's when he heard Wilson asking about her baby.
'My baby, my son,' she repeatedly screams throughout the dashcam video footage. 'Please help my baby.'
Wilson's car was spotted by Ohio State Trooper Sean Eitel, who saw the vehicle driving erratically on State Route 16 on Tuesday night. Just a minute later, he saw the car blow through a stop sign (pictured right)
That's when Wilson hit a utility pole. The impact spun the car sideways and she hit a second pole, causing the car to flip over and crash
The car immediately caught on fire (pictured) and Eitel immediately grabbed the fire extinguisher from his car to put out the flames. He then heard Wilson say, 'My baby' and realized someone was still inside
'I'm still thinking, "Is this car going to catch back on fire, is it going to explode'", Eitel said of the moment he found the baby hanging by his car seat belt.
'I don't know. So I just wanted to get him out.'
Eitel cut the baby out of the car seat with his pocket knife, he told WBNS.
The officer then took the baby to the safety of his car. But Wilson continued to ask him where her son was, begging him to help her baby.
She then begins to explain that she had been on the way to pick up her fiance from work.
Eitel said Wilson had slurred speech and breath that smelled of alcohol. She could not 'walk on her own two feet' and had be physically carried to his patrol car.
After Eitel brought Wilson's baby to safety, he had to physically help carry her to his patrol car
Eitel (pictured) said Wilson had slurred speech and breath that smelled of alcohol
'I've done nothing wrong,' Wilson can be heard saying in the video. 'Actually, you have,' a trooper tells her.
Neither Wilson or her son suffered injuries during the crash. The baby boy was left with family.
Wilson has been charged with operating a vehicle under the influence, driving under suspension, reckless operation, failure to yield, failure to comply and two counts of child endangerment.
Obaidullah, 37, was arrested in Afghanistan in 2002 after being found with 23 landmines and was linked to an Al Qaeda bomb cell, a claim his lawyers deny
A trained bomb maker from Afghanistan who was once suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda is set to be freed from Guantanamo Bay.
The 37-year-old, known only as Obaidullah, was arrested in Khowst in 2002 along with two cousins after troops raided his home and found 23 landmines and detailed instructions on how to use them.
Now after 15 years behind bars he is due to be released after a Periodic Review Board (PBR) said he 'has not expressed any intent to re-engage in terrorist activities.'
According to his detention file, on the New York Times website, Obaidullah grew up in Khowst but was forced to flee with his family to Pakistan when he was a child after the Soviet invasion.
Returning home after the conflict, he claims a communist commander living in his family home had left landmines and explosives behind, which is how he first came into contact with them.
In the early 2000s, Obaidullah claims he was forced into the Taliban Army and send to a training school for explosives experts, where he stayed for two days before running away.
He claims to have tried to avoid the Taliban until he ended up working at a grocery in his home town.
In 2002, the documents say Obaidullah was offered money to plant landmines around the town, and given him instructions on how to remotely detonate them by a known terrorist.
Shortly afterwards, aged around 19, Obaidullah was arrested in the U.S. raid and taken into custody where he has remained without trial since.
After interrogating him, Army investigators ruled most of the latter part of his account to be false, saying he was deliberately evasive in his answers and retracted statements several times.
He was then linked to an Al Qaeda bomb cell, though his lawyers have denied these allegations.
He was charged in the military tribunals in September 2008 with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism.
A Periodic Review Board ruled that while Obaidullah has 'failed to demonstrate sufficient candor' about his activities before his arrest, he 'has not expressed any intent to re-engage in terrorist activities'
However, appeals courts have said can't be charged as war crimes at Guantanamo for conduct that occurred before 2006.
The government dismissed the charges in 2011 and his lawyers have been pressing for his release ever since.
Obaidullah appeared before the PRB in April, part of an Obama administration attempt release some prisoners held without charge as part of the effort to close the prison in Cuba.
A press release on the Pentagon website says that while Obaidullah has 'failed to demonstrate sufficient candor' about his activities before his arrest, 'the risk the detainee presents can be adequately mitigated.'
It says: 'The Board noted that the detainee has not expressed any intent to re-engage in terrorist activities, has not espoused any anti-US sentiment that would indicate he views the US as his enemy, that neither the detainee nor his family have any ties to extremists outside of Guantanamo, and that the detainee has been mostly compliant while at Guantanamo.
'The Board also considered the multiple letters of support for the detainee, to include the willingness to provide the detainee financial and integration support upon transfer, the detainee's efforts to take advantage of education opportunities while at Guantanamo, and the detainee's positive and constructive leadership in detention.'
While the release does not make it clear where Obaidullah will be released to, it says: 'Preferably to a country with an integration program, strong monitoring program, and an ability to keep the detainee productively engaged.'
Malcolm Turnbull took to the streets of on Saturday for a meet and greet on the Central Coast.
Flanked by local MP Karen McNamara, he was there to announce a berth of new funding to clean up the Dobell electorate, but didn't mind posing for a few pictures too.
Tuggerah resident Ellen Bridge said she was delighted with the announcement of the funding.
'I've not seen anyone (swimming here) for quite some time but you used to be able to,' she said.
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He was a hit with the locals, who said they were grateful for clean-up work and the NBN, which let local Vince Allport work from home
Malcolm Turnbull visited the Dobell electorate to announce a $30m plan for the community alongside local MP Karen McNamara
The pair greeted and chatted with locals at Long Jetty in Tuggerah on the Central Coast on Saturday
The Prime Minister greeted eight-month-old Frankie Bridge, who with mum Ellen happened to be wandering past Saturday's prime ministerial media event on the lake foreshores in the electorate of Dobell.
Ms Bridge of Long Jetty welcomed any move to clean up the lakes.
'They have done a lot of work cleaning it up and it smells lovely and fresh and clean and the wildlife are coming back.'
The government plans to spend $3 million on the ongoing clean-up of the Tuggerah Lakes, including cleaning foreshores and installing pollutant traps.
It's part of the $30 million package announced on Saturday, which includes $1 million to help surf lifesaving clubs upgrade outboard motors on their rescue vessels, $5 million to help community organisations adopt solar power and $24 million for local park and environment improvements.
Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister attended the farmers markets at the Wyong racecourse
The PM also met locals Frances and Vince Allport from Killarney Vale out on their walk.
'We walk here a few times a week for exercise. So we just happened across it,' she said.
Vince said what had been done to the lake had been really good, as was the NBN which allowed him to work from home without travelling to Sydney.
Earlier in the day, Mr Turnbull visited the local farmers' market at Wyong Racecourse, sampling some ginger honey and club cheddar cheese.
He declined to sample some Hunter Valley wine however, saying it was too early in the day.
The PM tasted some of the fresh foods on offer at the farmers market, but declined a glass of wine
He appeared to be a favourite with the children, as he squatted down to speak to his new friend
He was called out by one local complaining about Medicare, saying those who were constantly sick would have to pay out their life savings.
'When Medicare stops, it is going to cost a lot of us people who are sick ... and have to constantly pay and it will shorten our lives,' she said.
Mr Turnbull assured her Medicare wasn't being abolished.
'Medicare is not stopping, it is not being cut, spending on Medicare is increasing,' he said.
A woman who grabbed Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and planted a juicy kiss on his lips while he was on the campaign trail has suggested Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is next on her to-kiss list.
Mr Shorten met with locals in Adelaide during his federal election campaign on Tuesday where he met wheelchair-bound Margo Carey, who stopped him to talk about tram access for people with disabilities before giving him a massive smooch in front of news cameras.
Appearing on the Today show on Saturday, Ms Carey spoke about the moment she grabbed Mr Shorten and gave him a kiss on the lips and suggested she would have done the same thing to Mr Turnbull if he had been there.
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Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is kissed by Margo Carey as part of the 2016 election campaign in Adelaide
'I suppose I could, is Malcolm free,' she said.
When asked if she thought Mr Shorten was receptive of her message, Ms Carey replied: 'I don't think he had much of a choice.'
'Isn't it lucky I wasn't angry then.'
She said the response to the stunt had taken her by surprise and she expressed the need for people to be aware of issues with access to public transport for people who had mobility issues.
'I'm actually surprised how the media has reacted to me about one simple little action,' she said.
Ms Carey suggested she would do the same thing had Prime Minister Turnbull been there
When asked if she thought Mr Shorten was receptive of her message, Ms Carey replied: 'I don't think he had much of a choice'
She said the response to the stunt had taken her by surprise and she expressed the need for people to be aware of issues with access to public transport for people who had mobility issues
'I'm actually feeling very ashamed of myself because I should of brought up more topics especially the lack of treatment for all those serving in our armed forces.'
On Tuesday, Ms Carey convinced Mr Shorten to lean in for a 'proper kiss' before she grabbed and pulled him closer and planted a big kiss on the lips.
'Good on you Margo,' a blushing Mr Shorten said.
When asked why she wanted a kiss from Mr Shorten, the 49-year-old woman said: 'Because I'm an attention seeker'.
The cheeky encounter happened one day after Mr Shorten's campaign bus broke down, leaving Hastings River Drive in Port Macquarie banked up for a couple of kilometres with traffic.
Appearing on the Today show on Saturday, Ms Carey spoke about the moment she grabbed Mr Shorten and gave him a kiss on the lips
The Labor leader got more than he bargained for when an Adelaide woman manhandled him on Tuesday
Three survivors huddled on the roof of their sinking car as they waited to be rescued after a horrific crash that killed one passenger.
The Holden Commodore crashed through a concrete barrier and into a river near the town of Masterton in New Zealand on Saturday morning.
The body of a 35-year-old man was found on Paierau Road close to where the mangled car was slowly sinking in the flooded river, Stuff.co.nz reports.
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Three survivors huddled on the roof of their sinking car as they waited to be rescued near Masterton in New Zealand. The body of a 35-year-old man was found on Paierau Road close to where the mangled car was slowly sinking in the flooded river
The survivors were flown to Wairarapa Hospital where they were treated for serious fractures and hypothermia. Above, a crane pulls the wreckage from the river
One woman and two men survived the car's plunge into the Waipoua River, climbing out of its wreckage and onto the roof where they shouted for help.
They were winched to safety by the Life Flight rescue helicopter after a nearby resident heard them screaming.
Crewman Julian Burn said it was the hardest rescue he had ever been involved in.
He said the survivors were stuck on a section of the roof no bigger than a doormat which was covered in glass and jagged metal.
In pitch black darkness and with buffeting winds the helicopter had to land a paramedic on the roof before lifting the survivors to safety one by one.
The survivors were flown to Wairarapa Hospital where they were treated for serious fractures and hypothermia.
In pitch black darkness and with buffeting winds the helicopter had to land a paramedic on the roof before lifting the survivors to safety one by one. Pictured, the car's motor washes up on the river bank
Crewman Julian Burn said it was the hardest rescue he had ever been involved in. 'A job like that during the day time is hard enough but when you add night time as a factor using night vision goggles and things like that it just makes it harder,' he said
'A job like that during the day time is hard enough but when you add night time as a factor using night vision goggles and things like that it just makes it harder,' Mr Burn told The New Zealand Herald.
'For me personally it was the hardest one I've ever done, just due to the factors: night-time, on the roof of a car, in a swift river, limited space, poor weather.
'But the pilot and the paramedic and the guys on the ground, all did a fantastic job.'
Christine Gleeson phoned emergency services after she heard the crash around 4am on Saturday.
She rushed to the scene after hearing panicked voices and screams for help.
Police believe speed had been a factor in the incident and would continue to investigate the circumstances of the crash
'I was awake and I could hear the car coming down the road,' she told Stuff.co.nz.
'Then I just heard this loud bang and then silence.'
New Zealand Police said the 35-year-old man was found dead at the scene of the crash.
They believed speed had been a factor in the incident and would continue to investigate the circumstances of the crash.
Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch, 39, was among more than 200 celebrities who signed the 'luvvie letter'
Top British actors who signed a letter urging voters to reject Brexit starred in hit movies backed by 3million from Brussels, it was revealed today.
Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch, 39, and Pirates of the Caribbean star Keira Knightley, 31, were among more than 200 celebrities who signed a 'luvvie letter'.
Other renowned figures who backed the message included Closer actor Jude Law, 43, the creator of Alan Partridge, Steve Coogan, 50, and The Wire's Dominic West, 46.
They have all raked in millions from films backed by cash from Brussels which was funded by European taxpayers' money, according to The Sun.
A total of 18 famous film stars signed the letter and 15 of them have appeared in films which received 3.6million of EU grants - most of it coming from the Brussels' Media Programme.
The programme helps fund the 'development, promotion and distribution of European works within Europe and beyond'.
But it wasn't just actors who signed the letter. Directors and writers who also urged the public to vote to remain in the EU have enjoyed similar funding from the programme.
Fight Club actress Helena Bonham Carter, 49, was the anti-Brexit supporter who starred in the films which received the largest grants from European taxpayers.
The Harry Potter actress, who was in a relationship with director Tim Burton, 57, appeared in The King's Speech, Great Expectations, The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child which were backed by grants worth 914,038, according to the EU's Media Films Database.
The Last Panthers, which starred Sir John Hurt, 76, was boosted by a grant of 772,516.
Sheffield-born West, best known for playing detective Jimmy McNulty in the hit US show The Wire, appeared in two movies part-funded by 704,963.
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Knightley films A Dangerous Method and Bend it Like Beckham received 398,569, and Cumberbatch's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy got 331,868 to help distribute it in Russia and Holland.
Five films involving Coogan, including Cock and Bull Story, The Look of Love, The Trip, Philomena and 24 Hour Party People benefited from 160,889 worth of grants.
The Remain campaign was also backed by directors Danny Boyle, Stephen Frears and Steve McQueen.
Fight Club actress Helena Bonham Carter, 49, was the anti-Brexit supporter who starred in the films which received the largest grants from European taxpayers
Other renowned figures who signed the message included Closer actor Jude Law, 43, (left) and the creator of Alan Partridge, Steve Coogan, 50 (right)
They were among 282 people from the 'creative industries' who urged the country to remain in the EU.
The letter they signed suggested a Brexit on June 23 this year would result in the UK becoming 'an outsider shouting from the wings'.
The creatives said: 'From the smallest gallery to the biggest blockbuster, many of us have worked on projects that would never have happened without vital EU funding or by collaborating across borders.'
But Ukip culture spokesman Peter Whittle said the celebrities were the 'pampered products of a subsidised system'.
Tory MP and fellow Brexit campaigner Nigel Adams, said it was 'no surprise' that the actors want to remain in the EU when their 'pay checks are funded by the same institution'.
Ukip leader Nigel Farage added: 'They are rich luvvies, living in 5million houses in Notting Hill. Of course they want to stay in the EU.'
But Prime Minister David Cameron praised the 'luvvie letter', adding that whether it is music, film, art or video games, the UK leads Europe.
His mobile phone and wallet were found inside the vehicle by authorities
Police have released photos of a missing man's abandoned vehicle as they search for the 43-year-old who went missing in Queensland a week ago.
Jamie Hardgraves was on his way to Coolangatta but was last seen at Beaudesert near the Gold Coast on Tuesday, his family told police.
His damaged utility vehicle was found a day later and it was missing half of the front bumper.
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An abandoned vehicle found three hours from missing 43-year-old Jami Hardgraves (pictured) home in Beaudesert could help authorities in his search. Mr Hardgraves went missing on Tuesday
Queensland Police released photos of his abandoned utility vehicle on Saturday as they continue to search for him.
The pictures show an opening in the left hand side of the battered vehicle showing half the engine.
Mr Hardgraves phone and wallet were found inside the vehicle and he had reportedly spoken to his mother on Tuesday night, telling her he was on his way to Coolangatta, police say.
An extensive land search that started on Wednesday has continued into the weekend with SES volunteers called out to Texas on Friday, Brisbane Times reports.
Mr Hardgraves utility vehicle was found on Wednesday three hours in the opposite direction to Coolangatta on Stanthorpe Texas Road missing half of the front bumper (pictured)
Police and 45 SES volunteers resumed the search on Saturday asking anyone who may have seen the man walking or hitchhiking along Stanthorpe Texas Road on Tuesday or Wednesday to alert authorities.
Queensland police have also urged landholders and residents in Texas to check their properties for the man who has been described as Caucasian, about 175 centimetres tall with short sandy hair and blue eyes.
Police have urged anyone who has seen any of these five missing persons to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Burglars are suspected of starting a fire in Perth that caused an estimated $100,000 worth of damage to a home in the city's northern suburbs.
The fire started at a house on Balanus Way in Heathridge about 11.30am on Friday morning.
WA Police suspect a person broke into the house between 11am and 11.15am, reported Perth Now.
Burglars broke into a house in the Perth suburb of Heathridge and stole items, before starting a fire that caused more than $100,000 worth of damage
Electronic devices and an engagement ring were stolen before the burglars set fire to items in a room of the house.
Arson Squad officers would like to speak to anyone who was in the area around the time of the fire or who may have seen any suspicious person(s) or vehicles at the time.
Anyone with any information is asked to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or make a report online.
A prestigious boy's college has suspended several students following a number of violent attacks on fellow students.
Scotch College, a private boys school in Hawthorn in Melbourne's inner east, has suspended four Year 8 students after a boy was attacked during a school camp.
A Year 12 student was due to be expelled after punching another student in the face, but was pulled out of the school by his parents.
Scotch College, a private boys school in Hawthorn in Melbourne's inner east, has suspended four Year 8 students after a boy was attacked during a school camp
Scotch College is considered one of the most esteemed private schools in the state, where fees can reach up to over $26,000.
While the school has declined to comment on the incidents, the Herald Sun reports that the four Year 8 students were suspended after 'rough behaviour' at Camp Marysville, north east of Melbourne.
A cabin was also damaged during the students stay according to parents. One parent added that he was concerned about his son becoming a victim.
'Some of these boys are just feral,' the unnamed parent told the Herald Sun.
'There were two groups of bad boys who apparently all went to the one camp together.
'Parents bringing up this kind of behaviour are told it's a testosterone-filled playground, but violence is becoming a common theme.
'These are supposed to be our future leaders.'
While the school has declined to comment on the incidents, the Herald Sun reports that the four Year 8 students were suspended and a Year 12 boy was removed from the school by his parents before he could be expelled
Scotch College is considered one of the most esteemed private schools in the state, where fees can reach up to over $26,000
It's believed that he was provoked by the other student involved in the altercation.
Instead of being expelled, the offender was removed by his parents from the school that boasts alumni including Governors-General of Australia, High Court justices, an ex-prime minister and state premiers.
One parent told the Herald Sun that the stories concerning the violent behaviour had been circling in the school community.
'The school is keeping it under wraps but the mothers are talking about it,' she said.
Father had used up all of his savings to pay for the high-quality treatment
Their mother was returning from Paris after successfully
The children were left inconsolable when their parents
Three young children have been left orphaned after their parents were killed in EgyptAir MS804 disaster one of the many family tragedies resulting from the devastating plane crash.
But the loss of parents Ahmed el-Ashry and his wife Reham Mosad is particularly poignant as the mother-of-three was returning to Cairo from Paris after successfully beating cancer.
The children all aged under six were waiting at Cairo International Airport for the arrival of their parents who they were missing terribly.
One boy and two girls, all aged under six, were left inconsolable when their parents Ahmed el-Ashry and his wife Reham Mosad (pictured left and right) were killed in the EgyptAir MS804 disaster
The heart-broken youngsters, one boy and two girls, were left inconsolable when the mother and father failed to arrive along with the other 66 passengers and crew of doomed flight MS804.
Family friend Muhammad El Shennawi said: 'The situation is very unfortunate and grievous. It is heart-breaking to see the kids.
'They were at Cairo Airport to welcome them home.
'But their dad and mum did not reach Cairo, neither will any of those who were with them.'
Mother Reham Mosad, 27, was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. Her mother had recently passed away and she had already lost her father.
Father Ahmed el-Ashry, a pharmacist used all his savings and sold most of his assets to pay for high-quality cancer treatment in France.
The loss is particularly poignant as Mrs Mosad (right), 27, was returning to Cairo from a month-long stay in Paris where she successfully beat cancer after her husband (left) used all of his savings to pay for the high-quality treatment
The couple travelled to Paris a month ago leaving the children with their grandmother, Mr el-Ashry's mother.
The medical treatment was success and the couple were looking forward to getting back to normal life with their children.
They booked on to EgyptAir MS804 to come home.
Hunt for clues: The Egyptian army reported finding wreckage and personal belongings from the missing jet around 180 miles north of Alexandria. The discovery came a day after other debris found in another area near the African coast turned out not to come the plane
Loss: Relatives of passengers on board the EgyptAir flight cry at Cairo Airport as they try to receive information on their loved ones
Family friend Heba Selim said: 'Mosad had been given the all-clear before booking the flight.'
Muhammad El Shennawi added: 'Ahmed did everything to save his beloved wife.
'I asked him not to go to Paris for the treatment but to try to find a hospital here in Egypt that could treat her because of the huge cost.
'But Mosad's mother had recently died and her father was already dead.
'They spent a month in Paris and then came back on this plane.
'The children are inconsolable.
'They were already missing their mother and father because they had been away for a month.'
They are a very modern trend and have been billed as the ultimate antidote to long stressful days.
But a new book is set to be re-published showing that the colouring in craze actually dates back to the 1600s.
Albion's Glorious Ile, which will be re-released next month, was first published in the 17th century and is a series of maps decorated with mythical creatures such as fairies, which are designed to be coloured in.
One of the map drawings that feature in Albion's Glorious Ile, which is thought to be the first colouring book
The colouring maps were created by engraver William Hole, and they were printed in black and white so either amateurs or professionals could add colour
The book was commissioned to accompany the poem Poly Olbion by Michael Drayton, where he describes the topological features and legends of places in England and Wales.
The colouring maps were created by engraver William Hole, and they were printed in black and white so either amateurs or professionals could add colour.
He adorned the maps with fairies, river gods and water nymphs and the trend for colouring them took off within the upper classes.
The first volume of Albion's Glorious Ile, which will be republished next month
Art historian Anne Louise Avery told the Guardian: 'You could have asked for it to be coloured by a professional, but it became quite fashionable to hand-colour it yourself. It was an activity for nobles.
'These were copperplate maps, so they needed lighter paints, and this tied in with the development of watercolours.
'They became really popular - there was they theory that they would improve your mind - it was early mindfulness.'
Independent publisher Unicorn will release four volumes of the books next month, which will total 30 maps to be coloured in.
Colouring books for grown-ups were the surprise trend of last year, selling millions of copies and topping bookstores bestseller lists.
The trend is thought to have started in France and was taken up by celebrities such as Nigella Lawson.
The boom is being attributed to a modern preoccupation with nostalgia, combined with the fact that when it comes to relaxation, colouring has surprisingly scientific results.
TV property expert Kirstie Allsopp described colouring books as the perfect antidote to the business of modern life and Id recommend it to anyone feeling stressed.
Publishers are reporting sales figures in the hundreds of thousands. Independent book publisher Michael OMara has built up a series of 28 titles and sold more than half a million copies so far, including The Cant Sleep Colouring Book.
Albion's Glorious Ile, published by Unicorn Press is available to buy next month.
A charity working to provide the homeless with free showers has been fined after the bus they work from stopped in a bus zone on Friday night.
One Voice is a Melbourne-based charity which provides hot showers to those in need, working in two locations across the city four times per week.
The charity's founder Josh Wilkins told Daily Mail Australia parking inspectors usually walk past the bus while it is operating but on Friday council officers arrived to move the charity on after just 10 minutes.
The One Voice charity bus has been fined $91 for stopping in a bus zone to offer Melbourne's homeless a hot shower
'The first two people had just gone in to have their showers when two council officers came over to tell us to move on or we would be fines,' Mr Wilkins said.
'We had only been there for about ten minutes and had 16 people wanting to have a shower so we decided to stay.
'The council officers left and came back with another six officers and a parking inspector who issued the fine.
'I feel like the bus was targeted by the council whowants to kick us out of the city.'
The bus was parked in a bus zone near the corner of Collins and Swanston Street, outside of City Square when it was fined, the ticketed penalty was $91.
'We park there every Tuesday to give people showers and it has never been a problem.
'I have spoken to the hotel buses that use the bus zone and they don't have a problem with what we are doing there.'
The charity says they have been stopping in the same place once a week for a year without a problem
The council officers initially asked the bus to move on but charity founder Josh Wilkins decided providing the service was more important than avoiding the fine
Mr Wilkins said the bus is usually operating on the street for around three hours, but as it was the first Friday of operation and there were more clients than usual it took a little longer.
The men and women who use the service are offered fresh underwear and socks, razors, soap, shampoo and conditioner and a towel every time they hop on board the bus.
'They are grateful for the showers, and while they wait we give them somewhere to sit and play UNO with them, we find they like the conversation as well.'
Mr Wilkins says he has been trying to work with the council to organise an appropriate place for the bus to park to offer services but has not heard back from them in the matter.
'I just want council to give us some support, we aren't asking for money we just want some conversation between the support services so we can help these guys.'
Mr Wilkins took photos of the officer issuing the fine and posted it on social media.
The charity bus was parked in the bus zone near Melbourne's City Square, organisers say it does not disrupt any regular services
These four men use the bus service when it stops in the city. They have helped spread word about the service in the local homeless community and want it to continue
The post has since gone viral attracting more than 3,300 shares. Some supporters have even offered to pay the fine.
'It isn't about the money, the fine. We will pay that. It is about the lack of local government support for this essential service,' Mr Wilkins said.
The bus has been operating in Melbourne since December.
Mr Wilkins previously operated a shower trailer but was forced to build the bus so it would meet council requirements.
The water is all stored on the bus, including the waste water from each of the showers. The water is heated using an on-board generator.
Two showers operate at a time and the bus can offer 40 people showers before it needs to refill.
The ISIS jihadis behind the Paris attacks stopped off at Charles De Gaulle airport just hours before carrying out their deadly massacre last November.
A police source claimed that there are concerns the group had met cell members operating inside the airport and could have pre-planned the EgyptAir MS804 plane crash.
The four man terror team visited the airport at 6:20pm on 13 November. An hour later they left the airport and went on to murder 130 people on the streets of Paris.
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A police source said there are concerns the Paris terror group had cell members operating inside the airport and could have planted a bomb on the plane
Fans poured on to the pitch inside the Stade de France after three ISIS suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the stadium last November
Gripped by grief: EgyptAir stewardesses console each other outside the Al Sedeq mosque where hundreds of mourners gathered to offer prayers for the crew of missing EgyptAir flight MS804
The parents of EgyptAir MS804 victim, air hostess Yara Hani Tawfik, at her funeral held at the Church of Virgin & Saint Athanasius in Cairo
Several friends and relatives comfort one distraught woman at the memorial service at the church in Cairo
Friends and family of one of the EgyptAir MS804 victims, air hostess Yara Hani Tawfik, mourn at her memorial service
'It is feared the jihads were coordinating with comrades at the airport. Anti-terrorist judges are today interrogating Abdeslam about his links with staff at Charles de Gaulle [airport],' a police source told The Sun.
The news comes as investigators uncovered the first pieces of the wreckage including life jackets and shoes. They also confirmed smoke was detected in multiple places on EgyptAir flight 804 moments before it plummeted into the Mediterranean.
The cause of the crash that killed all 66 on board remains unclear but smoke alarms were sounding for almost three minutes before it began its rapid descent, according to the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) data.
The four man terror team who visited the airport is thought to have included Salah Abdeslam, who was later captured in Belgium after pulling out of his suicide bomb mission
Agency spokesman Sebastien Barthe confirmed the new findings 'generally mean the start of a fire,' but insisted that everything is currently 'pure conjecture.'
The new information suggests that a fire on board the EgyptAir plane is a more likely reason for the crash than a bomb, although experts have not ruled out the use of an 'incendiary device'.
While Egyptian officials continue saying that they suspect terrorism, no group has yet come forward to claim credit as theories as to the cause of the crash continue to circulate.
It comes as hundreds of mourners gathered to offer prayers for the 66 passengers and crew killed in the EgyptAir disaster.
The leaked data was filed through the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), a data link for sending messages between planes and ground facilities.
An ACARS screen grab published by air industry website The Aviation Herald shows time stamps that appear to match the time the aircraft lost contact with controllers.
According to the leaked data, smoke alarms in the lavatory behind the cockpit first began sounding at 00.26GMT. Less than a minute later, smoke was also detected in the avionics [electronics].
The final two alerts from the plane indicate faults with the FCU - the flight control unit used by the pilot to input instructions into the flight computer - and the SEC 3 - the computer that controls the plane's spoilers and elevator computers.
The first pictures of the mangled wreckage from the EgyptAir flight 804 has emerged as investigators confirm smoke was detected in multiple places moments before the plane plummeted into the Mediterranean
The plane's twisted blue metal panelling, marked with EgyptAir branding as well as items of clothing and yellow lift jackets have been recovered from the Mediterranean Sea, where vessels continue to search for the wreckage
The cause of the crash that killed all 66 on board remains unclear but smoke alarms were sounding for almost three minutes before it began its rapid descent, according to the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) data
Ahmed Asem (centre), the father of co-pilot Mohamed Mamdouh Ahmed Asem, was overwhelmed by messages of support as he visited the Al Sedeq mosque close to Cairo International Airport to pray for his son and the other 65 people on flight MS804
Ahmed Asem is consoled by members of the Al Sedeq mosque where they held the hour-long Friday prayers for the missing
Devastated family members of one of the victims weep as they leave the Church of Virgin & Saint Athanasius in Cairo
Prayers were also held at Al Sedeq mosque close to Cairo International Airport where the doom jet had been due to land
The ACARS screen grab provided information about smoke and heat on a window near the co-pilot and in the lavatory, which was behind the cockpit, according to CNN aviation analyst David Soucie.
'If there's fire on board the aircraft, in this area which the ACARS indicates, then something was close to the cockpit,' Mr Soucie said.
'It could have been either something mechanical that had failed, a short circuit, or it could have been an incendiary device of some kind as well.'
ACARS does not provide a cause of the crash, but Mr Soucie said it was significant that the data was sent over a period of one to two minutes.
'Now if it it was a bomb, the characteristic bomb... would have ruptured the skin of the aircraft,' he said.
'This is not the indication you would have had, because a bomb that would do that would be instantaneous, and these reports would not have gone over two minutes like they do.'
The analyst added that a fire in the front section of the plane may well have affected the communications equipment.
Meanwhile, family, friends and colleagues held back tears as the Imam led prays for their salvation at the Al Sedeq mosque close to Cairo International Airport where the doom jet had been due to land.
The hour-long Friday prayers ended with pall bearers carrying a symbolic coffin for the missing bodies out of the sprawling complex.
Outside, family members told of their shock at the sudden disappearance of passenger jet, while colleagues praised the professionalism of the crew.
Ahmed Asem, the father of co-pilot Mohamed Mamdouh Ahmed Asem, was overwhelmed by messages of condolence.
Mohamed's cousin, Hizam Asem told MailOnline: 'Mohamed was a very, very good pilot. He was the best in his class. He was very skillful.
'Ever since he was a little boy he had wanted to fly a plane. And finally he was realising his dream. He was just a young man of 27 but he was living the life he had always wanted.'
Hizam Asem (left), the uncle, and Hisam Asem, the cousin of the EgyptAir co-pilot attend the Friday prayers at the mosque
The family of co-pilot Mohammad Mamdouh Assem had sacrificed everything so could fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a pilot
The co-pilot's uncle Hisam Asem added: 'Mohamed loved his job. He loved being a pilot. He introduced me to Captain Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair. He was a very nice man, a very good pilot.
Grief-stricken air-hostesss Rasha Al Saandy and Shereen Fouad hugged each other in support outside the mosque.
Rasha Al Saandy told MailOnline: 'I knew Captain Shoukair and some of the crew. They were the best colleagues anyone could hope for.
'I did not know the younger air hostesses Samar [Ezz Eldin] or Yara Hany because they had not been working on but [steward] Haietham Elzazizi was my best friend. He was so funny, he was always smiling and laughing.
'Since I heard what happened I cannot sleep, I cannot sleep.'
Shereen Fouad added: 'This is so terrible. I cannot imagine how this has happened.'
At another emotional service, the father of Captain Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair collapsed in grief for his missing son.
Distraught Bahgat Shoukair was unable to stand during the absent funeral service for his pilot son Mohamed following Friday prayers in his home city of Badrashin, south of Cairo.
Frail Mr Shoukair could only sit in a chair throughout the service at the Yusef mosque, being too weak to stand and knee as is customary in Muslim prayers.
Devastated: A mourner wipes away a tear during Friday prayers for the passengers and crew killed in the EgyptAir disaster
Members of the Al Sedeq Mosque in Cairo pray for the crew members of the crashed EgyptAir plane as at emotional service near Cairo
Family, friends and colleagues held back tears as the Imam led prays for their salvation at the Al Sedeq mosque near Cairo Airport
Members of the Al Sedeq Mosque in Cairo console friends and relatives of the co-pilot of the EgyptAir plane which crashed yesterday
However the father was able to shake hands with people who offered him their condolences for the loss of his son.
'Bahgat Shoukair was distraught,' one onlookers told Egyptian internet news service Video 7.
'He could not stand up. He had to sit on a chair. He could only shake hands with people. After the prayer service his relatives carried him to his home.'
The captain's uncle, Shihab Shakir, told Youm7: 'The information we received is the same as what they said on TV. They remained tight lipped about what happened.
'If there was anything, he would have known because he's not an inexperienced pilot. He's very experienced and all his managers and bosses say that he is one of the best pilot's in Egypt.
'[The last time I spoke with him] he called and asked if I needed anything, if I wanted him to bring me anything when he comes back, but then he said his flight would be late.
BRITON WHO CHEATED DEATH BECAUSE HIS WORK TRIP TO EGYPT WAS CANCELLED AT THE LAST MINUTE SO HE DIDN'T BOARD DOOMED FLIGHT A British man is lucky to be alive after a work trip to Cairo was cancelled at the last minute. Father-of-two Ian Phillips, from Peterborough, was supposed to be on the doomed EgyptAir Flight MS804 that plunged into the Mediterranean Sea killing all 66 people on board. But in an astonishing turn of events the work trip was called off just hours before he was set to board the flight. 'It didn't really sink in how lucky I was until yesterday afternoon,' he told MailOnline today. Father-of-two Ian Phillips, from Peterborough, was supposed to be on the doomed EgyptAir Flight MS804 that plunged into the Mediterranean Sea killing all 66 people on board. Pictured with his daughter Zoe, who is pregnant, and son Bryn 'I'm very relieved and very grateful that I am still here. Luckily I didn't even get near the airport. 'It took me a few hours to realise the seriousness of it.' The 48-year-old, who is also about to become a grandfather, works at a courier firm that requires him to hand-deliver sensitive documents around the world. He gladly accepted the job which would have seen him fly from London City airport to Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris before getting the connecting flight on to Cairo International. I'm very relieved and very grateful that I am still here. It took me a few hours to realise the seriousness of it. Ian Phillips And he was only mildly relieved when the client cancelled, saving him a trip that would have involved several nights away from home. But it was only when he arrived at the London office of CMS Network and saw the news of the missing plane that he realised quite how lucky he had been. He added: 'On the one hand I feel quite lucky and grateful and on the other it all seems a bit surreal. 'I didn't know which flight they were going to put me on until I got into the office. Just before the client cancelled, they couldn't find any direct flights from the UK and that was looking like the best option. 'Just for once I'm quite pleased the client cancelled.' Although he often flies to Europe for work, Mr Phillips rarely travels further afield than Zurich or Switzerland as most of CMS Network's clients are in the banking sector. Still reeling from discovering his near-miss, Mr Phillips turned to social media to come to terms with the shock. 'I got to work yesterday morning to be asked if I would be happy to deliver a package to Cairo,' he posted on Facebook, following news of the flight's disappearance. 'Of course, said I, and by 9.45am I was on my way back to Peterborough to get my passport and pack a bag. 'Thankfully our client cancelled at the last minute so I didn't go but can you guess which flight I was due to travel on.' Friends have described his experience as 'sobering' and a 'close shave'. Others have recommended he 'do something you were putting off have a big holiday, down a pint, or something like that!' But he said his near-miss hasn't put him of flying to Cairo for work again if it was needed.
'He was always inviting all his colleagues at the company and he would bring them together and take them for meals and fix their problems. He didn't have any problems with any one.'
The services were held has search crews revealed they had found a severed arm, luggage and a two-mile-long oil slick in the Mediterranean.
The news will deal a devastating blow to families who are holding out a glimmer of hope their loved ones may have survived the crash.
The Egyptian military discovered wreckage around 180 miles north of the coastal city of Alexandria and are now sweeping the area for the plane's black box recorders which could hold the key to the plane's mysterious disappearance.
Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said a body part, two seats and suitcases were found in the search area, slightly to the south of where the aircraft had vanished from radar.
Greek journalist Liana Spyropoulou later said Mr Kammenos revealed the body part was an arm.
A two-mile oil slick has also been spotted 20 miles south-east of the plane's last location by the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1A radar satellite.
Egyptian President Adbel Fattah al-Sisi, meanwhile, offered condolences to families of those on board, amounting to Cairo's official confirmation of their deaths.
At another emotional service, Bahgat Shoukair, the father of Captain Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair collapsed in grief for his missing son
Celebration: Captain Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair had been promoted just four days before the crash
EXTREMISTS APPLIED FOR AIRPORT JOBS AT PARIS AIRPORT Islamic extremists tried to get jobs at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris this spring, it was revealed yesterday. It came despite France having been under a state of emergency since the Paris attacks in November and a sweep at Charles de Gaulle, Roissy and Orly Airports that saw 70 workers stripped of their accreditation five months ago. The security scare was discussed at an emergency meeting of officials from countries including Britain yesterday. An intelligence source said: These attempts have been made after officials stripped dozens of staff at French airports of their accreditation over suspected radicalisation. It means it is possible a bomb was placed on the doomed EgyptAir flight in Paris or hijackers could have boarded there. Air security expert Xavier Tytelman said an employee smuggling a bomb on board was more likely than explosives being hidden inside baggage loaded on the plane. He said three checks were made on luggage before being placed in the hold and the systems at Charles de Gaulle worked very well.
Although fingers pointed towards Islamist militants who blew up another airliner over Egypt just seven months ago, no group had claimed responsibility more than 24 hours after the disappearance of flight MS804, an Airbus A320 that was flying from Paris to Cairo.
Three French investigators and a technical expert from Airbus arrived in Cairo early on Friday to help investigate the fate of the missing plane, airport sources said.
Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said yesterday that it was too early to rule out any explanation for the disaster, but the country's aviation minister said a terrorist attack was more likely than a technical failure.
Friday's announcement that debris had been found followed earlier confusion about whether wreckage had been located. Greek searchers found some material on Thursday, but the airline later said this was not from its plane.
An intelligence source said: 'There was no mayday call from the cockpit which suggests that it was a terrorist attack. We are still trying to ascertain if the crew in the cockpit were overpowered by hijackers or if a bomb went off. We will only know when we examine the wreckage.'
Agencies did not pick up any unusual 'chatter' in France or Egypt in the days before the attack, the source added.
Mike Vivian, former head of operations at the Civil Aviation Authority, said the jet's sudden swerves before vanishing were more likely to be caused by a forced cockpit takeover than a bomb.
'One's inclined to go towards the theory that there had been some interference in the aircraft and on the flight deck, with the control of the aircraft,' he said.
While there was no official explanation of the cause of the crash, suspicion immediately fell on Islamist militants who have been fighting against Egypt's government since Sisi toppled an elected Islamist leader in 2013.
In October, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for blowing up a Russian jetliner that exploded after taking off from an Egyptian tourist resort. Russian investigators blamed a bomb smuggled on board.
Last year's crash already devastated Egypt's tourist industry, one of the main sources of foreign exchange for a country of 80 million people, and another similar attack would crush hopes of it recovering.
Clues: This image released by the European Space Agency from its Sentinel-1A satellite reportedly shows a two-mile-long oil slick (circled) in the Mediterranean Sea around 20 miles from the last-known location of the EgyptAir plane which vanished near Greece on Thursday
A video image released by the Egyptian Defense Ministry shows a ship during the search in the Mediterranean Sea for missing EgyptAir Flight MS804 plane which crashed after disappearing from the radar in the early hours of Thursday morning while carrying 66 people
An Egyptian plane and ship search the Mediterranean for missing EgyptAir flight 804 plane which crashed in mysterious circumstances
An Egyptian plane searches for debris and personal belongins from the missing EgyptAir plane which crashed in the Mediterranean Sea
An engineer stands in front of a C-130 HAUP of the Hellenic Air Force which took part and is on stand by in the search operation
While most governments were cautious about jumping to conclusions, U.S. Republican candidate for president Donald Trump tweeted swiftly after the plane's disappearance: 'Looks like yet another terrorist attack. Airplane departed from Paris. When will we get tough, smart and vigilant?'
Many hours later his likely Democratic rival Hillary Clinton also said it appeared to be an act of terrorism, although she said an investigation would have to determine the details.
Officials from a number of U.S. agencies told Reuters that a U.S. review of satellite imagery so far had not produced any signs of an explosion.
They said the United States had not ruled out any possible causes for the crash, including mechanical failure, terrorism or a deliberate act by the pilot or crew.
Amid uncertainty about what brought down the plane, Los Angeles International Airport became the first major U.S. air transportation hub to say it was stepping up security measures.
In Britain, a spokesman for the David Cameron said Whitehall officials from different departments will be working throughout the day and into the weekend on the disaster and will update secretaries of state and the Prime Minister on all developments.
However, the Government is refusing to discuss security procedures until the cause of the crash is known.
The military has sent a vessel to follow the flight path of the plane and is heading south west towards where wreckage has reportedly been found.
Hunt for clues: The Egyptian army today reported finding wreckage and personal belongings from the missing jet around 180 miles north of Alexandria. The discovery came a day after other debris found in another area near the African coast turned out not to come the plane
The RAF sent a C130 plane which completed a surveillance flight last night and a second flight is ongoing.
The Air Accident Investigation Branch has also offered its assistance to the investigation and is ready to offer support if required.
Meanwhile, heartbreaking details are beginning to emerge of the lives cut short on board the doomed flight.
Air hostess Samar Ezz Eldin, 27, who had recently married, uploaded a prophetic image of a plane crashing into the sea on her Facebook page in September 2014 just four months after she started working at Egypt's national carrier.
It shows an air hostess dressed smartly in wet clothes pulling a carry-on suitcase out of the water as a passenger jet plunges into the sea behind her.
A friend of Ms Eldin revealed: 'It was the job of her dreams, but she always felt a nagging feeling at the back of her mind that something bad would happen.
'She was often telling friends that she would die in an airline crash. This is very sad but also prophetic.'
Other victims identified include the captain who celebrated a promotion just four days earlier, the co-pilot whose family sacrificed everything so he could learn to fly and a cabin manager who gave up a successful TV acting career to become an air hostess.
Captain Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair, 37, from Giza, had invited his colleagues and former flying school classmates to a huge dinner to celebrate his promotion to the rank of senior pilot, MailOnline can reveal.
Ahmed Adly, of the Egyptian Pilots Association, told MailOnline: 'I can confirm that Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair was the captain of the Egyptair MS804 that has been lost.'
Another friend Ahmed Mashaal said: 'God bless you Shoukair. I last saw him four days ago at a party.
'He invited his whole colleagues from EgyptAir and fellow students from the flying school to a huge dinner to celebrate his promotion four days ago [on Monday]. He was celebrating his promotion.'
Captain Shoukair was a very experienced pilot with 6275 flying hours, 2101 of those hours flying an Airbus 806. He was not married and did not have any children.
EgyptAir stewardess Samar Ezz Eldin (left) posted a picture of an air hostess in front of a passenger jet crashing into the sea behind her (right) on her Facebook page. The 27-year-old was among the first passengers and crew on board Flight MS804 to be named
Captain Shoukair (right) with colleagues. Air traffic controllers said he was in 'a good mood and gave thanks in Greek' when he was in last contact around 25 minutes before the jet fell out of the sky in a suspected terror attack
His co-pilot Mohammad Mamdouh Assem had dreamed of flying planes since he was five years old and his mother had put all her savings into helping him achieved his lifelong goal.
According to friends, co-pilot Mohammad Mamdouh Assem's lifelong dream was to cruise the skies with his mother spending all her savings on sending him to aviation school.
EGYPTAIR FLIGHT HAD THREE AIR MARSHALLS ON BOARD PLANE EgyptAir Flight MS804 had three air marshals on board when it crashed in the Mediterranean on Thursday, authorities have said. France's transport chief Alain Vidalies told NBC News that the high number of security officers onboard was 'the usual practice'. Analysts say the higher number of air marshals onboard could be explained by a recent boost in security following a number of terrorist attacks involving passenger planes. Three air marshals also makes it less likely that the crash was called by a hijacker, as a terrorist would have to overpower not only the armed air marshals but also plane staff and passengers. Another argument against this is that no one managed to send a mayday, which suggests a hijacker would have had to break into the cockpit extremely quickly or had inside help.
Childhood friend Omar Nasef told The Daily Beast: 'He wanted to be a pilot since he was five. He was an unbelievable person, social.'
His mother tragically died a few years ago from cancer and the family was still struggling to cope with her loss when news broke that he had perished on the doomed flight.
'His mom put all her savings towards his education,' Nasef said. 'The academy and all that, and it's very expensive in Egypt. That was a big sacrifice.'
'All that I know is that he loved flying. That was his dream job and that's it,' he said.
Cabin manager Mervat Zakaria was also revealed to be a former TV actress who had been promoted to her position just one month before the crash.
Ms Zakaria had joined the national airline carrier in 1986 after giving up a successful acting career.
She had starred as a troubled teenager, Hala Awad, who had lost her mother in the hit Egyptian drama Abu El Ela El-Bashery.
The show was named after the character of the widower who was bringing up his daughters on his own.
But Ms Zakaria, who is believed to be married with a daughter, quit before the second series to take up a career as an air hostess for EgyptAir.
Meanwhile, it emerged today that the wife of British passenger Richard Osman had warned him to be careful whenever he travelled abroad on his work, but he laughed off her fears, telling her: 'It is never going to happen to me.'
The geologist had celebrated becoming a father for the second time with wife Aureilie, 36, just three weeks before the crash.
He had been flying regularly to Egypt with his job with Australian gold mining firm Centamin Ltd- often taking the plane from Paris to Cairo.
His brother Alastair said: 'Aureilie had warned him to be careful but he took the view that it's never going to happen to you. He just laughed it off.
'We kept in touch regularly and I would speak to him a couple times a month but he never mentioned the possible threat of terrorism on his flights across the Mediterranean to me.
'But the family was worried because ISIS and groups like them don't think that any of their victims have family members or a past or a history of hopes and dreams.'
Cabin manager Mervat Zakaria (pictured, left, and with her daughter, right) gave up a successful acting career to become an air hostess
Mervat Zakaria starred as a troubled teenager, Hala Awad, who had lost her mother in the hit Egyptian drama Abu El Ela El-Bashery
Mr Osman had celebrated the birth of his second daughter Olympe just three weeks ago and was travelling to Egypt for work.
Speaking yesterday, Alistair said: 'I still can't take it in I got a call from our sister first thing this morning and I'm still in shock.
'Richard was so happy at the birth of his second daughter, and yet weeks later he is no longer with us - it's an absolute tragedy.'
Mr Osman was also father to a 14-month-old girl called Victios.
His two daughters are being looked after by Aureilie in Paris, where the couple have a home.
Alastair, 36, a biochemistry student at Swansea University, said: 'Of all the family I would've thought Richard would have been the last to go.'
'He was incredibly fit and a workaholic and since leaving university he has never stopped.
'He was really happy about having the baby and was looking forward to enjoying a lovely family life with his two girls.'
He is believed to be a dual citizen of Australia, following a statement issued by the Australian government saying that one of those presumed dead is a UK-Australia dual national.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop declined to give additional details, including details on the passenger's identity.
Family man: Richard Osman was among the 66 victims on board the jet. His brother has described his 'delirious happiness' after the birth of his second daughter just three weeks ago. Mr Osman is pictured here with his French-born wife Aureilie and his first daughter Victios
Happier times: Mr Osman's brother has spoken of his 'shock' at hearing the news of the plane crash this morning. Mr Osman, a geologist who was travelling to Egypt for work, leaves behind a wife (pictured here on their wedding day) and two infant daughters
Future: Mr Osman's brother Alastair described the crash as an 'absolute tragedy', adding that Mr Osman had been looking forward to a 'lovely future' with his wife and two young daughters
Passenger: A Canadian woman among those on board the plane has been named as Marwa Hamdy (pictured)
The 56 passengers on board included one Briton, 30 Egyptians, 15 French, one Belgian, one Iraqi, one Kuwaiti, one Saudi Arabian, one Chadian, one Portuguese, one Algerian and at least one Canadian.
A Canadian woman among the passengers has also been named as Marwa Hamdy.
Other crew members included air-hostess Yara Hany, stewards Atef Lotfy and Haietham Elazizi and EgyptAir security officers Mahmoud Ahmed, Ahmed Mohamed Magdy and Mohamed Abd El Menem.
The search is continuing for missing EgyptAir flight 804, which disappeared from the radar while carrying 66 passengers and crew from Paris to Cairo.
Authorities are scouring a wide area south of the Greek island of Crete on Friday to search for wreckage, over 24 hours after the Airbus 320 lost contact.
The Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos says that the plane swerved wildly before plummeting into the sea.
The Egyptian military says that no distress call was received from the pilot. The country's aviation minister Sherif Fathi says the likelihood the plane was brought down by a terror attack is 'higher than the possibility of a technical failure.'
The distressed relatives of those on board have spent the night in a hotel in Cairo while they await news.
Three French investigators and a technical expert from Airbus arrived at Cairo International Airport early Friday morning to help investigate the fate of a missing jet, airport sources said.
The French investigators are part of the French civil aviation ministry's office of investigations and analysis, the sources said.
Yesterday, EgyptAir retracted its claims that the wreckage of the downed Flight MS804 had been discovered floating in the Mediterranean Sea as the mystery surrounding the missing passenger jet deepens.
It comes as U.S. authorities say they have so far been unable to find any indication that an explosion took place on board the plane before it plunged 22,000ft into the water with 66 people on board.
Flight MS804 was travelling from Paris to Cairo when it vanished from radar 10 miles into Egyptian airspace at 00.30am GMT without making a distress call.
Greek defence minister Panos Kammenos said the Airbus A320 made 'sudden swerves' in mid-air, lurching 90 degrees to the left then 360 degrees to the right. It then dropped from 37,000 feet to 15,000ft before the signal was lost at around 10,000 feet.
Security experts, ministers and former air accident investigators said all the evidence pointed to the plane being targeted in a terrorist attack.
But U.S. officials have cast doubt on these claims, stating that they have so far found no evidence of an explosion on board.
The ranking Democrat on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee said there are conflicting reports about the EgyptAir plane during its last minutes of the flight.
Nor is there anything yet to confirm whether terrorism, structural failure or something else was the cause, he added.
'We're working with the French to try to figure out if there is any information we have that could shed light on any of the passengers, but there's nothing yet to confirm the cause of the plane crash,' said California Rep. Adam Schiff.
He said the plane did seem to have broken apart in mid-air, but the reason was unclear.
Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi said the possibility of a terror attack was a 'stronger' possibility than technical failure.
Relatives of passengers on board the EgyptAir flight cry at Cairo Airport as they try to receive information on their loved ones
Loss: Relatives of passengers on the missing EgyptAir flight break down as they console each other at Cairo International Airport in Egypt
Meanwhile, EgyptAir has retracted its earlier statement that wreckage of the plane had been found off the Greek island of Karpathos.
Egyptian officials are now taking a more cautious line, similar to that of Greek authorities, and are saying they 'stand corrected' and it 'is not our aircraft'.
The head of the Greek air safety authority earlier insisted that wreckage found in the Mediterranean close to where the jet is thought to have crashed 'does not come from a plane'.
'Up to now the analysis of the debris indicates that it does not come from a plane, my Egyptian counterpart also confirmed to me that it was not yet proven that the debris came from the EgyptAir flight when we were last in contact around 1745 GMT,' said Athanasios Binis.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has ordered the civil aviation ministry, the army's search and rescue centre, the navy, and the air force to take all necessary measures to locate debris from the EgyptAir plane.
They will join French, Greek and U.S. forces in the search.
In a statement issued by his office, Sisi also ordered an investigative committee formed by the civil aviation ministry to immediately start investigating the causes of the plane's disappearance.
Photographs emerged earlier of what was claimed to be debris from the plane as search vessels reported seeing plastic objects including lifejackets and seats floating in the sea around 230 miles south of the Greek islands of Crete and Karpathos.
The images of the debris were posted on Facebook by Tarek Wahba, who is understood to be the captain of Egyptian container vessel, Maersk Ahram.
He wrote: 'Been finding life jackets and debris including chair to the plane.'
The ship was among a number of vessels sent to the area to help with the search.
A Greek frigate also reported spotting two large plastic objects floating in the sea 230 miles south of the island of Crete.
They appeared to be pieces of plastic in white and red and were spotted close to an area where an emergency transponder signal had been emitted.
Greek military officials say a Greek C-130 military transport plane is still participating in the search for debris from the EgyptAir jet, but a frigate initially sent to the area has been recalled.
The same officials say all potential debris located so far in the sea has been spotted by Egyptian aircraft.
If confirmed to be a terror attack, the disaster would deal another hammer blow to Egypt's crippled tourism industry just months after a Russian Metrojet plane was brought down in the Sinai peninsula by a bomb planted at Sharm el-Sheikh airport.
A Canadian woman among the passengers has also been named as Marwa Hamdy. The nation's Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion issued a statement claiming two Canadians were on board the flight.
Ms Dion said: 'Based on the information currently available, Global Affairs Canada confirms that two Canadian citizens are among the passengers on this flight.'
The airline has said that Ms Hamdy was the sole Canadian on the flight.
U.S. government officials were working on an initial theory the jet was downed by a bomb, two U.S. officials told CNN, although they cautioned that hypothesis could change.
The U.S. State Department has not yet issued a travel warning to Egypt, according to spokesman John Kirby in Washington.
He told reporters that it is too early to make any definite decisions and that he is 'not aware that we recorded, saw, photographed or have possession of any electronic indications about what happened'.
The head of Russia's top domestic security agency, Alexander Bortnikov, also claimed it was 'in all likelihood it was a terror attack'.
Meanwhile, Jean-Paul Troadec, the former chief of the BEA national investigation unit, said the lack of a live emergency alert meant it was almost certainly destroyed in a terror attack.
He told Europe 1 radio station in Paris: 'A technical problem, a fire or a failed motor do not cause an instant accident and the team has time to react.
'The team said nothing, they did not react, so it was very probably a brutal event and we can certainly think about an attack.'
Their comments came after a merchant ship captain reported seeing a 'flame in the sky' over the Mediterranean.
ISIS has been waging a deadly insurgency against Egyptian security forces and last October claimed the bombing of a Russian airliner flying home holidaymakers from the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh which killed all 224 people on board.
The flight was the aircraft's fifth of the day, having also flown to the Eritrean capital of Asmara, the Tunisian capital Tunis and Brussels in Belgium.
French President Francois Hollande said nothing had been ruled out about the cause of the crash.
Speaking at the Elysee Palace in Paris, he said: 'When we have the truth we need to draw all the conclusions. At this stage, we must give priority to solidarity toward the families (of the victims).'
The Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into the accident.
The prosecutor said in a statement that its collective accident department opened the investigation with the national gendarme service, adding that 'no hypothesis is favoured or ruled out at this stage'.
In the minutes and hours after the crash, devastated relatives gathered at Charles De Gaulle and Cairo Airports, weeping and comforting each other as waited for news of their loved ones.
The British Foreign Office said it was in contact with the family of the British national who was feared dead.
Prime Minister David Cameron told LBC Radio: 'I absolutely feel for them [the families]. This is obviously a dreadful event. We don't know very much right now about what's happened.
'We know that there was one British national on the plane. It looks as if it has gone down in the Mediterranean.'
'One of our ships RFA Royal Fleet Auxiliary Mounts Bay is nearby and so we've sent it to the area, but I think it's too early to speculate about what the cause was.
'We simply don't know but all the experts are talking to each other and trying to work out what has happened and when we know more, we'll be able to say more.'
The Airbus A320 left the French capital's Charles De Gaulle Airport at 9.09pm GMT last night before coming down off the Greek island of Karpathos ten miles into Egyptian airspace at around 00.30am GMT. It was scheduled to arrive at Cairo Airport at 1.15am GMT.
EgyptAir first reported on the disappearance of the flight, tweeting: 'An informed source at EGYPTAIR stated that Flight no MS804, which departed Paris at 9.09pm (GMT) heading to Cairo, has disappeared from radar.'
Greece's Civil Aviation Authority CAA said the flight entered the Greek air traffic control area (FIR) at 2.24am Greek time (11.24am GMT).
It was identified and approved on its flight course before passing into the next section of air traffic control where it was approved by the controller for the exit point of the Greek FIR.
The CAA said the last communication traffic controllers had with the EgyptAir pilot at around 00.05am found him in good spirits.
It said the pilot 'was in a good mood and gave thanks in Greek when authorised to exit the Athens flight information region'.
EGYPTAIR JET HAD TRAVELLED TO TERROR HOTSPOTS IN BRUSSELS, TUNIS AND ERITREA HOURS BEFORE CRASH The EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean had flown to terror hotspots in Tunisia, Eritrea and Belgium in the days before the disaster, it has emerged. The travel log of the Airbus A320 will likely form a major part of the investigation into the crash which experts say was most likely caused by a terror attack. Internet site FlightRadar24 indicates the jet travelled to Tunis, Brussels and the Eritrean capital of Asmara in the two days before, leaving open the possibility that an explosive device could have been planted aboard prior to its arrival in France. All destinations have been targeted by terror attacks or plagued by jihadist uprisings in recent months. Tour of terror: Flight radar data showed how the EgyptAir plane that crashed in the Mediterranean had travelled to Tunis, Cairo, Eritrea and Brussels, all area targeted by Islamist militants Brussels Airport and the city's Metro station were targeted in March in ISIS suicide attacks that killed 32 people. Those attacks have been linked to the same cell that killed 130 people in a November massacre in Paris, where flight MS804 took off last night. More than 20 people were also killed in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, in March last year when two Islamist militants stormed the Bardo Museum. Meanwhile, Ethiopian authorities said last week that they had thwarted a terror attack by Eritrean jihadists who trained and armed in Asmara. If a bombing is established, the question for investigators will be how a device was possibly smuggled aboard a flight taking off from France's busiest airport, Paris Charles de Gaulle, where security has been on high alert since last year's jihadist attacks. Aeronautics expert Gerard Feldzer said: 'A bomb placed on board at (Paris) or in Cairo is always possible because it's difficult to make your airport 100 per cent watertight, even in an airport with such tight surveillance as Roissy (Charles de Gaulle).'
Upset: Relatives and friends of passengers who were on the EgyptAir plane leave the EgyptAir in-flight service building at Cairo Airport
Terror: Relatives gather at Cairo Airport. Among the 56 passengers on board the plane were 30 Egyptian nationals, 15 French, two Iraqis, one Briton, Belgian, Kuwaiti, Saudi, Sudanese, Chadian, Portuguese, Algerian and a Canadian
Air traffic controllers tried to contact the pilot again at 00.27am for the handover of the plane to Cairo's area of responsibility, but 'despite repeated calls, the aircraft did not respond'.
Air traffic control called on the emergency frequency and again there was no response.
At 00.29am GMT, the aircraft was over the exit point of the Athens FIR, and at 00.29.40am GMT, it vanished from radar.
The Greek authority said the military was asked for help in case the plane could be located on a military radar, but there was no sign of it.
Search and rescue operations then kicked in 00.45am.
Egypt's state-run newspaper Al-Ahram quoted an airport official as saying the pilot did not send a distress call and that last contact with the plane was made 10 minutes before it disappeared from radar.
EgyptAir said the plane sent an emergency signal, possibly from an emergency beacon attached to the plane, at 2.26am GMT two hours after it vanished.
In water crashes, an underwater beacon attached to the aircraft's flight recorders starts to emit a signal or ping which helps search and rescue teams to locate the crash and find the black boxes.
Egyptian military aircraft and navy ships were taking part in a search operation off Egypt's Mediterranean coast to locate the debris of the plane, which was carrying 56 passengers, including one child and two babies, and 10 crew members.
Greece also joined the search and rescue operation, officials at the Hellenic National Defense General Staff said.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault offered to send military planes and boats to join the Egyptian search for wreckage.
'We are at the disposition of the Egyptian authorities with our military capacities, with our planes, our boats to help in the search for this plane,' he said.
'We cannot rule anything out': Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail talks to reporters at Cairo International Airport. He said it was too early to say whether a technical problem or a terror attack caused the plane to crash
On high alert: A French officer of the Police aux Frontieres (Borders Police) stands guard at Charles de Gaulle airport
Guard: Police take up position at Terminal 1 at Charles de Gaulle airport, after the EgyptAir flight vanished from radar
Worry: The EgyptAir counter at Charles de Gaulle was empty first thing this morning after reports of the disappearance began to surface
He spoke after French President Francois Hollande held an emergency meeting at the Elysee Palace.
Later, the French military said a Falcon surveillance jet monitoring the Mediterranean for migrants had been diverted to help search for the EgyptAir plane.
Military spokesman Colonel Gilles Jaron said the jet is joining the Egypt-led search effort and the French navy may send another plane and a ship to the zone.
BREAKDOWN OF PASSENGERS 56 passengers (including two infants and a child)
3 security personnel
2 cockpit crew
5 cabin crew crew Passenger nationalities: 30 Egyptians
15 French
1 British
1 Belgian
1 Iraqi
1 Kuwaiti
1 Saudi Arabian
1 Chadian
1 Portuguese
1 Algerian
2 Canadians
Mr Hollande has spoken with Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi by telephone and they agreed to 'closely cooperate to establish the circumstances' in which the EgyptAir flight disappeared.
The government statement cited Hollande as saying he shares the anxiety of families.
Speaking on RTL radio, he said the Paris airport authority has opened a crisis centre to support the families coming to Charles de Gaulle Airport.
He said 'no theory can be ruled out'.
Search and rescue teams have been sent to a specific location believed to be 40 miles from the Egyptian coast.
Greece has also joined the search and rescue operation.
Two aircraft, one C-130 and one early warning aircraft have been dispatched, officials at the Hellenic national defence general staff said.
They said one frigate was also heading to the area, and helicopters are on standby on the southern island of Karpathos for potential rescue or recovery operations.
Ahmed Abdel, the vice-chairman of EgyptAir holding company, said no distress signal had been sent, as far as he knew.
He added that there had been no reported problems with the plane when it left Paris.
The captain of the plane, Abdel said, had more than 6,000 flying hours. This includes 2,000 on an A320.
He also said there was no special cargo on board and the airline was not informed about any dangerous objects on board.
As the plane was in Egyptian airspace, their air traffic controllers should have been in contact with the flight team.
However, it does not necessarily mean the plane was over land at the time, as Egyptian air space stretches over the Mediterranean Sea.
According to flight schedules, it was the plane's fifth flight of the day.
Shortly after news of the disappearance broke, the Egyptair website crashed.
The Airbus A320 is a short-to-mid range aircraft and is one of the most commonly used in the world that first entered circulation in 1986.
It has a capacity of 150 passengers and a range of more than 3,000 miles.
FROM A JOVIAL CONVERSATION WITH AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL TO RADIO SILENCE: HOW MS804 VANISHED IN MID-AIR 11.09pm local time (9.09pm GMT) Wednesday: EgyptAir flight MS804 departs Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport bound for Cairo with 56 passengers and 10 crew including three security guards. 2.24am Greek time (11.24 GMT) Thursday: Airbus A320 enters the Greek air traffic control area, also known as the flight information region (FIR). The plane was identified and approved on its flight course before passing into the next section of air traffic control where it was approved by the controller for the exit point of the Greek FIR. 00.05 GMT: The last communication traffic controllers had with the pilot found him in good spirits. The captain 'was in a good mood and gave thanks in Greek' when authorised to exit the Athens FIR. 00.27 GMT: Air traffic controllers try to contact the pilot again for the handover of the plane to Cairo's area of responsibility, but despite 'repeated calls, the aircraft did not respond'. Air traffic control called on the emergency frequency and again there was no response. 00.29am GMT: The aircraft crosses over the exit point of the Athens air traffic control area. 00.29.40secs GMT: The jet vanishes from radar 170 miles from the Egyptian coast. The Greek authority said the military was asked for help in case the plane could be located on a military radar, but there was no sign of it. 00.45am GMT Search and rescue operation gets underway 4.26am local time (2.26 GMT) There is confusion over a new distress signal that was reportedly received by an Egyptian military tower, two hours after the last confirmed contact with the aircraft. It is believed to have come from the aircraft's emergency devices.
An EgyptAir plane was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus in March. A man who admitted to the hijacking and is described by Cypriot authorities as 'psychologically unstable' is in custody in Cyprus.
The incident renewed security concerns months after a Russian passenger plane was blown out of the sky over the Sinai Peninsula.
The Russian plane crashed in Sinai on October 31, killing all 224 people on board. Moscow said it was brought down by an explosive device, and a local branch of the extremist Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for planting it.
With its archaeological sites and Red Sea resorts, Egypt is a traditional destination for Western tourists.
In 1999, EgyptAir Flight 1990 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, killing all 217 people aboard.
U.S. investigators filed a final report that concluded its co-pilot switched off the autopilot and pointed the Boeing 767 downward.
But Egyptian officials rejected the notion of suicide altogether, insisting some mechanical reason caused the crash.
EgyptAir has provided the following numbers for those wanting more information or who may have families on board:
080077770000 from any landline in Egypt
+ 202 25989320 outside Egypt or any mobile in Egypt
FRENCH SPY CHIEF WARNED COUNTRY WAS 'CLEARLY BEING TARGETED BY ISIS' A WEEK BEFORE EGYPTAIR CRASH The head of France's internal intelligence agency had warned the country was being 'clearly targeted' by ISIS a week before the Paris to Cairo flight took off. It has now emerged that Patrick Calvar, the head of France's DGSI agency, told a parliamentary committee on national defence in Paris on May 10 that ISIS was planning 'a new form of attack'. France was targeted twice last year with the Charlie Hebdo attack in January and the Paris attacks in November and the French security forces are on a state of high alert. Concern: Patrick Calvar (pictured), head of French internal intelligence, warned last week that ISIS was planning new attacks on France Mr Calvar was quoted in The Local as saying: 'We risk being confronted with a new form of attack: a terrorist campaign characterised by leaving explosive devices in places where big crowds gather, multiplying this type of action to create a climate of panic.' He made no mention of attacks on aircraft. But he said he believed France was 'the country most threatened' by ISIS, which is often known as Daesh, and also warned that Al-Qaeda remained a threat and was champing at the bit to 'restore its image' as a major player, especially in the Maghreb and the Arabian peninsula.
Missing: A closer locator map shows where the flight lost contact with radars around 170 miles from the the Egyptian coast
Hunt for MS804: Several vessels are seen on radar joining the search for the doomed Airbus A320 in the Mediterranean
The airline then tweeted that there were 56 passengers on board and 10 crew members
The airline revealed that the flight had gone missing after posting this Tweet early on Thursday morning
They then confirmed that the flight lost contact with air traffic controllers 10 miles inside Egyptian airspace
Police have released CCTV footage of man they want to speak to regarding a police memorial that was desecrated by vandals.
The Police Wall of Remembrance at the Domain in Sydney was scratched, leaving marks over the New South Wales Police Crest and five panels containing the names of deceased officers on Friday afternoon.
It is believed a man in his late teens or early 20s, who was carrying a skateboard, damaged the monument with a piece of glass or rock, reported 9 News.
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Police have released CCTV footage of a man seen carrying a skateboard (pictured) who was in the area after a police memorial was vandalised in the Domain in Sydney on Friday afternoon
The man is described as being of Caucasian appearance, in his late teens or early 20s, 175-180cm tall with a medium build and brown hair
The footage shows the man falling off his skateboard into oncoming traffic the same afternoon the memorial was damaged.
A man carrying a skateboard was seen running from the area just after 4pm on Friday.
He is described as being of Caucasian appearance, 175-180cm tall with a medium build and brown hair.
He was captured falling off his skateboard into oncoming traffic nearby, the same afternoon the memorial was damaged
He was also wearing black clothes and black sneakers.
The memorial pays tribute to police officers who have been killed on duty.
Sydney City local area commander David Donohue described it as 'a senseless act that is an insult to all serving police officers in the state of NSW'.
Anyone who witnessed the incident, or has information that may assist, is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
The Police Wall of Remembrance (pictured) at the Domain in Sydney was scratched, leaving marks over the New South Wales Police Crest and five panels containing the names of deceased officers
The vandalised memorial pays tribute to police officers who have been killed on duty
He offers free surfing lessons at their home on Union Island in Grenadines
A desperate boyfriend is offering a five-month free holiday in the Caribbean in exchange for free physiotherapy for his badly injured kitesurfer girlfriend who broke her hip falling into a concrete ditch.
Zoe Schaffer-Jennett, 27, suffered a complicated femoral neck fracture in her hip that will leave her bedbound for months.
Her boyfriend Jeremie Tronet, who runs a kitesurfing centre on Union Island in the heart of the Grenadines, has made a Facebook appeal for a willing physiotherapist to help her reduce the costs of mounting medical bills.
Zoe Schaffer-Jennett, 27, suffered a complicated femoral neck fracture in her hip that will leave her bedbound for months
Ms Schaffer-Jennett, a kitesurfing instructor, was flown to Martinique Island for emergency surgery after she tripped in a very dark corner at night alongside the road and fell into a concrete ditch
Ms Schaffer-Jennett, a kitesurfing instructor who grew up between the Caribbean and boarding schools in England and Scotland, was flown to Martinique Island for emergency surgery after she tripped in a very dark corner at night alongside the road and fell into a concrete ditch, her 29-year-old boyfriend explained.
After the accident, Ms Schaffer-Jennett had to sleep at home for a night on basic painkillers before she could be flown to a hospital in Martinique in a tiny airplane.
THE OFFER INCLUDES - Free air fare to Union Island - Free accommodation and daily expenses covered - Free Kitesurfing lessons until you become an independent Kitesurfer - Free excursion to the neighbour islands - Free Kitesurfing rentals if already a Kitesurfer
She is currently recovering from a four-hour long surgery during which three screws had to be placed in her leg to reattach her femoral head to the bone.
Now she is facing a five-month recovery period that will require daily assistance from a physiotherapist, as she will have to learn how to walk again.
Ms Schaffer-Jennett, an Austrian national with an English dad who was born on the French Caribbean island of Martinique and lives on Union Island, is not covered by appropriate health insurance due to her complicated status.
Her boyfriend Jeremie Tronet (pictured), who runs a kitesurfing centre on Union Island in the heart of the Grenadines, has made a Facebook appeal for a willing physiotherapist
After the accident, Ms Schaffer-Jennett had to sleep at home for a night on basic painkillers before she could be flown to a hospital in Martinique in a tiny airplane
She is currently recovering from a four-hour long surgery during which three screws had to be placed in her leg to reattach her femoral head to the bone
For the surgery and stay at the hospital it wasn't a big issue, the main problem we encountered was when our surgeon told us that Zoe had to be in a rehabilitation center for 5 months, Mr Tronet said.
Such rehab centers cost between $1200 to 2000 a day which would have come up to over $300.000 in medical bills.
This was the most stressful situation for us as we wanted the best treatment for her even if we had to put ourselves in debt. I will do everything necessary to make sure she can walk properly again, Mr Tronet added.
But instead of asking other people for money to help with the medical bills, the couple decided to make an unconventional call on social media.
We knew that crowdfunding would have been a viable solution to pay for the rehab center, but we didn't want to get to this unless we would have used all of the other possible options we could think off, Mr Tronet said.
For the surgery and stay at the hospital it wasn't a big issue, the main problem we encountered was when our surgeon told us that Zoe had to be in a rehabilitation center for 5 months, Mr Tronet said
This was the most stressful situation for us as we wanted the best treatment for her even if we had to put ourselves in debt,' he added. Pictured are X-Rays of the broken hip
Since the job offer and details of Ms Schaffer-Jennetts accident have been posted, the Facebook post has gone viral in the medical circles and Kitesurfing world and couple has received countless applications from physiotherapists around the world.
We have received an amazing amount of support in no time from so many people, Mr Tronet said.
For now we will need to go through everyone's applications to make sure to get her the best of the best, even though we wish we could bring everyone who helped and offered to help to our beautiful Union Island to learn to Kitesurf thats how our romance started!
To apply for this job, email zoesurgery@gmail.com with your CV and photo.
Families of Australians killed on-board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 are seeking $10 million in compensation per passenger.
The victims, represented by Sydney legal firm LHD lawyers, served the claim to the European Court of Human Rights on May 9.
They are planning to sue the Russian Federation and President Vladimir Putin over claims the nation has hidden its involvement in the downing of the plane by a missile over Ukraine in 2014, the Age reports.
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Families of MH17 victims each seek $10 million in compensation from the Russia
The 3,500-page document notes that the Russian Federation has failed to assist in any investigation and has instead attempted to conceal its involvement.
Of the 298 people on board MH17 who died, 38 were Australian. In the application, 33 next of kin were named which included eight from Australia, a New Zealander, and the remainder are from Malaysia.
If the claim is successful it can result in one of the largest payouts in the history of aviation with the bill reaching almost $3 billion.
Co-associate of Sydney law firm LHD and a leading aviation law specialist, Jerry Skinner, is leading the 3500-page claim.
'My clients want accountability for the deed. They want enough money to reflect that the Russians take this seriously and serve as a deterrent.,' Mr Skinner told Fairfax Media.
'I have encouraged the Russians to contact me to discuss how much money that is ... but I have heard nothing from Russia, from their embassy or from the contact points that we established to indicate that they are willing to talk about negotiating.
Mr Skinner who has advocated for families victimised by almost every major U.S. airline disaster since 1989 is also recognised for settling claims by families of the 270 killed in the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, which saw Libya offer up to US$2.7 billion in compensation, representing US$10 million per family.
Tim Lauschet (left), the son of MH17 victim Gabrielle Lauschet (right) is one of the claimants named
The parents of Fatima Dyczynski (pictured) who was the chief executive and founder of Xoterra Space, have also listed as claimants
The parents of 25-year-old aerospace engineer Fatima Dyczynski say despite having lost their daughter almost two years ago they are still speechless.
Her parents, Jerzy and Angela, say Fatima will forever be a source of inspiration.
Tim Lauschet, the son of Sydney teacher Gabriele Lauschet, is also named as a claimant.
Once a hard-working building industry supervisor, 24-year-old Tim Lauschet had turned into an angry person who lost his temper and was terrible to be around at work.
'When that plane went down, I lost my family. [Mum] wasn't just a family member, she was my whole and complete family,' he said.
Mr Lauschet said his life fell apart financially since the tragedy and he had been forced to sell his mother's house.
Viktor Oreshkin (left) and Sister Philomene Tiernan (right) were among the 38 Australians who were killed when a Russian missile struck the Malaysian Airlines flight over the Ukraine in 2014
Dutch air crash investigators released a video demonstrating how a Russian-made BUK missile detonated just inches from the MH17 cockpit, killing the pilots and breaking off the front of the plane
This lawsuit differs to the one which will be put forward in the coming weeks on behalf of seven Australian families.
The claim, expected to be filed in the Federal court of Australia, seeks unspecified damages from Malaysia Airlines over its failure to avoid the flight path over Ukraine.
The Dutch investigation found that the missile contained a Russian made warhead which detonated one metre from the left side of the plane's cockpit at 1.20pm local time.
The explosion sent 800 fragments to perforate the aircraft and caused the cockpit to tear off from the business class section of the plane.
The fragments, which were cube or bow tie shaped, entered the plane and later were found 'in the bodies of the crew'.
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Smoke alarms were sounding for almost three minutes on board EgyptAir Flight 804 before it plummeted into the sea, investigators have confirmed, leading experts to claim the crash was likely caused by a bomb or 'incendiary device'.
Experts have drawn various conclusions from leaked data about alerts sent out by the doomed jet in its final moments, with many pointing out that for now any information gleaned is 'pure conjecture'.
While the data indicates that something catastrophic did occur on board the plane - seeming to rule out theories that it was deliberately crashed into the sea by a pilot or hijacker - there is disagreement as to whether it points to a bomb or a fire on board.
Egyptian investigators have said it is still 'too soon' to make a judgement on what happened based on the information available.
It comes as the first pictures of the mangled wreckage emerged from the crash site.
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Discovery: The plane's twisted blue metal panelling, marked with EgyptAir branding as well as items of clothing and yellow life jackets have been recovered from the Mediterranean Sea, where vessels continue to search for the wreckage
Search effort: The first pictures of the mangled wreckage from the EgyptAir flight 804 has emerged as investigators confirm smoke was detected in multiple places moments before the plane plummeted into the Mediterranean
'It looks like the right front and side window were blown out, most probably from inside out,' an unnamed European airline pilot told the Telegraph, indicating that a bomb on board caused the crash.
A screen grab of data leaked by air industry news site The Aviation Herald showed what appeared to be a break-down of the alerts sent out by the plane's Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), before it lost contact at 00.29GMT.
The pilot pointed out that fog could also have set off the alarms, filling the air due to a sudden loss of cabin pressure.
They added that an internal explosion seemed to be the most likely explanation, based on the alerts concerning the windows in the cockpit.
Meanwhile aviation analyst David Soucie told CNN that the data indicated a fire on board caused the crash, rather than a bomb.
'If there's fire on board the aircraft, in this area which the ACARS indicates, then something was close to the cockpit,' Mr Soucie said.
'It could have been either something mechanical that had failed, a short circuit, or it could have been an incendiary device of some kind as well.'
ACARS does not provide a cause of the crash, but Mr Soucie said it was significant that the data was sent over a period of one to two minutes.
'Now if it it was a bomb, the characteristic bomb... would have ruptured the skin of the aircraft,' he said.
'This is not the indication you would have had, because a bomb that would do that would be instantaneous and these reports would not have gone over two minutes like they do.'
The analyst added that a fire in the front section of the plane may well have affected the communications equipment.
According to the leaked data, smoke alarms in the lavatory behind the cockpit first began sounding at 00.26GMT. Less than a minute later, smoke was also detected in the avionics [electronics].
The final two alerts from the plane indicate faults with the FCU - the flight control unit used by the pilot to input instructions into the flight computer - and the SEC 3 - the computer that controls the plane's spoilers and elevator computers.
Leak: Data has emerged indicating the EgyptAir Flight MS804 was on fire before it plummeted into the Mediterranean. An ACARS screen grab (above) shows smoke alarms in the lavatory behind the cockpit sounded at 00.26GMT, three minutes before the plane lost contact
Crash: The cause of the crash that killed all 66 on board remains unclear but smoke alarms were sounding for almost three minutes before it began its rapid descent, according to the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) data
Find: The discovery of the black box could provide vital clue into what caused the passenger jet to crash on its journey from Paris to Cairo
The plane's twisted blue metal panelling, marked with EgyptAir branding, as well as items of clothing and yellow life jackets have been recovered from the sea, where investigators continue to search the wreckage.
Egyptian media have also reported that divers have found the black box close to the crash site. The black box has yet to be recovered by rescuers but could provide vital clues into what caused the plane to crash just as it entered Egyptian airspace on its journey to Cairo.
Agency spokesman Sebastien Barthe confirmed the sounding of the smoke alarms 'generally mean the start of a fire,' but insisted that everything is currently 'pure conjecture.'
Experts are pouring over the crash site with concerns that the plane fire may have been caused by a bomb blast due to suspect nature of the fire.
While Egyptian officials continue saying that they suspect terrorism, no group has yet come forward to claim credit as theories as to the cause of the crash continue to circulate.
It comes as hundreds of mourners gathered to offer prayers for the 66 passengers and crew killed in the EgyptAir disaster.
The twisted remains of the plane debris reveals the damage caused to the plane, with investigators still remain unsure what caused the apparent fire in the toilet and cabin
A video image released by the Egyptian Defense Ministry shows a ship during the search in the Mediterranean Sea for missing EgyptAir Flight MS804 plane which crashed after disappearing from the radar in the early hours of Thursday morning while carrying 66 people
The parents of EgyptAir MS804 victim, air hostess Yara Hani Tawfik, at her funeral held at the Church of Virgin & Saint Athanasius in Cairo
Friends and family of one of the EgyptAir MS804 victims, air hostess Yara Hani Tawfik, mourn at her memorial service
The Aviation Herald claimed to have received the data from three independent channels, which were unidentified.
The ACARS screen grab provided information about smoke and heat on a window near the co-pilot and in the lavatory, which was behind the cockpit.
Meanwhile, family, friends and colleagues held back tears as the Imam led prays for their salvation at the Al Sedeq mosque close to Cairo International Airport where the doom jet had been due to land.
The hour-long Friday prayers ended with pall bearers carrying a symbolic coffin for the missing bodies out of the sprawling complex.
Outside, family members told of their shock at the sudden disappearance of passenger jet, while colleagues praised the professionalism of the crew.
Ahmed Asem, the father of co-pilot Mohamed Mamdouh Ahmed Asem, was overwhelmed by messages of condolence.
Mohamed's cousin, Hizam Asem told MailOnline: 'Mohamed was a very, very good pilot. He was the best in his class. He was very skillful.
'Ever since he was a little boy he had wanted to fly a plane. And finally he was realising his dream. He was just a young man of 27 but he was living the life he had always wanted.'
The coastguards and rescue workers have been trying to locate the wreckage in the Mediterranean Sea after the plane crash
Egyptian media have also reported that divers have found the black box between close to the crash site
The black box could provide vital clues into what caused the plane to crash just as it entered Egyptian airspace on its journey to Cairo
At present no survivors have been found from the plane crash wreckage, where life jackets were recovered from the water
According to the leaked data, smoke alarms in the lavatory behind the cockpit first began sounding at 00.26GMT. Less than a minute later, smoke was also detected in the avionics [electronics]
The smoke is thought to have filtered out from the toilet and was also detected near the cockpit, according to the alarm data
The devastating impact of the crash appears to have torn the plane to pieces with insulation and parts of the wall surfacing in the water
Lying on the deck of the vessels, recovered items appears to include shoes and handbags from the crashed plane
Devastated family members of one of the victims weep as they leave the Church of Virgin & Saint Athanasius in Cairo
Several friends and relatives comfort one distraught woman at the memorial service at the church in Cairo
Prayers were also held at Al Sedeq mosque close to Cairo International Airport where the doom jet had been due to land
The co-pilot's uncle Hisam Asem added: 'Mohamed loved his job. He loved being a pilot. He introduced me to Captain Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair. He was a very nice man, a very good pilot.
Grief-stricken air-hostesss Rasha Al Saandy and Shereen Fouad hugged each other in support outside the mosque.
Rasha Al Saandy told MailOnline: 'I knew Captain Shoukair and some of the crew. They were the best colleagues anyone could hope for.
'I did not know the younger air hostesses Samar [Ezz Eldin] or Yara Hany because they had not been working on but [steward] Haietham Elzazizi was my best friend. He was so funny, he was always smiling and laughing.
'Since I heard what happened I cannot sleep, I cannot sleep.'
Shereen Fouad added: 'This is so terrible. I cannot imagine how this has happened.'
At another emotional service, the father of Captain Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair collapsed in grief for his missing son.
Distraught Bahgat Shoukair was unable to stand during the absent funeral service for his pilot son Mohamed following Friday prayers in his home city of Badrashin, south of Cairo.
Frail Mr Shoukair could only sit in a chair throughout the service at the Yusef mosque, being too weak to stand and knee as is customary in Muslim prayers.
Gripped by grief: EgyptAir stewardesses console each other outside the Al Sedeq mosque where hundreds of mourners gathered to offer prayers for the crew of missing EgyptAir flight MS804
Ahmed Asem (centre), the father of co-pilot Mohamed Mamdouh Ahmed Asem, was overwhelmed by messages of support as he visited the Al Sedeq mosque close to Cairo International Airport to pray for his son and the other 65 people on flight MS804
Ahmed Asem is consoled by members of the Al Sedeq mosque where they held the hour-long Friday prayers for the missing
Hizam Asem (left), the uncle, and Hisam Asem, the cousin of the EgyptAir co-pilot attend the Friday prayers at the mosque
Friends and relatives of the EgyptAir crew console each other outside Al Sedeq Mosque in Cairo
The family of co-pilot Mohammad Mamdouh Assem had sacrificed everything so could fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a pilot
Devastated: A mourner wipes away a tear during Friday prayers for the passengers and crew killed in the EgyptAir disaster
Members of the Al Sedeq Mosque in Cairo pray for the crew members of the crashed EgyptAir plane as at emotional service near Cairo
Family, friends and colleagues held back tears as the Imam led prays for their salvation at the Al Sedeq mosque near Cairo Airport
Members of the Al Sedeq Mosque in Cairo console friends and relatives of the co-pilot of the EgyptAir plane which crashed yesterday
However the father was able to shake hands with people who offered him their condolences for the loss of his son.
'Bahgat Shoukair was distraught,' one onlookers told Egyptian internet news service Video 7.
'He could not stand up. He had to sit on a chair. He could only shake hands with people. After the prayer service his relatives carried him to his home.'
The captain's uncle, Shihab Shakir, told Youm7: 'The information we received is the same as what they said on TV. They remained tight lipped about what happened.
'If there was anything, he would have known because he's not an inexperienced pilot. He's very experienced and all his managers and bosses say that he is one of the best pilot's in Egypt.
'[The last time I spoke with him] he called and asked if I needed anything, if I wanted him to bring me anything when he comes back, but then he said his flight would be late.
BRITON WHO CHEATED DEATH BECAUSE HIS WORK TRIP TO EGYPT WAS CANCELLED AT THE LAST MINUTE SO HE DIDN'T BOARD DOOMED FLIGHT A British man is lucky to be alive after a work trip to Cairo was cancelled at the last minute. Father-of-two Ian Phillips, from Peterborough, was supposed to be on the doomed EgyptAir Flight MS804 that plunged into the Mediterranean Sea killing all 66 people on board. But in an astonishing turn of events the work trip was called off just hours before he was set to board the flight. 'It didn't really sink in how lucky I was until yesterday afternoon,' he told MailOnline today. Father-of-two Ian Phillips, from Peterborough, was supposed to be on the doomed EgyptAir Flight MS804 that plunged into the Mediterranean Sea killing all 66 people on board. Pictured with his daughter Zoe, who is pregnant, and son Bryn 'I'm very relieved and very grateful that I am still here. Luckily I didn't even get near the airport. 'It took me a few hours to realise the seriousness of it.' The 48-year-old, who is also about to become a grandfather, works at a courier firm that requires him to hand-deliver sensitive documents around the world. He gladly accepted the job which would have seen him fly from London City airport to Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris before getting the connecting flight on to Cairo International. I'm very relieved and very grateful that I am still here. It took me a few hours to realise the seriousness of it. Ian Phillips And he was only mildly relieved when the client cancelled, saving him a trip that would have involved several nights away from home. But it was only when he arrived at the London office of CMS Network and saw the news of the missing plane that he realised quite how lucky he had been. He added: 'On the one hand I feel quite lucky and grateful and on the other it all seems a bit surreal. 'I didn't know which flight they were going to put me on until I got into the office. Just before the client cancelled, they couldn't find any direct flights from the UK and that was looking like the best option. 'Just for once I'm quite pleased the client cancelled.' Although he often flies to Europe for work, Mr Phillips rarely travels further afield than Zurich or Switzerland as most of CMS Network's clients are in the banking sector. Still reeling from discovering his near-miss, Mr Phillips turned to social media to come to terms with the shock. 'I got to work yesterday morning to be asked if I would be happy to deliver a package to Cairo,' he posted on Facebook, following news of the flight's disappearance. 'Of course, said I, and by 9.45am I was on my way back to Peterborough to get my passport and pack a bag. 'Thankfully our client cancelled at the last minute so I didn't go but can you guess which flight I was due to travel on.' Friends have described his experience as 'sobering' and a 'close shave'. Others have recommended he 'do something you were putting off have a big holiday, down a pint, or something like that!' But he said his near-miss hasn't put him of flying to Cairo for work again if it was needed. Advertisement
'He was always inviting all his colleagues at the company and he would bring them together and take them for meals and fix their problems. He didn't have any problems with any one.'
The services were held has search crews revealed they had found a severed arm, luggage and a two-mile-long oil slick in the Mediterranean.
The news will deal a devastating blow to families who are holding out a glimmer of hope their loved ones may have survived the crash.
The Egyptian military discovered wreckage around 180 miles north of the coastal city of Alexandria and have announced that the plane's black box recorders have also been found, which could hold the key to the plane's mysterious disappearance.
Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said a body part, two seats and suitcases were found in the search area, slightly to the south of where the aircraft had vanished from radar.
Greek journalist Liana Spyropoulou later said Mr Kammenos revealed the body part was an arm.
A two-mile oil slick has also been spotted 20 miles south-east of the plane's last location by the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1A radar satellite.
Egyptian President Adbel Fattah al-Sisi, meanwhile, offered condolences to families of those on board, amounting to Cairo's official confirmation of their deaths.
At another emotional service, Bahgat Shoukair, the father of Captain Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair collapsed in grief for his missing son
Celebration: Captain Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair had been promoted just four days before the crash
EXTREMISTS APPLIED FOR AIRPORT JOBS AT PARIS AIRPORT Islamic extremists tried to get jobs at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris this spring, it was revealed yesterday. It came despite France having been under a state of emergency since the Paris attacks in November and a sweep at Charles de Gaulle, Roissy and Orly Airports that saw 70 workers stripped of their accreditation five months ago. The security scare was discussed at an emergency meeting of officials from countries including Britain yesterday. An intelligence source said: 'These attempts have been made after officials stripped dozens of staff at French airports of their accreditation over suspected radicalisation.' It means it is possible a bomb was placed on the doomed EgyptAir flight in Paris or hijackers could have boarded there. Air security expert Xavier Tytelman said an employee smuggling a bomb on board was more likely than explosives being hidden inside baggage loaded on the plane. He said three checks were made on luggage before being placed in the hold and the systems at Charles de Gaulle worked 'very well'. Advertisement
Although fingers pointed towards Islamist militants who blew up another airliner over Egypt just seven months ago, no group had claimed responsibility more than 24 hours after the disappearance of flight MS804, an Airbus A320 that was flying from Paris to Cairo.
Three French investigators and a technical expert from Airbus arrived in Cairo early on Friday to help investigate the fate of the missing plane, airport sources said.
Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said yesterday that it was too early to rule out any explanation for the disaster, but the country's aviation minister said a terrorist attack was more likely than a technical failure.
Friday's announcement that debris had been found followed earlier confusion about whether wreckage had been located. Greek searchers found some material on Thursday, but the airline later said this was not from its plane.
An intelligence source said: 'There was no mayday call from the cockpit which suggests that it was a terrorist attack. We are still trying to ascertain if the crew in the cockpit were overpowered by hijackers or if a bomb went off. We will only know when we examine the wreckage.'
Agencies did not pick up any unusual 'chatter' in France or Egypt in the days before the attack, the source added.
Mike Vivian, former head of operations at the Civil Aviation Authority, said the jet's sudden swerves before vanishing were more likely to be caused by a forced cockpit takeover than a bomb.
'One's inclined to go towards the theory that there had been some interference in the aircraft and on the flight deck, with the control of the aircraft,' he said.
While there was no official explanation of the cause of the crash, suspicion immediately fell on Islamist militants who have been fighting against Egypt's government since Sisi toppled an elected Islamist leader in 2013.
In October, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for blowing up a Russian jetliner that exploded after taking off from an Egyptian tourist resort. Russian investigators blamed a bomb smuggled on board.
Last year's crash already devastated Egypt's tourist industry, one of the main sources of foreign exchange for a country of 80 million people, and another similar attack would crush hopes of it recovering.
Clues: This image released by the European Space Agency from its Sentinel-1A satellite reportedly shows a two-mile-long oil slick (circled) in the Mediterranean Sea around 20 miles from the last-known location of the EgyptAir plane which vanished near Greece on Thursday
An Egyptian plane and ship search the Mediterranean for missing EgyptAir flight 804 plane which crashed in mysterious circumstances
An Egyptian plane searches for debris and personal belongins from the missing EgyptAir plane which crashed in the Mediterranean Sea
An engineer stands in front of a C-130 HAUP of the Hellenic Air Force which took part and is on stand by in the search operation
While most governments were cautious about jumping to conclusions, U.S. Republican candidate for president Donald Trump tweeted swiftly after the plane's disappearance: 'Looks like yet another terrorist attack. Airplane departed from Paris. When will we get tough, smart and vigilant?'
Many hours later his likely Democratic rival Hillary Clinton also said it appeared to be an act of terrorism, although she said an investigation would have to determine the details.
Officials from a number of U.S. agencies told Reuters that a U.S. review of satellite imagery so far had not produced any signs of an explosion.
They said the United States had not ruled out any possible causes for the crash, including mechanical failure, terrorism or a deliberate act by the pilot or crew.
Amid uncertainty about what brought down the plane, Los Angeles International Airport became the first major U.S. air transportation hub to say it was stepping up security measures.
In Britain, a spokesman for the David Cameron said Whitehall officials from different departments will be working throughout the day and into the weekend on the disaster and will update secretaries of state and the Prime Minister on all developments.
However, the Government is refusing to discuss security procedures until the cause of the crash is known.
The military has sent a vessel to follow the flight path of the plane and is heading south west towards where wreckage has reportedly been found.
Hunt for clues: The Egyptian army today reported finding wreckage and personal belongings from the missing jet around 180 miles north of Alexandria. The discovery came a day after other debris found in another area near the African coast turned out not to come the plane
The RAF sent a C130 plane which completed a surveillance flight last night and a second flight is ongoing.
The Air Accident Investigation Branch has also offered its assistance to the investigation and is ready to offer support if required.
Meanwhile, heartbreaking details are beginning to emerge of the lives cut short on board the doomed flight.
Air hostess Samar Ezz Eldin, 27, who had recently married, uploaded a prophetic image of a plane crashing into the sea on her Facebook page in September 2014 just four months after she started working at Egypt's national carrier.
It shows an air hostess dressed smartly in wet clothes pulling a carry-on suitcase out of the water as a passenger jet plunges into the sea behind her.
A friend of Ms Eldin revealed: 'It was the job of her dreams, but she always felt a nagging feeling at the back of her mind that something bad would happen.
'She was often telling friends that she would die in an airline crash. This is very sad but also prophetic.'
Other victims identified include the captain who celebrated a promotion just four days earlier, the co-pilot whose family sacrificed everything so he could learn to fly and a cabin manager who gave up a successful TV acting career to become an air hostess.
Captain Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair, 37, from Giza, had invited his colleagues and former flying school classmates to a huge dinner to celebrate his promotion to the rank of senior pilot, MailOnline can reveal.
Ahmed Adly, of the Egyptian Pilots Association, told MailOnline: 'I can confirm that Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair was the captain of the Egyptair MS804 that has been lost.'
Another friend Ahmed Mashaal said: 'God bless you Shoukair. I last saw him four days ago at a party.
'He invited his whole colleagues from EgyptAir and fellow students from the flying school to a huge dinner to celebrate his promotion four days ago [on Monday]. He was celebrating his promotion.'
Captain Shoukair was a very experienced pilot with 6275 flying hours, 2101 of those hours flying an Airbus 806. He was not married and did not have any children.
EgyptAir stewardess Samar Ezz Eldin (left) posted a picture of an air hostess in front of a passenger jet crashing into the sea behind her (right) on her Facebook page. The 27-year-old was among the first passengers and crew on board Flight MS804 to be named
Captain Shoukair (right) with colleagues. Air traffic controllers said he was in 'a good mood and gave thanks in Greek' when he was in last contact around 25 minutes before the jet fell out of the sky in a suspected terror attack
His co-pilot Mohammad Mamdouh Assem had dreamed of flying planes since he was five years old and his mother had put all her savings into helping him achieved his lifelong goal.
According to friends, co-pilot Mohammad Mamdouh Assem's lifelong dream was to cruise the skies with his mother spending all her savings on sending him to aviation school.
EGYPTAIR FLIGHT HAD THREE AIR MARSHALLS ON BOARD PLANE EgyptAir Flight MS804 had three air marshals on board when it crashed in the Mediterranean on Thursday, authorities have said. France's transport chief Alain Vidalies told NBC News that the high number of security officers onboard was 'the usual practice'. Analysts say the higher number of air marshals onboard could be explained by a recent boost in security following a number of terrorist attacks involving passenger planes. Three air marshals also makes it less likely that the crash was called by a hijacker, as a terrorist would have to overpower not only the armed air marshals but also plane staff and passengers. Another argument against this is that no one managed to send a mayday, which suggests a hijacker would have had to break into the cockpit extremely quickly or had inside help. Advertisement
Childhood friend Omar Nasef told The Daily Beast: 'He wanted to be a pilot since he was five. He was an unbelievable person, social.'
His mother tragically died a few years ago from cancer and the family was still struggling to cope with her loss when news broke that he had perished on the doomed flight.
'His mom put all her savings towards his education,' Nasef said. 'The academy and all that, and it's very expensive in Egypt. That was a big sacrifice.'
'All that I know is that he loved flying. That was his dream job and that's it,' he said.
Cabin manager Mervat Zakaria was also revealed to be a former TV actress who had been promoted to her position just one month before the crash.
Ms Zakaria had joined the national airline carrier in 1986 after giving up a successful acting career.
She had starred as a troubled teenager, Hala Awad, who had lost her mother in the hit Egyptian drama Abu El Ela El-Bashery.
The show was named after the character of the widower who was bringing up his daughters on his own.
But Ms Zakaria, who is believed to be married with a daughter, quit before the second series to take up a career as an air hostess for EgyptAir.
Meanwhile, it emerged today that the wife of British passenger Richard Osman had warned him to be careful whenever he travelled abroad on his work, but he laughed off her fears, telling her: 'It is never going to happen to me.'
The geologist had celebrated becoming a father for the second time with wife Aureilie, 36, just three weeks before the crash.
He had been flying regularly to Egypt with his job with Australian gold mining firm Centamin Ltd- often taking the plane from Paris to Cairo.
His brother Alastair said: 'Aureilie had warned him to be careful but he took the view that it's never going to happen to you. He just laughed it off.
'We kept in touch regularly and I would speak to him a couple times a month but he never mentioned the possible threat of terrorism on his flights across the Mediterranean to me.
'But the family was worried because ISIS and groups like them don't think that any of their victims have family members or a past or a history of hopes and dreams.'
Cabin manager Mervat Zakaria (pictured, left, and with her daughter, right) gave up a successful acting career to become an air hostess
Mervat Zakaria starred as a troubled teenager, Hala Awad, who had lost her mother in the hit Egyptian drama Abu El Ela El-Bashery
Mr Osman had celebrated the birth of his second daughter Olympe just three weeks ago and was travelling to Egypt for work.
Speaking yesterday, Alistair said: 'I still can't take it in I got a call from our sister first thing this morning and I'm still in shock.
'Richard was so happy at the birth of his second daughter, and yet weeks later he is no longer with us - it's an absolute tragedy.'
Mr Osman was also father to a 14-month-old girl called Victios.
His two daughters are being looked after by Aureilie in Paris, where the couple have a home.
Alastair, 36, a biochemistry student at Swansea University, said: 'Of all the family I would've thought Richard would have been the last to go.'
'He was incredibly fit and a workaholic and since leaving university he has never stopped.
'He was really happy about having the baby and was looking forward to enjoying a lovely family life with his two girls.'
He is believed to be a dual citizen of Australia, following a statement issued by the Australian government saying that one of those presumed dead is a UK-Australia dual national.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop declined to give additional details, including details on the passenger's identity.
Family man: Richard Osman was among the 66 victims on board the jet. His brother has described his 'delirious happiness' after the birth of his second daughter just three weeks ago. Mr Osman is pictured here with his French-born wife Aureilie and his first daughter Victios
Happier times: Mr Osman's brother has spoken of his 'shock' at hearing the news of the plane crash this morning. Mr Osman, a geologist who was travelling to Egypt for work, leaves behind a wife (pictured here on their wedding day) and two infant daughters
Future: Mr Osman's brother Alastair described the crash as an 'absolute tragedy', adding that Mr Osman had been looking forward to a 'lovely future' with his wife and two young daughters
Passenger: A Canadian woman among those on board the plane has been named as Marwa Hamdy (pictured)
The 56 passengers on board included one Briton, 30 Egyptians, 15 French, one Belgian, one Iraqi, one Kuwaiti, one Saudi Arabian, one Chadian, one Portuguese, one Algerian and at least one Canadian.
A Canadian woman among the passengers has also been named as Marwa Hamdy.
Other crew members included air-hostess Yara Hany, stewards Atef Lotfy and Haietham Elazizi and EgyptAir security officers Mahmoud Ahmed, Ahmed Mohamed Magdy and Mohamed Abd El Menem.
The search is continuing for missing EgyptAir flight 804, which disappeared from the radar while carrying 66 passengers and crew from Paris to Cairo.
Authorities are scouring a wide area south of the Greek island of Crete on Friday to search for wreckage, over 24 hours after the Airbus 320 lost contact.
The Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos says that the plane swerved wildly before plummeting into the sea.
The Egyptian military says that no distress call was received from the pilot. The country's aviation minister Sherif Fathi says the likelihood the plane was brought down by a terror attack is 'higher than the possibility of a technical failure.'
The distressed relatives of those on board have spent the night in a hotel in Cairo while they await news.
Three French investigators and a technical expert from Airbus arrived at Cairo International Airport early Friday morning to help investigate the fate of a missing jet, airport sources said.
The French investigators are part of the French civil aviation ministry's office of investigations and analysis, the sources said.
Yesterday, EgyptAir retracted its claims that the wreckage of the downed Flight MS804 had been discovered floating in the Mediterranean Sea as the mystery surrounding the missing passenger jet deepens.
It comes as U.S. authorities say they have so far been unable to find any indication that an explosion took place on board the plane before it plunged 22,000ft into the water with 66 people on board.
Flight MS804 was travelling from Paris to Cairo when it vanished from radar 10 miles into Egyptian airspace at 00.30am GMT without making a distress call.
Greek defence minister Panos Kammenos said the Airbus A320 made 'sudden swerves' in mid-air, lurching 90 degrees to the left then 360 degrees to the right. It then dropped from 37,000 feet to 15,000ft before the signal was lost at around 10,000 feet.
Security experts, ministers and former air accident investigators said all the evidence pointed to the plane being targeted in a terrorist attack.
But U.S. officials have cast doubt on these claims, stating that they have so far found no evidence of an explosion on board.
The ranking Democrat on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee said there are conflicting reports about the EgyptAir plane during its last minutes of the flight.
Nor is there anything yet to confirm whether terrorism, structural failure or something else was the cause, he added.
'We're working with the French to try to figure out if there is any information we have that could shed light on any of the passengers, but there's nothing yet to confirm the cause of the plane crash,' said California Rep. Adam Schiff.
He said the plane did seem to have broken apart in mid-air, but the reason was unclear.
Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi said the possibility of a terror attack was a 'stronger' possibility than technical failure.
Relatives of passengers on board the EgyptAir flight cry at Cairo Airport as they try to receive information on their loved ones
Loss: Relatives of passengers on the missing EgyptAir flight break down as they console each other at Cairo International Airport in Egypt
Meanwhile, EgyptAir has retracted its earlier statement that wreckage of the plane had been found off the Greek island of Karpathos.
Egyptian officials are now taking a more cautious line, similar to that of Greek authorities, and are saying they 'stand corrected' and it 'is not our aircraft'.
The head of the Greek air safety authority earlier insisted that wreckage found in the Mediterranean close to where the jet is thought to have crashed 'does not come from a plane'.
'Up to now the analysis of the debris indicates that it does not come from a plane, my Egyptian counterpart also confirmed to me that it was not yet proven that the debris came from the EgyptAir flight when we were last in contact around 1745 GMT,' said Athanasios Binis.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has ordered the civil aviation ministry, the army's search and rescue centre, the navy, and the air force to take all necessary measures to locate debris from the EgyptAir plane.
They will join French, Greek and U.S. forces in the search.
In a statement issued by his office, Sisi also ordered an investigative committee formed by the civil aviation ministry to immediately start investigating the causes of the plane's disappearance.
Photographs emerged earlier of what was claimed to be debris from the plane as search vessels reported seeing plastic objects including lifejackets and seats floating in the sea around 230 miles south of the Greek islands of Crete and Karpathos.
The images of the debris were posted on Facebook by Tarek Wahba, who is understood to be the captain of Egyptian container vessel, Maersk Ahram.
He wrote: 'Been finding life jackets and debris including chair to the plane.'
The ship was among a number of vessels sent to the area to help with the search.
A Greek frigate also reported spotting two large plastic objects floating in the sea 230 miles south of the island of Crete.
They appeared to be pieces of plastic in white and red and were spotted close to an area where an emergency transponder signal had been emitted.
Greek military officials say a Greek C-130 military transport plane is still participating in the search for debris from the EgyptAir jet, but a frigate initially sent to the area has been recalled.
The same officials say all potential debris located so far in the sea has been spotted by Egyptian aircraft.
If confirmed to be a terror attack, the disaster would deal another hammer blow to Egypt's crippled tourism industry just months after a Russian Metrojet plane was brought down in the Sinai peninsula by a bomb planted at Sharm el-Sheikh airport.
A Canadian woman among the passengers has also been named as Marwa Hamdy. The nation's Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion issued a statement claiming two Canadians were on board the flight.
Ms Dion said: 'Based on the information currently available, Global Affairs Canada confirms that two Canadian citizens are among the passengers on this flight.'
The airline has said that Ms Hamdy was the sole Canadian on the flight.
U.S. government officials were working on an initial theory the jet was downed by a bomb, two U.S. officials told CNN, although they cautioned that hypothesis could change.
The U.S. State Department has not yet issued a travel warning to Egypt, according to spokesman John Kirby in Washington.
He told reporters that it is too early to make any definite decisions and that he is 'not aware that we recorded, saw, photographed or have possession of any electronic indications about what happened'.
The head of Russia's top domestic security agency, Alexander Bortnikov, also claimed it was 'in all likelihood it was a terror attack'.
Meanwhile, Jean-Paul Troadec, the former chief of the BEA national investigation unit, said the lack of a live emergency alert meant it was almost certainly destroyed in a terror attack.
He told Europe 1 radio station in Paris: 'A technical problem, a fire or a failed motor do not cause an instant accident and the team has time to react.
'The team said nothing, they did not react, so it was very probably a brutal event and we can certainly think about an attack.'
Their comments came after a merchant ship captain reported seeing a 'flame in the sky' over the Mediterranean.
ISIS has been waging a deadly insurgency against Egyptian security forces and last October claimed the bombing of a Russian airliner flying home holidaymakers from the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh which killed all 224 people on board.
The flight was the aircraft's fifth of the day, having also flown to the Eritrean capital of Asmara, the Tunisian capital Tunis and Brussels in Belgium.
French President Francois Hollande said nothing had been ruled out about the cause of the crash.
Speaking at the Elysee Palace in Paris, he said: 'When we have the truth we need to draw all the conclusions. At this stage, we must give priority to solidarity toward the families (of the victims).'
The Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into the accident.
The prosecutor said in a statement that its collective accident department opened the investigation with the national gendarme service, adding that 'no hypothesis is favoured or ruled out at this stage'.
In the minutes and hours after the crash, devastated relatives gathered at Charles De Gaulle and Cairo Airports, weeping and comforting each other as waited for news of their loved ones.
The British Foreign Office said it was in contact with the family of the British national who was feared dead.
Prime Minister David Cameron told LBC Radio: 'I absolutely feel for them [the families]. This is obviously a dreadful event. We don't know very much right now about what's happened.
'We know that there was one British national on the plane. It looks as if it has gone down in the Mediterranean.'
'One of our ships RFA Royal Fleet Auxiliary Mounts Bay is nearby and so we've sent it to the area, but I think it's too early to speculate about what the cause was.
'We simply don't know but all the experts are talking to each other and trying to work out what has happened and when we know more, we'll be able to say more.'
The Airbus A320 left the French capital's Charles De Gaulle Airport at 9.09pm GMT last night before coming down off the Greek island of Karpathos ten miles into Egyptian airspace at around 00.30am GMT. It was scheduled to arrive at Cairo Airport at 1.15am GMT.
EgyptAir first reported on the disappearance of the flight, tweeting: 'An informed source at EGYPTAIR stated that Flight no MS804, which departed Paris at 9.09pm (GMT) heading to Cairo, has disappeared from radar.'
Greece's Civil Aviation Authority CAA said the flight entered the Greek air traffic control area (FIR) at 2.24am Greek time (11.24am GMT).
It was identified and approved on its flight course before passing into the next section of air traffic control where it was approved by the controller for the exit point of the Greek FIR.
The CAA said the last communication traffic controllers had with the EgyptAir pilot at around 00.05am found him in good spirits.
It said the pilot 'was in a good mood and gave thanks in Greek when authorised to exit the Athens flight information region'.
EGYPTAIR JET HAD TRAVELLED TO TERROR HOTSPOTS IN BRUSSELS, TUNIS AND ERITREA HOURS BEFORE CRASH The EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean had flown to terror hotspots in Tunisia, Eritrea and Belgium in the days before the disaster, it has emerged. The travel log of the Airbus A320 will likely form a major part of the investigation into the crash which experts say was most likely caused by a terror attack. Internet site FlightRadar24 indicates the jet travelled to Tunis, Brussels and the Eritrean capital of Asmara in the two days before, leaving open the possibility that an explosive device could have been planted aboard prior to its arrival in France. All destinations have been targeted by terror attacks or plagued by jihadist uprisings in recent months. Tour of terror: Flight radar data showed how the EgyptAir plane that crashed in the Mediterranean had travelled to Tunis, Cairo, Eritrea and Brussels, all area targeted by Islamist militants Brussels Airport and the city's Metro station were targeted in March in ISIS suicide attacks that killed 32 people. Those attacks have been linked to the same cell that killed 130 people in a November massacre in Paris, where flight MS804 took off last night. More than 20 people were also killed in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, in March last year when two Islamist militants stormed the Bardo Museum. Meanwhile, Ethiopian authorities said last week that they had thwarted a terror attack by Eritrean jihadists who trained and armed in Asmara. If a bombing is established, the question for investigators will be how a device was possibly smuggled aboard a flight taking off from France's busiest airport, Paris Charles de Gaulle, where security has been on high alert since last year's jihadist attacks. Aeronautics expert Gerard Feldzer said: 'A bomb placed on board at (Paris) or in Cairo is always possible because it's difficult to make your airport 100 per cent watertight, even in an airport with such tight surveillance as Roissy (Charles de Gaulle).' Advertisement
Upset: Relatives and friends of passengers who were on the EgyptAir plane leave the EgyptAir in-flight service building at Cairo Airport
Terror: Relatives gather at Cairo Airport. Among the 56 passengers on board the plane were 30 Egyptian nationals, 15 French, two Iraqis, one Briton, Belgian, Kuwaiti, Saudi, Sudanese, Chadian, Portuguese, Algerian and a Canadian
Air traffic controllers tried to contact the pilot again at 00.27am for the handover of the plane to Cairo's area of responsibility, but 'despite repeated calls, the aircraft did not respond'.
Air traffic control called on the emergency frequency and again there was no response.
At 00.29am GMT, the aircraft was over the exit point of the Athens FIR, and at 00.29.40am GMT, it vanished from radar.
The Greek authority said the military was asked for help in case the plane could be located on a military radar, but there was no sign of it.
Search and rescue operations then kicked in 00.45am.
Egypt's state-run newspaper Al-Ahram quoted an airport official as saying the pilot did not send a distress call and that last contact with the plane was made 10 minutes before it disappeared from radar.
EgyptAir said the plane sent an emergency signal, possibly from an emergency beacon attached to the plane, at 2.26am GMT two hours after it vanished.
In water crashes, an underwater beacon attached to the aircraft's flight recorders starts to emit a signal or ping which helps search and rescue teams to locate the crash and find the black boxes.
Egyptian military aircraft and navy ships were taking part in a search operation off Egypt's Mediterranean coast to locate the debris of the plane, which was carrying 56 passengers, including one child and two babies, and 10 crew members.
Greece also joined the search and rescue operation, officials at the Hellenic National Defense General Staff said.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault offered to send military planes and boats to join the Egyptian search for wreckage.
'We are at the disposition of the Egyptian authorities with our military capacities, with our planes, our boats to help in the search for this plane,' he said.
'We cannot rule anything out': Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail talks to reporters at Cairo International Airport. He said it was too early to say whether a technical problem or a terror attack caused the plane to crash
On high alert: A French officer of the Police aux Frontieres (Borders Police) stands guard at Charles de Gaulle airport
Guard: Police take up position at Terminal 1 at Charles de Gaulle airport, after the EgyptAir flight vanished from radar
Worry: The EgyptAir counter at Charles de Gaulle was empty first thing this morning after reports of the disappearance began to surface
He spoke after French President Francois Hollande held an emergency meeting at the Elysee Palace.
Later, the French military said a Falcon surveillance jet monitoring the Mediterranean for migrants had been diverted to help search for the EgyptAir plane.
Military spokesman Colonel Gilles Jaron said the jet is joining the Egypt-led search effort and the French navy may send another plane and a ship to the zone.
BREAKDOWN OF PASSENGERS 56 passengers (including two infants and a child)
3 security personnel
2 cockpit crew
5 cabin crew crew Passenger nationalities: 30 Egyptians
15 French
1 British
1 Belgian
1 Iraqi
1 Kuwaiti
1 Saudi Arabian
1 Chadian
1 Portuguese
1 Algerian
2 Canadians Advertisement
Mr Hollande has spoken with Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi by telephone and they agreed to 'closely cooperate to establish the circumstances' in which the EgyptAir flight disappeared.
The government statement cited Hollande as saying he shares the anxiety of families.
Speaking on RTL radio, he said the Paris airport authority has opened a crisis centre to support the families coming to Charles de Gaulle Airport.
He said 'no theory can be ruled out'.
Search and rescue teams have been sent to a specific location believed to be 40 miles from the Egyptian coast.
Greece has also joined the search and rescue operation.
Two aircraft, one C-130 and one early warning aircraft have been dispatched, officials at the Hellenic national defence general staff said.
They said one frigate was also heading to the area, and helicopters are on standby on the southern island of Karpathos for potential rescue or recovery operations.
Ahmed Abdel, the vice-chairman of EgyptAir holding company, said no distress signal had been sent, as far as he knew.
He added that there had been no reported problems with the plane when it left Paris.
The captain of the plane, Abdel said, had more than 6,000 flying hours. This includes 2,000 on an A320.
He also said there was no special cargo on board and the airline was not informed about any dangerous objects on board.
As the plane was in Egyptian airspace, their air traffic controllers should have been in contact with the flight team.
However, it does not necessarily mean the plane was over land at the time, as Egyptian air space stretches over the Mediterranean Sea.
According to flight schedules, it was the plane's fifth flight of the day.
Shortly after news of the disappearance broke, the Egyptair website crashed.
The Airbus A320 is a short-to-mid range aircraft and is one of the most commonly used in the world that first entered circulation in 1986.
It has a capacity of 150 passengers and a range of more than 3,000 miles.
FROM A JOVIAL CONVERSATION WITH AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL TO RADIO SILENCE: HOW MS804 VANISHED IN MID-AIR 11.09pm local time (9.09pm GMT) Wednesday: EgyptAir flight MS804 departs Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport bound for Cairo with 56 passengers and 10 crew including three security guards. 2.24am Greek time (11.24 GMT) Thursday: Airbus A320 enters the Greek air traffic control area, also known as the flight information region (FIR). The plane was identified and approved on its flight course before passing into the next section of air traffic control where it was approved by the controller for the exit point of the Greek FIR. 00.05 GMT: The last communication traffic controllers had with the pilot found him in good spirits. The captain 'was in a good mood and gave thanks in Greek' when authorised to exit the Athens FIR. 00.27 GMT: Air traffic controllers try to contact the pilot again for the handover of the plane to Cairo's area of responsibility, but despite 'repeated calls, the aircraft did not respond'. Air traffic control called on the emergency frequency and again there was no response. 00.29am GMT: The aircraft crosses over the exit point of the Athens air traffic control area. 00.29.40secs GMT: The jet vanishes from radar 170 miles from the Egyptian coast. The Greek authority said the military was asked for help in case the plane could be located on a military radar, but there was no sign of it. 00.45am GMT Search and rescue operation gets underway 4.26am local time (2.26 GMT) There is confusion over a new distress signal that was reportedly received by an Egyptian military tower, two hours after the last confirmed contact with the aircraft. It is believed to have come from the aircraft's emergency devices. Advertisement
An EgyptAir plane was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus in March. A man who admitted to the hijacking and is described by Cypriot authorities as 'psychologically unstable' is in custody in Cyprus.
The incident renewed security concerns months after a Russian passenger plane was blown out of the sky over the Sinai Peninsula.
The Russian plane crashed in Sinai on October 31, killing all 224 people on board. Moscow said it was brought down by an explosive device, and a local branch of the extremist Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for planting it.
With its archaeological sites and Red Sea resorts, Egypt is a traditional destination for Western tourists.
In 1999, EgyptAir Flight 1990 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, killing all 217 people aboard.
U.S. investigators filed a final report that concluded its co-pilot switched off the autopilot and pointed the Boeing 767 downward.
But Egyptian officials rejected the notion of suicide altogether, insisting some mechanical reason caused the crash.
EgyptAir has provided the following numbers for those wanting more information or who may have families on board:
080077770000 from any landline in Egypt
+ 202 25989320 outside Egypt or any mobile in Egypt
FRENCH SPY CHIEF WARNED COUNTRY WAS 'CLEARLY BEING TARGETED BY ISIS' A WEEK BEFORE EGYPTAIR CRASH The head of France's internal intelligence agency had warned the country was being 'clearly targeted' by ISIS a week before the Paris to Cairo flight took off. It has now emerged that Patrick Calvar, the head of France's DGSI agency, told a parliamentary committee on national defence in Paris on May 10 that ISIS was planning 'a new form of attack'. France was targeted twice last year with the Charlie Hebdo attack in January and the Paris attacks in November and the French security forces are on a state of high alert. Concern: Patrick Calvar (pictured), head of French internal intelligence, warned last week that ISIS was planning new attacks on France Mr Calvar was quoted in The Local as saying: 'We risk being confronted with a new form of attack: a terrorist campaign characterised by leaving explosive devices in places where big crowds gather, multiplying this type of action to create a climate of panic.' He made no mention of attacks on aircraft. But he said he believed France was 'the country most threatened' by ISIS, which is often known as Daesh, and also warned that Al-Qaeda remained a threat and was champing at the bit to 'restore its image' as a major player, especially in the Maghreb and the Arabian peninsula. Advertisement
Missing: A closer locator map shows where the flight lost contact with radars around 170 miles from the the Egyptian coast
Hunt for MS804: Several vessels are seen on radar joining the search for the doomed Airbus A320 in the Mediterranean
The airline then tweeted that there were 56 passengers on board and 10 crew members
The airline revealed that the flight had gone missing after posting this Tweet early on Thursday morning
They then confirmed that the flight lost contact with air traffic controllers 10 miles inside Egyptian airspace
Top Gear presenter Chris Evans allegedly swore at audience members because they didn't laugh at his jokes while he filmed the new series.
The host, 50, is said to have launched a four-letter rant as he told the audience off for not being loud enough.
He reportedly criticised those in the crowd for wearing black clothing, asked fans to keep their hands out of their pockets and reminded people not to fold their arms, according to The Sun.
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Top Gear presenter Chris Evans allegedly swore at audience members because they didn't laugh at his jokes while he recorded the hit motor show
The newspaper claim he told the audience at the Dunsfold Aerodrome near Cranleigh, Surrey: 'Don't fold your arms, don't have your hands in your pockets. F***, f***, f***, f***, f***.
'Don't be quiet. Talk among yourselves. Jesus Christ! Can you all hear me?'
The alleged rant comes after a first episode filming fiasco when Fight Club actor Brad Pitt, 52, pulled out as its opening guest.
BBC producers were then forced to draft in The Social Network actor Jesse Eisenberg, 32, and television chef Gordon Ramsay, 49.
Mr Evans claimed they would finish recording in an hour and even mocked previous presenter Jeremy Clarkson, 56, for taking three hours.
It took so long to film as co-host Matt LeBlanc, 48, is said to have fluffed his lines while Mr Evans took more than ten attempts to film his introduction to the revamped show.
Mr Evans' co-host Matt Le Blanc (pictured in a promo for the show) reportedly struggled with his lines
The shooting is said to have taken more than four hours.
The new version of the hit programme, set to hit screens on May 29, has received criticism and came under fire when former Friends actor LeBlanc was recorded wheel spinning a car near the Cenotaph in central London.
Mark Linsey, Director of BBC Studios, said: 'We don't recognise the Sun's account of Top Gear's first studio recording on Thursday.
'Chris and Matt were consummate professionals throughout.
The fire began in an air-conditioning unit and spread through the panels
Firefighters are waiting to see if the building will collapse overnight
Firefighters were asked to wait outside the premise over safety concerns
Over 40 workers were evacuated and over 70 firefighters attended the fire
A meat factory in Banksmeadow, Sydney erupted in fire on Saturday
A meat factory has been left to burn as firefighters watch on because the premises is too dangerous to enter.
More than 40 workers were evacuated from Haverick Meats in Banksmeadow, Sydney, on Saturday at about 8.30am when a fire erupted, reported the Sydney Morning Herald.
Over 70 firefighters attended the scene to try and control the blaze but were instead instructed to wait over safety concerns the building may collapse.
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Haverick Meats in Banksmeadow, Sydney, erupted into flames on Saturday morning
The fire which began in the air-conditioning unit spread through the insulation panels which may eventually cause the walls to cave.
Superintendent Ian Krimmer said firefighters may need to wait overnight to see whether the building does collapse.
'It's now a matter of allowing the fire to burn until the building collapses,' he said.
'We can't do anything except protect the surrounding buildings.
'Once it collapses and there's no risk of killing our firefighters, we'll pull the walls apart to extinguish the fire.'
Black plumes of smoke were seen billowing out of the building as firefighters used cherry pickers to attempt to douse the flames from a distance.
No one has been injured.
Over 70 firefighters were called to attend to the fire and over 40 workers were evacuated
Firefighters used cherry pickers to try put out the blaze but the fire is still burning through the insulation panels
Firefighters are waiting for the building to collapse before they can continue to put out the blaze
A Sydney woman has captured the moment the driver of the bus she was travelling on was pulled over by police and breathalyzed.
The 32-year-old set stylist, who wished to remain anonymous, posted the picture to her Facebook on Saturday afternoon after she witnessed the incident first hand.
'We were driving from Newtown to Stanmore on a replacement bus service because of the track work,' she told Daily Mail Australia.
She said police appeared as the bus was going through an intersection.
The unnamed 32-year-old set stylist posted the picture to her Facebook on Saturday afternoon after she witnessed police pulling over her bus driver
'It seemed like we were going down these side streets and the driver appeared to be struggling, it was weird,' she said.
'We had gone through this intersection and a police car was there with its sirens going off.
'The bus stopped in the middle of the intersection and police had to tell him that he had to pull over in a safe place, which I thought would be common sense.
'Police asked the driver if he had been drinking, he said no and did the breathalyzer. After he did the test, the police went to check it and people on the bus were waiting ages.'
The witness said that the bus stopped in the middle of the intersection and police had to tell the driver to pull over in a safe place
The bus journey from Newtown (pictured) to Stanmore was on a replacement bus service because of track work
The 32-year-old said that normally it takes her about 20 minutes to get home. On Saturday it took her an hour and a half to get from Central station to Stanmore.
'People were starting to leave the bus because it was taking so long, I hung around because I wanted to see what happened,' she said.
'The bus driver looked like he was in trouble, people were getting off bus so I cant say for sure what was happening but something was definitely not right.'
The witness then left the bus after waiting so long and didn't see the outcome of the breathalyzer test.
Daily Mail Australia reached out to NSW Police and Newtown Police, who were unable to confirm whether the driver had passed or failed the breathalyzer test.
They did say that buses arent immune to being pulled over for random breath testing.
Arrived in New York in 1930 with $50 to her name with the intention of working as a domestic
Immigration documents reveal she intended to emigrate permanently to the USA
A penniless, low-earning worker seeking America's promised lands is exactly the type of immigrant Donald Trump's campaign is seeking to control.
And yet it has been revealed that Trump's very own mother was one such migrant.
Less than ninety years ago, Mary Anne Trump nee Macleod arrived in New York from the desolate Scottish Isle of Lewis, with just $50 to her name, to pursue work as a 'domestic'.
Donald Trump's mother, Mary Anne Trump nee Macleod (left and right) arrived in New York from the desolate Scottish Isle of Lewis, with just $50 to her name, to pursue work as a 'domestic'
Immigration documents seen by The National reveal that her true story was one of deliberate migration, and was not simply in America 'on holiday' as Trump purposes
It is not clear how the pair met, but Fred Trump, seven years her senior, was already an established builder and developer at that time and may have been introduced to Macleod by her sister, Catherine. Pictured: Mary Anne, Donald and Fred Trump in 1994
Contrary to Trump's well-told line, that his mother had traveled to America 'on holiday' and ended up never leaving, immigration documents seen by The National reveal that her true story was one of deliberate migration.
An uncomfortable truth perhaps, for the Republican's presumptive nominee whose campaign website declares: 'The influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult for poor and working-class Americans including immigrants themselves and their children to earn a middle-class wage.'
Now, the mystery that has previously clouded the story of Trump's mother's migration to America is made clear.
But Macleod was not only leaving abject poverty in Scotland in search of a better life, she was also fleeing from a family scandal: The sister who first hosted her in New York, Mrs Catherine Reid, had given birth out of wedlock in her home country in 1920, according to the paper.
A devastating situation that forced Reid and three other sisters out of their hometown of Tong to America.
The youngest of ten children, Macleod was born to a fisherman and crofter father, Malcom Macleod, and mother Mary Macleod, nee Smith.
The youngest of ten children, Macleod was born to a fisherman and crofter father, Malcom Macleod, and mother Mary Macleod, nee Smith. Pictured: The census return from the Trump household in 1940
In January 1936, Mary Anne wed Fred at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York but her naturalization didn't come until some 12 years after she immigrated, and six years after she married. Pictured: Her certificate
Macleod's second language was English, which she learned at Tong school. Her immigration form indicates that she likely left there aged 14.
With three of her sisters having gone before her, and all married or working by the time Macleod was 17, the prospect of America must have seemed a glittering one.
Her future husband, Fred Trump, was himself the son of German immigrants, who had migrated when rules were less strict.
But she made the journey in 1930, six years after Congress passed laws restricting immigration.
Her twin-propeller liner set sail from Glasgow on May of that year and she arrived, nine days later, the day after she turned 18.
The passenger list on this journey makes her intentions clear. In the section asking 'whether alien intends to return to country whence he (sic) came', her answer is 'no'.
On those same documents she gives her occupation as 'domestic' - either servant or maid - a position she held for at least four years upon her arrival into America, according to the paper.
Macleod migrated legally and permanently and in the document declared she wished to be a citizen of America and would be staying permanently in the USA.
And as a May 1930 edition of her local paper The Stornoway Gazette writes: 'There is quite an exodus of young people, male and female, from this parish for Canada and the United States...
'They leave home with a determination to succeed and because of their courage, endurance and reliability they are generally successful.'
And successful she certainly was.
Macleod (right and center left) was not only leaving abject poverty in Scotland in search of a better life, she was also fleeing from a family scandal: He sister Catherine had fallen pregnant out of wedlock. Pictured left with her husband Fred and son Donald
Fred and Mary Anne Trump had five children, (pictured) though their second Fred Jr died aged 42, following a life blighted by alcoholism
Donald Trump was a middle child. One sister Maryanne Barry, 79, is a much-respected federal judge, while his other sister, Elizabeth, worked in banking. His younger brother, Robert, was born two years after Trump and was later president of their father's firm. L-R: Robert, Elizabeth, Freddy, Donald and Maryanne Trump
It is not clear how the pair met, but Fred Trump, seven years her senior, was already an established builder and developer at that time and may have been introduced to Macleod by her sister, Catherine.
By April 1935, Macleod was a resident at the Trump family home on 175/24 Devonshire Road in Jamaica, the middle-class area of Long Island, Queens, according to the 1940 census.
In January 1936, they wed at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, officiated by the Rev Dr George Buttrick, after which a wedding reception was held for 25 guests at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan.
Curiously, her naturalization didn't come until some 12 years after she immigrated, and six years after she married.
Though strange, it is not unusual for there to be a delay. Indeed Donald Trump's first wife Ivana did not become naturalized until 11 years after they wed.
Macleod's husband was on the make, and she was described as 'charming, vivacious and shrewd' - a perfect companion to Fred Trump, who at that time was building, selling or renting tens of thousands of houses across New York.
Mrs Trump (center with husband Fred far left, son Robert and daughter in law Baline) was described as 'charming, vivacious and shrewd' - a perfect companion to Fred Trump
Trump's beloved mother (pictured right) died aged 88 at the Long Island Jewish Medical Centre in New Hyde Park in 2000, just over a year after her husband Fred died, aged 93. Left, Donald Trump with then wife Ivana Trump in 1987
A family affair: Trump's family - including his mother and father center - gather for his wedding to Marla Maples in 1993
Her role was one of homemaker, hostess and partner - and she became the definition of upwardly mobile. Once a domestic help herself, she was to oversaw a large family household with her very own maid - an Irish woman, named Jane Cassidy, herself a naturalized citizen.
She can now add mother of a potential future president of the United States to that list.
Fred and Mary Anne Trump had five children, though their second Fred Jr died aged 42, following a life blighted by alcoholism.
Donald Trump was a middle child. One sister Maryanne Barry, 79, is a much-respected federal judge, while his other sister, Elizabeth, worked in banking.
His younger brother, Robert, was born two years after Trump and was later president of their father's firm.
Trump's beloved mother died aged 88 at the Long Island Jewish Medical Centre in New Hyde Park in 2000, just over a year after her husband Fred died, aged 93.
Her death notice in the Stornoway Gazette reads: 'Peacefully in New York on 7th August, Mary Ann Trump, aged 88 years. Daughter of the late Malcolm and Mary Macleod, 5 Tong. Much missed.'
A veteran and the cat he looked after in Iraq had the purr-fect reunion at Los Angeles International Airport.
Navy reservist Brad VanCleave crossed paths with the feline, known as Mr. Meowgi, at the Baghdad International Airport, where VanCleave was a government contractor, CBS Los Angeles reported.
VanCleave told the TV station: 'In July of 2015 I saw a baby kitten and he stuck his head out from one of the shipping containers. And we started feeding it and his mom.'
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Navy reservist Brad VanCleave crossed paths with the feline, known as Mr. Meowgi at the Baghdad International Airport, where VanCleave was a government contractor
VanCleave (seen with his family and Mr. Meowgi) has said: 'In July of 2015 I saw a baby kitten and he stuck his head out from one of the shipping containers. And we started feeding it and his mom'
He said of the furry companion: 'It's kind of a neat little feeling to know that you're arriving at your work site and you're greeting by this meowing little baby, and he's chasing after you.'
VanCleave was set to leave Iraq, explaining: 'I knew if I left him there and didn't bring him back the chances of him being alive when I got back were pretty slim.'
The orange-and white tabby will live with the VanCleaves and the family's cat and dog, CBS Los Angeles reported.
VanCleave wrote on Facebook: 'Mr. Meowgi was born on our worksite in Baghdad, Iraq in June 2015, under a shipping container'
VanCleave said he and others who fed the cats constructed 'a shelter made from used aircraft tires and old pallets' for Mr. Meowgi and his mother
Mr. Meowgi is seen in the shelter constructed out of tires (left) and snacking on some food (right)
VanCleave wrote on Facebook: 'Mr. Meowgi was born on our worksite in Baghdad, Iraq in June 2015, under a shipping container. I'm not sure how many kittens were born, but he was the only kitten in the litter to survive.
'Several of us cared for him and his mom, feeding them grilled fish and chicken, canned tuna...and his favorite; BBQ beef!'
VanCleave said he and others who fed the cats constructed 'a shelter made from used aircraft tires and old pallets' for Mr. Meowgi and his mother.
VanCleave wrote on the social media site that: 'The mom eventually wandered off but would come back to visit from time to time, not wanting much to do with her son.
'At one point, we were informed that the SPCA International ran a program called Operation Baghdad Pups, allowing soldiers, sailors, marines and contractors to be reunited with the animals they cared for during deployments.
'I contacted them...and the rest is history!'
The cat's trip included stopping at Erbil, Iraq, Frankfurt, Germany, and New York before his final destination of Los Angeles, according to VanCleave
The orange-and white tabby will live with the VanCleaves and the family's cat and dog
Brad VanCleave and his friend Mr. Meowgi are seen together again at LAX
VanCleave flashes a grin at the big reunion with the moggie at LAX
Before the big reunion with Mr. Meowgi at LAX, VanCleave wrote on Facebook that the cat departed Baghdad March 27. The cat's trip included stopping at Erbil, Iraq, Frankfurt, Germany, and New York before his final destination of Los Angeles, he said.
VanCleave revealed that he left the Iraqi city on March 29, writing 'I traveled directly home.'
According to VanCleave, 'From Los Angeles, he comes to Murrieta, where he's been invited to a city council meeting by the Mayor, and will receive a "Welcome to Murrieta" certificate along with some more press coverage.'
Dumped WA Liberal candidate Sherry Sufi has let loose on 'cowards' who leaked negative stories against him as the party replaced him with Pierrette Kelly.
Mr Sufi, the Liberal Party's former candidate for Fremantle, is angry about the way he has lost his job and labelled the people who leaked negative stories about him to the media as cowards.
The 33-year-old Pakistani-born Sufi stepped down on Friday, ostensibly because of a report in the Fremantle Herald about him being caught on tape in 2013 using crude sexual language while mocking his former boss, WA MP Michael Sutherland.
Liberal party candidate Sherry Sufi (pictured), 33, has labelled people who leaked information on his past as 'cowards' after he pulled out of the Federal election on Friday
He was quickly replaced on Saturday by a staffer for Liberal Senator Chris Back, former teacher and diplomat Pierrette Kelly.
Ms Kelly is an electorate officer to WA Senator Chris Back, who contested preselection for Fremantle and was present at the shipyards with her boss and the PM this week.
At the time of his resignation Mr Sufi said: 'I apologise if my words and actions have caused offence to anyone. This was never my intent.
'I want to avoid further distraction from the good work being done by the Prime Minister and his Liberal team.'
The events came after Labor dumped its candidate for the seat, union official Chris Brown over a 30-year-old spent criminal conviction last week.
Mr Sufi said he was young and naive and had apologised in relation to the recording of him mocking Mr Sutherland, the WA lower house speaker, which cost him his job at the time.
Electorate officer to WA Senator Chris Back, Pierrette Kelly (pictured), has replaced and was present at the shipyards with her boss and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull this week
In the 2013 incident, which recently resurfaced, Mr Sufi mocks the South African accent of his Mr Sutherland, using explicitly sexual language reported as 'the last straw'.
During a social function was said to have adopted Mr Sutherland's accent to describe a series of sexual adventures at the University of Johannesburg.
'When I was a freshman in college, you know, I f...ed, you know, every f...ing hot bitch in the University of Johannesburg,' Mr Sufi is alleged to have said.
'I shoved the old member up her flute.'
The incident was apparently recorded - as was a subsequent prank call to office volunteers.
Mr Sufi lost his job with Mr Sutherland at the time because of it.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (pictured) snubbed Mr Sufi when he visited the Fremantle electorate when he spoke at Austal Ships to talk up a Navy contract. He told journalists he did not agree with Mr Sufi's views
Mr Sufi pointed out he had held other jobs with the Liberals since, including chair of the WA Liberal Party's Policy Committee that he also resigned from on Friday.
There were also reports he embellished his work history before preselection, which both he and Liberal state director Andrew Cox denied.
And Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull didn't invite him along when he visited the shipyards in the Fremantle electorate last week.
An incident surfaced from 2013 of Mr Sufi mocking the South African accent of his former boss Michael Sutherland (pictured), the Western Australian parliament's Speaker, using explicitly sexual language
Mr Sufi told AAP the real issues that led to his demise were past articles he had written expressing conservative views opposing same-sex marriage, indigenous recognition and parts of the racial discrimination act.
'It is a fatal blow to democracy that cowards who disagree with your views would rather stoop to the level of playing Frank Underwood style House of Cards politics and leak dirt to the press instead of debating you,' he said.
'Now just because somebody doesn't support the idea of same-sex marriage doesn't mean you are unsympathetic to homosexuality or that you are unsympathetic to the same-sex community.'
Mr Sufi has plenty of conservative supporters, including former WA Liberal leader Bill Hassell, who said this week the party's philosophy encouraged a freedom of views, his opinions were not uncommon and were Liberal policy.
The view of some political analysts is that he was pushed out because he had been a negative distraction when the prime minister had wanted to talk about shipbuilding in Fremantle.
The seat has been held by Labor for 80 years but the Liberals and Greens candidate Kate Davis are considered slight chances of winning it.
In February Mr Sufi said recognising indigenous Australians (stock) in the constitution was 'a move to divide the country'
Mr Sufi has also made comments linking same-sex marriage (stock) to polygamy and polyamory
A blind mother-of-three was kicked out of a popular high street shop because she was with her guide dog.
Angela Armin, who suffers from a degenerative eye condition, was told to leave the Foot Locker store in Romford, Essex, because a worker said dogs were not allowed in the shop.
The 45 year old was shopping with her four-year-old guide dog, her husband Simon and their children when a staff member approached her and told her to get out.
Foot Locker then apologised to her by sending her a letter - but she couldn't read it as she has been unable to see for the past six years.
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Angela Armin was kicked out of the Foot Locker store in Romford because she was with her guide dog
She was shaking and on the verge of tears when she tried to explain to the employee that Unis was a guide dog but was told that it was the store's policy.
Mrs Armin, who is mother to James, 18, Alex, 16, and Nathan 11, said: 'The shop assistant came over and said that I need to leave because dogs are not allowed in the store.
'I said 'this is a guide dog, do you not understand?' But she just was not interested.
'My husband then went to speak to the manager of the store and he said that no guide dogs were allowed as it was store policy.
'We were planning on spending 200 on shoes because my sons' birthdays are coming up.
'I felt sick and I wanted to cry. I just wanted to break down - it is like trauma.
Angela Armin with her guide dog Unis. Angela, who is blind, was asked to leave the Foot Locker store in the Liberty Shopping Centre in Romford due to her guide dog not being allowed inside
Angela Armin with her husband Simon Armin. The 45-year-old was shopping with the dog, her husband and children, when a staff member approached her and told her she had to leave
'You would not tell somebody in a wheelchair that they must leave their wheelchair outside so why is it different for guide dogs?
'My heart was racing. I did not know if I should be angry or cry.
'You're trying to fight your corner and people just bring you down. It is awful.'
In 2006 Angela developed Uveitis, a condition which slowly destroys the middle layer of her eye as it swells gradually and in 2010 she was told she would go completely blind.
She was terrified to leave her home alone until she got Labradoodle Unis three years ago who gave her the confidence to leave the house unaccompanied.
Mrs Armin, from Romford, Essex, said: 'Unis gave me the confidence to go out on my own.
'I have been in other stores with Unis before, but this store surprised me.
'I was scared to leave my home until I got Unis.
'I got so angry to the point where I could cry.
'My confidence has been knocked. It was like someone had punched me in the stomach. I wanted the ground to swallow me up.'
On Wednesday, Foot Locker sent a letter of apology to Angela but she is concerned that staff are not being trained properly, leading to more blind people being victimized.
She added: 'My main concern is the training of staff.
'It is lovely that they have apologised but the training needs to be addressed - this could happen again.'
Mrs Armin, from Romford, Essex, said: 'I got so angry to the point where I could cry. My confidence has been knocked'
Mrs Armin said she was subjected to further abuse when the company apologised to her - by sending her a letter as she can't see
The American footwear company apologised fully to their customer, and made a 1,000 donation to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.
But Angela thinks Foot Locker are throwing money at the issue hoping the problem of their badly trained staff will go away.
She added: 'They seem to be hoping the problem will go away by throwing money at it.
'Until I am reassured that Foot Locker's problem has been resolved I will not be shopping with them again.
Mrs Armin said she was subjected to further abuse when the company apologised to her - by sending her a letter.
She said: 'They needed to pick the phone up and apologise to me directly. I am blind, I can't read the letter of apology that they sent me.
'The manager of the store should be on the phone to me apologising. That hasn't been done.'
'They say they are going to be training their staff but I haven't seen any evidence of this.'
Foot Locker said they had taken steps to train staff, but did not comment on the letter of apology sent to Angela.
A spokesperson said: 'Foot Locker regrets Mrs Armin's experience in our Romford store.
'Not welcoming her and her guide dog was contrary to our policy and we have taken prompt steps to re-educate our staff across the country.
President Barack Obama has set off on a weeklong 16,000-mile trip to Asia in a bid to boost economic and security cooperation with the region.
He'll spend three days in Vietnam, with stops in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, for meetings with leaders, a speech on U.S.-Vietnam relations, visits to cultural treasures and sessions with civic leaders and entrepreneurs.
From Vietnam, he heads to Japan for a summit of the Group of Seven industrialized nations and a historic visit to Hiroshima.
Along the way, Obama will make a big push for the 12-nation trans-Pacific trade agreement, which includes the U.S., Vietnam and Japan.
President Barack Obama walks from Marine One to board Air Force One, in Andrews Air Force Base,Maryland, on his way to Vietnam on Saturday
President Barack Obama walks from Marine One to board Air Force One, en route to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska, then to Yokota Air Force Base, in Fussa, Japan, on his way to Hanoi, Vietnam
The deal is stalled in Congress, but Obama hopes it will one day increase trade in the region and make it easier for U.S. workers and companies to compete in Asia.
The deal faces strong opposition from the leading 2016 presidential candidates and other critics, who say it doesn't do enough to protect U.S. workers from unfair competition.
A sticking point during Obama's stay in Vietnam will be human rights. Five Republican senators sent the president a letter Friday labeling Vietnam 'one of the most repressive regimes in the world' and urging Obama to press Vietnamese leaders to do more to respect freedom of religion and expression and other human rights.
The letter was signed by Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, John Boozman of Arkansas, John Cornyn of Texas, James Lankford of Oklahoma and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.
Before Obama left, Vietnam granted early release from prison to a Catholic priest who is one of its most prominent dissidents.
A sticking point during Obama's stay in Vietnam will be human rights. Five Republican senators sent the president a letter Friday labeling Vietnam 'one of the most repressive regimes in the world'
Obama's final year in office is heavy with foreign travel as he conducts what amounts to a long, global farewell tour
Obama (seen Saturday) is due to make a daytrip to Canada next month, attend a NATO summit in Poland in July and expected to become the first president to visit Laos in the fall
The move is widely viewed as a goodwill gesture before the president arrives in Hanoi late Sunday night for an official visit.
The Catholic archdiocese of the central city of Hue reported on its webpage that it welcomed the return Friday of the Rev. Nguyen Van Ly from prison.
Ly, 70, has served several long terms in prison or under house arrest for promoting political and religious freedoms in the communist nation.
Obama's final year in office is heavy with foreign travel as he conducts what amounts to a long, global farewell tour.
He's already made a historic trip to Cuba and visited Saudi Arabia, Germany and Britain. He's due to make a daytrip to Canada next month, attend a NATO summit in Poland in July and expected to become the first president to visit Laos in the fall.
He's also expected to attend a fall summit of the Group of 20 industrial and emerging-market nations in China and an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru in November.
Vietnam granted early release from prison to Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly (center) who is one of its most prominent dissidents, a move widely seen as a goodwill gesture before U.S. President Barack Obama arrives on an official visit late Sunday night
A Chicago city employee was leaving a Starbucks on Friday afternoon when she was fatally shot in gang-related crossfire just one block away from the city's police headquarters.
Yvonne Nelson, 49, was shot in the chest when she left the South Side coffee shop on her way home around 3.30pm and later died at Stroger Hospital.
An unknown suspect was targeting a 'documented gang member' who was shot several times and seriously wounded, according to the police.
Yvonne Nelson, 49, (pictured) was shot in the chest when she left a South Side Starbucks on her way home around 3.30pm Friday and later died at Stroger Hospital
An unknown suspect was targeting a 'documented gang member' working at a nearby Jimmy John's when Nelson was hit outside Starbucks at 35th and State (pictured), just one block away from police headquarters
Nelson, who police said was 'completely innocent', was shot in the chest near 35th and State, just one block away from the city's police headquarters.
She was taken to Stroger Hospital and pronounced dead at 4.33pm, authorities said.
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, who was holding a press conference about cracking down on gang violence at the time of the shooting, said: 'This incident right here highlights what I've been saying for the past month and a half about how brazen these violent offenders are.'
Nelson, who worked as a dispatcher for the city's 311 service for more than a decade, was remembered by the Office of Emergency Management and Communications as 'a dedicated and hardworking employee'.
'This is a hard hit. There will be a void in this family. So we're just going to ask everyone to remember them in their prayers,' John Hannah, a pastor who knew the family told ABC.
The intended target was a man in his 20s who worked at the Jimmy John's restaurant a few doors down from Starbucks, the Chicago Sun Times reported.
He was walking to the bank around the corner when he was shot several times and seriously wounded, according to police.
Jimmy John's co-owner Diane Landry disputed the police's description of the man as a gang member, and said, 'Maybe when he was 15 or something', before crediting his work ethic and personality.
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson (pictured) said: 'This incident right here highlights what I've been saying for the past month and a half about how brazen these violent offenders are'
Nelson's friends and family denounced the senseless violence.
Friend Louis Shuttlesworth wrote on Facebook: 'She was ours and didn't deserve to be killed...just leaving a job where she tries to help the very same people in these Chicago streets.'
Her stepmother Mary Nelson received the news from the 311 center where the 49-year-old worked, and saw reports of the shooting on TV.
She told the Chicago Tribune: 'I'm just so overwhelmed...I'm just sick.'
'She was a beautiful person, hard-working, loving, kind. She was a great sister, a great aunt,' Nelson said.
Friend Louis Shuttlesworth wrote on Facebook: 'She was ours and didn't deserve to be killed...just leaving a job where she tries to help the very same people in these Chicago streets' (pictured, friends and family mourning Nelson's death)
Her stepmother Mary Nelson told the Chicago Tribune: 'I'm just so overwhelmed...I'm just sick' (pictured, friends and family outside Stroger Hospital)
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Eagles, falcons, hawks, owls and condors climb into the sky and then swoop low over the English countryside.
The International Centre for Birds of Prey in Newent, Gloucestershire is the oldest centre of its kind in the world, dating back to 1967.
It was set up by the late Phillip Glasier, one of Britain's best known falconry experts, and today it looks after 75 different species.
The centre accepts injured or orphaned wild birds, treats them and rehabilitates them before releasing them but it also runs a captive breeding programme with the RSPB and the Zoological Society London, who own London Zoo.
Moccas, a year-old Andean Condor prepares for lift-off at the International Centre for Birds of Prey in Newent, Gloucestershire. The Andean Condor is endangered in its native South America
A Peregrine Falcon chick is held before being fed. The adult Peregrine Falcon is one of the fastest and most expert hunters in the wild, having been records at speeds of up to 242 miles per hour
ICBP worker Holly Cale takes eggs from an incubator to check on their development. Birds of prey are sometimes referred to as Raptors, derived from the Latin word rapere (meaning to seize or take by force)
Emily Ryland Langley weighs Lyra, an Ashy-Faced Barn Owl, before the bird takes part in a display at the centre. The Ashy-Faced Barn Owl is a native of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola
Holly Cale 'candles' an egg to check for the development of the chick inside. The centre works closely with the South Africa-based Vulture conservation charity Vulpro, the Bombay Natural History Society and Green Balkans, an organisation which seeks to conserve animals in eastern Europe
Arisaema, a young Burrowing Owl takes part in some training at the centre. The Burrowing Owl migrates between North and South America and, unlike most owls, is often active during the day
Here Emily Ryland Langley picks up Arisaema. Burrowing Owls are unique in that they live in underground nests, hence the name. They live off insects and small rodents
An Asian Brown Wood Owl chick is weighed before being fed at the ICBP. In the wild and when fully grown the Brown Wood Owl nests in a hole in a tree in the dense jungles of India, Sri Lanka or Indonesia.
ICBP worker Adam spends time with Moccas the Andean Condor in his enclosure. Sharing such close contact with Condors is rare due to their size, and power they are able to generate with their beaks. But Moccas has been with Adam and Holly, almost every day since hatching at the centre
A Peregrine Falcon chick is weighed before being fed at the ICBP. The centre often takes in chicks, or eggs, which have been abandoned or whose parents have been killed
An Owl chick is taken from an incubator to be weighed and fed. The centre is at the forefront of efforts to protect and sustain healthy populations of endangered species in their native countries
A young Burrowing Owl sits on a teddy bear in an outside enclosure at the centre. Burrowing Owls are distributed from the Mississippi to the Pacific and from Canada to South America. They are also found in the Caribbean
Peregrine Falcon chicks wait to be fed at the centre. In recent years Peregrine Falcons have been spotted flying over cities like London and Bristol and feeding on rats and even pigeons
Arisaema comes in to land in a field at the centre. The ICBP, which is on the edge of the Forest of Dean, is visited by thousands of tourists every year, who come to see its bird displays
Holly Cale spends time with Moccas. Sharing such close contact with Condors is rare due to their size, and power they are able to generate with their beaks. Mocca has been with Holly almost every day since hatching and the bond between the pair is one of trust
Emily Ryland Langley takes a Falcon to an area on the lawn at the centre. Falconry is the ancient art of hunting using trained birds of prey. It was first practised in Mesopotamia around 2,000BC
Peregrine Falcon chicks are fed at the centre. The word falcon is derived from falco, which is related to falx, the Latin word meaning sickle, and refers the silhouette of the bird's long, pointed wings in flight
Adam teaches Moccas the Andean Condor how to swoop in and catch his prey. The Andean Condor, which is a type of vulture, is a native of Chile, Argentina, Peru and Bolivia
Burrowing Owl chicks are lined up to be fed
An Asian Brown Wood Owl chick is weighed before being fed
Moccas, a one-year-old Andean Condor stretches his 10 foot wings in the sunshine
Peregrine Falcon chicks wait to be fed
Emily Ryland Langley tries to round up Arisaema, a Young Burrowing Owl at the centre. The chart on the wall is used to keep track of the birds' weights as they grow from chicks
These heartbreaking pictures show a couple holding hands as they said their final goodbye to each other in intensive care.
Jim Minnini, 58, was in hospital with terminal lung cancer on May 4 when he made a desperate plea to see his wife, Cindy, one last time.
Cindy - who was recovering from a heart attack she suffered after Jim was hospitalized - was in the next room after doctors transferred her to Kingston General Hospital, in Ontario, so she could be with her dying husband.
She was sedated and unconscious when her partner of 24 years was taken into her room, and she did not know he had been with her until after she woke up - but by then her husband had died.
The touching photographs of the couple holding hands were shared by their son, Chris, who said his father was not prepared to die without saying goodbye to the love of his life.
Final moments: Jim Minnini, 58, holds his wife Cindy's hand in intensive care, just hours before he died
Love: Jim was in hospital with terminal lung cancer when he made a desperate plea to see Cindy one last time
Chris, 21, told The Whig that his parents were perfect for each other, and were 'inseparable' from day one.
He said his father was over the moon when, back in 1994, he found out Cindy was pregnant.
'He started crying, he was so happy. It was the best day of his life. That's all he had ever wanted,' he said.
They lived a happy life together until eight years ago, when Jim was diagnosed with lung cancer. He fought it off twice before being told in 2012 that he had just a 10 per cent chance of survival.
After around 75 chemotherapy and radiation therapy sessions, he was admitted to hospital in Kingston in late April and placed in intensive care.
The next day, Cindy had a heart attack and was rushed to a hospital in Brockville, Ontario.
Jim battled lung cancer for eight years with his wife by his side, and was told in 2012 that he had a 10 per cent chance of survival
The couple (left), who had been together for around 24 years, were both in hospital in Kingston, Ontario, when their son, Chris (right), took the touching photographs
'For about four or five days, we were going back and forth [between the two hospitals],' Chris said.
After his father's condition worsened and it became clear his time was running out, doctors arranged a transfer for Cindy and moved her to the same intensive care ward.
Doctors woke Jim up so his two sons could tell him that Cindy was in the next room.
'When my dad found out that he was going, he was stiff faced and shook his head. But when he found out that my mom was in the next room in the ICU, he started bawling,' Chris said.
Unable to speak, Jim scrawled the word 'mom' on a piece of paper.
He was wheeled in and out several times but could only stay for a matter of minutes before his condition worsened and he had to return to his bed.
The night before he died, the father-of-two had a nightmare and pulled his tubes out of his throat. Doctors were unable to re-intubate him, so they brought him through to see Cindy one last time.
She was sedated and sleeping peacefully, unaware that Jim was holding her hand.
Chris took the photographs so his mother would know she was with her husband when he died.
Final farewell: Chris took the photographs so his mother would know she was with her husband when he died
'After that picture was taken, he held her,' Chris said.
'He was there as long as he could be physically, until his body started to shut down and they needed to take him back.'
Jim died a few hours later, on May 4.
As soon as Cindy woke up, she asked where Jim was, but knew he had died, Chris told the Metro.
Cindy is back at home recovering now, and her son said seeing the pictures of her and Jim together in his final moments has helped her find her peace.
Chris also thanked the hospital staff for getting his parents together in his father's final moments.
This is the shocking moment a pensioner came face to face with two huge lorries as she sped down the wrong side of a busy motorway.
The 85-year-old woman narrowly avoided being seriously injured as she hurtled recklessly down the A12 towards London on Thursday.
The terrifying incident was captured on dashcam by a female driver who beeped her horn at the white MG car and exclaimed in horror: 'What the f*** was that!'
This is the shocking moment a woman, 85, hurtled down the wrong side of the A12 motorway towards London
The footage starts with the elderly woman's white car appearing from behind a lorry on the hard shoulder of the carriageway while travelling towards Colchester at 2.30pm.
As the vehicle speeds down the motorway, one of the two white lorries can be seen braking while other drivers beep their horns.
The motorist capturing the short clip, who was heading westbound to Feering, near Braintree can then be heard shrieking: 'What the f*** was that!'
The footage starts with the elderly woman's white MG car appearing from behind a lorry on the hard shoulder of the carriageway while travelling towards Colchester
As the vehicle speeds down the motorway, one of the two white lorries can be seen braking while other drivers beep their horns
Unsurprisingly the incident was called in and police officers from Chelmsford and Stanway's road policing units attended.
They found the vehicle at Prested Hall and drove the woman back to her home in Gosfield in Essex.
The pensioner has voluntarily given up her licence after being found by the police and being reported for driving offences.
Roads policing sergeant Colin Shead told the Brentwood Gazette: 'The vehicle was being driven the wrong way down one of the county's busiest roads.
'It was a miracle that there wasn't a collision and that we not dealing with another fatality on the county's roads.'
The motorist capturing the short clip can then be heard shrieking in disbelief: 'What the f*** was that!'
Teenage mountaineer Alyssa Azar has become to the youngest Australian to conquer Mount Everest.
Family and supporters confirmed on Saturday that the 19-year-old had reached the peak of the worlds highest mountain after being denied the opportunity by extreme weather in two previous attempts.
'We can confirm that Alyssa has successfully summited Mt Everest,' family friend Sonia Taylor posted to the teenager's Facebook page.
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Mountaineer Alyssa Azar,19, became to the youngest Australian to conquer Mount Everest on Saturday
Family and supporters confirmed on Saturday that the 19-year-old had reached the peak of the worlds highest mountain after being denied the opportunity by extreme weather in two previous attempts
'This has been a goal she has been determined to achieve for several years. Alyssa has had her share of set backs but has never wavered in her determination.'
'She is still on the mountain, and in good spirits.'
In 2014 Ms Azar, from Toowoomba in Queensland, abandoned her first attempt after an avalanche killed 16 Sherpas.
In her second attempt the following year, she was at the Mount Everest base camp when Nepal was hit by an earthquake which killed over 3000 people.
While she has conquered the world's highest peak, Ms Taylor warned that her journey is far from over.
'We can confirm that Alyssa has successfully summited Mt Everest,' family friend Sonia Taylor posted to the teenager's Facebook page
In 2014 Ms Azar abandoned her first attempt after an avalanche killed 16 Sherpas
In her second attempt the following year, she was at the Mount Everest base camp when Nepal was hit by an earthquake which killed over 3000 people
'The descent off the mountain is equally as challenging, it will be a couple of days before she is back into base camp,' she said.
'Unfortunately we dont have any other details at this point, but will update as more information comes through.Your support, thoughts and best wishes are greatly appreciated.'
Ms Azar has been climbing since she was five, mainly because her father is a Kokoda Track instructor.
While she has conquered the world's highest peak, Ms Taylor warned that her journey is far from over. 'The descent off the mountain is equally as challenging, it will be a couple of days before she is back into base camp,' she said
When she was eight years old, she successfully completed the iconic trail in Papua New Guinea with his help.
She has gone on to climb Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro, the 10 highest peaks in Australia, South America's Mount Aconcagua in the Andes, and Nepal's Ama Dablam and Manaslu.
'I started doing training when I was five or six,' Ms Azar told Daily Mail Australia prior to her 2015 campaign.
'As I got older I got onto the higher altitudes.'
'After Kilimanjaro in 2011, I decided I wanted to be a professional mountaineer... and put myself against the best.'
Ms Azar has been climbing since she was five, mainly because her father is a Kokoda Track instructor
He is said to have begun writing Lord of the Rings story in that hospital
It was owned by Margaret Strickland-Constable who was a wartime nurse
The Old Hall in Hornsea, East Yorkshire, up for sale for 950,000
While nursing injured First World War servicemen back to health, Margaret Strickland-Constable helped save the life of one of Britains greatest 20th Century writers the Lord Of The Rings author J. R. R. Tolkien.
Margaret ran the Brooklands Officers Hospital in Hull, where the 25-year-old Tolkien then in the Lancashire Fusiliers spent nine weeks in 1917 recovering from trench fever.
But in a cruel twist of fate, her husband Frederick the man who had set up one of the Red Cross units at the hospital later died while serving on the Western Front.
The couple owned The Old Hall in the East Yorkshire town of Hornsea. While Frederick was fighting in France, Margaret would travel the 15 miles into Hull to care for her patients.
The Old Hall in Hornsea, East Yorkshire, pictured, has gone on the market for 950,000
It was owned by First World War nurse Margaret Strickland-Constable, right, who once helped save the life of Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien, left, when he had trench fever in hospital in 1917
It was at Brooklands that Tolkien wrote the first draft of what would become The Tale Of Aragorn And Arwen, whose characters were played by Viggo Mortensen and Liv Tyler in the Lord Of The Rings films.
Tolkien experts believe Margaret influenced more than just Tolkiens health. She spoke Swedish, Norwegian, German, French and Danish, and at the time Tolkien was developing ideas for his stories, many of which featured invented languages.
After her husband died, Margaret kept The Old Hall now on the market for 950,000 for more than a decade before she and her eldest son sold it.
But even after they sold up, the Strickland-Constable family would return there to visit, says Julie Kemp, of estate agents Quick & Clarke, which is selling the property.
In an unusual twist, Julies own family lived there for 20 years.
Over the centuries The Old Hall has served many purposes. It has helped hide ministers of an outlawed denomination, educated the daughters of the elite, been a haven for an exiled military force, and even been the crucible for one of post-war Britains business success stories.
The Old Hall, which has six bedrooms, was built in the 17th Century for Peter Acklam, who was Lord of the Manor in Hornsea. The Acklams were Quakers at a time when members of the society were persecuted.
Tolkien wrote the first draft of The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, played in the films by Viggo Mortensen and Liv Tyler, pictured, while in hospital being nursed by Mrs Strickland-Constable
There was said to be a secret tunnel from The Old Hall to a meeting house in the town, and there is also a priest hole in the study, where a minister could be hidden.
The property has also been used as a private school for girls, and during the Second World War, soldiers were billeted at the house.
In the attic there are carvings they left behind, including some from Free French members who had fled the Nazis.
In 1949, The Old Hall was to witness the birth of what Hornsea is perhaps best known for.
Brothers Colin and Desmond Rawson rented what is now The Old Halls music room to start Hornsea Pottery.
AT A GLANCE: Price: 950,000 Location: Hornsea, East Yorkshire Bedrooms: 6 Unique features: Former home of Margaret Strickland-Constable, who nursed a young J. R. R. Tolkien back to health in the First World War; inscriptions in beams from injured servicemen; secret tunnel and priest hole; statue of Diana the huntress; natural spring well under the house; history as the birthplace of Hornsea Pottery and as a private school.
At one point, the firms Heirloom tableware range was so popular that supplies could not keep up with demand from stores.
After the brothers moved to new premises, the property was turned into flats and bedsits, which was how it was when Julie Kemps builder father Roy bought it. However, in the 1970s, he restored it to a house.
The Old Hall, which is Grade II listed and has an acre of land, is now owned by Ian and Andrea Sims.
Ian loves the music room, saying: It has a dancefloor and a dining table that can fit 24 people around it. There is also a natural spring well under the house. If you open a trap door you can see the water.
The Old Hall has an annexe that was once used for making pottery, and a 35ft kidney-shaped swimming pool. Above the entrance to the house is a statue of Diana, the huntress.
The property is in the centre of Hornsea but set back from the road. Ian, 71, says: Its in very private grounds, and Hornsea is a lovely seaside town.
'We have Hornsea Mere just across from us, which is the largest freshwater lake in Yorkshire.
Julie Kemp says the area is popular due to the size of the properties. In East Yorkshire theres better value for money compared with places like York, she adds.
Ian and Andrea, who are downsizing, recently had some people interested in buying The Old Hall as a wedding venue suggesting yet another possible use for the property.
A former Queensland hairdresser claims she cures cancer using 'emotional healing' in sessions via Skype, labels chemotherapy as 'poisonous' and charges patients up to $2000 at her holistic retreat.
Lynnie Nichols, 46, says she has performed 'instant miracles', claiming to have rid people of cancer after two-hour therapy sessions that help them get in touch with their emotions, reported the Courier Mail.
Her practices have been condemned by the Queensland branch of the Australian Medical Association.
Lynnie Nichols (pictured), 46, who is a former hairdresser, claims to heal people suffering from cancer using 'emotional healing' and labels chemotherapy as 'poisonous'
The Cancer Council has reportedly urged health authorities to investigate Ms Nichols' healing claims, and the Queensland branch of the AMA has said she 'is giving false hope to people in dire situations'
Ms Nichols, who says her passion for natural health and healing began 20 years ago when her daughter developed eczema, also offers seven-day detox packages in Bali.
The Bali retreat includes emotional healing workshops, a body-cleansing workshop and a vibration healing workshop with crystals.
She previously owned Queenslands Mt Ninderry Healing Retreat, where patients paid almost $2,500 for seven-day visits. She plans to open a retreat on the Sunshine Coast in June.
Ms Nichols said she had seen cancer cured instantly through emotional healing.
'It was like a miracle in front of my eyes,' she said.
'Legally, doctors have to advise people to have chemotherapy. I find that disgusting. Its manslaughter.'
She also recommends water fasting, juice cleansing and enemas.
Ms Nichol's former retreat Mt Ninderry Healing Retreat in Montville on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, where visitors paid almost $2,500 for seven-day stays
Debra Walz, 56, claims Ms Nichols cured her of bowel cancer at her Mt Ninderry retreat.
Ms Walz said she saw a bolt of white light pass through her stomach and knew her cancer was gone.
The Cancer Council is reportedly urging health authorities to investigate Ms Nichols' claims.
AMA Queensland president Dr Chris Zappala told the Courier Mail there was no evidence that emotional healing cured cancer.
He said for Ms Nichols to suggest she can cure cancer, take payment for it and dissuade people from evidence-based medical treatments was 'a travesty'.
'Chemotherapy works, and there is no question that it doesnt. This is giving false hope to people in dire situations,' Dr Zappala said.
She says her complaints were not taken seriously until she made it public
Michelle Swinburne is also concerned with the producer's reaction
A mother is furious after finding a mouse-like object in her baby formula
A mother who found a mouse-shaped object in her sons baby formula is furious at what she calls the suppliers indifferent response.
Michelle Swinburne, 26, from Rotorua, New Zealand, was preparing a bottle of formula for her 9-month-old son Kaleb last week when she noticed something hard in the tin.
At first I thought it looked like a seed because it was black and yellow, but once I handled it some more and got some of the formula off it I thought it looked like it could be a mouse, Ms Swinburne told Daily Mail Australia.
This object was found in Ms Swinburne's baby formula, she says she first thought it could be a seed but after further examinations she began to think it could be a small mouse
And in the end whether it is a mouse or a seed doesnt matter, when you are dealing with baby formula there is no room for error.
The formula she was preparing at the time was Nestle product S26 Gold Progress 2, and the tine was just two thirds full as Kaleb had been eating from it for four days before the object was found.
She contacted Nestle, the world's largest food company, and said the response she received was completely unsatisfactory.
I called on the Sunday and I got a voice message to say that I had reached them out of hours, so I called back on Monday and got an automated response to say I was first in line.
I held on the line and the call was answered by a human answering service, I explained how unhappy I was and asked to speak to a manager or supervisor but I was told I could only leave a message and someone would call me back within 24 hours.
When I got a phone call back the woman just told me she would send a replacement tin of formula, told me to send the object in and didnt even ask how my son was.
I felt like the way they dealt with it was like I had bought a melted chocolate bar, there was no care, they didnt give two hoots.
Michelle Swinburne, left, with her 9-month-old baby boy, Kaleb. Ms Swinburne says her main concern was her son's health but Nestle didn't even ask about him in their first conversation
When the replacement formula came there was no letter enclosed with an apology which disappointed the already angry mother.
So she decided to post images of the mouse-like object on the Nestle Facebook Page.
The post attracted numerous shares and comments and within hours the frustrated mother-of-two had received two phone calls to rectify the situation.
Dont get me wrong the woman who called me was very nice but it was still more than ten minutes into the first call when she finally asked me how baby was.
Ms Swinburne asked the company about cross contamination and how many other babies were drinking formula which could have come into contact with the unidentified rodent-shaped object but her concerns were dismissed.
The lady told me that she had received the objects but their experts couldnt 100 percent identify it so it had been sent away for further testing.
She also explained the sifting process which goes in to making formula, now knowing how the process works I think it could be possible.
The object was about two and a half centimetres long including the 'tail' according to Ms Swinburne
The young mum was shocked to learn the formula is made in Singapore from ingredients originating in New Zealand and the United States.
Nestle said they cant guarantee the milk products are even from New Zealand which is disturbing, she said.
The mother said while she will be more concerned if it is a mouse the fact any foreign object was found is the reason for her main concern.
She also mentioned that after she sent through a photo of the object to the Nestle team she received a reply with an automated response explaining how breastfeeding is best for babies.
I was so disgusted by the message, I had been breast feeding but got sick and couldnt do it any more.
It kind of felt like they were saying I should have breastfed instead of feeding my baby formula and that it was all my fault.
The baby formula, S 26 Gold, is a Nestle product. Ms Swinburne says she will not be buying it again
This message sent by Nestle included a mandatory notice about breast milk being the best choice for babies, Ms Swinburne said she fell ill and could no longer breast feed and the message was insensitive
Kaleb has been experiencing some diarrhea since using the batch of formula, but his mum admits after she found the object she fed him cows milk and fed him a different formula which may have caused his symptoms.
Ms Swinburne wants Nestle to review their customer service protocols so no one else feels like their complaint is irrelevant.
I would like to think if something like this happened again there would be a little more care, and the mother wouldnt have to chase it like I have.
Nestles approach to the whole situation really sucked.
The replacement tin of formula Nestle sent out to the family is still sitting in Ms Swinburnes pantry untouched.
I feel like tipping it out.
I know there are starving babies out there but I absolutely disgusted I really am.
Ms Swinburne has decided to change formulas. She is expecting results from the tests on Wednesday.
Nestle has been approached by Daily Mail Australia for comment.
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A property that was once the headquarters for the Australian Nazi Party failed to sell during an auction when the vendor bid reached $500,000 less than the $7.5million reserve price.
Negotiations with realtor Sothebys International continued hours after the auction was over with interested buyers eager to purchase Sydneys most historically significant home - The Lyndhurst estate.
A crowd of about 50 people were on the grounds of the villa auction on Saturday, with three registered bidders and two offers from buyer's on the phone of $6.2million and $6.5million, Domain reports.
The Lyndhurst estate, located in Glebe was the former headquarters of the Australian Nazi Party, active in the 1960s and 1970s. In an auction on Saturday the property failed to sell when the vendor bid reached $500,000 less than the $7.5million reserve price
Negotiations with realtor Sothebys International continued hours after the auction was over with interested buyers eager to purchase Sydneys most historically significant home The Lyndhurst estate
While the property was subdivided and only occupies a fragment of its original estate, Mr Eustace says there is still a sense of the style of the period
The estate located at 57-65 Darghan St in Glebe, was owned by the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales and bought for $3.3million by stockbroker Time Eustace and his partner Salavatore Panui in 2005.
The couple spent four years restoring the six-bedroom property with the help of heritage architect Clive Lucas.
Mr Eustace told the Daily Telegraph before the auction: Even though it occupies a fragment of its original estate, you still get a sense of the style of the period and an insight into how they lived nearly 200 years ago from a privileged perspective.
There's a lot of feedback that it looks like a museum. In fact it's a very comfortable house to live in. It would be nice to think that whoever buys it will appreciate the architecture and use the space.'
Despite the rich history which comes with the estate Mr Eustace and Panui are bound for Darlinghurst after buying a property for $16million from Hollywood filmmakers Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin.
Listed through from Sothebys International, the 1507sq m property is valued at $7.5million and was hoped to give a sense of the style of how the privileged lived nearly 200 years ago
Tim Eustace and his partner Salavatore Panui spent four years restoring the property after buying it in 2005 for $3.3million
The property is located at 57-65 Darghan St in Glebe. It was recently restored with the help of heritage architect Clive Lucas
But no home comes close to the Lyndhurst estate which was once known for its infamous history as an active Nazi headquarters and at one point used as a maternity hospital.
The Glebe mansion was built in 1833 and designed as a marine villa by English architect John Verge for surgeon and pastoralist Dr James Bowman.
It was originally on 36 acres that overlooked Blackwattle Bay and was considered to be a rural property.
Fourteen years after it was built Dr Bowman's brothers-in-law, James and William Macarthur were forced to sell the property to the Bank of Australasia due to financial difficulties.
Over the years the property was subdivided and became Australias first theological seminary, a maternity hospital, a pickle factory, a broom factory and notably the Australian Nazi Party headquarters.
Also known as the National Socialist Party of Australia, the Australian Nazi Party was a minor far-right party active in the 1960s and 1970s which is when they resided in the home.
In 1972, plans for an expressway through Glebe meant the property was at risk of being demolished, but plans were abandoned and the mansion was protected for restoration by the Save Lyndhurst Committee.
Now the property is back on the market for the first time since 2005.
Pictured circa 1880, the Glebe mansion was built in 1833 was designed as a marine villa by English architect John Verge for surgeon and pastoralist Dr James Bowman
Arthur Smith was the leader of the National Socialist Party of Australia when it was active during the 1960s until the 1970's
Despite the rich history which comes with the estate Mr Eustace and Panui are bound for Darlinghurst after buying a property for $16million from Hollywood filmmakers Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin
In 1847 James and William Macarthur were forced to sell the property to the Bank of Australasia due to financial difficulties
Lyndhurst was originally on 36 acres that overlooked Blackwattle Bay and was considered to be a rural property. The Glebe property is now right by Sydney's CBD
Over the years the property became Australias first theological seminary, a maternity hospital, a pickle factory, a broom factory and notably the Australian Nazi Party headquarters
Since 1984, it was the the headquarters of the Historic Houses Trust of NSW before it was sold in 2005 to Tim Eustace and his partner
A 17-year-old girl says she was shamed by a high school teacher for choosing to wear an African-themed gown to prom.
Makalaya Zanders, who attends Garfield Heights High School in Cleveland, Ohio, decided she would wear an African-theme print gown after seeing one model Jessica Chibueze wore last year to a ball.
After discussing with a white teacher that she would wear a custom-made Ankara print gown, she wrote in an Instagram post that she was told it was 'tacky for prom,' according to Yahoo News.
Makalaya Zanders, 17, of Ohio (pictured with her prom date) was shamed by a high school teacher for choosing to wear an African-themed gown to prom
Makalaya's ended up wearing a royal blue java Ankara print grown to her school's prom on May 13 which features a front slit and mermaid bottom, and came complete with a hand-made structural waist belt
'Hellbent on proving them wrong and being someone who loves our culture and African glamorous style, me and @indelible_dc decided to take the Ankara dress and put a twist on it,' Makalaya wrote on Instagram earlier this week.
Working with local designer DeAndre' Crenshaw, Makalaya said he brought her vision of Ankara fabric to life, creating a prom dress that ended up garnering thousands of fans on social media.
The royal blue java Ankara print grown she wrote to prom on May 13 features a front slit and mermaid bottom, and the full look was completed with a hand-made structural waist belt.
After discussing with a white teacher that she would wear a custom-made Ankara print gown, Makalaya (right) wrote on Instagram (left) that she was told it was 'tacky for prom.' She went forward with her plan and worked with a local designer who created a dress that garnered an outpouring of praise on social media
'Little did I know it came out more beautiful, then I could've ever imagine!! My dress was to make a point,' Makalaya wrote on Instagram
'Little did I know it came out more beautiful, then I could've ever imagine!! My dress was to make a point,' Makalaya wrote.
'That African style is beautiful. That I am comfortable with my Melanin and roots. And finally that there's nothing like Black girl Magic.'
'I love the dress and so proud of you for sticking to your convictions. You absolutely rock,' one admirer of the dress wrote in the comments.
'Your dress is beautiful! Don't let anyone tell you anything different,' another person wrote.
On Saturday, Makalaya shared a note on Instagram thanking everyone for their kind words, but explained the attention should not be on her teacher's words.
Makalaya had decided she would wear an African-theme print gown after seeing one model Jessica Chibueze wore last year to a ball (pictured)
'Thank you everyone for your kind words and attributes. I just wanted to clear some things up, I DID NOT design the dress! Deandre Crenshaw brought my vision of Ankara fabric to life,' she wrote.
'He drew out, made the belt by hand and spent endless amount of time and energy on it.'
'I would not like to focus on the comment made by a teacher mainly because she apologized, and do not want this to overshadow the gown,' she continued.
'This is not about black or white, just appreciation of our heritage.'
She also added that she will not be selling her dress.
The elderly grandmother of air hostess Yara Hani Tawfik who died on the doomed EgyptAir MS804 flight collapsed at her memorial service today.
Concerned friends and relatives rushed to Anna Yaras aid as she sat wailing on a pew in a church in Cairo.
One held the grandmother face as she was overcome with grief in the St Mary and St Athanasius Church after the service.
Grief: Friends and relatives comfort the elderly grandmother of air hostess Yara Hani Tawfik at her memorial service in a Cairo church
Broken: Devastated loved ones and family members at Ms Tawfik's funeral supported her grieving grandmother (left) after leaving floral tributes dedicated to the young woman (right)
Nahla Wagih, a friend of Miss Tawfik, said: It is so sad to see the family in this state. There are no words to describe her loss.
Yara was the perfect daughter and grand-daughter. The family must be broken. I dont know what words of comfort to say to them.
Mrs Wagih, who worked with Miss Tawfik as a flight attendant on Egypt Air, was one of hundreds of relatives, friends and colleagues who attended the memorial, to which MailOnline was invited.
A large picture of 26-year-old Miss Tawfik was put up in the church between cross of flowers during the 40-minute service.
Afterwards, members of her family stood in a line outside the orthodox church as mourners paid their respects.
Tears: Loved ones of Yara Hani Tawfik mourn at her memorial service, which was attended by hundreds
Devastated: Family members hold onto each other and weep as they leave the Church of Virgin & Saint Athanasius in Cairo
Perfect daughter: The parents of Yara Hani Tawfik embrace as they mourn her passing during her funeral
Mrs Wagih, who has worked for EgyptAir for 32 years, added: I last saw Yara a week ago before boarding a flight. She was smiling and happy and really full of life.
She was a pleasure to work with and a dear friend. I was also friends with the captain and he was a wonderful guy.
He had so much experience, but it seems something happened that was beyond his control.
I thought of going back in the air is hard for me, but I have to. It is our job, but it wont be easy.
A missing woman's family have been left fearing for her safety after her vehicle was found by police.
Rebecca Burn from Reynella, 20km south of Adelaide's CBD, was last seen on Friday.
Police became concerned for the 36-year-old's welfare after her car was located in Plympton on Saturday afternoon, approximately 20 minutes north of where she lives.
Police are searching for Rebecca Burn, 36, who was last seen on Friday at Reynella, south of Adelaide
The 36-year-old is described as Caucasian, 165cm tall, with blonde straight hair.
Anyone with information is urged to contact South Australian Police on 131 444.
Celebrity chef Sandra Lee was all smiles as she emerged from a Manhattan hospital Friday following what she hopes will be her final surgery after battling breast cancer for more than a year.
Lee underwent the final phase of her reconstructive surgery Thursday following her diagnosis last March, exactly a year on from her double mastectomy last May.
But in an upbeat message posted on her Facebook page Saturday she said: 'So glad to be done with surgery and so happy that my sister is here with me! Kimmy just makes life so much better.
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Lee (pictured left and right Friday) underwent the final phase of her reconstructive surgery Thursday following her diagnosis last year, on the year anniversary of her double mastectomy in May
Celebrity chef Sandra Lee (pictured left with sister Kimmy) emerged from a Manhattan hospital Friday following what she hopes will be her final surgery after battling breast cancer for more than a year
But in an upbeat message posted on her Facebook page Saturday she said: 'So glad to be done with surgery and so happy that my sister is here with me! Kimmy just makes life so much better' Pictured: Sandra and sister Kimmy
'I don't know what I do without her and the rest of my family, love them so so so much.
'I'm thrilled to have a second family -- my social and Facebook family, thank you for being with me-it's an honor to call you friend.'
The Food Network star was joined by her sister Kimmy at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and the pair were pictured leaving together Friday.
In August 2015, two months after her mastectomy she was back in hospital after developing an infection related to the May surgery.
She announced the all clear in September.
Lee has kept her Facebook friends up to date with her progress and in a post Friday she said: 'Surgery all over -- I'm trying to get up and about. Going to sleep for a long time.
'Not good with pain killers --makes we sick and weepy. But almost done. So so so happy to be almost done!'
On May 17, she shared a heartfelt message of thanks to her Facebook supporters as she embarked on the final stage of her journey battling cancer.
Lee wrote: 'For these past months, I have let my body heal and calm. So now it's time take my last visit (fingers crossed!) to the operating table.
Her long-time partner, New York Andrew Governor Cuomo (left) revealed his plans to push for improved breast and prostate cancer programs in his State of the State address in January
In August 2015, two months after her mastectomy she was back in hospital after developing an infection related to the May surgery. Pictured, Lee leaves the hospital in August 2015 with partner Cuomo following the surgery
'As you know, this hasn't been a straight course. It's been a path of unexpected and difficult detours.
'Even without extra challenges in recovery, the last year of treatment and expanders bring pain that makes you want to fast-forward the calendar pages to the final phase which, for me, comes this Thursday.'
She added: 'I am grateful and blessed to complete the end of a story and I can never thank you enough for supporting me through it.
I am hopeful and thrilled with relief to be cancer free and completely back to me (or in some parts even younger!)'
Her long-time partner, New York Andrew Governor Cuomo revealed his plans to push for improved breast and prostate cancer programs in his State of the State address in January.
The Westchester-based chef achieved fame in the early 2000s for hosting 'Semi-Homemade Cooking With Sandra Lee' (left). Lee has encouraged other women to get mammograms earlier than the recommended age of 50
Cuomo said that the state budget included more than $90 million in funding for those services, which include mobile mammography vans.
Lee said Cuomo was just as shocked as she was when she told him about the diagnosis last year, but that he has been extremely supportive.
Before dating Cuomo, the chef was married to KB Home CEO Bruce Karatz for four years.
While she acts as a step-mother to Cuomo's children, Lee has no children of her own.
Lee ultimately decided to undergo a double mastectomy in May on the advice of her doctors. Both the cancerous breast and the healthy breast - a 'ticking time bomb' - were removed, she said.
She has encouraged other women to get mammograms earlier than the recommended age of 50.
She was just a shy bank manager's daughter who grew up in a middle class family in the West Midlands.
She loved to cook and play with her cat Raggles and her big white Samoyed dog Leo, at her parents' 300,000 home in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, and generally kept a low profile.
But after completing a college course in health and beauty, Demi Rose Mawby grew in confidence and decided to head to the U.S. to take up a career in lingerie modelling.
It was a journey that has seen her caught up in the seedy side of the showbiz world - posing for racy shoots in her underwear and joining an American 'escort' group run by the 'black Hugh Hefner'.
The 21-year-old British model now seems to have replaced Kylie Jenner as rapper Tyga's girlfriend.
She said she 'loves being in front of the camera and striking a pose' and has 'made her dream a reality'
She loved to cook and play with her cat Raggles and her big white Samoyed dog Leo, at her parents' 300,000 home in Sutton Coldfield (pictured), Birmingham, and generally kept a low profile
British model Demi Rose has been spotted out and about in Cannes with rapper Tyga, left and right
Demi Rose, left, was previously a member of Taz's Angels. Taz, centre, has been described as the 'black Hugh Hefner'
The Instagram favourite, who has more than two million followers, has become the talk of the globe after being pictured in a very revealing outfit on her way to a party with the American musician in Cannes.
Her parents Barrie, 78, and Christine, 61, said she is a very different person at home and insisted they were proud of her.
Former NHS wheelchair advisor, Christine, who is disabled said: 'Her friend had a modelling book.
'Demi Rose didn't think she was quite good enough but she excelled in beauty school and it her made her ambitious to pursue her dreams.
'We don't mind at all. She always said she wouldn't do nudity not that we've told her not to, her pictures are racy and suggestive but she shows them all to us.
'We're right behind her. She's such a beautiful girl, why shouldn't she? If you've got it, flaunt it.
'She's very kind and a really down-to-earth girl nothing like what we are seeing in the press.
'When she's at home she's perfectly normal. She loves her cat Raggles and her big white Samoyed dog Leo. She's a great cook and is a homebody.'
Demi Rose has replaced Kylie Jenner in Tyga's affections after he split with the American last week
Deja vu: Pouty lips are not the only thing Kylie (L) and Demi (R) have in common, as the stars pose for similarly risque shots on their Instagram accounts
Bottom's up! Demi certainly dressed to impress as she joined Tyga on a night out on Thursday
The model, pictured left and right during a calendar shoot, has won fans thanks to provocative poses
Former bank manager Barrie revealed that it was a three-year health and beauty course at Walsall College that changed Demi's life and she went into modelling two years ago.
He said: 'She was always interested in beauty and a good-looking girl to boot.
'I could always see it coming as she's very ambitious.'
Demi Rose, who was born in 1995, went to New Oscott Primary School before going to John Willmott School in Sutton Coldfield.
She then went to Walsall College where she studied health and beauty and it was then, after her course finished that she went out to the USA as part of Taz's Angels.
The Angels are a group of pretty young women who live together in a rented mansion in Miami, apparently mentored by a man known simply as 'Taz' on how to achieve fame and fortune.
Demi Rose was once named the 'hottest new girl on the planet' by Zoo Magazine in 2014
Taz's Angels Instagram page reads: 'The Names Change, But The Game Remains The Same. A Bad B**** Turns 18 Everyday.'
Instagram followers can watch the girls twerk in skimpy costumes, work out in skimpy clothing, or pose for semi-naked selfies.
Taz, aka Michael Williams, is described as being the 'black Hugh Hefner', although he has previously been accused of being a pimp and running the girls as escorts - reportedly sparking an FBI investigation into prostitution.
One post on Instagram by one of the 'Angels' gave an insight into life in the Miami mansion.
It read: 'A lot of people don't understand our relationship to #Taz, or what #Sisterwives are.
'Taz is our king and yes we all share him, the way I look at it is we rather have a quarter of a real n****r than a whole f*****g n*****r, most ya b*****s sharing ya man with ur best friend, ur neighbor, shit, even ur sister and don't even know it. At the end of the day it's our life and we don't give a f*** what anyone thinks about us.' [sic]
Demi Rose, full name Demi Rose Mawby, grew up in Sutton Coldfield near Birmingham and has modelled for Zoo UK and Nuts Magazine
Another wrote about their experience in an article entitled 'someone just spilled all the tea on Taz's Angels'.
She said: 'It goes beyond the typical partying you see on Snapchat into some darker s***. I had sex with Taz but I wasn't allowed to do it for long which I was happy about because Cat [another Angel] started to push us away.
'Nobody is allowed to look at Taz either and he won't take off his sunglasses.
'Well the prospects [the new girls] don't get their own room, it wasn't just me there there were 2 others. And we were all forced to share a bed which was uncomfortable. I realize that Cat sells a dream and so many fall for it. They also made us 'earn' everything even the food they ordered.
'You had to do things for Taz to eat or shop and since I didn't have a phone or car I had to do the thingsI was literally a sex slave in the house and there's something really off about Taz.'
Demi Rose left the group in November 2015, saying she was going back to the UK to look after her mother.
They were spotted together earlier this week attending a party at the Gotha nightclub in Cannes, pictured
On her personal website she revealed it had been her dream to model 'ever since she was a little girl'
Barrie and Christine are adamant she only did promotional work as part of the controversial group.
Barrie added: 'One of the promotional events she was invited to was in Miami with four girls and guy called Taz, they were known as Taz's Angels.
'She was invited there for three weeks but ended up staying there for seven months until her visa ran out and she decided to come home and help her mum.'
Her parents learned of their daughter's relationship with Tyga by reading a MailOnline story.
Tyga, 26, recently split with Jenner but wasted no time finding a new date in lookalike and lingerie model Demi Rose.
He was pictured getting close to the beauty on Snapchat on Thursday and the pair were later spotted at Gotha nightclub in the French resort.
Barrie admitted he'd never heard of the rapper before she was pictured with him a few days ago and believes it could be more serious than he first thought.
The couple were in there for a couple of hours and Tyga was seen picking out outfits and shoes for Demi
The 21-year-old, pictured, said she feared she would never be a model because of her 5ft 2in height
Tyga and Demi Rose, pictured, have since been pictured enjoying a day out in luxury shops in Cannes
Demi Rose, pictured, is a big hit on Instagram with more than 2.2million followers and counting
He said: 'It might be a mutual publicity thing but it would now appear that it's something more serious.
'Demi hasn't had a boyfriend since her three-year relationship with a boy she met at Fuerteventura ended three years ago.
'With regards to Tyga she'll tell us one of two things, either 'he's a nice guy, we're just friends' or 'he's a nice guy and I like him very much' - that's as far as it goes.'
Christine added: 'She has lot of male friends but nothing more serious she's a very private girl who likes spending time with her close friends.'
Despite being down to earth, Barrie revealed that Demi Rose also has some high-profile friends.
They include Transformers director Michael Bay who she became firm friends with through her promotional work with Taz's Angels and has even enjoyed lunch with Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio.
Tyga and his English girlfriend Demi Rose Mawby were seen out shopping in Cannes at Saint Laurent
Demi Rose was once named the 'hottest new girl on the planet' by Zoo Magazine in 2014.
According to her website, Demi Rose 'always dreamed of becoming a model' but feared she would be too short to break into the industry.
In a statement on the site she said: 'Since I was a little girl I always dreamed of becoming a model. I loved being in front of the camera and striking a pose, now, my dream is reality.
'At 5'2 I never thought I would be able to break into modeling as I thought I was too short but I gave it a shot, applied to an agency and after 24 hours my modeling career began.
'I started modeling a year ago now and it's been the best year of my life. I love what I do and feeling glamorous and I love creating beautiful images to be proud of whilst treating my fans!'
She added: 'I really enjoy meeting and receiving all messages from my fans and appreciate all the support I am given, it means so much to me! I love that you're all so kind and complimentary you make what I do so much better!'
The Birmingham-born brit, left, poses alongside DJ Khaled in the video for How Many Times featuring Chris Brown
She said she started modelling a year ago and has described this as the 'best year of her life'
Tyga's new girl, left, starred in sleazy Chris Brown video and was a club girl in Miami ... before gathering 2.2m followers with her sexy Instagram posts
Her looks have drawn comparisons with Tyga's ex Kylie Jenner, left, whom she is the spitting image of
The racy British model previously starred in a sleazy Chris Brown video and lived as a club girl in Miami.
Last year, she also briefly appeared in DJ Khaled's video for How Many Times, which featured twerking models covering one another in champagne.
Distillery says vodka has 'elegant hints of pear, citrus, and honeysuckle'
The fog water was blended with vodka distilled from local California wine
Multiple fog catchers were used to collect fog water
California distillery Hangar 1 is behind the vodka, called Fog Point
San Francisco fog has been used to produce a $125 vodka called Fog Point.
A California distillery called Hangar 1 is behind the unusual, limited edition alcoholic beverage.
Hangar 1 says on its website: 'Fog Point is a true expression of California, distilled.
'It's also an articulation of our commitment to preserving the fragile ecology of our home state.'
San Francisco fog has been used to produce a $125 vodka called Fog Point
The distillery explains online: 'To create Fog Point, we installed our very own fog catchers to turn fog into fresh water.
'This water is then blended with vodka distilled from premium wine sourced from a sustainable vineyard on the Central Coast.'
It says that Fog Point is a 'an extraordinarily crisp, pure, and gluten free sipping vodka with elegant hints of pear, citrus, and honeysuckle.'
Fog was collected with the help of fog catchers. The fog catchers were placed at Berkeley Hills, Outer Sunset, El Sobrante, and Sutro Tower
Head distiller Caley Shoemaker has said 'I love that the water has a little bit of an earthy note to it'
The fog catchers were placed at Berkeley Hills, Outer Sunset, El Sobrante, and Sutro Tower, the website says.
The expensive vodka can be purchased online at Reserve Bar.
It says on its website: 'A fog catcher consists of a precision-engineered mesh canvas that is stretched out on a frame, then erected high in the air at a location rich in pure fog.
'As fog drifts through the mesh, millions of beads of moisture are caught in its fibers.'
Fog Point is available at locations in California, New York, and Florida, according to Hangar 1.
Head distiller Caley Shoemaker told Time.com: 'I love that the water has a little bit of an earthy note to it.
'For some reason what always springs to my mind is like, if you're standing next to a stream on a warm day, the scent of moist rocks.'
Shoemaker told the website: 'If it's a gimmick to some people, fine.
'But the people who are into it are going to be into it, and we only have 2,400 bottles anyway.'
That's how many bottles were produced with fog that was gathered during a six-month period, Time.com reported.
Britain's highest paid college principle has come under fire for awarding her husband's company contracts worth 177,000 without telling the school's governors.
Sunaina Mann, Further Education Principle and CEO of North East Surrey College of Technology (Nescot) secured her husband's company three contracts for consulting for the institution.
Mrs Mann made headlines last month for being the country's highest paid college chief after her pay doubled in a year to 363,000.
Sunaina Mann is the Further Education Principle and CEO of North East Surrey College of Technology
Together, her and her husband Jaswinder Singh Mann made 775,000 from Nescot over the past two years, according to FE Week.
Mr Mann's company Point Nemo Ltd - of which he is the sole director - secured three contracts to work on Nescot's helping to open an all-female school in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
He reportedly signed the first of the contracts in late September 2014, but the college's board of governors were not, the FE Week said, told about the deal until a meeting in March the next year.
Nescot then told the higher education publication that he signed two more contracts in the summer of 2015, again without the board being informed.
In minutes taken from the board meeting in March, there was reference to 'disclosure errors' concerning 'related party transactions', the Times reported.
The college would not confirm whether the Manns' dealings were in breach of the school's procurement policy.
Documents detailing Nescot's financial statements for the year ending 2015 listed payments of 71,000 in 2014 and 106,000 in 2015 to Point Nemo Ltd.
Mrs Mann also claimed 49,000 in flights and accommodation, according to the Times.
Last year, the principal had a base salary of 150,000. This was topped up with allowances of 50,000, 70,000 in paid holiday and a secondary basic salary from a subsidiary company of 88,000.
Mrs Mann made headlines last month for being the country's highest paid college chief after her pay doubled in a year to 363,000
In the meeting's minutes, recommendations are made by auditors which say the college has a need for 'much better quality-management information and on a more timely basis'
They also called for 'the accurate capture of related party transactions' and a 'comprehensive register of interests' to be updated through the year.
Sally Hunt, director general of the University and College Union, told FE Week the findings were 'a real concern' at a time of 'severe cuts to adult education budgets'
'Too many college principals like Ms Mann have continued to enjoy bumper pay awards and sanction profligate spending on agencies for often questionable added value. It is time that ministers took action,' she said.
The three daring convicts who escaped Alcatraz in 1962 made it off the island and were picked up by accomplices - who then murdered them, according to a bombshell deathbed confession.
Brothers John and Clarence Anglin and fellow inmate Frank Morris made it off the island on a makeshift raft in June 1962 and were never seen again, with prison officials insisting they drowned.
But relatives of the Anglins and some experts believe the trio made it out alive and that the siblings fled to Brazil, where a picture that surfaced last year appears to show them years later.
It has now emerged that a mystery man confessed on his deathbed that he helped the trio escape by boat, but then killed them and buried their bodies near Seattle.
The claims may seem outlandish, but an off-duty cop has revealed that he saw a boat in the bay on the night of the infamous escape.
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Dead or alive? Brothers John and Clarence Anglin and Frank Morris (left to right) escaped Alcatraz in 1962 but no one knows if they survived. A deathbed confession has claimed they did, but were then murdered
A mystery man confessed on his deathbed that he helped the trio escape Alcatraz (pictured) by boat, but then killed them and buried their bodies near Seattle
The man, who has not been identified, told a nurse in his final hours alive that he and another accomplice picked up the men as they were bobbing the water off Alcatraz, ABC 7 reported.
He claimed they painted the boat white days before setting out to the island before waiting in the bay for the men to flee.
However, the confession then takes a dark turn, with the man claiming they took the Anglins and Morris to a place near Seattle and murdered them, before burying the bodies next to a highway.
Alcatraz expert Michael Esslinger and a former federal investigator searched the area but could not find the bodies.
'There's still elements of the deathbed confession we still look at and I wonder if some of it could be true or not,' Esslinger said.
'I don't know. Anything is possible and it's just one more layer to this big mystery,' he added.
The claim has been partially corroborated by Robert Checchi, a former police officer who was at the bay on that fateful June evening 53 years ago.
The San Francisco cop was off-duty when he claims he saw a 'pristine white boat' crossing the bay.
The claim has been partially corroborated by Robert Checchi, a former police officer who was at the bay on that fateful June evening 53 years ago
He told ABC 7 that it had no lights on, appeared to have no one on board and there was no engine running.
Minutes later, a light started flashing on board the boat, something Checchi thought was 'really unusual'.
'It started moving out and the port and starboard lights came on,' he said. 'I couldn't tell whether it went north or south, it just disappeared into the dark.'
Checchi filed an official report the next day after hearing about the escape from Alcatraz.
The FBI questioned him and criticized him for not swimming out to see what was going on, he claims.
'If I was on duty and had my police car, I would have called the Coast Guard as a suspicious boat sitting out there in the Bay,' he said.
'If they would have responded they would have caught everybody right there.'
The Anglins' nephew Ken Widner believes the men may still be alive and says the brothers started new lives in Brazil. This photograph purportedly shows John and Clarence Anglin in Brazil
The confession is the latest claim to be made about the outcome of the trio's daring escape from Alcatraz, which no one else has ever successfully fled.
The Anglins' nephew Ken Widner, 54, believes the men may still be alive and says the brothers started new lives in Brazil.
Mr Widner claims the bank robbers, who dug a tunnel out of their cells using teaspoons, are in a photograph that shows them in Brazil years after the escape.
Before leaving their cells, the men left paper-mache heads with their own hair attached in their beds to make it appear like they were tucked up in bed.
They clambered through the vents, broke onto the roof of the jail and made their makeshift raft out of raincoats, which they then inflated using an accordion-like concertina.
Speaking at his home in Gainesville, Georgia, last year, Mr Widner said: 'The family had always believed that the brothers had gone to South America. It's hard to say how we knew; but we did.
'It was thought some family members knew before Fred Brizzi [a friend of the brothers who claimed to have met them in Brazil in 1975].
Authorities are on the hunt for a 'vehicle of interest' they have identified in the murder investigation of a Texas fitness instructor.
Detectives want to speak with the owner of a silver or light-colored Nissan Altima which they said was seen at a nearby business before the murder of 45-year-old Terri 'Missy' Bevers.
Surveillance video shows the car pulling into a parking lot less than a mile from the Creekside Church of Christ in Midlothian on the day of the murder.
'The last remaining lead involves a car that pulls into the SWFA Sporting Goods parking lot at approximately 2am,' Assistant Chief Kevin Johnson said a press conference on Friday, CBS reported.
'They're seen pulling into the parking lot and leaving just a few minutes later.'
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Authorities are on the hunt for a 'vehicle of interest' (pictured) they have identified in the murder investigation of a Texas fitness instructor, 45-year-old Terri 'Missy' Bevers
Detectives want to speak with the owner of a silver or light-colored Nissan Altima which they said was seen at a nearby business prior to the murder
Bevers (pictured) was found dead with puncture wounds to her head by one of her boot camp participants at the church around 5am on April 18 as she set up an exercise class
Police said the car was a 2010-2012 Nissan Altima with an oval sticker on its bumper, and noted that the driver is not necessarily a suspect, according to Fox News.
While investigators said they are still diligently investigating Bevers' murder, they said so far they do not have a suspect or suspects in the case.
Previously, police obtained warrants for cell for information related to several members of the Bevers' family.
However on Friday, Johnson said none of the victim's family friends or co-workers are considered suspects, according to CBS.
Assistant Chief Kevin Johnson said a press conference on Friday that the last remaining lead involves a car that pulls into the SWFA Sporting Goods (pictured) parking lot at approximately 2am
Police said the Nissan Altima is not a suspect vehicle and was only seen at a nearby business prior to the murder
Bevers (pictured left and right) was reportedly attacked by a person carrying a hammer. Authorities said the killer wore a helmet, gloves and a jacket labeled 'Police'
Police also provided more information regarding the description of the suspect on Friday, describing the individual as standing between 5'2'' and 5'7'' and appearing to have lighter skin.
Investigators have still not determined if the person was a man or a man.
Bevers was found dead with puncture wounds to her head by one of her boot camp participants at the church around 5am on April 18 as she set up an exercise class.
She was reportedly attacked by a person carrying a hammer.
Authorities said the killer wore a helmet, gloves and a jacket labeled 'Police,' according to Fox News.
Surveillance footage reportedly captured a suspect carrying tools consistent with Bevers' injuries walking through the church.
Marsha Essary Tucker, mother of Bevers' widower Brandon, previously took to Facebook imploring the attacker to turn themselves in.
'Are you getting a bit nervous, shaking in your "boots that look too big?" You should be! It's just a matter of time now,' Bevers' mother-in-law wrote.
'Things would be a lot easier on you to just go ahead and turn yourself in. I'm sure the officials will take that into account.
Surveillance footage reportedly captured a suspect carrying tools consistent with Bevers' injuries walking through the the Creekside Church of Christ in Midlothian (pictured)
'Go ahead and clear your conscience, you will feel better.
'No sense in having your family witness you being picked up by the police and leaving that lasting vision on their minds forever! We are all waiting! It's one way or the other!!'
Her message came after search warrants released earlier this month revealed that just days before her murder, Bevers received a 'creepy and strange' message from an unknown man on LinkedIn.
Messages recovered on phones owned by Bevers and her husband Brandon Bevers revealed that they were having problems in their marriage and had been enduring ongoing financial problems, NBCDFW reports.
Meanwhile, Brandon Bevers previously spoke out about his wife's death and said he has found strength in this difficult time by turning to God.
'If it wasn't for me leaning on God as heavily as I am right now, OK, there is no way I would be melted just into this asphalt,' he told NBC.
This screengrab shows part of the message Bevers' mother-in-law Marsha Essary Tucker penned ealrier this month to the killer, urging them to turn themselves in before police find them
'There is no way the Brandon Bevers before this would be standing here today without me leaning on God, and His word and His direction, like, I find peace in it. It's very comforting. I obtain wisdom from it.'
He also added he had refused to read any reports detailing the injuries his wife sustained before she died.
Authorities have said they found evidence of forced entry at the church and Bevers may have walked in on a robbery while preparing for her Camp Gladiator fitness class.
They also claimed someone tried to clean up the crime scene.
Rewards of $20,000 are currently being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a suspect in the case.
On Friday, Johnson admitted that the investigation has been both difficult and frustrating, but remains optimistic that the case will be solved.
Authorities have said they found evidence of forced entry at the church and Bevers may have walked in on a robbery while preparing for her Camp Gladiator fitness class
Police released CCTV footage from inside the church showing the suspect wearing a SWAT uniform
'We want an arrest as bad as anybody in this case,' he said.
'We want to bring that sense of safety back to the community and resolve this for the family as well as our community and the public in general.'
He added: 'Its hard to get away with murder nowadays and we think that somebody eventually will know something and theyll come forward.
But for one soldier, the sense of occasion became too much when he
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This is the unfortunate moment a soldier fainted during a parade to mark the 300th anniversary of the Light Dragoons.
The cavalry regiment of the British Army were celebrating the incredible milestone at Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire and were marching alongside horses and tanks.
But for one soldier, the sense of occasion became too much when he collapsed in front of the crowds.
The cavalry regiment of the British Army were celebrating 300th anniversary of the Light Dragoons at Catterick Garrison and were marching alongside horses and tanks
Out for the count: For one soldier, the sense of the grand occasion became too much when he collapsed in front of the crowds
Help is on hand: The man falls forward as members of the Light Dragoons attempt to stay focussed and one goes to check on the soldier
Pictures show the man, who was stood alongside the rest of his regiment, on the ground after falling forward as members of the Light Dragoons attempt to stay focussed and one goes to check on the soldier.
He rescues him from the ground and brings him back to the rest of the troop while another picks up his bayonet and hat.
The parade showcased the development in technology used by the light cavalry regiment, who started out on horse-back and whose history includes the Battle of Waterloo and the Charge of the Light Brigade.
More recently members of the Light Dragoons - who now use Jackal Fighting Vehicles - were deployed to Iraq in 2003 to assist with the stabilisation of the country after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled.
The regiment was also deployed on tours of duty in Afghanistan in 2006, 2007 and 2009 before eventually returning in 2012. And members also carried out operations in Bosnia and North Africa in 2014.
Today's parade was celebrated by both veterans as well as serving troops, according to Star Radio, who spoke to Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel James Senior before the event.
The man rescues the soldier from the ground and brings him back to the rest of the troop while another picks up his bayonet and hat
Back in line: The parade was showcasing the development in technology used by the regiment when the unfortunate solider fainted
Major Stephen Jordan, who is in charge of planning for the parade, also spoke to the radio station.
He explained that the parade was put on to recognise the contributions made by the soldiers who have served and are currently serving with the Light Dragoons.
According to the Ministry of Defence, the regiment, which can be deployed anywhere in the world at short notice, recruit many soldiers from the North East of England, in places such as Northumberland and Tyne and Wear.
South Yorkshire also has strong connections, which has led to the Light Dragoons being known as the Northern Cavalry of England.
Good cause: The parade set out to recognise the contributions made by the soldiers who have served and are currently serving
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A devastating fire blazed across the flight deck of doomed EgyptAir flight MS804 minutes before the aircraft plunged into the Mediterranean, according to the latest theories to explain the disaster.
Authorities had feared the plane was likely to have been the victim of a terrorist bomb attack when it went down on Thursday, killing all 66 people on board.
But now a more complex picture is emerging as experts sifted through new data yesterday, making an electronics fire a possible explanation.
A new graphic of the disaster shows that at 00.26 GMT the failure of a temperature sensor in a cockpit window is the first of a series of malfunctions thought to be related to a fire and is the earliest sign that something is wrong on the flight
Discovery: The plane's twisted blue metal panelling, marked with EgyptAir branding as well as items of clothing and yellow life jackets have been recovered from the Mediterranean Sea, where vessels continue to search for the wreckage
Search effort: The first pictures of the mangled wreckage from the EgyptAir flight 804 has emerged as investigators confirm smoke was detected in multiple places moments before the plane plummeted into the Mediterranean
Crash: The cause of the crash that killed all 66 on board remains unclear but smoke alarms were sounding for almost three minutes before it began its rapid descent, according to the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) data
Find: The discovery of the black box could provide vital clue into what caused the passenger jet to crash on its journey from Paris to Cairo
The twisted remains of the plane debris reveals the damage caused to the plane, with investigators still remain unsure what caused the apparent fire in the toilet and cabin
A video image released by the Egyptian Defense Ministry shows a ship during the search in the Mediterranean Sea for missing EgyptAir Flight MS804 plane which crashed after disappearing from the radar in the early hours of Thursday morning while carrying 66 people
The coastguards and rescue workers have been trying to locate the wreckage in the Mediterranean Sea after the plane crash
Leak: Data has emerged indicating the EgyptAir Flight MS804 was on fire before it plummeted into the Mediterranean. An ACARS screen grab (above) shows smoke alarms in the lavatory behind the cockpit sounded at 00.26GMT, three minutes before the plane lost contact
Captain Shoukair (right) with colleagues. Air traffic controllers said he was in 'a good mood and gave thanks in Greek' when he was in last contact around 25 minutes before the jet fell out of the sky in a suspected terror attack
EgyptAir stewardess Samar Ezz Eldin (left) posted a picture of an air hostess in front of a passenger jet crashing into the sea behind her (right) on her Facebook page. The 27-year-old was among the first passengers and crew on board Flight MS804 to be named
At another emotional service, Bahgat Shoukair, the father of Captain Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair collapsed in grief for his missing son
Friends and family of one of the EgyptAir MS804 victims, air hostess Yara Hani Tawfik, mourn at her memorial service
The parents of EgyptAir MS804 victim, air hostess Yara Hani Tawfik, at her funeral held at the Church of Virgin & Saint Athanasius in Cairo
The new information made terrorism seem 'less likely', although it has still not been ruled out.
Last night, authorities released an audio recording of the final words to Swiss air traffic control of pilot Mohamed Said Shoukair, who signed off about an hour into the flight: 'Thank you so much, good night.'
The audio indicates that all was routine as the plane checked in with air traffic controllers in Zurich, Switzerland, late Wednesday night, before being handed over to Italian air traffic controllers in Padua. The communication occurred around midnight local time, about two-and-a-half hours before Greek air traffic controllers in Athens lost contact.
The entirely unexceptional exchange suggests those on the plane had no notion at that time of what was to happen later.
Transmissions from the aircraft in the minutes before it was lost reveal that smoke was detected underneath the cockpit and in a toilet, according to messages transmitted to ground computers before the airliner plunged from the sky, killing ten crew and 56 passengers, including one Briton.
After meeting relatives of victims, French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said 'all theories are being examined and none is favoured'. But Simon Hradecky, editor and founder of the highly respected website Aviation Herald, said available data suggested an electrical fault on the jet was more likely than a terrorist attack.
Details of Flight 804's final moments emerged as human remains and personal belongings were recovered by search vessels from some of the victims who died when the Airbus A320 disappeared en route from Paris to Cairo. The Egyptian military released images of some items found, including life vests, parts of seats and objects clearly marked EgyptAir.
Debris was found 180 miles north of the port of Alexandria by the Egyptian navy. The spot is south of where the Airbus vanished from radar signals.
Egyptian media have also reported that divers have found the black box between close to the crash site
The black box could provide vital clues into what caused the plane to crash just as it entered Egyptian airspace on its journey to Cairo
At present no survivors have been found from the plane crash wreckage, where life jackets were recovered from the water
According to the leaked data, smoke alarms in the lavatory behind the cockpit first began sounding at 00.26GMT. Less than a minute later, smoke was also detected in the avionics [electronics]
The smoke is thought to have filtered out from the toilet and was also detected near the cockpit, according to the alarm data
The devastating impact of the crash appears to have torn the plane to pieces with insulation and parts of the wall surfacing in the water
Lying on the deck of the vessels, recovered items appears to include shoes and handbags from the crashed plane
Celebration: Captain Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair had been promoted just four days before the crash
Devastated family members of one of the victims weep as they leave the Church of Virgin & Saint Athanasius in Cairo
Several friends and relatives comfort one distraught woman at the memorial service at the church in Cairo
Prayers were also held at Al Sedeq mosque close to Cairo International Airport where the doom jet had been due to land
Gripped by grief: EgyptAir stewardesses console each other outside the Al Sedeq mosque where hundreds of mourners gathered to offer prayers for the crew of missing EgyptAir flight MS804
Meanwhile, an international air and sea search operation, involving the US and French navies, to locate the black box flight recorders intensified yesterday.
Because the search area covers 5,000 square miles and some sections of the Mediterranean there are 10,000ft deep it is feared that it could be weeks before the recorders are found.
Mr Hradecky speculated that the plane's oxygen supply could have been breached, causing the fire to spread more quickly, filling the cabin with smoke.
This, he said, is similar to what happened in 2011 when a fire started near the first officer's oxygen mask on an EgyptAir Boeing 777 during a fire at Cairo airport.
'If the oxygen bottle that feeds the oxygen masks of the pilots ruptures and feeds the fire, then we could have such a rapid development that the fire becomes catastrophic within three minutes.'
The Airbus A320 aircraft made a 90-degree turn left, and then dropped from 37,000ft to 15,000ft before swerving 360 degrees right. Contact was lost at 10,000ft.
Ahmed Asem (centre), the father of co-pilot Mohamed Mamdouh Ahmed Asem, was overwhelmed by messages of support as he visited the Al Sedeq mosque close to Cairo International Airport to pray for his son and the other 65 people on flight MS804
Ahmed Asem is consoled by members of the Al Sedeq mosque where they held the hour-long Friday prayers for the missing
Hizam Asem (left), the uncle, and Hisam Asem, the cousin of the EgyptAir co-pilot attend the Friday prayers at the mosque
Friends and relatives of the EgyptAir crew console each other outside Al Sedeq Mosque in Cairo
The family of co-pilot Mohammad Mamdouh Assem had sacrificed everything so could fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a pilot
Devastated: A mourner wipes away a tear during Friday prayers for the passengers and crew killed in the EgyptAir disaster
Members of the Al Sedeq Mosque in Cairo pray for the crew members of the crashed EgyptAir plane as at emotional service near Cairo
Family, friends and colleagues held back tears as the Imam led prays for their salvation at the Al Sedeq mosque near Cairo Airport
Members of the Al Sedeq Mosque in Cairo console friends and relatives of the co-pilot of the EgyptAir plane which crashed yesterday
Clues: This image released by the European Space Agency from its Sentinel-1A satellite reportedly shows a two-mile-long oil slick (circled) in the Mediterranean Sea around 20 miles from the last-known location of the EgyptAir plane which vanished near Greece on Thursday
An Egyptian plane and ship search the Mediterranean for missing EgyptAir flight 804 plane which crashed in mysterious circumstances
An Egyptian plane searches for debris and personal belongins from the missing EgyptAir plane which crashed in the Mediterranean Sea
An engineer stands in front of a C-130 HAUP of the Hellenic Air Force which took part and is on stand by in the search operation
It is believed that passengers and crew may have been alive until the plane plunged into the sea. Everyone on board died, including 30 Egyptian, 15 French passengers and 11 from other nations.
Richard Osman, 40, a married geologist from Jersey, was the only British victim.
Philip Baum, the editor of Aviation Security International Magazine, was also leaning towards the fire theory last night.
He said: 'There was smoke reported in the aircraft lavatory, then smoke in the avionics bay, and over a period of three minutes the aircraft's systems shut down, so that's starting to indicate it probably wasn't a hijack.
David Learmount, consulting editor at Flightglobal magazine, said: 'The question now is whether the fire that caused the smoke was the result of an electrical fault or whether some form of explosive or incendiary device was used.'
Cabin manager Mervat Zakaria (pictured, left, and with her daughter, right) gave up a successful acting career to become an air hostess
Mervat Zakaria starred as a troubled teenager, Hala Awad, who had lost her mother in the hit Egyptian drama Abu El Ela El-Bashery
Family man: Richard Osman was among the 66 victims on board the jet. His brother has described his 'delirious happiness' after the birth of his second daughter just three weeks ago. Mr Osman is pictured here with his French-born wife Aureilie and his first daughter Victios
Happier times: Mr Osman's brother has spoken of his 'shock' at hearing the news of the plane crash this morning. Mr Osman, a geologist who was travelling to Egypt for work, leaves behind a wife (pictured here on their wedding day) and two infant daughters
Future: Mr Osman's brother Alastair described the crash as an 'absolute tragedy', adding that Mr Osman had been looking forward to a 'lovely future' with his wife and two young daughters
Relatives of passengers on board the EgyptAir flight cry at Cairo Airport as they try to receive information on their loved ones
Loss: Relatives of passengers on the missing EgyptAir flight break down as they console each other at Cairo International Airport in Egypt
Upset: Relatives and friends of passengers who were on the EgyptAir plane leave the EgyptAir in-flight service building at Cairo Airport
Terror: Relatives gather at Cairo Airport. Among the 56 passengers on board the plane were 30 Egyptian nationals, 15 French, two Iraqis, one Briton, Belgian, Kuwaiti, Saudi, Sudanese, Chadian, Portuguese, Algerian and a Canadian
'We cannot rule anything out': Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail talks to reporters at Cairo International Airport. He said it was too early to say whether a technical problem or a terror attack caused the plane to crash
On high alert: A French officer of the Police aux Frontieres (Borders Police) stands guard at Charles de Gaulle airport
Guard: Police take up position at Terminal 1 at Charles de Gaulle airport, after the EgyptAir flight vanished from radar
Worry: The EgyptAir counter at Charles de Gaulle was empty first thing this morning after reports of the disappearance began to surface
Hunt for clues: The Egyptian army today reported finding wreckage and personal belongings from the missing jet around 180 miles north of Alexandria. The discovery came a day after other debris found in another area near the African coast turned out not to come the plane
Missing: A closer locator map shows where the flight lost contact with radars around 170 miles from the the Egyptian coast
A Venezuelan man accused of administering the buttock-enhancing injections that killed a Miami mother-of-two has been arrested after three years on the run.
Jose Robusto, 43, was charged with manslaughter and practicing unlicensed medicine resulting in death after cops picked him up at a Miami airport Saturday.
Suyima Torres, 28 died of an embolism in April 2013 after paying a total of $2,300 for butt-enlarging injections at an unlicensed Miami-Dade clinic, the Miami Herald reported.
Arrested: Jose Robusto (left) is accused of pretending to be a doctor and administering two buttock-enlarging injections to Suyima Torres (right). Suyima died of an embolism after her second injection in April 2013
Robusto had returned to his home country after Torres died, police said - but was picked up by police when he returned to Miami from Aruba, off the coast of Venezuela, on Friday.
Police say Torres paid Cuerpos Health and Aesthetics in West Miami-Dade $1,500 for an operation in which an 'oily yellow substance' was injected into her buttocks on April 1, 2013.
She then returned and paid $800 for a second injection ten days later, but just hours afterward felt dizzy and was rushed to a hospital, where she died of a brain embolism.
Cops say that Robusto, who does not have a medical license, posed as a doctor to perform the two operations.
Robusto claims that he only administered the first injection, the Miami Herald said.
Just 16 days before Torres's death, another woman was hospitalized with vision problems and bleeding of the lungs after getting the same treatment at Cuerpos Health and Aesthetics.
The clinic, which no longer appears to be in operation, was only licensed to perform massages, but advertised on Facebook that it had certified plastic surgeons.
Its owner, Ruth Planas, reportedly accompanied Torres to the hospital after she fell ill - but Torres's mother said in 2013 she never told doctors about the injections.
'Maybe if that woman would've told them early my daughter would still be here,' she told NBCMiami.
Robusto was booked into Miami-Dade jail early Saturday. It is not clear whether he has an attorney.
Cosmetic procedures performed by bogus doctors are not uncommon in South Florida - especially butt enhancement.
A transgender woman was arrested in 2012 after police said she injected bathroom caulk, cement, Super Glue, Fix-A-Flat and mineral oil into the bodies of victims.
Authorities said one patient died as a result of the procedure.
Efrain Guaman (pictured), 30, was seriously injured after he was knifed by a thief who grabbed his iPhone and scarpered
A man who was stabbed on the subway in New York says he was ignored by strangers after he was attacked.
Efrain Guaman, 30, who is a single father of a two-year-old daughter, was seriously injured after he was knifed by a thief who grabbed his iPhone and scarpered.
The Ecuadorean was on the N train approaching Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center station in Brooklyn with his family on Friday morning when he was stabbed.
While Guaman was left with blood seeping out of his abdomen, the robber made a run for it and is still on the loose.
'I asked for help. They all ran because they were scared,' Guaman told the New York Post.
Speaking from hospital, he said he pulled the emergency lever but then faced a 30-minute wait for emergency services to arrive.
'I couldn't think of anything. I just felt the pain,' Guaman said.
He said the thief told him to hand over his phone or he would be stabbed, but knifed him in the abdomen before he had time to react.
'It happened so fast, I didn't realize what he was trying to do,' Guaman said.
He was on his way to work at his uncle's store in Brooklyn - something he insists he will continue to do once he has recovered.
'I wasn't afraid before - I ride this train everyday - but now I am,' he said.
His cousin Leslie Guaman said the agonizing wait for a paramedic to arrive was too long and that 'he could've died'.
Guaman was stabbed on the subway in New York and says he was ignored by strangers after he was attacked. Pictured, the platform at Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center station, where he was stabbed
Guaman's aunt said he is unable to breathe on his own or eat, and is barely able to talk as he recovers at New York Methodist Hospital, according to ABC 7.
Rosario Guaman told the station that 'everybody was looking' and 'he was asking for help, and nobody helped him'.
'But it's that no one came to help him as he was fighting to stay alive is what really has him shaken,' his uncle, Lorenzo Guaman, told ABC 7.
Guaman, who is from Elmhurst, Queens, will be in the hospital for at least four more days as he recovers.
The unidentified suspect, who is at large, was described as a black male, around 18 years old with a thin build and about 5'5''.
He is said to have a tattoo on his neck and was last seen wearing a gray and blue jacket, police told Daily Mail Online.
There have been at least 30 knife attacks on the subway so far this year, including a spate of slashings.
Police arrested Anthony Lopez (pictured), 31, who is suspected of wheeling the dead body of a black woman in her late 20s on a metal dolly in Staten Island, New York
The 'career criminal' who was spotted rolling his dead wife's shirtless body around Staten Island has been arrested and taken into custody, officials have revealed.
Anthony Lopez, 31, tried to disguise himself after the NYPD circulated a photo of him.
'He did shave his head and attempt to alter his appearance,' said NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce.
But a Crime Stoppers tip off led officers to an East Harlem neighborhood where, after a brief chase, he was taken down by police and taken in for questioning.
Charges against Lopez, who has been arrested more than 50 times in his life, are pending.
His neighbor saw him pushing a woman - later identified as his 26-year-old wife Obiamaka Aduba - on dolly on Post Lane near Richmond Terrace early yesterday the morning.
The woman, who was wrapped up in a thick sheet, showed signs of trauma but the city's Medical Examiner has yet to determine exactly how she died.
The New York Daily News quoted him as saying: 'We saw ligature marks around her neck and contusions on her body. We immediately began a homicide investigation.'
Lopez abandoned her body after he was questioned by a plain clothed detective who recognized him from previous arrests.
He has a vast criminal history involving dozens of arrests for drugs, grand larceny and criminal contempt, while his wife is said to have been arrested 19 times.
Emergency services pronounced the woman dead as soon as they arrived at the crime scene.
An NYPD mobile crime scene canopy was set up in front of the home where the suspect was last seen and canine units and helicopters are being used to locate Lopez
Charges against Lopez, who has been arrested more than 50 times in his life, are pending (pictured, the crime scene where he abandoned his dead wife's body)
Police deployed canine units and helicopters to locate Lopez and Post Lane was cordoned off completely, according to The Advance.
An NYPD mobile crime scene canopy was set up in front of the home where the suspect was last spotted while dozens of NYPD officials and detectives worked near his home.
It's crazy, it's absolutely insane. That they'd just dump a body in somebody's yard,' Staten Island resident Cedric Smith told CBS New York.
Another neighbor, who called Lopez a 'crackhead', said she couldn't believe the death happened in her neighborhood.
Cherise Taylor said she saw the body while taking her children to school, adding: 'I saw the body on the lawn. She was half naked. She didn't have a top.
'She was wearing pants. She was wrapped in an old curtain or something,' she told the Daily News.
Lopez, 31, was allegedly seen rolling the body along 42 Post Lane (pictured) at 7.10am on Friday morning
The Advance reported that neighbors are standing on their front porches watching the police activity and those who lived on the block had to be escorted to their homes by police if they lived behind the caution tape.
Lopez's past includes and arrest for punching a former girlfriend in the face. He was also arrested and spent time in jail for gunpoint robbery of a cell phone.
One former Missouri student loved learning so much that he didn't miss a single day of school in thirteen years.
Philip Dauma graduated from Hannibal High School in Hannibal Thursday without missing one day.
And his pristine attendance record was all thanks to his grandmother's hearty breakfast.
Dauma told WPBF: '[My grandmother] came out to the house every morning to make sure I was up.
Philip Dauma (left and right) graduated from Hannibal High School in Hannibal Thursday without missing one day. And his pristine attendance record was all thanks to his grandmother's hearty breakfast.
he devoted student wasn't tempted to skip class even when all of his friends were skiving. Pictured: Hannibal High graduation day
'And she never made me the same thing. She switched it up everyday. It wasn't just a bowl of cereal.'
The morning spread ranged from bacon and eggs to pancakes and whatever he had left over he would share with his classmates.
Dauma said the meal would power him up to make it into school every day.
The devoted student wasn't tempted to skip class even when all of his friends were skiving.
He explained: 'It was kind of a running joke with my friends.
'They would say, 'You should be sick one day just to see what's it's like to skip school.''
But Dauma said even though he went to school with a 'stuffy nose or a sore throat' he never went in with chicken pox or something that would make somebody else sick.
Hannibal High Principal Ted Sampson said he was well liked by students and staff and that the entire school was proud of him. Pictured: Hannibal High
His motivation for studying began at an early age, and he told WGEM: 'You know, I'd gone through elementary school without missing a day, so why not just go the rest of school? I had motivation through middle and high school.'
Hannibal High Principal Ted Sampson said he was well liked by students and staff and that the entire school was proud of him.
According to his Facebook page, Dauma also worked at Mark Twain Riverboat.
The woman caught up in the SNP love triangle hopes to marry the most recent of her MP lovers, friends have told The Mail on Sunday.
Oxford graduate Serena Cowdy, who had flings with Angus MacNeil and Stewart Hosie, is in love with Mr Hosie the partys deputy leader and wants a long-term relationship.
The 36-year-old journalists back- to-back affairs with Mr MacNeil, 45, and Mr Hosie, 53, led to the end of both mens marriages and have triggered an investigation by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority over claims they may have used taxpayers cash for their trysts.
Mr Hosie said last Sunday that he was separating from wife Shona Robison, a senior politician in the Scottish Parliament, while Mr MacNeil announced his separation from wife Jane last year not long after his affair with Miss Cowdy ended.
Oxford graduate and journalist Serena Cowdy, who had flings with Angus MacNeil and Stewart Hosie, is in love with Mr Hosie the partys deputy leader and wants a long-term relationship
One of Miss Cowdys friends said: She is very upset at the way she is being portrayed.
'Both relationships were important to her, and did not overlap, and she is very much in love with Stewart.
'She sees a long and serious future with him.
Miss Cowdy, who was reported to have described SNP MPs as romantic revolutionaries who were the Mujahideen of British politicians, emerged from her South London flat at the end of last week after five days in hiding, but declined to comment.
On Friday, Mr Hosie was back in his Dundee East constituency for a stage-managed meeting with his estranged wife.
Miss Robison said they would continue to work together.
Mr MacNeil had charged the taxpayer 6,250 for stays at Londons Park Plaza in 2014-15, where Miss Cowdy told friends she repeatedly spent the night with him.
Yesterday a woman at Mr Hosies marital home in Broughty Ferry, Dundee, declined to comment.
A 1,500-strong force of EU troops was on manoeuvres in Britain last week despite Armed Forces Minister Penny Mordaunt warning that plans for a 'Euro army' hatched in Brussels and Berlin are a 'huge concern'.
Ms Mordaunt only had to look as far as Salisbury Plain, Britain's largest military training ground, to see that their tanks and vehicles some emblazoned with the EU flag are already on our lawn, as our exclusive photographs show.
They were taking part in what is thought to be the biggest EU military exercise in the UK. And in a move that might cause further concern for Brexiteer Ms Mordaunt, the joint war games played out by an 'EU Battle Group' represent a stepping up of plans to mount a European force capable of rapid deployment to foreign shores.
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Penny Mordaunt only had to look as far as Salisbury Plain, Britain's largest military training ground, to see that 'Euro army' tanks and vehicles are already on our lawn
EUBG: The European Union Battle Groups consist of three 1,500-troop rapid reaction forces, directed by the EU's Council of Ministers, and designed to respond to security crises
Even as the columns of troops from Sweden, Latvia, Finland, Lithuania and Ireland rumbled across the English countryside, the Government was forced to reiterate David Cameron's opposition to a European army.
'The Prime Minister has repeatedly made clear that the UK will never be a part of an EU army,' said a spokesman.
SO WHAT ARE THE EUROPEAN UNION BATTLE GROUPS? Three 1,500-troop rapid reaction forces, directed by the EU's Council of Ministers, and designed to respond to security crises. Austrian Lieutenant General Wolfgang Wosolsobe is in command. Advertisement
'We will oppose any measures which would undermine member states' military forces.'
That will come as no comfort to Eurosceptics suspicious of the German government's revived enthusiasm for a European army, to be set out in July.
The publication of the plans which outlines steps to 'gradually co-ordinate Europe's patchwork of national militaries' was postponed until after the EU referendum on June 23.
The 1,500-strong EU Battle Group on Salisbury Plain was joined by troops from 2nd Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment, and 4th Infantry Brigade, as they planned and executed a 'fictitious peace support operation'.
Troops were involved in rapid movements, maintaining public order and peacekeeping in rural and urban environments.
While a British Brigadier is in charge of the force during the UK's period of command, he takes his orders from Brussels, not from the UK's operational headquarters.
Tactical decisions, such as the rules of engagement for the EU Battle Group, are decided by the Foreign Affairs and Security Council of the European Union.
The EU has three Battle Groups and the one deployed to the UK is a 'light force' using armoured patrol vehicles such as Humvees and the RG-32M 'Scout'.
Don't panic: A British solider manning a machine-gun keeps a close eye on the EU Battle Group operation
Ms Mordaunt reacted furiously earlier this month to a call from Joseph Daul, the French president of the centre-Right European People's Party, to form a Euro army.
Mr Daul said in a speech: 'Today more than ever, the peace of our continent cannot be safeguarded without a common and functional security union, including a European army.'
Miss Mordaunt said: 'This is proof of the European Union's plan to create a Euro army and it is dishonest for the In campaign to claim otherwise.
'The prospect of having our security policy dictated by Brussels is a huge concern and makes a mockery of the claim Britain is stronger in the EU.'
Two teenagers accused in a robbery and sexual assault of a woman in a New York hospital parking lot have been indicted on several charges.
Brandon R Corey, 16, of Johnson City and Jacob R Coish, 17, of Binghamton face adult prosecution after they were handed multiple felony indictments on Friday, the Press and Sun-Bulletin reported.
Corey is accused of following a female UHS Wilson Memorial Hospital employee to her car just after midnight on April 14 before allegedly sexually assaulting her.
Brandon R Corey, 16, of Johnson City (left) and Jacob R Coish, 17, of Binghamton (right) face adult prosecution after they were handed multiple felony indictments on Friday
Police said the woman was walking to her car just before 1am when the suspect approached her, showed her a knife and attempted to rob her.
He then raped her and stole her car and cellphone before fleeing the scene, the Press and Sun-Bulletin reported.
The car was later found in Binghamton's west side where investigators said the driver abandoned it after crashing it on Main Street.
Two days later on April 16, Corey was arrested after an extensive investigation and pursuit of several leads, police said.
Police said the woman was walking to her car in the UHS Wilson Memorial Hospital parking lot just before 1am when a man approached her, showed her a knife and attempted to rob her. He then raped her and stole her car and cellphone before fleeing the scene
On Friday, he was indicted on seven counts including first-degree rape, first-degree robbery, first-degree sexual abuse and criminal mischief.
Days later on April 18, officers identified Coish as a second suspect who they said reportedly participated in the theft of the victim's vehicle with Corey.
Coish was indicted on three counts including first-degree robbery on Friday.
Dramatic photographs have emerged of the bodies of Afghan Taliban boss Mullah Akhtar Mansour and his driver after the pair were killed a targeted drone strike authorized by Barack Obama.
The images show two bodies - believed to be that of Mansour and the driver of the car - after they were pulled from vehicle wreckage at the weekend.
However, it is not clear which body is that of Mansour. The images show the badly burned feet of one man, while another body is unidentifiable inside a wooden coffin.
Both the Taliban and the Afghanistan Government have now confirmed his death after he was killed travelling in a remote area of the border with Pakistan.
WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
The wreckage of the car carrying Mansour and a driver is pictured still flaming following the drone strike
Little was left of the vehicle after it was decimated in the strike on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border
The two bodies (pictured) were held at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, though it was not clear which was purported to be that of Mansour
Mansour had led the Afghan Taliban ever since the death of its founder, Mullah Mohammed Omar
Earlier in the day Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah had said that Mansour was 'more than likely' dead.
Speaking live on television as he chaired a Cabinet meeting, Abdullah said Mansour's death would have a positive impact on attempts to bring peace to Afghanistan, where the Taliban have been waging an insurgency for 15 years.
Mansour was 'the main figure preventing the Taliban joining the peace process', Abdullah said.
'From the day he took over the Taliban following the death of Mullah Omar, he intensified violence against ordinary citizens, especially in Afghanistan.'
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking in Myanmar today, repeatedly referred to Mansour in the past tense.
Mansour, he said 'posed a continuing imminent threat to U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, Afghan civilians, Afghan security forces' and members of the U.S./NATO coalition.
He said the air strike on Mansour 'sends a clear message to the world that we will continue to stand with our Afghan partners'.
'Peace is what we want, Mansur was a threat to that effort,' Kerry said. 'He also was directly opposed to peace negotiations and to the reconciliation process. It is time for Afghans to stop fighting and to start building a real future together.'
It remains unclear what the role was of the second man killed in the car. The Pentagon initially called him a fellow 'combatant', but officials told AFP he was a civilian who worked for a local rental company.
It isn't the first time Mansour has been attacked: In December, he was reported wounded and maybe killed in a shootout at the house of another Taliban leader near Quetta in Pakistan.
On Saturday the U.S. carried out a drone strike on Mullah Akhtar Mansour (pictured), who had been leader of the Afghanistan Taliban since July 2015. He is now believed to be dead, the Pentagon said
But this time the U.S. took no chances, using multiple drones to attack him.
It has now emerged Mansour had just returned from Iran when the vehicle was struck.
Pakistani ID documents found on the alleged militant leader could shed light on the degree of official support he received in the country.
His passport showed he had left for Iran on March 28 and returned the day he was killed.
'He was returning from Iran when he was hit by a drone strike near the town of Ahmad Wal,' one security official said.
He added that the driver, Muhammad Azim, worked for the Al Habib car rental company based out of Quetta.
An immigration official at the border town of Taftan confirmed the man's travel dates, adding that he was carrying euros when he entered Pakistan which he then converted to Pakistani rupees.
A passport and ID card recovered from the scene, photographs of which were seen by AFP, gave the man's name as Muhammad Wali, a resident of Killa Abdullah district of Baluchistan province who was born on January 1, 1972.
The second address listed on his ID card was in Karachi. The photographs on both documents both closely resemble known photographs of Mullah Mansour.
It was not immediately clear whether the documents were counterfeit or genuine.
The two corpses were later brought to the Civil Hospital in the provincial capital Quetta, where they were handed over to relatives after autopsies.
A hospital source said both were badly burnt and the corpse of the man named as Muhammad Wali was charred beyond recognition.
The source said there was a 'huge difference' between the way the bodies were treated.
'A youth who gave his name as Muhammad Rafiq and said he was the nephew of Muhammad Wali came with some plainclothes intelligence officials and demanded the body be immediately handed over to him.'
'The examination was done in no time and the body was taken away, while no one asked the nephew to prove his ID,' the source added.
Pictures showed the bodies of the two men after they had been killed in the pinpoint U.S. drone strike
The coffin containing the body of one of those killed is loaded into the back of an ambulance in Pakistan
A police officer stands beside a body of one of the two people killed in a US drone in Noshki. It is not clear if it is the body of Mansour, or his driver
A group of men cover a body with blankets after he was killed in the drone strike on the Pakistan side of the border
The strike took place at about 3pm local time on the Pakistani side of a remote area of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, according to the official.
The drones targeted the men as they rode in a vehicle southwest of the town of Ahmad Wal.
Mansour, who has been in charge of the Taliban in Afghanistan since the summer of 2015, was described as 'an obstacle to peace' in the country by Peter Cook, the Pentagon's Press Secretary, when he announced the man's death.
As the leader of the group - which now holds more Afghanistan territory than at any time since they were ousted from control by a U.S. intervention in 2001 - he forbade Taliban members from engaging in peace talks with the Afghanistan government.
He was also planning attacks against Afghanistan and U.S. forces, Cook claimed.
However, Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for South and Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center, told Reuters that even if Mansour is dead the Taliban won't go straight to the negotiating table.
'The Taliban won't simply meekly agree to talks and especially as this strike could worsen the fragmentation within the organization,' he said.
And Andrew Wilder, a senior analyst at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, told The Washington Post Mansour's death could galvanize the Taliban to prove it can still fight back.
'No one in the Taliban ranks is going to seriously be talking about pushing the peace talks further,' he said.
And it's not known whether Mansour's deputy, Sirajuddin Haqqani, will be accepted as the new leader, given that Mansour only made it to the top after some vicious infighting.
And with no clear successor, Mansour's death 'will provoke a crisis inside the Taliban', Bruce Riedel, an Afghanistan expert at the Brookings Institution think-tank, told Reuters.
That could lead to their guerrilla operations being compromised over the summer.
Location: Mansour was attacked southwest of Ahmad Wal, on the Pakistani side of the Afghan-Pakistani border. Another person was killed with him
Obstacle: Peter Cook, the Pentagon's Press Secretary, said Mansour was 'an obstacle to peace' in the country. Mansour's death could take days to confirm, an unnamed source said
Peter Cook, the Pentagon's Press Secretary said Saturday: 'Today, the Department of Defense conducted an airstrike that targeted Taliban leader Mullah Mansur in a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.
'Mansour has been the leader of the Taliban and actively involved with planning attacks against facilities in Kabul and across Afghanistan, presenting a threat to Afghan civilians and security forces, our personnel, and Coalition partners.
'We are still assessing the results of the strike and will provide more information as it becomes available.'
He continued: 'Since the death of Mullah Omar and Mansour's assumption of leadership, the Taliban have conducted many attacks that have resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and Afghan security forces as well as numerous U.S. and Coalition personnel.'
The announcement was met with approval by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the Senate's more hawkish Republicans, CNN reported.
'I'm glad to hear we decided to bring the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, to justice,' Graham said. 'I appreciate President Obama for authorizing the attack. And job-well-done to the members of our military and intelligence communities who carried out the mission.'
However, he asked Obama not to remove ground troops from the country 'until conditions on the ground permit their withdrawal'.
Policy: Gen. John W. Nicholson, Jr., Afghanistan's new U.S. commander (pictured) is now reviewing policy. Senator John McCain hopes the strike against Mansour signals an increased focus on the Taliban
The new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John W. Nicholson, Jr., is currently reviewing U.S. strategy, including possibly reducing the number of U.S. forces or implementing broader powers to target insurgents.
Under present policy, the U.S. will only target Taliban members in three circumstances: when U.S. or coalition forces are threatened, when the Taliban is believed to be providing direct help to Al-Qaeda, or when the Taliban poses a strategic threat to Afghan forces.
That's a policy that U.S. Senator John McCain, the Republican head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, hopes will change after the attack on Mansour.
'Our troops are in Afghanistan today for the same reason they deployed there in 2001 - to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for global terrorists,' McCain said.
Predecessor: Mullah Mohammad Omar (pictured) was the Afghanistan Taliban leader before Mansour, who was his deputy. Mansour took over in 2015, after it emerged Omar had died two years earlier
'The Taliban remains allied with these terrorists, including al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network, and it is the one force most able and willing to turn Afghanistan into a terrorist safe haven once again.'
The attack on Mansour was deemed justified because he was believed to be plotting to attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Mansour was declared Taliban leader in Afghanistan in July 2015, when it emerged that the group's founder, Mullah Mohammed Omar, had been dead for two years.
That announcement was made by the Afghanistan government, who claimed that there was 'credible information' that he had died in a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, in April 2013.
Mansour had been Omar's deputy since 2010.
However, his appointment as leader was met with resistance from many top Taliban commanders, who refused to pledge their loyalty, believing that he rigged the hastily organised selection process.
Prior to taking over the country's branch of the Taliban, he was the organization's minister of civil aviation and transportation and was considered 'a prominent member of the Taliban leadership', a now removed document on the U.N. Security Council Sanctions List said, according to CNN.
'He was repatriated to Afghanistan in September 2006 following detention in Pakistan,' it continued.
'He is involved in drug trafficking and was active in the provinces of Khost, Paktia and Paktika in Afghanistan as of May 2007. He was also the Taliban "Governor" of Kandahar as of May 2007.'
Between 2007 and 2010, he had been the chief of military affairs for a Taliban military council overseeing Afghanistan's Nimruz and Helmand provinces.
Single parents will be allowed to bring up children born to surrogate mothers for the first time, after a High Court ruling critics described as an assault on traditional families.
Until now, only couples have been able to become the legal parents of surrogate babies as Ministers insisted it was important for children to be raised by two people in an enduring relationship.
But Britains strict law on the matter is set to be scrapped, after a judge ruled that it violated the human rights of a single man who had a son using a US surrogate.
Kyle Casson, a gay man from Doncaster, used his own mother as a surrogate with a donor egg. But as the 27-year-old was single he could not apply for a parental order and had to adopt his baby son, Miles
In the ground-breaking judgment, President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby, decreed that the ban on single men and women becoming parents of surrogate babies contravened the right to a family life and the right to freedom from discrimination enshrined in European law.
The High Court heard the Department of Health now agrees that the law must be changed but because surrogacy is a controversial area of social policy it must be debated in Parliament first.
Family campaigners last night criticised the judges decision.
Labour MP and former Social Security Minister Frank Field told The Mail on Sunday: In all these decisions, the natural rights of children get overlooked.
Parenting is a huge job and its about time that children are put centre stage, not selfish adults.
Family policy writer Jill Kirby added: This judgment undermines the traditional family and the childs needs the evidence shows that children will thrive much better with two parents caring for them. The Government seems to have abandoned the idea of promoting stronger families.
Labour MP Rob Flello said: Its a tragedy the rights of children are not first and foremost the right of the child to have a family around them.
The case was brought by a single British man who cannot be named to protect the identity of his child known only as Z in court papers.
The man used his own sperm and a donor egg to father a baby boy, who was born in Minnesota to an American surrogate mother in August 2014. The father paid the woman 30,000 in expenses.
He brought his son home and applied for a court parental order to obtain legal responsibility for the child. But the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 states that only two people in a marriage, civil partnership or long-term relationship can do so even though single people can adopt children.
President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby, decreed that the ban on single men and women becoming parents of surrogate babies contravened the right to a family life and the right to freedom from discrimination enshrined in European law
Last year it emerged how Kyle Casson, a gay man from Doncaster, used his own mother as a surrogate with a donor egg. But as the 27-year-old was single he could not apply for a parental order and had to adopt his baby son, Miles, instead.
When the surrogacy law was debated by MPs, Dawn Primarolo, who was then a Labour Health Minister, told the Commons: Surrogacy involves agreeing to hand over a child even before conception. The Government are still of the view that the magnitude of that means that it is best dealt with by a couple.
Prior to last weeks ruling, the High Court had rejected the father of baby Zs attempt to gain a parental order, leaving the boy in a legal limbo. But after the same judge re-considered the case on human rights grounds, he paved the way for the father to bring up the child alone.
He quoted a letter from the Government Legal Department on behalf of the Department of Health, which admitted: We accept that the exclusion of [Z] and [the father] from obtaining a parental order on the sole ground that [the father] was not part of a couple is discrimination contrary to Article 14 [of the European Convention on Human Rights] taken in conjunction with Article 8.
Article 14 bans discrimination on grounds of sex, race, religion or any other status including being single while Article 8 guarantees the right to a family life. The father can now re-apply for a parental order.
The judge made a declaration of incompatibility under the Human Rights Act. Experts believe only 20 similar declarations have been made before, and all but one has led to a law being changed. Sir James added that he would absolutely decline to go further by suggesting what reforms ministers should make.
An illegal immigrant has been jailed after being caught working as a labourer on a new super-prison (file picture)
An illegal immigrant has been jailed after being caught working as a labourer on a new super-prison.
Ukrainian Volodymyr Pidodvirnyy was held by immigration enforcement officers when they raided the site of the new 212 million Berwyn Prison in Wrexham last month.
Twelve others were arrested with him on suspicion of immigration offences.
The 37-year-old, who lives in Manchester, had acquired a 12-month work visa ten years ago but failed to get a new one when it ran out.
Most recently he had been using driving licences from Latvia which joined the European Union in 2014 to pass himself off as being qualified to work in Britain.
Pidodvirnyy was told by the judge at Mold Crown Court: The irony is that having helped to build a prison you end up as an inmate in one.
Hitesh Keshvala, defending, said that his client had worked legally for 12 months at a hotel in Cumbria.
When his visa expired he was told that an extension was unlikely but he decided to stay in the UK anyway.
Sir Stanley Baker star of the classic movie Zulu smuggled an escaped convict to freedom in the back of his Bentley, according to a new biography of one of Britain's most notorious criminals.
The heart-throb actor, who found fame playing villains on the big screen, is alleged to have carried out the mission as a favour to his friend, gangland boss 'Mad' Frankie Fraser.
The biography of Fraser, which has been co-written by his two sons David and Patrick along with journalist Beezy Marsh, claims Baker agreed to help Fraser hide Robert 'Andy' Anderson, an inmate who had broken out of Wandsworth Prison with Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs on July 8, 1965.
When Anderson turned up at Fraser's London home looking for a hiding place, the gangster and Baker decided to get him out of London using the star's Bentley.
Sir Stanley Baker, pictured right alongside Sir Michael Caine in the 1964 movie Zulu, smuggled an escaped convict to freedom in the back of his Bentley, according to a new biography
The book recalls: 'Anderson was rushed outside and lay down on the back of the seat of Stanley Baker's car. He was covered with a blanket but was peeking out as Stanley reversed out into the street, while Frank sat in the passenger seat.
'It was a nerve-racking drive from Soho to South London, as the streets were crawling with policemen searching for jail-breakers. But who would have suspected the actor Stanley Baker gliding along in his Bentley? No one as it turned out.'
Baker then lent the Bentley to Fraser and an accomplice so they could smuggle Anderson to Scotland.
In the summer of 1965, Baker, then 36, was one of Britain's biggest stars thanks to the success of Zulu, which he had both produced and starred in the previous year.
If his role in the escape plot had been discovered, his career would have been ruined and he could have ended up behind bars.
Fortunately for the star, Anderson, who was serving 12 years for conspiracy to rob, didn't recognise his celebrity accomplice. Indeed he only became aware of Baker's role after he was re-arrested and put behind bars. The book recalls: 'His [Baker's] cover was almost blown on film night at HMP Durham when Anderson and the other convicts were shown Zulu. When Stanley Baker came on screen, Anderson started looking quizzical and, halfway through the film, the penny dropped.
Fraser hid Robert 'Andy' Anderson (left), as a favour to his friend, gangland boss 'Mad' Frankie Fraser (pictured right sitting with Baker)
'He almost shouted out, 'That's the bloke who helped me escape in Soho!' when one of the Great Train Robbers elbowed him in the ribs and told him to shut up.'
The biography, Mad Frank And Sons, published next month by Sidgwick and Jackson, includes a photograph of Baker with Fraser and Eddie Richardson, a member of the sadistic Richardson gang.
Jon Boulton, 26, who was a speechwriter to Minister for Civil Society Rob Wilson, was arrested at his home in Teddington, South-West London, last month
A former aide to a Government Minister has been arrested on suspicion of rape.
Jon Boulton, 26, who was a speechwriter and media adviser to Minister for Civil Society Rob Wilson, was arrested at his home in Teddington, South-West London, last month. He strenuously denies the allegation, involving a 25-year-old woman.
The website of Reading East MP Mr Wilson, who became a Minister in 2014, said Mr Boulton helped with research, drafting of questions, speech-writing and national media but the references have now been removed.
A spokesman for the Minister said: Jon Boulton is a former employee and it would be inappropriate to comment further while a police investigation is ongoing.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed an arrest on April 16 following an alleged offence on the previous day.
Mr Boultons solicitor, Christopher Maynard, said: My client strenuously denies the allegation and is co-operating with the police.
He added that Mr Boulton had left his job with Mr Wilson at the end of his temporary contract and had not been dismissed.
Dressed in a theatrical felt hat and quilted jacket, this is the first picture of self-styled 'healer' Anne Craig to emerge since a Mail on Sunday investigation accused her of helping to tear apart some of the country's best-connected families.
For four weeks Craig has refused to comment despite mounting allegations that she helped isolate a string of impressionable young women from their friends and families. They include highly educated society girls Laura Hue-Williams and Victoria Cayzer.
Craig is seen here on the streets near her home in South London with her dogs possibly the same animals that one former client revealed would bark during Craig's unconventional therapy sessions if they detected 'bad energy'.
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Accused: Anne Craig breaks cover to walk her dogs near her home, the first picture of self-styled 'healer' since she was accused of helping to tear apart some of the country's best-connected families
Through her lawyers, Craig who is understood not to have any recognised qualifications and is not a member of a professional body has denied any wrongdoing. But David Cameron and two senior Ministers are supporting calls to introduce new laws against psychological predators, including therapists who control vulnerable clients.
Now close relatives and the godmother of three former clients of Craig have come forward to offer further disturbing insights into her unconventional methods.
All three wish to remain anonymous, but the father of one of Craig's former clients gave a moving account of how his family was driven to the brink of destruction.
'It's nearly four years since my daughter started breaking away from Craig and she still does not want to talk about it,' he said. 'She knew Craig's daughter, who was encouraging people to see her mother. There seemed to be nothing wrong at first. Although we knew she was seeing a therapist, we had no idea of what was going on, except for the fact that she became more remote as time went by.
'She was not keen to accept help and became pretty unpleasant to us. It seemed that she was gradually being taken away from us.'
Isolated: Victoria Cayzer, left, and Laura Hue-Williams, victims of Craig's exhaustive therapy sessions
It was only a family tragedy, he said, that persuaded his daughter to return home. 'When my daughter came back to us she revealed what she had been discussing with Craig cutting us off,' the father said. 'We were being chiselled apart and everything was 'our fault'.
'Having spoken to experts, my understanding is a standard therapy session lasts 60 minutes but our daughter was seeing Craig for two to three hours and came out exhausted and confused. It has taken four years for her to become a normal, happy person again.'
AND IS THIS HER DOG WITH MYSTICAL POWERS? One former client revealed how Craig would greet her in the kitchen with her dogs. 'If they were barking she'd say there were spirits and bad energy that needed to get out.' This meant that certain friends and boyfriends were bad for here and that she 'needed to let them go'
The godmother of another former Craig client recalled her horror when the woman, now a qualified solicitor, revealed to her what had been going on. 'When she said she was seeing a therapist, I asked her what methodology the woman was using. It became clear that my goddaughter was being manipulated. The method is to isolate you from friends and family.
'I told my goddaughter that this was toxic and she agreed that she would stop seeing Craig.'
Meanwhile, a businesswoman believes that her daughter was saved because she was older and more sceptical about the 'healer'. Her daughter was a friend of Victoria Cayzer, who recommended Craig.
She said: 'My daughter did not see Craig for long because she thought it was ridiculous. When she tried to raise this with Victoria, Victoria said they could not be friends unless she was on 'the journey' with Craig.'
Last night, former Home Office Minister Tom Sackville, an anti-cult campaigner, joined The Mail on Sunday's call for a law to extend the existing protection of children to vulnerable adults too. Mr Sackville, chairman of The Family Survival Trust, said: 'In France, Belgium and Luxembourg, governments take a view on this. You can go to the courts to enforce the law. It's something we would like to have here.'
Professor Rod Dubrow-Marshall, a director with the International Cultic Studies Association, also called for new protection. He said: 'Anyone is susceptible to psychological manipulation and mind-control. The guru usually has some kind of psychological disorder, such as a narcissistic personality disorder. They yearn to have people worship them.'
Since this article was first published, we would like to add that Ms Craig's lawyers have said: "Anne Craig is not responsible for the fact that Laura Hue Williams has not been in contact with her family, nor is she responsible for 'mentally abusing' or 'psychologically manipulating' Ms Hue Williams. These allegations are vehemently denied by our client. They are based on the wholly incorrect supposition by the family of Ms Hue Williams who, rather than coming to terms with the fact that their daughter does not wish to be in contact with them any longer have chosen to blame our client. Ms Hue Williams has confirmed that our client never tried to influence her, has not somehow encouraged her to believe things that did not happen or talked to her in a suggestive way which has resulted in her believing things that are not true.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio called it an ambush and added: 'If they want a war they're going to have a war'
Explosives and SWAT team were called to the scene
No one was hurt, and Perez was arrested and found with another semiautomatic weapon
He fired five or six shots at a Maricopa County Sheriff's deputy, who was shielded by the bulletproof glass door
A man was arrested after he fired several rounds at a sheriff's deputy who was behind bulletproof glass, prompting controversial sheriff Joe Arpaio to call it a 'war on cops'.
Jonathan David Perez, 38, allegedly drove into the parking lot and fired five or six shots into the bullet proof door outside the sheriff's office substation in Surprise, Arizona.
No one was hurt, and another deputy arrested Perez in the parking lot. He was found with a semiautomatic weapon in addition to the gun used in the shooting, Arpaio told CNN.
Jonathan David Perez (left) opened fire at a sheriff's deputy who was shielded by a bulletproof glass door outside the sheriff's office substation in Surprise, Arizona. Controversial sheriff Joe Arpaio (right) called it a 'war on cops'
Perez pulled into the parking lot at around 3.45pm, and opened fire, leaving several bullets in the substation door (pictured, the bulletproof door)
No one was hurt, and another deputy arrested Perez in the parking lot. He was found with a semiautomatic weapon in addition to the gun used in the shooting, Arpaio told CNN
Perez pulled into the parking lot at around 3.45pm on Friday, and opened fire, leaving several bullets in the substation door.
The deputy positioned himself behind the bullet-proof glass and was not injured in the shooting, CNN reported.
Another deputy in the parking lot arrested Perez after he dropped his gun. Perez is being held on a $250,000 bond.
It is unclear what Perez's motive was and whether he specifically targeted the deputy behind the door.
Arpaio called the shooting an 'ambush' and cited another incident on May 7 when a Maricopa County Sheriff's deputy was shot several times during a drive by.
Another police officer was killed when he responded to a residential burglary in the Laveen area of Phoenix on Wednesday.
Arpaio told CBS: 'I'm not happy with people shooting at my deputies.
'There's a war on cops. They better start thinking about that all the way from Washington on down.
'If they want a war they're going to have a war.'
An explosives and SWAT team arrived to ensure there were no explosives in Perez's car.
An explosives and SWAT team arrived to ensure there were no explosives in Perez's car (pictured)
It is unclear what Perez's motive was and whether he specifically targeted the deputy behind the door
Arpaio, who has named himself 'America's toughest sheriff', is known for his anti-immigration rhetoric and will be supporting Donald Trump's rally in Maricopa County on Saturday.
The 83-year-old has been re-elected sheriff five times since first taking office in 1993.
Arpaio's department was successfully sued for racial profiling against Latinos in 2013, and the decision was largely upheld after a 2015 appeal, the Arizona Republic reported.
The octogenarian is also infamous for erecting a makeshift jail known as Tent City, where non-violent criminals live outside in triple-digit heat and which Amnesty International deemed in violation of human rights, according to Phoenix New Times.
One A&E unit is having to cope with twice as many patients as it was built for, health chiefs have admitted.
The extraordinary state of affairs at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital was revealed last week by Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents NHS trusts.
They are trying to see 120,000 patients [a year] in an A&E department one of the very few rated as outstanding that was built 14 years ago for 60,000. Youve got staff trying to do the impossible.
Mr Hopson said the 1,000-bed hospital had seen ambulance arrivals rise by 69 per cent.
Crisis: The Norfolk and Norwich Hospital (pictured) is 'trying to do the impossible', as staff treat 120,000 patients a year in an A&E department that was designed for 60,000
Heart patient John Wellings, 82, was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and waited three hours to see a doctor after collapsing with severe angina.
The retired teacher said: When we got there at around 11pm, we had to park outside and wait. Eventually someone knocked on the ambulance door and it was my turn to be wheeled in.
I was put on a trolley in the corridor. I wasnt the only one.
Eventually I got into A&E and a doctor saw me around 2am. I was finally taken to an assessment ward at about 4.30am.
The department is obviously not big enough and they dont have enough doctors to see people immediately.
The Norfolk and Norwich, which cost the taxpayer 230 million to build, was one of the first NHS hospitals part-financed by private companies under a PFI scheme and was heralded as an example of a new era in health care.
In 2012 NHS watchdogs found that nearly 150 patients had been kept waiting on ambulance trolleys for more than an hour in one four-week period.
The Norfolk and Norwich, which cost the taxpayer 230 million to build, was one of the first NHS hospitals part-financed by private companies under a PFI scheme (file image)
In January last year the hospital declared a major incident, using emergency measures designed to cope with terrorist attacks or rail crashes to deal with mounting pressure on wards.
Operations were cancelled and appointments postponed as managers drafted in extra staff. Trust chief executive Mark Davies announced in February that more buildings would be needed to cope with rising demand.
Local MP Norman Lamb, who was a Liberal Democrat Health Minister in the Coalition, said: What is happening reflects the situation around the country its a good hospital under impossible pressure. The extraordinary growth in admissions is largely a symptom of an ageing society.
Sergeant Major Michael Booley with Prince Harry in 2009, he told a military court that top brass broke a string of promises over his career and forced him to resign
Prince Harry's flying instructor has won a 400,000 compensation battle after quitting the Army over alleged bullying.
Sergeant Major Michael Booley, 50, who became Harry's close friend, told a military court that top brass broke a string of promises over his career and forced him to resign.
Legal papers leaked to The Mail on Sunday reveal that a brigadier who led an inquiry into the case described Booley's treatment by a senior officer as 'vindictive'.
Documents submitted to an earlier employment tribunal reportedly said that this treatment amounted to 'bullying'.
Sgt Maj Booley left the Army Air Corps in November 2010 after a distinguished career in which he saw frontline action in the Balkans and Iraq.
He was also hand-picked to be Harry's fixed-wing flying instructor at RAF Cranwell, Lincolnshire, teaching him how to fly in combat zones. They became such close friends that they were photographed riding high-performance motorbikes together.
The court heard, behind closed doors, how the distinguished pilot was promised a 50,000 golden-handcuffs deal which never materialised and that a posting he was promised to RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire, was scrapped.
He was sent to Northern Ireland for four years instead after senior officers raised concerns about his flying skills.
Brigadier Matt Lowe, who headed the Service Inquiry, found that Sgt Maj Booley's career manager Major Steve Graham had used the 'weakest of evidence' to block his move to RAF Waddington.
Brig Lowe said: '[Maj Graham] was vindictive, abusing his position of responsibility and the trust placed in him. His conduct wronged the complainant and acted against the interests of the Army. We recommend his chain of command consider Major Graham's position, including whether disciplinary action is warranted.'
IT'S MORE THAN HE'D HAVE GOT FOR LOSING A LEG The payment to Sgt Maj Booley dwarfs the amount awarded to troops crippled in war. Under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme, soldiers who have a leg amputated receive 92,000. A brain injury resulting in some risk of epilepsy nets 115,000. Critics also fear the growth of a compensation culture in the Armed Forces. Since 2005, the MoD has paid out more than 500 million, with the number of claims soaring from 340 in 2005 to about 7,000 in 2015. The Mail on Sunday revealed in 2013 how three female RAF recruits each pocketed 100,000 for injuries caused by marching in step with male colleagues. And in 2007 an RAF secretary received 484,000 for repetitive strain injury from using a computer.
Brig Lowe also ordered a formal probe into how Maj Graham was able to obtain personal information about a witness who claimed to have overheard Maj Graham threatening to 'teach that f***** [Booley] a lesson'.
Papers also reveal that Brig Lowe described the Army's initial investigation into the case as 'fundamentally flawed' and suggested disciplinary action against senior investigating officer, Major Pete McCarthy.
Sgt Maj Booley, who previously served as an infantry soldier in the Paras, suffered severe depression following his mistreatment by senior officers and remains unable to work. His tax-free settlement is based on a loss of earning and pension entitlements.
The Ministry of Defence is also expected to pay 100,000 in costs over the six-year legal battle.
An Army spokesman last night said it took service complaints 'extremely seriously' but would not comment on individual cases, nor confirm whether disciplinary charges had been considered against Maj Graham or Maj McCarthy, as suggested by Brig Lowe.
Tennessee congressional candidate Florence 'Flo' Matheson, 77, may face indictment after more than 180 marijuana plants were found on her property
A 77-year-old Tennessee congressional candidate may be facing criminal indictment after more than 180 marijuana plants were discovered in a barn on her property.
Florence 'Flo' Matheson, who is running for the 6th Congressional District seat in the state, is adamant that the plants aren't hers - but has no problem admitting that she regularly smokes weed.
'I don't feel that bad about breaking a bad law,' she said. 'I smoke marijuana. I'm guilty.'
Matheson has admitted that the two ounces of weed found inside the home belonged to her, but said it did not come from the plants she claims she didn't even know were in her backyard.
The congressional candidate was renting out the barn to her friend Stephen Michael Harrington, 60, a homeless disabled veteran who she said came to her for help.
Harrington, who was serving three years probation for growing more than 20 marijuana plants at a different home last year, also faces criminal indictment.
Matheson said Harrington had the address of her property changed last year and that she should thus not be linked to the growing operation, according to Upper Cumberland Now.
The address is a match to the one Matheson used when she filed paperwork to run in the August primary election, although it is not clear when that paperwork was completed.
Harrington has defended Matheson, who claims she never went back to the barn where he lived.
'The only thing this woman is guilty of is helping out a homeless disabled vet who betrayed her trust,' he told The Tennessean.
Harrington added that he was growing the plants for his own personal use, specifically to help him cope with frequent pain from injuries suffered during his military service.
He said he has never sold marijuana to anyone in the area or from the plants police found.
The Crossville Police Department served the search warrant on Matheson's property on May 13.
Matheson has maintained that she did not know about the plants (pictured) in the barn, which she rented out to her friend Stephen Michael Harrington, 60, a homeless disabled veteran who also faces indictment charges
Police also found two ounces of marijuana, as well as a gun and cash. Matheson has admitted that the weed found in her home was her own personal stash - and that she smokes two to three times a week
'Some evidence of an illegal grow operation were found inside the residence,' the authorities said in a statement following the raid.
'However, the full-scale cultivation was found in a large barn, just a few hundred yards away. The inside of the barn had been finished to create two separate tropical grow environments.'
Police said 'remote wireless surveillance equipment' used 'to monitor the compound' had also been found, as had a locked gate, a gun and cash.
But Matheson said the police had completely blown the evidence out of proportion, making her and Harrington 'sound like Bonnie and Clyde'.
The Congressional candidate said the surveillance equipment was actually a 'dummy camera' she had installed to stop people from knocking her mailbox down.
And, Matheson added, the locked gate was to keep her donkeys, llamas and horse from leaving her property.
Matheson, who said she smokes two to three times a week, planned to use one ounce of the marijuana found in her home for personal use, and the other to make cannabis oil.
The Congressional candidate said she will plead guilty if the Cumberland County grand jury indicts her.
'The people are tired of politicians lying,' she said. 'And I'm not going to be a liar.'
Matheson has no plans to halt her campaign - and said the way she has been treated after the discovery of the plants has only made her want to fight harder for marijuana legalization and decriminalization
The Crossville Police Department served the search warrant on Matheson's property (pictured) on May 13
Matheson also has no plans to halt her campaign - and said the way she has been treated after the discovery of the plants has only motivated her more.
'I really dont regret that this happened,' she told NBC News.
'Its been a life changing experience for me and in that it has made me more defiant and determined to try and get these laws changed.'
Tennessee Democratic Party spokesman Spencer Bowers said the state party does not 'condone illegal activity of any kind' and said it is confident the authorities will 'take the necessary steps to complete their investigation'.
But Matheson has remained outspoken that she will work 'even harder now' to get marijuana decriminalized and legalized.
'I'm willing to put my head on the block for it,' she said. 'I'm just one person, but there are millions of people suffering.'
Thousands of 999 calls from people in desperate need of an ambulance are being left unanswered by under-pressure control centre staff.
Shocking figures unearthed by The Mail on Sunday show the number of calls left to ring out has tripled in just one year, posing a serious risk to life, according to campaigners.
Last night experts and politicians said difficulty getting GP appointments, an ageing population and mass immigration were to blame for putting extra strain on over-stretched ambulance services.
Official NHS England statistics show the number of 999 ambulance calls abandoned before being answered more than tripled in just one year jumping from 3,282 in April 2015 to 11,028 this March.
Over the same period, the monthly number of 999 calls being handled by Englands 11 ambulance services leapt an unprecedented 22 per cent, from 707,709 to 861,853.
This is despite the roll-out of the NHS 111 non-emergency number in 2013 and 2014, which was meant to take the pressure off control rooms and ambulances.
In the 12 months to the end of March, a total of 58,791 999 ambulance calls were abandoned.
A whistleblower who works in one ambulance control room said demand had risen so hard and so fast that staff were now unable to cope, with many leaving the job after just months because of the stress. Theres never any let-up, the source said.
Our investigation comes shortly after separate figures were released showing A&E patients are having to bear the longest waits on record.
'I WAS DESPERATE FOR HELP... BUT ONLY GOT THROUGH TO A MACHINE' After his wife June fell down the stairs and smashed her head on a steel coat stand, retired engineer Eddie Corley (pictured together, below) rang 999 thinking an ambulance would soon be on its way. But when Mr Corley was put through to North West Ambulance Services call centre he was horrified to discover there was no human on the other end of the line. He recalled: When they put me through, I heard someone saying there was heavy demand. Twenty or 30 seconds later I heard the same thing again thats when I realised I was listening to a recording. I thought I could be there for 15 minutes, while my wife was hurt. Instead of holding on he called a neighbour, who promptly drove Mr and Mrs Corley to nearby Royal Bolton Hospital. Doctors found Mrs Corley, 77, had suffered bad bruising and whiplash but no serious injury. Mr Corley, 78, said: This was the first time in my life I have ever had to call 999. I expected to speak to someone so I could explain what had happened, but I didnt get the chance. A spokesman for North West Ambulance Service said: We would advise anyone who hears this message to stay on the line and their call will be answered as soon as a handler is free.
And on Friday it emerged that hospitals and other providers of NHS care ended the last financial year almost 2.5 billion in the red equivalent to the total GDP of Andorra.
Once an emergency call has been put through to an ambulance service by the initial 999 telephonist, it should be answered within a few seconds. But many are being left to ring and ring. More are hanging up so they can try again.
Across England, the proportion of 999 ambulance calls that were abandoned jumped from one in 217 in April last year, to one in 78 this March. The picture is even starker at regional level.
South Western Ambulance Service (SWAS) has seen the rate soar from one in 135 to a sobering one in 29. In the North West it has leapt from one in 159 to one in 44.
Gary Streeter, the Conservative MP for South West Devon, said: Lives are being put at risk. It is totally unacceptable. Something is going wrong and this needs to be looked at.
He had already set up an urgent meeting with service bosses to discuss slow ambulance response times, and said he would add the matter of abandoned calls to the agenda, after being alerted to the issue by this newspaper.
Mr Streeter believed the growth in 999 ambulance calls was a symptom of the entire NHS struggling to cope. He said: Accessing GPs is becoming harder, so there might be a tendency to call 999 more. And I think we all question how effective the NHS 111 number is.
A second whistleblower, a paramedic who has worked in a control room, said: We get lots of calls from Eastern Europe immigrants who are just not educated about what the ambulance service is for. They want an ambulance for everything and I mean everything and they will demand one too. Nine out of ten times, its not an ambulance job. They could go to a GP.
But many health experts argue immigration is a minor factor, as migrants tend to be young and healthy. Much more significant, they say, is the steady rise in the number of Britains elderly. There are 15 million over-60s in the UK, according to Age UK, including 1.5 million over-85s, whose number has jumped 350,000 in a decade.
Richard Webber, of the College of Paramedics, said: The increase in the older population is definitely an issue. There are more elderly people living at home and I go to a lot of situations where someone has fallen over. The rise in elderly numbers also meant more people had multiple health conditions who typically took longer for ambulance crews to care for, he said.
In addition, he added, ambulances were being forced to spend more time waiting outside hospitals, unable to hand over patients because A&Es were chock-a-block. All this meant call operators were increasingly having to stack 999 callers telling them an ambulance would be on its way at some stage, but they could not say exactly when.
Callers were left waiting, he said, with some ringing 999 back again and again trying to secure an ambulance. This was driving up the number of 999 calls, he explained. Abandoned calls are defined by NHS England as those abandoned after ringing for at least five seconds. A spokesman said: The ambulance service is facing significant pressures and it is no secret that demand for urgent and emergency care services is at an all-time high. More than nine million calls are now being handled by our ambulance services each year up 6.1 per cent on the previous year and double the growth in A&E workload.
'FEWER STAFF, SOARING DEMAND AND LONG WAITS MEAN MORE ABUSE FOR US,' SAYS WHISTLEBLOWER Demand for ambulances has gone up and that means for control room staff like me theres never any let up any more. We just sit there picking up call after call after call. You might deal with one particularly bad call, put the phone down, and the next ones there ringing. Sometimes we have no vehicles to send out to calls, because the crews are all occupied on jobs. Whistleblower Sometimes we have no vehicles to send out to calls, because the crews are all occupied on jobs. And the number of calls that are now being dropped has gone up, because there are not enough people to answer them. At the operations centre that I work in, we have a particular problem keeping hold of staff. They just dont stay, because of the lack of support, and because many are unable to cope with whats expected of us now. Callers are often angry if they have waited a long time to get through. They have got an emergency they dont want to be waiting to get through to somebody from the ambulance service. So the amount of abuse we are getting over the phone has gone up, because of the lack of resources available the ambulances and fast responder cars and the lack of staff to answer phones. On some shifts we have empty seats. It seems everybody is angry with us now. Its very demoralising, I can see why people dont stay. Ive been here years and I think standards have fallen, not just in the operations centre but on the roads. Patients are being kept waiting longer.
In the face of these unprecedented pressures, people working for the ambulance services around the country treating people day in, day out, are extremely committed and do a fantastic job in often difficult circumstances.
The overwhelmingly positive feedback that ambulance services receive every day from members of the public is testimony to this.
A SWAS spokeswoman said the service had recently seen an unprecedented rise in demand for its services, equivalent to an extra 470 incidents a day compared to 2011/12. She added: We are actively recruiting additional call-handling staff to work in our clinical hubs [control rooms] to further manage this ongoing rise in demand.
Any 999 calls classified as abandoned are rerouted to alternative locations and always answered.
The North West Ambulance Service failed to respond to a request for comment.
A man who stripped naked and entered a lion enclosure in a Chilean zoo has survived the incident, but the lions were killed.
Authorities in Santiago confirmed that the two African lions were put down as they severely mauled the 20-year-old man who had broken into their cage early on Saturday.
The man, who has been named by local media as Franco Luis Ferrada Roman, was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment and was said to be in grave condition.
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A 20-year-old man took off his clothes and broke into a lion enclosure at Santiago zoo Saturday, where he was mauled by lions
Zoo keepers killed two lions to save the man, who was gravely injured in the incident. A suicide note was reported to have been found in his clothing
The young man broke into the enclosure, took off his clothes and jumped into the middle, horrifying other visitors who witnessed the attack.
Once inside, the lions reportedly immediately pounced on him and began to 'play' with him.
At this point, zookeepers intervened in the attack and shot the two lions in order to save his life.
The director of the zoo, Alejandra Montalva, said: 'We believe that this person entered as a visitor and paid for his ticket.
She told local media the park was crowded with visitors at the time of the incident.
'Later he trespassed into an area where the public are not normally allowed and we understand that he forced the roof of the lion's enclosure.
'It was from there that he jumped, took off his clothes and started to attract the lions.'
The zoo director said she was 'deeply affected' by the deaths of the two lions, a male and a female.
'The zoo has an established protocol because people's lives are very important to us,' said Montalba.
She added that there were no fast-acting tranquilizers available to stop the lions from mauling the man.
The attack occurred in full view of visitors, who could only watch in horror as the man was mauled and the lions - one male, one female - were killed
One witness, Cynthia Vasquez, told Chilean radio station Bio Bio that the security personnel at the zoo were slow to react and that the animals did not attack the man as soon as he entered the enclosure.
'He entered the enclosure from above and the lions started to play with him, and then after they attacked him,' she said.
She also said the man was 'shouting things about Jesus'.
She criticised the actions of the security personal, saying 'first they threw water, evacuated the people and only later did they fire shots'.
A father who was at the park with his young son, told news channel Chilevision: 'Everyone started screaming when they saw him.'
Another witness added: 'There were a lot of children there, and parents covered their eyes while it was going on.'
They continued: 'He was screaming religious things.'
According to the news channel, the suicide note that was found inside his clothes made allusions to the apocalypse as being a reason for his attempt to take his life.
Metropolitan Park director Mauricio Fabry confirmed that a note - which appeared to be a suicide note - was found in his clothing.
By Saturday evening, Mr Ferrada Roman was said to no longer be in a life-threatening condition, according to Chilean media.
Dr Sebastian Ugarde of Indisa Clinic said that Mr Ferrada Roman's heart almost stopped.
He added: 'He suffered several injuries and trauma to the head and the pelvic area.
'We have high hopes that will recover and that will be fine.'
The entrances to the lion enclosures were closed off after the attack
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Furious MPs will this week demand the resignation of midwives chief Cathy Warwick over her campaign to scrap the 24-week limit on abortions.
MPs are planning a parliamentary motion calling for Professor Warwick to step down from her 155,000-a-year post as chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives.
The move comes after The Mail on Sunday exclusively revealed last week how Prof Warwick signed her 30,000 paying members up to a radical feminist campaign to decriminalise all abortions without consulting them.
MPs are planning a parliamentary motion calling for Professor Cathy Warwick (pictured) to step down from her 155,000-a-year post as chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives
Hundreds of midwives had signed a letter objecting to her extreme position on abortion and warned: The RCM does not speak in our name.
Our report sparked an even bigger backlash, with hundreds more midwives adding their names to the letter and 20,000 members of the public signing a protest petition.
Critics fear decriminalisation will pave the way for more abortions after 24 weeks, which are currently only allowed for strict medical reasons.
Yesterday, after a week of intense pressure, Prof Warwick claimed in a defiant interview that she had done nothing wrong, but admitted: Some people might question my judgment.
She is chairman of trustees at abortion charity the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the UKs biggest independent abortion provider.
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'
It is also the principal organisation behind the campaign. MPs claim that holding the two posts is a conflict of interest.
Their MPs motion is expected to read: This House condemns the move made by Cathy Warwick to campaign for the removal for all legal restrictions on abortion. We call for her resignation before the Royal Colleges reputation is damaged further.
Tory Andrew Percy, a member of the Health Select Committee, said: She hasnt had the good grace to amend her view or apologise. I think she is wholly unsuitable for the position she holds. She should step down. She hasnt asked midwives what they think and what she has said is deeply offensive.
Meanwhile, this newspaper has discovered disturbing claims about what happens when abortion is no longer illegal.
Decriminalisation in the Australian state of Victoria in 2008 was followed by a spike in the number of late-term abortions and abortion tourism from other parts of the country, according to anti-abortion campaigners.
This newspaper has discovered disturbing claims about what happens when abortion is no longer illegal
Scores of foetuses were left to die after being removed alive during a number of botched terminations, according to one official review.
The Victorian Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity stated that in 2011 there were 40 terminations of pregnancy after 20 weeks resulting in live birth.
By contrast, a 2008 UK report found that 66 infants were born alive after NHS terminations in one year. Half took more than an hour to die. While these figures are comparable in scale, Victorias population of 5.5 million is just a tenth of Britains.
Victorias health authorities have not released similar statistics since then, which campaigners say is hiding the true picture.
Dr Rachel Carling-Jenkins, a politician in Melbourne who is calling for a 24-week limit to be introduced in Victoria, warned last night: If Britain goes down this route, late abortions will triple, if not more. You will get abortion tourism flooding into the UK. Thats what we have here people coming in from other states for late-term abortions. Its become a huge industry.
She added: Dont go down the path that Victoria has gone down. Its a dark place that is scarily difficult to come back from.
A volunteer working in the Anna Maria Island museum in Florida had a strangely familiar accent. Im Welsh, she said. From Glynneath! Five years ago, she and her husband were on holiday here and never went home. Theres just something about this part of the world its magical, she told me.
Anna Maria Island, about an hours drive south of Tampa on Floridas Gulf Coast, was not always such a welcoming spot. The local history museum tells stories of pioneers who fought storms, snakes and mosquitoes in their battle to establish a thriving community.
The first settlers built a life on farming or fishing. In more recent years, like the woman from Glynneath, people have been drawn by year-round sunshine and the easy life but then Florida has been exercising its charms for more than 500 years.
So alluring: The charming pier at Anna Maria Island. The first settlers there built a life on farming or fishing
At Easter 1513, Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon arrived in the land he named La Florida (short for Pascua Florida, meaning Flowery Easter). He had come looking for the legendary Fountain of Youth (tell me about it, Juan).
He was the first of many who have travelled here in search of transformation and acceptance.
For Hollywood, Florida has often been presented as a place to escape to. In Some Like It Hot, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon flee Chicago after a hapless involvement with the St Valentines Day Massacre, join Marilyn Monroes all-girl band, get into drag, and jump on a train bound for Miami.
For Cuban emigre Tony Montana, Miami proved to be the source of untold wealth for the brutal gangster dubbed Scarface.
Large-scale migration to Florida began about 100 years ago. In the 19th Century, Americans in search of a new life were heading towards the Pacific (Go West, young man! was the sage advice of the time).
Greatest show on earth: A poster advertising the Ringling Brothers, right. Left, Marilyn Monroe as Sugar Kane Kowalczyk in the hit 1959 comedy Some Like It Hot
Florida, with its extensive malarial swamps and baking summer heat, seemed less enchanting.
It took the arrival of the railroad at the end of the 19th Century to unlock the states potential. Families who had earned fortunes during the Industrial Revolution recognised that the Sunshine State offered them the perfect winter base.
Its easy to believe that Floridas tourist business began with the opening of Walt Disney World in October 1971, but tourism was already well established by the time the First World War broke out.
There is no better Florida rags-to-riches story than that of the Ringling Brothers, from the backwoods of Wisconsin. They set up their own circus in 1884 and subsequently acquired their rival, Barnum & Bailey, to create what they described as the Greatest Show on Earth.
The five brothers made a fortune. In 1911, the youngest, John, and his wife Mable built an extraordinary version of a Venetian palace in Sarasota and called it Ca dZan (House of John in Venetian dialect).
Floridas most famous winter residents made their home further south, in Fort Myers. Thomas Edison bought a property here in 1885 and lived there until his death in 1931. His neighbours included Henry Ford
Shortly afterwards, the couple completed their journey into high society by opening their own art museum to showcase a huge collection of paintings expensively acquired in European sale rooms.
When they first moved to Sarasota, the place was a fishing village of just a few dozen people now it is one of the most desirable residential districts in Florida.
While the unusual Circus Museum is well worth a look, more intriguing is the grand art museum whose star attraction is a painting by Rubens, The Departure Of Lot And His Family From Sodom.
It shows Abrahams nephew Lot with his wife and daughters being led by angels from their house as they flee the city before God rains down fire and brimstone.
An even more impressive collection of art is on view in St Petersburg, 60 minutes north of Sarasota. The town was named after the Russian city a decision that came to be regretted during the Cold War when all things Russian were deemed to be the work of the Devil.
Ive had a soft spot for Salvador Dali ever since my art teacher informed my classmates and me that all followers of the surrealist art movement were charlatans.
Its easy to believe that Floridas tourist business began with the opening of Walt Disney World in October 1971, but tourism was already well established by the time the First World War broke out
Dalis playful approach to art was catnip to adolescents, and we were quickly painting our own versions of melted watches and lobster telephones.
For me, Dalis greatest artist achievements are his wonderful house at Portlligat on Spains Costa Brava coast, and the Dali museum in his home town of Figueres.
And number three on the list is the Dali Museum in St Petersburg, built around the worlds largest privately owned collection of his works.
Reynolds and Eleanor Morse built a fortune from mining machinery, and through their friendship with Dali, they gradually acquired more and more of his works which eventually needed a home.
In 2011, they were housed in an impressive new gallery in St Petersburg. If Dalis friendship with mining machinery millionaires seems unlikely, I was surprised to learn at the museum that Dali was a close friend of Walt Disney.
In 1911, the youngest of the Ringling Brothers, John, and his wife Mable built an extraordinary version of a Venetian palace in Sarasota and called it Ca dZan (House of John in Venetian dialect, pictured above)
A special exhibition features home-movie footage showing Walt and his wife visiting Dali in Spain.
Floridas most famous winter residents made their home further south, in Fort Myers. Thomas Edison bought a property here in 1885 and lived there until his death in 1931. His neighbours included Henry Ford.
Like the Ringling and Dali museums, the Edison and Ford estate is largely run by people who give up their time to help out. On the face of it, voluntourism, as it is known, is a good thing. However, just occasionally you will come up against a disgruntled employee.
During my visit, the person on the ticket desk was unhappy about something. Im a journalist, I began, about to ask if they had a press officer. The employee cut in with a sweet smile: Youre a journalist? Pause. Good for you! You still have to pay twenty bucks
As an actress and the star of hit TV series such as Cold Feet and Spooks, Ive been lucky enough to film in some glorious locations. But when it comes to holidays, theres one place to which I always return Cornwall.
My love affair with the county began when I was a child, and over the years Ive visited everywhere from St Ives to Padstow, and Mousehole to Looe.
However, until this year Id never been to Fowey, that favourite of the yachting set. I was determined to put that right, so we booked a half-term break with our children Wilf, 11, and Hero, eight at Fowey Hall.
Hermione, Wilf and Hero during their break at Fowey Hall. The hotel provides details of a four-mile walk where you can really explore the area
Some people say that the hotel was the model for Kenneth Grahames Toad Hall in The Wind In The Willows.
Grahame was a regular visitor to the town, and Fowey has another literary connection too novelist Daphne du Maurier lived here for much of her life and most of her books have a Cornish setting.
Many years ago, I appeared in a du Maurier play, September Tide, alongside Susannah York and Michael Praed. The drama is set in a town which was almost certainly based on Fowey.
It is a place that you just have to explore. The hotel provides details of a four-mile walk which takes you past the house that Daphnes father bought as a family holiday home, and where Daphnes son still lives.
Wilf and Hero are used to going on long family walks and they really enjoyed the little ferries across the estuary we had to take as part of our journey. And there was a little treat for them when we got back to Fowey a fantastic sweet shop selling old favourites such as rhubarb and custard.
The weather was a bit mixed during our stay, as it can often be in Cornwall. One morning we woke up to glorious sunshine, but by the afternoon the clouds had rolled in and the rain poured down. Still, we werent bothered by it. Its all part of a great British holiday.
Literary connection: Fowey, above, was a favourite of Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in the Willows
Fowey Hall is part of the family-friendly Luxury Family Hotels chain. As it was half-term, the hotel was packed, and all the children were really indulged by the staff, especially at meal-times.
What was impressive is that staff were not at all precious. Unlike some hotels where parents spend the whole time on edge, worrying that their children will disturb fellow guests, at Fowey Hall the youngsters felt free and relaxed, so it rubbed off on their parents.
Another good thing was that rather than have all the children eat at the same time, here families tended to dine together.
There were different menus for various age groups to ensure that everyone was well catered for. But the food wasnt just chips with everything there were plenty of healthy options.
There was also so much for Wilf and Hero to do: the indoor pool was my daughters idea of heaven, and they also attended dance and film nights. And whenever we left the hotel, there were the pleasures of Cornwall to enjoy.
Long walks, surfing, cream teas its no wonder that I love Cornwall so much.
Food has always been a big feature of cruising, but gone are the days when midnight buffets and an invitation to the captains table were the high spots.
Today, ships tempt us with dishes from around the world, guest appearances by famous chefs, cookery classes, and culinary adventures ashore.
Here are some of the tastiest adventures to book now
Royal Caribbean
Dish of the Day: Fish on sale at Romes Campo deFiori market, which you can visit on a 14-night cruise around the Mediterranean
Savour delicious pizza and tour the stalls at Romes Campo de Fioro market during a 14-night Mediterranean cruise aboard Royal Caribbeans Independence of the Seas (royalcaribbean.co.uk).
The ship sails from Southampton on August 13 and prices start at 1,299pp.
Celebrity Cruises
Do you know how to make the Cretian speciality boureki pie? Learn how during an 11-night Greek island cruise on board Celebrity Reflection (celebritycruises.co.uk) in October.
During an excursion on the island, youll pick up the ingredients for the courgette and potato pie, then return to the ship for a private dinner where the dish will be served.
The cruise costs 1,249pp, including flights.
Saga
Award-winning chef Theo Randall will show guests how to make pasta, host wine tastings and talk about Italian regional cuisine on aboard Saga Pearl II (saga.co.uk/cruises), which departs Dover for 18 nights on July 27.
Prices start at 3,069pp, including gratuities, insurance and travel to and from Dover.
Regent Seven Seas Cruises
One-pot wonder: Take a paella masterclass in Valencia or have dinner at the three Michelin star La Vague dOr in St Tropez on a cruise with Regent Seven Seas
A new collection of Gourmet Explorer Tours will be offered on cruises aboard Seven Seas Explorer 9 (rssc.com).
On her inaugural Mediterranean season, the excursions include a paella masterclass in Valencia, dinner at the three Michelin star La Vague dOr in St Tropez, or a cooking demonstration and gourmet lunch at a Tuscan villa.
These trips are all offered on the ten-night Taste Of The Riviera cruise from Barcelona to Rome, departing September 10. The cruise costs from 5,899pp, including flights.
P&O
Meet chef James Martin on P&Os Britannia (pocruises.com), where hell be teaching small groups and hosting dinners on voyages from Southampton this year.
The park has introduced new glamping tents and 'safari
Sunset at the watering hole and, as I sip a restorative gin-and-tonic, two giraffes hove serenely into view. My children William, five, Megan, three and Henry, who is five months coo with delight.
The giraffes join a zebra, several antelopes, a variety of monkeys and a pair of lions on the checklist of big game theyve ticked off in their pocket wildlife guides.
Its been a busy day. Earlier, a swarthy gent in khakis took us in an off-road vehicle to see some local rhinos.
In tents: Guy and his family enjoying the sunshine outside one of the new glamping tents at Chessington
After dinner, to a chorus of chirping lorikeets, well adjourn to an unspeakably luxurious tent and hunker down under canvas.
This may sound like a super-exclusive safari. But theres an intriguing twist.
For the Adams Family is neither on the plains of the Serengeti, nor in the sun-kissed wilds of South Africa, but at Chessington World of Adventures, a short drive from junction 9 of the M25.
After years as a country house zoo, Chessington became a theme park in the late Eighties and has since blossomed into one of the most famous tourist attractions in the Home Counties.
About 1.5 million people a year shuffle through its vast entrance gates signed Welcome to Britains Wildest Adventure in order to scream their way around 40 rides (which include several heart-stopping rollercoasters) and gawp at its 1,000 resident animals.
About a third of these visitors now spread their trip over two days by staying at one of the two interconnected resort hotels, which boast a jungle-themed swimming pool, along with resident indoor populations of iguana, turtles, piranhas and, somewhat incongruously, leafcutter ants.
Burning bright: Chessington has bloomed into one of the most famous tourist attractions in the Home Counties
Here, residents dine in restaurants overlooking an outdoor enclosure of African mammals, and wander corridors jollified by piped tribal music.
Rooms have Aztec or Safari-themed carpets and wallpaper, and bunk-beds for children. The ambience feels like the set of The Lion King.
Starting this weekend, Chessington will also offer a third overnight option to visitors of a more intrepid persuasion: the chance to stay in its first-ever glamping site.
The spanking new facility is situated in a tree-lined field, within earshot of the parks log flume, and contains 35 permanent tents, each with polished wood floors and enough freshly made beds to sleep a family of four.
We are enjoying a sneak preview, staying in one of the larger Amboseli berths (named after a Kenyan national park), lit by charming lanterns.
Our vast tent has an entrance hall, master bedroom and cute childrens room with bunks that our elder two William and Megan are delighted to share with a pair of enormous fluffy lions. Our youngest camper, Henry, is billeted in a crib at the foot of our double bed.
Our neck of the woods: Guests at the park can glimpse exotic creatures such as giraffes
We feel like extras from the film Out Of Africa, although plunging overnight temperatures force us to wear fleeces and woolly hats rather than battered khaki.
Before that, though, we enjoy an early evening family outing on Zufari, which takes guests on a 15-minute game drive in large 4x4 cars. The children, who are too young to take on a real African safari, are captivated.
Costing at least 149 a night per family, including breakfast, it certainly isnt the cheapest stay under canvas, but the site has piping-hot showers, proper flushing lavatories and my wife, Katie, raves about the cotton bed-sheets, posh shower gel and fluffy towels.
The main draw, however, remains Chessingtons theme park.
Here, it pays to be organised. Some rides, including a serene and charming water-based one called Bubbleworks, are suitable even for babies; but on others, a strict height-based apartheid applies.
You spin me right round baby, right round: The Kobra ride is one of the theme park's biggest thrills
William, a mere 110cm, misses out on some of the punchiest rollercoasters, but now counts himself a grizzled veteran of Vampire, which whisks you through treetops at high speed, with your legs dangling in thin air.
Megan is still raving about Pandamonium, a cute stage show featuring animatronic pandas passing wind.
One way round the queues is to buy a fast-track ticket but some might baulk at the prospect of paying anything from 15-70 on top of their entrance fee.
The other way is to arrive early (the park opens at 10am sharp and is relatively empty for the first hour), or visit on rainy days, when the crowds are thinner.
The weather may not be sub-Saharan, but within the confines of the M25, Chessington offers the best safari money can buy.
British tourists who put local brews or wines next to museums or parks on their holiday itineraries can find the cheapest booze in Prague.
Visitors to the Czech capital, a popular destination for stag parties, pay just 28.74 for a dozen drinks, according to a new study which ranked 16 destinations in Europe.
Punters pay twice as much in 10th-ranked London, where the bar bill for a dozen drinks costs 60.70.
Visitors to the Czech capital pay just 28.74 for a dozen drinks, with an average of 1.26 for a bottle of beer
Prague was best for overall value, but it ranked last when it came to the price of Champagne at its bars
Budapest, last year's No 1, ranked second in this year's study, with an average bar bill of 30.20
London was the cheapest for gin, vodka and whisky, but most expensive for a dry martini and cocktail
Eastern Europe dominated the top of the Post Office Travel Money study, with Budapest in second (30.20), Krakow in third (33.82), Riga in fourth (49.95) and Tallinn in fifth (53.11).
The totals were calculated by taking the average price for each drink at several restaurants, bars and nightclubs in each city.
In top-ranked Prague, travellers pay an average of 1.26 for a bottle of beer, 1.57 for a glass of wine and 1.73 for a shot of tequila.
In sixth place, Palma, on the Spanish island of Majorca, was the cheapest in Western Europe at 56.72, followed by Berlin (57.54), Amsterdam (58.14), Barcelona (60.56) and London (60.70).
Eastern Europe dominated the study, which calculated totals based on prices at bars, restaurants and clubs
The study found almost half of holidaymakers visiting cities across Europe are there to celebrate an event
Ibiza Town ranked 14th, at 65.79, while Marbella was the most expensive of the 16 cities at 71.93
Ibiza Town ranked 14th, at 65.79, while Marbella was the most expensive of the 16 cities at 71.93.
The study found that almost half of holidaymakers visiting cities across Europe are there to celebrate a big event such as an anniversary, birthday or upcoming wedding.
London was the most popular destination and the cheapest for gin, vodka and whisky, but most expensive for a dry martini and cocktail.
Dublin was most expensive for beer and wine but second cheapest to London for spirits.
While it may offer the best overall value, Prague was dead last when it came to the price of bubbly at its bars.
A bottle of Champagne in the Czech city costs 55, compared with 20.18 in Tallinn, 24.22 in Barcelona and 28.95 in London.
Andrew Brown of Post Office Travel Money said: Our research shows that the cost of a special celebration evening out can vary dramatically, depending on your choice of drink and which city you visit.
Rose Byrne showed off her post-baby body in a black and white floral-patterned blouse and black leggings on Friday in New York City
The Australian actress, 36, gave birth to her son Rocco, with partner Bobby Cannavale, just three months ago.
But she's back at work promoting her new big screen comedy Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising.
She's got the look: Rose Byrne showed off her post-baby body in a floral blouse and black leggings on Friday as she attended an event in New York. The actress, 36, gave birth to son Rocco three months ago
The Sydney-born beauty added a splash of color with a pair of hot pink pointed toe pumps.
She wore her stylish ensemble for a visit to the AOL Build Presents Series, where she talked about the comedy sequel in which she stars with Zac Efron and Seth Rogen.
Rose returns as her character Kelly Radner in Neighbors 2, which hit theaters on Friday, and she was joined at the event by Seth, who plays her on-screen husband.
Looking great: The Australian star wore her shoulder-length hair softy styled in a tousled look for her appearance at AOL Build
Strike a pose: Rose was joined by actor Seth Rogen, her co-star and on-screen husband in Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising that opens in theatres Friday
Having a blast: The pair are busy promoting their big screen comedy sequel
Chemistry: They certainly had plenty to entertain the audience with as they joked about making the movie
The day before, while on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the actress revealed that she was stopped by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at an airport recently because of breast milk she carried in her bag.
The starlet had more than three ounces of breast milk with her, exceeding the maximum amount of liquid allowed in a carry-on bag.
Rose told Stephen: 'I've been doing a lot of traveling, too, so I've been taking my breast milk everywhere with me.'
New parents: Rose and partner, actor Bobby Cannavale welcomed their son Rocco in February. They're pictured at the Neighbors 2 premiere in LA on May 16
Rose went on: 'They wave this weird thing over the top of it, and there's a whole production going on. They take it very seriously that it could be something.'
'I just stand there and smile and tell them that's it's really breast milk, and that it's nothing.'
When the late host suggested she should have just pointed to her son to explain the breast milk, the starlet jokingly said: 'He's really real; he's here. You want me to get 'em out? What do you think? I'm not going to do that. No, no, no!'
Flawless: While on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Thursday, the nursing mom, pictured Thursday, revealed that during a recent trip to the airport, she was stopped by TSA because of breast milk
Honesty: I've been doing a lot of traveling, too, so I've been taking my breast milk everywhere with me,' she said
She's spent the past week attending shows for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia.
And on Friday, Emma Lung put on a very leggy display for the final show of the week, donning a stylish black dress for the Oscar de la Renta preview in Sydney's Carriageworks.
The 34-year-old showed off her svelte frame in the chic number that featured a thigh-high split in the centre.
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Leggy lady: Emma Lung put her trim pins on display for the final show of Fashion Week, and donned a stylish black dress for the Oscar de la Renta preview in Sydney's Carriageworks on Friday
The stylish black dress also featured a plunging neckline that revealed a generous amount of her bare decolletage.
The dress featured a jacket style top layer over a bandeau-style mini dress base, which gave the doubled and daring effect.
The Australian actress finished her look with a pair of sky high pumps and a small studded black bag slung over one shoulder.
Chic: The 34-year-old showed off her svelte frame in the plunging party frock
The beauty tied her honey-dyed locks into a stylish bun and let her full fringe frame her pretty features.
For makeup the mother-of-one went with a simplistic look, matching a rose tinted lip perfectly to her fresh manicure.
Throughout the week she has put her fashion knowledge on display as she attended several shows and sat perched in the coveted front row.
On Tuesday she stunned in a monochromatic number for the Bec and Bridge show, and again flaunted her trim pins in a skirt that featured a racy split through the middle.
Focus: The beauty tied her honey-dyed locks up off her face and sat in the coveted front row for the international designers showcase and looked on intently at the runway
Monochrome magic: Earlier this week she stunned in a black and white ensemble for the Bec and Bridge show, and again flaunted her trim pins in a skirt that featured a racy split through the middle
Emma arrived back in Sydney earlier this month from Los Angeles and she appeared delighted to support the Australian and international designers who were on display throughout the week.
The Wanderlust star and her family recently spent two-months in LA, where she scouted for work, heading to a number of auditions for acting roles.
In April 2015 Emma and her husband Henry Zalapa welcomed their first child together, Marlowe and the new parents are cherishing time with their cherubic son.
They tied the knot in secret last year.
But Zoe Ventoura stepped out on her own on Friday, while her new husband Daniel Macpherson is believed to be overseas, attending the Oscar de la Renta show to close out Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia, presented by Etihad Airways.
The 34-year-old put on a busty display in the flattering dress that featured a plunging V-neckline, and netted see-through fabric over her shoulders.
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Going solo! Zoe Ventoura stepped out on her own wearing a low-cut black dress to the Oscar de la Renta show, which closed Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia in Sydney on Friday
Zoe wore her dark brunette tresses straightened and slicked back off her face and opted for dramatic eye make-up, with winged liner and lashings of mascara.
Leaving the attention on the eyes, the beauty opted for a subtle nude lip and lightly blushed cheeks.
She completed her Fashion Week look with delicate drop earrings, a burgundy envelope clutch and black pointed stilettos.
Last night's finale was the luxery brand's Australian runway debut with Melbourne-born Victoria Secret's model Shanina Shaik opening and closing the catwalk for the designer.
Zoe was seen throughout the week enjoying some of the other designer offerings and hanging out with sister-in-law Brodie Macpherson at last Sunday's opening event.
Fashion Week fun! The Perth-born beauty was seen throughout the week enjoying some of the other designer offerings including Toni Maticevski's opening show last Sunday
In a throwback snap posted to Brodie's Instagram, the pair put on an awkward display while they posed at Toni Maticevski's opening show.
'This photo accurately sums up how comfortable #farrrrshion events have made me feel this week, Peace out #MBFWA,' Brodie captioned the picture.
Sister day out! The actress hung out with sister-in-law Brodie Macpherson at last Sunday's opening event with the pair sharing an amusing snap to social media
Perth-born Zoe donned a structured black leather dress for the event, while her sister-in-law chose a burgundy cold shoulder-style dress.
The former Packed to the Rafters star is set to return to our television screens, working alongside Deborra-lee Furness and Mandy McElhinney in the new Australian drama Hyde & Seek.
Zoe's new acting gig comes just months after she and Daniel tied the knot in a surprise ceremony in Noosa, Queensland surrounded by friends and family.
She may have a body envied by women near and far.
But it seems Ashley Hart works hard to maintain her model figure.
The 27-year-old Australian beauty showed off her incredible gym-honed physique in a workout selfie shared to Instagram on Friday, the morning after wowing in a see-through dress at AmfAR's 23rd Cinema Against AIDS Gala at the Cannes Film Festival.
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Work hard, play hard! Ashley Hart showed off her incredible gym-honed physique in a workout selfie shared to Instagram on Friday in Cannes
Proving her model credentials, the blonde stunner showed off her runway ready body as she posed in a dark crop top and fitted black gym leggings.
Taking the snap in the gym during a gruelling workout, the Melbourne-born beauty's incredibly taut abs were on full display in the midriff baring ensemble.
Her blonde tresses were left down, falling effortlessly around her shoulders, whilst her pretty face looked fresh and makeup free.
As well as flaunting her enviable physique, Ashley also provided fans with some insight into how she maintains her incredible body, as she clutched onto some weights whilst flexing her biceps.
'Work hard, play hard,' she penned underneath the shot.
It appears Ashley was squeezing in a workout during the Cannes Film Festival, as she added the hashtag: 'Cannes 2016.'
Double trouble! The 27-year-old attended AmfAR's 23rd Cinema Against AIDS Gala at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc with her sister Jessica Hart on Thursday
Lady in red: The glamazon also showed some some skin in a sheer red gown with strategically placed beading to cover her modesty
Ashley attended AmfAR's 23rd Cinema Against AIDS Gala at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc with her sister Jessica Hart on Thursday.
Wowing in an eye-catching ensemble, Ashley also showed some some skin in a sheer red gown with strategically placed beading to cover her modesty.
The glamazon, who has modelled for the likes of Mambo and Just Jeans, slicked her hair back into a half-up, half-down 'do, and wore simple accessories, including her gold wedding band from husband Buck Palmer.
She's a proud new mother who has spent the last week squeezing in fashion shows between feeds during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia.
And Magdalena Roze made the most of her final night out for Fashion Week before going home and 'back to mama duties' as she attended the Oscar de la Renta closing show after party on Friday night.
The 34-year-old award-winning meteorologist showed off her incredible post-baby body in a fitted off-the-shoulder Rachael Gilbert gown that featured silk flared sleeves and a daring double thigh-high split.
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Mumma's night out: Magdalena Roze made the most of her final night out for Fashion Week before going home and 'back to mama duties' as she attended the Oscar de la Renta closing show on Friday night
Magdalena wore her blonde locks in an elegant up-do with a sleek side-part and loose curl framing her face, while opting for dramatic winged eyeliner, bronzed cheeks and a nude lip.
She completed her look with black strappy heels and and oversized rings.
Taking to Instagram, the media personality shared a photo of herself sitting front row at the glamorous event presented by Etihad Airways, writing she'd be back on mothering duties soon afterwards.
'What a finale @fashionweekaus! Thank you @oscardelarenta @etihadairways and @gemmakeil for the styling,' Magdalena captioned the snap.
Elegant look: The 34-year-old award-winning meteorologist showed off her incredible post-baby body in a fitted off-the-shoulder gown that featured silk flared sleeves and a daring double thigh-high split
'Back to mama duties, flats and nappies and I wouldn't have it any other way!'
Earlier in the week Magdalena was also seen at the Camilla runway show.
Fun Fashion Week: Earlier in the week Magdalena was also seen at the Camilla runway show
Magdalena and her celebrity chef fiance Darren Robertson welcomed their adorable son Archie late last year.
The family are now based in Byron Bay with Darren opening his second Three Blue Ducks restaurant on The Farm At Byron Bay.
Earlier in the week the weather presenter spoke to The Grace Tales about how motherhood has impacted her life since welcoming Archie.
Happy family: Magdalena and her celebrity chef fiance Darren Robertson (pictured) welcomed their adorable son Archie late last year
Taking to Instagram, the media personality shared a photo of herself sitting front row at the glamorous runway event writing: 'Back to mama duties, flats and nappies and I wouldn't have it any other way!'
'Motherhood has expanded the spectrum of my emotions to limits I never knew and in the case of love, its limitless,' she told the publication.
'It has also taught me to relax, slow down, trust my own instincts and shown me how resilient we are!
'The first few weeks of motherhood were such a blur. It was hectic, I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. But we got through it as all parents do, and you realise that everything gets better, each day is a new day and it doesnt need to perfect,' she continued.
Proud mother: Earlier in the week the weather presenter spoke to The Grace Tales about how motherhood has impacted her life since welcoming Archie
The pair might have tired of each other after working the red carpet together at the various global premieres of their new film The Nice Guys.
But Ryan Gosling, 39, and Russell Crowe, 52, proved their bromance was very much alive as they smiled for the cameras and happily chatted away at the Italian premiere on Friday.
The dapper duo wore matching tuxedos and cut suave figures as they worked their way up the red carpet in Rome.
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Smart: Ryan Gosling, 39, and Russell Crowe, 52, proved their bromance was very much alive as they smiled for the cameras and happily chatted away at the Italian premiere of their film The Nice Guys on Friday
In a further display of admiration for each other's style, both actors sported designer stubble and smart slicked back hair for the occasion.
The pair, whose on-screen chemistry has been praised by critics, were in a jovial mood and clearly enjoyed being in the limelight.
Earlier this week the two actors were in London for the UK premiere hosted at Leicester Square, which was transformed for the occasion to mimic the film's 1970s Los Angeles setting.
A pristine white Cadillac had been parked beside a road sign which read Sunset BLVD and THE NICE GUYS and potted palm trees adorned the bright orange walk-way.
Bromance: The dapper duo wore matching tuxedos and cut suave figures as they made their way to the latest premiere in Rome
Dashing: In a further display of admiration for each other's style credentials both actors sported designer stubble and smart slicked back hair for the occasion
Friendly: The pair, whose on-screen chemistry has been praised by critics, were in a jovial mood and clearly enjoyed being in the limelight
Busy: Earlier this week the two actors were in London for the UK premiere hosted at Leicester Square
In the Eternal City, the premiere was a more refined affair - with only an orange carpet hinting at the film's theme.
The Nice Guys sees Crowe play a contract killer to Gosling's private investigator, with the pair working together to solve the mysterious disappearance of a porn star in 1970s Los Angeles.
It has won rave reviews from film critics across the world and is expected to do well commercially too, with projected takings of around $10 million on its opening weekend in the US.
Filming for the movie began back in late 2014 in Atlanta and Decatur, Georgia, and additional filming took place in Los Angeles.
Refined: In the Eternal City, the premiere was a more elegant affair - with only an orange carpet hinting at the film's theme
Dapper: The Nice Guys sees Crowe play a contract killer to Gosling's private investigator, with the pair working together to solve the mysterious disappearance of a porn star in 1970s Los Angeles
Rave reviews: The film has won positive reviews from film critics across the world and is expected to do well commercially too, with projected takings of around $10 million on its opening weekend in the US
They tied the knot three years ago in Byron Bay, Australia.
And it seems model Erin McNaught and her British rapper husband Example, real name Elliot Gleave, are more loved-up than ever.
The 33-year-old model posted a 'sweaty selfie' with her beau following a morning run on Friday, which was accompanied by a gushing tribute to mark their three-year wedding anniversary.
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'Here's to the next 50 years baby!' Erin McNaught posted a 'sweaty selfie' with her rapper husband Example on Friday, accompanied by a gushing tribute to mark their three-year wedding anniversary
'Post-anniversary run sweaty selfie,' the Canberra-born beauty wrote underneath the cute snap.
'Three-years of countless poached eggs and avocado on toast!
Adding: 'Here's to the next 50 baby.'
In the sweet black and white snap, the former Miss Universe Australia contestant appears makeup-free as she cuddles up to her beau.
The pair smile for the camera and appear in high spirits, as their faces look visibly flushed following their run.
Special: The pair wed in May 18, 2013 on a picturesque property in Ballina in front of family and friends
Riding in style! It appears to celebrate the occasion, the couple are holidaying to Oxford, with the former Neighbours star uploading a number of snaps of herself driving a Jaguar car in the countryside area
In the driver's seat: The bronde beauty posed against the flash red leather interiors of the vehicle, wearing a pair of Dior sunglasses and a glossy pink lipstick
It appears to celebrate the occasion, the couple are holidaying in Oxford, with the former Neighbours star uploading a number of snaps of herself driving a Jaguar around the English country side.
The bronde beauty posed against the flash red leather interiors of the vehicle, wearing a pair of Dior sunglasses and a glossy pink lipstick.
The pair wed in May 18, 2013 on a picturesque property in Ballina in front of family and friends.
They are currently based in London after a stint in Australia, where they were staying with Erin's family after the birth of Evander in December 2014.
Soulmates: Example and Erin are currently based in London but frequently return to Australia in the summer
Speaking to the blog Move, Nourish, Believe by Lorna Jane earlier this year, the Australian gushed about her beau, as she credited him for helping her maintain a balanced lifestyle, despite her busy schedule.
'This might sound a bit cringe-worthy but my husband is my great motivator,' she said.
'He never lets me become overrun by self-doubt; hes encouraging yet realistic. He helps me see my strengths and build on them and gently points out when Im going in a direction he doesn't feel is right for me,' she explained.
She also admitted the pair were hoping to expand their brood this year.
'My husband and I have also been discussing baby #2 sometime this year, so theres lots to be excited about,' she gushed.
Adorable: The pair welcomed the birth of their first son Evander in December 2014
She's the former Bachelor contestant who recently split from boyfriend Dave Billsborrow.
But despite her break-up, florist Sarah-Mae Amey is still enjoying the single life as she celebrates her 25th birthday in a high neck designer dress on Saturday.
And kicking off the celebrations for her quarter century milestone, her housemate Sam Frost shared an emotional tribute to their friendship on Instagram, saying she was sad to not be able to attend the party.
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Birthday girl! The Bachelorette Sam Frost (R) wasn't able to attend the 25th birthday party of her best pal and roommate Sarah-Mae Amey (L) but shared an emotional tribute to their friendship on Instagram
Sam penned a touching tribute to her best pal on social media, alongside a picture collage of them posing together
'Because if you don't upload a photo collage... is it even their birthday?!' the 26-year-old started.
'I love you all the world! You're such an incredible & supportive friend.. everyone who knows you feels very lucky to have you in their life!' Sam gushed as she wished the starlet a happy birthday.
Tribute: On Saturday, Sam penned a touching tribute to her best pal on social media, alongside a picture collage of them posing together
'Because if you don't upload a photo collage... is it even their birthday?!' Sam, 27, penned a touching message to her friend on Instagram, writing: 'I'm so sorry I can't be there today to celebrate'
Sarah-Mae and Sam became close friends and eventually housemates despite appearing on different seasons of The Bachelor.
Sarah-Mae was a contestant in the first series with Newcastle chiropractor Tim Robards and Sam won the follow-up with Perth auctioneer Blake Garvey.
In early April, Sarah-Mae split from Bachelorette star and plumber Dave Billsborrow after just four months of dating.
Style of the stars: Sarah-Mae also shared an Instagram photo of her chic birthday outfit, as she opted for a high neck panelled dress by Self Portrait made famous by My Kitchen Rules star Zana Pali
Spot the difference! Notably, MKR 2016 'villain' Zana Pali (pictured) wore a black version of the same dress for her 25th birthday recently
As they were both contestants on Network Ten's flagship dating shows, many considered the couple to be a match made in reality TV heaven.
However, it was not meant to be and Sam later confirmed their break-up on Instagram, sharing a photo of Sarah-Mae with the caption, 'All the singles'.
Meanwhile, Sarah-Mae also shared an Instagram photo of her chic birthday outfit, as she opted for a popular designer frock by Self Portrait.
Reality TV pals: Sam (L) Sarah-Mae (R) became close friends and housemates despite appearing on different seasons of The Bachelor
She posed in the burgundy panelled dress recently made famous by My Kitchen Rules 'villain' Zana Pali while holding a white birthday balloon.
The 25-year-old looked in suitably happy spirits while performing the peace hand sign and styled her shoulder-length brunette hair in loose waves.
She captioned the image: 'Quarter of a century #25'.
It seems as though former Packed To The Rafters actor Ryan Corr couldn't stop gushing about his girlfriend Kyla Bartholomeusz on Saturday.
Taking to Instagram to wish his lady love a happy birthday, the 27-year-old television star revealed just how much Kyla means to him.
'The coolest, most beautiful human I've met, my better half, wishing you the happiest of birthdays. Thanks for being in my life,' he began the caption penned next to a black and white photo of performer Kyla relaxing on a couch.
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Loved up: It seems as though former Packed To The Rafters actor Ryan Corr couldn't stop gushing about his girlfriend Kyla Bartholomeusz on Saturday
Ryan continued in his sweet message: 'I hope today you feel all the love back at you, that you give out unconditionally, to everyone, everyday'.
'I love you. Heaps. Happy Birthday babe x.'
Shortly after Ryan shared a snap of the pair, in which he planted a smooch on Kyla's head.
Opting for a cool and casual outfit, Ryan, who starred in the first two seasons of Love Child, wore a white T-shirt teamed with a pair of faded blue jeans.
Special wishes: Taking to Instagram to wish his lady love a happy birthday, the 27-year-old television star revealed just how much Kyla means to him
Cute: Along with the message, he shared a black and white photo of performer Kyla relaxing on a couch
He also sported a black hat, and rested one hand on his headpiece, while his other arm was wrapped around Kyla.
Speaking of the birthday girl, she was seen wearing a long-sleeved white blouse teamed with a pair of sleek black leggings.
Her brown locks were pulled up in a bun, while a black handbag completed her look.
Ryan and Kyla have been dating for quite a few months, and have made several red carpet appearances as a couple.
Furthermore, the genetically blessed pair don't shy away from sharing cute couple snaps on their respective Instagram accounts.
Hot couple: Ryan and Kyla have been dating for quite a few months, and have made several red carpet appearances as a couple - the pair pictured at the GQ Men Of The Year Awards in Sydney last November
He's the hunky former Bachelor who has jetted into Brisbane for a day at the races.
But Tim Robards didn't let the getaway stop him from working out as he hit the pavement for an early morning running session on Saturday.
The 33-year-old showed off his very muscular physique post-run, strolling through the streets shirtless while sporting some interesting footwear with a pair of red Vibram five finger shoes.
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What a stallion! Tim Robards didn't let a getaway stop him from working out as he hit the pavement for an early morning running session in Brisbane on Saturday
Although he paid more attention to his mobile than where he was going, Tim still looked relaxed, with his blue tank tucked into his back pocket after his morning jog, holding a coffee in one hand as he typed with the other.
The handsome chiropractor was joined by Australian long jumper Chelsea Jaensch who is bound for the Rio Olympics later this year and another keen fitness pal.
Tim later shared a selfie of the running trio to Instagram as they posed alongside the water.
'Awesome run this morn! Thanks for joining me girls! Always fun trying to keep up with an Olympian! @chelseajaensch #twinkletoes,' he captioned the snap.
Fitness fanatic: Although he paid more attention to his mobile than where he was going, Tim still looked relaxed holding onto a coffee in one hand and typed on his phone with the other
Running pal: The handsome chiropractor was joined by Australian long jumper Chelsea Jaensch (R) who is bound for the Rio Olympics later this year and another keen fitness pal
Despite his busy morning, Tim then suited up for a day track-side as he attended the Doomben Cup Races with girlfriend Anna Heinrich.
Tim put on a dapper display in a powder blue jacket, pairing it with a white shirt and tie and light coloured pants.
Meanwhile, Anna opted for an all-black ensemble in a Manning Cartell creation as she helped judge Fashions on the Field.
Fun times: Tim also shared a selfie of the running trio to Instagram as they posed alongside the water
Day out: Tim put on a dapper display in a blue jacket, pairing it with a white shirt and tie and light coloured pants as he suited up for a day track-side attending the Doomben Cup Races with girlfriend Anna Heinrich
Their trip to the Sunshine State comes after the loved-up couple, who met on the first season of The Bachelor Australia nearly three years ago, shared an adorable photo during a romantic beach outing.
Looking fairly loved-up and rather relaxed, the blonde beauty could be seen resting her head on her Bachelor beaus very tanned back.
Prior to flying to Brisbane the couple attended numerous events during Australian Fashion Week 2016 in Sydney.
Giddy up: Anna Heinrich (R) opted for an all-black ensemble in a Manning Cartell creation as she helped judge Fashions in the Field with model Erin Holland (L)
Too cute! Their trip to the Sunshine State comes after the loved-up couple, who met on the first season of The Bachelor Australia nearly three years ago, shared an adorable photo during a romantic beach outing
She recently starred in British comedy film Grimsby, starring opposite Sacha Baron Cohen.
And Rebel Wilson certainly appeared in a good spirits as she smiled and laughed while leaving a restaurant in West Hollywood, California this week.
The Sydney-born actress was spotted leaving Craig's restaurant on Friday, and revealed a glimpse of her bra line under her black top.
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Out and about: Rebel Wilson appeared in a good spirits as she smiled and laughed while leaving a restaurant in West Hollywood, California on Friday - as her bra line was slightly visible under her black top
Rebel, 36, opted for a pair of thigh-skimming jeans and a white and pink cardigan while leaving the trendy restaurant this week.
She rounded off her night-time look with a pair of shiny pink flat shoes and accessorised with a black handbag and a Louis Vuitton clutch.
Meanwhile, the stand-up comedian opted for minimal make-up as she made her way through the restaurant car park to her vehicle.
Hotspot: The Sydney-born actress was spotted leaving Craig's restaurant this week, a popular celebrity haunt
Meanwhile, it was revealed earlier this year that Rebel had landed a cameo role in the upcoming Absolutely Fabulous film.
She told The Daily Mirror that she 'begged' TV series creator Jennifer Saunders for a part in the big screen adaptation.
Rebel said: ''I got to meet her last year in London and I cried when I met her! Shes every bit as amazing as I thought.'
In good spirits: Smiling Rebel, 36, opted for a pair of thigh-skimming jeans and a white and pink cardigan
The Pitch Perfect star continued: 'I emailed her and said, "If you need me for anything Ill be there." I full out got down on my knees and begged. Theres no level to which I wouldnt have gone to!'
Her approach paid off - and Rebel eventually shot a day's worth of 'funny' cameo material for the film back in November.
'I was on it for just the day but to be in the same breathing space as Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley, it was a dream come true,' she concluded.
She will wed the love of her life, Nathanial Hoho in July this year.
And as the big day fast approaches, Bridget Malcolm hasn't held back sharing intimate details regarding her impending nuptials.
Speaking to Daily Mail Australia at Mercedes-Benz Australian Fashion Week in Sydney, the 23-year-old spoke openly about the wedding, even revealing she will wear a white lace dress from Australian label Lover.
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Not long now! Bridget Malcolm shared intimate details from her impending wedding to Nathanial Hoho with Daily Mail Australia at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Sydney
'I am wearing a Lover dress and I am going to have my fitting for it in two days which I am so excited for,' she gushed.
Before teasing: 'It's going to be white lace and beautiful!'
While sitting front row at the Rebecca Vallance Resort Collection show, Bridget revealed her bridesmaids would also be sporting Australian designers.
The bride-to-be confessed her friends will be wearing frocks from popular brand Zimmerman, with her decision to select designers from her native country appearing to be intentional.
Despite the big day still a number of months away, Bridget said that she was already on top of the preparations.
'Planning is all sorted!' she explained, adding: 'I'm just really looking forward to the day now.'
'It's going to be white lace and beautiful!' The 23-year-old said she will wear a white lace dress from Australian label Lover for the big day
Australian made: Bridget revealed her bridesmaids would also be sporting Aussie designers, wearing frocks from popular brand Zimmerman
Bridget will walk down the aisle in two-months on July 23, in central Pennsylvania, which she described as 'Amish country.'
Due to the wedding being in the US, the newly-weds will also have a party on Rottnest Island, off the coast of Perth, in November.
Bridget previously opened up about her upcoming nuptials to Daily Mail Australia, revealing that she's actually planning to have two ceremonies.
'We are having two weddings,' the stunning blonde said. 'Hes [fiance Nathaniel Hoho] a Pennsylvania boy so we are going to have one July 23rd next year, and one in Perth so two summer weddings.'
'Planning is all sorted!' Despite the big day still a number of months away, the Australian beauty said that she was on top of the preparations
Bridget returned back Down Under for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia as an official friend of the brand.
She simply attended as a front row guest and did not walk in any of the shows.
Last year Bridget debuted on the Victoria's Secret runway alongside fellow newcomers Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid.
However, Bridget previously revealed to Daily Mail Australia it was a case of third time lucky, as she'd been knocked back twice before during casting.
'This was the third year I cast for the show...The first two years I was turned away,' she said.
'The first year was because I wasn't in good enough shape and the second year I wasn't confident enough to pull it off.'
She also added that she believed her figure wasn't in shape at that time because she only 'went to the gym once before the casting' and wasn't aware of the commitment that was needed.
Happy to be home: The Victoria's Secret stunner returned back Down Under for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia as an official friend of the brand
Although she originally hails from Western Australia, Bridget is currently based in New York where her career continues to soar.
The glamazon was discovered in 2007 when she placed third in an annual Vivien's model search in Perth.
She has since walked for Australian retailer David Jones, Ralph Lauren, Stella McCartney and Victoria's Secret while also posing for Harper's Bazaar, Elle and V magazine.
Bridget became engaged to her musician beau Nathanial last year after dating for a year.
Whirlwind romance: Bridget became engaged to her musician beau Nathanial last year after dating for a year
'We are having two weddings,' the Victoria's Secret Angel previously told Daily Mail Australia
She's enjoyed two weeks of star-studded parties, films and events.
But it was time for Heidi Klum to head back home to Los Angeles as she arrived at the LAX airport on Friday.
The 42-year-old supermodel flashed some serious sideboob as she went braless in a lace-up top while making her way through the busy terminal.
Flying high! Heidi Klum, 42, was spotted as she arrived at the LAX airport on Friday
The German beauty showed off her slender pins in distressed skinny jeans which bared a hole in each knee.
She wore a long velvet-like coat over the revealing blouse and finished her monochrome ensemble with strappy sandals.
Her signature blonde locks were swept back in a chic bun and she skipped the cosmetics, showcasing her natural beauty and flawless complexion.
Revealing! The supermodel flashed some serious sideboob in a black lace-up top
Uninhibited! The German beauty went braless for her international flight from Cannes
The Project Runway regular rounded out her look with dark aviator shades and a black boho fringed bag.
On Thursday night, the America's Got Talent judge attended the celebrity packed amfAR Cinema Against AIDS Gala.
The 5ft 9in statuesque stunner put on an eye-popping display in the plunging yellow floor-length number with thigh-high split as she arrived at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes.
With its scooped neckline and fitted design on the waist, it was complete with a sexy thigh-high split, allowing her to show off her tanned, toned pins for all to see.
Leggy display! The Project Runway regular showed off her slender pins in distressed skinny jeans which bared a hole in each knee
Natural beauty! Heidi went make-up free which highlighted her flawless complexion
The mother-of-four teamed her show-stopping dress with a pair of silver high-heels sandals, with her dark blonde hair swept into a tight bun.
Throughout the evening the stunning star made sure to show off her slender figure and gorgeous gown, making the most of her beautiful attire.
Earlier in the day, Heidi tweeted: 'Looking forward to joining @amfAR tonight! Proud to be supporting the fight to end #AIDS #amfARCannes.'
Details: Klum rounded out her look with dark aviator shades and a black boho fringed bag
She's no stranger when it comes to donning a glamorous frock for an event.
And Erin Holland, 27, looked chic in a black and white geometric patterned crochet lace dress as she attended the Doomben Races in Brisbane on Saturday, kicking off her Brisbane Racing Ambassador role.
The former Miss World Australia opted for a sophisticated look, and flaunted her svelte figure in the thigh skimming number as she posed for pictures alongside The Bachelor star, Anna Heinrich.
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Black magic: Erin Holland (L) looked chic in a geometric patterned crochet dress as she posed alongside Anna Heinrich (R) the Doomben Races in Brisbane on Saturday, starting her Brisbane Racing Ambassador role
The frock by Australian designer Manning Cartell features a graphic lace fabric in a mixture of round and square patterns.
Erin pulled her bronde locks into a sleek bun to show off her pretty features, and her look was finished with a gold leaf Heather McDowall headpiece.
Her cheekbones were highlighted by a dewy makeup look that also featured a bronzed smokey eye and a nude lip.
Taking to social media the beauty posted a selfie on arrival writing: 'Doomben Cup Day ready with @indooroopillyshopping and @hmcdowall millinery'
Striking: The 27-year-old pulled her bronde locks into a sleek bun to show off her pretty features, and her look was finished with a gold leaf Heather McDowall headpiece
Matching: The former Miss World Australia put on a leggy display in the thigh skimming number by Manning Cartell, while Anna who was also dressed in the same designer put on a more demure display
Meanwhile, Anna was also dressed in the same designer, and opted for an all black dress that featured sheer long sleeves.
The floaty number effortlessly skimmed over her slender figure, and she highlighted her neckline with a striking choker necklace.
She finished her look with intricate strappy stiletto heels and a similar black leaf headpiece by All Port Millinery.
Triple threat! Anna was joined at the racing event by her beau Tim Robards, who looked dapper in a blue blazer layered over a while shirt and posed alongside the beauties
Anna was joined at the racing event by her beau Tim Robards, who looked dapper in a blue blazer layered over a while shirt.
He finished his look with chino trousers and a pair of brown lace up shoes and appeared delighted to be at the stylish event.
The hunky former Bachelor star wrapped his arms around both ladies as the trio posed up a storm in front of an elaborate floral wall.
Fun in the sun: Erin and Anna were giving the hard task of judging the Fashions On The Field element of the day and appeared to enjoy themselves alongside the other judges
In good company: Erin is an ambassador for Brisbane Racing's Winter Carnival and Anna is affiliated with the Indooroopilly Shopping Centre and gave out fashions tips earlier this week
Erin and Anna were giving the hard task of judging the Fashions On The Field element of the day and appeared to enjoy themselves alongside the other judges.
At one point all four women on the panel burst into laughter as they sat at their judging table in the bright autumn sunshine.
Something exciting appeared to have caught Erin's eye, and the songstress pulled out her phone to snap a picture of the moment.
Erin is an ambassador for Brisbane Racing's Winter Carnival and Anna is affiliated with the Indooroopilly Shopping Centre and gave out fashions tips earlier this week.
She's known for her vibrant red hair and ageless beauty.
And Julianne Moore proved that even prematurely aging didn't stop her from looking glamorous as she stepped out on the set of her new film, Wonderstruck, on Friday.
The 55-year-old sported a head of silvery grey hair and a prosthetic nose for her role in the movie but her distinctive elegance still managed to shine through.
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Ageless: Julianne Moore proved that even being prematurely aged didn't stop her looking glam as she stepped out on the set of her new film, Wonderstruck, on Friday
And despite her newfound years, Julianne still managed to look stylish in a longline orange jumper and tailored cream trousers.
The acclaimed actress was joined on the set in Brooklyn, New York, by child actor, Oakes Fegley, who is set to play one of the film's pivotal roles.
And the pair seemed to get on famously, as they were spotted rehearsing their scripts together and enjoying a chat.
Going incognito: The 55-year-old sported a head of silvery grey hair and a prosthetic nose for her role in the movie
Still fabulous! Despite Julianne's new look her distinctive elegance still managed to shine through
Older style: Despite her new found years, Julianne still managed to look stylish in a longline orange jumper and tailored cream trousers
Rising star: The acclaimed actress was joined on the set in Brooklyn, New York, by child actor, Oakes Fegley, who is set to play one of the film's pivotal roles
Julianne was also seen recording for the film on Wednesday.
The actress had swept back her new greying locks into a sensible low bun, as she filmed scenes for the upcoming movie in New York City.
Julianne also donned the same long, modest orange sweater with large front pockets and a black-and-white scarf, knotted at the front.
In it together: The pair seemed to get on famously, as they were spotted rehearsing their scripts together and enjoying a chat
Taking note: Julianne wrote down some important details as she filmed for her new role
Time out: Despite their hectic work schedule, Julianne and Oakes still managed to find time to have a giggle
She finished off the costumed look with a loose pair of white trousers, large sunglasses, wedge sandals, and a brown leather purse slung over her shoulder.
The actress at one point ditched her sunglasses as she sought shade beneath a large umbrella, which she clutched while also carrying a large brown binder.
Julianne's new movie Wonderstruck - based on the novel by Brian Selznick - is about two deaf children, Ben and Rose, and how their lives intertwine, although 50 years apart, as they escape to New York.
Aging gracefully: Julianne Moore was spotted in character filming Wonderstruck in New York on Wednesday
Seventies style: Julianne was costumed in 1970s style for the scene
Based on a book: The Oscar-winning actress has a starring role in the film based on Brian Selznick's novel
Reaching out: Julianne extended her arm while filming the movie set in 1927 and 1977 in New York City
The star will be teaming up with director Todd Haynes for the second time - they previously worked together on Far From Heaven.
It is not the only movie Julianne has been busy working on as of late, either.
She's also been cast in the upcoming sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which is already filming in London and scheduled for release next year.
Picture book: Hays Wellford, 12, also was spotted filming a scene with Julianne for the movie based on the picture book
Simply chic: The 55-year-old looked fantastic with her red tresses swept up into a neat hairdo as she wore a shredded white gown to the premiere of Money Monster at Cannes earlier this month
Shade from the rays: Moore clutched a large umbrella and a brown binder
She is also attached to the movie Suburbicon, a comedy crime mystery due out in 2017.
Julianne has two children with her director husband Bart Freundlich, 18-year-old Caleb and 14-year-old Liv.
Caleb is heading off to college soon, which Julianne has described as an 'intense' time period during a recent interview with CBS This Morning.
'It's very intense,' the proud mom said while promoting her comedy, Maggie's Plan. 'He's so happy, he's made his decision, and the school year is wrapping up, obviously it's a very potent time.'
They have two beautiful children of their own - one of whom, Kaia Gerber, has already graced the cover of Vogue at the age of just 14.
So it only seemed fitting that Cindy Crawford and her husband Rande Gerber were celebrating child advocates as they stepped out in style for the Champion of Children Awards Gala at the Malibu Jewish Center on Friday.
The 50-year-old supermodel looked incredible as she flaunted her physique in an classy black jumpsuit.
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Timeless couple: Cindy Crawford, 50, and Rande Gerber, 54, stepped out in style for the Champion of Children Awards Gala at the Malibu Jewish Center on Friday
The black garment featured a plunging neckline with one side teasingly falling down her shoulder, showing off another black strap.
Going on to skim her body, it loosened out in to a pair of flares which she accentuated with strappy black open-toe heels underneath.
Adding a slight element of glamour to the simple outfit, she sported a rectangle metallic clutch with her hand which was adorned with her wedding ring and some funky bracelets.
An obvious beauty pioneer since the 80's, Cindy smouldered with her subtle smokey eyes and light pink pout, as her strategically placed highlight glimmered.
Beauty icon: Cindy smouldered with her subtle smokey eyes and light pink pout, as her strategically placed highlight glimmered
Flaunting her figure: Her black garment featured a plunging neckline, where one side teasingly fell down her shoulder, showing off another black strap
Framing her face were long gold leaf design earrings, which complemented her signature bouncy brunette blow-dry.
She looked sensational on the arms of her husband of 18 years, Rande Gerber.
The businessman and former model opted for a mix of smart and casual as he teamed a button down navy shirt and an a-line black blazer with a pair of slim-fit black jeans.
Dishy: Rande opted for a mix of smart and casual as he teamed a button down navy shirt and a a-line black blazer with a pair of slim-fit black jeans
Good cause: The event was in association with the Champion for Children Foundation
The 54-year-old positively beamed as he held on to a drink and enjoyed the award ceremony which is in conjunction with the Champion for Children Foundation.
They have been providing abuse and neglect prevention and early intervention programs and services to children and families in Highlands County since 1994.
The two married after her divorce from American Gigolo actor Richard Gere in 1995.
Her mini-me daughter Kaia is now taking the fashion world by storm and has racked up 533,000 followers on Instagram, which continues to spiral.
'In mom mode!' Both Kaia and Presley are following in Cindy's footsteps and pursuing modelling opportunities
On the subject of social media, Cindy recently told Cosmopolitan.com: 'I'm so jealous, because I feel they have this direct way to communicate with their audience that my generation didn't have.'
'I think it's a responsibility, but it's also a great tool, because they really can be their own publicists. They can present themselves the way that they want to be presented.'
Her 16-year-old son Presley has also decided to follow in her modelling footsteps and has graced the pages of Carine Roitfeld's CR Fashion Book.
No sibling rivalry here! Kaia and Presley are close and are regularly spotted on the red carpet together (Pictured at the Teen Vogue Annual Young Issue Party in 2015)
They never put a foot wrong in the fashion department.
And Saturday was no different for the Bachelors Anna Heinrich, 29, and Tim Robards, 33, who made a stylish entrance at Brisbane Racing Club for the The Hardy Brothers Doomben Cup Day.
The pair, who dazzled front row at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia, showed off their enviable figures in their best race ready outfits.
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Making an entrance: The Bachelors Anna Heinrich and Tim Robards made a stylish entrance at Brisbane Racing Club for the The Hardy Brothers Doomben Cup Day on Saturday
Anna cut a fashionable figure in a demure yet daring semi-sheer black dress, which fell to below her knee, ensuring all eyes were on her lithe and toned legs.
The reality TV star looked lovely in the feminine garb, which included a translucent train and see-through fabric sleeves that revealed her muscular arms.
She heightened her petite form with a pair of strappy black heels, which not only elongated her silhouette but accentuated her sizable calf muscles.
Making a statement: Anna cut a fashionable figure in a demure yet daring semi-sheer black dress, which fell to below her knee, ensuring all eyes were on her lithe and toned legs
Her shoulder length tresses were scrapped back into a neat ponytail, while a black crown sat perfectly on her head to complement the hue of the dress.
The criminal lawyer styled her glamorous outfit with minimal accessories, opting for jewel encrusted neck ring.
Anna highlighted her big blue eyes with a smokey eye look and added a dusting of pink power onto her cheeks.
Cheers to the weekend: Tim looked dapper in crisp blue blazer paired with a white button-up shirt and matching tie, showing off his muscular physique thanks to a rigorous gym schedule
Making memories: The Bachelor series one star made sure to keep his Instagram fans updated on his movements
Caught up: Tim made sure to check his phone for any updates, emails or messages
Perfect manoeuvring: The chiropractor darted through the crowd at the event
Meanwhile, Tim looked dapper in crisp blue blazer paired with a white button-up shirt and matching tie, showing off his muscular physique thanks to a rigorous gym schedule.
Continuing the suave theme, The Bacherlor series one star flaunted his gym-honed body in a pair of white trousers and brown leather dress shoes.
He completed his looked with a white pocket square tucked neatly into the front pocket of the pastel coloured jacket.
Striking a pose: Anna was joined on the red carpet by model Erin Holland
Loved-up: The pair cuddled up as they spent the day at the beach
The couple, who have been together since the 2013 reality series, looked to be in good spirits as they showed off their perfect pouts for the cameras.
Model Erin Holland later joined the genetically blessed duo for some snaps on the red carpet.
A day earlier, Tim and Anna packed on the PDA while enjoying a perfect sunny day at the beach.
Cuddling up close, the duo couldn't wipe the smiles off their faces in a photo later uploaded to Instagram.
'Oooh I got me some of them weekend vibes!' wrote Tim in the caption.
The ode to the weekend snap was uploaded after the couple spent most of the week sitting front and centre at some of the most elite shows on the Australian Fashion Week schedule.
She's been jetting all over the globe as part of her Sweet Sweet Fantasy Tour.
But Mariah Carey was spotted touching base with some friends at Nobu in Malibu on Friday, beaming as she left the upmarket sushi restaurant with her pals.
The pop diva looked amazing as ever in a low-cut silk gown with a striking black and white floral pattern.
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Glamorous as ever: Mariah Carey pulled out all the stops to look her best as she caught up with some friends at Nobu in Malibu on Friday
She covered up with a leather biker jacket, ensuring to wear the zip undone in order to showcase her ample cleavage.
Mariah styled her brunette tresses in loose curls for the occasion, wearing the front section of her locks pulled back in a braid.
The Heartbreaker hitmaker completed her dinner date look with silver earrings and seductive make-up, including a pastel purple eye and a slick of pink lip gloss.
Busty: She covered up with a leather biker jacket, ensuring to wear the zip undone in order to showcase her ample cleavage
Mermaid chic: Mariah styled her brunette tresses in loose curls for the occasion, wearing the front section of her locks pulled back in a braid
Photo opportunity: Mariah posed up a storm with her friends outside the upmarket sushi restaurant
Looking good: The Heartbreaker hitmaker completed her dinner date look with silver earrings and seductive make-up, including a pastel purple eye and a slick of pink lip gloss
Smile! The Hero hitmaker was happy to stop for a couple of selfies with fellow diners
Mariah was in high spirits as she made her way home with her crew in tow.
Meanwhile, the star is filming a new reality show for E!, the same cable station that puts out Keeping Up With The Kardashians and Rich Kids Of Beverly Hills.
But not everyone thinks Mariah's World is a good idea for the 46-year-old Grammy winner, who has been cranking out hit songs - Always Be My Baby, Butterfly - for 28 years.
One of those people who worries is director Lee Daniels, who told SiriusXM Bevelations radio show on Friday that things could so easily go wrong. He has worked with the diva on the films Precious, Tennessee and The Butler.
He's not sold: Director Lee Daniels told SiriusXM Bevelations radio show on Friday that things could so easily go wrong on Mariah's World for E! Here he is seen with Carey on May 14
He's hired the diva three times: Daniels has worked with the diva on the films Precious, Tennessee and The Butler
'Im terrified about it,' he said.
'I dont know if its a wise idea for her. I was at the gym, I saw [the announcement for Mariah's World] it, and I was like, "Oh, Lord. What is she doing?"
'I think its bigger than her. I think its not a good idea. I think that the true geniuses have to be saved from themselves sometimes.
Now is this being a good friend?: 'Im terrified about it,' he said. 'I dont know if its a wise idea for her'
But he does defend his Mimi: He also explained how she handles all the bad energy around her. 'Ive seen how people attack her,' he said. 'They are mean to her. People try to start stuff between her, and she plays into it, but its all a joke'
'But I have no problem telling her, "What are you doing?" and she listens, too.'
He also explained how she handles all the bad energy around her.
'Ive seen how people attack her,' he said. 'They are mean to her. People try to start stuff between her, and she plays into it, but its all a joke.'
He added: 'She is very fragile, and she has been through a lot. She has been used, she has been abused Some people dont have that Teflon sort of thing that I do, so she masks it with this coquettish thing that is hiding her nervousness and her pain and her own familys abuse to her.
So he will be on the show? The first trailer for the show debuted on May 16. Mariah is seen getting ready for a trip to Europe for her Sweet Sweet Fantasy tour. She is also preparing for her wedding to Australian billionaire James Packer, who she is seen with here in 2015
'She is misunderstood, because she is really, really ride or die. She really, really, really will do anything for you.'
The filmmaker also said that he tricked her into being on her E! show,
'That b****, he said.
'She says, "Come over!" I show up to this room at a Kosher steakhouse somewhere on Wall Street, and the cameras are in my face and recording our conversation!
'And she says, "Dahling, dahling, dahling, sign [the release form], sign it, sign it, were doing a little documentary."
With her mini me: Mariah with her daughter Monroe and mother Patricia Hickey in 2015. Lee said: 'She is very fragile, and she has been through a lot. She has been used, she has been abused she masks it with this coquettish thing that is hiding her nervousness and her pain and her own familys abuse to her'
'The next day, Im reading that she has a f***ing reality show!'
The first trailer for the show debuted on May 16. Mariah is seen getting ready for a trip to Europe for her Sweet Sweet Fantasy tour. She is also preparing for her wedding to Australian billionaire James Packer.
'I don't think everyone knows anything about me,' she said in the clip.
They all work together on Channel Nine's Today show.
But Sylvia Jeffreys, her boyfriend Peter Stefanovic and his brother Karl love to mix business with pleasure, with the trio flaunting their close bond outside of the office by spending time together on a boat in Sydney over the weekend.
'Fun, sun and a sausage in a bun,' wrote 30-year-old Sylvia, who flashed one of her tanned legs in a loose, half-unbuttoned floral dress in an image posted to Instagram.
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'Fun, sun and a sausage in a bun!' Sylvia Jeffreys shared a photo of herself spending time with boyfriend Peter Stefanovic and his brother Karl on a boat on Saturday
The blonde beauty looked free-spirited and stylish, tying her hair up into a topknot and hiding her eyes behind a pair of trendy sunglasses.
Peter looked his standard casual self, opting for comfort in a pair of shorts and a plain T-shirt.
He added a brown newsboy cap and pair of dark shades, which he matched to his wristwatch.
Crazy in love! Sylvia and Peter booted Karl out the picture to take a sweet selfie together
However, his famous brother dressed with a little more flair, sporting striped drawstring shorts and a stylish loose-fitting blue shirt which he kept half unbuttoned to reveal his chest.
The 41-year-old protected his eyes from the sun in a pair of Ray-Bans and wore a brown fedora style hat on his head.
The fun-loving TV personality was later seen enjoying a beer with a mate on board.
Kicking back: While Sylvia and Peter spent some time together, Karl enjoyed a beer with a mate
Skilled journalist Sylvia confirmed that she was dating fellow Today show reporter Peter in early 2014, who is the younger brother of the show's Gold Logie-winning star Karl.
The trio are close friends outside of work and appear to enjoy hanging out at various functions.
At the Logie Awards earlier this month, they took a smiley selfie together at their table, showcasing their tight bond to fans.
She quit Made in Chelsea after three series to pursue her singing career.
But Caggie Dunlop proved she didn't leave the reality show on a sour note as she reunited with a slew of former castmates at the Aya Silk fashion brand launch party at Bluebird in London on Friday.
The 27-year-old stunner showcased her fashion chops with a statement brown leather jacket at the event, which also brought out current MIC star, Louise Thompson.
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She's back: Caggie Dunlop, 27, stepped out with her former Made In Chelsea cast mates during the Aya Silk Launch Party in London on Friday
Wearing a simple white top underneath, Caggie strutted forth in a nude floral print skirt which featured a thigh-high split, flaunting her toned legs in all their glory.
She teamed it with brown suede boots with fringe tassel detailing, which gave the ensemble an overall Western feel.
The fashion designer went on to adorn her decolletage with a stack of dainty gold necklaces, which complemented her big bouncy blonde blow-dry.
Her doll-like eyes were clad in lashings of mascara while her signature pout sported a matte rose-bud finish.
Chelsea beauties: The stunner showcased her fashion chops with a statement brown leather jacket at the event, which also brought out current MIC star, Louise Thompson
Stylish: Wearing a simple white top underneath, Caggie strutted forth in a nude floral print skirt which featured a thigh high split and flaunted her toned legs in all their glory
Caggie and Louise have more in common than just MIC, however, as the pair both dated notorious womaniser Spencer Matthews.
She was previously was linked to Clint Eastwood's Hollywood hunk son Scott when she was pictured at Moet and Chandon Inaugural Holding Court dinner in March.
A source told The Daily Mirror at the time: 'Caggie is really into Scott, but she is a Chelsea girl at heart and she'd rather no one knew about his colourful love life.
Bright beauty: Louise, 26, opted for a leather jacket as well but with her own unique spin as she went for a mustard yellow tone
Fashionista: She looked the epitome of sophistication as she teamed the jacket with a lace white shirt and super skinny dark wash jeans, which were ripped at the knees
'He's a wealthy guy and he has talent but there are too many embarrassing pictures of him leaving clubs with glamour girls for her liking.'
Louise, 26, opted for a leather jacket as well, but with her own unique spin.
Standing out from the crowd in the mustard-yellow outerwear, she looked the epitome of sophistication as she teamed it with a lace white shirt and super skinny dark wash jeans, which were ripped at the knees.
In demand: The stunner was recently spotted with a Spencer Matthews lookalike and was previously linked to Clint Eastwood's son Scott
Looking cool: TV presenter Olivia Cox and Gary Linekar's son George opted for a navy colour scheme for the event
She also matched her stiletto white heels to her large boxy white handbag as she couldn't help but beam at her attendance during the event.
On this week's episode of MIC, Louise was plagued with drama during the group trip to the Maldives as she was accused of 'bullying' Stephanie Pratt after they had a heated discussion by the pool during the episode.
Confronting her trolls, she fired back: 'For those morons who will not stop hurling abuse at my page. I am incapable of hurting a fly let alone bullying a 30-year-old woman who has been playing the reality TV game for over 10 years. The word 'bully' is very strong so stop with the false accusations.
Feminine: MIC's Georgia Toffolo looked sensational in a belted floral dress with nude stilettos
Posing: Cast-mate Millie Wilkinson rocked a bold patterned number and chunky black boots
A quick hello! Fran Newman-Young went for a sophisticated black and beige attire as she flashed a smile before walking in to the event
Beauties: Fran poses with Aya Silk's designer Anna Majewska (L) inside the event
'AND Steph did not pay for my trip to the Maldives, I am not that much of a cheapskate,' she revealed, ending rumours that the former Hills star had treated them to the lavish trip.
Alongside Louise and Caggie, Georgia Toffolo also turned up in a belted floral dress as well as cast-mate Millie Wilkinson, who rocked a bold patterned number.
Former Ex On The Beach star put on the most sultry display of evening in a short black slip play-suit, which showed off her side-boob.
Peekaboo! Former Ex On The Beach star showed off her side-boob in a short play-suit
He caused a controversy when he planted a kiss on actress Uma Thurman's lips at the amfAR Gala in Cannes on Thursday night.
But Fiat heir Lapo Elkann appeared to have brushed off the drama as he jetted off to Ibiza with a stunning brunette on his arm the following day.
The 38-year-old Italian entrepreneur was in great spirits during his romantic break, seemingly unfazed by the fact Uma's representative insisted the spontaneous kiss 'wasn't consensual'.
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Jetting off: Fiat heir Lapo Elkann was spotted holidaying in Ibiza, Spain with a striking brunette following the amfAR Gala on Thursday night
In for the kill: Lapo had surprised film star Uma Thurman with a passionate kiss at the star-studded bash, but she later claimed it was 'not consensual'
Lapo was dressed down in a simple white T-shirt and distressed jeans, slinging a jacket over one shoulder as he hit the beach.
His glamorous companion was sporting a matching look, teaming a plain top with skinny jeans, and shielding her eyes with stylish round sunglasses.
The business mogul has yet to comment on the incident, and appeared to be taking his mind off the things thanks to his relaxing holiday.
Relaxed: Lapo was dressed down in a simple white T-shirt and distressed jeans, slinging a jacket over one shoulder as he hit the beach
Sartorially in sync: His glamorous companion was sporting a matching look, teaming a plain top with skinny jeans, and shielding her eyes with stylish round sunglasses
No drama: The business mogul has yet to comment on the incident, and appeared to be taking his mind off the things thanks to his relaxing holiday
Chilled: He was in great spirits during his romantic break, seemingly unfazed by the fact Uma's representative insisted the spontaneous kiss 'wasn't consensual'
Smitten: Lapo was seen brushing a stray strand of hair from his gorgeous companion's face
Group getaway: Lapo was also joined by a male friend as he strolled along the boardwalk
Lapo hit the headlines when he celebrated a $196k (175,000 EUR) auction prize by planting a kiss on auction host Uma.
The film-star, 46, certainly got more than she bargained for when she went over to congratulate the winner at Thursday night's amfAR Gala and the opportunist landed a huge smacker on her lips - however, a representative for the star insists the kiss 'wasn't consensual'.
Uma's representative told MailOnline: 'It is opportunism at its worst. She wasn't complicit in it.
'Somewhere in his head he must have thought it an appropriate way of behaving. It clearly wasn't. It looks like she was happy to have it happen, but it was not consensual.'
MailOnline contacted a representative for Lapo, who declined to comment.
On fine fashion form: Uma wowed when she stepped out in Cannes on Thursday evening
Generous fella: The businessman not only purchased the cheeky PDA to help raise money as part of the Against AIDS Gala, he also donated a prize - a one-off customised Ferrari 458
Just a peck? Uma put her face on Lapo's face after he surprised her with the kiss, but she later said she was 'not happy for it to happen'
Lapo won the Victorias Secret Fashion Show experience, which includes two tickets to the 2016 show as well as two tickets to the exclusive after party.
Looking radiant in a floor-length pink gown, Uma managed to keep her dignity throughout, despite the Italian lothario making sure he got his money's worth from the encounter.
Uma, who is not officially dating right now, was spotted out with a mystery man when celebrating her 46th birthday in April.
Despite her impromptu kissing duties, Uma made sure she ruled the red carpet, in an eye catching floor-sweeping gown.
The Hollywood actress dazzled as she attended amfAR's 23rd Cinema Against AIDS Gala at the French Riviera town's Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc.
The acclaimed Pulp Fiction performer looked positively ageless in her choice of fuchsia attire, which featured a single strap embellished with a sequined heart.
Can't blame me for trying! The cheeky chappy knows he pushed his luck, but Uma takes it all in good spirit
Cheeky monkey: Afterwards, the stunner posed with her suitor
Featuring a straight neckline, the column gown was made of a floaty material which gave her a stylish, seasonal feel.
Sweeping her hair up into bun, she added a pair of colour co-ordinated earrings and some heavily-applied eyeliner.
Posing up a storm as she made her entrance, Uma managed to walk a fine line between sophisticated and sexy in the notoriously tricky colour choice.
But it worked perfectly with her skin tone and choice of footwear - some strappy, open-toe sandals.
Together, her ensemble was a sartorial success.
Rose tinted glasses: Uma was in high spirits, playing around and enjoying the gala evening, which was all in great cause - raising money for Cinema Against AIDS
Stunning: The Hollywood actress, 46, dazzled as she attended amfAR's 23rd Cinema Against AIDS Gala a the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in the French Riviera town
Sexy: Posing up a storm as she made her entrance, Uma managed to walk a fine line between sophisticated and sexy in the notoriously tricky colour choice
The fundraiser, which raises money for AIDs research, will see the likes of Katy Perry perform for the A-list crowd, while Adriana Lima will co-chair the event.
After posing up a storm on the red carpet, the celebrities make their way into a lavish dinner which is followed by a no expense spared auction, with last year's event raising a staggering $30 million.
The event, which takes place just outside of Cannes, will also feature Kirsten Dunst, Vanessa Paradis and Donald Sutherland who are serving as chairs for the Cannes Film Festival Jury.
Good choice: Featuring a straight neckline, the column gown was made of a floaty material which gave her a stylish, seasonal feel
Cosied up: Uma looked stunning from within the event as she posed alongside German businesswoman Caroline Scheufele
Hostess with the mostess: Uma looked exquisite as she took the stage to host the auction
Chatty, chatty: The blonde addressed the crowd with a speech on an autocue
Making a presentation: She was very animated with her hands and arms
Acting up: In fuchsia, the blonde bombshell made quite an entrance to the event
Belle of the ball: The Kill Bill actress was seen having a chat with a fellow party guest
Bon Iver hates the daily grind of a world tour, so when it plays a gig overseas it needs to stand out.
And what better way to make a splash than playing at the Sydney Opera House during next weeks Vivid Live festival?
The Wisconsin the indie folk band will use the four-night Bon Iver presents Cercle concert to raise money for the Manly Womens Shelter, and will ask fans for donations.
Good cause: Justin Vernon (pictured) said indie folk band Bon Iver will use its four-night Vivid Live concert to raise money for the Manly Womens Shelter, and will ask fans for donations
You cant sit around philosophising about stuff, they need help, frontman Justin Vernon told the Herald Sun.
I cant think of a more vital thing. If you could change one thing in the world, people beating the people they love or not being able to live properly, women in general having a sh**tier time... I think about it very seriously, he said
The shelter supports women who have been suffered domestic violence, financial hardship or are battling mental illness or addiction.
Unique venue: What better way to make a splash than playing at the Sydney Opera House during next weeks Vivid festival?
Award-winning: The bands most recent album, its self-titled second record, was in 2011 for which it won two Grammy Awards
Repeat performance: Vivid Live will be continue Vernons love affair with Australia that started when Bon Iver first performed here in 2009, and has kept him coming back ever since
Vivid Live will be continue Vernons love affair with Australia that started when Bon Iver first performed here in 2009, and has kept him coming back ever since.
'I dont know (exactly what it is) but it would be remiss of me to not say its just everything about it,' he said.
'The best cities are, like, New Orleans and Sydney, they are truly their own thing.'
The bands most recent album, its self-titled second record, was in 2011 for which it won two Grammy Awards.
Bon Iver presents Cercle plays May 27-30 at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall as part of Vivid Live, which runs May 27 to June 18.
Charity benefit: The Manly Women's Shelter supports women who have been suffered domestic violence, financial hardship or are battling mental illness or addiction
She recently revealed some surprising wardrobe choices, including a bold leopard print jacket and a very slinky red satin dress in a candid interview with British Vogue.
And model Miranda Kerr made sure to show off her chic style sense when she left Los Angeles for Paris on Friday.
The 33-year-old Australian ensured all eyes were on her as she donned a bright blue coat through the airport terminal.
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Putting in the leg work: Miranda Kerr showed off her style credentials in a chic blue coat and sexy leather trousers as she turned heads at LAX airport on Friday
Keeping her vibrant jacket the focal point of her ensemble, she opted to wear all-black underneath, slipping her lean legs into a pair of sexy leather trousers teamed with a matching T-shirt.
The former Victorias Secret model added some extra height to her modelesque frame with a pair of heeled boots.
She wore he chestnut coloured locks in a neat bun with a centre parting, framing her pretty face.
Eye catching jacket: Keeping her vibrant jacket the focal point of her ensemble, she opted to wear all-black underneath, slipping her lean legs into a pair of sexy leather trousers teamed with a matching T-shirt.
Miranda merely accentuated her flawless features with a dusting of powder on her cheeks and a slick of gloss, allowing her natural beauty to shine through.
She completed her look with a pair of rounded shades and a black tote bag.
The mother-of-one appeared to be in content and relaxed spirits, showing off a bright smile that went from ear-to-ear.
Meanwhile, the dimple faced beauty admitted in a tell-all interview with Harpers Bazaar magazine the secrets behind her youthful and flawless complexion.
Keeping it simple: She completed her look with a pair of rounded shades and a black tote bag
She credits her fresh-faced look to regular use of her AHA exfoliator and Phytox oil from her Kora Organics beauty line, as well as leading a healthy lifestyle.
'I also eat really well and drink at least like two liters of fresh alkaline water a day. I love yoga and I feel like yoga for me is incredible, and meditation. Meditation is a great way to stay centered and I think inversions are great for aging.
'Specifically, I think the Kundalini yoga is really a life changer. And then obviously lots of organic foods when possible, green leafy vegetables, free range salmon.'
Staying youthful: The 33-year-old credits her fresh-faced look to regular use of her AHA exfoliator and Phytox oil from her Kora Organics beauty line
Age defying: The mother-of-one also says eating healthy helps keep her glowing complexion
Apart from her daily beauty and exercise regimen, Miranda works from within on her glow, lending a helping hand to the The Royal Hospital for Women Foundation in Sydney's eastern suburbs.
The model was announced the ambassador of the foundation back in December.
Her role includes helping to raise vital funds so The Royal Women's Hospital can purchase lifesaving equipment.
Ambassador role: Apart from her daily beauty and exercise regimen, Miranda works from within on her glow, lending a helping hand to the The Royal Hospital for Women Foundation in Sydney's eastern suburbs
In a statement released by the Foundation, Miranda said women's health was close to her heart and something she felt passionate about.
'Im honoured to be announced as the Ambassador to The Royal Hospital for Women Foundation,' she said.
'The hospital has such a strong history dedicated to treating women in need.
'The level of care, compassion and ground-breaking research that happens every single day at The Royal is remarkable.'
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He's an acting veteran with high profile credits such as Braveheart and Mad Max under his belt.
And Mel Gibson was proudly presenting his latest project, Blood Father, at a fun-filled photocall during the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday morning.
The 60-year-old actor looked dapper as he put on quite the animated display, linking hands with his gorgeous co-star Erin Moriarty as they engaged in an elegant dance.
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Hollywood legend: Mel Gibson, 60, stepped out for a funfilled photo-call for Blood Father at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday morning with co-star Erin Moriarty
Balancing the fine line between smart and casual, the silver-haired actor let a few buttons loose at the top of his crisp white shirt unveiling his chest hair, which was over-shadowed by a statement dusty blue blazer.
Buttoned at the front, it bode well with his glistening blue eyes as he made a series of spirited facial expressions and didn't let a huge smile forego his lips as he jokingly ushered photographers to calm down with his hands.
The star - who is dating 25-year-old Rosalind Ross - went on to accessorise with a chunky silver necklace which highlighted his scruff as he stood tall in a pair of intense dark wash jeans.
Loves a joke: At one point Mel held up a 'L' sign as he flashed a beaming grin for the cameras
Putting on an act: The legendary actor looked sensationally dapper as he put on quite the animated display
Chill out! He even jokingly seemed to tell photographers to calm down after his attendance caused mass hysteria
Let me lead the way: He even linked hands with his gorgeous co-star Erin as they engaged in an elegant dance
Looking fantastic: Balancing the fine line between smart and casual, the silver-haired actor let a few buttons loose at the top of his crisp white shirt unveiling his chest hair
Stylish: A statement dusty blue blazer stole the show as Mel posed up a storm for the cameras
Unable to control his high energy, which saw him making funny facial expressions to the photographers and holding up an 'L' sign, he grabbed on to the 21-year-old stunner for a spot of ballroom dancing.
The beautiful blonde looked stunning as she tried to concentrate as Meg led the way who seemed to have toned down to focus on the activities.
After the dancing session was over, he once again put on a humorous front as he raised his 'jazz hands' and had a blast at the rest of the event.
The Captain Fantastic beauty looked the epitome of class in a sheer lace white mini-dress which showed off her black bra underneath.
Keep dancing! Smooth Mel showed off his moves with gorgeous Erin
Dream team: Mel and Erin pose with Director Jean-Francois Richet (L) and actor Diego Luna (R)
And pose! The star- who is dating 25-year-old Rosalind Ross, went on to accessorise with a chunky silver necklace which highlighted his scruff as he stood tall in a pair of intense dark wash jeans
Dance class: The beautiful blonde looked stunning as she tried to concentrate as Mel led the way- and seemed to have toned down to focus on the activities
Loving the attention: The blue blazer which was buttoned at the front bode well with his glistening blue eyes as he made a series of spirited facial expressions
Certainly not boring: Mel was full of energy throughout the photocalll, ensuring he was caught at every angle
The turtleneck garment cinched her in at the waist with a silver-studded black belt and then flared in to a floaty skirt.
Her toned stems were elongated by a sexy pair of black strappy open-toe heels.
And the look didn't end there as she flaunted her perfectly styled and blow-dried blonde locks while flirtatiously taking in her surrounding in her mascara clad eyes and pink pout.
This is set to be the big break for the New York native who originally deferred her place at university to pursue acting.
Chilling: Erin, famed for playing Audrey Hart on True Detective, seemed amused by Mel's antics
Rising star: The Captain Fantastic beauty looked the epitome of class in a sheer lace white mini-dress which showed off her black bra underneath
Beautiful: She flaunted her perfectly styled and blow-dried blonde locks while flirtatiously taking in her surrounding in her mascara clad eyes and pink pout
Handsome: Diego Luna looked dapper in a checkered grey suit
According to IMBD, Blood Father is about an 'ex-con who reunites with his estranged wayward 16-year old daughter to protect her from drug dealers who are trying to kill her'.
The film is slated for US release on 26 August and also stars William H.Macy and Diego Luna.
Elsewhere at Cannes, a photo-call for the movie Elle was full speeds ahead, where French actor Charles Berling rivalled Meg in terms of his jokey display.
What is going on? Elsewhere at Cannes, a photo-call for the movie Elle was full speeds ahead, where French actor Charles Berling rivalled Meg in terms of his jokey display
Show-stopper: The actor climbed on to a ledge adorned with the Cannes logo and sent photographers in to over-drive as he put on quite the hilarious display
Awkward: However, he initially struggled to climb onboard, much to the amusement of onlookers
French beauty: Elle actress Virgine Efira opted for low-key demure as she smiled coyly for the camera
The actor climbed on to a ledge adorned with the Cannes logo and sent photographers in to over-drive as he put on quite the hilarious display
Actress Virgine Efira however opted for low-key demure as she smiled coyly for the camera.
In another part of town, Kirsten Dunst looked chic in a business attire and wet hair as she arrived with Mads Mikkelsen and Valeria at the Palace Festival for some more film festivities.
Elsewhere: Kirsten Dunst (L), Mads Mikkelsen (C) and Valeria Golino (R) arrive at the Palace Festival for some more film festivities
Undoubtedly, the meeting point for all the celebrities at Cannes is the lavish Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc.
And supermodel Natasha Poly was just the latest guest to arrive in style at the star-studded venue.
The 30-year-old donned a peach maxi dress and cropped biker jacket as she sped in via boat with her husband Peter Bakker to the stunning resort.
Stylish arrival: Natasha Poly tuned up via boat at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc
With her beau: She arrived with husband Peter Bakker
Here's a hand: Natasha received a helping hand as she climbed out of the speedboat
Off-duty chic: She looked beautiful in a peach maxi dress and cropped biker jacket
She recently hit back at critics who said she didn't deserve a Hollywood film role.
But Ferne McCann proved that aside from being an actress, she's also a talented fashionista as she slipped into a sexy silk slip for a night out with friends on Friday.
The 25-year-old epitomised negligee chic in the flowing gown, which showed off her fabulous figure with a daring thigh split.
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Nightwear on the town: Ferne McCann poured her enviable curves into a sexy silk slip for a night out with friends on Friday
The peach dress clung to Ferne's body with delicate straps and cinched in her shapely waist with a simple tie belt.
Meanwhile, the plunging wrap-around design of the gown's top gave plenty of opportunity for Ferne to showcase her ample cleavage, while partying in Liverpool.
The former TOWIE babe rounded off her look with coordinating accessories including a thick black choker, that accentuated her long, elegant neck and a pair of skyscraper strappy heels.
Perfect pins: The 25-year-old epitomised negligee chic in the flowing gown, which showed off her fabulous figure with a daring thigh split
Figure skimming: The peach dress clung to Ferne's body with delicate straps and cinched in her shapely waist with a simple tie belt
However, she couldn't resist adding a pop of contrasting colour with a duck-egg blue finger nails and a racy red pedicure.
And the TV presenter let her ombre hair fall in sleek and shiny curls, which she tucked carefully behind her diamond studded ears.
Glamorous as ever, Ferne opted for a sophisticated makeup look which featured heavy contouring and a complementary bronze eye-shadow.
Northern night out: The plunging wrap-around design of the gown's top gave plenty of opportunity for Ferne to showcase her ample cleavage, while partying in Liverpool
She also drew attention to her extremely plump pout with a dash of dusky pink lipstick.
As the night drew in, Ferne made sure that she stayed snug enough to continue with her night out as she threw on a black leather jacket that was emblazoned with gold detailing across the lapels.
And the Essex native made sure that people knew her name as she ventured up north for the evening as she proudly toted a straw bag that was embellished with her initials, alongside some bold green and red detailing.
Finer details: The former TOWIE babe rounded off her look with coordinating accessories including a thick black choker, that accentuated her long, elegant neck and a pair of skyscraper strappy heels
Remember my name! The Essex native made sure that people knew her name as she proudly toted a straw bag that was embellished with her initials
Ferne was also in Liverpool on Saturday to promote her new book, Cross My Heart, where she sported a low-cut shirt dress and multi-coloured heels.
The star revealed this week that after meeting producers at the Cannes Film Festival she has been given a film, which will begin shooting in July.
The former TOWIE star admits that there is a 'stigma' attached to reality stars going into acting, but insists she has the passion and drive to make her dream happen.
Matching: Ferne's friends rocked equally glamorous outfits for the evening, including knee-high strappy sandals and bejeweled jackets
Rock chic! Ferne and her friends covered up from the evening chill in leather jackets
Speaking on Lorraine on Tuesday, she said: 'I went to the film festival and I did a musical last month. I had my musical debut in an adaptation of The Great Gatsby and I loved it, even though it was out of my comfort zone.
'I've always had a passion for acting and had a few meetings in Cannes and have been offered a film role, which is really exciting.
'I'm going over to LA in July and working with a few directors and producers. It's exciting times.
'I honestly feel the pressure and I feel and because I come from a reality background you've got that stigma attached and everyone thinks you're talentless.
'At the musical I felt like I had a point to prove. There's always more than way to skin a cat. You don't have to go to drama school, if you have a passion then that's fine.'
The ITV favourite is reportedly set to play a play a policewoman alongside The Wolf Of Wall Street star Margot Robbie.
Fresh faced: Despite her night out Ferne still managed to look glamorous on Saturday as she headed out into Liverpool city centre to promote her new book
On the go: Despite her hectic schedule Ferne made sure she looked pristine as she touched up her makeup
Bookworm: Ferne signed copies of her new autobiography, Cross My Heart, at WHSmith in Liverpool
Crowd pleaser: Ferne was joined by a quirky fan who was keen to get his book signed on Saturday afternoon
She has been stunning crowds at Australian Fashion Week 2016 over the past few days.
And Bambi Northwood-Blyth proved her worth once again as she took to her social media pages on Saturday to tease a brand new picture from a photoshoot with high-street brand Mango.
Posing in front of a gorgeous harbour backdrop, the 24-year-old looked absolutely sensational in a chic off-white lace number which featured a sexy off-the-shoulder detail.
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'Enjoying the sunset in style': Bambi Northwood-Blyth proved her worth once again as she took to her social media pages on Saturday to tease a brand new picture from a photoshoot with high-street brand Mango
With her dark tresses left loose in tousled waves, the Australian beauty smouldered while posing seductively in front of the camera lens.
Enjoying the sunset in style, she simply captioned the Instagram snap.
The post comes soon after Bambi dazzled crowds at Fashion Week, where showed off her frame in a bold red fitted mini-dress during an appearance at the Dion Lee show.
Style star! The post comes soon after Bambi dazzled crowds at Fashion Week, where turned heads in a number of striking ensembles
Meanwhile, along with her husband Dan Single, the brunette stunner launched the couple's new pyjama label P.Jame at Sydney Fashion Week.
During a chat with Pedestrian TV, the pair said they were looking forward to beginning their new adventure together, describing their new fashion label as, 'Fun, sexy, indestructive sleepwear.'
When discussing their inspiration to create the sleepwear the lovebirds were asked what they liked to wear to bed - to which, Dan replied: 'Nothing. That's why we created the sleepwear.'
New venture: Along with her husband Dan Single, the brunette stunner launched the couple's new pyjama label P.Jame at Sydney Fashion Week
Wow things: During a chat with Pedestrian TV, the pair said they were looking forward to beginning their new adventure together, describing their new fashion label as, 'Fun, sexy, indestructive sleepwear'
Canadian fashion superstar Winnie Harlow, who suffers from the skin condition vitiligo, was picked to model the PJame range at the launch.
Bambi and Dan, who are known for their eccentric behaviour, tied the knot after a four year engagement in January 2014 in Byron Bay, surrounded by their family and close friends.
They now divide their time between Sydney and New York as well as travelling to luxurious locations when they have time off.
They caused a furore when they appeared on the cover of Vogue US in April 2014, with many criticising the high-end glossy magazine for promoting a reality star.
So Kim Kardashian and her husband Kanye West were naturally the guests of honour at the The Vogue 100 Festival: Fashion, Friendship and Fabulous Lashes talk on Saturday, as they showed their support for the publication's event at the Royal Geographical Society in London.
Kim, 35, looked every inch the fashionista in a glittering pale pink gown as she arrived for the event flanked by the New Slaves rapper.
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Make way! Vogue favourites Kim Kardashian and Kanye West were leading the brigade of stars at the Vogue 100 Festival: Fashion, Friendship and Fabulous Lashes talk on Saturday, held at the Royal Geographical Society in London
The Keeping Up With The Kardashians favourite showcased her famous curves in the classy number, which featured ethereal, flowing sleeves and a below-the-knee cut.
Kim's hourglass figure and newly-trim waist were the focal point of the flattering dress, as the raven haired beauty displayed her recent weight loss.
The reality star recently revealed she is back to her pre-baby weight of 135.8lbs, just five months after welcoming her second child Saint, and has been making the most of every opportunity to show it off.
Kim let her dress do the talking by keeping her accessories to a minimal, donning simple strappy heels.
All that glitters: Kim sparkled from head to toe in the showstopping gown that she teamed with black ankle strap heels
Stylish: The Keeping Up With The Kardashians favourite showcased her famous curves in the classy number, which featured ethereal, flowing sleeves and a below-the-knee cut
Intimate moment: Kanye was seen whispering in his wife's ear as the pair made their way into the venue
Looking good: Kim's hourglass figure and newly-trim waist were the focal point of the flattering dress, as the raven haired beauty displayed her recent weight loss
She styled her hair in voluminous, old Hollywood waves and opted for her favourite nude make-up tones.
Doting husband Kanye - with whom she also raises daughter North - didn't stray far from her side as they made their way into the venue, lacing a protective arm around her waist.
The hip-hop favourite was dressed down in a simple parka, blue chinos and lace up boots for the occasion, letting Kim steal the limelight.
Curve appeal! Kim's ample derriere was on show in the figure hugging cut of her dress
Slimline: The reality star recently revealed she is back to her pre-baby weight of 135.8lbs, just five months after welcoming her second child Saint, and has been making the most of every opportunity to show it off
Glamorous as ever: She styled her hair in voluminous, old Hollywood waves and opted for her favourite nude make-up tones
Figure hugging: The semi sheer dress clung to kim's infamous curves in all the right places
Fashion icon: Kim posed with not a hair out of place as she attended the Vogue Festival on Saturday
Following suit: Kanye didn't stray far from Kim's side as he showed his support for VOGUE, who have championed him and his wife in recent years
Man in black: Kanye's clothes were all the same shade, apart from his contrasting brown boots
The Vogue Festival 2016 encompasses two days of fashion, debate, ideas and fun from some of the biggest names in fashion and entertainment.
Now in its fifth year, the fashion extravaganza will be themed around Vogue's 100th anniversary and boasts talks from the likes of Alessandro Michele, Domenico Dolce, Stefano Gabbana, Charlotte Tilbury and Isabel Marant, along with Kim herself.
The beauty appeared to have made a miraculous recovery after a sleepless night, suffering from jet lag after arriving in the British capital from Los Angeles.
So naturally she picked up her smartphone and began Snapchatting live with her millions of followers as her husband lay in bed beside her.
'It's four in the morning and I am so tired and I can't fall asleep,' Kim says as her rapper husband, who is also awake, makes funny noises.
Bouncing back: Kim appeared to have made a miraculous recovery after her sleepless night, suffering from jet lag after arriving in the British capital from Los Angeles
No sleep tonight: Kim took to social media last night to Snapchat live with her millions of followers as her husband lay in bed beside her
Sitting pretty: Kim showed off her sparkling engagement ring from Kanye as she took her seat on stage at the festival
Talented trio: Kim was joined by top British makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury and Fiona Golfar, Vogue's Editor at Large for the chat
Passion: Kim and Charlotte talked all things beauty for the select crowd
Kim, who is still wearing mascara and eye liner complains that the LuMee light on her phone is dying.
Kanye continues to make funny sounds and at one point in the series of short video clips, he can be heard singing as he lies beside her, before uttering an almighty snore.
'This always happens to me in London. This is so unfair,' says Kim, who still can't fall asleep.
Up all night: 'This always happens to me in London. This is so unfair,' Kim declared in the viral video
Here they come! The showbiz pair caused quite a commotion as they left their London hotel ahead of the event
'He's like, passed out. Can you hear him snoring?'
She then responds to questions about why she had shared Snapchat video of herself taking a pregnancy test after boarding the plane to London on Thursday night.
Kim had shown herself in the airplane's bathroom having peed on a pregnancy test stick after purchasing half a dozen of the testing kits.
Standing tall: Kim smoldered in front of the camera in her form fitting pink dress
Making an exit: Kim strutted her stuff as she left the Vogue festival in London
Crowd pleaser: Many fans gathered outside the venue to try and catch a glimpse of their favourite fashion icons
'I just thought it was funny because I've been so private before,' she explained.
'I didn't get my period this month and I couldn't stand being in a plane for a whole 10 hours and not knowing. So that's why I decided to put it on Snapchat and I'm not pregnant.'
After landing in London, Kim and Kanye went out for dinner with Scott Disick, the ex partner of her older sister Kourtney, with whom he has three young children.
Flower power: Alexa Chung cut a fashionable figure in a floral print trouser suit and brogues
Eye-catching: The glamour continued as other guests arrived for the Vogue event. Lauren Santo Domingo opted for a dramatic effect with huge bow detailing on her black dress
Making her entrance: The contributing editor at Vogue looked sensational in her chic all-black look
Her fitness tapes became a worldwide sensation in the 1980s.
And Jane Fonda proved that her exercise techniques really do work as she showed off a glimpse of her enviably taut stomach while filming in Malibu on Friday.
The 78-year-old looked a vision of youth as she stepped outside for a stretch in between takes for her Netflix show, Grace And Frankie.
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Youthful: Jane Fonda proved that her exercise techniques really do work as she showed off a glimpse of her enviably taut stomach while filming in Malibu on Friday
Jane cut an elegant figure as she lapped up the Californian sunshine in a long line baby pink cardigan, which was finished with a ladylike waterfall cut.
The actress kept the rest of her look simple as she donned a plain white t-shirt and a pair of black flared trousers that neatly grazed her ankles.
But despite the sizzling temperatures, Jane couldn't bare to be parted from her socks and she ripped up the style rule book as she teamed them with some black slip-on sandals.
Sun salutations: The 78-year-old looked a vision of youth as she stepped outside for a stretch in between takes for her Netflix show, Grace And Frankie
The TV star looked typically glamorous while on set as she wore a full face of makeup - including some heavily blushed cheeks.
And she styled her shoulder length golden locks into a big bouncy blow dry, with some light bangs to frame her heart shaped face.
Jane was seen looking up to the sky in the shots, as she reached her hands up in the air to release tension in her shoulders.
Meanwhile, her assistant was on hand to hold her adorable white dog and his cushioned bed.
Graceful and Frankie: Jane cut an elegant figure as she lapped up the Californian sunshine as she sported a long line baby pink cardigan, which was finished with a ladylike waterfall cut
Grace And Frankie is now in its third season.
The series follows Jane's character Grace, a retired cosmetics mogul, and Lily's Frankie, a hippie art teacher, whose husbands, Robert (Martin Sheen) and Sol (Sam Waterston), are successful divorce lawyers in San Diego.
Grace and Frankie's lives are turned upside down when Robert and Sol announce that they are in love with each other and are leaving their wives, with the women forced to live together as they navigate the next chapter of their lives.
The programme has received much praise around the world and last year Lily Tomlin, 76, scored an Emmy nomination for best actress in a comedy series for her role as hippie art teacher Frankie Bergstein.
She never fails to amaze on the red carpet, and Bella Heathcote was given the perfect opportunity to work her magic once again on Friday night.
The 28-year-old oozed heaps of elegance as she arrived at the premiere of her new movie, The Neon Demon, during the 69th Cannes Film Festival.
Cutting a flawless figure outside the Palais Des Festivals, the Australian beauty highlighted her slender physique in a statement red number.
Stealing the limelight: Bella Heathcote oozed heaps of elegance as she arrived at the premiere of her new movie, The Neon Demon, during the 69th Cannes Film Festival, on Friday
The strapless ensemble, which featured heavily detailed embellishment and a tulle overlay, was styled further with an envy-inducing pair of gold strappy heels.
Wearing her blonde tresses in sleek waves, Bella finished her look with dramatic eyeshadow, a slick of mascara on her lashes and plenty of lip shine tainted on her lips.
On the red carpet, before the exclusive screening, she mingled with her fellow stars, including Elle Fanning, Kirsten Dunst and Mads Mikkelsen.
Bright move! Cutting a flawless figure outside the Palais Des Festivals, the Australian beauty highlighted her slender physique in a statement red number
Standing tall: The strapless ensemble, which featured heavily detailed embellishment and a tulle overlay, was styled further with an envy-inducing pair of gold strappy heels
Following the night's proceedings, the starlet took to her social media sites to post a snap from the glamorous screening - where she was joined by fellow Aussie, Ashley Hart.
She captioned the snap: 'thanks for being my super hot wing-woman @ashleyhart1111.'
Meanwhile, Bella has been busy filming her latest venture, Fifty Shades Darker, which stars Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson.
As the second installment of the highly lucrative adaptations of James' erotic novel trilogy of the same name, Fifty Shades Darker picks up three days after the first novel finishes.
A beauty: Wearing her blonde tresses in sleek waves, Bella finished her look with dramatic eyeshadow, a slick of mascara on her lashes and plenty of lip shine tainted on her lips
Beaming: She appeared to be in great spirits while posing up a storm at the exclusive event
Doing her thing: The pretty blonde worked her magic on the red carpet like a true professional
It is understood that the final film in the trilogy, Fifty Shades Freed, will be shot back-to-back with Fifty Shades Darker, on which James Foley has replaced Sam Taylor-Johnson as director.
The actress - who plays Christian Grey's ex-lover Leila - is most known in her home country in the recurring role of Amanda Fowler in the long-running Australian soap Neighbours.
Bella shot to international stardom when she was selected by Tim Burton to play Victoria Winters and Josette du Pres in his gothic comedy Dark Shadows alongside Johnny Depp in 2012.
Party time: Bella joined Karl Glusman at the afterparty for Neon Demon in association with BULLDOG Gin
From small screen to big: The actress is most known in her home country in the recurring role of Amanda Fowler in the long-running Australian soap Neighbours
Australian cooking export Curtis Stone last week struck gold in the US, becoming the inaugural host of a My Kitchen Rules spin-off.
And now former MasterChef contestant Hayden Quinn is following in his footsteps, starring with good mate Dan Churchill in a new series of the cooking show that gave Stone his big break.
'It was a real adventure and a boys' road trip,' the 29-year-old told Daily Mail Australia about his experience on Surfing the Menu: The Next Generation.
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Hayden Quinn (left) and Dan Churchill (right) spent two months last September and October traveling 14,000km from Broome to Byron Bay in an old Volkswagen Beetle, stopping 17 times
The pair spent two months last September and October traveling 14,000km from Broome to Byron Bay in an old Volkswagen Beetle, stopping 17 times to cook and experience Australia.
'We met some incredible people, cooked up some amazing food, shared some stories, and had a surf along the way,' Hayden said.
The show is a revamp of Stone and Ben O'Donoghue's 2004 odyssey from the Cairns Highlands to Kakadu, Albany to the Mornington Peninsula.
Following his footsteps: Surfing the Menu is where Curtis Stone (left), who was last week tapped to host the American version of My Kitchen Rules, got his big break. Now Hayden (right) is taking the same path
'It was a real adventure and a boys' road trip': The 29-year-old recounted his experience on Surfing the Menu: The Next Generation to Daily Mail Australia
Exciting journey: Quinn on Saturday reflected on the making of the new show, which screens at 6pm on Sunday, recounting how hot the ancient car was in the tropics and their misadventures with kitesurfing
Stone last year told News Corp it was the best cooking show he had ever done.
'It was such a beautiful show to make and get to travel, meet food producers and your constantly learning, jumping on and off of boats and out of planes there's not much to dislike,' he said.
Quinn on Saturday reflected on the making of the new show, which screens at 6pm on Sunday, recounting how hot the ancient car was in the tropics and their misadventures with kitesurfing.
Best was first: Stone, 40, said Surfing the Menu was the best cooking show he had ever done
The simple food he and Dan cooked was also to his liking as he said while he enjoys watching the 'aspirational' dishes on shows like MasterChef, he wants viewers to be able to have a go too.
'My number one rule when it comes to creating recipes is that it's got to be achievable by my mates and their girlfriends and my grandma or whoever,' he told the Herald Sun.
The hunky Sydney boy, who also runs triathlons, was already eyeing a move to the U.S. where his girlfriend, model Jax Raynor, lives.
'I fell in love with the place and have been back 13 or 14 times since and to make a career or have a professional angle over there would be absolutely spectacular and we're definitely working on some ideas around getting over to the US,' he said.
You've got to be equally glamorous if your pals include Alessandra Ambrosio and Heidi Klum.
And Ana Beatriz Barros certainly proved her case as she put on the ultimate seductive display during an intimate photoshoot on the balcony of the famous Hotel Martinez in Cannes, which has seen many celebrities strike a pose.
The 33-year-old Brazilian model looked sensational as she leaned forward in her gown, offering a glimpse of her impressive cleavage.
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Loving the limelight: Ana Beatriz Barros put on the ultimate sex kitten display during an intimate photoshoot on Friday at the Hotel Martinez in Cannes
The thick white robe, which was tied around her waist, showed off her flawless decolletage as she looked up and closed her eyes.
A lavish diamond necklace rested on her collarbone, while her long honey brown tresses were blow-dried to movie-star perfection and cascaded down her side as her face caught the light.
Her perfectly chiselled cheekbones were impeccably contoured and allowed the beauty to work her angles as a lighting man helped her capture the perfect shot.
Stunning: The thick white robe, which was tied around her waist was strategically positioned down her arms, showed off her flawless decolletage
Eye-catching: The Brazilian model looked sensational as she leaned forth in her gown which fell off her shoulders, giving way to her impressively busty cleavage in all its glory
Fierce: A lavish diamond necklace rested on her collarbone, while her long honey brown tresses were blow-dried to movie-star perfection and cascaded down her side as her face caught the light
All the elements combined: A lighting man helped her capture the perfect shot
Look at that face! Her perfectly chiselled cheekbones were impeccably contoured and allowed the beauty to work her angles
Her pinky finger was adorned with a huge rock as she grabbed on to the intricately blue and gold designed balcony edge.
A seasoned professional, the beauty moved slightly between each frame as she allowed the photographer to catch all the eye-catching shots deemed necessary.
After the shoot, she was spotted chilling by herself on the balcony where she did up her robe to cover her ample assets and took in her lush environment.
Downtime: After the shoot was over, she covered her cleavage and chilled by herself on the balcony
Good spot for a selfie! The famous Cannes balcony has seen many celebrities strike a pose
Ana seems to be having the time of her life since arriving at Cannes.
She joined Hollywood's A-list at the amfAR Cinema Against AIDS Gala on Thursday night, where she stunned once again in a blush pink plunging gown which featured a thigh high split.
Ana posed up a storm with Alessandra, who she's known since her early teens.
Besties: Ana posed up a storm with Alessandra Ambrosio at the amfAR Cinema Against AIDS Gala on Thursday night. She's known her since her early teens
The day before she sizzled in a simple strapless red gown at L'Oreal Paris Blue Obsession Party.
The stunning number hugged every inch of statuesque frame and her scraped back hair only accentuated her model goods.
The 5 ft 11 in beauty was discovered at the age of 13 and has gone on to model in some high profile campaigns such as Guess and Victoria's Secrets.
Lady in red! On Wednesday, Ana sizzled in a simple strapless red gown at L'Oreal Paris Blue Obsession Party
She's carving out a career in fashion just like her supermodel sibling.
And good genes are clearly not the only thing Lottie Moss has inherited from her big sister Kate since the 18-year-old star was channeling a rock chic vibe as she ventured out in Brighton.
The rising star was casually clad for her outing, dressing up her look with a funky skull-print scarf - an accessory that was reminiscent of the 42-year-old catwalk queen's edgy style - while forgoing proper footwear.
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Just rolled out of bed! Lottie Moss was following in big sister Kate's footsteps in her casual, rock 'n' roll inspired ensemble... but swapped the 42-year-old supermodel's favoured biker boots for pink fluffy slippers
Lottie looked like she'd just rolled out of bed in her pink fluffy slippers, which she paired with pop socks.
She opted for comfortable clothes, matching slim-fitting black trousers with a simple white jumper.
The blonde beauty accentuated her striking features with just a hint of make-up, drawing attention to her chiselled cheekbones with blusher.
Simple style: The teen model opted for comfortable clothes, matching slim-fitting black trousers with a simple white jumper
Lottie is fresh from her visit to Cannes, where she stole the show at the Chopard Wild Party.
The model turned out in a Balmain fall 2016 embellished fringe gown, which left her half-sister very much in the sartorial shade.
Lottie landed her first Vogue cover in April at the age of 18 - one year earlier than Kate, who graced the cover age 19.
Good genes: The blonde beauty accentuated her striking features with just a hint of make-up, drawing attention to her chiselled cheekbones with blusher
She is set in good stead to go far in the high-fashion business as older half-sibling Kate has graced the cover of British Vogue no less than 30 times with additional appearances on the publication's global issues.
Lottie first transformed into a cover girl for L'Officiel's March issue last month and in the accompanying interview, she explained she feels 'no pressure' to live up to Kate's legacy.
She told the prestigious style bible: 'I am who I am and I do what I want, whether that is modelling or anything else. The success of my sister does not affect me in my choices. I feel no pressure in that respect.'
Lottie described 42-year-old Kate as 'simply someone other than me' and added it's 'my turn to tell my own story'.
Nicola Peltz was careful not to go flying on Friday as she left The Nice Guy in West Hollywood after a night of partying.
The 21-year-old was sporting a pair of dangerously high black platform boots with spindly stiletto heels, and kept a firm grip on her big brother Will.
Will, 29, led the way to their awaiting car as Nicola clutched onto his arm and hurried along behind him.
Be careful: Nicola Peltz held on tight to brother Will as they left The Nice Guy in West Hollywood on Friday
The actress teamed her treacherous heels with a high-necked black top and dark skinny jeans, with a shiny silver leather jacket over the top.
Nicola wore her blonde hair down and highlighted her gorgeous features with natural make-up.
Her brother, who is also an actor, was dressed casually in a black T-shirt, jeans and trainers with a navy bomber jacket.
Will is best known for his roles in In Time, Paranoia and Unfriended, and although they hail from New York, he lives in LA with his little sister.
Sky's the limit: The actress was sporting a pair of dangerously high black platform boots with spindly heels
Meanwhile Nicola shot to fame after portraying Katara in 2010's The Last Airbender, before landing the role of Bradley Martin in Bates Motel in 2013.
The beauty left the show last year, after appearing as Mark Wahlberg's on-screen daughter in 2014's Transformers: Age Of Extinction.
She most recently starred alongside Christina Applegate and Billy Crudup in Youth Of Oregon, which hit cinemas last month.
Silver screen siren: Nicola was also wearing a black top and dark skinny jeans with a silver leather jacket
The film follows a man who drives his prickly 80-year-old father-in-law across the country so that he can be legally euthanised in Oregon.
In addition, the rising star is working on a pilot for Hulu, called When The Street Lights Go On, which is about the murder of a high school girl and her teacher in a suburban town in 1983.
Nicola counts Gigi Hadid and Olivia Culpo as her close friends, and recently appeared in Gigi's boyfriend Zayn Malik's music video.
Close bond: Will, 29, is an actor like his 21-year-old little sister, and the pair live together in Los Angeles. Nicola recently revealed that their parents didn't want them to get into acting
Nicola said that Gigi had no problem with her appearing in the video for the song It's You, which is said to be inspired by his break-up with former fiancee Perrie Edwards.
But she admits that her parents never wanted her or Will to become famous.
'They didn't want us to be actors. They're totally against Hollywood,' she told MarieClaire.com. 'I don't know what I would do if I didn't live out here with my brother. He's my best friend.'
The X Factor came under intense scrutiny from fans last year, with the final pulling in their lowest viewing figures ever.
But Simon Cowell, 56, has revealed he holds high hopes for the next series, as he believes a complete shake-up of the judging panel will help reconnect the audience with the show.
Speaking to the Daily Mirror, he said: 'The fans didn't like last year's panel, you can't ignore them.'
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The Shake Factor: The X Factor came under intense scrutiny from fans last year, with the final pulling in their lowest viewing figures ever. But Simon Cowell, 56, has revealed he holds high hopes for the next series, as he believes a complete shake-up of the judging panel will help reconnect the audience
With last year's judges Rita Ora, Nick Grimshaw and Cheryl not returning, the only remaining figure is Simon, prompting a complete reshuffle of the show.
Veteran judge Louis Walsh is set to return after a series away from the show, whilst Sharon Osbourne and Nicole Scherzinger have been tipped to fill the remaining seats.
But with hosts Caroline Flack and Olly Murs also leaving the series, it is the return of presenter Dermot O'Leary that has Simon most confident about bringing back the viewers.
Axed: The only remaining member of last year's X Factor team is show creator Simon. (L-R) Olly Murs, Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, Nick Grimshaw, Caroline Flack and Rita Ora
Here come the boys! Veteran judge Louis Walsh is set to return after a series away from the show and will take his place on the judging panel alongside Simon Cowell
Describing the Irish star's shock exit last year as a 'misunderstanding,' he claimed the pair did not communicate properly.
'I thought he wanted to go and he probably thought I wanted him to leave,' Simon explained.
Revealing that the pair had been able to speak freely about plans for the future, the music mogul added that they had been working together on new ideas to bring back the magic of the show.
Moving on: Hosts Caroline Flack and Olly Murs are also leaving the series, so it is the return of presenter Dermot O'Leary that has Simon most confident about bringing back the viewers
Back for good: Describing Dermot O'Leary;s shock exit last year as a 'misunderstanding,' Simon claimed the pair did not communicate properly before the Irish star quit
With the return of stars synonymous with the X Factor brand, Simon revealed that the singing show would be more like the original show that fans fell in love with, less like in recent years with the new developments and judges.
'I like reunions and I like the idea of what I call "The best of The X Factor,"' he said of the show.
With preliminary auditions for the 13th series already begun, a final line up for the panel is no doubt imminent.
No going back: Last year's judges Nick Grimshaw, Cheryl and Rita Ora have a not returning, the only remaining figure is Simon, prompting a complete reshuffle of the show
Iconic: Sharon Osbourne has also been tipped to return to the X Factor after she won over the audience with her outrageous antics over the first three seasons. She also returned in season ten
The first series of The X Factor began in 2004 with Simon, Louis and Sharon on the judging panel and Kate Thornton as presenter.
Whilst no changes were made to the line-up for the first three series, since 2007 Dannii Minogue; Cheryl; Gary Barlow; Kelly Rowland; Tulisa; Nicole Scherzinger; Mel B; Nick Grimshaw and Rita Ora have all acted as judges on the show.
Since Dermot took over as presenter in season four, only Caroline Flack and Olly Murs have taken on the role, but were widely slammed by viewers.
Kylie Jenner just signed her older sister Kourtney up on an online dating site so that was one reason to celebrate.
The 18-year-old had something to advertise too as she partied with Khloe, 31, and Kourtney, 37, at Henry's in West Hollywood, California on Friday night.
Kylie enjoyed being the center of attention while flashing her cleavage in a very low-cut white top and shared the fun via Snapchat.
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Something to advertise? Kylie Jenner went partying with her sisters Khloe and Kourtney at Henry's in West Hollywood on Friday night and shared the fun via Snapchat
The youngest of the Kardashian-Jenner clan was seen grooving in a dimly lit nightclub, swaying between her elder siblings with a sly smile on her face.
Khloe moved in for a close up, her long blonde-highlighted hair catching the light of the camera phone.
Coincidentally, Khloe's ex-boyfriend James Harden was also at the club with his entourage, as TMZ reported.
Then Kourtney came into focus while taking a swig from a bottle of beer as the music raged on.
Sister, sister: Kourtney looked a bit woozy while Khloe was having a wild time
A video posted by Kylie Jenner Snapchats (@kylizzlesnapchats) on May 21, 2016 at 6:57am PDT
Girls gone wild: Kylie flaunted cleavage in a low-cut top
Kourtney, who was dressed in a black scoop-necked top and black choker, looked a little woozy in the second video posted by her enterprising little sister.
Earlier in the day, Kylie took the initiative and signed on her elder sibling to the Bumble app dating site, sharing the easy step-by-step process on Snapchat.
Kylie created the profile and hand-picked the photos that she hoped would entice the opposite sex including a snap of Kourtney lounging in a fur-covered chair in just a black corset dress with thigh-high boots.
Guzzle it: Kourtney appeared to be sipping Stella Artois beer
A video posted by Kylie Jenner Snapchats (@kylizzlesnapchats) on May 21, 2016 at 6:57am PDT
Fun, fun, fun: Kylie appeared to be having a blast as the music blared on
Kylie felt it was time that mother-of-three Kourtney, 37, who's been single since her split from Scott Disick last July, get out there and mingle.
And the teen entrepreneur, who just broke up with rapper Tyga herself for good or so it seems, obviously had some time on her hands.
Kylie's Snapchat began with her flashing Kourtney's iPhone in her nicely manicured hand.
Matchmaker: Kylie Jenner took charge and signed Kourtney up on the Bumble dating app and shared the easy step-by-step process on Snapchat
Sexy and to the point: The 18-year-old chose this picture of Kourtney in corset dress and thigh-high boots for the profile
Come hither look: Kourtney's photo - which was taken in April - will certainly lure the bees on Bumble
'I have Kourtney's phone': Kylie said, 'I know her password. Should I go through her text messages and read them to you guys?'
Bright idea: Like a light bulb going on, sly and catlike Kylie said, 'I think she needs to be on Bumble'
'I have Kourtney's phone, I know her password. Should I go through her text messages and read them to you guys?' she asked.
'So, I think she's gonna kill me if I read her text messages, so I think I think I'm gonna set her up for Bumble,' Kylie eventually decided, adding: 'I think she needs to be on Bumble.'
Like Tinder, Bubble is an app that enables people to communicate by swiping right and adding each other to their 'hive' of connections.
See the resemblance? Kylie included a picture of Wednesday from The Addams Family as Kourtney's wallpaper along with the quote, 'I hate everything'
It's in the profile: Kourtney's age and alma mater were included in her profile
Silly selfie: Kylie included a photo of Kourtney making a silly face for a bathroom selfie
The woman has to make the first move and say something within 24 hours or she loses the connection.
Showing off her matchmaking skills, Kylie switched on Kourtney's phone showing a picture of Wednesday from The Addams Family as her wallpaper along with the quote, 'I hate everything.'
Kourtney's new profile followed: 'Kourtney Kardashian, 37,' along with education (the University of Arizona) and year she graduated (2001).
That was fun: Kylie appeared to be admiring her handiwork
Big sister approves: Kourtney wasn't mad at Kylie for meddling in her love life, telling E! News: 'That's what sisters do' and added she liked Bumble because 'the women are in charge'
Kylie was seen speaking to her sister in her nonchalant way, 'Hey Kourtney.'
'Did you take my phone?' Kourtney wanted to know, to which Kylie replied, 'I set you up for a dating profile.'
'What? Wait, what is this? These are the photos you picked?'
Besides the one of Kourtney relaxing in the furry armchair, which was taken in April, photos included the single mom in bathroom selfie mode and clad in lacy top and lounging trousers.
Ex factor: Kourtney's former fiance and the father of her three children, Scott Disick, has moved on and started dating other women; he was pictured January 16
Although she's maintained she hates to date, Kourtney wasn't mad at Kylie for meddling in her life life and fixing her up on the female-driven Bumble dating app.
'That's what sisters do,' Kourtney told E! News. 'But it's cool that the women are in charge. It's a great idea.'
Kourtney's main focus of late has been raising her three children, Mason, six, Penelope, three, and Reign, one, and helping her ex Scott Disick to stay on the straight and sober path.
Her envious curves and ample assets led Playboy magazine to name her Playmate of the Year in 1997.
And on Saturday Swedish model Victoria Silvstedt proved that she's still got it as she hit the pool at the iconic Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc following the Cannes Film Festival.
Wearing a red one-piece and letting her blonde locks flow, the 41-year-old bombshell channeled Pamela Anderson's glory days on Baywatch - replete with sun-kissed glow and provocative fish gape mouth.
She's still got it: On Saturday Swedish model Victoria Silvstedt hit the pool at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc
The former Miss Sweden put on a busty display in the sizzling swimsuit which included a silver tassel at her bra line and ties at her hips.
Her on-trend beachwear included cut outs on each side, allowing Victoria to show off her even tan and silky smooth obliques.
Keen to fight off the rays, she wore chic aviator sunglasses with gold rims.
Doppelganger: Wearing a red one-piece and letting her blonde locks flow, the 41-year-old stunner channeled Pamela Anderson and her glory days on Baywatch
Baby got back: The former Miss Sweden showed off her peachy derriere as she climbed the stairs
Cellulite-free zone: Playboy's Playmate of the Year in 1997, Victoria showed little sign of ageing when leaving the pool
Tied-up: Victoria's bathing showed off her ample assets and included ties at the hips
Confident in her 5ft 10in frame, the leggy lady went barefoot, showing off her endlessly lithe legs as she scaled the staircase from pool to hotel.
Perhaps exhausted from the many social events and parties she has attended since arriving in Cannes last week, she at times rested on her ascent, placing her gym-honed arms on the staircase.
The former Playmate of the Year has been making waves at home, having recently appeared on a Swedish reality series alongside a host of famous personalities, which was broadcast on Swedish network TV3.
Effortless beauty: Confident in her 5ft 10in frame, the leggy lady went barefoot, showing off her endlessly lithe legs as she scaled the staircase from pool to hotel
Work it: The blonde bombshell made sure to show off every angle of her figure in her racy swimwear
Cooling off: The model enjoyed a refreshing dip before drying off as she headed back to top up her tan
Despite her obvious beauty and ability to work a variety of looks, Victoria has previously opened up about her introduction to modelling and her discomfort with the catwalk.
Speaking to Female First, she said: I started very young to model in Paris when I was 18, I remember like starving myself to fit into the clothes and it was an amazing experience but you know I did shows for Valentino, Chanel, so it was really prestigious.
But it never felt like it was my thing, I'm not like a runway skinny model, I'm more curvy. It was torture, I put myself through starvation, you know torturing myself.
Tanned and toned: Wearing a tiny crocheted dress that showed off her ample curves, Victoria Silvstedt opted for practical Valentino sandals as she arrived at Eden Roc in Cannes on Friday
Film producer Jonathan Sothcott, pictured, who is aiming to breathe new life into the Carry On series, has been accused of failing to pay staff
News that the first Carry On films for 25 years are in the pipeline was a hot topic of conversation at Cannes last week.
But now it has emerged that the man aiming to breathe new life into a much-loved British institution is already embroiled in his own carry-on an investigation by the taxman, and financial disputes with film world colleagues.
Independent producer Jonathan Sothcott is accused of failing to pay staff, and a Facebook group called Jonathan Sothcott Fraud Investigation has been set up to encourage other alleged victims to come forward.
Sothcott announced last week that he intends to offer a lead Carry On role to Sheridan Smith currently taking a break from her stage role in Funny Girl after suffering from exhaustion.
Despite saying on Twitter that he would fly to Cannes to reveal plans for Carry On Doctor and Carry On Campus, Sothcott instead made his announcement from a Mayfair bar which he dubbed Carry On HQ.
In the past decade, nine Sothcott film companies have been dissolved. Two were wound up by court order this year, including Top Dog Films after a petition by creditors.
His lawyer told me last night: Each company has a story that would explain what happened. He confirmed that an HMRC investigation was under way.
Sothcott who made 2013s Vendetta starring Danny Dyer remains a director of ten film companies. Hereford Films, which is set to produce the Carry On franchise, is officially dormant.
Ashley Darkwood, who worked as a stunt performer on one of Sothcotts films and is one of the Facebook groups 293 followers, tells me: He owes me. I wasnt paid for a lot of the scenes I was in.
Actor Joel Morris said: When I tried to contact him about pay, I was blocked on all social media by his related accounts. I didnt receive any payment until a year later.
And Jonathan Glendenning added: He made me direct a film for him, then screwed me over. It was a scam.
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The Carry On series made household names of stars including Sid James, second left, and Joan Sims, second right
But producer Jonathan does not seem too concerned, telling me last night: Its just some stalker making it all up. None of its true I dont even know who the nutter is.
Last night Carry On Films Ltd, which owns the rights to the franchise, said: We are aware of the claims against Mr Sothcott and our lawyers are investigating. His contract has not yet been signed.
I was strolling along La Croisette with former EastEnders star Sid Owen when he was robbed by one of his fans!
The man hugged Sid, told him how much he loved him then helped himself to the stars phone and wallet from his blazer pocket.
He's renowned for his portrayal of military figures.
But Brad Pitt proved he was adept at shadowy undercover roles too, as he threw himself into the filming of his new movie Allied in Las Palmas on Saturday.
The 52-year-old actor was joined by his co-star Marion Cotillard on set and the pair drew crowds of locals, on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria, eager to catch a glimpse of the Hollywood stars.
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Busy: Brad Pitt didn't slacken the pace as he threw himself into the filming of his new movie Allied in the new location of Las Palmas on Saturday
Pitt, who plays Max Vatan, a spy assassin in the Second World War thriller, was seen in a range of period costumes on set.
The American director, Robert Zemeckis, was at one point spotted giving directions to Pitt - who was wearing black tie - next to a vintage motor car.
Later, during filming, he changed into a brown striped shirt and patterned tie - finished off with braces.
Famous faces: Pitt was joined by his co-star Marion Cotillard on set as they filmed an evening scene
Hello there: The pair drew crowds of locals, on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria, eager to catch a glimpse of the Hollywood stars
Dashing: Pitt, who plays Max Vatan, a spy assassin in the Second World War thriller, was seen in a range of period costumes on set
Marion Cotillard, 40, who has been cast as French spy Marianne Beausejour, was also seen having her hair set into a period style and wearing a beautiful mint green dress.
The only concession to modernity was the newest white iPhone she held in her perfectly manicured hands.
Earlier this month filming for the epic film took place in rural Oxfordshire, where Pitt was joined by a host of extras.
Looking good: The actor changed into a brown striped shirt and patterned tie - finished off with braces
Stepping out in style: Brad certainly looked the part as he filmed in a vintage car
Suited and booted: Pitt also stars alongside Mean Girls actress Lizzy Caplan and Downton Abbey's Matthew Goode in the war drama
Period charm: The American director, Robert Zemeckis, was at one point spotted giving directions to Pitt - who was wearing black tie - next to the motor car
Allied, set in 1942, is based on the true story about two assassins who fall in love during a war mission.
The previously untitled film sees Max Vatan, fall in love with Marianne Beausejour during a mission to kill a German ambassador holed up in Casablanca.
According to uinterview, 'the two ultimately marry and start a family but Max soon learns that Marianne is likely a Nazi spy'.
Pitt also stars alongside Mean Girls actress Lizzy Caplan and Downton Abbey's Matthew Goode in the war drama.
Follow me: Allied, set in 1942, is based on the true story about two assassins who fall in love during a war mission
On a mission: The previously untitled film sees Max Vatan, fall in love with Marianne Beausejour during a mission to kill a German ambassador holed up in Casablanca
The film is slated for release later this year on November 23.
While Pitt looks set to be working in England for the foreseeable future, he won't have to make do without his wife, Angelina Jolie, and their six children - Maddox, 14; Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, nine, and seven-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.
They reportedly moved into an eight-bedroom, 14,700-per-month, rented house in Surrey at the end of February.
As reported by Us Weekly, The Jolie-Pitt's new family home is described as a 'beautiful, White House-style' home in the well-heeled county, which is popular with commuters to London.
In addition to eight-bedrooms, the spacious estate has an indoor pool and gym, and is close to the River Thames.
Dangerous liaison: While Brad sported a classic black suit, Marion stunned in silk ensemble
Laid back: Earlier this month filming for the epic film took place in rural Oxfordshire, where Pitt was joined by a host of extras
Michael Jackson left a legacy of music and mystery when he suddenly died in 2009, and a secret lover as well apparently.
Shana Mangatal has written a book about the clandestine relationship she claims to have had with The Gloved One, whom she calls 'my first love.'
Michael and Me: The Untold Story of Michael Jacksons Secret Romance comes out in August but details have emerged about Shana and the late entertainer via Amazon.com.
'Michael and Me...' Shana Mangatal - Michael Jackson's alleged secret lover - has penned a book describing their relationship to be published in August
'Their relationship was quiet and sweet and real - a closely guarded secret, known only to a few trusted employees and friends,' reveals the press release on Amazon.com.
'She witnessed the scandals, lawsuits, the release of groundbreaking albums and subsequent world tours, big-budget short films, addictions.'
In the book, Shana described her feelings for Michael, the good and the bad.
'Having Michael Jackson as my first love was not only a blessing, but a curse,' she wrote, according to Page Six.
'First love': The actress wrote, 'Having Michael Jackson as my first love was not only a blessing, but a curse'
Shana rose to Michael's defense during his child sexual allegations, for which he was acquitted in June of 2005.
'Michael had deep feelings for Shana. She knew a side of him that he kept closely guarded. I am so happy she is finally ready to tell her story,' Scott 'House' Shaffer, Jackson's former personal assistant 1991 to 1998, is quoted in the Amazon.com press release.
Jackson never confirmed a relationship with Shana but she accompanied the King Of Pop on tour, according to Page Six.
Ghosts: Shana appeared in Michael's 40-minute short film Ghosts about a mysterious Maestro with supernatural powers who is forced away from his small town all the way to New York City
Details: The actress' relationship with Michael 'was quiet and sweet and real - a closely guarded secret, known only to a few trusted employees and friends,' reveals the press release on Amazon.com
The actress, now about 45 years old, appeared in Michael's Ghosts short film in 1997 about a scary Maestro with supernatural powers being pushed from a small town all the way to New York City.
Ghosts was 40 minutes long and co-written by master horror storyteller Stephen King and with special effects by the late Stan Winston.
Jackson died on June 25, 2009 at the age of 50, and the coroner ruled that he died from 'an overdose of propofol in combination with several sedatives,' according to CNN.com.
The pop star's children, Prince, 19, Paris, 18, and Blanket, 14, are being raised by their grandmother and guardian Katherine Jackson and their uncle and co-guardian TJ Jackson.
He's firmly entrenched in the Hollywood glitterati and is used to the finest service the world has to offer.
But on the Friday night's episode of The Graham Norton Show, actor Ryan Gosling recounted a decidedly unglamorous incident in which he wound up with a mouthful of 'belly hair' from his masseur.
'I had an awful experience having a Turkish massage where this guy's idea of massage was to take one leg and the other arm and try to connect it behind my back. And then his belly went in my mouth.' he revealed.
Bad service: During Friday night's episode of The Graham Norton Show, actor Ryan Gosling recounted an unfortunate incident in which he wound up with a mouthful of 'belly hair' from his masseur
'And you know when you get something weird in your mouth and, if you're eating something, your brain sends your tongue to figure out what it is?
'It's not a conscious thought. My tongue was like, "What is that?" It's a hairy belly!'
The 35-year-old hunk was appearing on the show alongside Russell Crowe to promote their new film The Nice Guys, which hits British cinemas on June 3.
The film sees Crowe play a contract killer to Gosling's private investigator, with the pair working together to solve the mysterious disappearance of a porn star in 1970s Los Angeles.
What a pair! The 35-year-old hunk was appearing on the show alongside Russell Crowe to promote their new film The Nice Guys, which hits British cinemas on June 3
Success: The film has won rave reviews from film critics across the world and is expected to do well commercially too, with projected takings of around $10 million on its opening weekend in the US
It has won rave reviews from film critics across the world and is expected to do well commercially too, with projected takings of around $10 million on its opening weekend in the US.
Filming for the movie began back in late 2014 in Atlanta and Decatur, Georgia, and additional filming took place in Los Angeles.
Ryan recently revealed he has quit smoking after he unexpectedly gassed himself on lung-damaging fumes while shooting the film, in which he portrays chain-smoking private investigator Holland March.
Smart: Ryan and Russell proved their bromance was very much alive as they smiled for the cameras and happily chatted away at the Italian premiere of their film The Nice Guys on Friday evening
He explained: 'I use to [smoke], but in this movie I smoked myself out. I never want another cigarette again!
'It really is the greatest way to quit - it's hard to come by - you really have to get a film where you have to smoke all the time, but I highly recommend it if you are trying to quit.'
And smoking wasn't the only bad habit the stud was force to pick up for the movie as he was also expected to play drunk.
But he has admitted that towards the end he didn't really need to act anymore as he and Russell would regularly rock up to set hungover after hours of boozing the night before.
He explained: 'In terms of the drinking, I am supposed to be drunk all the time in the film, but it actually worked out because I went out with Russell right before we started shooting, so I was still drunk the entire shoot. So I never had to play drunk once, I was "Scooby Doo-py" all day long."
Bromance: The dapper duo wore matching tuxedos and cut suave figures as they made their way to the latest premiere in Rome
It's enough to make Miss Moneypenny weep.
Daniel Craig has reportedly said he is done with the role of James Bond.
After four hugely successful films and amid rumours that hes turned down an offer of 68 million to make two more, Craig is apparently giving up his licence to kill, handing back the keys to the Aston Martin and hanging up his Walther PPK.
007: Both The Night Manager's Tom Hiddleston (left) and Idris Elba (right) have both been named in the inevitable flurry of speculation about who will follow Daniel Craig in the role
So a flurry of speculation was inevitable, heightened by apparent sightings of Tom Hiddleston star of the BBCs recent Sunday- night spy thriller, The Night Manager in conversation with Bond producer Barbara Broccoli and director Sam Mendes.
Damian Lewis, James Norton, Aidan Turner and Idris Elba are also said to be in the crosshairs for the role.
Hiddleston is certainly the bookmakers favourite, but if the history of a franchise that has spanned 54 years and 24 films tells us anything, it is that nothing in the world of 007 can be taken for granted.
Long before Ursula Andress emerged from the sea in that bikini in the first James Bond film, Dr No released in October 1962 there were rows and disagreements about who should play the British Secret Service agent with a fondness for gorgeous women, fast cars and vodka martinis.
When Ian Fleming, creator of the character and writer of the James Bond novels, met Sean Connery for the first time in 1961, he famously said: That couldnt be further from my idea of James Bond. Everything was wrong: the face, the accent, the hair.
Leading men: Damian Lewis (left), James Norton (centre) and Aidan Turner (right) are also said to be in the crosshairs for the role
After a decade in the role, Craig will be a tough act to follow, because its largely thanks to him and those famously snug swimming trunks that both character and franchise are in such rude health.
In a 21st Century film world where modern action heroes such as Jason Bourne could easily have consigned Bond to history, its the muscular and hugely charismatic Craig who has ensured that the characters popularity endures so strongly.
So who will pick up the keys to the bullet-proof Aston Martin next and just how would they measure up in some of the most famous Bond scenes captured on celluloid?
Imagining them in exotic situ might seem mission impossible, but here The Mail on Sunday has come to the rescue of the Bond producers by doing the hard work for them.
Bonds world is one of guns and gadgets, beautiful women and villainous baddies its a tough job but someone has to do it. So who do you think fits the part best?
Tom Hiddleston
Many people have described Hiddlestons performance in The Night Manager as one long, six-part audition for the part of Bond.
He was fabulous as hotel manager-turned-spy Jonathan Pine, and his screen chemistry with the willowy and often under-dressed Elizabeth Debicki (surely a Bond girl in waiting) made it essential viewing.
Whatever that elusive it is, this modest, 35-year-old Old Etonian has it in spades, already looking as comfortable in a tuxedo as Craig did in Casino Royale in 2006.
Many people have described Hiddlestons performance in The Night Manager as one long, six-part audition for the part of Bond
In 2010, Hiddlestons Wallander co-star, Kenneth Branagh, gave him his breakthrough big-screen role as Loki in the Hollywood super-hero blockbuster, Thor
VERDICT: Hiddleston has everything an actor needs to play Bond good looks, class, charm and that vital streak of cruelty
Scaramanga, the villain from 1974s The Man With The Golden Gun, wouldnt stand a chance.
In 2010, Hiddlestons Wallander co-star, Kenneth Branagh, gave him his breakthrough big-screen role as Loki in the Hollywood super-hero blockbuster, Thor. Since then, Woody Allen has cast him in Midnight In Paris, Steven Spielberg in Warhorse and Jim Jarmusch in Only Lovers Left Alive.
VERDICT: Hiddleston has everything an actor needs to play Bond good looks, class, charm and that vital streak of cruelty.
BOND RATING:
Rating:
James Norton
Ive been expecting you, Mr Bond, as Blofeld is often misquoted as saying in You Only Live Twice (1967).
Or possibly not, as far as this London-born but Yorkshire-raised actor is concerned, as this is surely an opportunity that has come too soon.
This is surely an opportunity to play Bond that has come too soon for this London-born but Yorkshire-raised actor, James Norton
VERDICT: Will have a better chance next time, especially if hes mastered flying the Thunderball (1965) jet-pack by then.
The 30-year-old has had a string of high-profile parts on British television recently Grantchester, Happy Valley and War And Peace but his film career has barely begun, so casting him would be a massive gamble for Bond producers.
Courtesy of being educated at Ampleforth and Cambridge, Norton certainly has the imperious class required and those cheekbones wont go away.
VERDICT: Will have a better chance next time, especially if hes mastered flying the Thunderball (1965) jet-pack by then.
BOND RATING:
Rating:
Damian Lewis
Is the world ready for a ginger Bond? Well, he doesnt look bad on the beach next to Ursula Andress in Dr No (1962), but with his colouring hed need regular sunscreen under the Caribbean sun and thats not very James Bond.
There are other factors counting against the elegant Old Etonian.
Is the world ready for a ginger Bond? Well, he doesnt look bad on the beach next to Ursula Andress in Dr No (1962), but with his colouring hed need regular sunscreen
There are other factors counting against the elegant Old Etonian. At 45, hes just three years younger than the reportedly departing Craig and, as far as film work is concerned, hes evolving more into a fine character actor rather than an out-and-out leading man
VERDICT: Do you expect me to talk, Bond asked in Goldfinger (1964)? No, Mr Lewis, I expect you to drop out of the running
At 45, hes just three years younger than the reportedly departing Craig and, as far as film work is concerned, hes evolving more into a fine character actor rather than an out-and-out leading man.
But anyone who looks that at home at the Licence To Kill gaming tables from 1989 cant entirely be ruled out, and Homeland has made him a household name in the United States.
VERDICT: Do you expect me to talk, Bond asked in Goldfinger (1964)? No, Mr Lewis, I expect you to drop out of the running.
BOND RATING:
Rating:
Idris Elba
There is no reason why James Bond shouldnt be black. But I have a feeling that the moment for the oft-tipped Elba to meet Pussy Galore from Goldfinger (1964) may have passed.
He looks every one of his 43 years and he could be 45 by the time the next film is finished. Craig was 37 when he made the superlative Casino Royale.
Its more than a decade since The Wire turned Hackney-born Elba into an international star and hes been in regular film work since without quite breaking through to the next level
There is no reason why James Bond shouldnt be black. But I have a feeling that the moment for the oft-tipped Elba to meet Pussy Galore from Goldfinger (1964) may have passed
Its more than a decade since The Wire turned Hackney-born Elba into an international star and hes been in regular film work since without quite breaking through to the next level.
Im sure he could master a gyrocopter as Connery did in You Only Live Twice (1967) but there could be a problem with accents when he plays British roles, he tends to use his native London accent. That really might be a step too far for Bond.
VERDICT: Accent might sink him.
BOND RATING:
Rating:
Aidan Turner
We know the Poldark star can handle a scythe, but can he handle a motorbike, as Craig did in Skyfall (2012) or, indeed, the white fur rug so memorably employed by Connery in Diamonds Are Forever (1971)?
Like Norton, Id say not yet. Weve had an Irish Bond before, of course, and a fine job Pierce Brosnan did.
We know the Poldark star can handle a scythe, but can he handle a motorbike, as Craig did in Skyfall (2012)
His undeniable good looks have kept him in regular television work here in series such as Desperate Romantics, The Clinic and Being Human, but can he make it into orbit as a big-screen star
But he was already a big star when he took on the part in the mid-90s, while Dublin-born Turner well, he isnt. Not yet.
His undeniable good looks have kept him in regular television work here in series such as Desperate Romantics, The Clinic and Being Human, but can he make it into orbit as a big-screen star like Roger Moore did in Moonraker (1979)?
VERDICT: Needs more practice with the white fur rug.
BOND RATING:
Rating:
Krysten Ritter plays a superheroine with a dark past in Marvel's Jessica Jones.
The 34-year-old actress brightened things up as she attended Jessica Jones: The Art of Collaboration at Vulture Festival in New York City on Saturday.
Krysten wowed in a vividly orange frock with demure neckline and angled hem that allowed glimpses of her pale slim limbs.
Appealing in orange: Krysten Ritter looked bright and lovely in an orange frock while promoting her Netflix series at Jessica Jones: The Art of Collaboration at Vulture Festival in NYC on Saturday
The black leather booties and her raven-black locks only served to highlight Krysten's flawlessly fair complexion.
Krysten was at the New York Magazine hosted event to discuss her show, a gritty psychological drama currently airing on Netflix.
The festival, which was sponsored by DirecTV, also featured the Difficult People Table Read that included the likes of Amy Poehler, Megan Hilty, Billy Eichner and Julie Klausner.
Flirty turn: The 34-year-old actress showed off her bare legs beneath the angled hemline and above black leather booties
She means business: Krysten plays the beautiful but dark superheroine in the gritty Netflix drama Marvel's Jessica Jones
Casual comedienne: Amy Poehler was a flowery hit at Vulture Festival for the Difficult People Table Read
They don't look so 'difficult': Amy, who executive produces the Hulu show Difficult People, joined arms with her stars Billy Eichner and Julie Klausner
Always a classic: Megan Hilty delighted in her black jumpsuit at the Difficult People Table Read
Amy went casual in a black top and trouser set with a flowered jacket and peep-toe shoes.
Megan jazzed things up a little in a black jumpsuit with classy collar and a flaring trousers.
The stars Inside Mr. Robot also made an appearance to the festival including Rami Malek, Portia Doubleday, Carly Chaikin and Christian Slater.
Gang's all here: Amy took a side stance and let the cast of Difficult People enjoy the spotlight
Cast of characters: Inside Mr. Robot stars Rami Malek, Portia Doubleday, Carly Chaikin and Christian Slater also made an appearance at the festival on Saturday
Slater was seen participating in the panel discussion.
Krysten, meanwhile, has been a roll promoting the show on various TV talk shows.
For her Today show appearance on Wednesday, the dark-haired beauty looked smashing in a monochrone ensemble, later leaving in a tight black turtleneck and flaring mini-skirt.
He's got them riveted: Christian Slater surely charmed the audience as he spoke during the panel
On Friday, Krysten dazzled in a form-fitting black frock with side cut-out and black-and-white heels for her visit to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
The star's dark and action-packed series is doing well and critics like it with Rotten Tomatoes describing season one as: 'A multifaceted drama around its engaging antihero, delivering what might be Marvel's strongest TV franchise to date.'
However, fans have a long wait before they get to see season two, which will air sometime in 2017.
She has been hard at work filming her new mini-series Big Little Lies, but Reese Witherspoon didn't use a day off as an excuse to be lazy on Saturday.
Instead, the 40-year-old was up bright and early to make breakfast for her youngest son Tennessee, three, and then hit the gym.
Reese was spotted arriving for her workout in Brentwood, wearing a black pullover and matching leggings.
Gym bunny: Reese Witherspoon was spotted heading to a workout in Brentwood, California on Saturday
She added a pop of colour to her look with pink trainers and carried a green wallet and water bottle and her phone, showing off her 'Howdy Y'all' case.
Reese went make up free under her large sunglasses and pulled her blonde hair into a fuss-free ponytail.
The fitness fanatic is regularly spotted at the gym, and it seems that she is also getting in some exercise at work.
Earlier this week, the actress was spotted running with Nicole Kidman and Shailene Woodley while filming Big Little Lies in Monterey.
Keeping it casual: The actress wore a black pullover and leggings with pink trainers, and went make-up free
'Toddler fun': Reese made breakfast for her youngest son Tennessee, three, earlier in the morning
Reese and Nicole are acting as co-producers on the limited-run HBO mini-series, as well as starring in it.
Big Little Lies tells the story of what happens when the perfect lives of a group of Southern California moms start to unravel.
The series is based on Liane Moriarty's best-selling novel of the same name and also stars Alexander Skarsgaard, Laura Dern and Adam Scott.
Hard at work: The 40-year-old was spotted filming Big Little Lies with Nicole Kidman (far left) and Shailene Woodley in Monterey earlier this week
Reese has several other projects in the works, and is producing an ABC pilot about a 'ruthless divorce attorney' in Dallas, which stars Anna Paquin and Grey's Anatomy's T.R. Knight.
The mother-of-three is also playing Tinker Bell in a live-action Disney movie and will star in Paul Feig's Wish List, about a woman in her thirties whose life takes a turn when a coin she threw into a magic fountain as a child reaches the bottom.
She will additionally appear opposite Matt Damon, Jason Sudeikis, Alec Baldwin and Neil Patrick Harris in 2017 social satire Downsizing, and voices a character in upcoming animated movie Sing
Teresa Giudice was all smiles as she and her family celebrated her nephew Gino's First Communion on Saturday.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey star joined her brother Joe Gorga, his wife Melissa Gorga and family to celebrate Gino's big day at Fresco restaurant in Montclair, New Jersey on Saturday.
The 44-year-old wore a beige dress with black floral pattern as she proudly posed with her eight-year-old nephew.
Celebrating: Teresa Giucide marked nephew Gino's first communion with brother Joe Gorga and family at Fresco restaurant in Montclair, New Jersey on Saturday
The family appeared in high spirits as they celebrated with a blue cake in the shape of a cross reading 'God Bless Gino.'
Gino wore a dapper grey suit, purple tie and a crucifix necklace, while his dad Joe looked sharp in a black suit.
Teresa shared some photos of the big day on Instagram, including a cute snap of her six-year-old daughter Audriana with her cousin.
Family: The Real Housewives of New Jersey star wore a tight beige dress as she joined the family at the Italian restaurant after church
Proud parents: RHONY stars Joe and Melissa were all smiles as they toasted their eight-year-old son's big day
'Audriana & Gino love them so much,' Teresa wrote, adding hashtag '#cousinlove'
'Congrats Gino on your communion,' she added.
Sharing a smiling photo of Audriana showing off her blue tulle dress, Teresa wrote: 'My beautiful Audriana at Gino's communion.'
Gorgeous girls: 'My beautiful girls and I celebrating Gino's communion today,' Teresa wrote on Instagram, adding that Gabriella was at a game
'Cousin love': The reality star shared a snap of her daughter Audriana and Gino, writing 'love them so much'
Little princess: Teresa shared a cute photo of Audriana showing off her sparkly, tulle dress
The RHONJ star also shared a snap of her with three of her four daughters outside.
'My beautiful girls and I celebrating Gino's communion today,' she wrote.
'Missing my sweet Gabriella, good luck at your game my love!'
Her Bravo costar Melissa also shared sweet photos of the family celebration on Instagram on Saturday.
Matching looks: Joe wore a blue striped shirt while son Gino looked dapper in his grey suit
Cute cousins: Gino looked sharp in a grey suit and silver crucifix necklace as Teresa's daughter Audriana tried a cake pop
'Ginos communion!' the proud mom captioned a photo of her smiling son waving a large sparkler inside the Italian restaurant.
And the Bravo star shared a family snap of her and Joe with their three children: Gino, Joey Jr, and Antonia.
'Gino's1st Holy Communion! We Love you!' she wrote, adding some praying emojis.
On fire: The eight-year-old smiled as he celebrated with a sparkler
Big family: From left, Milania Giudice, Audriana Giudice, Gia Giudice, Gino Gorga, Antonia Gorga and Joey Gorga Jr
The Gorgas also posed for some lovely family portraits on the stairwell of their large New Jersey home before heading to church.
Melissa wore a white, sleeveless dress with a pleated mermaid skirt. The smiling reality star held Gino's hand.
Her daughter Antonia wore a matching white dress, and posed with her hand on smiling Gino's shoulder.
All dressed up: Joe, Joey Jr, Antonia, Gino and Melissa Gorga posed for official portraits to mark Gino's big day
Nice photos: Melissa wore a fitted white dress with pleated mermaid train
Proud parents: The family posed for photos in their New Jersey home before heading to church and then celebrating at an Italian restaurant
Teresa has been reconnecting with family this year after being released from prison in December. She served 11-months for fraud.
But the family celebrate was without her husband Joe, who is currently serving out his 41-month sentence for conspiracy and bankruptcy fraud at Fort Dix Correctional Center in New Jersey.
The outspoken Bravo star also spent time with Joe and Melissa as she celebrated her 44th birthday at her home on Wednesday, along with daughters Gia, 15, Gabriella, 12, Milania, 10, and Audriana, 6.
Siblings: Gino and Joey wore grey suits while Antonia followed her mom's lead with a white dress
'No theories ruled out' on EgyptAir crash after smoke report
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Saturday that no theory on the cause of the EgyptAir crash has been ruled out, after revelations of smoke in the cabin minutes before the disaster.
"At this time... all theories are being examined and none is favoured," he told a news conference after meeting with around 100 relatives of passengers who were aboard the doomed A320 that left Paris early Thursday for Cairo with 66 people aboard.
"The reports circulating here and there, which by the way are sometimes contradictory, give rise too often to nearly definitive conclusions," Ayrault said, warning of the "painful tension" caused to the families of the victims.
An Airbus A320 carrying 66 people had been flying from Paris to Cairo on May 19, 2016 when it plummeted and turned full circle before vanishing off radar, with some debris later found in the Mediterranean Sea Andras Soos (AFP/File)
"Finding the plane is of course the priority, along with finding the black boxes to analyse them, which will allow us to answer legitimate questions," he said, referring to the voice and flight data recorders.
France's "dual goal" is to offer "solidarity with the families but also transparency... on the circumstances of this plane's disappearance," said the foreign minister, who was joined by Egypt's ambassador to France at the meeting with the family members.
"I strongly emphasised the desire of the French authorities to tell the entire truth about what happened," he said. "It's a legitimate and essential expectation for all the families."
The meeting took place "in a climate of intense emotion and great dignity," Ayrault added.
Crash investigators briefed the relatives on what is known so far and the procedures for establishing the cause.
"Methods and procedures for identifying the victims" were also explained to the families, Ayrault said.
The passengers included 30 Egyptians, 15 French citizens, two Iraqis, two Canadians, and citizens from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. They included a boy and two babies.
Seven crew members and three security personnel were also on board.
Debris from MS804 found in Mediterranean Sea
'Moving to Canada': Trump fuels US relocation dreams
Donald Trump's inflammatory presidential campaign and the prospect of the brash-talking tycoon actually becoming commander-in-chief has left progressive Americans obsessing about one thing: moving to Canada.
Stars from Cher to Lena Dunham have declared their intention to head north if the former reality star, famous for insulting Muslims and Mexicans, and under the microscope for alleged sexism, reaches top office.
According to one recent Morning Consult/Vox poll, 28 percent of Americans would "likely" consider moving to another country if Trump wins in November. Google said the search "how can I move to Canada?" surged 350 percent on March 1 when Trump won seven Republican state elections.
According to one recent Morning Consult/Vox poll, 28 percent of Americans would "likely" consider moving to another country if Donald Trump wins in November Sandy Huffaker (Getty/AFP/File)
Money makers on both sides of the border have turned the hype into a savvy marketing tool. "Leaving the country if TRUMP is elected PRESIDENT? Give me a call and LET'S GET YOUR HOME SOLD!!" advertised one US realtor.
A millennial entrepreneur in Texas set up dating site Maple Match promising to help Americans "find the ideal Canadian partner to save them from the unfathomable horror of a Trump presidency."
The site is the brainchild of 25-year-old Joe Goldman, who always wanted to set up a dating site but used the Trump bandwagon to drive publicity.
While actual introductions and dates are a way off, Goldman says that more than 30,000 people hungry for love have already signed up.
"The Donald Trump campaign for president has provided us with an opportunity to make something positive," he told AFP. "But ultimately Maple Match itself is not political. It's about bringing Americans and Canadians together."
- Fear stoked by election -
After Cape Breton Island, off the tip of Nova Scotia, offered a refuge to Trump-hating Americans earlier this year, visitors to its tourism site exploded from 65,000 last year to 600,000, says tourist chief Mary Tulle.
US academic Neda Maghbouleh moved to Toronto three years ago with her husband when they were offered attractive faculty jobs at a university.
Their daughter was born in Canada, the couple have acquired permanent residency and now they want to sponsor Maghbouleh's parents to join them.
"My urgency and fear was really stoked by this election. It was a feeling that we need to be very proactive about this," she said.
Businessman Nuri Katz, who helps people acquire second citizenship, says "tens" of clients have given Trump as a reason for wanting to relocate, but warns that there are huge obstacles to actually getting up and moving.
"All this anecdotal talk about moving to Canada, it's really tough," he told AFP during a business trip to New York. "It's not going to be a flood of people just driving into Canada and saying 'here we are'," he said.
Sortable, a web advertising company in Ontario, targeted US-based developers by cheekily offering "a safe place for smart, nice people" looking for an alternative to a Trump presidency earlier this year.
But while the ad generated a lot of interest, the company has yet to recruit any Americans although talks are ongoing, says digital marketing officer Brenden Sherratt.
Canada has tightened immigration procedures for many categories of people, although it has been liberal in accepting Syrian refugees. Americans opposed to Trump hardly meet the UN definition of a refugee, Katz warned.
- American refugees? -
"It is a tough argument to make that you are being politically persecuted in the US," said Katz, president at Apex Capital Partners Corp.
"Canada started accepting American political refugees? Boy, China would have a field day with that. Could you imagine?"
Katz says Dominica in the Caribbean is the cheapest place for Americans to buy second citizenship -- yours for an investment of $100,000.
He has also signed up his first American client for Cyprus, where nationality can be acquired in three months for a one-off investment of 2.5 million euros ($2.8 million).
But Americans are a minority of those shopping for a second nationality and although a record number are renouncing citizenship, often for a combination of financial and political reasons, Katz says the industry is "tiny."
And even if Americans have itchy feet, their country remains a premier destination for foreigners, particularly Chinese.
An investor program grants green cards to those who invest at least $500,000 and create 10 full time jobs. But it's so inundated that the wait time is eight years, Katz said.
As the daughter of Iranian immigrants, Maghbouleh grew up feeling lucky. "The US in so many ways is still the promised land for so many people," she admitted.
Stars from Cher to Lena Dunham have declared their intention to head to Canada if Donald Trump, famous for insulting Muslims and Mexicans, reaches top office Eduardo Munoz Alvarez (AFP/File)
Americans are a minority of those shopping for a second nationality and although a record number are renouncing citizenship, often for a combination of financial and political reasons
G7 warns of Brexit 'shock' to global economy
A British vote to quit the European Union would inflict a "shock" on the global economy, G7 ministers said Saturday, presenting a united front against the prospect of a "Brexit".
Among the most vocal was German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who strongly cautioned against opting to leave the 28-member EU in next month's referendum.
"We were all of the opinion that it would be the wrong decision for the UK," Schaeuble said at the conclusion of two days of talks in northern Japan among Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank chiefs.
Britain will vote in an in-out referendum on EU membership on June 23 Philippe Huguen (AFP)
"But it's a decision to be taken by the British voters. We're concerned that it could have negative consequences for the European and the world economy."
The club of rich nations also issued a statement that warned a Brexit would only worsen the outlook for an unstable world.
"Uncertainties to the global outlook have increased, while geopolitical conflicts, terrorism, refugee flows, and the shock of a potential UK exit from the European Union also complicate the global economic environment," they said.
As the June 23 referendum on Britain's future draws closer, finance minister George Osborne said his meetings with G7 counterparts underscored the gravity of the in-out decision.
If voters opt to leave, Britain would find it "extremely difficult" to conclude trade deals with European Union countries, he told the BBC.
"If Britain left the EU, and wanted access to the single market... then we would need to pay into the EU budget and we'd have to accept free movement of people but we'd have no say over those policies at all," he said.
"We would have a two-year period to negotiate our exit with 27 other countries, we'd then have to negotiate new arrangements...and at the same time conclude over 50 trade deals with countries that aren't even in Europe."
- 'Remain' camp leading -
During that extremely difficult process, businesses would have "no certainty" about the future and so would not take on new workers or invest, he said.
"It hits people's incomes, it hits the value of houses, it hits businesses and jobs. People are beginning to understand that."
With just over a month to the vote, the "Remain" camp is on 55 percent and the "Leave" campaign on 45 percent, according to the What UK Thinks website's average of the last six opinion polls.
On a visit to London last month, US President Barack Obama said Britain being in the EU magnified its global influence, and outside the bloc it would go to the "back of the queue" when it came to signing trade deals.
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde has also lent her voice to the "Remain" campaign, warning that quitting the EU would be "pretty bad to very, very bad" for the British economy.
The Treasury in London on Friday released data showing that by 2018, house prices in Britain would fall by at least 10 percent and up to 18 percent due to the "profound economic shock" that would result from a departure.
-- Bloomberg News contributed to this report --
The G7 nations
It is a nightmare we have all face - a cracked screen that means a long wait for a replacement.
However, Google has unveiled a new 'modular' handset that allows users to simply slot in new modules - including the screen - themselves.
The handset has already been tested, and Google says it will make it available to developers this year - and the public in 2017.
Scroll down for video
Ara provides a frame in which modules such as cameras, speakers, and sensors can be re-arranged by users like game pieces so as to customize handsets.
HOW IT WORKS Each phone will have a central 'spine' and an endoskeleton - nicknamed 'endo' - made of ribs that the individual modules will clip on to. There will be three different sized endos - including mini, medium and large - to rival the existing range of phones currently on the market, from compacts to phablets. Ara phones will be able run on multiple batteries - when one battery dies, it can be detached and replaced with a full battery module. Larger phones will be able to accomodate either larger, or additional modules, than the mini will.
Consumers will be able to purchase Google's modular Android-powered smartphone next year.
Rafa Camargo, the project lead at Google, told Gologle's I/O developer conference the phone can even eject modules on its own.
'OK Google, eject the camera.' he said in a demonstration.
When the phone's camera pops out of its socket, all by itself, the crowd erupts with applause.
An advertisement featuring the smartphone was posted to YouTube by the company on Friday.
The tech giant wrote on the website: 'Project Ara is a new modular computing platform, allowing devices to be customized for style and function.
'Choose your high-res camera, add a louder speaker, swap in a better battery. Imagine the possibilities. And we're releasing a developer kit with device later this year.'
The advertisement shows a number of people customizing their handsets for different activities, including listening to music with friends and taking photographs.
Developers interested in creating applications for the devices will get access to early versions of Ara, which provides a frame in which modules such as cameras, speakers, and sensors can be re-arranged by users like game pieces so as to customize handsets.
Google says on its website: 'The Ara frame contains all the functionality of a smartphone plus six flexible slots for easy swapping.'
It explains that 'Ara modules fit neatly into the frame, allowing for upgrades, innovation and style.'
The principle is simple: basic structures are designed to hold screen modules, batteries, cameras, sensors, 3G, Wi-fi or other components snapped into place with the help of magnets
Google says on its website: 'Slide any Ara module into any slot and it just works. Powering this simplicity is Greybus, a new bit of software deep in the Android stack. Greybus supports instantaneous connections, power efficiency and data-transfer rates of up to 11.9 Gbps.'
Word that Project Ara was moving ahead, and not shelved as some had speculated during the past year, came on the final day of Google's annual developers conference in the Silicon Valley city of Mountain View, California.
Google said that a consumer version of Ara should be available next year.
When the first Ara prototype was unveiled early last year at World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Google expressed hope the approach would provide easier access to smartphones for people in developing countries.
The principle is simple: basic structures are designed to hold screen modules, batteries, cameras, sensors, 3G, Wi-fi or other components snapped into place with the help of magnets.
Developers interested in creating applications for the devices will get access to early versions of Ara
The tech giant says: ''Choose your high-res camera, add a louder speaker, swap in a better battery. Imagine the possibilities'
If a mobile phone breaks or an updated model is released, instead of buying a new handset a user could simply swap out components.
Pricing of Ara had yet to be revealed, but Google last year referred to an entry-level model with a production cost of $50. Plans to launch Ara in Puerto Rico last year were scrubbed.
Google would manufacture and sell the phone frame as well as modules created by individual manufacturers that can be added to it like Legos.
Modules would range from a screen to a camera to speakers to even a pedometer, depending on people's needs.
'We want people to walk away and say, 'That was really freaking awesome,'' Beavers said.
Google says it's too early to say how much the phone could cost, but it might be in the $50 to $100 range.
Ara provides a frame in which modules such as cameras, speakers, and sensors can be re-arranged by users like game pieces so as to customize handsets
After Ebola, World Bank creates pandemic insurance plan
The World Bank announced Saturday a new program to mobilize funds quickly against virulent disease outbreaks after the world was caught unprepared in the 2014 Ebola disaster in West Africa.
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said the new Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) will accelerate global and national responses to disease outbreaks that threaten large populations and fragile economies.
He said the PEF, a combination of catastrophe insurance and bonds, is a direct reaction to the sluggish donor response to the outbreak of Ebola, which eventually killed close to 11,000 in West Africa and shut down economic activity for months.
A mother nurses her newborn at the maternity ward of the Kailahun Government hospital in Sierra Leone, hard hit by spread of the Ebola virus Marco Longari (AFP/File)
"Pandemics pose a serious threat to global health and economic security," said Kim.
"The recent Ebola crisis in West Africa was a tragedy that we were simply not prepared for. It was a wake-up call to the entire world."
"There is no effective international system ready to respond quickly to a pandemic."
Kim, a medical doctor and expert on health and disease in developing countries, put the World Bank in the lead of the response to Ebola at the time.
But he acknowledged that it took months to bring together the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to pay for deploying health personnel, supplies, and other relief to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
In the meantime, he said, the death toll rose ten-fold.
Kim announced the creation of the PEF at the gathering of G7 finance ministers in Sendai, Japan.
He said the group of global powers had pressed the World Bank last year to develop a quicker way for the world to respond to pandemics.
Kim said Japan was the first to commit support for the PEF, with a $50 million contribution.
The insurance will cover outbreaks of several classes of infectious diseases most at risk for epidemics: new orthomyxoviruses including influenza pandemic viruses A, B and C; coronaviruses like SARS and MERS; filoviruses like Ebola and Marburg; and other zoonotic diseases -- those that move between animals and humans -- including Crimean Congo, Rift Valley and Lassa fever.
That list does not include Zika, the deadly mosquito-borne virus spreading through the Americas. But Kim said the bank is also putting together a separate emergency "cash window" to address that and other outbreaks not covered.
Under the program the 77 least developed countries will be covered by the insurance.
Unlike common insurance that repays losses after a disaster, the PEF insurance is designed to release funds as soon as a disease outbreak reaches a certain level as defined by specific criteria.
Kim said the World Bank has worked with insurers on the product, which will total $500 million at first, and is confident the global financial markets will accept it.
"If we had had the PEF up and running in mid-2014, the Ebola outbreak would have looked very different," he said.
"The countries and the world, and the insurance industry, have the same incentives to prevent the spread of pandemics."
West African Ebola outbreak
Boko Haram refugees in Niger feel 'abandoned' by the world
"Take us away from this hell," said Boussam, a mother of seven cradling skeletal goats in Niger's Assaga camp, where thousands of desperate refugees fleeing Boko Haram Islamist insurgents are living in hunger.
She spoke to AFP in the south eastern camp near the border with Nigeria where some 6,000 people are crammed in UN tents in baking sun after being displaced by the violence.
The size of the camp has swollen quickly since people began to arrive from mid 2015, having fled attacks that have engulfed the region as Boko Haram seeks to carve out a hardline Islamist state in the north east of neighbouring Nigeria.
Conditions in the Assaga refugee camp in the southeast of Niger have deteriorated in recent months as food aid has struggled to reach its occupants who live with just basic medical care and schooling Boureima Hama (AFP)
Conditions in the camp have deteriorated in recent months as food aid has struggled to reach its occupants who live with just basic medical care and schooling.
The UN emergency relief coordinator Stephen O'Brien, who visited the camp this week, warned that the raging conflict has "catastrophically exacerbated" the vulnerability of the region's refugees, displacing people already dogged by chronic food insecurity.
Anger is rising in the camp that more is not being done to help them.
"I think that everyone has abandoned us," said Ibrahim, a refugee in his fifties.
Niger's humanitarian affairs minister Lawan Magadji, who accompanied O'Brien on his visit to the region, accepts that not enough aid has reached the camp.
"There is not enough food. Distribution operations are based on the neediest households," he said.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has blamed a lack of funds for the shortages.
- 'I am ashamed' -
Of the $316 million (283 million euros) needed to finance humanitarian efforts in Niger just under a quarter has been raised, according to the agency.
O'Brien has promised to raise funds at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, starting May 23.
And despite receiving a warm welcome from children in the camp, O'Brien and the UN have not yet eased the daily grind of life in Assaga.
"I am ashamed not to be able to feed my family properly," said Elhaj Moustapha, a once wealthy pepper grower forced into exile by the violence.
Mariam, a Nigerian refugee living in the camp, accosted O'Brien in person to complain about conditions in the camp.
"It has been four months since we last received food aid," she said
But an influx of cash may not be enough to improve her situation and that of others like her.
Several charities have warned that tough security measures imposed by Niger's authorities in its battle against Boko Haram have hampered the flow of food aid to Assaga.
Markets have been closed, the fish and pepper trades suspended and whole areas evacuated, placing a major toll on the area's economy, already under strain from chronic shortages.
Abdou Kaza, the region's military governor, insists the measures are necessary to cut off funds destined for the insurgents and will only be temporary.
But according to the UN, restoring normality to the region will be a herculean task.
Some 9.2 million people in the Lake Chad basin that straddles Niger, Nigeria and Chad are in need of food aid as the Boko Haram insurgency, launched in 2009 and responsible for as many as 20,000 deaths, continues unabated.
UN emergency relief coordinator Stephen O'Brien, vowed to raise funds for "significant" help to the more than 240,000 refugees displaced by Boko Haram in camps in southeast Niger Boureima Hama (AFP)
Taiwan's ex-president Ma faces lawsuits as immunity ends
Dozens of lawsuits brought against former Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou reopened Saturday as his presidential immunity lapsed after the island swore in its new leader.
Ma left the presidential office Friday as Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took the reins as the island's first female leader, after winning a landslide victory in January.
Ma came to power in 2008 partly due to his "Mr Clean" image, favoured by a public fed up with the scandals of former DPP leader Chen Shui-bian, who was jailed for corruption.
Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou saw his popularity plummet during his eight-year run, with the public unnerved by policies seen as linking the island too closely with China Sam Yeh (AFP/File)
However, Ma now faces his own court battles as political rivals hurl suits at him on a range of allegations, including leaking political secrets and failing to declare assets.
His departure from office means he now faces 24 cases, according to the Taipei District Prosecutors Office.
"The office has been actively taking inventory of cases relating to president Ma that were suspended due to immunity to criminal prosecution," prosecutors said in an earlier statement.
"The investigations will restart according to law after the president steps down," it said.
Local media reported Thursday that the High Court had ordered a re-hearing on a request brought by a DPP lawmaker that Ma be prevented from leaving the country due to the cases he faces.
That request had previously been denied at district level.
Seemingly undeterred, a relaxed Ma was pictured going for a morning jog and doing push-ups in his old neighbourhood in Taipei Saturday, after moving back there from the presidential residence.
Ma took the leadership in 2008 by the biggest landslide in Taiwan's democratic history, but saw his popularity plummet during his eight-year run, with the public unnerved by policies seen as linking the island too closely with rival China.
Japan defence minister lodges complaint in Okinawa over US arrest
Japan's defence minister travelled to Okinawa to lodge a formal protest with the commander of the US military base there on Saturday after the arrest of a base employee linked to the suspicious death of a local woman.
Gen Nakatani's visit to the island comes just days before a high-profile trip to Japan by US President Barack Obama.
"I deliver a strong message of regret and at the same time make a protest," Nakatani told US military commander Lt. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson, according to public broadcaster NHK, as he demanded the US military in Okinawa ensure discipline among troops.
"I deliver a strong message of regret and at the same time make a protest," Japanese Defence Minister Gen Nakatani told US military commander Lt. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson Toshifumi Kitamura (AFP/File)
For his part Nicholson told Nakatani: "Our heartfelt prayers and condolences are offered to the family."
The southern island of Okinawa was the site of a brutal World War II battle but is now considered a strategic linchpin by hosting numerous US military bases that support the two countries' decades-long security alliance.
Okinawan police arrested Kenneth Franklin Shinzato on Thursday for allegedly disposing of the woman's body in a weed-covered area in southern Okinawa.
The man, a US citizen and former US Marine, who works at the US Kadena Air Base, has reportedly admitted to raping and killing 20-year-old Rina Shimabukuro, who had been missing since late April.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday expressed "outrage" after the arrest, while Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida summoned US ambassador Caroline Kennedy to lodge a protest, calling the case "very cruel and atrocious".
Obama is due in Japan next week for a two-day summit of Group of Seven countries which concludes on Friday, before venturing the same day to Hiroshima -- becoming the only sitting US president to visit the world's first atomic bombed city.
The Hiroshima visit by Obama, who has a record of calling for global denuclearisation, has been well received in Japan but the issue of the heavy US military presence on Okinawa has long been a periodic thorn in the side of relations.
More than half of the 47,000 US military personnel in the country are stationed there, and rapes and other crimes by service personnel have sparked local protests in the past.
In 1995 the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old girl by three US servicemen sparked massive protests, prompting Washington to pledge efforts to strengthen troop discipline to prevent such crimes and reduce the US footprint on the island.
But continued crimes by American personnel remain a potent rallying point for Okinawans and others in Japan who oppose the presence of the bases on the crowded island, where pacifist sentiment runs high.
Apple chief Tim Cook meets Indian PM Modi
Apple chief executive Tim Cook met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi Saturday, launching a new version of the Indian leader's eponymous app on a visit aimed at pushing the technology giant's expansion plans.
Cook, shown in a video using the premier's gold-coloured iPhone, launched an update to the Narendra Modi Mobile App to include a new volunteering network.
"Thank you @tim_cook! Friends, welcome & happy volunteering. Your views & efforts are always enriching," the prime minister tweeted afterwards.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi(R) meets with Apple CEO Tim Cook during a meeting in New Delhi on May 21, 2016
Apple does not currently have any stores in India, instead selling phones through third-party retailers such as Vodafone and Airtel, but has applied for permission to open shops.
Cook used the meeting to raise the possibilities of manufacturing and retailing in India, as well as tapping its great software expertise for app development, the government said.
"Thanks PM @narendramodi for a great meeting. Already looking forward to next visit to India. Best wishes on the app!" Cook tweeted.
The Apple boss has spent several days in the country after jetting in from China, in a visit seen as an extended Asia charm offensive.
He has announced investments including an app design centre in the southern technology hub of Bangalore and a mapping development office in Hyderabad.
India is a compelling market for the technology giant, with nearly a billion Indians -- among a population of 1.2 billion -- still not online, especially as sales of the iPhone slow in more saturated markets.
Yet Apple products are too expensive for the vast majority of Indians, with taxes taking the cost of a basic iPhone to almost $600.
In April Apple reported its first drop in global iPhone sales since launching the smartphone in 2007.
Beijing warns will cut contacts if Taiwan doesn't toe line
Beijing warned Taiwan it would cut off critical contacts with the island if its new president Tsai Ing-wen does not state her support for the concept that there is only one China, state media reported Saturday.
The comments came a day after Beijing-sceptic Tsai's inauguration speech, where she called for "positive dialogue" with the Chinese mainland, but stopped short of any compromise on Beijings demands that she back its one China principle.
That principle was recognised by outgoing president Ma Ying-jeou of the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang party, who oversaw an eight-year rapprochement between the former bitter rivals.
Taiwan's new President Tsai Ing-wen speaks at her inauguration ceremony in Taipei on May 20, 2016 Sam Yeh (AFP)
Although Taiwan is self-ruling after splitting with the mainland in 1949 following a civil war, it has never formally declared independence and Beijing still sees it as part of its territory awaiting reunification.
Beijing is highly suspicious of Tsai, whose Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is traditionally pro-independence and has warned her against any attempt at a breakaway.
Beijing and Taipei have held regular, official communications since 2014, but that will stop unless Tsai acknowledges the "1992 consensus", said Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office, according to a report by the official Xinhua news service.
The tacit agreement followed a 1992 meeting between Chinese officials and the KMT which laid out the one China ideology, but allowed each side its own interpretation.
"The communications mechanism between the two departments can only continue if the '92 consensus', which represents the common political foundation of the One China principle, is adhered to," Xinhua quoted Ma as saying.
Tsai and the DPP have never acknowledged the consensus. In her speech Friday, Tsai reiterated her previous stance of recognising the 1992 meeting took place, but did not endorse its conclusions.
Unofficial communication mechanisms will also be at risk, Chinese authorities said.
The Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), a semi-official organisation that works with its Taiwanese counterpart, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), deals with issues that are too legally or politically delicate to be handled through official government channels.
"As long as SEF receives authorisation to confirm to ARATS the adherence to the '92 consensus' authorised negotiations and contact between the two organisations can be maintained," Xinhua quoted the head of ARATS as saying, without giving a specific name.
The two organisations, which have played a critical role in improving ties between Taipei and Beijing, renewed contact in 2008, following almost a decade of tension that ended with the election of Ma.
Nigeria beefs up security after oil installation attacks
President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered security to be stepped up in Nigeria's oil-producing south, after a spate of attacks blamed on local militants that he said threatened the economy.
Buhari on Friday met senior executives of the Anglo-Dutch oil group Shell, whose Nigerian subsidiary has been targeted in recent months by a group calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers.
The group wants a fairer share of oil revenue for local people and wants a government amnesty programme that brought similar unrest to an end in 2009 to be continued.
An armed security contractor for Shell guards the entrance of one of its oil facilities in Port Harcourt Florian Plaucheur (AFP/File)
A statement from Buhari's office said Nigeria's naval chief had been ordered "to reorganise and strengthen the military joint task force (JTF) in the Niger Delta to deal effectively with the resurgence of militancy and the sabotage of oil installations".
JTF operations "were also being enhanced with increased support and cooperation from the United States and Europe in the areas of training, intelligence, equipment and logistics", it added.
"We have to be very serious with the situation in the Niger Delta because it threatens the national economy," Buhari told Shell's upstream head Andrew Brown.
"I assure you that everything possible will be done to protect personnel and oil assets in the region."
Nigeria has recently lost its status as Africa's leading oil producer to Angola because of the cut in output from sabotage, attacks and leaks.
The government, which relies on oil exports for 70 percent of revenue but has seen income slashed because of a global slump in the cost of crude, has budgeted for 2.2 million barrels per day this year.
But Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has said output is now at just 1.4 million bpd.
Shell reportedly evacuated personnel from an offshore installation recently after militants targeted US group Chevron while on Wednesday rebels bombed a gas pipeline owned by a subsidiary of Italy's Eni.
The Niger Delta Avengers in February claimed an attack on an undersea pipeline that forced Shell to shut its Forcados terminal.
G7 pledges to clamp down on terrorist financing
The G7 on Saturday pledged to clamp down on financial support for terrorist networks, with a plan to step up intelligence-sharing, freeze assets and tighten reporting rules on international transfers.
The club of wealthy nations has been cooperating to block the financial pipelines that allow terrorists to travel, plan and carry out attacks, but said that more must be done.
"Countering violent extremism and bringing perpetrators to justice remain top priorities for the whole international community," they said after two days of talks in northern Japan.
Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso (top, 2R) leads the first session of the G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors' Meeting in Sendai, northern Japan Kazuhiro Nogi (AFP)
"The G7 commits to working together to strengthen the global fight against terrorist financing," said an action plan to be adopted by the group's leaders who meet in Japan next week.
French Finance Minister Michel Sapin, whose country suffered devastating attacks in January and November of 2015, said the Group of Seven was now in the "operational phase" of its efforts.
"We will introduce effective tools at our disposal in the war against terrorism financing," he told AFP. "It is absolutely essential."
Sapin said that good exchanges between intelligence agencies were vital, "especially to fight against large movements of money by, for example, the Islamic State in Syria or Iraq".
Another key tool is to counter the cover provided by "prepaid but anonymous phone cards, movements of cash that allow anonymous access to finances," he said.
"We must trace these."
The G7 action plan identified "targeted financial sanctions" as critical to hindering terrorist support networks.
It also emphasised the need to freeze terrorist assets, including those of individual militants.
Among specific measures, the bloc committed to reducing the threshold for declaring cross-border cash transactions from $15,000, 15,000 euros and two million yen to $10,000, 10,000 euros and one million yen.
It also said it would provide "continued strong leadership" to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which sets international standards to combat money laundering and terrorism finance.
While lauding FATF for establishing standards, it said that "the evolving nature of current terrorist financing threats requires us to adapt our existing measures to combat those threats".
The pledge comes after Group of 20 finance ministers said in February that more work was needed to combat "loopholes and deficiencies" in the global financial system as part of the fight against terror.
'Thrilling' western is mainstream hit of Cannes film festival
Whichever film wins the Palme d'Or at Cannes on Sunday night, there is no mistaking the biggest mainstream hit of the festival.
"Hell or High Water", a modern western starring Jeff Bridges as a Texan ranger on the trail of two brothers robbing branches of the bank that is about to repossess their farm, has had critics reaching for superlatives.
The film industry bible Variety called it a "thrillingly good movie -- a crackerjack drama of crime, fear, and brotherly love set in a sun-roasted, deceptively sleepy West Texas that feels completely exotic for being so authentic."
(FromL) US actors Chris Pine and Ben Foster with British director David Mackenzie just before the screening of their film "Hell or High Water" at Cannes on May 16, 2016 Loic Venance (AFP/File)
Scottish director David Mackenzie's clever twist on a cowboys and Indians story has been called a cry of defiance from a forgotten rural America which no longer trusts its institutions.
It has already provoked comparisons with the "lyrical hunger" of Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Executioner's Song", with his cast praised for finally filling John Wayne's boots.
Chris Pine and Ben Foster -- who play the brothers -- swagger across the screen like "Wayne's punk grandsons", Variety declared, saying the film was Pine's "undoubted breakthrough" after years of being typecast as Captain Kirk in "Star Trek".
But others are pointing to Bridges' turn as the ageing lawman as clever "as an old catfish" as a potential award winner come Oscar time, particularly for the low-key comedy of his scratchy relationship with his half-Comanche, half-Mexican partner (Gil Birmingham).
- Distrust of banks -
"The film's ace card is its intertwining of not one but two mismatched buddy relationships," the British film magazine Screen said, calling it "the most commercially appealing and fully achieved" film in the main selection at Cannes.
Director Mackenzie -- who lives thousands of miles from West Texas in Glasgow -- has also won praise for this "authentic slice of Americana" which catches the zeitgeist of increasing distrust of banks and other financial institutions.
"I think people are asking questions about their place in an increasingly corporatised, globalised world," Mackenzie told AFP.
"There is increasing distrust of the organisations that are supposed to support people. You can feel that in the air," he added.
He said it was this ambivalence about what is right and wrong when banks can legally "steal" your home, which drew him to Taylor "Sicario" Sheridan's script.
"I liked the siding with the outlaws and yet not being sure (about them), and all the grey areas of it. I am a big fan the western genre and I loved the themes of trying to reclaim what was theirs.
"The script had great poetic moments and then it kicks up through the gears" for the action scenes. "I just followed it," he added.
Mackenzie -- whose last film "Starred Up", a gritty prison drama, was also acclaimed -- said in audience tests the film "resonates with both camps" in American politics.
"I am very interested to see how it plays with both sides of the electorate. It feels timely," he said.
But for all the praise of the film's authenticity in depicting dying small towns, Mackenzie admitted it does get one vital thing wrong. "Texas rangers are not allowed to have moustaches, and Jeff Bridges has one in the film.
"But we thought we could get away with it because there's a maverick element to him," he added.
British director David Mackenzie in Cannes on May 16, 2016 where his film "Hell or High Water" is screening in the Un Certain Regard strand of the competition Loic Venance (AFP/File)
Congo seeks to expel EU ambassador: officials
The Republic of Congo has called on the European Union to recall its ambassador to Brazzaville over EU criticism of President Denis Sassou Nguesso's controversial re-election in March, Congolese and EU officials said Saturday.
"We have formally written to Brussels to ask for the recall of (EU) ambassador (Saskia de Lang), who is engaging in activism activities that are contrary to the Vienna Convention," a Congolese foreign ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The letter, signed by Foreign Minister Jean-Claude Gakosso, was sent on May 9, the official said.
Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso was re-elected in March for a third term after a controversial change to the constitution that allowed him to extend his 32-year grip on power Marco Longari (AFP/File)
In its response on May 17, Brussels expressed its unwavering support for the EU representative, warning that "any decision from your side with regards to her will affect the relationship of trust between the EU and Congo", an EU spokesman in Congo said.
Relations between Brussels and Brazzaville have turned sour since EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini criticised the March 20 presidential election, which saw Sassou Nguesso's 32-year grip on power extended for another five years.
Sassou Nguesso's win only became possible after an October constitutional referendum ended a two-term limit on presidential mandates, allowing the former paratrooper to run again in a move denounced by his opponents as "a coup".
Congo has been on edge ever since, with deadly clashes erupting in the capital that pitted government forces against suspected rebels.
After the vote, Mogherini denounced "the grave shortcomings of electoral governance" in Congo.
"The post-election process was marred by human rights violations, arrests and intimidation of the opposition and the media," she said.
"This brings into question the credibility of the results."
'At least 60,000 dead' in Syria regime prisons
At least 60,000 people have died in Syrian government prisons over the past five years from torture or due to dire humanitarian conditions, including a lack of food, a monitor said Saturday.
The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, Rami Abdel Rahman, said he compiled the toll from regime sources.
"Since March 2011, at least 60,000 people lost their lives to torture or to horrible conditions, notably the lack of medication or food, in regime detention centres," Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Inmates are released from the Damascus Central Prison in June 2014 after an amnesty was announced
He said the highest number of deaths had been recorded in the infamous Saydnaya prison as well as detention centres run by Syria's notorious air force intelligence and state security forces.
Thousands of prisoners are held in the military-run Saydnaya prison, one of the country's largest detention centres located 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of Damascus.
Rights groups have accused Syria's government of systematically using torture and inhumane practices in its detention centres.
A UN probe in February accused the Syrian government of a policy of "extermination" in its jails.
The Britain-based Observatory says it has compiled a list of 14,456 names -- including 110 children -- who have died in regime prisons.
According to Abdel Rahman, government forces have arrested a total of 500,000 people since Syria's conflict erupted in 2011.
While some have been released and others died, the whereabouts of thousands of detainees remain unknown.
Abdel Rahman also said that "several thousand people" have died while being held by rebel groups and jihadist factions like the Islamic State group.
In early 2014, a regime defector calling himself "Caesar" smuggled out of Syria some 55,000 photographs depicting the tortured and abused bodies of around 11,000 people who had reportedly died in Syrian jails during the first two years of the conflict.
Motorcycle gunmen kill two traffic police in Pakistan's Karachi
Motorcycle gunmen shot dead two Pakistan traffic police in the southern port city of Karachi on Saturday, officials said.
The assailants attacked the policemen while they were on duty in a busy central district, shooting them in the head.
"The constables were targeted while controlling traffic at Ayesha Manzil Road by two motorcycle riders. The terrorists also took with them the weapons of the deceased," Syed Feroz Shah, Deputy Inspector General of the West Zone Police, told AFP.
A Pakistani woman mourns the death of a relative after the killing of two traffic policemen in Karachi on May 21, 2016 Rizwan Tabassum (AFP)
Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the killings.
A senior Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) official said that, with the latest assaults, the number of policemen shot dead in Karachi in the last five months had reached 16.
"All these cops were shot in the head," Raja Umer Khattab said, suspecting the same group was involved in all the attacks.
Last year 79 policemen -- including four senior officials and nine traffic policemen -- were killed by unknown gunmen.
Tahir Noorani, Assistant Inspector General of Traffic Police told AFP that, after the killing of nine traffic policemen last year, all field staff had been armed and directed to wear bulletproof vests while on duty.
S.Africa compensates 750 families for apartheid land loss
Some 750 South African families who say they were pushed out of their land on a natural reserve during apartheid will be handed over $5 million in compensation, President Jacob Zuma said Saturday.
"We have come together about land, to restore the rights of our people who were dispossessed," Zuma said in Kruger, South Africa's largest natural reserve.
"Today we are contributing to the reversal of the apartheid legacy by compensating six communities, three from Limpopo, and another three from Mpumalanga, all who were dispossessed through harsh apartheid laws," he added.
South African President Jacob Zuma, pictured on May 17, 2016, will award $5.4 million to 757 families who are the descendants of people expelled from their land due to racial segregation Rodger Bosch (AFP/File)
"We are awarding a total amount of 84 million rand ($5.4 million, 4.8 million euros) to six communities," Zuma said.
The 757 families who make up the six communities are the descendants of people expelled starting from the year 1930. While apartheid officially started in 1948, racial segregation began earlier.
They will be the first group to receive compensation on their claims on the Kruger national park, Zuma said.
"We celebrate this milestone in the history of Land Restitution in our country," he said.
The government has decided to compensate the families rather than return their land because Kruger is now a major natural reserve.
Since the end of apartheid rule in 1994, 3.3 million hectares (8.2 million acres) of land have been restituted to 1.9 million people, Nomfundo Ntloko-Gobodo, an official at the agriculture ministry, told AFP.
Canada announces security deal with Tunisia
Canada on Saturday announced the start of a security pact with Tunisia, initially for three years, to support the North African country in its fight against "terrorism".
The agreement was announced during a visit by Canadian Foreign Minister Stephane Dion.
"The international community must support Tunisia in battling terrorism," Dion told reporters after meeting his Tunisian counterpart Khemaies Jhinaoui.
Tunisian Foreign Affairs Minister Khemais Jhinaoui (R) shakes hands with his Canadian counterpart Stephane Dion during a meeting on May 21, 2016 in Tunis Fethi Belaid (AFP)
"That is why I am announcing an investment of four million dollars over the next three years for Canada to have a security partnership with Tunisia."
"Our two governments will ensure that this assistance... is extremely effective in helping Tunisia out of this vicious circle where security is linked to the economy," Dion added.
He gave no further details.
He also said that "when a country chooses democracy, it will always have Canada's support".
Tunisia has managed the political transition to democracy since its 2011 revolution, but the economy is still struggling.
It has also had to confront a rise in extremist Islam and the growth of a jihadist movement responsible for killing dozens of soldiers, police and civilians including 59 foreign tourists.
Obama departs on trip to Vietnam, Japan
Barack Obama departed Saturday on a trip to Vietnam and Japan that will include the first visit to Hiroshima, site of the world's first nuclear attack, by a sitting US president.
Obama left at 1:20 p.m. (1720 GMT) aboard Air Force One on the first leg of the trip, which ends with a refueling stop at Elmendrf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska.
The president's tenth trip to Asia aims in part to close painful chapters on two 20th century wars in a region he sees as vital to America's future.
US President Barack Obama waves as he boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on May 21, 2016 Jim Watson (AFP)
It begins in Hanoi, where Obama will stress improving relations with a dynamic and rapidly emerging country, but one which, for most Americans, remains a by-word for slaughter and folly.
A major talking point will be the lifting of a US arms embargo, a last vestige of a war that ended in 1975.
He will meet the president, prime minister, leader of the national assembly and the country's de facto leader Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of the Communist Party.
Trong and Obama met last July, when the Vietnamese leader was given a prestigious Oval Office meeting.
- Arms embargo -
Tense maritime disputes between Vietnam and its larger neighbor China are also likely to feature prominently in discussions.
Advocates of lifting the arms embargo argue it is vital to helping Vietnam improve coastal defenses and bolster it militarily against Beijing.
"Vietnam wants and needs to steadily pursue military modernization, and it values US military technology as a potential source of strategic leverage," said Murray Hiebert of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"Not only does Vietnam need to build an effective deterrent force in the face of China's aggressiveness ... it also prefers to gradually reduce its over-reliance on Russian-made systems."
But weighing against it are concerns about Communist-ruled Vietnam's human rights record.
US diplomats have pressed for the release of political prisoners as a sign that Hanoi can be trusted with advanced weaponry.
Obama is likely to address the issue of political freedoms when he delivers a speech in Hanoi, but he will also make the case for a trans-Pacific trade deal that faces an uncertain future.
Obama will also travel to Vietnam's economic hub Ho Chi Minh City, the former capital of South Vietnam, to highlight the country's growing commercial clout.
- Hiroshima -
In Japan, Obama will attend a G7 summit and make history by becoming the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, where in 1945 then-president Harry Truman dropped the world's first atomic bomb.
The trip to Hiroshima has inevitably stirred debate about whether Truman's epoch-making decision was just.
Many Americans believe that while it killed about 140,000 Japanese, bombing Hiroshima and then Nagasaki avoided an even bloodier ground invasion of Japan.
Victims of the bombings have called for an apology, which the White House says it is not willing to give.
Obama "believes it's important to acknowledge history, it's important to look squarely at history, it's important to have a dialogue about history," said close Obama foreign policy aide Ben Rhodes.
Motorcyclists ride past a US-made F-5 jet fighter (L) and a Soviet-made MIG-21 (R), both left from the Vietnam War and kept as war relics, at the Army Museum in Hanoi on May 19, 2016, ahead of a visit by US President Barack Obama to Vietnam Hoang Dinh Nam (AFP/File)
US defense secretary calls Japanese counterpart on Okinawa murder
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter spoke by phone Saturday with his Japanese counterpart after an American who works on a US air base in Okinawa was arrested for his links to the death of a local woman.
In the call to Gen Nakatani, Carter "conveyed his sadness and his regret" over the murder of the young woman "and extended his sincere apologies to the victim's family and friends," the Pentagon said in a statement.
Okinawan police arrested Kenneth Franklin Shinzato on Thursday for allegedly disposing of the woman's body in a weed-covered area in southern Okinawa.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter looks on during a press conference on May 11, 2016 in Santa Clara, California Justin Sullivan (Getty/AFP/File)
Shinzato, a US citizen and former US Marine who works at the Kadena Air Base, has reportedly admitted to raping and killing 20-year-old Rina Shimabukuro, who had been missing since late April.
Nakatani on Saturday traveled to Okinawa to lodge a formal protest with the US base commander.
"I deliver a strong message of regret and at the same time make a protest," Nakatani told US military commander Lieutenant General Lawrence Nicholson, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, as he demanded that the US military in Okinawa ensure discipline among troops.
In the phone call, Carter told Nakatani "that the United States hopes the perpetrator of this crime will be held accountable under the Japanese legal system."
Carter also said the military "is determined to cooperate fully" with the Japanese authorities to investigate the case.
The statement described the murder as a "shocking and tragic incident."
The statement was released as President Barack Obama departed Saturday on a trip to Vietnam and Japan that will include the first visit by a sitting US president to Hiroshima, site of the world's first nuclear attack.
US media mogul Redstone removes Viacom chief from trust
Media mogul Sumner Redstone has ousted the head of Viacom from a trust with the power to take over his business interests, putting his daughter in position to control his $40 billion empire, a source close to the matter told AFP on Saturday.
Redstone, 92, is the controlling shareholder of Viacom and CBS whose failing health has set off a power struggle between his family and associates.
Philippe Dauman, chairman and CEO of MTV and Paramount Pictures parent company Viacom, received word mid-week that he would be removed as a member of the National Amusements Inc. Trust, the source said, confirming news reports.
Viacom's Sumner Redstone arrives at the premiere of Paramount Pictures' "Star Trek Into Darkness" on May 14, 2013 in Hollywood, California Frazer Harrison (Getty/AFP/File)
George Abrams, a member of the Viacom board who is close to Dauman, was also removed from the trust, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Redstone's lawyer Michael Tu did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The seven-member trust is meant to manage Redstone's empire if he dies or is declared incompetent, and would have enormous power and influence over the future of Viacom and CBS.
Dauman and Abrams were also removed from the board of National Amusements, a movie company through which Redstone owns 80 percent voting stake in CBS and Viacom.
- Victory -
The latest developments -- made official on Friday -- are seen as a victory for Shari Redstone, Sumner Redstone's daughter who is a member of the trust and vice president of both the CBS Board of Directors and Viacom.
She had openly opposed Dauman's appointment as chief of Viacom after her father stepped down.
Long estranged from her father, she recently said they have reconciled.
After the exits of Dauman and Abrams, Shari Redstone may be counting on support from remaining trust members, who include her son Tyler Korff and others with links to the family.
Redstone is free to change or replace the members of his trust, media reports said.
But Dauman has called his ouster "shameful" and "illegal," according to news reports.
"The picture is quite clear, Mr. Redstone is being manipulated and used by his daughter in an attempt to accomplish her long-held goal, which Mr. Redstone has always opposed, of gaining control of National Amusements and Viacom," a Viacom spokesman said in a statement provided to AFP Saturday.
"The actions taken yesterday in Sumner Redstone's name are completely inconsistent with his long-expressed wishes and intent and extremely disruptive and damaging to Viacom and all its shareholders," the statement said.
In 2015, share prices of Viacom plunged more than 40 percent due to uncertainty over Redstone's health.
Forbes magazine estimates his fortune at $5.3 billion.
CBS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
- Competency -
Although Dauman has not indicated his next move, he is expected to challenge Redstone's competency to make the decision.
The issue has major implications for his business interests.
The mogul's mental capacity came under question during a court case in Los Angeles earlier this month after his former companion Manuela Herzer filed a lawsuit claiming Redstone was mentally incompetent when he kicked her out of his home in October and cut her out of his will.
Her attorney said in court that Redstone's daughter Shari, his nursing staff and others in his entourage had essentially staged a "coup" and "brainwashed" him into dumping her.
The judge later dismissed the lawsuit, saying Redstone appeared "very composed" in video testimony.
The case captivated Hollywood and Wall Street as court papers laid out salacious details about the billionaire's private life.
Taliban leader Mansour 'likely killed' in US drone strike
An American drone strike targeted and "likely killed" Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a remote area of Pakistan, US officials said, in a major and rare American military raid in the country.
The air strike, authorized by President Barack Obama, also killed a second adult male combatant as the pair traveled in a vehicle southwest of the town of Ahmad Wal near the Afghan border, a US official said.
"Mansour was the target and was likely killed" by the strikes, which were carried out around 6:00 am (1000 GMT) by multiple unmanned aircraft operated by US Special Operations Forces, the US official added, speaking on conditions of anonymity. There were no other known casualties.
This handout photograph released by The Afghan Taliban on December 3, 2015, which was taken on a mobile phone in mid-2014 is said to show Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour posing for a photograph at an undisclosed location in Afghanistan
In a statement, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the US military was still assessing whether Mansour had in fact been killed. The deaths of Taliban leaders have often been falsely reported, and Mansour himself was rumored to have been killed in December.
The United States informed both Pakistan and Afghanistan shortly after the strike, a senior White House official said.
News of the strike came as US Central Command chief General Joseph Votel made a surprise visit to northern Syria to witness efforts to build up local forces in the fight against the Islamic State group.
He was the highest-ranking US military official to travel to Syria since its civil conflict began in 2011.
The United States has focused its counterterrorism efforts on fighting IS in Syria and Iraq, but it also is struggling with a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan since most US combat troops withdrew at the end of 2014.
Mansour was "actively involved" with planning attacks across Afghanistan, and presented an "obstacle to peace and reconciliation between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, prohibiting Taliban leaders from participating in peace talks with the Afghan government that could lead to an end to the conflict," Cook said.
Mansour was appointed head of the Taliban in July 2015 following the revelation that the group's founder Mullah Omar had been dead for two years.
"Since the death of Mullah Omar and Mansour's assumption of leadership, the Taliban have conducted many attacks that have resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and Afghan security forces as well as numerous US and coalition personnel," Cook said.
- 'Keep expectations in check' -
Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution think-tank said Mansour's death may only "modestly" help the US effort in Afghanistan.
"The war has been going on for so long, the Taliban has so many leaders and so much ability to function at the local level even without strong central guidance, that we would be well advised to keep expectations in check," he said.
US lawmakers welcomed the news and some urged the Obama administration to take a firmer stand.
"I appreciate President Obama for authorizing the attack," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said, adding "I strongly encourage the Obama administration to not withdraw troops until conditions on the ground permit their withdrawal."
Republican Senator John McCain, head of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, said he hoped "this strike against the Taliban's top leader will lead the administration to reconsider its policy of prohibiting US forces from targeting the Taliban."
Pressure has been building in recent months for the United States return to direct engagement with the Taliban, particularly via air strikes.
"We need to take the gloves off those forces already in-country," namely those belonging to the United States and NATO, and authorize air strikes, David Petraeus, the ex-CIA director and former commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, wrote in The Wall Street Journal this week.
NATO ended its combat mission in Afghanistan in December 2014, pulling out the bulk of its troops, although a 13,000-strong residual force remains for training and counterterrorism operations.
The Taliban, which announced the start of its annual spring offensive last month, has already stepped up its campaign against the Western-backed Kabul government for the season.
Kabul is desperately seeking to bring the insurgent group back to the negotiating table to end their conflict which began in 2001.
Buoyed by a series of victories on the battlefield, the fighters have so far refused to talk until their conditions are met, including the departure of all foreign soldiers from Afghanistan.
However, Pakistan on Wednesday hosted a fresh four-nation meeting aimed at reviving the long-stalled direct peace talks.
- Part of movement from start -
Born in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar sometime in the early 1960s, Mansour was part of the Taliban movement from its start in the 1990s and has effectively been in charge since 2013, according to Taliban sources.
He has shunned public appearances. The few pictures believed to be of him show a thickset man with the dark beard and turban that are virtually the uniform for senior Taliban cadres.
Mansour spent part of his life in Pakistan, like millions of Afghans who fled the Soviet occupation.
He succeeded Omar, the one-eyed warrior-cleric who led the Taliban from its rise in the chaos of the Afghan civil war of the 1990s.
Afghan policeman stands guard at a checkpoint on the Kandahar-Tarin Kot highway Rateb Noori (AFP/File)
Afghan security personnel keep watch from an armoured vehicle after fighting against Taliban militants at Charkhab in Kunduz province Nasir Waqif (AFP/File)
IS threatens US, tries to rally support in new audio message
The Islamic State group appeared to try to keep morale high among its supporters in a new audio message released on Saturday, which also called for attacks on the US during the holy month of Ramadan.
The audio recording reportedly featuring IS spokesman Abu Mohamed al-Adnani was posted online late Saturday evening after much fanfare by IS supporters on Twitter.
"Will we be defeated if we lose Mosul, or Sirte, or Raqa, or all the cities, and go back to how we were before?" Adnani said.
The Islamic State group released a new audio message, which calls for attacks on the US during the holy month of Ramadan Joseph Eid (AFP/File)
The three cities are IS's strongholds in Iraq, Libya, and Syria respectively.
"No. Defeat is only losing the desire and the will to fight," Adnani continued, in his first voiced speech since October.
The spokesman appeared to mock the United States, which is leading a coalition of countries in an air war against IS in Iraq and Syria, for failing to definitively defeat IS.
He said even "20,000 air strikes" by the coalition had not destroyed IS.
Adnani also called for attacks on the US and Europe during the holy month of Ramadan, which starts in early June this year, an appeal he made at the same time last year when urging supporters to seek "martyrdom".
On Friday, flyers apparently dropped by the coalition on Raqa city in northern Syria urged residents to leave the city, perhaps ahead of an offensive by anti-IS forces to recapture it.
"It would appear IS is more clearly acknowledging its limitations in holding territory" while stressing the "idea of living on despite losses," wrote jihadism expert Aymenn al-Tamimi in reaction to Adnani's recording.
Kerry hails 'remarkable' Myanmar changes after Suu Kyi talks
US Secretary of State John Kerry Sunday hailed Myanmar's transition to a civilian government steered by Aung San Suu Kyi as a "remarkable statement" that furthers the cause of global democracy.
In the first high-level meeting with Suu Kyi and her administration since it took office in March, Kerry told the Nobel laureate her country's evolution towards democracy after decades under the military served as a beacon of hope.
"Today my message is very, very simple: we strongly support the democratic transition that is taking place here," he told reporters at a joint press conference with Suu Kyi in the capital Naypyidaw.
US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) meets with Myanmar's Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyidaw on May 22, 2016 Aung Shine Oo (Pool/AFP)
Historic elections in November swept Suu Kyi and her party into office and effectively ended half a century of military rule.
Kerry applauded the process as a "remarkable statement to people all over the world", adding that the new government "has already accomplished extraordinary things."
Washington last week lifted a host of financial and trade embargoes, but has kept the backbone of its sanctions as well as a blacklist of cronies and businesses close to the former junta.
"I know that the legacy of more than half a century of military rule has not been completely erased," Kerry said.
Suu Kyi, a veteran activist whose decades-long struggle against the generals won the world's admiration, has much political capital in Washington.
She now serves as Myanmar's foreign minister, while also holding the newly-created position of state counsellor putting her at the helm of government in defiance of an army-drafted constitution that bars her from the presidency.
That role is now held by her longtime ally Htin Kyaw.
In addition to November's landmark election, reforms so far have seen hundreds of political prisoners freed, the press unshackled from censorship and foreign investment flood into a country cut-off from the world for so long by paranoid generals.
As he enters the twilight of his term in office, US President Barack Obama is doubling down on his "Asia pivot" -- a diplomatic strategy to engage the continent's leaders and tap its growing economies.
- Tension remains -
Kerry will also meet army chief Min Aung Hlaing, as Washington looks to induce further democratisation moves.
The army retains significant economic interests and political clout under a charter it scripted -- including a quarter of all parliamentary seats and control of key security ministries.
Myanmar faces other huge challenges, including decrepit infrastructure, conflicts in resource-rich borderlands, religious tensions and the continued influence of the army and junta-era cronies, who still dominate the economy.
US investment in Myanmar remains relatively low, although some US companies including Coca-Cola and Pepsi, fast food restaurant KFC and carmakers Chevrolet and Ford have already established a sales presence.
Last week Washington rolled back more sanctions, opening up all Myanmar banks to American business, while also extending indefinitely permission for firms to import through Myanmar's ports and airports -- many of which are operated by cronies still on the blacklist.
But tension points remain.
In recent weeks Washington has come under pressure from hardline Buddhists after the US embassy used the term "Rohingya" to refer to the persecuted Muslim minority in the western state of Rakhine.
The term is incendiary to Buddhist nationalists who label the group "Bengalis" and view them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
More than 100,000 Rohinyga languish in displacement camps following sectarian violence in 2012.
Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya are denied citizenship even though many can trace their roots in the country back generations.
Conceding it is a "sensitive issue", a State Department official reiterated America's stance that all people have the right "to self-identify, including the Rohingya."
Kerry will go on to Vietnam Sunday to accompany Obama to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City for a three-day visit likely to focus on trade, security and human rights.
Myanmar
The position of president is held by Suu Kyi's longtime ally Htin Kyaw, seen here following his swearing-in ceremony in March Ye Aung Thu (Pool/AFP/File)
Top US commander for the Middle East visited Syria: Centcom
The top US military commander for the Middle East made a suprise visit to northern Syria to witness efforts to build up local forces in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group, officials said.
General Joseph Votel, head of US Central Command (Centcom), met US military advisors working with Syrian Arab fighters, a Centcom spokesman said.
He also met leaders of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the spokesman said, without providing further details.
The leading US commander for the Middle East, General Joseph Votel, met US military advisors working with Syrian Arab fighters and leaders of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Jim Watson (AFP/File)
During the secret trip, which lasted several hours, the Centcom commander visited a handful of locations, CNN reported as it accompanied Votel, the highest-ranking US military official to travel to Syria since its civil conflict began in 2011.
US special operations forces are helping train fighters in Syria to combat the IS group as Washington leads a coalition of countries in an air war against the jihadists in Iraq and Syria.
The IS group has seized swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq to create a self-styled "caliphate." Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has received pledges of allegiance from jihadist groups around the world.
The United States has roughly 200 advisers on the ground in Syria, but no combat units. Votel's visit comes as the first of 250 more US special operations forces are beginning to arrive.
Kurds play a dominant role in the US-backed SDF, providing the core of the forces that have pushed back the IS group group in the country's northeast.
The SDF has a total of about 25,000 Kurdish fighters and about 5,000 Arab fighters.
Washington is pushing to bring more Arab forces into the group.
The Syrian war erupted in early 2011 after Assad's forces launched a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests, and has since claimed more than 270,000 lives.
Intense firefight sows panic in massive Rio de Janeiro slum
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) A heavy firefight between law enforcement and drug trafficking gangs raged for hours in Rio de Janeiro's largest slum, sowing panic among residents.
The gun battle broke out Friday afternoon in Rocinha, a massive slum wedged into one of the city's richest neighborhoods. No deaths or injuries were immediately reported.
On its Instagram feed, the elite BOPE police unit said its agents were after a notorious drug trafficker believed to be holed up in the slum. The trafficker, known as Rogerio 157, was not thought to have been captured.
A police officer patrols past residents during a police operation at Rocinha slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, May 20, 2016. A heavy firefight between law enforcement and drug trafficking gangs raged for hours in Rio de Janeiro's largest slum, sowing panic among residents. Rocinha is among Rio's so-called pacified slums, with a police presence. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
The firefight dragged on for several hours, alarming both Rocinha residents as well as those living in nearby wealthy neighborhoods. Rocinha is among Rio's so-called pacified slums, with a police presence.
A police officer aims his weapon during a police operation at Rocinha slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, May 20, 2016. A heavy firefight between law enforcement and drug trafficking gangs raged for hours in Rio de Janeiro's largest slum, sowing panic among residents. Rocinha is among Rio's so-called pacified slums, with a police presence. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
A woman looks out from the entrance of her house during a police operation at Rocinha slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, May 20, 2016. A heavy firefight between law enforcement and drug trafficking gangs raged for hours in Rio de Janeiro's largest slum, sowing panic among residents. Rocinha is among Rio's so-called pacified slums, with a police presence. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Police officers walk in an alley during a police operation at Rocinha slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, May 20, 2016. A heavy firefight between law enforcement and drug trafficking gangs raged for hours in Rio de Janeiro's largest slum, sowing panic among residents. Rocinha is among Rio's so-called pacified slums, with a police presence. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Residents observe a police operation at Rocinha slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, May 20, 2016. A heavy firefight between law enforcement and drug trafficking gangs raged for hours in Rio de Janeiro's largest slum, sowing panic among residents. Rocinha is among Rio's so-called pacified slums, with a police presence. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Police officers patrol during a police operation at Rocinha slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, May 20, 2016. A heavy firefight between law enforcement and drug trafficking gangs raged for hours in Rio de Janeiro's largest slum, sowing panic among residents. Rocinha is among Rio's so-called pacified slums, with a police presence. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
A blimp made an emergency landing and deflated at a construction site next to a Philadelphia highway after experiencing engine problems on Friday.
The blimp floated over the Delaware River on Friday night before going down in the Fishtown neighborhood along Interstate 95.
No injuries were reported on the two-passenger blimp or on the ground where it landed, near the SugarHouse Casino.
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A blimp made an emergency landing and deflated at a construction site next to a Philadelphia highway
The two people on board escaped unscathed in the landing at about 7pm.
The blimp, which had been flying over the Delaware River earlier in the evening, was captured on video descending over the highway and striking a concrete barrier with its passenger capsule, according to NBC 10.
'The blimp had a hard landing, had engine problems, it was overheating,' Ray Evers of the Philadelphia Police Department told reporters.
'As I was getting to this point of the exit, the blimp started to come down,' a witness who had been driving along the highway said.
'If I went any further, it would have landed, on my car.'
A section of the highway was closed briefly while crews secured the area and inspected the blimp.
No injuries were reported on the two-passenger blimp or on the ground where it landed on Friday
It is unclear what caused the blimp to go down, but police say the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have been notified.
The blimp lost power before the emergency landing on Friday, FAA spokesman Rick Breitenfeldt said.
Breitenfeldt could not immediately say which company was operating the blimp, which was displaying advertising.
Lt. David Bonk, a Philadelphia police officer in a helicopter tactical unit, posted an aerial photo of the blimp lying mostly deflated in what appeared to be a construction zone on Twitter.
'Not something #TacAir sees everyday,' Bonk wrote alongside the picture.
The blimp displayed advertising for adhesives company Bostik Inc., based in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. The company could not be reached for comment.
American Airlines demolishes old headquarters buildings
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) Six buildings that were part of American Airlines' headquarters in the 1980s have been demolished to clear the way for a new corporate campus.
The buildings, located south of the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, were demolished Friday.
Hundreds of employees gathered on top of a parking garage at American's current headquarters, about a mile away, to watch the implosion of the buildings, which stood three to five stories tall.
American Airlines employees look on and shoot video of the implosion of the company's former headquarters building in Fort Worth, Texas, Friday, May 20, 2016. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
American moved to its current headquarters in 1990. The old headquarters building was subleased but has been vacant since 2009.
After the explosion, some of the buildings were left partially standing. American Airlines said that was done to protect nearby trees. The company says the remains of those buildings will be cleared later with the rest of the debris.
American Airlines employees look on and shoot video of the implosion of the company's former headquarters building in Fort Worth, Texas, Friday, May 20, 2016. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
American Airlines employees gather to watch the implosion of the company's former headquarters building, grey building in background, in Fort Worth, Texas, Friday, May 20, 2016. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Miguel Antonio Lugo, 4, rides on the shoulder of his grandfather Audy Rosado as they gather with American Airlines employees to watch the implosion of the airline's former headquarters building, in Fort Worth, Texas, Friday, May 20, 2016. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
American Airlines employees gather to watch the implosion of the company's former headquarters building, grey building in background, in Fort Worth, Texas, Friday, May 20, 2016. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Vietnam frees jailed dissident priest ahead of Obama's visit
BANGKOK (AP) Vietnam granted early release from prison to a Catholic priest who is one of its most prominent dissidents, a move widely seen as a goodwill gesture before President Barack Obama arrives on an official visit late Sunday night.
The Catholic Archdiocese of the central city of Hue reported on its webpage that it welcomed the return Friday of the Rev. Nguyen Van Ly from prison. Photos on its website showed a frail Ly, 70, being helped off a minibus, kneeling to pay his respects to his senior colleagues, then being led to a room prepared for him at the diocese. He has suffered several health crises while imprisoned.
Ly has served several long terms in prison or under house arrest for promoting political and religious freedoms in the communist nation. He was first jailed in 1977, two years after the Communist takeover of all Vietnam.
In this Friday May 20, 2016 photo released by the Catholic Archdiocese of Hue, Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly, center, is welcomed back by Archbishop Tadeo, left, and a senior colleague to his parish in Hue, Ha Nam province, Vietnam. Vietnam granted early release from prison to Ly who is one of its most prominent dissidents, a move widely seen as a goodwill gesture before U.S. President Barack Obama arrives on an official visit late Sunday night. Ly has been serving an eight-year prison term since March 2007 after being convicted of spreading propaganda against the state. (Catholic Archdiocese of Hue via AP)
His early release was for an eight-year prison term he had been serving since March 2007 after being convicted of spreading propaganda against the state. He was released on medical parole in 2010 for 16 months before being sent back to prison in 2011 to resume serving his sentence, to which a five-year probationary period is also attached.
Vietnam's persecution of dissidents has been a roadblock to warmer relations with the United States, from which it is seeking the lifting of an arms embargo. Washington and Hanoi share a strategic interest in challenging Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, some of which are in areas long claimed by Vietnam.
The government's relations have always been strained with the Catholic church, associated with French colonial rule and the former anti-communist South Vietnam, as well as an influential power base independent of the ruling Communist Party's control.
The U.S. State Department said it welcomed Ly's release.
"We consistently have called for the release of Father Ly and all other prisoners of conscience in Vietnam," said Gabrielle Price, the department's spokeswoman for East Asia and Pacific affairs. "We remain deeply concerned for all prisoners of conscience in Vietnam. We call on the government to release unconditionally all prisoners of conscience and allow all Vietnamese to express their political views peacefully without fear of retribution."
More than a dozen human rights groups last month sent an appeal to Obama urging him to press Hanoi to release political prisoners.
The appeal, whose signees included Human Rights Watch as well as groups focusing on Vietnam, urged him "to make clear, both in private and in public, that (the) U.S.-Vietnamese relationship will not fundamentally advance absent meaningful human rights improvements, including the release of imprisoned activists, and end to harassment of civil society groups, and respect for international law."
___
Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report.
In this Friday May 20, 2016 photo released by the Catholic Archdiocese of Hue, Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly, right, prays as he is welcomed back by Archbishop Tadeo to his parish in Hue, Ha Nam province, Vietnam. Vietnam granted early release from prison to Ly who is one of its most prominent dissidents, a move widely seen as a goodwill gesture before U.S. President Barack Obama arrives on an official visit late Sunday night. Ly has been serving an eight-year prison term since March 2007 after being convicted of spreading propaganda against the state. (Catholic Archdiocese of Hue via AP)
In this Friday May 20, 2016 photo released by the Catholic Archdiocese of Hue, Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly, center, is welcomed back by Archbishop Tadeo, left, and a senior colleague to his parish in Hue, Ha Nam province, Vietnam. Vietnam granted early release from prison to Ly who is one of its most prominent dissidents, a move widely seen as a goodwill gesture before U.S. President Barack Obama arrives on an official visit late Sunday night. Ly has been serving an eight-year prison term since March 2007 after being convicted of spreading propaganda against the state. (Catholic Archdiocese of Hue via AP)
China arrests 135 for illegally buying, selling vaccines
BEIJING (AP) China has arrested 135 people in 22 provinces for illegally buying and selling vaccines, in the latest scandal shaking the Chinese public's confidence in vaccine safety.
In an online statement Friday, the national prosecuting office said arrest warrants were issued for 125 people for running vaccine businesses without license.
It said 15 of them have been formally indicted, and two were found guilty. Ten health officials were arrested for on-duty negligence.
FILE - In this Monday, March 21, 2016 file photo, officials from China's State Food and Drug Administration inspect vaccines stored at the local Center for Disease Control and Prevention office in Rong'an county in southwestern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. China's national prosecuting office said Friday, May 20, 2016 that 135 people in 22 provinces have been arrested for illegally buying and selling vaccines, in one of the latest scandals that has shaken the public confidence in the safety of vaccines. (Chinatopix via AP, File) CHINA OUT
The accused health officials had worked at local public health centers and knowingly bought the illegal vaccines and used them on people, the prosecuting office said.
The massive investigation followed a case in March when a doctor in the eastern province of Shandong were found to have sold 2 million doses of improperly stored or expired vaccines. Media reports said she stored the vaccines at room temperature, instead of keeping them refrigerated as required.
Vaccines not stored and managed properly can lose their effectiveness and may not protect people being inoculated. The vaccines in the March case included those for hepatitis B, rabies, mumps and Japanese encephalitis.
The scandal drew criticism from people upset with persistent food and drug safety issues in the country. Beijing quickly ordered an investigation to crack down on illegal businesses of vaccines.
FILE - In this Monday, Nov. 16, 2009 file photo, a health worker prepares a dose of H1N1 vaccine at the start of a free vaccination program intended for all Beijing residents at a clinic in Beijing. China's national prosecuting office said Friday, May 20, 2016 that 135 people in 22 provinces have been arrested for illegally buying and selling vaccines, in one of the latest scandals that has shaken the public confidence in the safety of vaccines. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)
G7 takes aim at terrorist financing; rifts on policy remain
AKIU, Japan (AP) The Group of Seven major economies showed a united front on fighting terrorist financing and tax evasion in talks that ended Saturday, but shied away from coordinated action on policies to revive stalling growth.
An "action plan" issued after the talks by G7 finance ministers and central bank governors at a hot springs hotel in northern Japan called for increased exchanges of information on financial intelligence, reducing the level of cross-border transactions subject to disclosure and collaborating on targeted sanctions for terrorists' financial networks, including freezing assets.
"There's a moment for reflecting, for putting forward ideas, for comparing them, and then comes the moment for action. This is where we are today," said France's finance minister, Michel Sapin, whose country has suffered devastating attacks in the past few years.
Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso, left, speaks next to Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda, right, during a press conference after a meeting of finance ministers and heads of central banks of the Group of Seven in in Akiu, northern Japan, Saturday, May 21, 2016. The G7 major economies showed a united front on fighting terrorist financing and tax evasion in talks that ended Saturday, but shied away from coordinated action on policies to revive stalling growth. Yohei Kanezashi/Kyodo News via AP) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT
The talks in Akiu, to be followed by a G7 summit in central Japan's Ise region next week, started out with a brainstorming session on how best to use monetary policy, government spending and longer-term reforms to help support growth.
But they ended with countries stressing the need for varying strategies for boosting growth.
Most of the governments of the G7 favor more pro-active government spending to help support flagging growth and spur demand, while Germany has remained more conservative on fiscal matters, regarding structural reforms as crucial.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the lack of coordinated action, in the absence of a crisis, was natural, given the varying conditions and resources in each country.
"We each have unique challenges that have to be addressed, so it's not one-size-fits-all," Lew said. "Different times require different responses. We're not in 2008 or 2009."
Lew did express concern, however, over Japan's plan to raise its sales tax, to 10 percent from the current 8 percent, in April 2017.
"Each of us needs to take policy actions that given the conditions in our country are most likely to produce more demand and more growth," Lew said, adding that while the decision is up to Japan, "We'd be quite concerned about taking steps that would put a drag on the economy."
Aso, who has said the tax hike will go ahead unless there is a major crisis or disaster, also acknowledged differences with the U.S. over such issues as exchange rates.
"I met with Secretary Lew and we didn't have a heated discussion. We had a normal conversation," Aso said. "We have to say what we think to each other because that's our jobs. It's normal to exchange views and that helps ensure things will not go awry because issues become too emotional."
Lew stressed that he hoped G7 members would honor commitments made during recent discussions in China by the wider Group of 20 major economies, where members pledged to not manipulate exchange rates to their own advantage.
A recent rise in the value of the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar is adding to pressures on Japanese companies who had reaped record profits as the yen weakened in recent years, fattening earnings brought back to Japan in yen terms. While reiterating a pledge not to engage in "competitive devaluations," Aso has chafed at recent moves in the yen's value, hinting at the possibility of intervention if they become too "disorderly."
"Instability and disorderly movements can have ... implications for financial stability," he said.
The talks also touched on nonfinancial risks to growth, such as the refugee crisis, terrorism and a looming referendum in Britain over whether or not to leave the European Union. Such a move is viewed as likely to cause major disruptions both in Europe and in global financial markets.
The World Bank, whose president, Jim Yong Kim, is attending the talks, took the opportunity to launch a financing mechanism for insuring risks from pandemics. Japan pledged the first $50 million to fund the $500 million initiative.
The talks also explored ways to improve the "integrity" of global financial flows, especially following the release of the so-called "Panama Papers," which disclosed details of offshore companies set up for wealthy individuals and companies by the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. Companies registered in tax havens are often used for legitimate business purposes, but also can facilitate tax evasion and money laundering.
"In a positive sense, the Panama Papers have acted as a sort of tail wind" for efforts to crack down on tax avoidance, Aso said.
Sapin, the French finance minister, said the group also made progress on how to help Greece resolve its dire troubles over its debt, most of which is owed to European creditors.
"Until everything is decided, we can't consider it done, but I think all the elements for an agreement are today on the table," Sapin said. "The observation we can make is that Greece is keeping its obligations."
Apart from Japan and the U.S., the G7 countries include Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy.
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Associated Press writer Emily Wang contributed to this report.
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Follow Elaine Kurtenbach: www.twitter.com/ekurtenbach
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Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso, left, speaks next to Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda, right, during a press conference after a meeting of finance ministers and heads of central banks of the Group of Seven in in Akiu, northern Japan, Saturday, May 21, 2016. The G7 major economies showed a united front on fighting terrorist financing and tax evasion in talks that ended Saturday, but shied away from coordinated action on policies to revive stalling growth. (Yohei Kanezashi/Kyodo News via AP) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT
AP Analysis: Why junta rules Thailand, with no end in sight
BANGKOK (AP) Thailand's military seized power from an elected government on May 22, 2014, with the justification that it wanted to end chaotic and violent political confrontations that had wracked the country for years. But more than an attempt to restore stability was at play.
Here's a look at the reasons for, and consequences of, the coup led two years ago Sunday by Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, who continues to rule as prime minister:
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FILE - In this May 29, 2014 file photo, Thai soldiers form a line while guarding a bus stop area to prevent an anti-coup demonstration at Victory Monument in Bangkok, Thailand. Thailands military seized power from an elected government on May 22, 2014, with the justification that it wanted to end chaotic and violent political confrontations that had wracked the country for years. But there was more than an attempt to restore stability at play. The coup really was traditional ruling elites latest and most decisive intervention in what is now a decade-long war for political power with billionaire telecommunications tycoon-turned-politician Thaksin Shinawatra. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn, File)
WHY?
The coup really was traditional ruling elite's latest and most decisive intervention in what is now a decadelong war for political power with billionaire telecommunications tycoon-turned-politician Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thaksin was a popular prime minister from 2001 until he was booted by an earlier coup in 2006. After years of political turmoil and musical chairs, his sister Yingluck Shinawatra came to power in a landslide election victory in 2011. Her government was ousted in the 2014 coup following about six months of protests and political street-fighting that paralyzed Bangkok, the capital.
Arrogant and flexible in his ethics, Thaksin alienated the educated, urban middle class and alarmed traditional ruling circles royalists and the military who also feared his lock on the electorate challenged the power structure. The military also worried he would interfere in the succession when the revered and ailing King Bhumibol Adulyadej on the throne since 1946 ended his reign.
Thaksin has lived abroad since 2008 to avoid serving prison time for a corruption conviction he says was politically motivated. The anti-Yingluck protests were sparked by an amnesty bill that could have allowed Thaksin to return to Thailand a free man.
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LIFE TODAY
The junta has since restored order, but at the cost of suspending many civil liberties, most notably freedom of expression.
The military holds near-absolute power through Article 44 of the junta-imposed interim constitution. It allows Prayuth to take any measures deemed necessary to promote public order and unity.
Most of the repression so far has been applied with a touch more paternalistic than brutal. When threats fail to keep critics and dissidents in line, they are detained at military bases, usually for no more than a week, for interrogation sessions called "attitude adjustment." One major exception: Those convicted of insulting the monarchy face up to 15 years in prison.
Lately, however, junta officials frustrated by repeat offenders have suggested they be sent to "re-education camps," which implies at least longer detainments. Another ominous development is the prosecution of human rights lawyers.
Military courts are empowered to try certain types of civilian cases. In March, the military were given police-like powers to seize assets, search premises and arrest and detain criminal suspects.
Junta critics have expressed particular outrage over the recent arrest of the mother of a pro-democracy activist. Her alleged crime: failing to rebuke a Facebook friend who sent an alleged anti-monarchist message.
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ECONOMY
The junta inherited a lagging economy, with policymakers hindered by years of political instability. Macroeconomic indicators showed Thailand underperforming much of the region, though this year's estimated first-quarter growth of 3.2 percent was stronger than expected.
Thailand's export-led economy was especially vulnerable to China's downturn. Two of the strongest export sectors face other problems as well. Agriculture has been weakened by severe drought, while scandals in the fishing and seafood industry involving labor abuses and illegal fishing practices risked sanctions in the markets of the EU and the United States. Tourism, however, has remained strong, even after a bomb blast last year in central Bangkok killed 20 people.
Boosting investment has been difficult, with some ambitious infrastructure projects stalled in part due to political uncertainties. Instead, the government has focused mainly on increasing consumption to stimulate the economy, particularly in rural areas. These measures, such as farming subsidies, were similar to Thaksin government policies that his critics derided as populist giveaways to buy voters' loyalty.
What concerns economists is that the junta's generally narrow focus on political stability constrains it from tackling the country's acknowledged structural problems competitiveness, industrial production capacity, productivity, education and training, state-owned-enterprise reform that the pre-coup turmoil allowed to fester.
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FOREIGN RELATIONS
Traditionally close relations between the United States and Thailand, its oldest ally in Asia, have seemingly been shaken. Moves by Bangkok to cozy up to Beijing have been widely interpreted as a response to Washington's scolding of the military for uprooting democracy and violating human rights.
The U.S. suspended $4.7 million in security assistance funds and stopped top-level diplomatic exchanges. Washington has made clear that those restrictions will remain until civilian rule is restored. Prayuth, however, has been able to visit the U.S. for multilateral events. The U.S. has also continued to stage in Thailand its largest multilateral military exercise in the Asia-Pacific, albeit it on a smaller scale than before the coup.
Thaksin's most virulent critics regard U.S. cheerleading for liberal democracy as tantamount to backing for the former prime minister. Junta officials have expressed their annoyance at Washington, but how deep their anger actually runs is hard to gauge anti-American statements play well with their supporters, but military-to-military relations run deep.
Bangkok's flirtations with Beijing involve relatively modest investments, closer military relations, and an increasing willingness to extradite Beijing's political opponents, despite international criticism. At the same time, however, Thailand has stood fast against unfavorable financing terms offered by the Chinese for a much-desired major rail project, and has expressed interest in joining the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.
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THE FUTURE
Thailand's ruling generals have made clear they are not planning to yield control anytime soon. Initial plans to hold an election in 2015 were deferred until 2016, and are now deferred again until 2017.
Their proposed draft constitution is fashioned to keep power in the hands of their allies in the traditional elite using the courts and bureaucracy as their tools at the expense of the voters' political representatives. One provision could allow for an unelected prime minister a concept many Thais believed dead and buried a generation ago along with military dictatorship. Another would see the junta remain in existence for five years after the polls for what is described as a "transitional period."
The draft charter will be voted on in an Aug. 7 referendum that amounts to the first measurement of public sentiment toward the military government. The exercise will be far from free and fair campaigning for or against the draft is subject to nebulous rules that could land activists up to 10 years in prison. Even the sale of a "Vote No" T-shirt is considered against the law.
Prayuth has said the junta will press ahead with its plans regardless of the outcome, suggesting that if the draft charter is rejected, a replacement will be enacted without a popular vote. In any case, a rejection would deeply undercut the legitimacy the junta has claimed for itself.
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FINAL WORD
The streets of Bangkok may be calm, and the country's resorts thronging with tourists. But the problem the junta faces is that it has not moved the country one inch away from the polarized politics it claimed to be seeking an end to, since it has been a party to the conflict all along.
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Grant Peck has covered Thailand for the AP for more than 15 years.
FILE - In this March 9, 2016 file photo, Thailand's former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra responds to questions during a news interview in New York. The military seized power from an elected government on May 22, 2014, on the grounds of trying to end chaotic and violent political confrontations had had wracked the country for years. But there was more than attempts to restore stability at play. The coup really was traditional ruling elites latest and most decisive intervention in what is now a decade-long war for political power with billionaire telecommunications tycoon-turned-politician Thaksin. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File)
In this Tuesday, May 10, 2016 photo, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha arrives at Government House before a cabinet meeting in Bangkok, Thailand. Thailands military seized power from an elected government on May 22, 2014, with the justification that it wanted to end chaotic and violent political confrontations that had wracked the country for years. But there was more than an attempt to restore stability at play. The coup really was traditional ruling elites latest and most decisive intervention in what is now a decade-long war for political power with billionaire telecommunications tycoon-turned-politician Thaksin Shinawatra. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
Cronulla into 1st place in Australia's National Rugby League
SYDNEY (AP) The Cronulla Sharks won their eighth consecutive match and moved into first place in Australia's National Rugby League after a 20-12 win over the Manly Sea Eagles on Saturday.
The win moved the Sharks two points clear of North Queensland, Brisbane and the Melbourne Storm.
On Friday, and not for the first time, a North Queensland-Brisbane derby match was decided by a Johnathan Thurston field goal.
Thurston struck in the 75th minute to seal defending champion North Queensland's 19-18 win over Brisbane in Townsville, marking the third consecutive match between the state rivals that ended in a one-point margin of victory.
That includes the Cowboys' 2015 grand final result, which was also decided by Thurston's field goal in extra time, a 17-16 win.
The match Friday was Cowboys' co-captain Thurston's 250th game for North Queensland.
"I remember my first game for the Cowboys back in 2005 against Brisbane at Suncorp Stadium when they bashed us up," he said. "There have been some tough times and good times between those games."
In other matches, the Wests Tigers beat the last-place Newcastle Knights 20-12 on Saturday, Canberra defeated the New Zealand Warriors 38-12 and South Sydney beat St. George Illawara 34-24.
George P. Bush: A Bush can survive in Trump political world
DALLAS (AP) George P. Bush was talking about his future political plans and how Donald Trump wouldn't reshape them when two women approached, giddy with excitement.
They wanted pictures with a man whose photogenic smile once landed him on People magazine's most-eligible bachelors list. Up close, though, they saw something unexpected.
"You look like your dad," Ruth Ann Pratt, a retired college math teacher from Lake Jackson, near Houston, finally exclaimed. "You turn slightly to the side, and you ARE your dad."
In this photo made Thursday, May 12, 2016, Texas land commissioner George P. Bush, center, poses for a photo with delegates at the Texas Republican Convention in Dallas. Eighteen months after he was elected Texas land commissioner and just past his 40th birthday, George P. Bush is quietly continuing his family's legacy. The "Hispanic Bush" remains a rising star in America's largest conservative state and is keeping alive the possibility that a political dynasty declared dead by many pundits when his dad flamed out of the presidential race could yet again return to national prominence. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Bush only smiled. These days, being associated with his father, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, may not be such a great thing.
Eighteen months after he was elected Texas land commissioner and a few weeks past his 40th birthday, Bush is quietly continuing his family's legacy. The grandson of one former president and nephew of another, he remains a rising star in America's largest conservative state and is keeping alive the possibility that a political dynasty declared dead by many when his dad flamed out of the presidential race could yet again return to national prominence.
What remains to be seen, though, is if a third George Bush can survive in a political world turned upside down by Trump where Republican primary voters overwhelmingly have embraced the ultimate outsider who promises to smash the political establishment the Bushes embodied for decades.
"Regardless of what comes at me, I'll be prepared," Bush said of the possibility his last name has shifted from GOP royalty to a liability.
In an interview during the recent Texas Republican Convention in Dallas, Bush said that, like his father, grandfather and uncle, he isn't endorsing Trump or attending the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
Bush said he was part of a national conservative movement concerned about Trump's candidacy.
"He has the ability to win us over if he clarifies many of his remarks and he demonstrates that he has humility and that he doesn't besmirch peoples' character as the motivating factor for why he's running for office," Bush said.
Pointing to his own sons, ages 1 and 3, he added: "I want them to be able to look at the Oval Office and see the presidential seal and say, 'That is somebody who I look up to.'"
Trump says being shunned by the Bushes proves he's not beholden to Washington powerbrokers. And Bush's hesitation to embrace Trump hasn't appeared to cost him much in Texas and beyond at least not yet.
Joe Brettell, a former GOP congressional staffer now based in Houston said "George P. has one of the brightest political futures in the country."
"He is absolutely on any smart Republican's radar,"Brettell said. "When the party begins to rebuild after Trump, Marco Rubio and George P. Bush will be two people that they look at as a blueprint for potential good times ahead."
Bush said he's not worried since "I believe that Texas is unique and its politics are separate from what's happening nationally."
"This isn't a smaller state where potentially there's more consolidation behind another candidate," he said.
Texas' GOP establishment has long seen Bush, whose mother was born in Mexico and who speaks fluent Spanish, as a potential powerhouse especially for Hispanics, who will become the state's majority population by around 2030.
The land commissioner's office has sometimes led to better-known posts. It's hard to imagine Bush challenging Texas' popular and ideologically similar Gov. Greg Abbott, in a 2018 Republican primary. But Bush, an attorney, could be a favorite in the state's race for attorney general. Texas's current attorney general, Republican Ken Paxton, is facing felony securities fraud indictments that may complicate the re-election bid he's vowing to mount in two years.
Bush, however, says he has "every intention of running again for the General Land Office, but my priorities right now require my focus to be on the here and the now."
His agency oversees the state's publicly held land, roughly 13 million acres, and administers mineral rights leases to oil and gas companies, which has generated nearly $17 billion for public schools.
Still, in speeches, Bush is quick to mention national issues. Addressing Texas' Republican Convention, he offered a message directly to President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton.
"You want to regulate our jobs? You want to take our land? You want to control our guns and our rights? You want to run our schools? You want to take over our state?," Bush asked. "No! Way!"
Emmy McDaniel, a Texas GOP delegate from Pflugerville, just north of Austin, said of Bush: "We're going to hear a lot more from him in the future."
"He's going to be sidelined a little with what happened with his dad," she said. "But, in the long term and for many years, I think he'll be running for bigger offices."
nIn this photo made Thursday, May 12, 2016, Texas land commissioner George P. Bush waves as he walks on stage to speak at the Texas Republican Convention in Dallas. Eighteen months after he was elected Texas land commissioner and just past his 40th birthday, George P. Bush is quietly continuing his family's legacy. The "Hispanic Bush" remains a rising star in America's largest conservative state and is keeping alive the possibility that a political dynasty declared dead by many pundits when his dad flamed out of the presidential race could yet again return to national prominence. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Space shuttle tank completes trek to Los Angeles museum
LOS ANGELES (AP) A colossal space shuttle fuel tank completed its 19-hour trek through the streets of Los Angeles on Saturday to join the retired orbiter Endeavour on display at the California Science Center.
The 33-ton, 154-foot-long external propellant tank began moving a few minutes after midnight from coastal Marina del Rey, where it arrived by barge Wednesday. It reached the museum at Exposition Park just after 7 p.m. following a carefully-coordinated journey down 16 miles of streets.
The orange-brown, sausage-shaped tank the last of its kind traveled by truck at about 5 mph. It was escorted by police, a fire truck, and several city officials and astronauts while crews trimmed a few trees and unbolted stoplight poles so they wouldn't hit the towering tank.
A cargo plane flies overhead as the last remaining space shuttle external propellant tank is moved across the 405 freeway in Los Angeles on Saturday, May 21, 2016. The ET-94 will be displayed with the retired space shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Freeway drivers got a shock as the tank rolled by on a bridge over Interstate 405, an artery west of downtown that was busy even on Saturday morning.
Along the route, people lined the sidewalks with their cellphones, trying to capture the perfect shot and a selfie.
"When you look at the people who are out here, it's little kids, it's older folks, it's white folks, it's black folks, it's Latino folks," said Shelly Arsneault, 49, of Whittier. "It's everybody. It's cool. It's LA."
Children, a few wearing home-made space helmets, were enthralled.
Cindy Hernandez, 11, of Inglewood, said the tank was "amazing."
"It will be a memory for me," she said.
"It's this next generation of explorers. These kids are going to remember today their whole lives. And they're going to think about it when they choose their career paths. They're going to study harder in school. And it's going to make us happy," astronaut Mike Fincke, who flew on the Endeavour's final flight in 2011, told the Los Angeles Times.
"It really makes me feel that a lot of people appreciate what our space program is doing," said Sandy Magnus, another astronaut. "Days like this I think are days that bring us all together."
The tank will be displayed upright along with the shuttle and two solid-rocket boosters, as if ready for takeoff.
The trek drew smaller crowds than the journey of the 122-foot-long Endeavour. With a wingspan of 78 feet, the orbiter was similarly hauled 12 miles to the center from Los Angeles International Airport. Extensive preparations for Endeavour's trek included removing trees, street posts and other obstacles, but that journey still took about 17 hours longer than planned.
Although longer, the external tank is much narrower than the shuttle, with a diameter of 27.5 feet.
The tank was shipped to California by barge from a NASA facility in Louisiana. The tank traveled through the Panama Canal to the Pacific and arrived at Marina del Rey, a yacht harbor on the Los Angeles County coast where it was offloaded to await the weekend move.
The move Saturday began with a bit of fanfare. A New Orleans-style jazz band played "When the Saints Go Marching In," and some people waved handkerchiefs to wish the tank bon voyage.
Known as ET-94, it was NASA's last flight-qualified external tank, but it was never used before the shuttle program came to an end.
External tanks not only carried propellant for space shuttles' main engines, they were the backbone of the launch system. An orbiter and two solid rocket boosters would be attached to the tank for the fiery ascent into space.
Inside ET-94 are two internal tanks for millions of pounds of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen as well as other equipment.
The tank's surface is covered with a layer of foam to keep the propellants at the proper temperature, reduce the formation of ice and to provide protection from heat as it sped through the atmosphere.
External tanks used on shuttle missions would be destroyed, burning up as they fell back through the atmosphere after being discarded by the orbiter.
ET-94 was built for use by the shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated over Texas as it was returning from a mission. The investigation found that foam fell off that mission's external tank during launch and punched a hole into a wing, allowing hot gases of the fiery re-entry inside the structure. Investigators used many pieces of foam from ET-94 in tests to come to the conclusion.
A skateboarder takes a picture as the last remaining space shuttle external propellant tank is moved through the streets of Los Angeles on Saturday, May 21, 2016. The ET-94 will be displayed with the retired space shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Energy drink promoters run to catch up to the massive space shuttle external propellant tank as it makes it's way to join a display of the retired orbiter Endeavour at the California Science Center on Saturday, May 21, 2016 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
The last remaining space shuttle external propellant tank is moved across the 405 freeway in Los Angeles on Saturday, May 21, 2016. The ET-94 will be displayed with the retired space shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
The last remaining space shuttle external propellant tank is moved through the streets of Los Angeles on Saturday, May 21, 2016. The ET-94 will be displayed with the retired space shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
A massive space shuttle external propellant tank makes it's way to join a display of the retired orbiter Endeavour at the California Science Center on Saturday, May 21, 2016 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Traffic officers take photos with their phones as a space shuttle external propellant tank is moved through the streets of Los Angeles on Saturday, May 21, 2016. The ET-94 will be displayed with the retired space shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
The space shuttle external propellant tank is moved through the streets of Los Angeles on Saturday, May 21, 2016. The ET-94 will be displayed with the retired space shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
UK Treasury: House prices will plummet if Britain leaves EU
LONDON (AP) British house prices could fall by up to 18 percent if the country leaves the European Union, the Treasury says a claim dismissed as scaremongering by campaigners for a U.K. exit from the bloc.
Treasury chief George Osborne said leaving the EU would be a "profound economic shock" that would lower property values and raise mortgage rates.
Treasury analysis estimates property prices will be worth between 10 and 18 percent less by 2018 if Britain leaves than if it stays.
FILE - This is a Thursday, April 14, 2016 file photo of Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne while speaking at a news conference during the the G5 Ministers of Finance meeting during the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings in Washington. Britain's Treasury says house prices could fall by up to 18 percent if the country leaves the European Union a claim dismissed as scaremongering by campaigners for a U.K. exit from the bloc. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
British house prices rose 9 percent in the year to March, and the value of property is something of a national obsession especially in London, where the average home costs 535,000 pounds ($775,000), more than 10 times the average annual household income.
Some economists think a fall in house prices would be a good thing because it would help new buyers currently priced out of the market. Others argue any benefit would be offset by a rise in mortgage rates and economic instability.
Many international banks and ratings agencies have warned that leaving the EU would destabilize the economy, and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said earlier this month that a British exit, or Brexit, could tip the country into recession.
Osborne, who was attending a meeting of G-7 finance minister in Japan Saturday, said allies including France, Germany and the United States agreed that "it would be bad for the British economy if we left the European Union."
But Energy minister Andrea Leadsom, who backs a "leave" vote in Britain's June 23 referendum, said Saturday that "the greatest threat to the economy is the perilous state of the euro" currency used by 19 EU states.
Solar-powered plane lands in Ohio after flight from Oklahoma
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) A solar-powered airplane has touched down in the Ohio hometown of two of America's most well-known aviation pioneers on the latest leg of its around-the-world journey.
The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 landed late Saturday in Dayton, Ohio, where inventors Wilbur and Orville Wright grew up. The plane took off from Tulsa International Airport before 5 a.m. Saturday. The flight to Dayton International Airport took 17 hours.
The plane will be in Dayton until early next week, the Dayton Daily News reported. A spokeswoman for the plane's crew said an exact take-off time wouldn't be known until 24 hours in advance.
FILE - In this April 23, 2016 file photo, Solar Impulse 2 lands at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., completing the leg of its journey from Hawaii in its attempt to circumnavigate the globe. A solar-powered airplane that landed in Oklahoma last week is headed to Ohio on the latest leg of its around-the-world journey. The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 took off from Tulsa International Airport about 5 a.m. Saturday, May 21, 2016, with a destination of Dayton, Ohio. The flight was expected to take about 18 hours.(AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)
The globe-circling voyage began in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan.
The plane is expected to make at least one more stop in the United States, in New York, before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe or northern Africa, according to the website documenting the journey.
Niklaus Gerber, an air traffic control expert who's helping to plan the plane's routes, said during an interview live-streamed on the Solar Impulse 2 website, that the New York trip will be challenging. He said the plane will encounter air traffic from three busy airports John F. Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark International.
During its most recent trips, the aircraft took off from Phoenix Goodyear Airport in Arizona at about 3 a.m. on May 13 and landed in Tulsa about 20 hours later.
It departed from northern California in the early hours of May 2 and landed at the airport southwest of Phoenix 16 hours later. Last month, it flew from Hawaii to California.
The Solar Impulse 2's wings, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.
Ideal flight speed is about 28 mph, although that can double during the day when the sun's rays are strongest.
The plane had a five-day trip from Japan to Hawaii and three-day trip from Hawaii to California's Silicon Valley.
The crew was forced to stay in Oahu, Hawaii, for nine months after the plane's battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan.
Project officials say the layovers give the two Swiss pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg a chance to swap places and engage with local communities along the way so they can explain the project, which is estimated to cost more than $100 million.
The solar project began in 2002 to highlight the importance of renewable energy and the spirit of innovation.
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South Koreans march to protest woman's stabbing death
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) Hundreds of South Koreans marched in one of Seoul's busiest leisure districts on Saturday to protest the stabbing death of a 23-year-old woman. Her death has struck a nerve in a country where, despite its reputation for being relatively safe, many women say they are increasingly afraid of threats, abuse and attacks by men.
The protesters, many wearing white masks and vinyl coats, began their march at a gate of southern Seoul's Gangnam subway station, near where the victim was attacked by a male stranger early Tuesday in a building's bathroom.
It was the fourth straight day of memorial events and other gatherings following the attack.
Mourners march during a rally to pay tribute to a South Korean woman who was stabbed to death near Gangham subway station in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, May 21, 2016. Hundreds of South Koreans have marched in one of Seoul's busiest leisure districts to protest the stabbing death of a 23-year-old woman that struck a nerve in a country where many women live in fear of being attacked. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
The gate has been covered by seemingly thousands of post-it messages, the majority of them apparently from women who expressed grief and fears about potentially becoming random targets of violence. Post-it walls have appeared in other major South Korean cities as well, including Busan and Daejeon.
"As another woman in her 20s, I feel devastated about this incident because it could have been me," read a note attached to the subway gate in Seoul.
"I want to live in a place where I don't have to be told I must be careful because I am a woman," said another note.
Police on Friday arrested a suspect in the attack an unemployed 34-year-old man with a history of schizophrenia.
Police said the man waited around 40 minutes for a woman to appear at the bathroom before stabbing the victim at around 1 a.m. Tuesday with a knife he had brought. He told officers he attacked the woman because he felt that women have been "dismissive" of him.
Statistics show that violent crimes against women are rising in South Korea. The latest statistics from the Supreme Prosecutors' Office show that in 2014, women accounted for around 85 percent of the country's 34,000 victims of "heinous" violent crimes, including murder, robbery and sex crimes.
Some experts see women as becoming more vulnerable to violence and threats in everyday life, often by economically struggling men who feel marginalized and are eager to vent their frustration on women, who compete against them for jobs and social status.
Mourners pay a silent tribute to a South Korean woman who was stabbed to death during a rally near Gangham subway station in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, May 21, 2016. Hundreds of South Koreans have marched in one of Seoul's busiest leisure districts to protest the stabbing death of a 23-year-old woman that struck a nerve in a country where many women live in fear of being attacked. The letters read "Pray for the soul of the deceased."(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A woman places a flower for a South Korean woman who was stabbed to death at an exit of Gangham subway station in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, May 21, 2016. Hundreds of South Koreans have marched in one of Seoul's busiest leisure districts to protest the stabbing death of a 23-year-old woman that struck a nerve in a country where many women live in fear of being attacked. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Mourners hold up condolence messages during a rally to pay tribute to a South Korean woman who was stabbed to death near Gangham subway station in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, May 21, 2016. Hundreds of South Koreans have marched in one of Seoul's busiest leisure districts to protest the stabbing death of a 23-year-old woman that struck a nerve in a country where many women live in fear of being attacked. The letters read "Pray for the soul of the deceased."(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
In swing-state suburbs, white women are skeptical of Trump
WESTERVILLE, Ohio (AP) For Donald Trump to win the White House in November, he'll need the votes of women like lifelong Republican Wendy Emery.
Yet the 52-year-old from the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, is struggling with the idea of voting for her party's presumptive presidential nominee.
"I'm just disappointed, really disappointed," she said while standing in her arts and crafts shop. She and her circle of friends are "still in shock" over Trump's success and wonder who is voting for him, "because we don't know any of them."
FILE - In this photo taken May 7, 2016, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Spokane, Wash. Donald Trump faces a struggle proving himself to white, suburban women, who could be crucial in the November general election. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
Emery's negative impression was shared by most of the dozens of white, suburban women interviewed by The Associated Press this spring in politically important states. Their views are reflected in opinion polls, including a recent AP-GfK survey that found 70 percent of women have unfavorable opinions of Trump.
Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign sees that staggering figure as a tantalizing general election opening.
While white voters continue to abandon the Democratic Party, small gains with white women could help put likely nominee Clinton over the top if the November election is close. Democrats believe these women could open up opportunities for Clinton in North Carolina, where President Barack Obama lost the state narrowly in 2012, and in Georgia, a Republican stronghold that Democrats hope to make competitive.
Patty Funderburg of Charlotte, North Carolina, voted for Republican nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, but says Trump won't get her vote. "He's not who I'd want to represent our country," said the 54-year-old mother of three.
Trump insists he's "going to do great with women." He's accused Clinton of playing the "woman's card" in her bid to become the first female commander in chief. He's said he will link her aggressively to past indiscretions with women by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
"Women want, above all else, they want security ... a strong military, they want to have strong borders," Trump told the AP recently, previewing a strategy focused on national security.
Throughout the primary, Clinton has talked about policies important to many women: equal pay, expanded child care, paid family and medical leave, and more.
A super political action committee backing Clinton also released its first television advertisements this week featuring controversial statements Trump has made about women. "Does Donald Trump really speak for you?" the ad asks.
For many of the women who spoke with the AP, the answer appears to be no.
"He's just a jerk," said Elizabeth Andrus, a registered Republican in Delaware, Ohio, who says she voted twice for Obama. She praised Trump's political skills and argued that his business career indicates an intellect and ability that could benefit the nation. But his temperament, she said, is somewhere between "buffoonery" and "complete narcissism."
Even some reluctant Trump supporters say they want him to dial it back and engage more seriously. "It's time we get past all this showmanship and hear from him what he actually wants to do and his plans for how to do it," said Renee Herman, a 45-year-old from Sunbury, Ohio.
Trump's best opening is that Clinton, who is on the cusp of clinching her party's nomination, also would enter a general election campaign with the majority of Americans taking a dim view of her candidacy. Fifty-five percent of Americans have a negative view of Clinton, including 53 percent of women.
"Anybody but Hillary," said Carolyn Owen, a 64-year-old educator from Clayton, North Carolina, near Raleigh. She said Trump wasn't her first choice, "but it's better than the alternative."
Obama twice carried women overall, but white women have been shifting toward Republicans in recent presidential elections. Obama only carried 42 percent of white women in 2012, with 56 percent opting for Romney, more than Bush and 2008 GOP nominee John McCain.
Clinton's first priority still is to replicate Obama's success with blacks, Hispanics and young people. In both of his elections, Obama earned near-unanimous support from black women, while drawing the votes of roughly 7 in 10 Hispanic women. But an uptick among suburban white women would give her margin for error or even propel her to a big win. Another potential Clinton boon: Many Republican and independent-leaning women with concerns about Trump could stay home.
In Georgia, Trump supporter Sue Everhart said she talks regularly with suburban Republican women grappling with Trump's candidacy, some of them citing his boorishness. The former state party chairwoman said she tries to bring the conversation back to Clinton and remind Republicans "who we are running against."
As for Trump's penchant for controversial statements about women, Everhart said, "I learned a long time ago that most any man over 50 in this party, they like you as long as you're making the cookies."
"I should probably be offended," she added. "But I'm not."
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Pace reported from Raleigh, North Carolina. Associated Press writer Catherine Lucey in Iowa and AP News Survey Specialist Emily Swanson in Washington contributed to this report.
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Follow Barrow and Pace on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP and https://twitter.com/JPaceDC
In swing state suburbs, white women are skeptical of Trump
WESTERVILLE, Ohio (AP) For Donald Trump to win the White House in November, he'll need the votes of women like lifelong Republican Wendy Emery.
Yet the 52-year-old from the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, is struggling with the idea of voting for her party's presumptive presidential nominee.
"I'm just disappointed, really disappointed," she said while standing in her arts and crafts shop. She and her circle of friends are "still in shock" over Trump's success and wonder who's voting for him, "because we don't know any of them."
FILE - In this photo taken May 7, 2016, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Spokane, Wash. Donald Trump faces a struggle proving himself to white, suburban women, who could be crucial in the November general election. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
Emery's negative impression of Trump was shared by most of the dozens of white, suburban women from politically important states who were interviewed by The Associated Press this spring. Their views are reflected in opinion polls, such as a recent AP-GfK survey that found 70 percent of women have unfavorable opinions of Trump.
Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign sees that staggering figure as a tantalizing general election opening.
While white voters continue to abandon the Democratic Party, small gains with white women could help put likely nominee Clinton over the top if the November election is close. Democrats believe these women could open up opportunities for Clinton in North Carolina, where President Barack Obama struggled with white voters in his narrow loss in the state 2012, and even in Georgia, a Republican stronghold that Democrats hope to make competitive.
Patty Funderburg of Charlotte, North Carolina, voted for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, but says she's already convinced that Trump won't get her vote.
"He's not who I'd want to represent our country," said Funderburg, a 54-year-old mother of three.
Trump insists he's "going to do great with women." He's accused Clinton of playing the "woman's card" in her bid to become the first female commander in chief. He's said he will link her aggressively to past indiscretions with women by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
The businessman also has previewed an argument focused on national security, with echoes of the pitch that President George W. Bush successfully made to white suburban women during his 2004 re-election.
"Women want, above all else, they want security," Trump told The Associated Press recently. "They want to have a strong military, they want to have strong borders. They don't want crime." He said "Hillary is viewed poorly on that."
Not so in the AP-GfK poll. About 40 percent of women surveyed said Clinton would be best at protecting the country and handling the threat posed by the Islamic State group, and about 30 percent said Trump.
Throughout the primary, Clinton has talked about policies meant to appeal to women: equal pay, expanded child care, paid family and medical leave and more.
And Trump has his own complicated past regarding women and has faced criticism for his actions both in his personal life and at his businesses toward them. He's vigorously defended his treatment of women, as has his daughter Ivanka Trump, who said her father "has total respect for women."
A super political action committee backing Clinton has released its first television advertisements featuring Trump's contentious statements about women.
"Does Donald Trump really speak for you?" the super PAC ad asks.
For many of the women interviewed, the answer appears to be no.
"He's just a jerk," said Elizabeth Andrus, a registered Republican in Delaware, Ohio, who says she voted twice for Obama. She praised Trump's political skills and argued his business career indicates an intellect and ability that could benefit the nation.
But his temperament, she said, is somewhere between "buffoonery" and "complete narcissism."
"It would be like having Putin for president," she added, referring to Russia's sometimes belligerent president, Vladimir Putin.
Erin Freedman, a 38-year-old from Reston, Virginia, said Trump "scares the crap out of me." While she's an enthusiastic backer of Clinton's primary rival, Bernie Sanders, she said she'd have no problem backing the former secretary of state against Trump in a general election.
Even some reluctant Trump supporters say they want him to dial back the braggadocio and caustic insults, and engage people more seriously.
"He's the nominee, so I'll vote for him," said Renee Herman, a 45-year-old from Sunbury, Ohio, who preferred retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and her home-state governor, John Kasich, in the GOP primary field. "But it's time we get past all this showmanship and hear from him what he actually wants to do and his plans for how to do it."
Trump's best opening is that Clinton, who is on the cusp of clinching her party's nomination, would enter the November race with a majority of Americans taking a dim view of her candidacy. Fifty-five percent have a negative view of Clinton, including 53 percent of women, in the AP-GfK poll.
"Anybody but Hillary," said Carolyn Owen, a 64-year-old educator from Clayton, North Carolina, near Raleigh. She said Trump wasn't her first choice, "but it's better than the alternative."
While Obama won the support of women overall in his two White House campaigns, white women have increasingly been shifting toward the Republican Party in recent elections. Obama only won 42 percent of white women in 2012. Romney won 56 percent of white women, more than Bush and the party's 2008 nominee, Sen. John McCain.
Clinton's hopes will largely hinge on replicating Obama's coalition of blacks, Hispanics and young people. In both of his elections, Obama earned near-unanimous support from black women, while drawing the votes of roughly 7 in 10 Hispanic women. But she would have more room for error with those groups if she can increase Democrats' share of white women.
Another potentially favorable scenario for Clinton involves Republican and independent women who can't stomach a vote for Trump but also don't want to vote for a Democrat. Maybe they simply stay home, keeping the GOP nominee's vote totals down.
For Angee Stephens of Indianola, Iowa, that seems to be the only option at this point. She's wary of Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, which is the subject of an FBI investigation, and her past political decisions. But "Trump sort of scares me," Stephens said.
In Georgia, Trump supporter Sue Everhart said she talks regularly with suburban Republican women struggling with whether to vote for Trump, and said some cite his boorishness. The former state party chairwoman said she tries to bring the conversation back to Clinton and remind Republicans "who we are running against."
As for Trump's penchant for controversial statements about women, Everhart said, "I learned a long time ago that most any man over 50 in this party, they like you as long as you're making the cookies."
"I should probably be offended," she added. "But I'm not."
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Pace reported from Raleigh, North Carolina. Associated Press writer Catherine Lucey in Iowa and AP News Survey Specialist Emily Swanson in Washington contributed to this report.
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On Twitter follow Barrow at https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP and Pace at https://twitter.com/JPaceDC .
Iraq: Border with Jordan to open soon, after year of closure
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) Iraq's border crossing with Jordan is expected to open in about two weeks, after an almost year-long closure, allowing for a resumption of vital trade and a return of Iraqi refugees, an Iraqi diplomat said Saturday.
Iraq had closed the crossing in July because large areas of the border province of Anbar had fallen to Islamic State extremists. But since its rapid expansion in 2014, IS has lost territory in Anbar in recent months, most recently the town of Rutba.
The capture of Rutba by the Iraqi army this week cleared the way for reopening the Trebil crossing, but security forces need time to clear explosives planted by the extremists, said the Iraqi ambassador to Jordan, Safia al-Souhail.
Rutba is located about 90 miles (145 kilometers) from the border, on the Jordan-Iraq trade route that links Amman and Baghdad, the respective capitals of the two countries.
"We are expecting the opening of the borders in no longer than two weeks' time," the ambassador said. "It might be less, it might be a little bit more, but this is the time frame that we have been informed about."
In closing the border last year, Iraq said it wanted to deprive IS militants of taxes they impose on cargo trucks driving through the area.
The closure dealt a blow to Jordan, with exports to Iraq dropping from $1.16 billion in 2014 to $690 million in 2015. Pro-Western Jordan is part of a U.S.-led military coalition against IS, which still controls large areas of both Syria and Iraq.
"We hope that the crossing will open sooner than later, because it is of crucial benefit to both Iraq and Jordan," said Jordanian government spokesman Mohammed Momani.
Still, it is unclear if opening the crossing will automatically lead to the resumption of land trade.
The Iraq military may not be able to secure the long desert highway from IS counterattacks that could discourage truck drivers and business people who once used the route. The vast deserts on the fringes of Anbar province, traditionally used by smugglers, were out of government control for years, even before the IS takeover of some of the territory.
In Saturday's announcement, the Iraqi ambassador said she also hopes an opening of the border will bring back large numbers of Iraqis from Anbar who sought refuge in Jordan after the initial IS land grabs.
However, booby-traps set by the extremists might slow any return. In Anbar's capital, Ramadi, several dozen returnees were killed by such explosives after the Iraqi army retook the city.
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73 dead, scores missing in weeklong Sri Lanka storms
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) Sri Lanka's government on Saturday raised the death toll from landslides and heavy flooding around the island nation to 73, as soldiers continued searching for scores of people missing since deadly landslides struck hill country several days ago.
In the capital, Colombo, and its suburbs, thousands of homes remained inundated, though there were signs that the waters were receding. About 243,000 people remained in temporary shelters nationwide.
Soldiers looked for bodies among thick mud deposits in the central district of Kegalle, where landslides swallowed up three villages on Tuesday.
Sri Lankan flood victims ask for bottles of drinking water in the flooded area of Wellampitiya on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Friday, May 20, 2016.Hundreds of boats plied deep floodwaters that have inundated thousands of homes in the Sri Lankan capital, delivering aid and rescuing the elderly and sick from rooftops as forecasters warned of more heavy rain.(AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)
Maj. Gen. Sudantha Ranasinghe, who is coordinating the search, said one body and parts of another were found Saturday. Twenty-one people have been confirmed dead from the landslides in the three villages and 123 others are missing.
Ranasinghe said that another part of the same mountain crashed down Saturday, but that there were no casualties because residents had been evacuated after the first landslides.
As civilians volunteered to provide cooked food and clothing to the affected people, foreign assistance was arriving after an appeal by Sri Lanka's foreign minister.
India and Japan sent relief items including medicine, tents, tarpaulin sheets, generators and water purifiers.
Japan will also send disaster management experts to help expedite relief efforts and look at ways to reduce landslide risks, the Japanese Embassy in Colombo said.
The United States has announced a three-year project to help Sri Lanka maintain supplies of safe drinking water even during times of drought and flooding.
Fate of primeval forest in balance as Poland plans logging
WARSAW, Poland (AP) It is the last remaining relic of an ancient forest that stretched for millennia across the lowlands of Europe and Russia, a shadowy, mossy woodland where bison and lynx roam beneath towering oak trees up to 600 years old.
Conservationists believe the fate of the Bialowieza Forest, which straddles Poland and Belarus, is more threatened that at any time since the communist era due to a new Polish government plan for extensive logging in parts of the forest. The plan has pitted the government against environmentalists and many scientists, who are fighting to save the UNESCO world heritage site.
Seven environmental groups, including Greenpeace and WWF, have lodged a complaint with the European Commission hoping to prevent the largescale felling of trees, which is due to begin within days. Bialowieza has been declared a Natura 2000 site, meaning it is a protected area under European law. EU officials say they are working with the Polish authorities to ensure that any new interventions in the forest are in line with their regulations, but it's not yet clear what the result will be.
In this photo taken on Aug, 2006, dead trees lie on the ground in the Bialowieza National Park, a protected part of the Bialowieza Forest in eastern Poland. Polands government has sparked a conflict with scientists and conservationists with a plan to significantly increase logging in the Bialowieza Forest, the best preserved relic of an ancient forest that once covered the lowlands of Europe and Russia. (AP Photo/Vanessa Gera)
The preservation of Bialowieza is such a sensitive matter that IKEA, which relies on Polish timber for 25 percent of its global furniture production, vowed years ago not to buy any wood from Bialowieza.
"This forest is a Polish treasure but it is also the world's treasure, and we could lose it," said Katarzyna Kosciesza from ClientEarth, one of the groups that filed the complaint. "The logging would really threaten it."
The forest plan is one of many controversial changes that have come with the election last year of a conservative populist party, Law and Justice. The new authorities have been accused by the European Union and human rights groups of eroding democracy and the rule of law.
The party's powerful leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, says he's on a mission to remake the country from top to bottom in line with the party's conservative Catholic and patriotic ideology. Since taking power in November, Poland's government has moved quickly to push broad changes in everything from cultural institutions to horse breeding farms and forestry management.
The government argues they are fixing the country by removing the corrupt influences of former communists and pro-Europeans who have held power in recent years.
In the case of Bialowieza, government officials are blaming their predecessors for financial losses from the strict limits on logging. The environment minister, Jan Szyszko, also faulted them for getting the UNESCO world heritage designation, which brings some international oversight.
About 35 percent of the forest on the Polish side includes a national park and reserves, strictly protected zones that the government does not plan to touch. Officials argue the planned logging is not harmful because it will take part only in "managed" parts of the forest that have already been subject to logging in the past. But environmentalists say the logging plan is so extensive it would inevitably lead to the destruction of old-growth areas.
About half of the forest is still considered pristine, meaning those areas have never faced significant intervention since the forest's formation some 8,000 to 9,000 years ago after the end of the last ice age. That has left it with a complex diversity of species unknown in the second-growth forests elsewhere in Europe's lowlands.
That so much has survived is thanks to past Polish and Lithuanian monarchs and Russian czars, who kept it as a royal hunting preserve. Only in the last 100 years has it begun to face logging and human encroachment.
Szyszko last week dismissed 32 of 39 scientific experts on the State Council for Nature Conservation after they criticized the logging plan. They have since been replaced by people who mainly come from the forestry and hunting sectors that favor greater wood extraction. They council's new leader, Wanda Olech-Piasecka, also supports limited commercial hunting of bison, an endangered species.
Szyszko said the new council "will work effectively for the use of natural resources for the benefit of man, which is consistent with the concept of sustainable development."
The Environment Ministry argues the logging is needed to stop the spread of bark beetle, which has killed off 10 percent of the spruce trees in the park 3 percent of the trees overall in an outbreak that began in 2013.
However, scientists believe that is merely a pretext, and that what officials really want are the profits from felling such old-growth wood.
Scientists and environmentalists who oppose the logging plan say removing the dead wood upsets the ecosystem. The dead spruces host thousands of other species, worms and insects and fungi, which then become food for birds, while hollow dying trunks create nesting spaces. Among those who rely on the dead spruces are the pygmy owl, the smallest owl species in Europe, and the three-toed woodpecker, which has a precarious existence in Bialowieza.
Thanks to the bark beetle outbreak, the numbers of the three-toed woodpecker have doubled or possibly tripled, said Rafal Kowalczyk, director of the Mammal Research Institute with the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Scientists fighting the logging say the death of some spruce trees is making way for an increase of other species like hornbeam and lime and is part of the forest's natural adaptation to climate change, as conditions grow warmer and drier. They also say that it would be necessary to kill 80 percent of infected trees simply to slow the outbreak, which is not logistically possible.
Kowalczyk says the bark beetle outbreaks, which have long been a part of the forest cycle, have never threatened its existence before and won't now.
"This forest has been shaped for thousands of years by nature," Kowalczyk added. "It is really unique and we should not turn it into a managed forest. There are many other managed forests but this relic of an ancient forest, with its high diversity, shows us what forests looked like hundreds, even thousands, of years ago."
In this photo taken on Aug, 2006, a large dead tree lies on the ground in the Bialowieza National Park, a protected part of the Bialowieza Forest in eastern Poland. Polands government has sparked a conflict with scientists and conservationists with a plan to significantly increase logging in the Bialowieza Forest, the best preserved relic of an ancient forest that once covered the lowlands of Europe and Russia. (AP Photo/Vanessa Gera)
FILE - In this March 16, 2010 file photo bisons graze in the Bialowieza Forest, in eastern Poland. Polands government has sparked a conflict with scientists and conservationists with a plan to significantly increase logging in the Bialowieza Forest, the best preserved relic of an ancient forest that once covered the lowlands of Europe and Russia. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski,File)
In this photo taken on May, 2012, tree trunks lay in the Bialowieza National Park, a protected part of the Bialowieza Forest in eastern Poland. Polands government has sparked a conflict with scientists and conservationists with a plan to significantly increase logging in the Bialowieza Forest, the best preserved relic of an ancient forest that once covered the lowlands of Europe and Russia. (AP Photo/Rafal Kowalczyk)
In this photo taken on Aug, 2006, the gate to the Bialowieza National Park, a strictly protected part of the much larger Bialowieza Forest, in eastern Poland. Polands government has sparked a conflict with scientists and conservationists with a plan to significantly increase logging in the Bialowieza Forest, the best preserved relic of an ancient forest that once covered the lowlands of Europe and Russia. (AP Photo/Ferruccio Gera)
In this photo taken on Aug, 2006, a stork flies over the grass in the Bialowieza Forest in eastern Poland. Polands government has sparked a conflict with scientists and conservationists with a plan to significantly increase logging in the Bialowieza Forest, the best preserved relic of an ancient forest that once covered the lowlands of Europe and Russia. (AP Photo/Ferruccio Gera)
Trying to get jump on Zika preparations with money in limbo
WASHINGTON (AP) Beg, borrow and steal: Zika preparation involves a bit of all three as federal, state and local health officials try to get a jump on the mosquito-borne virus while Congress haggles over how much money they really need.
With that financing in limbo, health officials are shifting resources and setting priorities and not just in states where mosquitoes are starting to buzz. All but six states so far have seen travel-associated cases of Zika.
"Stealing money from myself" is how Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health describes raiding his agency's malaria, tuberculosis and influenza programs to fund a Zika vaccine.
In this photo taken April 12, 2016, Giraldo Carratala, an inspector with the Miami- Dade County, Fla. mosquito control unit, sprays pesticide in the yard of a home in Miami, Fla. Beg, borrow and steal: Zika preparation involves a bit of all three as federal, state and local health officials try to get a jump on the mosquito-borne virus while Congress haggles over how much money they really need. With the money in limbo, it's all about shifting resources. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
He needs more cash by the end of June to keep the vaccine on schedule. And there's no guarantee those other critical diseases will recoup about $20 million.
"If we don't get something soon, then we're going to have a real problem," Fauci said.
Adding to the stress: What if another health emergency comes along at the same time?
"It's Zika now, but three months from now, who knows what it might be?" said Dr. Tim Jones, state epidemiologist in Tennessee, where few counties have mosquito eradication efforts.
Yet with funding pleas unanswered, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shifted $44 million to Zika from emergency preparedness grants that help state and local health departments with crises from flu outbreaks to hurricanes.
"You have to be careful when you take cuts from core infrastructure for the disease of the day," Tennessee's Jones said. "That's a risky way to do things."
Zika can cause devastating birth defects and fetal death if pregnant women become infected. Mosquitoes aren't yet spreading Zika in the continental U.S., but the epidemic in Latin America and the Caribbean has experts predicting small outbreaks here as mosquito season heats up. The more than 540 U.S. cases diagnosed so far involve travel to outbreak areas or sex with infected travelers. The CDC is tracking the outcomes of 157 Zika-infected pregnant women in the U.S., plus another 122 in U.S. territories.
Three months ago, President Barack Obama requested $1.9 billion in emergency funding to fend off Zika. The House and Senate are arguing over how much to grant and whether the money should come from cuts to other programs with no final agreement in sight. House Republicans say the administration has padded its Zika request.
The Obama administration already shifted nearly $600 million from funds for Ebola flare-ups in West Africa and other accounts. On Friday, the president said lifetime care for a child born with Zika-caused brain damage may cost up to $10 million.
"Add that up. It doesn't take a lot of cases for you to get to $1.9 billion. Why wouldn't we want to make that investment now?" Obama said.
Many state and local health departments aren't waiting, but efforts vary widely:
Florida is no stranger to mosquito-borne outbreaks it has handled small outbreaks of dengue, carried by the same mosquito as Zika and is squeezing money out of its usual budget to step up training and traps for areas that need extra help. Officials opened a Zika information hotline that has fielded more than 1,700 calls since February. Miami-Dade County is stepping up enforcement of standing water violations and statewide, residents are being told to screen windows and rid their property of containers that trap rainwater.
Gov. Rick Scott has said the threat of a Zika outbreak should trigger the same response as an approaching hurricane and last week lobbied in Washington for more resources. While Scott hasn't named a dollar figure, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has supported Obama's request. "It's a mistake for Congress to try and deal with Zika on the cheap," he said on Friday.
New Orleans' health department has begun sending staffers into neighborhoods to educate residents about Zika and advise them on making their yards less mosquito-friendly workers also preparing for hurricane season.
"Whether we get money or not, we're going to do what we got to do," said health director Charlotte Parent. "But it sure would help to have those extra bodies to get that work done."
Virginia took about $700,000 remaining from a federal Ebola grant to hire two mosquito biologists, pay for some testing of mosquitoes and travelers, and educate the public, including plans to hang information on 450,000 doors.
This marks Virginia's first mosquito surveillance program since 2007.
Texas can perform dozens of blood tests a week for Zika, but that capacity could easily be overwhelmed if there's an outbreak, Health Commissioner John Hellerstedt said.
The state is spending $2 million in federal emergency preparedness money on public awareness but can't estimate how much more it needs, in part because mosquito control, like in many states, is funded almost entirely at the county and local level.
Savannah and surrounding Chatham County has Georgia's best-funded mosquito-control department at $3.8 million and will send some mosquitoes for Zika testing at the University of Georgia.
"A lot of these counties wouldn't be able to afford to do that," said Savannah mosquito control director Jeff Heusel.
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Can Cleveland keep the peace during Republican convention?
CLEVELAND (AP) Cleveland managed to avoid the kind of violent confrontations between police and protesters seen in Missouri and Baltimore after police killed black residents, but will it be able to keep the peace when officers and activists flood downtown for the Republican National Convention?
City officials have been coy about their plans for handling convention protests, saying only they are prepared for "challenges" and are working to free up jail cells, while activists have warily eyed the city's acquisition of riot gear.
Larry Bresler, who hopes to help stage an economic-inequality protest on the first day of the July convention, is among those who believe activists this summer can't expect the same accommodations they got in protests after the police killing of black 12-year-old Tamir Rice and the acquittal of an officer for his role in the deaths of two unarmed black people in a 137-shot barrage.
This Thursday, March 17, 2016 photo shows a Cleveland Police Mounted Unit patrolman directing pedestrians in downtown Cleveland. City officials have been coy about their plans for handling convention protests, saying only they are prepared for challenges and are working to free up jail cells, while activists have warily eyed the citys acquisition of riot gear. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
Bresler called the convention "a whole different ballgame" and said he doesn't expect police to be so pliable this summer.
"I don't think there's a chance that'll be the case," he said.
After the killing of Tamir, who was carrying an airsoft gun that looked real, by a rookie patrolman, Cleveland officers would typically lead protest processions in their cruisers while blocking intersections and mostly allowing people to march where they pleased. During one of the first protests, marchers blocked a busy freeway. Police Chief Calvin Williams was often on hand to observe.
But the convention will prove an additional test for the Cleveland Police Department, which last year began operating under a reform-minded agreement called a consent decree after a U.S. Justice Department investigation concluded officers had shown a pattern of using excessive force and violating people's civil rights.
A city spokesman said no Cleveland officials would be available to comment for this article.
A police union official has said around 600 Cleveland police officers are expected to join several thousand officers hired from other law enforcement agencies to provide security downtown during the convention week. The Secret Service will be responsible for the security perimeter that surrounds the convention site, Quicken Loans Arena, at the edge of downtown.
A police official told City Council members last month that the department is prepared to meet expected "challenges."
"We are prepared to assist anyone who legally and lawfully wants to exercise their free speech rights," Deputy Chief Ed Tomba said.
Public Safety Director Michael McGrath told the council at the same meeting that the city is working with Cuyahoga County to free up jail cells should police need to arrest large numbers of people.
Activists have expressed concerns about the type of police-related equipment Cleveland is purchasing using the $50 million federal grant it received to pay for convention security, including 2,000 sets of riot gear. During a City Council hearing last month, police officials indicated that police would initially wear khaki uniforms and not riot gear, a practice police in other cities have used during political conventions.
While activists also said they were worried about Cleveland buying armored vehicles and "non-lethal" weapons that shoot bean bags and rubber pellets, there's no indication the city has bought any.
Two groups, including Bresler's, have submitted parade permit applications that said they expect as many as 5,000 people to participate in separate rallies on July 18, the first official day of the convention. Previous downtown protests never grew larger than several hundred people.
The other group planning a July 18 rally and march is Citizens for Trump. The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday threatened to sue if the city doesn't decide whether to issue permits to the two group by June 1. The ACLU has said the groups have been told Cleveland won't issue permits until the U.S. Secret Service has finalized its security plan two weeks before the convention.
Police were sharply criticized last year after arresting around 70 people in an alley in downtown's popular Warehouse District of bars, restaurants and clubs. They were part of a protest held the day a judge acquitted a white police officer of voluntary manslaughter for his role in the deaths of the two unarmed black suspects.
Police said the arrests were made when protesters refuse to leave the alley; protesters said police wouldn't allow them to leave. The ACLU sued on behalf of some of the protesters, and the city settled out of court. It also issued a "statement of regret."
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump earlier this year predicted riots if the GOP establishment tried to deny him the nomination should he acquire the necessary delegates. While Trump has all but clinched the nomination, downtown business owners said they are confident police will protect them.
"I'm not concerned about it," said Austin Ruesch, owner of Vegan Cafe a few blocks from Quicken Loans. "We're going to be open as much as possible."
This Thursday, March 17, 2016 photo shows a Cleveland Police Mounted Unit patrolman keeping watch in downtown Cleveland. City officials have been coy about their plans for handling convention protests, saying only they are prepared for challenges and are working to free up jail cells, while activists have warily eyed the citys acquisition of riot gear. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
Indiana court to hear woman's appeal of feticide conviction
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Attorneys for an Indiana woman found guilty of killing the premature infant she delivered after ingesting abortion-inducing drugs will soon ask an appeals court to throw out the convictions that led to her 20-year prison sentence.
At issue is Indiana's feticide statute, which the defense says was "passed to protect pregnant women from violence" that could harm their developing fetus, not to prosecute women for their own abortions. The state says that law "is not limited to third-party actors" and can apply to pregnant women.
Attorneys for 35-year-old Purvi Patel will urge the Indiana Court of Appeals on Monday to reverse her 2015 convictions on charges of feticide and neglect of a dependent resulting in death. The state's attorney general's office will defend the northern Indiana jury's decision.
Patel, of Granger, was arrested in July 2013 after she sought treatment at a local hospital for profuse bleeding after delivering a 1-pound infant boy and putting his body in a trash bin behind her family's restaurant. Court records show Patel purchased abortion-inducing drugs online through a pharmacy in Hong Kong, took those drugs and delivered a premature baby in her home bathroom.
Patel lived with her parents and grandparents and feared that her family would discover she had been impregnated by a married man she was involved with, court documents state.
Patel's attorneys contend her convictions are not supported by the evidence and the laws prosecutors used don't apply to her alleged actions in the child's premature delivery.
Two dozen women's advocacy groups, as well as Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union, all have filed friend-of-the-court briefs siding with Patel.
At least 38 states have fetal homicide laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But the Patel case was the first time a state feticide law has been used against a woman specifically because of "an alleged self-induced abortion," said Jill E. Adams, executive director of the abortion rights advocacy group Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice.
"Prosecutors have been very creative and very egregious, stretching far beyond the letter of the law and even the legislative intent behind the law," she said of efforts by prosecutors in some states to use a variety of laws to criminalize self-induced abortions.
Becky Rogness, a spokeswoman for the anti-abortion group Indiana Right to Life, declined to comment on the Patel case.
Attorneys for the state argue that Patel's infant was just beyond the threshold of viability, and had taken at least one breath before dying. The state's brief also argues that Patel "has not met her heavy burden to prove that Indiana's feticide statute constitutes an undue burden on the right to obtain an abortion."
Bryan Corbin, a spokesman for Indiana's attorney general's office, said that in all appeals the "defendant has the burden of proof on appeal."
One of Patel's attorneys, Stanford University law professor Lawrence C. Marshall, declined to comment, saying Patel's "position is contained in the briefs and the arguments that will be delivered Monday."
Patel's appeal also contends she should not have been convicted of neglect, arguing prosecutors failed to prove she knew she had delivered a live baby or that she could have done anything to save its life. It argues that summoning medical help would have been "futile," citing a forensic pathologist's testimony that the infant likely would have died within about a minute.
Volcano erupts in western Indonesia, killing 6 people
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) Rescuers have found more bodies after a volcano erupted in western Indonesia, raising the death toll to six, an official said Sunday.
Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra province blasted volcanic ash as high as 3 kilometers (2 miles) into the sky on Saturday, said National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. He said ash tumbled down the slopes as far as 4.5 kilometers (3 miles) westward into a river.
The mountain had been dormant for four centuries before reviving in 2010, killing two people. An eruption in 2014 killed 16 people.
In this image made from video, hot clouds of ash rise from Mount Sinabung, in Tanah Karo, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Saturday, May 21, 2016. The volcano in western Indonesian unleashed hot clouds of ash as it erupted on Saturday, killing and injuring a number of villagers. (AP Photo/APTN)
All the victims of Saturday's eruption were working on their farms in the village of Gamber, about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) away from the slope, or within the danger area. Video images showed dead farm animals covered in dust.
Nugroho said soldiers, police, and rescuers from disaster combatting agencies, as well as volunteers and villagers, were searching for more possible victims.
Mount Sinabung is among more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, which is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
In this image made from video, a man covered in dust leads rescuers after an eruption of Mount Sinabung, in Tanah Karo, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Saturday, May 21, 2016. The volcano in western Indonesian unleashed hot clouds of ash as it erupted on Saturday, killing and injuring a number of villagers. (AP Photo/APTN)
Medical workers prepare to put the body of one of the victims of the eruption of Mt. Sinabung into a coffin at a hospital in Kabanjahe, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Sunday, May 22, 2016. The volcano in western Indonesia unleashed hot clouds of ash on Saturday, killing several villagers, an official said. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)
In this image made from video, dead animals are covered in dust after hot clouds of ash erupted from Mount Sinabung, in Tanah Karo, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Saturday, May 21, 2016. The volcano in western Indonesian unleashed hot clouds of ash as it erupted on Saturday, killing and injuring a number of villagers. (AP Photo/APTN)
Villagers and rescuers stand near a burning tree after it was hit by pyroclastic flows from the eruption of Mount Sinabung, background, in Gamber, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Saturday, May 21, 2016. The volcano in western Indonesian unleashed hot clouds of ash as it erupted on Saturday. (AP Photo/Sugeng Nuryono)
Thiem beats Zverev to win Nice Open for 6th career title
NICE, France (AP) Top-seeded Dominic Thiem of Austria beat German teen Alexander Zverev 6-4, 3-6, 6-0 to win the clay-court Nice Open final and clinch his third ATP title of the year on Saturday.
Thiem, ranked 15th, dropped serve four times but broke Zverev's serve six times on his way to a sixth career title.
The 19-year-old Zverev, who was seeded eighth and playing in his first career final, double-faulted nine times including four times in the deciding set, during which Thiem did not face a break point and won every point on his first serve.
Thiem's other titles this year were on outdoor hard court at Acapulco and outdoor clay at Buenos Aires. Five of his titles are on clay.
Russian military shows off its elite aerobatic flying teams
KUBINKA AIR BASE, Russia (AP) The Russian military's elite aerobatic squadrons have marked their 25-year jubilee with an air show outside Moscow.
The Strizhi (the Swifts) aerobatic team flying MiG-29 jets and the Russkiye Vityazi (the Russian Knights) operating the heavier Su-27 fighters performed Saturday before enthusiastic crowds at their home base west of the Russian capital.
The show included spectacular low passes and synchronous maneuvers showing off the jets' high thrust and maneuverability. The show culminated in a joint stunt with both teams flying together in one tight formation.
The Russian militarys Strizhi (The Swifts) aerobatic team performs during an air show at the Kubinka air base outside Moscow, Russia, Saturday, May 21, 2016. The Russian militarys elite aerobatic squadrons have marked their 25-year jubilee with an air show outside Moscow. (AP Photo/Vladimir Isachenkov)
Russia's air and space forces chief, Col. Gen. Viktor Bondarev, said both aerobatic teams will soon re-equip to new jets capable of even more stunning aerobatics. Amid tensions with the West, the Kremlin has pushed forward a massive arms modernization program despite Russia's economic problems.
The Russian militarys Strizhi, The Swifts, and Russkiye Vityazi, the Russian Knights, aerobatic teams perform during an air show at the Kubinka air base outside Moscow, Russia, Saturday, May 21, 2016. The two squadrons marked its 25-year jubilee with an aerobatics display that attracted enthusiastic crowds. (AP Photo/Vladimir Isachenkov)
A Russian air force officer sits with a boy in the cockpit of an Su-35 fighter jet after an air show at the Kubinka air base outside Moscow, Russia, Saturday, May 21, 2016. The Russian militarys Strizhi, The Swifts, and Russkiye Vityazi, the Russian Knights, aerobatic teams marked their 25-year jubilee with an aerobatics performance that attracted enthusiastic crowds. (AP Photo/Vladimir Isachenkov)
Russian air and space forces chief, Colonel General Viktor Bondarev, center, greets pilots of the militarys Strizhi, The Swifts, and Russkiye Vityazi, the Russian Knights, aerobatic teams during an air show at the Kubinka air base outside Moscow, Russia, Saturday, May 21, 2016. The two squadrons marked its 25-year jubilee with an aerobatics display that attracted enthusiastic crowds. The aircraft bears the name of the squadron: Russkiye Vityazi. (AP Photo/Vladimir Isachenkov)
Restored vintage World War II bomber certified to fly
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) A World War II aircraft that took nearly 16 years to restore might be flying over Kansas in the next few weeks after receiving a certificate of airworthiness from the Federal Aviation Administration.
A nonprofit group called Doc's Friends on Friday officially accepted the FAA certificate for a B-29 bomber known as "Doc." The group has worked to restore the aircraft since its parts arrived in Wichita in 2000. The certificate is one of the final hurdles to getting it off the ground, The Wichita Eagle reported (http://bit.ly/1U5MoP6 ).
Several dozen members of Doc's Friends and other supporters attended the ceremony at the World War II aircraft's hangar at Air Capital Flight Line, the grounds of the former Boeing Wichita complex.
"The biggest thing is how important this airplane is to history," said Jeff Turner, board chairman for Doc's Friends. "The light of freedom was growing dimmer (during World War II), and the men and women of our nation rose up and secured our freedom. I don't want us to ever forget that."
The group will seek permission from the Pentagon to operate "Doc" at McConnell Air Force Base. The plane could be flying in the next few weeks, said Turner, who estimated 350,000 volunteer hours have gone into the restoration.
Tony Mazzolini, who discovered the plane's parts on a bombing range in California's Mojave Desert in 1987, traveled from Cleveland for the ceremony. He said he originally thought it would take only two or three years to restore the four-engine plane.
"It has been much more difficult than I originally thought, but it's all been worth it," Mazzolini said. "I wanted to help preserve our aviation history in America, and I wanted to keep the memories of that time period alive."
Some of the volunteers for the restoration worked on the original B-29 line at Boeing in Wichita, or had served as crew members. The Wichita plant manufactured 1,644 of the airplanes, which are best known as the bomber type used to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, ending World War II in the Pacific.
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This story has been corrected to show that restoration work didn't begin until 2000, not 1987.
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Former 'Daily Show' host Jon Stewart and wife Tracey McShane have adopted a horse that lost an eye when it was shot more than 125 times with paintballs at close range.
The 20-year-old mare, named Lily, was found in New Holland, Pennsylvania, in March. She was covered in bruises and splotches of paint, was emaciated and had a badly damaged eye.
She was rehabilitated and her damaged eye was removed, and now she has a new home - courtesy of the Stewarts, Pix 11 said.
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Emaciated: Lily (pictured) was found in New Holland, Pennsylvania, in March, bruised and emaciated and covered in paintball paint
Damaged: Lily's eye was so damaged she had to have it surgically removed. Philip Price (right) of Rhode Island was convicted on three counts of animal cruelty related to her treatment on Friday
Lily was found at the New Holland Sales Stables in New Holland, Pennsylvania, on March 14, leading to a national outcry.
She was taken in by The Lancaster County SPCA, who oversaw her rehabilitation.
Meanwhile, police closed in on Phillip S. Price, 65, of East Providence, Rhode Island, who was the man who had transported Lily to the Stables from New Jersey.
He was charged with three counts of animal cruelty, a single count of dealing and handling animals without a license, and a single count of importing animals without an interstate health certificate at the end of March.
He was convicted Friday in New Holland of all charges, and ordered to pay $3,056 in fines and $10,178 towards Lily's care and recovery, Lancaster Online said.
Witnesses included doctors who treated the horse, a representative of the county SPCA, a manager from the auction house and the police detective who filed the charges.
Recuperating: Lily, pictured here with another rescue horse that had also lost an eye, has been recuperating since March, and has put on weight and regained confidence
A surveillance video from the auction showing Price dropping off the horse was also played.
In 2015, Price had pleaded no contest to eight other counts of animal cruelty.
The district attorneys have not determined who fired the paintballs at Lily, and there is a $10,000 reward for information leading to their arrest.
The horse has put on weight and regained confidence while recuperating.
Although it has not been confirmed where Lily will live, it's likely she will be moved to the Stewarts' animal sanctuary on their 12-acre farm in Middletown, New Jersey.
Jon Stewart and his wife are both animal enthusiasts whose efforts to help various creatures have seen them in the news on several occasions.
In October 2015, they announced a partnership with Farm Sanctuary, a nationwide animal care non-profit, to transform their New Jersey property, Bufflehead Farm, into an animal sanctuary.
That same month, they took charge of two pigs that were found by a roadside - presumed to have fallen off a wagon on the way to be slaughtered.
And in April, of this year, Stewart adopted a bull that had escaped from a New York slaughterhouse and rampaged through a university in Queens before being captured.
One of the United States' highest ranking commanders made a secret trip to war ravaged Syria to check on his troops and assess the battle against ISIS terrorists.
General Joseph Votel, the new commander of US forces in the Middle East, also inspected the training of local Arab and Kurd fighters being mobilized to take on the jihadists.
He said: 'I have responsibility for this mission, and I have responsibility for the people that we put here,'
'So it's imperative for me to come and see what they're dealing with to share the risk they are dealing with.'
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General Joseph Votel (pictured), the new commander of US forces in the Middle East, became the highest ranking military official to enter the war-torn country
Votel, who has headed US Central Command for just seven weeks, became the highest ranking military officer known to have entered Syria since America launched its offensive against ISIS.
The visit was particularly exceptional because the US has no combat troops in Syria, no diplomatic relations with Syria and has shrouded most of its missions in the country in secrecy.
Votel said he brought reporters with him because 'we don't have anything to hide', adding: 'I don't want people guessing about what we're doing here.
I don't want people guessing about what we're doing here. The American people should have the right to see what we're doing here General Joseph Votel
'The American people should have the right to see what we're doing here.'
He flew into northern Syria from Iraq, where he had conferred American and Iraqi military commanders on Friday.
Once inside Syria, he met with US Army advisers working with Syrian Arab fighters before consulting with leaders of the Syrian Democratic Forces - an umbrella group of American-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters.
A small group of reporters accompanied Votel on the condition that - for security reasons - the were forbidden from disclosing the visit until after he had the country.
After landing at a remote camp where American advisers were training Syrian-Arab troops in basic combat, he visited other undisclosed locations before returning to the camp.
Syria is a raging war zone, torn by multiple conflicts that have created severe human suffering across much of the country.
Votel's visit was particularly exceptional because the US has no combat troops in Syria and has shrouded most of its missions in the country in secrecy (file photo of US-backed Arab fighters training in Syria)
The US has struggled to find an effective ground force to take on ISIS (file photo) in Syria and President Barack Obama American troops fighting on the ground
Aides said Votel's flight into Syria was the first made in daylight by US forces, who have around 200 advisers on the ground there.
Military ground rules for the trip prohibited reporters from saying what kind of aircraft Votel used, the exact location of where he landed and the names or images of US military advisers, who have been operating from the camp since January.
I left with increased confidence in their capabilities and our ability to support them. I think that model is working and working well General Joseph Votel
An Associated Press reporter and journalists from two other news organizations were the first Western media to visit the secretive operation.
The last known high-level US official to visit Syria was Brett McGurk, Obama's envoy to the coalition fighting the ISIS.
He spent two days in Syria in late January which included a tour of Kobani, the small town near the Turkish border where Kurdish fighters backed by US airstrikes expelled an entrenched group of ISIS fighters last year.
In the interview, Votel said his visit had hardened his belief that the US is taking the right approach to developing local forces to fight ISIS.
He said: 'I left with increased confidence in their capabilities and our ability to support them. I think that model is working and working well.'
The US is now trying to develop credible Arab rebel army to retake ISIS's de-facto capital, Raqqa (pictured)
The US has struggled to find an effective ground force to take on ISIS in Syria and President Barack Obama American troops fighting on the ground.
It is now trying to develop credible Arab rebel army to retake ISIS's de-facto capital, Raqqa, to add to the territory the extremists have lost in parts of northern Syria.
The US is supporting what it calls the Syrian Democratic Forces which is predominantly comprised of around 25,000 Syrian Kurds, with a smaller element of 5,000 Syrian Arabs.
Commanders who were made available for interviews at the US camp Saturday said their forces are gaining battlefield momentum but need a lot more help. They were quick to say the US-led coalition should pitch in more.
Qarhaman Hasan, the deputy commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, said he has given the Americans a list of his most pressing needs.
At the top of his list were armored vehicles, as well as heavy weapons including machine guns, rocket launchers and mortars.
'We're creating an army,' he said, suggesting that they had to rely on smuggling to get weapons. He added: 'You can't run an army on smuggling.'
Syrian Arab sheik Abu Khalif (pictured) speaks to reporters traveling with Army General Joseph Votel during a secret visit to northern Syria
Tribal leaders said in interviews that they also want to see the U.S. do more, both militarily and with humanitarian aid.
'America has the capabilities,' said Sheik Abu Khalid as he puffed on a cigarette under the shade of pomegranate and pine trees.
Nearly 70 countries at 1st World Ranger Congress in US
An American who oversees a National Park Service site at the northern tip of Wisconsin remembers listening to a colleague from Congo speaking in matter-of-fact tones and a slight French accent about protecting wildlife and wild lands in a war-torn swath of Africa.
"It just put everything into perspective for me. My problems are very small in comparison," Bob Krumenaker, superintendent of Wisconsin's Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, said of an encounter more than a decade ago that remains vivid in his mind. "And there are people like that all over the world."
For a week beginning Saturday, hundreds of such people are gathering near Rocky Mountain National Park for the first World Ranger Congress to be held in the United States. Krumenaker is chairing the conference, with a lineup of speeches, field trips and workshops on climate change, poaching and other issues. More than 300 rangers from nearly 70 countries, from Argentina to Zimbabwe, were expected.
FILE - In this July 14, 2014 file photo, Kyle Jones, left, of Greeley, Colo., carries his son Andrew while walking with his wife Sarah, center, who carries their baby Caleb, trailing their daughter Kaylee, at a scenic overlook off Trail Ridge Road, above tree-line at Rocky Mountain National Park, west of Estes Park, Colo., For a week beginning Saturday, May 21, 2016, near Rocky Mountain National Park, more than 300 rangers will discuss climate change, poaching and other issues. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)
Americans are hosting the international meeting at Estes Park as they celebrate the centennial of their National Park Service. U.S. National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis is scheduled to address the conference Wednesday.
The International Ranger Federation, a nonprofit organization that supports park rangers and their conservation work, has held World Ranger Congresses every three years since the first in 1995 in Poland. Krumenaker met the Congolese ranger at the 2003 conference in Australia.
The International Ranger Federation's charitable arm along with Colorado State University, the World Wildlife Fund and others donated funds to enable rangers from developing countries to attend. Among about 20 rangers sponsored by WWF is Anety Milimo, a wildlife policewoman from Zambia who helps carry out undercover illegal poaching investigations.
"These people are risking their lives every day," Krumenaker said of rangers like Milimo, adding that 1,000 rangers were killed around the world over the last decade.
At the 2000 conference in South Africa, U.S. ranger Einar Olsen helped start a project to get surplus and slightly used equipment from parks in wealthy countries to places like Congo and Zambia. Olsen will be handing out donated uniforms, raincoats, flashlights and other gear at Estes Park to some of the visiting rangers.
Bone cement company accused of experimenting on humans
SEATTLE (AP) Reba Golden hurt her back after falling two floors while building an addition to her house in Honduras. But when she returned to Seattle for a routine spinal surgery, she suffered blood clots, severe bleeding and died in 2007 on the operating table.
Joan Bryant's back had bothered her since a 1990 car accident, so in 2009 she sought help from a Seattle spinal surgeon, but she bled out on the operating table and could not be revived.
Like at least three spinal-surgery patients before them, Golden and Bryant died after their doctor injected bone cement into their spine and some of the material leaked into their blood stream, causing clotting.
In this Aug. 16, 2007, photo provided by Cynthia Wilson, Reba Golden stands outside Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Golden died on the operating table there the next day during what should have been a routine spinal surgery. Like several other spinal surgery patients before her, Golden died after her surgeon injected bone cement into her spine and some of the material leaked into her blood stream, causing massive clotting. Also like the other patients, Golden was never told that the bone cement was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. (Cynthia Wilson via AP)
The patients were never told Norian bone cement wasn't approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Instead, Norian and parent company Synthes used surgeons in what one doctor called "human experimentation." Federal prosecutors say the aim was to skirt a long, costly regulatory process.
The Golden and Bryant families have filed lawsuits against Dr. Jens Chapman, the companies, the University of Washington, Harborview Medical Center and Washington state. The lawsuits say Chapman knew the cement caused lethal clotting, and that the university and hospital knew or should have known the product had been prohibited for such use. The first trial is scheduled for June in Seattle.
The Golden lawsuit, filed by her daughter Cynthia Wilson, also accuses Chapman, Synthes President Hansjorg Wyss and the university of running a criminal enterprise under Washington's Criminal Profiteering Act.
Synthes and Norian, along with four top executives, were indicted in 2009 on charges of conducting unauthorized clinical trials despite warnings that the bone cement caused deadly blood clots. Norian agreed to pay a $22.5 million penalty, Synthes paid a $669,800 fine, and the executives went to prison.
Tina Mankowski, a spokeswoman for Chapman, the university and the medical center, said they "vigorously deny any wrongdoing." Jodie Wertheim, a spokeswoman for Synthes said the company can't comment on pending litigation.
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In 2000, spinal surgeons had few options if they wanted to use a cement-type product to treat vertebral-compression fractures to reduce pain.
Synthes bought the California-based Norian Corporation, which had developed bone cements used in skull and arm-bone surgeries. Synthes planned to alter Norian's product so it could be used in spinal surgeries, but that meant a long FDA-approval process.
Synthes opted to take another route, according to court records.
Wyss directed a few sites to perform 60 to 80 procedures in spinal surgeries using the Norian bone cement and to publish clinical results. He recruited Chapman and other surgeons to test-market the product on patients, court records show.
Chapman and a colleague at UW conducted an experiment in 2002 using bone cement on pigs. The material caused clotting, killing the animals. The doctors also tested it on human blood in test tubes. Again, it caused clotting. Chapman reported his findings to Synthes.
A Synthes employee in its regulatory division warned company officials the FDA had said it couldn't use Norian bone cement in spinal surgeries without approval. A Synthes medical consultant warned company officials in 2002 that unauthorized clinical trials amounted to "human experimentation."
The company pushed forward with its plan to "test market" the product in spinal surgeries, court records show.
In 2003, a patient died on a Texas operating table after a spinal surgeon injected Synthes bone cement into her vertebrae. Another patient died seven months later in California, and another died four months after that.
By 2006, the FDA had cleared Synthes to market a bone cement called Norian CRS but said its label must state it's not to be used on the spine. Synthes sent a 2007 letter to surgeons announcing that restriction.
Chapman performed more using Norian after the letter was sent, according to court records. He also held the Hansjorg Wyss endowed chair, which secured millions for the university.
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When Golden fell at home in 2007, she suffered compression fractures in her spine. Months later, Wilson said her mother was feeling better, but she decided to go ahead with surgery.
Chapman scheduled the operation for August 2007. Records indicate he never told Golden that he planned to use bone cement or that the FDA specifically prohibited its use in spinal surgeries.
Chapman used the bone cement but had to stop the surgery when Golden's blood pressure dropped and she began to bleed out. Attempts to revive her failed.
On June 16, 2009, Norian and Synthes, along with four company officials, were indicted on federal charges in Pennsylvania for conducting illegal clinical trials.
Thirteen days after the indictments, Chapman started Joan Bryant's spine surgery using Norian cement.
Bryant suffered severe bleeding and almost died. Chapman stopped the surgery and tried again twice over the next few days using Norian cement, court records show. During the third operation, Bryant suffered bleeding and died.
NYPD captures man seen leaving woman's corpse on lawn
NEW YORK (AP) Police have captured a man they say was seen wheeling a woman's dead body on a dolly and leaving it on the front lawn of a New York City home.
Thirty-one-year-old Anthony Lopez was arrested Saturday on murder and concealing a human corpse charges.
The New York Police Department says Lopez fled Friday morning after an off-duty detective saw him wheeling the corpse, covered with a sheet, on Staten Island and tried to question him.
This undated photo provided by the New York City Police Department on Saturday, May 21, 2016 shows Anthony Lopez. Police are looking for Lopez in connection with a man who was seen wheeling a dead body on a dolly before leaving it in front of a New York City home on Friday, May 20, 2016. (New York City Police Department via AP)
Police say that officers, acting on a tip, located Lopez in Manhattan and arrested him after a brief foot chase. They say he'd shaved his head.
The medical examiner will determine what caused the death of 26-year-old Aduba Obiamaka, who police believe was Lopez's wife.
Iowa zoo expecting rare baby eastern black rhino this fall
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) A zoo in Iowa is expecting a new and rare addition in the fall: an eastern black rhinoceros.
Ayana and Kiano, eastern black rhinos at Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, are expecting a baby in late October or early November, the Des Moines Register reported (http://dmreg.co/1WIFaov ). Ayana's pregnancy is the first confirmed among the eastern black rhino zoo population in almost two years, experts say, marking a major turning point in the species' decadeslong decline.
Listed as critically endangered by the World Wildlife Fund, Des Moines' rhinos are two of just 46 eastern black rhinos in North American zoos, according to leading zoological nonprofit organization Association of Zoos & Aquariums. Only six of those 46 rhinos are breeding females.
File-In this Feb. 12, 2013, file photo, Ayana, a female black rhinoceros, snacks on twigs from her cage at the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, Iowa. Ayana and Kiano, eastern black rhinos at Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, are expecting a baby in late October or early November. Ayana's pregnancy is the first confirmed among the eastern black rhino zoo population in almost two years, experts say, marking a major turning point in the species' decades long decline. (Bryon Houlgrave/The Des Moines Register via AP)
"This is fantastic for us and for the rhino population," said Robyn Scanlon, a large animal zookeeper who has been working with Ayana and Kiano for three years.
In the wild, rhinos "are poached very, very frequently," Scanlon said. "Their numbers have declined quite drastically over the past century, so having our own baby and being able to contribute to that population is awesome."
Ayana and Kiano moved into Blank Park's $4 million African exhibition in 2012. Both were born in captivity Ayana at a Miami zoo and Kiano at the Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and began breeding in July.
Zoo officials are not sure when the baby will be on display.
"Because the species is so endangered, we want to make sure it is healthy and everything is OK before we put it on exhibit," Scanlon said.
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Information from: The Des Moines Register, http://www.desmoinesregister.com
The Latest: Friend of man shot outside White House shocked
WASHINGTON (AP) The Latest on the shooting of a man outside the White House (all times local):
10:00 p.m.
A friend of the man shot by a U.S. Secret Service officer outside the White House says he shocked at what transpired.
Law enforcement officers stand on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on lockdown for a shooting nearby. A U.S. Secret Service officer shot a man with a gun who approached a checkpoint outside the White House on Friday afternoon and refused to drop his weapon, the Secret Service said. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
WNEP-TV (http://bit.ly/1TrxiRZ ) reports that John Yagielniskie, of Girardville, Pennsylvania, says he knew Jesse Oliveri his whole life.
Yagielniskie told WNEP Saturday evening, "He was one of my best friends. We went to football games together. That is messed up."
Yagielniskie says Oliveri continued to loyally attend his alma mater's football games after graduating from North Schuylkill High School in 2003.
George Washington University Hospital spokeswoman Susan Griffiths said Saturday evening that Oliveri of Ashland, Pennsylvania, remains in critical condition.
Secret Service spokesman, David Iacovetti, said Friday that one of the agency's officers fired one shot at Oliveri Friday afternoon after he approached a checkpoint and refused repeated commands to drop his weapon.
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5:30 p.m.
A hospital spokeswoman says the gunman shot by a U.S. Secret Service officer outside the White House remains in critical condition.
George Washington University Hospital spokeswoman Susan Griffiths provided the update Saturday evening about the man investigators have identified as Jesse Oliveri of Ashland, Pennsylvania.
Secret Service spokesman Robert Hoback declined to comment Saturday on the case, citing the continuing investigation.
Another Secret Service spokesman, David Iacovetti, said Friday that one of the agency's officers fired one shot at the man Friday afternoon after he approached a checkpoint and refused repeated commands to drop his weapon.
The Secret Service said the gunman never made it inside the White House complex, and no one else was injured
A Secret Service agent orders people into buildings near the entrance to the West Wing of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on security alert after shooting on street outside. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Police officials investigate a Toyota sedan on Constitution Avenue, Friday, May 20, 2016 in Washington, after a Secret Service agent shot a man with a gun who approached a checkpoint outside the White House and refused to drop his weapon, the Secret Service said. Officals searched a Toyota sedan that the gunman was believed to have driven and was parked on Constitution Avenue. The agents found ammunition inside the car, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to release the information. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Law enforcement personnel stand near the Ellipse south of the White House on Constitution Avenue, Friday, May 20, 2016 in Washington. A uniformed Secret Service officer shot a person who drew a weapon just outside the White House Friday afternoon, a U.S. law enforcement official said. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Secret Service agents stands on the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on security alert after shooting on street outside. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Secret Service agents stand near the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House is placed on lockdown for a shooting nearby. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
A security agent stands nearby the Northwest gate of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House is placed on lockdown for a shooting nearby. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Secret Service Police Officers tell pedestrians to get back on State Place Northwest near the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on a security alert after a shooting on a street outside. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
A Secret Service Police Officer works outside of the guard entrance on 17th St Northwest near the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on a security alert after a shooting on a street outside. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
U.S. Secret Service officers are seen on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on a security alert after a shooting on a street outside. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
A U.S. Secret Service officer walks across a closed 17th Street near the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on a security alert after a shooting on a street outside. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
U.S. Secret Service officers block 17th Street next to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on a security alert after a shooting on a street outside. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
A U.S. Secret Service officer blocks Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street near the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on a security alert after a shooting on a street outside. The Eisenhower Executive Office Building in in the background. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Secret Service agents stands on the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on security alert after shooting on street outside. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
A Secret Service agent stands on the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on security alert after shooting on street outside. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
A White House chef walks past Secret Service agents as they stand on the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on security alert after shooting on street outside. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
A Secret Service agent stands on the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on security alert after shooting on street outside. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
A U.S. Park Police officer stands with a rifle to block Constitution Avenue at 17th Street as people walk past, Friday, May 20, 2016 in Washington. A uniformed Secret Service officer shot a person who drew a weapon just outside the White House Friday afternoon, a U.S. law enforcement official said. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Law enforcement personnel stand along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on a security alert. A uniformed Secret Service officer shot a person who drew a weapon just outside the White House Friday afternoon, a U.S. law enforcement official said. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
A uniformed Secret Service agent walks on North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after a security alert was lifted. A uniformed Secret Service officer shot a person who drew a weapon just outside the White House Friday afternoon, a U.S. law enforcement official said. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Koepka overcomes early bogeys, Spieth for lead at Nelson
IRVING, Texas (AP) Brooks Koepka knew all those spectators lined several deep along the fairways and around the greens were there to cheer for one his playing partners.
Many of them were lugging around some of the 8,000 Jordan Spieth bobbleheads given away Saturday at the Byron Nelson or using hand-held fans with his picture. They also got to watch the third-round leader play.
Koepka overcame two early bogeys and the huge shadow of playing alongside Spieth in his home event, shooting a 5-under 65 and matching the Nelson's best 54-hole score at 16-under 194. He had a two-stroke lead over Spieth going into Sunday's final round when they will be paired together again.
Brooks Koepka watches his shot from the 10th tee as Ben Crane, left, and Jordan Spieth head down the fairway during the third round of the Byron Nelson golf tournament, Saturday, May 21, 2016, in Irving, Texas. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
"Doesn't really bother me. I mean he's got a lot of support which is cool to see," said Koepka, describing himself as a chilled athlete. "He has grown up here. ... He should."
Spieth played his first PGA Tour event at the Nelson as a 16-year-old amateur six years ago. He is now the world's No. 2-ranked player and his image is everywhere at TPC Four Seasons, including those treasured bobbleheads and on signage for AT&T, which sponsors him and this tournament.
Playing in the final threesome with Spieth and second-round leader Ben Crane, Koepka hit his first drive way left on the way to an opening bogey. There were birdies at Nos. 3 and 5, but Koepka followed with another bogey at No. 6 when he hit his first two shots into the rough.
But Koepka was bogey-free the rest of the day and took the lead with a 20-foot birdie at the difficult 405-yard 14th hole. Spieth drained a 23-foot putt there to salvage a bogey after hitting his drive into the water and having to punch a shot back into the fairway.
"Powerful. Fearless and powerful," Spieth said when asked to describe Koepka's game.
Matt Kuchar (65), Bud Cauley (68) and Sergio Garcia (68) were tied for third at 13 under.
Crane, who turned 40 in March, shot 72 and dropped to 10 under and in a tie for 11th.
Even though Koepka played well enough to take a two-stroke lead, he felt like he hit the ball terrible and that his round "wasn't anything to brag about at all" with the exception of the round-low 22 putts.
"It wasn't good today. It was kind of embarrassing," Koepka said. "We both kind of hung in there, battled it out and we made some good, good key 10-footers."
A stressful round is what Spieth called it.
"I just don't have confidence over the ball right now," he said. "It's very frustrating and actually pretty incredible to still be in this tournament."
Garcia was 15 under and with the outright lead after his fourth birdie of the round, and second in a row, when he made a 25-footer at No. 8. But the 36-year-old Spaniard, the 2004 Nelson champion, then three-putted from nearly 60 feet at the 9th hole before missing the fairway with his drive for another bogey at No. 10.
That second bogey came about the same time Spieth, in the final group right behind him, made a 9-foot birdie at the 416-yard No. 9 to get to 14 under for the lead.
But Spieth had the bogey at 14 and his only other birdie after that was from about 20 foot at the par-3 17th to get back within a stroke of the lead "Probably the loudest roar I think I ever heard on a golf course," Koepka said. Spieth gave the stroke right back with a wayward tee shot and bogey at No. 18.
This is Spieth's sixth Nelson, his fourth as a professional. The Dallas native's best finish was a tie for 16th as a 16-year-old in his 2010 debut.
At 26, Koepka is four years older than Spieth with one win (Phoenix in 2015) in his 54 previous PGA Tour starts.
"I feel like I'm pretty mentally tough," he said. "Nothing really bothers me but I know I've worked my tail off, so the results should come."
Brooks Koepka gets a kiss as he walks off the on the 18th green with a two-stoke lead following the third round of the Byron Nelson golf tournament, Saturday, May 21, 2016, in Irving, Texas. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
Jordan Spieth shouts "fore" and points to the right as his shot from the fairway sails off course on the 16th hole during the third round of the Byron Nelson golf tournament, Saturday, May 21, 2016, in Irving, Texas. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
Jordan Spieth hits from the fairway on the 16th hole during the third round of the Byron Nelson golf tournament, Saturday, May 21, 2016, in Irving, Texas. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
Sergio Garcia, of Spain, hits from a bunker on the 11th hole during the third round of the Byron Nelson golf tournament, Saturday, May 21, 2016, in Irving, Texas. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
Bud Cauley acknowledges the gallery after making a birdie putt on the 11th green as Wes Roach prepares to putt during the third round of the Byron Nelson golf tournament, Saturday, May 21, 2016, in Irving, Texas. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
Bud Cauley chips toward the 18th green during the third round of the Byron Nelson golf tournament, Saturday, May 21, 2016, in Irving, Texas. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said he plans to support the opponent of Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz in her Florida primary contest Aug. 30 for her congressional seat.
Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate who has been feuding with Wasserman Schultz and the DNC, told CNN he favors Tim Canova in Florida's 23rd congressional district.
Canova is supporting Sanders.
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As part of his ongoing feud with the Democratic National Committee, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (left) said he supported chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz's (right) primary opponent in Florida
'Clearly I favor her opponent,' Bernie Sanders said to Jake Tapper on CNN. Sanders is supporting Tim Canova over Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the congresswoman's Democratic primary
Sanders said in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on CNN's 'State of the Union that Canova's views are much closer to his views.
'Clearly I favor her opponent,' he said.
Sanders trails Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential race. But he said if he's elected president, 'she would not be reappointed to be chair of the DNC.'
Wasserman Schultz said Saturday that she would remain neutral in the Democratic presidential race despite his endorsement of her primary opponent.
'Even though Senator Sanders has endorsed my opponent, I remain, as I have been from the beginning, neutral in the presidential Democratic primary,' she said.
'I look forward to working together with him for Democratic victories in the fall.'
Sanders has accused the DNC and Wasserman Schultz of favoring Clinton.
And he has criticized the party for scheduling debates on weekend nights, for having many closed primaries and for its superdelegate system that helped Clinton pad her lead.
She also criticized the behavior of his supporters, who caused a ruckus in Nevada last weekend and suggested Sanders should have more robustly condemned their antics.
On Tuesday night, after losing by a hair to Clinton in Kentucky and winning by a much larger margin in Oregon, Sanders shouted a warning at the Democratic Party.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz has annoyed Sen. Bernie Sanders in recent days, as she suggested he should have more robustly condemned the behavior of his supporters at the Nevada convention
'Let me also say a word to the leadership of the Democratic Party,' Sanders said as his crowd booed.
'And that is, that is, that the Democratic Party is going to have to make a very, very profound and important decision it can do the right thing and open its doors and welcome into the party people who are prepared to fight for real economic and social change,' Sanders continued.
'Or the other option, the other option for the Democratic Party, which I see as a very sad and tragic option is to choose to maintain its status quote structure, remain dependent on big money campaign contributions and be a party with limited participation and limited energy.'
He called this option 'sad and tragic.'
Sanders also blasted the Democrats for 'allowing a right-wing extremist Republican Party to capture the votes of the majority of working people in this country.'
Tuilagi tears hamstring, set to miss England tour of Aussie
LONDON (AP) Manu Tuilagi tore his right hamstring in the English Premiership rugby semifinals on Saturday and looks set to miss England's tour of Australia next month.
Tuilagi, in action for Leicester, limped off 20 minutes into the match after trying to ankle-tap Saracens winger Chris Wyles. The British Press Association reported the centre suffered a grade two tear, which required a six-week recovery.
The England squad for the three-test tour is to be named on Sunday.
"Manu has pulled his hamstring," Leicester director of rugby Richard Cockerill said. "I don't know how bad it is, but it's not great.
"We don't know if he's out of the tour, we'll see how he gets on in the next 48 hours. It's not ideal because he came off pretty quickly. It doesn't look brilliant.
Tuilagi has been unlucky with injuries over the last two years. He returned from a groin issue in January, only to suffer more setbacks because of knee and hamstring complaints.
In more potentially bad news for England, utility back Owen Farrell hurt a rib after two heavy tackles in quick succession also forced him to exit prematurely.
"Ribs can go one way or another. Hopefully it goes the right way," Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall said.
Man shot outside White House remains in critical condition
WASHINGTON (AP) A man shot by a U.S. Secret Service officer outside the White House remained in critical condition in a Washington hospital Saturday, one day after the shooting, a hospital spokeswoman said.
George Washington University Hospital spokeswoman Susan Griffiths would provide only his condition. She referred other questions to the Secret Service, but a spokesman for that agency, Robert Hoback, declined to discuss the case, citing the continuing investigation.
On Friday, a U.S. law enforcement official said that authorities identified the gunman as Jesse Oliveri of Ashland, Pennsylvania, about 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to release the information.
Law enforcement officers stand on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on lockdown for a shooting nearby. A U.S. Secret Service officer shot a man with a gun who approached a checkpoint outside the White House on Friday afternoon and refused to drop his weapon, the Secret Service said. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Secret Service Deputy Assistant Director David Iacovetti said Friday that one of the agency's officers shot the man once after he approached a checkpoint at about 3 p.m. and refused repeated commands to drop his weapon.
Iacovetti said the gunman never made it inside the White House complex, and no one else was injured.
The Metropolitan Police Department, the Secret Service, Park Police and the FBI said in a joint statement Friday night that there was "no known nexus to terrorism."
Messages left Saturday at a home telephone number for Oliveri in Ashland weren't returned.
John Yagielniskie, of Girardville, Pennsylvania, told WNEP-TV (http://bit.ly/1TrxiRZ ) that he knew Jesse Oliveri his whole life.
"He was one of my best friends. We went to football games together. That is messed up," Yagielniskie said.
Yagielniskie said Oliveri continued to loyally attend his alma mater's football games after graduating from North Schuylkill High School in 2003.
"Football season starts, I see him. We go to the games. We always go to the games," added Yagielniskie.
Cathy Hadesty, who lives across the street in the wooded area, said police closed a section of the road near the house Friday night but reopened it by Saturday.
Hadesty said she never met Oliveri and only knows the family "just to say, 'Hi,' when we're going down the driveway."
"They've always been really good neighbors," she said.
Court records show that Oliveri, 31, had just one recorded run-in with police in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, resulting in a 2004 guilty plea to careless driving.
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Associated Press writers Ron Todt in Philadelphia and Kathleen Hennessey in Washington contributed to this report.
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Follow Ben Nuckols on Twitter at https://twitter.com/APBenNuckols . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/ben-nuckols.
A Secret Service agent orders people into buildings near the entrance to the West Wing of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on security alert after shooting on street outside. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Police officials investigate a Toyota sedan on Constitution Avenue, Friday, May 20, 2016 in Washington, after a Secret Service agent shot a man with a gun who approached a checkpoint outside the White House and refused to drop his weapon, the Secret Service said. Officals searched a Toyota sedan that the gunman was believed to have driven and was parked on Constitution Avenue. The agents found ammunition inside the car, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to release the information. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Law enforcement personnel stand near the Ellipse south of the White House on Constitution Avenue, Friday, May 20, 2016 in Washington. A uniformed Secret Service officer shot a person who drew a weapon just outside the White House Friday afternoon, a U.S. law enforcement official said. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Secret Service agents stands on the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on security alert after shooting on street outside. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Secret Service agents stand near the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House is placed on lockdown for a shooting nearby. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
A security agent stands nearby the Northwest gate of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House is placed on lockdown for a shooting nearby. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Secret Service Police Officers tell pedestrians to get back on State Place Northwest near the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on a security alert after a shooting on a street outside. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
A Secret Service Police Officer works outside of the guard entrance on 17th St Northwest near the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on a security alert after a shooting on a street outside. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
U.S. Secret Service officers are seen on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on a security alert after a shooting on a street outside. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
A U.S. Secret Service officer walks across a closed 17th Street near the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on a security alert after a shooting on a street outside. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
U.S. Secret Service officers block 17th Street next to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on a security alert after a shooting on a street outside. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
A U.S. Secret Service officer blocks Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street near the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on a security alert after a shooting on a street outside. The Eisenhower Executive Office Building in in the background. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Secret Service agents stands on the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on security alert after shooting on street outside. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
A Secret Service agent stands on the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on security alert after shooting on street outside. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
A White House chef walks past Secret Service agents as they stand on the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on security alert after shooting on street outside. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
A Secret Service agent stands on the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on security alert after shooting on street outside. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
A U.S. Park Police officer stands with a rifle to block Constitution Avenue at 17th Street as people walk past, Friday, May 20, 2016 in Washington. A uniformed Secret Service officer shot a person who drew a weapon just outside the White House Friday afternoon, a U.S. law enforcement official said. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Law enforcement personnel stand along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after the White House was placed on a security alert. A uniformed Secret Service officer shot a person who drew a weapon just outside the White House Friday afternoon, a U.S. law enforcement official said. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
A uniformed Secret Service agent walks on North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 20, 2016, after a security alert was lifted. A uniformed Secret Service officer shot a person who drew a weapon just outside the White House Friday afternoon, a U.S. law enforcement official said. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Somerset to talk to Chris Gayle about fresh sexism allegations
Somerset were "disappointed" by Chris Gayle's controversial remarks to a female journalist and will speak to the former West Indies captain about the matter when he reports for duty.
The 36-year-old, who was criticised for asking female Australian reporter Mel McLaughlin out on a date during a live television interview earlier this year, was on Saturday facing fresh allegations of sexism after a series of controversial comments to Charlotte Edwardes in an article for the Times magazine.
According to the piece, Gayle said he has "a very, very big bat, the biggest in the wooooorld." He said to Edwardes: "You think you could lift it? You'd need two hands."
Chris Gayle has courted further controversy with a newspaper interview
The article adds that Gayle asked Edwardes how many black men she has "had", and also asked if she had ever had a "t'eesome".
"I bet you have. Tell me," he is quoted as saying.
Gayle, who is currently featuring for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League, has signed a contract to play for Somerset in the Natwest T20 Blast this summer.
The prolific batsman scored 328 runs in just three games for the club in last season's competition.
He will report for his six-game stint shortly before the June 1 match against Sussex, and can expect the topic of the newspaper interview to crop up promptly.
Somerset chief executive Guy Lavender said to Press Association Sport: "We were disappointed to read the report in The Times.
"Our experience of Chris was very positive when he was with us last season, both on and off the pitch.
"It was disappointing to read the article.
"We haven't had the opportunity to discuss this with him yet, but will of course do so when he arrives to play for us in a few days' time."
In the piece in the Times, Gayle later says: "Women should have equality and they do have equality. They have more than equality. Women can do what they want. Jamaican women are very vocal. They will let you know what time it is, for sure."
However, he adds: "Women should please their man. When he comes home, food is on the table. Serious. You ask your husband what he likes and then you make it."
Asked about homophobia, Gayle said: "The culture I grew up in, gays were negative. (But) people can do whatever they want. You can't tell someone how to live their life. It's a free world."
In January, Gayle was fined 10,000 Australian dollars following his interview with McLaughlin during a Big Bash League contest.
Asked about the incident by Edwardes, Gayle said: "It was a joke. She knew that. That's who I am, the joker."
Edwardes told the Press Association: "Others can decide whether his remarks were appropriate. If I'd been offended, I would have said so in The Times.
Kirk votes to approve same-sex marriages for ministers
The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has voted to allow its ministers to be in same-sex marriages.
The gathering, which opened in Edinburgh today, voted in favour of extending a law passed last May that permits ministers to be in same-sex civil partnerships.
The outcome follows years of deliberation on the issue within the Church.
Rev Dr Russell Barr is the Moderator-Designate of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
The decision means the Kirk adopts a position which maintains a traditional view of marriage between a man and woman, but allows individual congregations to ''opt out'' if they wish to appoint a minister or a deacon in a same-sex marriage or a civil partnership.
Any wider consideration of the theological understanding of same-sex marriage will not take place until the Theological Forum presents its report to the Kirk next year.
More than 850 commissioners from across Scotland, the rest of the UK, Africa, Asia, North America, Europe, the Middle East and the Caribbean have registered to attend this year's assembly, which began with a formal ceremony attended by Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
The opening saw the appointment of a new Moderator.
The Right Rev Dr Angus Morrison stood down from his 12-month role and was replaced by the Rev Dr Russell Barr, the founder of Edinburgh-based homelessness charity, Fresh Start.
Dr Morrison said he felt a "sense of gratitude, relief and heartfelt appreciation" as he left the post.
Dr Barr said his predecessor was a "great ambassador for the Church of Scotland".
A letter from the Queen was also read as the assembly got under way.
She wrote: "At a time of such upheaval and unrest across the world, it is reassuring to hear that the Church of Scotland has made a particular priority of working to develop a co-ordinated response to the issues affecting refugees and asylum seekers.
"This international crisis requires a compassionate and generous response and we are pleased that in keeping with your priority to serve the poorest and most vulnerable, you are making such a valuable contribution."
The Queen also acknowledged the Church's contribution to the United Nations climate change conference in Paris last year.
Commissioners decided by 339 votes to 215 to allow ministers to be in same-sex marriages.
The Very Rev John Chalmers, Principal Clerk to the General Assembly, said: "We had a debate which made very clear that we were not interfering with our theological definition of marriage and were not going to the place where ministers or deacons could themselves be conducting same-sex marriages.
"It is an entirely different discussion.
"Today's decision means it will be possible for kirk sessions and congregations to depart from the traditional understanding of marriage to call not only potentially a minister in a civil partnership but one who is in a same-sex marriage.
"In some ways we crossed the Rubicon last year when it was agreed that Kirk sessions could call someone in a civil partnership and for many people what today was about was simply tidying up and making the law of the church consistent with Scots law."
He added: "Today I think people came to this decision with their minds on law and practice and not on theology and future practice."
Colin Macfarlane, director of charity Stonewall Scotland, said: " Today's result is great news for the Kirk and a progressive move forward.
"Empowering ministers to live their lives with honesty and integrity sends a powerful signal to faith communities and society as a whole."
Tributes to 'star daughter' killed in road crash
Tributes have been paid to a nine-year-old girl killed in a car crash.
Olivia Edohasim died when the black Toyota Auris she was travelling in hit a brick wall in Altrincham, Greater Manchester.
A 45-year-old man and an 11-year-old girl - believed to be related to the little girl - are recovering in hospital two weeks after the May 7 incident.
Olivia Edohasim died when a car she was travelling in hit a brick wall (Greater Manchester Police/PA)
In a statement released on Saturday through Greater Manchester Police (GMP), Olivia's family described her as a "little bundle of joy".
They said: "She brought smiles to all faces at all times and was the star daughter, sister, granddaughter and god daughter.
"She was exceptional at school and left a blaze of success in all that she engaged in and was never afraid to step out of her comfort zone. She grew up and was nurtured in her family's traditional Christian beliefs.
"She will be greatly missed by all of us but will remain in our thoughts and hearts forever."
The collision happened just after 10.50am in Manchester Road near to Stamford Road.
Greater Manchester Police said that on arrival they discovered a man and two children in the vehicle.
Olivia was pronounced dead at the scene.
Actor Tom Conti: 'Luvvie' term 'as abusive as the N-word'
Shirley Valentine actor Tom Conti has said using the term "luvvies" to describe actors is comparable with racial abuse.
The actor was responding to comments made by Labour councillor Theo Blackwell, who wrote to a local newspaper and called celebrities "livid luvvies" in reference to complaints, among them one by a few high-profile names including actress Emma Thompson, who had contested plans for a supermarket being built in north-west London.
Conti has been joined in his protest of the term by fellow actors Peter Egan and Dame Janet Suzman.
The actor said the term was "horrible" and "abusive"
He reportedly told the Daily Mail that using the word was " as abusive as "Yid" or "n*****" and it's a horrible expression".
He is further quoted as saying: " It's pejorative, denigrative and demeaning. I know a number of actors and certainly the actors with whom I have mixed over my entire life have been very bright people."
A war of words has erupted between Conti, Egan, Dame Janet and Blackwell after he wrote a letter that ended with the comment: "Let's have less of the livid luvvie protests - not everyone locally thinks the same on all these issues."
Dame Janet hit back at Blackwell's comments in a letter to the New Camden Journal.
She wrote: "I am tempted to say less of the 'apoplectic apparatchik' as an apt riposte to his rather low 'livid luvvie' put-down. I refer of course to Cllr Theo Blackwell's letter about air pollution, among other topics (Less of the 'livid luvvie' protests..., May 12). As residents, whatever our profession, we have a right to voice an opinion."
Downton Abbey actor Egan is quoted as telling the Daily Mail: "If actors are voicing an opinion, in many cases a true opinion, the way to dismiss that is to downgrade them with a diminishing term for a name."
"It was the exactly the same in Vietnam. The American troops used to call the Viet Cong 'Charlie'. It's how you degrade your enemy.
"It's always been regarded by actors as an insulting term. People disregard important opinion by saying, 'It's the luvvies at it again'. It's a cheap way of scoring points. And I do find it offensive personally."
The stars successfully campaigned last year, alongside Thompson and the likes of James Corden, against plans for a Tesco to move to Belsize Park.
Rory McIlroy in prime position to strike after weather-affected day at K Club
Tournament host Rory McIlroy got everything he wanted apart from the weather as he moved into pole position to win the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open for the first time at The K Club.
McIlroy had missed the cut in his home event for the last three years, but added a second round of 70 to his opening 67 to head into the third round just a shot off the lead shared by Masters champion Danny Willett and Scotland's Marc Warren.
And, despite failing to engage the extra gear he felt necessary to claim a first win of the season, the four-time major winner found himself with a three-shot lead with three holes to play before play was suspended due to darkness after two delays for bad weather.
Rory McIlroy hit the front on day three of the Irish Open at The K Club
"I think they made the right call," said the 27-year-old, who was involved in a lengthy discussion with a rules official on the 16th tee before play was finally abandoned for the day.
" It was getting dark out there. I struggled to read my putt on 15 and wasn't really comfortable to hit the tee shot on 16. A ctually the tee shot would have been okay to hit I think, but I didn't feel the point to hit one tee shot and come back tomorrow morning anyway to play the second shot.
"I don't feel like we delayed it too much by not hitting that tee shot. I think they made the right decision and I'm happy that I can go out there in the morning and hopefully hit that tee shot in the sunshine.
"I've got two par fives in the last three holes to try and get another couple birdies and go into the final round with a nice lead. I birdied the two par fives that I played and parred everything else, and if I can birdie the other two par in the morning, I'll be happy with my day's work.
"I feel like my game is good enough that I'll keep giving myself chances, hit fairways, hit greens, and if I can knock a few in, hopefully that will be good enough to get the job done."
After Willett had missed from three feet for par on the second, McIlroy's two-putt birdie on the par-five fourth gave him the outright lead for the first time, although Willett soon birdied the same hole to get back on level terms.
However, the world number nine then failed to get up and down from right of the sixth green and drove into the water on the seventh to card back-to-back bogeys, leaving McIlroy out in front.
Willett had just teed off on the 10th when the siren sounded to suspend play due to the threat of lightning in the area, with McIlroy missing a long eagle putt across the green in the group ahead.
Play eventually resumed after a delay of two hours and twenty minutes and McIlroy wasted no time in tapping in for his second birdie of the day to move to nine under and extend his lead to three shots.
Unfortunately, only 39 minutes of play was possible before another suspension, McIlroy running the length of the par-three 14th to mark his ball in the fringe after the siren sounded again.
Surprisingly play restarted shortly before 8pm, but McIlroy completed just two more holes as more rain fell and the decision was finally taken to abandon play for the day, with a restart scheduled for 0730 on Sunday.
Willett remained three shots behind with Scotland's Russell Knox and South Africa's Richard Sterne another stroke adrift, Knox making a fortunate birdie on the 16th after his approach hit rocks on the edge of a water hazard but bounced forward on to the green.
Knox, who dumped three balls into the water on the 17th while in contention for the Players Championship last week, parred the 18th to set the clubhouse target on five under and said: " I think I was due a good break.
"I had a good hybrid distance on 16 and I just chunked it. I had given up on it to be honest and when I saw it hit the rock, I was like, that's going forward. So I was very fortunate there."
Spain's Rafael Cabrera-Bello had been six under par with two holes to play only to find water off the tee on the 17th to run up a double bogey before the first suspension.
West Ham have 31million bid for Alexandre Lacazette turned down
Lyon have turned down a bid worth 31million from West Ham for Alexandre Lacazette, club owner Jean-Michel Aulas has said.
Aulas told French newspaper Le Progres the offer from the Hammers was the biggest so far tabled for the striker.
The 24-year-old France international has been a prolific scorer for Lyon in the French league for three seasons.
Alexandre Lacazette is a target of West Ham
West Ham will move from Upton Park to London's Olympic Stadium for next season.
Aulas was asked if Lyon had received offers for Lacazette, and said: "Yes. Many, the most important being that of West Ham for 40 million euros (31million) which we've refused. I want to keep him but I'm not certain because it's he who will decide in the end."
Aulas detailed Lyon's position, telling the newspaper: "To have a sale, you need all three parties to be in agreement. We hope to keep him. Now, if there are offers...
"Last season I expect Monaco wanted to keep (Anthony) Martial (who moved to Manchester United).
"What I don't want is that, by August 28, when we've qualified for the Champions League, we find ourselves in the same situation.
Turkey's top court leaves MHP leadership row in legal limbo -TVs
ANKARA, May 20 (Reuters) - Turkey's appeals court passed a decision on whether the nationalist opposition can hold a congress to elect a new leader to the constitutional court on Friday, leaving in legal limbo a dispute that could be crucial for President Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkish broadcasters said the appeals court made the decision after a member of the MHP submitted a request for the case to be heard instead by the constitutional court. Neither court could immediately be reached for comment.
Several hundred members of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have launched a bid to challenge veteran leader Devlet Bahceli. Polls suggest his removal could lead to a surge in support for the MHP, weakening Erdogan's chances of securing the stronger ruling party majority he wants to change the constitution and forge a full presidential system.
Nigeria's Buhari orders heightened military presence in restive Niger Delta
By Felix Onuah and Anamesere Igboeroteonwu
ABUJA/ONITSHA, Nigeria, May 20 (Reuters) - Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday said he ordered a heightened military presence in the restive Niger Delta region to deal with a resurgence of attacks on oil and gas facilities, a day after yet another pipeline explosion.
British Foreign Minster Philip Hammond warned on Saturday military action would not end a wave of attacks in the southern swamps because it did not address rising anger among residents over poverty despite sitting on much of Nigeria's oil wealth.
The rise in attacks in the Delta in the last few weeks has driven Nigerian oil output to a more than 20-year low, worsening a drain on public finances.
A group calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers has claimed responsibility for several sophisticated attacks.
Speaking at a meeting with Shell's upstream head, Andrew Brown, Buhari said he had instructed the chief of naval staff to reorganise and strengthen the military Joint Task Force to deal with the militancy.
"We have to be very serious with the situation in the Niger Delta because it threatens the national economy," Buhari said in a statement.
"I assure you that everything possible will be done to protect personnel and oil assets in the region," he added.
Nigeria had several times announced army reinforcements to the Delta but diplomats said the military has achieved little as militants were operating in small groups and hiding in the hard-to-access swamps.
"Mr. Brown had appealed for an urgent solution to rising crime and militancy in the Niger Delta," the presidency said.
An industry source told Reuters that major oil firms warned Vice President Yemi Osinbajo this month that a military crackdown was actually fuelling dissent in the Delta.
The presidency statement also quoted Brown as saying Shell would not pull out of Nigeria despite the violence and that it was in talks with state energy firm NNPC for new oil and gas projects.
Their was no immediate comment from Shell, but its country chair said in an interview published on Sunday the firm was committed to long-term investment in the West African nation.
Buhari's comments came after locals said a gas pipeline operated by NNPC was attacked late on Thursday.
The pipeline, which connects the Escravos oil terminal to Warri, supplies gas to different parts of the country.
Eric Omare, a spokesman for the Ijaw Youth Council, a youth umbrella, said the attack occurred near the village of Ogbe Ijoh, near Warri, "on the pipeline belonging to NNPC.
Resident James Dadiowei said he heard a "loud bang" at the pipeline, but an NNPC spokesman was unable to confirm the attack.
On Thursday, intruders blocked access to Exxon Mobil's terminal exporting Qua Iboe, Nigeria's largest crude stream. And, earlier this month, Shell workers at Nigeria's Bonga facilities were evacuated.
In February, the Avengers claimed an attack on an undersea pipeline, forcing Shell to shut a 250,000 barrel-a-day Forcados terminal.
The group also claimed responsibility for blasting a Chevron platform in early May, shutting the Warri and Kaduna refineries. Power outages across Nigeria worsened as gas supplies were also affected.
The army said on Sunday it had arrested several suspected members of the Avengers, but locals said they had been freed.
"They were released on Wednesday evening," Omare said.
Residents said the military had described them as Avengers but locals had protested they were Chevron pipeline inspectors who had shown the soldiers arresting them their identity cards.
North Korean nuclear envoy who negotiated '94 deal dies - state media
By Jack Kim
SEOUL, May 21 (Reuters) - The architect of North Korea's nuclear diplomacy who negotiated a 1994 accord with the United States that halted a U.S. plan for a military strike on the isolated state's nuclear facilities, has died, North Korea said on Saturday.
Kang Sok Ju, who last served as the North's vice premier and a member of the ruling Workers' Party Central Committee, died of cancer on Friday at the age of 76, the official KCNA news agency said.
Kang, as vice foreign minister, held tense negotiations with the United States that led to the 1994 "Agreed Framework" for the North to suspend activity at its Yongbyon nuclear site in return for construction by an international consortium of a nuclear power plant that would not be diverted for military use.
"Comrade Kang Sok Ju played an active role at the forefront to undertake the great Marshal's genius diplomatic wisdom and outstanding guidance, leading the anti-U.S. nuclear battle starting in the early 1990s," KCNA said.
The Marshal refers to Kim Jong Il, who was leader when the 1994 deal was struck. He was the father of current leader Kim Jong Un and died in 2011.
The 1994 deal is credited for slowing the North's nuclear weapons programme by nearly a decade, although it gradually unravelled and broke down in 2003 after South Korea, Japan and the United States spent more than $2 billion on the project.
North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and has carried out three more since then, the last in January, leading to tougher U.N. sanctions.
During the talks in Geneva that led to the deal, Kang warned that U.N. sanctions against the North would be considered an act of war, Robert Gallucci, who was Kang's U.S. counterpart, has said.
The warning prompted then-U.S. President Bill Clinton to formulate a response to the possibility of military action by the North including an air strike to destroy Yongbyon, 90 km (55 miles) north of the North Korean capital, Gallucci said in interviews.
At the height of tension, the North presented the idea of freezing activity at Yongbyon in return for two light-water reactors with safeguards to prevent them being diverted for military use, leading to the agreement.
The project suffered persistent delays and took years for real work to begin at the proposed site on the North's east coast.
World Bank launches $500 mln insurance fund to fight pandemics
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) - - The World Bank on Saturday said it was launching a $500 million, fast-disbursing insurance fund to combat deadly pandemics in poor countries, creating the world's first insurance market for pandemic risk.
Japan has committed the first $50 million towards the facility, which will combine funding from reinsurance markets with the proceeds of a new type of World Bank-issued high-yield pandemic "catastrophe" bond, the bank said.
In the event of a pandemic outbreak, the facility will release funds quickly to affected poor countries and qualified international first-responder agencies.
The genesis of the new facility was the slow international response to the Ebola outbreak in 2014, when it took months to muster meaningful funds for affected countries as death tolls mounted.
"The recent Ebola crisis in West Africa was a tragedy that we were simply not prepared for. It was a wake-up call to the world," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim told a media conference call.
"We can't change the speed of a hurricane or the magnitude of an earthquake, but we can change the trajectory of an outbreak. With enough money sent to the right place at the right time, we can save lives and protect economies," Kim added.
The so-called Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility will initially provide up to $500 million that can be disbursed quickly to fight a pandemic, with funds released once parametric triggers are met, based on the size, severity and spread of an outbreak.
The facility was developed in conjunction with the World Health Organization and reinsurers Swiss Re and Munich Re, which are acting as insurance providers. It will include catastrophe, or cat bonds, in which purchasers would lose principal if fund flows are triggered by a pandemic outbreak, the World Bank said.
But the insurance mechanism is limited to certain classes of infectious diseases most likely to cause major outbreaks, including several types of influenza, respiratory diseases such as SARS and MERS, and other deadly viruses including Ebola and Marburg.
Kim said the types of qualifying diseases had to be limited in order to secure the insurance policy, for which the World Bank will pay premiums.
The mosquito-borne Zika virus now spreading in Latin America is not included in the insurance scheme, but Kim said funds for Zika and other diseases that could lead to pandemics would be made available through a separate cash window, which is likely to be in the $100 million range.
Kim, who announced the facility at a Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank governors' meeting in Sendai, Japan, said he expected more contributions from G7 and other donors.
He said he hoped the new facility would spur development of a market for pandemic risk, similar to that for natural catastrophe risk since the 1990s.
The bank estimated that had the facility existed in mid-2014, an initial $100 million could have been mobilized as early as July of that year to severely limit the spread and severity of the Ebola epidemic.
Instead, it took three months for that scale of money to begin flowing, a period in which the number of Ebola cases increased ten-fold.
'One China' principle must be basis for relations with Taiwan - Xinhua
SHANGHAI, May 21 (Reuters) - Only by confirming the 'One China' principle can cross-strait authorities continue regular communications, a spokesman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office said on Saturday, according to the state newswire Xinhua.
Taiwan's new president Tsai Ing-wen, of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) which has traditionally favoured independence, was sworn in on Friday after eight years under the China-friendly Nationalist Ma Ying-jeou.
Although Tsai, Taiwan's first woman president, said Taiwan would play a responsible role and be a "staunch guardian of peace" with China in her speech on Friday, Chinese officials are pressuring the new government to explicitly endorse the so called "one China" principle which was agreed to with the Nationalist Party.
According to that principle, which China says was agreed to in 1992, both sides can interpret what "one China" means.
China's Taiwan Affairs Office Friday said Tsai's remarks were an "incomplete answer" while an editorial published Saturday in the People's Daily, the official newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party, said that "Taiwan's new leadership must complete their currently incomplete response."
Cross-strait authorities have had active interactions for more than two years through a hotline and other means after establishing a regular mechanism in 2014 based on the 1992 consensus, a spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office said on Saturday, according to Xinhua.
Five killed as cyclone Roanu starts to batter Bangladesh
DHAKA, May 21 (Reuters) - A cyclone battered the coast of Bangladesh on Saturday killing at least five people after lashing India's east coast with heavy rain and wind.
Authorities in low-lying Bangladesh have relocated about 500,000 people into 3,500 shelters, the disaster minister said, even as Cyclone Roanu killed three people in house collapses and two in landslides.
"We've shifted most of the people who are vulnerable," Disaster Management and Relief Minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya told a news conference.
"All-out preparations are in place to tackle the damage".
Officials suspended flights at Chittagong airport in the southeast while the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority imposed restrictions on the movement of all ships and ferries.
"The sea will remain very rough near the cyclone centre," it said.
U.S. measures to protect steel sector do not address root problem - China Commerce Ministry
By Nathaniel Taplin
SHANGHAI, May 21 (Reuters) - U.S. efforts to protect its steel industry will not solve the sector's fundamental problems, which stem from past protectionist measures, China's Ministry of Commerce said on Saturday.
The comments were posted on the ministry's website following a decision on Friday by the U.S. International Trade Commission to continue probing imports of certain steel products from 12 countries, including China and Korea.
The United States slapped Chinese steelmakers with final import duties of 522 percent on cold-rolled flat steel on Tuesday after finding their products were being sold in the U.S. market below cost and with unfair subsidies.
However, the Chinese statement said 30 years of protection and subsidies have distorted the U.S. steel market, resulting in a loss of competitiveness.
In addition, the majority of Chinese steel exports to the U.S. are molded steel and flat steel products which the U.S. does not produce, and therefore have not resulted in real harm to its producers, the statement said.
Currently the global steel industry is facing difficult times and over capacity, and countries need to work together to address the problem rather than resorting to protectionist measures, the Ministry statement said.
China, which accounts for half the world's steel output, is under fire after its exports hit a record 112 million tonnes last year, with rivals claiming that Chinese steelmakers have been undercutting them in their home markets.
In the four months to April, China's steel exports rose risen nearly 7.6 percent from the same period last year to 36.9 million tonnes.
China's own steel sector is facing deep problems following a sharp slowdown in real estate and construction which is only beginning to abate.
The nation has pledged to shut down significant portions of excess capacity and lay off workers, but some analysts say the policy response so far has been incoherent.
In December, the Ministry of Finance cut export taxes on some types of steel products in a move analysts said could worsen global oversupply.
South Africa to limit farm sizes to speed land redistribution
By Ed Stoddard
KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, South Africa, May 21 (Reuters) - South Africa's government is planning to impose limits on farm sizes to free up parcels of land to hand over to blacks, a minister said on Saturday, giving an insight into the workings of a divisive redistribution scheme.
Gugile Nkwinti, the minister of rural development and land reform, told Reuters the government was planning to set a range of limits - from a 1,000-hectare (2,470-acre) "small-scale" farm, up to the largest allowed, at 12,000 hectares.
"If you are a small-scale farm and have 1,400 HA, we will buy the 400, and leave you with your 1,000. We will buy the extra and redistribute it to black people," the minister said.
South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC), facing local elections in August, has promised to speed up plans to redistribute land which remains predominantly in white hands two decades after the end of apartheid.
Some economists and farming groups have said the proposals could hit investment and production at a time when South Africa is emerging from a major drought - pointing to the economic damage linked to farm seizures in neighbouring Zimbabwe.
They have also complained about a lack of clarity on how it will all work.
Setting out the farm sizes and specifically linking them to the redistribution scheme may further alarm owners, particularly of smaller plots.
But the government says the redistribution process needs to be accelerated, to rectify past wrongs and provide opportunities to the previously excluded, and has repeatedly said it will not follow the Zimbabwe example and stick to the law.
"In South Africa you have a concentration of land ownership in the hands of a few people. That is something we have to correct," Nkwinti said before a ceremony in Kruger National Park where officials will hand over compensation to black communities evicted decades ago.
Experts have estimated about 8 million hectares of farmland have been transferred to black owners since the end of apartheid, 8 to 10 percent of the land in white hands in 1994 and only a third of the ANC's long-running 30 percent target.
The party has said it will speed up the process with a bill going through parliament allowing the state to expropriate land without the owner's consent.
Nkwinti said there would be four broad limits: 1,000 HA for a "small-scale" commercial farm, 2,500 HA for a medium-scale one, 5,000 for large-scale operations, and a 12,000 HA special category including game farms, forestry operations and renewable energy projects such as wind farms.
Nkwinti also said the government was planning to introduce a scheme for black farmers who work communal land but lack title deeds to the plots they plough - a situation that prevents them from using the land to obtain finance.
Malaysia's police nab 14 in anti-terror crackdown
KUALA LUMPUR, May 21 (Reuters) - Malaysian authorities detained 14 people believed to have links to the Islamic State (IS) in a series of raids across several states earlier this week.
The 14 - all Malaysians - are the latest to be detained by authorities who have been on a concerted campaign over the past few years to stamp out the threat of Islamist militancy in the country.
Deputy inspector-general of police Noor Rashid Ibrahim said in a statement that eight of the suspects are believed to have transferred money to the IS in Syria and the Abu Sayyaf militant group in the southern Philippines.
All eight are also believed to have ties with Malaysian IS recruiter Muhammad Wanndy Mohamed Jedi, who police had earlier identified as having recruited several Malaysians to launch an attack in the southeast Asian nation.
Three others were detained on suspicion of promoting IS ideology, while two men and one woman were arrested for allegedly planning to travel to Syria to join the terrorist group.
The raids were carried out between May 17-20 by the police special branch's counter-terrorism division in six states across the peninsula.
Muslim-majority Malaysia has been on high alert since Islamic State-linked militants carried out an armed attack in the capital of neighbouring Indonesia in January.
Kazakh police break up anti-government protests
By Olzhas Auyezov
ALMATY/ASTANA, May 21 (Reuters) - Kazakh police broke up anti-government protests across the country on Saturday, detaining dozens of protesters and cordoning off the main squares of major cities.
Opponents of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has been in power since 1989, had called for rallies in all major cities, extending a series of demonstrations that started last month in response to plans to privatise large tracts of farmland.
The protests, which have become an outlet for expressing general discontent with the government, are the Central Asian nation's biggest for more than a decade and continued on Saturday despite pre-emptive detentions of many activists and warnings from the authorities.
At least 100 protesters gathered at one police checkpoint that blocked access to Almaty's main square. Similar-sized groups tried to enter the square at other points, some sang the national anthem.
Reuters witnesses saw police, some in full riot gear, chase protesters down the street, detaining them one-by-one and putting them into buses.
"Why are you just sitting here?" one protester, a young woman in tears, cried out at a group of onlookers.
Police also briefly detained two Reuters reporters but released them after driving them a short distance in a police van.
In the capital Astana, a Reuters correspondent saw police, who also cordoned off the site of the planned protest, detain a few people including journalists.
Raul Uporov, a reporter based in the city of Uralsk in western Kazakhstan, told Reuters by telephone he had been detained by police at the protest. Local newspaper Uralksaya Nedelya, for which Uporov works, posted photographs of another police cordon at the city's central square.
Azamat Maitanov, a reporter from Atyrau, told Reuters by telephone that police had used a similar tactic there too, while Nasha Gazeta newspaper based in Kostanai in northern Kazakhstan reported several people had been detained in that city.
Although relatively small so far, with the biggest no more than a few thousand strong, the recent protests have become the most visible and geographically broad display of discontent against the president's rule since the early 2000s.
The unrest follows a sharp economic slowdown and the depreciation of the national tenge currency by about 45 percent last year as the price of oil, Kazakhstan's main export plunged.
Kazakh authorities had warned that the planned rallies were "illegal" and that police would react.
"Law enforcement bodies are obliged to prevent any violations and immediately take the necessary legal measures including criminal prosecution," Prosecutor General Zhakip Asanov had said in a statement on Friday.
Earlier this week, police and courts detained dozens of activists in several cities who had planned to take part in Saturday's protests. On Saturday, the Interior Ministry declined to say how many people police had detained across the country.
U.N., Western donors urge Somalia to speed up vote process
By Edmund Blair
NAIROBI, May 21 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council and Western donors have urged Somalia's parliament to speed up approval of new election rules to ensure an August vote is held on time, saying delays put recovery from conflict at risk.
Somalia, slowly rebuilding after decades of violence and still battling an Islamist insurgency, is due to elect a new parliament, whose members will in turn pick the president.
"The United States is increasingly concerned about delays in the 2016 Somali electoral process," the U.S. State Department said on Friday, adding the "legitimacy of Somali federal institutions" depended on a transparent and timely transition.
It urged parliament "to act swiftly" to enact the new rules.
The process to be approved by the outgoing parliament falls short of one-person-one-vote, which diplomats say would be too tough to stage because of the insurgency. But the process will expand the number of people picking the lawmakers.
In 2012, just 135 elders selected members of the lower house. Under the new rules, 13,750 people from across federal states will chose 275 members of the lower house. A new 54-seat upper house will also be created to represent the states.
The European Union, another major donor, said a parliamentary failure to act quickly "will jeopardise the Somali political process and set Somalia several years back."
A delegation U.N. Security Council diplomats echoed the comments in talks with Somali leaders in Mogadishu this week.
Egypt's U.N. ambassador, Abdellattif Aboulatta, told a news conference in Nairobi on Friday that the delegation had urged Somali officials to approve the process "as soon as possible."
Privately, diplomats have said the election process might slip by a few weeks, but it must maintain momentum because any political vacuum could be exploited by al Shabaab Islamists or clan warlords who tore the nation apart in the 1990s.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who was elected in 2012, is expected to run again. Several corruption scandals have frustrated donors. Officials say they have worked hard to respond to criticisms.
The new election process aims to consolidate a federal structure, which includes recently created regional states in a nation where politics is still largely driven by clan loyalties.
Nigerian ex-militants call for end to Niger Delta pipeline attacks
YENAGOA, Nigeria May 21 (Reuters) - Former militants called for a halt to a resurgence of attacks on oil and gas facilities in Nigeria's southern Niger Delta, saying it is an unnecessary distraction for President Muhammadu Buhari's administration.
The defunct Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), a group of former militants who previously targeted the oil-rich region, made the call in a statement late on Friday.
"We should give President Buhari the opportunity to fulfil his promises to the Niger Delta people by maintaining peace in the region," they said in the statement.
Canada's scorched oil lands have some evacuation orders lifted
TORONTO, May 21 (Reuters) - Authorities in Canada's wildfire-ravaged energy heartland have lifted evacuation orders on Suncor Energy Inc and Syncrude oil sites after rain and cold weather helped dampen the flames.
Municipal authorities in the oil town of Fort McMurray lifted the mandatory evacuation orders on Suncor's base plant and Syncrude's Mildred Lake facility, as well as nearby camps that house oil workers, late on Friday.
Meanwhile, Suncor said on Facebook that a limited crew will be back at some of its sites on Monday at the earliest.
Syncrude, majority-owned by Suncor, has not publicly announced a remobilization timeline, and it is not immediately clear when either company will restart production.
Fort McMurray itself still sits largely empty, after its entire population of nearly 90,000 was evacuated in the northern Alberta fire that has blackened more than 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) since it began earlier this month.
The fire also triggered a prolonged shutdown that has cut Canadian oil output by a million barrels a day.
The blaze forced the evacuation of Suncor and Syncrude facilities after it jumped a critical firebreak late Monday, moving north of Fort McMurray into oil sand camp areas. Some 8,000 workers were evacuated.
Producers have since signaled a gradual increase in operations.
The fire did not grow overnight, and remains at the same size Saturday morning and has not had additional impact on oil facilities, said Alberta wildfire information officer Laura Stewart.
Some of the evacuees from Fort McMurray may be allowed to return as soon as June 1, if air quality improves and other safety conditions are met.
Islamic State threatens attacks in India
NEW DELHI, May 21 (Reuters) - In a rare appeal to India's Muslim minority, Islamic State says it is planning to avenge the deaths of Muslims killed in riots in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat and elsewhere.
India, a Hindu-majority country, is home to more than 160 million Muslims, but only a handful of them have joined the Middle Eastern group. Indian leaders and members of the community say this testifies to the strength of the country's secular democracy.
In a video monitored by the U.S. intelligence group SITE, Islamic State mocked Muslims living in harmony with Hindus who worship cows, trees and the sun, and urged them to travel to IS-held territories in the "Caliphate".
"In this land you get to have hatred for the kuffar . In this land you get to perform jihad," said an Indian fighter who is identified as Abu Salman al-Hindi operating in the Syrian province of Homs.
"In this land your religion is safe. In this land Allah's Law is the highest. In this land you have nothing that stops you from doing good deeds, from doing da'wah, from preaching Islam. In this land your life, your honour, your property is protected."
Another fighter then says Islamic State will come to India to liberate Muslims and avenge the violence perpetrated against them in 2002 in the western state of Gujarat as well Kashmir and the destruction of a mosque by Hindu zealots in 1992.
"We will come back, with the sword, to free you, to avenge Babri mosque, Gujarat, Kashmir," the fighter says. More than 1,000 people were killed in Gujarat. Most of them were Muslims, attacked by Hindu mobs in retaliation for the burning of Hindus in a train.
Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat at the time and faced allegations that he did not do enough to stop the bloodshed. But a Supreme Court-ordered investigation has said there was no case against him.
U.S., allies conduct 25 strikes against Islamic State: military
WASHINGTON, May 21 (Reuters) - The United States and its allies targeted Islamic State militants with 18 strikes in Iraq and seven in Syria on Friday, the U.S. military said.
Four of the strikes in Iraq were near Mosul, hitting four Islamic State tactical units and three vehicles, the statement said.
Burundi peace talks open in Tanzania with opposition criticism
By Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala
DAR ES SALAAM, May 21 (Reuters) - Tanzania opened peace talks on Saturday in a bid to end a political crisis in Burundi, but some opponents said the absence of several leading opposition groups made it more like a "monologue" by the government, undermining the process.
Burundi has been mired in a year-long crisis that has killed more than 450 people since President Pierre Nkurunziza pursued and won a third term. Opponents said his move violated the constitution and a peace deal that ended a civil war in 2005.
Dialogue in Bujumbura last year between the government and opponents failed to bridge differences, and talks mediated by Uganda earlier this year also swiftly stalled.
"The Burundi peace talks began in Arusha today under the facilitation of former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa," Richard Owora Othieno, spokesman of the six-state East African Community which includes Burundi, told Reuters.
The Tanzanian city of Arusha was also the location for negotiations that led to the deal to end the ethnically charged 1993 to 2005 civil war.
Renewed violence in Burundi has alarmed a region where memories of the Rwanda's 1994 genocide remain raw. Like Rwanda, Burundi has an ethnic Hutu majority and a Tutsi minority.
Till now, the violence in Burundi has largely followed political rather than ethnic loyalties. But diplomats fear ethnic wounds could reopen the longer violence continues.
Senior government officials are attending the talks. But opponents said some major opposition groups were excluded, including CNARED, an umbrella group that includes politicians in exile opposed to the third term.
The government has said CNARED is not a registered party.
"For us, there is no dialogue, it is rather a monologue, a time wasting because dialogue or talks should be between two parties in conflict," said CNARED spokesman Pancrace Cimpaye in a statement.
Charles Nditije, president of UPRONA, another opposition party which does not have official status, told Reuters that CNARED's absence undermined the value of the talks.
He also said a grouping of civil society organisations opposed to the third term and other parties were also left out.
The talks were attended by some Western donors and a U.N. representative. The Tanzanian mediators did not immediately provide a list of opposition groups attending.
Chile's Bachelet scales back reform agenda due to slow economy
SANTIAGO, May 21 (Reuters) - Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said on Saturday that some of her proposed reforms would have to wait because of the economic slowdown and tepid political support, but she pledged to push changes to the pension and education systems.
Bachelet, who must work fast to cement her legacy in her last full year in office before 2017 elections, said she was preparing legislation to gradually make university education free and would work to hasten creation of a state pension fund.
"We will continue with pending proposals - less numerous, which make it possible to complete the changes committed to," Bachelet said in her annual speech before Congress in the port city of Valparaiso.
"There are also initiatives that we must reprogram because we have to consider restrictions on resources or the need to form broad agreements," Bachelet said, without specifying what initiatives would be postponed.
Bachelet praised talks on a new constitution to replace one implemented by the country's former dictator Augusto Pinochet.
She did not mention a reform that aims to strengthen organized labor in the South American country. Last month a court rejected as unconstitutional key provisions in that bill, such as a stipulation that companies can only negotiate with legally designated unions during wage talks.
Bachelet was elected in a landslide in 2013 for a second non-consecutive term on pledges to reduce sharp inequality with an ambitious set of wide-ranging reforms paid for by tax hikes.
Her approval ratings halved from over 50 percent when she took office in March 2014 to around 25 percent by the end of 2015.
A financial scandal involving her family has damaged the center-left leader's reputation. Weak economic growth, dragged by falling mining investment and a copper market rout, has also weighed in Chile, the world's top copper exporter.
"Long-term strategies require sound public finances," Bachelet said. "I'm fully aware of the economic responsibilities of the state, even more so in the midst of reforms and a complex international scenario."
Bachelet, who pitched a slew of new proposals to Congress in previous speeches, made no major new announcements this year.
She commands a narrow majority in both houses of Congress, but is struggling to meet demands of her coalition, which ranges from centrist Christian Democrats to Communists.
U.S defense secretary apologizes after American charged in Japanese woman's death
WASHINGTON, May 21 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter called his Japanese counterpart on Saturday to express regrets after an American working at a U.S. military base in Japan was arrested on suspicion of dumping the body of a Japanese woman.
The case in Okinawa has sparked a protest from Tokyo and could add to resentment of the large U.S. military presence on the island, where Japanese have long been upset by crimes committed by Americans. It also is likely to stir anti-U.S. sentiment as President Barack Obama visits Japan next week.
In his call to Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani, Carter "extended his sincere apologies to the victim's family and friends," Defense Department spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement.
"He also expressed his sympathies to the people of Japan," the statement said.
A 32-year-old American working at the base on Okinawa admitted to abandoning the corpse of a 20-year-old Japanese woman but did not comment about whether he had killed her, an Okinawa police spokesman said earlier this week.
The Pentagon has said the man was a contractor but did not name him.
The Pentagon statement said the Defense Department would cooperate with the Japanese government in the investigation and work to prevent similar incidents.
Obama is going to Japan for a Group of Seven summit and also will become the first U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, a city destroyed by a U.S. atomic bomb 71 years ago in World War Two.
Okinawa, the site of a bloody World War Two battle, hosts the bulk of U.S. military forces based in Japan since the war with U.S. installations taking up about 18 percent of the island.
Yemeni government to give peace talks "last chance" - minister
CAIRO, May 21 (Reuters) - Yemen's government will give U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Kuwait a "last chance", the country's foreign minister said on Saturday, four days after the delegation suspended participation in the process aimed at ending the year-long war.
Representatives from the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and its Iran-allied Houthi rebel foes have been meeting for nearly a month in Kuwait for talks to ease a war that has killed more than 6,200 people.
The government withdrew from the talks on Tuesday, saying it would only return if its opponents committed to withdraw from cities they have seized since 2014 and hand over weapons.
Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdel-Malek al-Mekhlafi wrote on Twitter on Saturday that the government delegation would give the talks "a last chance" after President Hadi held meetings with the emirs of Qatar and Kuwait, as well as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The talks are focused on government demands for the Houthis to hand over their weapons and quit captured cities, as well as the formation of a new government that would include the rebels. The government is currently based in the southern Yemeni port of Aden, while the Houthis retain control of the capital Sanaa.
Tajik leader strengthening grip on power in volatile region
ALMATY, May 22 (Reuters) - Tajikistan's President seems certain to strengthen his power by referendum on Sunday in a country bordering Afghanistan and seen in Russia as a front line in the battle against islamist militants and drug traffickers from Afghanistan.
Imomali Rakhmon seeks a constitutional blanket ban on religious parties after a court shutdown of the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) last year. Some of its leaders face life in jail on charges of plotting a coup.
IRPT was a successor of the Islamist wing of an opposition bloc which fought Rakhmon's government in a bloody civil war in the 1990s. The crackdown on the party marked a decisive break from the power-sharing agreement which ended the war.
Mostly Muslim Tajikistan is the poorest former Soviet republic. Russia maintains a base in in the country in support of the government and dominates a force guarding the 1,300 Km (830 mile) long border with Afghanistan.
Tajikistan has never held an election judged free and fair by Western observers. Rakhmon loyalists dominated the latest vote in March 2015 while the Islamists failed to clear a five-percent threshold needed to win seats for a party.
STIRRINGS OF CONFLICT
Constitutional amendments drafted by a loyal parliament, and reflecting autocratic rule in neighbouring Central Asian states, will allow Rakhmon, in power since 1994, to run for an unlimited number of presidential terms. Without them, his current term ending in 2020 would be the last one.
The legal reform will also lower the minimum age for presidential candidates, allowing Rakhmon's elder son Rustam, who runs the state financial control agency, to run for office if he chooses to do so. Ozoda, one of the president's seven daughters, is his chief of staff.
The peace in the 1990s civil war was hard won and any signs it could unravel would be viewed with deep concern in Moscow.
A former member of the armed opposition movement, General Abdukhalim Nazarzoda, was killed last September in a gunfight with government forces after a failed attempt to seize power from Rakhmon.
Political tensions have intensified against a backdrop of deepening economic crisis triggered largely by a recession in Russia, where hundreds of thousands of Tajiks work in order to provide for their families at home.
Many of them have since had to return home either because they lost their jobs or because their wages were no longer sufficient following the Russian rouble's devaluation.
EgyptAir jet sent smoke-alarm warnings before crash
By Tim Hepher and Ahmed Aboulenein
PARIS/CAIRO, May 21 (Reuters) - The EgyptAir jet which crashed in the Mediterranean on Thursday sent a series of warnings indicating that smoke had been detected on board, shortly before it disappeared off radar screens, French investigators said on Saturday.
A spokesman for France's BEA air accident investigation agency said the signals did not indicate what caused the smoke or fire on board the plane, which plunged into the sea with 66 people on board as it was heading from Paris to Cairo.
But they offered the first clues as to what unfolded in the moments before the crash.
One aviation source said that a fire on board would likely have generated multiple warning signals, while a sudden explosion may not have generated any - though officials stress that no scenario, including explosion, is being ruled out.
Egypt said its navy had found human remains, wreckage and the personal belongings of passengers floating in the Mediterranean about 290 km (180 miles) north of Alexandria.
The army published pictures on Saturday on its official Facebook page of the recovered items, which included blue and white debris with EgyptAir markings, seat fabric with designs in the airline's colours, and a yellow lifejacket.
Analysis of the debris and recovery of the plane's twin flight recorders are likely to be key to determining the cause of the crash - the third blow since October to Egypt's travel industry, still reeling from political unrest following the 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak.
A suspected Islamic State bombing brought down a Russian airliner after it took off from Sharm el-Sheikh airport in late October, killing all 224 people on board, and an EgyptAir plane was hijacked in March by a man wearing a fake suicide belt.
A message purporting to come from Islamic State urged attacks on the United States and Europe in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan beginning in early June. "Ramadan, the month of conquest. Get prepared...so that you make it a month of calamity on the non-believers anywhere," said the message posted on Twitter accounts that usually publish Islamic State statements.
It made no claim of responsibility for the Egyptair crash.
The October crash devastated Egyptian tourism, a main source of foreign exchange for a country of 80 million people, and another similar incident would crush hopes of it recovering.
Egypt's tourism revenue in the first three months of the year plunged by two thirds to $500 million from a year earlier.
HUNT FOR BLACK BOXES
The signals from the plane "do not allow in any way to say what may have caused smoke or fire on board the aircraft", said a spokesman for the French BEA agency, which is assisting an official Egyptian investigation.
He added that the priority now was to find the two flight recorders, known as black boxes, containing cockpit voice recordings and data readings, from the Airbus A320 which vanished from radar early on Thursday.
the head of the Egyptian investigation team was quoted by Egypt's state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper as saying a preliminary report into the crash would be presented in a month.
Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi told reporters an additional challenge in the hunt for the black boxes was the depth of the Mediterranean in the area under search. "What I understand is that it is 3,000 (metres)," he said.
That would place the black box locator beacons, which last for 30 days, on the edge of their detectable range from the surface based on the type of acoustic equipment typically used during the first stages of a search, according to a report into the 2009 crash of an Air France jet in the Atlantic.
"No important devices from the plane have been retrieved so far," Fathi said.
The flight data transmitted before the crash was sent through an automatic system called the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which routinely downloads maintenance and fault data to the airline operator.
Aviation Herald, a respected Austria-based website specialising in air accidents, first published a burst of seven messages broadcast over the space of three minutes. These included alarms about smoke in the lavatory as well as the aircraft's avionics area, which sits under the cockpit.
While suggesting a possible fire, the relatively short sequence of data gives no insight into pilot efforts to control the aircraft, nor does it show whether it fell in one piece or disintegrated in mid-air, two aviation safety experts said.
The data fragments also included alarms related to cockpit window heating and two flight control computers, both of which have backups.
"The question now is whether the fire that caused the smoke was the result of an electrical fault - for example a short-circuit caused by damaged wiring - or whether some form of explosive or incendiary device was used - for example by a terrorist - to generate a fire or other damage," aviation safety expert David Learmont said.
The ACARS data suggested the fire had spread quickly and "that might explain the fact that there was no distress call", Learmont wrote in a blog.
"ALL SCENARIOS" POSSIBLE
The aircraft was carrying 56 passengers, including a child and two infants, and 10 crew. They included 30 Egyptian and 15 French nationals, along with citizens of 10 other countries.
Egyptair said officials met family members and told them the process of gathering body parts and information would take time, while DNA testing to identify victims would require weeks.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who met relatives of crash victims in Paris on Saturday, said there were several possible causes. "At this very moment all scenarios are being examined and none is being given greater emphasis," he said.
France sent a plane and navy ship to help the search, centred on an area just south of where the signal from the plane was lost early on Thursday.
EgyptAir Chairman Safwat Moslem said the radius of the search zone was 40 nautical miles, but could be expanded. The radius is equivalent to an area of 5,000 square miles (17,000 square km), the same expanse covered in the initial hunt for the Air France jet in 2009.
The large area reflects the fact that neither jet could be accounted for in the last few minutes of flying time.
A European satellite spotted a 2 km-long oil slick in the Mediterranean, about 40 km (20 nautical miles) southeast of the aircraft's last known position, the European Space Agency said.
H&M says working to improve labour conditions in India, Cambodia factories
By Nita Bhalla
NEW DELHI, May 22 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Swedish fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) said it was collaborating with trade unions, government as well as the U.N. to improve workers' conditions after a study found violations in supplying garment factories in India and Cambodia.
The study by the Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA) found workers stitching clothes for H&M in factories in Delhi and Phnom Penh faced problems such as low wages, fixed-term contracts, forced overtime and loss of job if pregnant.
The AFWA, a coalition of trade unions and labour rights groups, accused the Western high street retailer of failing on its commitments to clean up its supply chain.
An official from H&M told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Saturday that the fashion firm has been working actively to improve the lives of textile workers for many years.
"The report raises important issues and we are dedicated to contribute to positive long-term development for the people working in the textile industry in our sourcing markets," said Therese Sundberg from H&M's press and communications department.
"The issues addressed in the report are industry wide problems. They are often difficult to address as an individual company and we firmly believe that collaboration is key."
H&M has partnered with the International Labour Organization, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency as well as global and local trade unions to seek out solutions, she added in an emailed statement.
The fashion industry has come under increasing pressure to improve factory conditions and workers' rights, particularly after the collapse of the Rana Plaza complex in Bangladesh three years ago, when 1,136 garment workers were killed.
FORCED OVERTIME, SACKED FOR PREGNANCY
The study, which surveyed 50 Indian workers from five factories and 201 Cambodians workers from 12 factories from August to October 2015.
It found that overtime in all the factories was expected by employers. Cambodian workers reported they had to do two hours of overtime daily, while Indian workers reported working at least 9 hours to 17 hours a day.
"Workers are routinely required to work until 2 a.m. in order to meet production targets - and then to report to work at 9 a.m.," it said, referring to workers in Indian factories.
"The financial imperative of working overtime due to the persistence of minimum wage standards below living wage standards can be viewed as a form of economic coercion that leads to involuntary or forced overtime," it added.
The study also found that fixed-term contracts were being used in 9 of the 12 Cambodian and all Indian factories surveyed.
These contracts facilitate arbitrary termination and deprive workers of job security, pension, healthcare, seniority benefits and gratuity, say activists.
Workers also reported discrimination in maternity benefits in both the Indian and Cambodian factories, said the study.
Cambodian workers from 11 of the 12 factories reported either witnessing or experiencing termination of employment during pregnancy, while Indians from all five factories said women were fired during their pregnancies, said the study.
"Permanent workers report being forced to take leave without pay for the period of their pregnancy," it said.
"Contract, piece rate and casual workers reported that although most of the time they are reinstated in their jobs after pregnancy, they receive completely new contracts that cause them to lose seniority."
H&M's Sundberg said solving all these issues was a long-term process which continues "step-by-step" and that the Swedish retailer was committed to improving labour rights in its supplying factories.
What the May 19 Assembly election results of four states have proved is that several regional players have emerged stronger now. As a result of this, the NDA, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will face a fractured Opposition in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. With the Congress becoming weaker by getting confined to just six states and several regional players getting stronger, unity will evade the Opposition. This will make the job of the BJP-led NDA easier, if not a cakewalk.
As matters stand today, neither the Congress nor the UPA led by it is in a position to pose any serious challenge to the BJP. While the NDA is in power in 12 states (which send 240 of the 543 MPs to the Lok Sabha), the UPA has shrunk to just seven states, and except for Karnataka and Bihar, the others are comparatively smaller states. All put together, they send just 84 MPs to the Lok Sabha.
In such a situation, though the Congress may agree to form a wider coalition with the regional parties, an agreement with them will evade it on the issue of the prime ministerial candidate. The Congress will never support any candidate from any other party as the prime minister if it enters into a pre-poll alliance.
For instance, the Congress has already rejected the offer of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to head a coalition of non-BJP parties. The Bihar unit of the grand old party has vociferously opposed any attempt by Nitish to project himself as the prime ministerial face.
Will the regional satraps bury their prime ministerial ambitions to unitedly take on Narendra Modi?
On the other hand, a Congress prime ministerial candidate will not be acceptable to the regional parties which, in themselves, have become quite strong and their leaders see themselves as potential candidates. They will reject Rahul Gandhi as their prime ministerial candidate as the Congress has been dwindling under his de facto leadership.
For instance, both West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her Tamil Nadu counterpart J Jayalalithaa have emerged stronger after retaining power for the second consecutive term. There are 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal and 39 in Tamil Nadu and, hence, both Mamata and Jayalalithaa will become more assertive. Neither of the two will accept the leadership of Rahul. On the contrary, they are being viewed as the strongest challengers of Modi. After results of the Assembly elections in four states and one Union Territory were announced on May 19, there were two separate reports in DailyO highlighting this fact - "Mamata Banerjee looks the strongest candidate to take on Modi in 2019" and "Why I see Jayalalithaa versus Modi in 2019".
Besides, we already have Nitish who has thrown in the gauntlet. He declared that "all non-BJP parties will have to come together if we have to defeat them" because "separate contests will not work" in the next Lok Sabha elections. His call for an RSS-free India and his candidature for the prime ministerial post have been backed by his friend-turned-foe-turned-friend and Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav. Incidentally, Bihar sends a considerable 40 MPs to the Lower House.
Though AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal personally denies it, all know that the Delhi chief minister also nurses prime ministerial ambitions for long. To fulfil his ambition, he had contested against Modi in Varanasi in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, though he lost by a massive margin and had to forfeit his security deposit. His party fielded several candidates but only four won seats in those elections, all from Punjab.
Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav will throw his hat in the ring for the prime minister's chair if his son Akhilesh Yadav's government in Uttar Pradesh romps home to victory in the 2017 Assembly elections. In case Akhilesh is defeated by the BSP, then Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati will become a contender for the prime minister's post. Uttar Pradesh is the most important state as it has the maximum number of seats in the Lok Sabha - 80.
As against these loud and high profile politicians, the four-term Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik is known as a silent and efficient administrator. He is the longest serving chief minister of Odisha, occupying the chair since March 2000. Odisha has only 21 seats in the Lower House.
Unlike others in the Opposition, he has never directly or indirectly expressed his desire to become the prime minister but he is tipped by political pundits as the dark horse. With a number of contenders for the prime minister's post increasing, there is a bleak possibility of an Opposition unity on the issue. These opposition leaders are unlikely to succeed in accepting one among them as the prime ministerial face.
Alternatively, they may form a front and leave the question of a prime ministerial face after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. That will send a message of Opposition disunity among the voters. Also, a front without a prime ministerial candidate will be weak against the BJP-led NDA with Modi as their leader.
Highlighting the benefits of DBT, Paswan said, "Implementation of cash transfer of food subsidy will reduce transportation cost of foodgrains from Punjab and Haryana (Photo: PTI)
New Delhi: Pitching for direct transfer of food subsidy, Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Saturday asked states to initiate a pilot programme in at least some districts to pay cash directly to ration card holders.
"The government is implementing Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme for LPG subsidy. We wish DBT should be implemented for food subsidy as well," Paswan said, addressing a state food ministers conference on price rise here.
The direct transfer of food subsidy would enable ration card holders to purchase their choice of foodgrain from the market and also reduce the subsidy bill with reduction in cost of transportation and handling of foodgrains.
Under the food security law, the Centre is supplying foodgrains at a highly subsidised rate of Rs 1-3/kg to 72.46 crore beneficiaries in 33 states and union territories. Three states are yet to roll out the law.
Already, DBT for food subsidy is being implemented fully in Chandigarh and Puducherry and in some areas of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Paswan said. "I urge all other states and union territories to implement DBT on a pilot basis in some selective districts if not in the entire state," he added.
Highlighting the benefits of DBT, the minister said, "Implementation of cash transfer of food subsidy will reduce transportation cost of foodgrains from Punjab and Haryana.
There will not be complaints from poor people that quality grains is not being supplied in ration shops." He said the government provides about Rs 1.30 lakh crore food subsidy annually and it should reach the right beneficiaries. He also said that foodgrains worth Rs 10,000 crore have been better targeted because of elimination of ineligible ration cards.
Under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), which came into force from July 5, 2013, over 81 crore beneficiaries will be legally entitled to get cheaper foodgrains from ration shops when the law is implemented across the country.
Bhubaneswar: RBI has been enjoying full autonomy and support of the government so far and it should be allowed to take its own decision, Governor Raghuram Rajan has told the central bank's staff.
While addressing an in-house meeting of RBI employees here on the first day of his three-day visit to Odisha, Mr Rajan also said that with agriculture playing a key role in India there is a need to focus on small and medium agro-based projects.
"Our economy is agriculture based. Therefore, we should focus on small and medium agro-based projects," Mr Rajan said. He also said that the Indian economy was on the right track and could emerge as a major player globally.
Mr Rajan, however, said the RBI which has been enjoying full autonomy and support of the government so far and should be allowed to take its own decision, said an RBI employee who was present at the meeting where media was not allowed.
"RBI's decision is very crucial as it is connected with fate of crores of people. A slight mistake could put the entire country and its people in trouble. Therefore, RBI's decision must be accurate and to the point keeping in view the interest of the people," the employee said quoting Mr Rajan.
In the interaction programme with RBI employees, Mr Rajan also said Odisha was rich in mineral resources and the state should also use its tourism potential to boost the economy.
Mr Rajan also visited Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) and discussed with its officials regarding the financial model of the school and its management.
During his visit to the state, Mr Rajan is scheduled to address Odisha government officers, meet Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and address the Harekrushna Mahatab Memorial Lecture on "The Global Economy and India".
Mumbai: Ever since Salman Khan made his first public appearance with his Romanian long time rumoured girlfriend Iulia Vantur at Preity Zinta's wedding reception, a lot of speculations regarding the actors marriage started making rounds.
Soon enough, another report stated that the actor was prepping for a December wedding with Iulia. Salmans family members have locked the actors 51st birthday (December 27) as his wedding date.
Watch: Salman Khan breaks his silence on marriage with Iulia Vantur
Apart from Salmans close friends, his family members were also quizzed about the actors marriage plans. Recently, Salman's brother Sohail stepped out to dine with his father, Salim and he was quizzed him about Salmans marriage plans with Iulia.
The actor lost his temper and yelled at the reporter. Surprised by this behaviour, the scribe took a step back but Sohail went on to abuse and demanded the camera to be switched off.
On Friday, 20 May, Salman Khan finally broke his silence on the issue and addressed the topic. At an event, when we asked Salman about the incident, the actor said, "I don't think so he misbehaved. You tell me my father is 80 years old, was it a place to ask him about my wedding at that time of night? I won't take anything against my family and friends especially my parents. Right now you all are standing properly, it is cool but just because you are competing with each other, you can't just put bunch of mikes on my father's face."
When further questioned when he is tying the knot with Iulia, the actor said, "It is my wedding, why should I tell you? I will get married or not, it is my personal matter. It is about my fans. I will announce it on Facebook and Twitter."
Tamil audiences know filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma from his earlier dubbed films like Rattha Charithram and Naanthandaa. The director, along with his team, including Lisa Ray, Sachin Joshi, Sandeep Bharadwaj and Usha Jadhav, was in the city recently to promote his ambitious project on the dreaded forest brigand Veerappan, titled Villadhi Villain Veerappan in Tamil.
In a candid interview to DC, Ramu (as he is fondly called) tells us about the idea of doing a film on Veerappan, his controversial tweets and why he is not keen on directing a commercial film, and more.
No parallel to Veerappan:
For me, the persona of Veerappan always haunted me during the late 90s, when I was shooting somewhere in the jungles of Mudhumalai for one of my films. I was really fascinated by the way an ordinary man walked around in chappals with a double barrel gun in his hands did not even have an organisation or any resources but still was so prevalent in two states for several years!
Though I have made films on larger-than-life rebellious characters, I couldnt see a parallel to Veerapan and there was no one who was more unique than him. I was not sure as to how I could portray his spirit on screen. Back then, it didnt materialise, though!
On Villadhi Villain Veerappan:
I later met a few officers who were involved in Veerappans muder, the dacoits wife Muthulakshmi, their family, mediators to Veerappan and other associates of the Operation Cocoon. To sit through the collective materials and connect the loose ends and dots, it took me a lot of time! Thats why I am giving a disclaimer as Truth as I know of it.
This film will depict the last two years of Veerappans life. Key scenes including actor Rajkumars kidnapping have been portrayed only in montages and not as main scenes! I have projected the highhandedness of the cops with respect to torturing women as well as exposed a few politicians in the film. But nothing will go against the facts documented by the police.
The forest brigands plan of kidnapping Superstar:
One of my sources had revealed this to me while I was researching for the film. According to the source, Veerappan was publicity-hungry and when he kidnapped Kannada matinee idol Rajkumar, he got national-level publicity and even BBC carried the news. He wanted to capture bigger names and in 2004, he wanted to kidnap Rajinikanth sir as he was the biggest star in India! I cant reveal the name because I feel its unethical if I do so.
About his controversial remarks on social networking sites:
I am a filmmaker and I am here to promote and get publicity for all the films I make. Similarly, I express my opinion and respond to situations on Twitter. I just say what I feel. It is actually an extension of my personal self!
No Tamil films in the pipeline:
Yes, I dont want to make a film in a language which I am not familiar and comfortable with! But I feel enriched as a passionate cinema lover from my experience of making Villadhi Villain Veerappan, because I had the opportunity of delving into the most dangerous minds I have ever known.
No, I am not talking about Veerappan and his gang they actually belong to the people who killed him!
Urvashi will be seen in a pivotal role in the upcoming movie Haviss that will look into the life of the Brahmin community from the 1950 to 1984 period. The film will hold a mirror to the beliefs, superstitions, rituals and religious practices of the Brahmin community.
Haviss is directed by Sharada Mani and the story, screenplay and cinematography is by Murali Krishna who is a cinematographer primarily. Talking about the film Sharada says, I am basically a painter and I have been listening to a few scripts, but I wanted to attempt a story that I could relate to.
When Murali narrated the story to me, I could relate to it because I am a Brahmin myself and it touched my soul. The film starts off from 2004 and then backtracks to the past decades. The film progresses through the life of a man Thalaivasal Vijay trying to protect an innocent Brahmin girl and about how he changes from a Brahmin to someone who denounces his sacred thread.
The girl is played by Gowri S. Nair and Urvashi plays a woman who has converted her religion. The others in the cast include K. R. Vijaya, Vijayraghavan, Sreedevi Unni, Thambi Antony and Sai Kumar. The shoot is expected to kick start by September end.
Researchers in the past attributed many cancers simply to the bad luck of mutations during cell division. (Photo: AFP)
Many cancers in the U.S. could be avoided if Americans adopted healthier lifestyles, according to a new study.
People could cut back on their cancer risk by maintaining a healthy body weight, exercising, not abusing alcohol and not smoking, the study suggests. The findings challenge the results of a 2015 report in the journal Science that attributed many cancers simply to the bad luck of mutations during cell division, according to the authors of the new report in JAMA Oncology.
The study's lead author told Reuters Health that in addition to challenging the notion that most cancers can't be prevented, the researchers wanted to clarify what proportion of U.S. cancer cases can be tied to lifestyle factors.
"We want to clarify the confusion that has been created by the Science paper and to make sure the public understands the importance of lifestyle factors on cancer risk," said Dr. Mingyang Song, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
Song and his colleague Dr. Edward Giovannucci used data on 135,970 people, mostly whites, to calculate how many cancer cases could be prevented if people maintained healthy lifestyles.
They defined a healthy lifestyle as not smoking, not abusing alcohol, maintaining a healthy weight and exercising. Overall, 11,731 people, or about 9 percent, fell into the healthy group, which the researchers considered low-risk. People who didn't meet the healthy criteria were considered high risk.
About 25 percent of cancers in women and 33 percent of cancers in men could be attributed to lifestyle factors, the researchers maintain. A large number of cancer-related deaths could also be tied to those factors.
When they compared the healthy group and the general white U.S. population, the results were even more dramatic with 41 percent of cancer in women and 63 percent of cancer in men being tied to lifestyle factors.
For individual types of cancers, they found that 78 to 82 percent of lung cancers, 20 to 29 percent of colon and rectal cancers, 29 to 20 percent of pancreas cancers and 27 to 32 percent of liver cancers may be tied to lifestyle factors.
About 4 percent of breast cancer cases and about 21 percent of endometrial, ovarian and prostate cancers can be tied to lifestyle factors, too, according to the authors. Song said the results should encourage people to adopt or continue to follow healthy lifestyles.
In an editorial, Dr. Graham Colditz and Siobhan Sutcliffe of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis agree that the new study shows cancer is preventable.
"Thats not to say there arent some genetic components, but if youre not smoking your risk is substantially lower," Colditz told Reuters Health. Referring to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's initiative to find cancer cures, Colditz said it's also important to harness this information and implement population-based strategies to prevent cancers through lifestyle factors.
"Clearly the vice president's 'moonshot' needs to really engage and take prevention as a serious strategy so we actually implement what we know," he said. "For me the challenge is to get beyond just thinking this is all an individual choice."
Adolescents may also suffer psychological problems and difficulties with intimacy and relationships if they don't get relaible information. (Photo: AFP)
Talks about reproductive health in pediatrics often touch on contraception and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, but many doctors still fail to discuss issues like fertility and sexual function, a group of U.S. physicians says.
As more children and teens are surviving cancer and other diseases that can alter fertility and sex function either through the underlying condition or the treatment pediatricians need to do a better job of making sure their young patients understand the implications for reproduction and sexual health, the doctors argue in the journal Pediatrics.
It can be psychologically devastating for an adolescent or young adult to learn that he/she cannot have genetic children, particularly if they had always envisioned doing so, said lead author Dr. Leena Nahata of Nationwide Childrens Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
Conversely, some adolescents may think that they are definitely infertile and therefore engage in unprotected sex, potentially resulting in unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, to which some patients with compromised immune systems have greater susceptibility, Nahata added by email.
Part of the problem is that doctors dont have clinical guidelines to fall back on to help them navigate thorny issues like how much information is the right amount at a given age, and how to make these difficult conversations work for both patients and their parents, Nahata and colleagues note. Ethically, this situation becomes even more complicated when parents opt to withhold this information from their children, and request the medical providers do so as well, Nahata added.
The problem, though, is that teens who dont get the information straight from their doctors may turn to unreliable sources like the internet and their friends and make poor decisions based on incorrect assumptions about their health, these doctors argue.
Adolescents may also suffer psychological problems and difficulties with intimacy and relationships that are exacerbated when they dont get reliable information about their sexual health directly from their physician. When they dont have all the facts, they might also miss out on opportunities for counseling or psychotherapy to help them come to terms with how an illness altered their fertility or sexual function.
Even when doctors want to talk about these sensitive issues with pediatric patients, they may still struggle with whats appropriate to share with children, especially kids who are too young to have sex, said Dr. Terrill Bravender, a researcher in pediatrics and adolescent medicine at the C.S. Mott Childrens Hospital at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Often times, physicians and parents are focused on the acute issues at hand for their patients, Bravender, who wasnt involved in the paper, said by email.
Discussions about future sexual function and fertility may also seem far less pressing to parents in the face of a difficult diagnosis like cancer, and might make parents uncomfortable even under less fraught circumstances.
While most pediatricians are very adept at addressing the developmental needs of their patients, the idea of addressing future fertility for an 8 or 9 year old may not even occur to them, Bravender added. By the time children reach adolescence, many physicians and parents still dont view sexuality as a part of normal development.
Adolescent sexuality is frequently seen as something that needs to be kept under control, and as such, many physicians understandably focus on prevention of harm, Bravender said. Hence, the frequent discussions regarding the importance of abstinence, contraception and screening for sexually transmitted infections, but fewer, if any discussions regarding healthy sexual development.
Study participants who were more likely to be asked on a second date had genotypes consistent with traits that people often desire in a romantic partner. (Photo: Pixabay)
Los Angeles: People are more likely to be asked out on a second date if they are genetically predisposed to have traits consistent with prevailing gender norms like social dominance in men and submissiveness in women, scientists have found.
Researchers at University of California, Irvine wanted to find if mate selection could be influenced by people's ability to quickly detect socially designated "good genes." They turned to speed-dating to test their predictions in a real-life scenario. In such meet-ups, participants only had a few minutes to assess the short- and long-term potential of their speed-dating partners, and to decide whether or not to offer their partners a second date.
Researchers recruited 262 single Asian Americans to have three-minute dates with members of the opposite sex. After each speed-date, participants were asked whether or not they wanted to offer their partner a second date, and how desirable they found the person as a romantic partner.
Researchers found that participants who were more likely to be asked on a second date had genotypes consistent with personal traits that people often desire in a romantic partner - social dominance/leadership in men, social
sensitivity/submissiveness in women. When examining the DNA samples, the researchers focused on two polymorphisms (on two different genes) that were
previously linked to social dynamics.
The -1438 A/G polymorphism is part of the genetic make-up of the serotonin system and has been linked to social dominance and leadership. The A118G polymorphism, which has been linked to social sensitivity, is part of the opioid receptor gene that contributes to people's capacity to experience social pleasure
and pain, and their need to have social contact.
Researchers found that men and women with genotypes consistent with prevailing gender norms were more likely to receive second date offers. They were also seen as more desirable short- and long-term romantic partners. When it came to -1438 A/G, men who carried its G-allele variation were rated as more desirable potential mates and were more likely to receive second date offers.
In contrast, women who carried this G-allele were more likely to be given the cold shoulder by men. With A118G, women with the G-allele enjoyed greater
speed-dating success. However, their male counterparts were not as lucky. Men with this G-allele were less desirable to their speed-dating partners. This genetic effect could extend beyond romantic attraction to other social situations, such as job interviews, the researchers said. The study was published in the journal Human Nature.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia: Thousands of Cambodians joined a colorful procession on Friday to return what they believe are Buddha's relics to a mountaintop shrine from where they were stolen three years ago.
The relics contained in a golden urn were placed in a float built around a car, resembling a giant golden swan complete with little temples on it. Four Buddhist monks sat on each corner of the float and prayed throughout the journey.
The float was driven some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh to the Oudong shrine. Buddhist monks, government officials, students and laypeople joined the procession on motorcycles and other vehicles. The urn was stolen in 2013, and recovered a year later but was temporarily placed at the Royal Palace. Four guards at the shrine and one more person were arrested.
The reinstallation took place on a national holiday to celebrate what is locally known as Visak Bochea, said to be the holiest day in the Buddhist calendar marking the birth, enlightenment and death of Buddha. It is known by similar names in other Buddhist countries.
Once the relics arrived at its destination, the procession went around the mountain. The chief monks then walked up to the shrine and received the urn from the culture minister.
Several countries in Asia possess relics believed to have come from the body of Buddha, and the stolen urn holds enormous religious and cultural significance for Cambodia, a predominantly Buddhist nation. The relics were given to late King Norodom Sihanouk in 1957 by Sri Lanka to commemorate the 2,500th anniversary of Buddha's birth.
Chhreung, Len who traveled some 300 kilometers (200 miles) from northwestern Battambang province to join the parade, said she has no regret spending time, money and energy to be here because the remnants of Buddha's body were sacred for Cambodia and for her.
"Once I learned the news from my relatives in Phnom Penh that the remnants would be reinstalled today, I gave up all my farming work and took a bus straightaway," Chreung Len, 68, said. She added that she hopes authorities will take more care to safeguard the urn and the relics.
New Delhi: A 23-year-old Congolese national was allegedly beaten to death by a group of men in south Delhi's Vasant Kunj area, police said on Saturday.
The incident took place around 11.45 pm on Friday when the man, M T Olivia, had a heated argument with a group of three persons at Kishangadh locality in Vasant Kunj.
Following the argument, the group pounced on Olivia, and as he tried to escape, they chased him for around 20-25 metres and attacked him again with stones.
"A case of murder has been registered. We are checking CCTV footage to identify the accused," additional DCP (South) Nupur Prasad said. What exactly led to the argument between Olivia and the group is yet to be ascertained.
The case is being probed from all angles including robbery and a possible racist attack on the African national. The Embassy of Congo has been informed about the incident.
Olivia taught foreign languages at a private institute here. He lived in South Extension area. Why he had gone to Kishangadh at that hour has also not been ascertained yet, police said.
It was another group of locals who rescued Olivia and called up police. He was rushed to a hospital, where he later succumbed to his injuries. The locals, however, could not identify the perpetrators or say what had led to the incident. Investigation is underway, police added.
Mumbai: The Mumbai Police has handed over the double murder case of well-known installation artist Hema Upadhyay and her lawyer Harish Bhambhani to the Crime Branch, after the local police failed to make headway in the case.
On December 12 last year, Kandivali police had recovered the bodies of Hema (44) and her lawyer Harish (65) from a drain in the suburb.
Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Atul Kulkarni on Friday handed over the case to the Unit VII of Crime Branch, a senior police official said.
So far, Hema's husband Chintan Upadhyay and four other accused-- Azad Rajbhar, Pradeep Rajbhar, Vijay Rajbhar and Shivkumar Rajbhar alias Sadhu-- have been arrested in connection with the case.
However, the main accused Vidhyadhar Rajbhar is still on the run. All the arrested accused have been booked for murder, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence under the IPC, police said.
In March this year, Kandivli Police had filed a 2,000 page charge sheet against Chintan and four other accused in the case. The charge sheet comprised Call Detail Records of Chintan and the rest of the accused including absconding accused Vidyadhar Rajbhar and the messages exchanged between them, along with statements of some witnesses.
Chintan's domestic discord with Hema and their property dispute and the maintenance demand by Hema in a family court and high court over divorce was believed to be the motive for the murder conspiracy.
The police had listed 30 witnesses in the case including absconding accused Vidyadhar's mother who has allegedly named Chintan in her statement.
According to police, Vidyadhar's mother has said that her son had earlier told her that Chintan had given him money to murder Hema.
Apart from Vidyadhar's mother, police had also incorporated Hema's servant Lalit Mandal in the list of witnesses.
In the charge sheet, the police had claimed that even the murder of Bhambhani was pre-meditated as he represented
Hema in all her cases and Chintan wanted to finish them both. Chintan, accused of conspiring to kill Hema and her lawyer was arrested on December 22. He is still behind bars.
Sleuths from Unit VII have begun the probe in the case, police said, adding the team would on Saturday discuss the way forward with JCP Atul Kulkarni.
Bengaluru: A 20-year-old youth was brutally assaulted and murdered while three of his associates were injured when two groups clashed over an old rivalry in Kolur Kundalapura under Taverekere police station limits on Thursday night. The deceased, identified as Dhanush, is a resident of Janata Colony in Ganapathinagar in Taverekere.
The injured, Charan, 23, Puneet, 19, and Bharath 21, were undergoing treatment at a private hospital, the police said. All the victims, including the deceased, were friends and associates of one Kiran, 23, who runs a gym and a resident of Thigalrupalaya. According to the police, Kiran had a running feud with one Mohan Kumar, 24. Mohans maternal uncle Hucchakalappa, 33, is a rowdy sheeter in Kengeri police sub-division and both Mohans and Kirans friends used to fight over trivial issues.
They had run into problems even while one gang was playing volleyball in their area, the police said. Most of the youths of the two groups have studied at the Government First Grade College in Kengeri and knew each other. Problems started when cousins of Mohan Kumar had eve-teased some girls at the college and Kiran had intervened and warned them. A month ago, Mohan Kumar and Hucchakallappa along with few other associates assaulted Kiran in front of his house. Kirans mother had lodged a complaint with the Taverekere police. The police booked Mohan, Hucchakallappa and others and sent them to jail.
Last week, they had come out on bail and threatened Kirans family members to withdraw the complaint, but they refused. Around 30 youths, all friends and associates of Mohan Kumar and Hucchakallappa, arrived at Kirans gym.
The gang came armed and asked around for Kiran, who was attending a phone call on the terrace. Kirans friends Dhanush, Charan, Puneet and Bharath tried to reason with Hucchakallappa and others. They started assaulting Kirans four friends with sharp edged weapons and Dhanush died on the spot, the police said. By then a crowd had gathered and a call was made to the police control room. As Kiran was on the terrace of a single-storied building, he jumped and fled the spot. The police arrived and dispersed the crowd. The injured were shifted to the hospital and Dhanushs body was taken to RR Hospital for post-mortem. Police has registered a case.
The girl was assaulted on March 31 but the incident came to light on Friday after doctors treating her forced the parents to lodge a complaint. (Representational Image)
Vijayawada: A 60-year-old paedophile raped a five-year-old girl who was returning home from school at Chintaguntapalem in Machilipatnam.
The girl was assaulted on March 31 but the incident came to light on Friday after doctors treating her forced the parents to lodge a complaint.
Police took the paedophile P. Nageswara Rao, 60, a clerk at a local cooperative society, into custody following the complaint.
Police said Rao lured the child to his house while she was returning from the Anganwadi school with kind words and raped her.
When she did not reach home, her grandfather went looking for her and found her crying behind locked doors in Rao's house. He forced open the doors and rescued her, police said. The child was bleeding and the parents took her a private hospital, Inaguduru police inspector Ramesh said.
She was referred to the Machilipatnam Government Hospital for better treatment. Gynaecologist Dr N. Priyadarsini said the baby was suffering from fever, urinary tract problems, bleeding and was in pain.
Dr Priyadarsini sent the child to the Government General Hospital at Vijayawada, where superintendent Dr M. Jaya Kumar was told that the baby had been suffering from urinary bladder problems.
That she was raped was found after detailed medical examination. The doctors then counselled the family and got them to complain to the police.
Inspector Ramesh said the police had lodged cases against Nageswara Rao under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code.
NEW DELHI: In an alleged case of hate crime, a 29-year-old Congolese national was bludgeoned to death by three men, two of them with past criminal records, in south Delhis Vasant Kunj area late Friday night after an argument over hiring of an auto-rickshaw.
DCP, south district, Ishwar Singh confirmed the arrest of one of the accused, Mobin Azad Saifi, 23. The victim, Masonda Ketada Olivier, came to India on a student Visa in 2012 and taught French at a private institute, police said.
Olivier was on his way back home in South Extension after visiting a friends flat in Kisangarh locality in Vasant Kunj at 11.40 pm on Friday when he allegedly had a verbal spat with at least three men over hiring an autorickshaw. They were also looking for an auto to go to a food joint in Chhatarpur area. The argument soon turned violent as the three accused, in an inebriated condition, started beating Olivier with kicks and punches, said the police.
Olivier was attacked with bricks
Eyewitnesses said that the victim screamed for help and even tried to outrun the accused to save himself but the latter chased him down and attacked him again with bricks and stones. One of the attackers dealt a blow on Oliviers head with a heavy piece of stone after which he fell conscious, said the eyewitnesses, adding. The police said they received a call about the incident at about 11.44 pm after which a van rushed to the spot.
Office of RCI Cash Management Services, at Kompally from which two staffers disappeared (Photo: DC)
Hyderabad: Two custodians of a cash management firm who were entrusted with the job to replenish cash in bank ATMs decamped with Rs 9.98 crore on Friday evening.
K. Lokeshwar Reddy, hailing from Anantapur, and G. Praveen Kumar, a native of Jiyaguda, had been working as custodians at the RCI Cash Management Services Limited, which has its head office at Kompally, for around a year.
The two were entrusted with the responsibility of collecting cash from banks and replenishing ATMs across Hyderabad and Secunderabad. They collected Rs 9.98 crore from banks on Friday.
They falsely reported that the cash had been replenished. The two have not been responding to calls from their office since three days and their mobile phones are switched off, said RCI operations manager G. Nagaraj.
Suspecting something fishy, the firm checked records of the cash in their custody and cash movement at the ATM centers. The company found a difference of around Rs 9.98 crore, which may decrease slightly after reconciliation. Based on a complaint, Tukaramgate police has registered a case of cheating and criminal breach of trust.
We are investigating the case and have formed special teams to trace the accused. Once they are nabbed we will know the other details, said Tukaramgate inspector T. Laxmi narayana.
New Delhi: There have been "some cases" of ISIS activities in India but the country does not face any alarming situation as the Muslims here are committed to the values of life and won't allow it to spread its tentacles here, the government told the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh expressed confidence that there will be no increase in the dreaded terror outfit's activities in India in future too.
Replying to questions on spread of ISIS activities in India and whether any Muslim organisation was involved, he said the Muslim community is well entrenched in the Indian traditions and cultures.
"There is no alarming situation in our country relating to ISIS activities as of now. I am fully confident that ISIS activities are not going to increase in India.
"I know the Indian Muslim community very well and all countrymen know that it is fully entrenched with Indian traditions and cultures and is committed to life values of the nation. They will not allow ISIS activities to spread in this country," he said.
Earlier, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said there have been some activities in India perpetrated by ISIS but the situation is "not very alarming as some may try to project" as the Indian security and intelligence agencies and are alert both at the Centre and state level.
"There are some cases which have been registered and number of arrests have also been made. These are all under investigation. There is nothing much to worry. Our country is able to contain the threat from ISIL," he said.
Asked how many cases have been registered and arrested, Rijiju said, "As of now, six cases have been registered. In six cases, many people have been arrested. Investigation is going on and it is not possible to provide all details. We cannot fix the time limit of completing investigations."
He said it is a dynamic situation and the government is seriously pursuing it.
The National Investigative Agency (NIA), which registered these cases, is working very professionally and no innocent should be troubled.
Rijiju said the NIA is working to reach to the right people who have committed the wrong.
To a question on whether any Muslim leader or organisation is involved, he said, "No organisation is involved. Muslims leaders and organisations have openly opposed ISIS in this country."
Acting on specific information about the presence of militants in Drugmulla village of Kupwara, a joint team of police and army cordoned-off the area, an army official said (PTI/ Representational Image)
Kupwara: 5 militants have been shot dead in encounter with Army in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir, Defence Spokesperson Col SD Goswami said.
Acting on specific information about the presence of militants in Drugmulla village of Kupwara, a joint team of police and army cordoned-off the area, an army official said.
He said as the security forces were conducting a search operation, the holed-up militants fired upon them. The security forces retaliated, triggering an encounter, the official said.
New Delhi: In a veiled attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has registered a resounding victory in Assam replacing 15-year-old Congress government, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday said people practicing the politics of hatred and terror must have deprived them of political power, but they can't take away from them the ideologies of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
"People practicing the politics of hatred and terror must have deprived us of political power, but they can't take away ideologies of Rajiv Gandhi from us," said Sonia. She was speaking at the 25th death anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi at Indira Gandhi stadium in Delhi.
"Rajiv is not amongst us, but somewhere in us. He will always reside within us forever. The steps taken by him have led India held its head high in the world," she said remembering her husband, who was assassinated in a suicide attack during an election rally at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu on May 21, 1991.
He brought the IT revolution and gave the power of voting to 18-year-old youths. Changes in politics and society that we boast of today were initiated by by Rajiv Gandhi, who wanted to transform the lives of the poor by the mean of science and technology," said Sonia, while recounting steps taken by the former prime minister for the welfare and empowerment of the people of the nation.
"Rajiv Gandhi also took important steps for ensuring peace in Assam , Mizoram and Darjeeling , and viewed India as a front runner in the world economics," she added.
Earlier in the day President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Hamid Ansari, the Congress President Sonia Gandhi accompanied by son and party Vice President Rahul Gandhi, daughter Priyanka Gandhi and son-in-law Robert Vadra paid tributes to the late leader at his memorial, Veer Bhumi.
Senior party leaders including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ahmed Patel, Sushil Kumar Shinde, PC Chacko, Sheila Dikshit and DPCC President Ajay Maken, among others, also paid tributes to the former prime minister.
"Like the Wagah border in Punjab with Pakistan, we will also have a similar ceremony", Sonowal said. in Assam along the Indo-Bangladesh border. We will make it into a tourist spot where people can come and watch the ceremony," Sonowal said (Photo: File)
Guwahati: Sealing of the borders with Bangladesh will be completed in two year's time to put an end to infiltration, Assam's Chief Minister-to-be Sarbananda Sonowal said on Saturday.
A product of the student movement of the 80s during the anti-foreigners agitation, Sonowal, who steered the BJP to victory in the elections, has put the issue of infiltration and attempts to check them as his government's priority. BJP had made infiltration one of the major issues in the poll campaign.
"Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had given a two-year time frame for permanent sealing of the border. We will work towards finishing within that time frame the border sealing work, including the riverine border," he told PTI in an interview.
He was asked how he intended to seal the Indo-Bangladesh border, an issue he spoke about soon after his party romped home in the election on Thursday.
Rajnath Singh had during his on-the-spot visit to the Indo-Bangla border in Karimganj district of southern Assam in January this year had said construction of the barbed wire fence along the Assam stretch would be completed by the end of this year.
"As soon as the border is sealed permanently, the infiltration trend will stop automatically. Plus we will create awareness among the people to prevent infiltration", he had said.
Asked what method or law he intended to apply to stop infiltration from Bangladesh as he was against the now repealed IMDT Act, Sonowal said, "When the final draft of the (ongoing) updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam is published, it will be clear who are the citizens and infiltrators will get identified. "The problem will get solved and action will then be taken against infiltrators as per existing law.
"Like the Wagah border in Punjab with Pakistan, we will also have a similar ceremony in Assam along the Indo-Bangladesh border. We will make it into a tourist spot where people can come and watch the ceremony. This will also stop infiltration", he added.
On the election victory, Sonowal gave the credit to his party and its alliance partners for "taking together all ethnic groups, giving them respect and representation".
"Also acceptance by the people here of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's development model of directly linking Centre's development programmes with the states," he said.
Asked if anti-incumbency and voter fatigue were factors for his alliance's historic victory, the BJP state president said, "There was no anti-incumbency factor. It was the rampant corruption and lack of development during the last 15 years of Congress rule that was another cause for our victory".
Asked if the BJP's alliance with regional parties Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and Bodo Peoples Front (BPF) was a plus point for the saffron party, Sonowal said, "Of course people accepted that and gave us their mandate. We took along with us the tea tribes, the various ethnic groups across the state with us".
"We did not leave anybody. We even went to those pockets in Barak Valley where there are ethnic groups of just 2000 people. We talked with them, gave them respect and representation. People want their culture and identity to be protected", he said.
On minority support to the BJP during the just-concluded hustings, he said, "Both indigenous Assamese and other minority communities supported us and they contributed to over 20 per cent of our vote share".
"They came out in large numbers in support of us and their support here (Assam) was perhaps the highest in India.
New Delhi: Ahead of his state visit to China, President Pranab Mukherjee today said India seeks a "fair, reasonable" and mutually acceptable settlement of boundary question which will help in achieving full potential of Sino-India relationship.
Talking to state-run Chinese Central Television (CCTV) and Xinuha news agencies ahead of his first state visit beginning May 24, the President spoke on various issues including India's concerns on terrorism, bilateral trade and cultural and educational exchanges.
In reply to a question about some "sensitive problems" left over from history between India and China, President Mukherjee said India would like to expand and diversify its engagement with China across various fields while "proactively addressing outstanding issues" including the boundary question.
"We seek a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement of the boundary question and, pending the boundary settlement, to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas.
"Both sides should strive to ensure that the outstanding issues are addressed in a manner that demonstrates mutual sensitivity to each other's concerns, interests and aspiration," he said and added that it was only in this manner can "we ensure that these differences will not come in the way of continued development of bilateral relations."
The President also favoured increasing mutual trust and understanding through stepped-up dialogue on political, security and strategic issues.
"We should expand our defence exchanges and increase economic engagement, especially through greater investments," he said and also suggested "functional cooperation at international fora".
In reply to another question on his state visit, the President said, "we are doing well but the full potentiality is yet to be achieved. That is why we want to resolve all outstanding issues in a mutually acceptable manner, keeping in mind the aspirations, concerns, sensitivities of each country."
A day after she was elected AIADMK Legislature Party leader, Jayalalithaa met Rosaiah and gave him a copy of her election to the post.
Chennai: Tamil Nadu Governor K Rosaiah on Saturday invited Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa to form the government after she apprised him of her election as leader of AIADMK Legislature Party.
She will be sworn in Chief Minister along with 28 others, including her trusted lieutenant and Finance Minister in the outgoing Cabinet O Panneerselvam, on May 23 in a function at the Madras University Centenary Auditorium in Chennai.
She called on Rosaiah at the Raj Bhavan and submitted a letter informing him of her election as Leader of the AIADMK legislature party. Later, Rosaiah congratulated her and gave a letter inviting her to form the government.
"Jayalalithaa furnished a list of persons to be appointed Ministers in her Cabinet which was approved by Governor Rosaiah," an official release from the Raj Bhavan said.
Jayalalithaa will have portfolios of Home and All India Services including the IAS, public and general administration, stated the release.
Panneerselvam will be the Minister for Finance, Personnel and Administrative Reforms again, while former MP Dindigul C Srinivasan will be the Minister for Forests.
Several of the sitting Ministers have been named to hold offices again including P Thangamani (Electricity), SP Velumani (Municipal Administration and Rural Development), Edappadi K Palaniswami (Public Works), K T Rajenthra Bhalaji
(Rural Industries), RB Udhayakumar (Revenue), SP Shanmuganathan (Milk and Dairy Development), and KC Veeramani (Commercial Taxes), the release said.
Including Jayalalithaa, there will be four women in the Cabinet besides three medical doctors.
Deputy Mayor of Chennai Corporation P Benjamin, who won from Maduravoyal here amid tough competition from DMK, has been named Minister for School Education and Sports and Youth Welfare. M R Vijayabaskar will be Transport Minister.
Edappadi K Palaniswami has been allocated Public Works in addition to the portfolios of Highways and Minor Ports, which he held in the outgoing Cabinet. Sellur K Raju will head Cooperation again besides Labour, it said.
Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Secretary AMP Jamaludeen said Rosaiah has appointed S Semmalai as Pro-tem Speaker. Semmalai, elected from Mettur constituency, will be administered the oath by the Governor on May 23 at Raj Bhavan, he said.
Following the victory in Tamil Nadu Assembly election, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa pays floral tribute to former Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandrans portrait on Anna Salai in Chennai on Friday. (Photo: DC)
Chennai: The swearing-in ceremony of J. Jayalalithaa on Monday as Tamil Nadu's Chief Minister for the sixth time is likely to bring together a constellation of stars of non-Congress political parties. Invitations are being sent to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, top BJP leaders and Chief Ministers of states ruled by parties other than the Congress.
Besides Mr Modi, the guest list is likely to include BJP president Amit Shah, finance minister Arun Jaitley, IT and communications minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Chief Ministers Navin Patnaik of Orissa, N Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh and Vasundhara Raje of Rajasthan, besides other prominent leaders.
As Gujarat CM, Mr Modi had attended the swearing-in ceremony of Ms Jayalalithaa in May 2011 while she reciprocated the gesture by participating in the ceremony in which he was sworn-in as Chief Minister of Gujarat for a third straight term in December 2012.
Sources in the BJP told Deccan Chronicle that Mr Modi and other senior leaders are expected to finalise their programmee once they get a formal invitation from AIADMK. Ms Jayalalithaa will be sworn in as Chief Minister on Monday at the Centenary Auditorium of the University of Madras, where she was sworn in last year.
Describing the "behaviour" of the BJP as "arrogant", CPI national secretary D Raja suggested it to "learn how to work in a multi-party culture" of India and respect mandate given by people of Kerala. (Photo: PTI)
New Delhi: Left parties on Saturday countered BJP over its claims that LDF killed its worker in Kerala, terming the charges as "totally false" and suggested the NDA major was unable to come to terms with the assembly poll results favouring Communist parties and hence, levelling the charges.
"... they have been attacking our workers all over and to claim they are at the receiving end is totally false. (It is) the RSS and BJP workers who have indulged in such attack after the results were announced," former CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said.
Karat also listed a series of events in which the Left cadre was allegedly attacked by the RSS-BJP combine in parts of Kerala including constituency of CPI(M) leader Pinarayi Vijayan, set to become next Chief Minister of the state, after the assembly polls outcome was out. "... but they (BJP) are not mentioning anything about this," the Marxist leader said.
Describing the "behaviour" of the BJP as "arrogant", CPI national secretary D Raja suggested it to "learn how to work in a multi-party culture" of India and respect mandate given by people of Kerala. "The BJP should understand it has to work in a multi-party democracy. There are non-BJP governments in many part of the country. "In Kerala, the LDF has won, it is also going to be a non-BJP government. The BJP is unable to come to terms with the result in Kerala," Raja said.
Raja accused the BJP of threatening the LDF even before it takes charge of office and said the "arrogance and authoritarianism" is not in the interest of democracy. "On one side, BJP talks about co-operative federalism and on the other hand, they are threatening non-BJP Government. Their co-operative talk will become empty talk if they do not acknowledge there are non-BJP Governments which can not be threatened by it," he added.
The Left Democratic Front (LDF) put on an impressive show to return to power in Kerala, securing over 90 seats in the 140-seat capacity state assembly. Attacking the Left Front over the party worker, Pramod's murder, BJP chief Amit Shah on Saturday accused it of "violating" the people's mandate even as his party said it will not sit quiet and fight on the streets if violence continues.
While Shah attacked the Left in a series of tweets, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad later addressed a press conference to hit out at the Left.
While Khadse admitted that the number belonged to him, he blatantly denied the allegations that he was in touch with Dawood (Photo: PTI)
Mumbai: Senior BJP leader and Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse was on Saturday at the centre of a fresh controversy with the Aam Aadmi Party alleging that calls were made from underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's mansion in Karachi to his mobile phone, a charge rubbished by him.
AAP also sought Khadse's removal from the cabinet led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
Khadse, viewed as a detractor of Fadnavis, recently found himself in a spot after his 'personal assistant' was arrested for allegedly demanding a bribe of Rs 30 crore in a land settlement case.
Though Khadse has dismissed the allegations as "baseless" stating the particular telephone number was not in use for last one year, AAP spokesperson Preeti Sharma Menon claimed otherwise.
"Eknath Khadse lied about his phone being out of service. His number 9423073667 received several calls from Dawood Ibrahim's wife Mehjabeen Shaikh's number 021-35871639 between September 4, 2015 and April 5, 2016," Menon told reporters in Mumbai. The AAP leader claimed that CM has asked the Mumbai Police to investigate the matter.
She had on Friday met Fadnavis and raised the issue of call records of four landline numbers registered at the underworld don's mansion in Karachi and of Khadse's name allegedly figuring on the list.
Menon claimed on Saturday that the call details between September 5, 2015 and April 5, 2016 were procured with the help of an "ethical hacker".
The AAP spokesperson claimed that "Police Commissioner's office has contacted Bhangale who has assured all out support to police or any other central investigating agency".
"The call list of frequent internationally dialled numbers from Dawood Ibrahim's home phone also includes Eknath Khadse's number and it was a total lie that Khadse's number was not in service," she said.
Explaining how he got the call data records, Bhangale said he first went to Dubai and got Dawood's wife Mehjabeen's number, hacked it and placed call details request on her behalf to Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL).
He also claimed that "four out of 10 frequently dialled numbers belonged to Indian politicians who hold command (over) central politics".
However, Khadse said, "no international call was made from or received on this phone in last one year".
Suggesting that the number could have been cloned, he said, "I have asked the CM and Jalgaon SP to probe if any person is using this number. I have also asked the CM to initiate an in-depth inquiry into the Gajanan Patil (his 'PA') bribery issue".
The issue has taken a political turn with the BJP terming the charge as "ridiculous" and accused AAP of seeking "cheap publicity".
Nashik: Prime accused and promoter of KBC Multi Trade Ltd, Bhausaheb Chavan and his wife Aarati, who were in police custody here in connection with a case of cheating thousands of investors through chit-fund schemes, have been handed over to Nanded police.
According to the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the city police, the duo were handed over to Nanded Police following directives from a district court on Friday evening after their 14-day police remand ended.
The court granted permission for the same after Nanded local crime branch police inspector, D S Wanjale and CID Assistant Police inspector Vinod Dighore told Judge S R Kadam that KBC had duped more than 450 investors in Nanded and have lodged a complaint with Vajaribad police station and hence the duo need to be interrogated there.
Both the accused allegedly cheated investors in Nanded and Parbhani in Maharashtra to the tune of Rs 44 crore, the court was told.
KBC Multi Trade is accused of duping more than 8,000 investors in Maharashtra and elsewhere to the tune of Rs 210 crore with the promise of quick and high returns. Chavan had floated the firm in 2011. A case of cheating was registered against him and others in March 2014. In June that year, he and his wife had escaped to Singapore.
Police has already impounded gold and silver ornaments of 25 kg costing Rs 5 crore from Chavan's various bank lockers and also seized property worth Rs 80 crore, EOW inspector Vijay Panhale said. Both Chavan and wife were arrested from Mumbai airport immediately after their arrival from Singapore on May 6. They were produced in Nashik court next day and were remanded to police custody till May 20. Eight others accused in connection with scam are already behind bars.
Nanded Police will produce the couple before a court today or tomorrow to seek their custody after formally placing them under arrest, Wanjale added.
New Delhi: No relief from harsh weather is likely in the next few days with IMD on Saturday saying that severe heat wave conditions will prevail in north and central parts of the country.
Heat wave to severe heat wave conditions are very likely at a few places in Rajasthan, West Madhya Pradesh and Vidarbha. Heat wave conditons are very likely at isolated places over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, East Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat region and East Madhya Pradesh," the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
It has also issued a "red" warning in east and west Rajasthan, Vidarbha, Saurashtra and Kutch regions in Gujarat for Sunday.
"The (heat) intensity is likely to reduce thereafter and gradually abate during May 27 to 31. The maximum day and minimum night temperatures are likely to remain markedly above normal over entire northwest, west and central India during May 17 to 27. They are likely to fall to their respective normal or below normal values between May 27 and June 1," the IMD said.
Several parts of the country are reeling under intense heat while the MeT Department has predicted that the onset of monsoon will get delayed by six days. South-west monsoon hit the Andaman and Nicobar Islands two days before its normal date but a cyclone in Bay of Bengal is likely to "weaken" its progress which will result in delay of its onset in Kerala, it said.
Pilibhit: In a bizarre incident, a nationalized bank has frozen the account of Manmohan Singh, a farmer, for being a 'guarantor' to liquor baron Vijay Mallya, who is embroiled in charges of money laundering.
Singh, a farmer in Khajuria Naviram village under Bilsanda block of Pilibhit when went to the bank to deposit money was informed about the same.
Read: Disclose asset details of Vijay Mallya, kin: Supreme Court
"I went to deposit four lakh to the bank but they refused to accept the money. The bank manager said I have taken a guarantee for Kingfisher Company. I don't know anything about this company," Singh said.
He also said that the action by the bank has deprived him of availing basic facilities including receiving of MSP because payment for that is directly made to the bank account, which is frozen.
The branch manager of Bank of Baroda's Naand branch, Mange Ram, told they have got a mail from the Mumbai regional office in this regard.
Read: What I own abroad is my business, Vijay Mallya tells Banks
"We got a mail from our Nariman Point branch that the name of Manmohan Singh has appeared in the list of borrower granter's list and as per instruction, we froze his account. They sent us the name and account number," Mange Ram said.
"We have written to the branch for further action and have sent them the documents," he added.
When asked about the credits Singh has taken from the bank, Ram said the former has taken a loan of Rs. 5 lakh.
"Singh came here to deposit money and I told him that he can deposit money but can't withdraw it," he added.
The bank, however, has not clarified to him how his name came up in connection with Mallya in the first place.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is set to conduct a forensic audit of Mallya's related companies' accounts, to collect money trail details in connection with the Rs 6,963 crore borrowed by him and his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.
The ED is formally probing Mallya and Kingfisher Airlines under anti-money laundering laws in connection with Rs 950 crore loan default to IDBI bank.
New Delhi: Brushing aside industrialist Vijay Mallyas objection that he was not bound to disclose his assets abroad, the Supreme Court on Tuesday asked its Registry to furnish to the consortium of banks details of the assets of Mallya, his estranged wife and children.
A bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and Rohinton Nariman passed this order after Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for banks submitted that the information in the sealed cover should be disclosed to the banks to go after him and recover the dues.
Rejecting the submission made by senior counsel C.S. Vaidyanathan, for Mallya that such information can be shared only if there is an assurance that they will not be used for any other proceedings, the A-G said Mallya, a fugitive who is fleeing from justice cannot claim any immunity from disclosure.
Earlier, Mr. Vaidyanathan argued that at the time of granting loans, only domestic assets were put under consideration by the lenders. Hence, the banks cannot claim details of Mallyas foreign assets. He said Mallya had put forward two proposals but the banks have rejected them.
Co-passengers shouted for help and a few of them jumped into the river to save the couple.
Kochi: A 53-year-old man drowned after his car accidently slipped from a make-shift ferry and fell into the river at Puthenvelikkara, over 40 kms from here.
The incident happened at 7.05 am at Puthenvelikkara Station Kadavu ferry when Arumughan, an ex-serviceman currently working in Gulf and on a months leave, drove in his car onto the ferry en-route to a hospital in Ernakulam.
Arumughan and his wife Subhashini were in the car. He had worn his seatbelt. The crew asked to move the car a little further ahead to accommodate another vehicle. However, the ex-serviceman accidently stepped on the pedal and the car suddenly veered to the left and fell off from the ferry into the water, police said.
Co-passengers shouted for help and a few of them jumped into the river to save the couple. Though Subhashini managed to open the backdoor and come out of the sinking vehicle, Arumughan was trapped inside with his seatbelt on.
A few of the good Samaritans rescued Subhashini and tried to rescue Arumughan from the car. The latter even managed to handover a file containing certain documents but couldnt free himself, police said.
Mumbai: Just a few weeks ago, Anant Ambani was doing the rounds on media platforms after his astounding 108 kgs weight loss episode, which took social bugs by surprise. Paparazzi would have hardly taken a sigh of relief when Ambanis most talked of son created a buzz with his apparent casual stroll on the streets of Mumbai.
In a video, a boy whose gait and height is similar to that of Anant is seen taking a casual walk on the streets of Colaba. The sight is indeed astonishing, especially when one gets to see a billionaires progeny taking to streets and his entourage being a plush white Rolls Royce. Guarded by security guards the boy sauntered down the road.
Left baffled by the sudden sight, people on the streets gawked at the boy.
Kolkata: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjees speeches made during election rallies in Asansol come under scanner; the Election Commission has been examining their speeches to confirm that there has been no model code of conduct violation.
"CDs of their (Modi and Banerjee) election rallies have been sent to the Election Commission of India in Delhi.
Our media certification and monitoring committee have video footage of their speeches," an official of the Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal, said.
He said the Delhi EC team will examine if there were any violations.
In a poll rally two days ago, Modi had alleged that TMC stood for "terror, maut (death) and corruption" after which the party had raised objections with the poll watchdog.
However, the Commission did not provide any detail about Banerjee's speeches.
The Commission has also censured former CPI(M) leader Abdur Razzak Molla who has now been fielded by Trinamool from Bhangar seat.
"He had made certain utterances after which he was showcaused as per the Election Commission's direction. His explanation was not satisfactory and he has been censured by the Commission," Additional Chief Electoral Officer Dibyendu Sarkar said.
Regarding a complaint against CPI(M) MP Md Salim, he said a CD of his speech has also been sent to the commission in Delhi.
New Delhi: BJP chief Amit Shah on Friday attacked the Left Front over a party worker's murder in Kerala, terming the alliance that has stormed to power "undemocratic" and accusing it of "violating" the mandate that the people has given it.
In a series of tweets, Shah blamed supporters of the winning front for the killing and said a committee of party leaders will visit the state to probe the incident.
"I am deeply anguished to learn about merciless killing of our karyakarta (worker) Pramod. This act by supporters of the ruling Left violates the democratic spirit and mandate that the people of Kerala gave them just two days back," Shah said.
"We are concerned about safety of our karyakartas and assure them our full support in their fight against an undemocratic Left regime. I have ordered constitution of a central committee which will visit and investigate this violence," Shah said.
BJP has been targeting the Left over the alleged attacks on its workers in Kerala in the run up to the polls.
Shah had even declined to congratulate the LDF over its win in Kerala, saying it would hurt the "sentiments" of his party workers.
Pramod (38) had sustained head injuries after he was allegedly hit by a brick following a clash during a victory rally by CPI(M) workers at Idavilangu on Thursday. He died the next day.
Thiruvananthapuram: Outgoing Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has dismissed the reports that the Congress votes had shifted to the BJP and insisted that the shift was to the LDF. Mr Chandy, who submitted his resignation to Governor P. Sathasivam on Friday, said that many votes which should have gone to the UDF shifted to the Left in seats where the BJP had a winning chance.
The LDF was the beneficiary of such a shift in Nemom and Kazhakuttom, Mr Chandy said. In a democracy, the people have the last word. We will go ahead by rectifying our defects, Mr Chandy said. He asserted that the people were not angry with the UDF government. Otherwise, how could the chief minister and 14 other minister have won the elections, Mr Chandy said.
He had not expected a victory for the LDF. Communal undercurrents were one of the reasons for the failure of the UDF, Mr Chandy claimed. This is only a temporary phenomenon and the Congress will come back with strength. The party and the front have the responsibility for the setback, but as UDF chairman, I have more responsibility, he said.
On reports that he was not willing to take up the post of Opposition Leader, he said, it is a matter to be discussed at the party level. I have nothing more to say. Mr Chandy alleged that the CPM was trying to sabotage the liquor policy of the UDF government.
The LDF did not respond to Prime Minister Narendra Modis statement comparing the state with Somalia. Only the UDF leaders had come out against the statement, Mr Chandy said. The UDF and the Congress would meet on Monday to discuss the poll debacle and take stock of the situation, he said.
New Delhi: Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh on Saturday pitched for handing over power to the youth in the organisation, saying there is "no option" as the party is "facing challenges" in the backdrop of its drubbing in the recent Assembly polls.
Singh's remarks come in the backdrop of a renewed buzz in the Congress circles about Rahul Gandhi's sooner than later elevation as party president.
"Now, we have to hand over power to the youth and there is no option. When I spoke about major surgery, some people had objections. But the power should go in the hands of youth and this is a necessity from the party's point of view," Singh said.
He was speaking at a function organised to mark 25th death anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi. The programme started with Vande Mataram and chants of Bharat Mata ki Jai.
Singh said youth forms a major chunk of the population and with benefits from the reservations over the years many have been elevated to the middle class. He also emphasised on the need to understand the "aspirations" of youth and the middle class.
Asserting that the party was facing "challenges", he said there was a need to take on them.
Youths are believed to have played a major role in the victory of Narendra Modi in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. One of the criticism of Rahul Gandhi after the loss of the Congress in the general elections was that the party vice-president failed to enthuse the young voters.
Attacking the BJP, he said the it was wearing the "mask of nationalism", but its "real face" is like British policy of divide and rule.
"The BJP and Modi are trying to take credit these days, but the pillar of the modern India is Rajiv Gandhi.
"Those who never participated in the freedom struggle are trying to wedge a divide in the society and are misguiding the youth and the country. Our fight is not against any person, but against an ideology. The RSS ideology is to divide," Singh said.
Chennai: Accusing AIADMK and DMK of using money power to win the Assembly election, PMK leader Anbumani Ramadoss on Friday said his party has emerged as an alternative to Dravidian parties even though it had not won a seat. PMKs general council would meet soon and review the partys election performance and future course of action, he said.
We had functioned as a real opposition party in the State for the last five years. We will work more vigorously than ever before. We will function as proper opposition, the Dharmapuri MP told reporters.
Anbumani, who himself lost in Pennagaram that comes under Dharmapuri Lok Sabha constituency, said both the parties won seats by distributing money to voters.
Dravidian parties have made politics as a business but we do it as a service, he said, adding his partys policies had created an impact on the people. He said the PMK had become a trendsetter in politics as all other parties were following its stand on prohibition, Lokayukta and freebies.
Thiruvananthapuram: Rarely does the stern-faced Pinarayi Vijayan smile, making him look prickly and inaccessible. A makeover bid was on as he tried to mix with children and assorted groups. But while doing so he seemed to struggle for his normal face. Now, back in form, he does not labour to smile. Being cool and business-like, he braces for a five-year term as the Kerala CEO.
People close to him see him as the CEO, swift and stern in administration, just like he was as power minister in 1996-87 and as the party state secretary for 17 years from 1998 to 2015.
A member of the party politburo, Mr Vijayan has been a pragmatic Leftist. Be it in the campaign against factionalism or on the governance front, he has been a toughie. As the party secretary, he led a protracted campaign against factionalism, culminating in prominent dissident V.S. Achuthanandan making room for him as the next CM.
Read: A college that moulded the CM Pinarayi Vijayan, and many more
But there used to be an uncertain phase, whether he would ever be back in electoral politics. The Lavalin power contract case, in which he was an accused, prevented him from contesting in elections.
He stepped down as power minister and took over as the state party secretary in 1998 after the death of Chadayan Govindan.
On Thursday, he won Dharmadom with 36,905 votes in a Left landslide, similar to that in 2006, when Mr Achuthanandan rode a popularity wave, winning 98 seats for the LDF. Mr Achuthanandan was then 82, but today Mr Vijayan is much younger at 72.
Mr Vijayan was elected to the Assembly from Koothuparamba by a slender majority of 743 votes when he was 26. He won all subsequent election contests till 1977. For a decade since, he concentrated on organisational work. He was district secretary in the party citadel of Kannur and was later the state secretariat member. He broke that spell when he contested and took over as the power minister.
Read: Pinarayi Vijayan is CM, VS Achuthanandan is Castro
Born the son of toddy-tapper Mundayil Koran and Kalyani at Pinarayi in Parappuram, he did handloom weaving for a year to raise funds for college.
He graduated from the Government Brennen College in Thalassery and debuted in student politics by becoming the state secretary of the Kerala Students Federation and graduated as the state secretary of the Kerala State Youth Federation.
The most impressive story of his youth was his marshalling of the secular-spirited people to douse passions during Hindu-Muslim riots in Thalassery in 1970-71. Muslims in Thalassery have forever been grateful to the party for this intervention.
Mr Vijayan was in jail for one-and-a-half years during the Emergency and that steeled his resolve to fight authoritarianism through the ballot. He won Koothuparamba Assembly seat after the Emergency in 1977.
Read: Add salt to dead bodies, Pinarayi Vijayan told us
His short stint as power minister (1996-98) earned him kudos from modernising power production and distribution.
Mr Vijayans success as a minister was in taking the party and trade unions along in the power sector, which used to be marred by labour unrest. But this tenure also caught him off guard, when he initiated the process of a power contract with the Canadian company, SNC Lavalin, which burdened the exchequer and was criticised by the CAG. Mr Vijayan and co-accused were discharged by the trial court but a fresh case is pending in the high court.
Mr Vijayan is among the few politicians who answer the phone and call back if he had missed it. In office, he may not be like his predecessor, Mr Chandy, keeping the office open to all and sundry. But he will also not be like CPI(M) chief ministers E.K. Nayanar and Achuthanandan, who relied on aides to take decisions.
Though known to care for the cadre and in building them up, Mr Vijayan has friends across social sections. If not at party meetings, he takes time for meeting friends and for movies. But in public, he is the tough-looking party apparatchik.
Read: Pinarayi village in a jubilant mood
The cadre adore Mr Vijayan because the he breathes and lives the CPM. Crowds like his no-nonsense approach to issues. He may not be a crowd-puller like Mr Achuthanandan, but his direct and blunt deliveries in earthy Kannur dialect have created a cult following.
His long innings as the State party secretary and his induction into the politburo, barely at 55 years, have made him popular beyond the Vindhyas.
Mr Achuthanandan has been perceived to take contrarian positions vis a vis the party but Mr Vijayan has always been with the party. One is the perpetual dissident, the other is the loyalist.
Mr Vijayan never plays to the gallery. The party trusts him because he will not digress from the partys basic tenets. He understands the needs of a progressive and secular State like Kerala, says CPM State committee member M V Jayarajan.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Pinarayi Vijayan led LDF Government is set to be sworn in on May 25 at the Central Stadium. The final decision regarding the swearing in ceremony will be taken at the LDF state committee meeting scheduled to be held on Sunday. Pinarayi Vijayan had informal discussions with the CPI leaders earlier in the day.
He will call on CPI leaders at the M N Smarakam on Saturday and hold formal discussions . The CPM leader is also planning to meet leaders of other coalition partners ahead of the LDF state committee meeting. Meanwhile informal talks have begun in the CPM, CPI and other coalition partners of the LDF regarding Cabinet berth.
The front runners from CPM include Thomas Isaac, A K Balan, E P Jayarajan, M M Mony, K K Shylaja, T P Ramakr-ishnan, Kadakampally Surendran, Suresh Kurup and Prof C Raveendranath . From CPI, the probables include V S Sunil Kumar, C Divakaran, Mullakara Ratnakaran, E Chandrashekharan. JD(S) is considering either Mathew T Thomas, K Krishnankutty and C K Nanu. NCP from A K Saseendran and Thomas Chandy.
All single MLA parties may not get Cabinet berth this time even as CPM plans to increase its numbers in Cabinet. CPI too will have additional berth this time. The LDF leadership has decided to ensure proper representation in the Cabinet to all regions and it would be combination of youth and experience. There would be adequate representation from the marginalised sections
Thiruvananthapuram: As many as 1,07,239 voters in the state rejected all the listed candidates, pressing the NOTA (None Of The Above) button in the Electronic Voting Machine. NOTA has gained 0.5% of the total votes polled in the state. The highest number of NOTA votes were polled in Kaduthuruthi (1533) followed by Thiruvananthapuram (1453), Mattannur (1420), Thrikkakara (1275) and Attingal (1267).
More than 1000 NOTA votes were polled in 26 constituencies. Curiously enough, the lowest number of NOTA votes are in Poonjar (313) where independent candidate P.C. George had a stunning win.
In Puthupally, where the outgoing Chief Minister Oommen Chandy sought the verdict, as many as 630 NOTA votes were polled. It was 924 in Malampuzha, from where CPM stalwart V.S. Achuthanandan contested.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Pinarayi Vijayan will be the next Chief Minister of the state and Mr V.S. Achuthanandan will remain as Keralas Fidel Castro. This was announced by CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury at a media conference attended by Mr Achuthanandan, who was also considered as a front runner for the chief minister post, and CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.
Earlier, the state secretariat chose Mr Pinarayi Vijayan as the leader of CPM legislature party in the presence of Mr Yechury, Mr Prakash Karat and Mr S. Ramachandran Pillai. The central leaders then summoned had Mr Achuthanandan to the secretariat meeting and conveyed the decision to him.
The veteran leader, who didnt oppose the decision, returned to his residence without reacting to the questions of mediapersons. The new Cabinet will be sworn in on May 25.
VS silent during press meet
Mr V.S. Achuthanandan came back to the AKG Centre in the afternoon to attend the state committee which endorsed the secretariat decision on Mr Pinarayi Vijayan. After the state committee meeting, Mr Yechury announced the decision at a jampacked media meeting.
Considering comrade VSs age and physical limitations and recognising his role, we have come to a decision unanimously that Pinarayi Vijayan will be proposed as leader of the LDF legislature party. On the basis of this, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan will conduct discussions with other LDF parties and the details will be finalised, he said.
Mr Yechury said as far as comrade VS was considered, the only parallel in the international communist movement was that of Fidel Castro. Comrade Achuthanandan is like Fidel Castro for Kerala. He is like what Fidel is for Cuba today. He will be guiding and inspiring the party. VS will continue to play that role, he said.
The CPM general secretary refused to answer questions regarding a Cabinet rank position or Rajya Sabha berth for Mr Achuthanandan. I told you that he is the Fidel Castro of Kerala. All other things will be discussed later. The agenda was the LDF government, he added.
Mr Achuthanandan who remained seated beside Mr Yechury throughout the press conference, looked totally detached. Though Mr Pinarayi Vijayan was present at the AKG Centre, he didnt attend the press conference. Dont worry, he will come before you. You will not miss him for the next five years, Mr Yechury told mediapersons who were keen for a photo op of Mr Achuthanandan, Mr Pinarayi and central leaders.
The party general secretary walked along with Mr Achuthanandan up to the car and saw him off. After the state committee meeting, Mr Yechury greeted Mr Pinarayi and presented him a bouquet. Many leaders, who had come for the leadership meetings, met Mr Pinarayi and congratulated him. People from different walks of life called on Mr Pinarayi. The mood at the AKG Centre was jubilant as workers distributed sweets to the visitors to celebrate the landslide victory of the LDF.
Kolkata: From Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Bhutan Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, and from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, many VVIPs are expected to figure in the list of probable invitees to Mamata Banerjees swearing-in ceremony at Red Road here on May 27.
The other names likely to figure in the list of invitees include Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, railway minister Suresh Prabhu, home minister Rajnath Singh, finance minister Arun Jaitley, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, thespian Amitabh Bachchan and Bengal brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan.
The names of the invitees have not yet been officially announced. However, a top party leader said Ms Banerjee will be sending invitation cards to all those leaders and celebrities who either called her up to congratulate her or sent text messages. Prime Minister Modi was among the first leaders to congratulate Didi on her return to power, he added.
When Ms Banerjee was asked about the details of the swearing-in ceremony, the chief minister-designate said, I have dedicated this victory to the people of Bengal. Therefore, I have decided to have the ceremony on Red Road in the midst of the people.
Elaborating on the unusual venue, she said if it is held at Raj Bhavan, only 3,000 people can attend it. Even Netaji Indoor Stadium will not do because it can accommodate a maximum of 12,000 people. Nearly 30,000 people can attend the ceremony if it is held on the sprawling Red Road, she said, adding she wanted a large attendance because the TMC is a peoples party.
In 2011, Ms Banerjee was sworn in at Raj Bhavan from where she had walked down to the Writers Buildings. Thousands of common people had joined her in the historic walk to the corridors of power. Answering a question, Ms Banerjee ruled out the possibility of walking from Red Road to Nabanna on May 27. In 2011 we had come to power for the first time, she explained.
(THIS STORY ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN THE ASIAN AGE AS MAY THE CASE BE)
New Delhi: Tension is running high in the corridors of power as Prime Minister Narendra Modi gets ready to axe mediocre performers from his Cabinet. The Prime Minister, BJP president Amit Shah and finance minister Arun Jaitley are reportedly drawing up a list of performers and non-performers.
There have been a series of meetings at the Prime Ministers 7 Race Course Road residence in the last 24 hours to discuss the reshuffle. A rejig is also expected in the organisation and Mr Shah on Saturday held talks with BJP leaders.
The Cabinet reshuffle will be carried out with an eye on the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections and some fresh faces from the state are expected to be brought in. Sources said the Cabinet reshuffle could take place by the month-end or in the first week of June. The PM will be leaving for a bilateral visit to Iran on May 22 and on his return the exercise is likely to gain momentum.
Union MoS Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi may get Cabinet rank. Senior Bihar BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, sources said, is also in the reckoning for induction into the Union Cabinet. Sources said the PM, Mr Shah and Mr Jaitley are thinking of dropping a few ministers who could not aggressively implement the governments agenda.
Union MoS for railways Manoj Sinha, who is likely to play a key role in the UP elections, may be elevated to Cabinet rank, sources said. Caste equations may also play out in picking new entrants for the Cabinet from UP, sources said.
The last picture of Rajiv Gandhi alive, from Haribabus camera, as the murderous Dhanu, wearing orange flowers (inset) sneaks up right behind a schoolgirl who is interacting with the former prime minister.
The shockwaves of the explosion that killed Rajiv Gandhi twenty five years ago this day still reverberate today. Now film-maker AMR Ramesh, who is set to launch his movie on the assassination, brings back memories of that tragic day as he tells Bellie Thomas how he has himself been surrounded ever since by the events and people involved in the dastardly act and the investigations that followed.
On March 19, 2008, Priyanka Gandhi made an unusual trip down south. It was to the Vellore prison, to meet Nalini Sriharan, who by then had been lodged there for nearly 17 years for her role in the assassination of Priyankas father and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. Priyanka told the world that she had visited Nalini on a purely personal whim and asked that it be respected as her way "of coming to peace with the violence and loss I have experienced." Publicly, Priyanka even supported clemency for Nalini. In turn, Nalini, whose death sentence was commuted, said Priyanka's visit had "washed away my sins".
Nalini Sriharan (right)
One man, however, finds it incredible that Priyanka acted on a personal whim. He did not believe it then, he does not believe it now. Film-maker AMR Ramesh points out that it was in the wake of that meeting that the Congress-led UPA government quietly stepped up its assistance to the Sri Lankan military in its offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), notably with the Indian Navy blowing up its supply ships. Within 14 months, the LTTE had been decimated, and its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was dead. Rajiv Gandhi -- assassinated on May 21, 1991. Prabhakaran, brutally killed on May 19, 2009. Priyanka, Ramesh says, had gone to Nalini because she, and perhaps the Nehru-Gandhi family, wanted one final confirmation that it was indeed Prabhakaran who had ordered the assassination of her father. And only Nalini could provide that confirmation -- she had been in on the plot for at least 20 days; Sivarasan, Subha and Dhanu, the human bomb that blew up Rajiv, had stayed at her house for over two weeks as they prepared for that dastardly act, and she had come to know, as she travelled with them on the bus to the election rally at Sriperumbdur, that it was indeed Rajiv Gandhi who was the target. Ramesh's new movie on the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, Aaspota, due in cinemas next year, begins at that Vellore prison meeting.
A film-makers destiny
On the night of May 21, 1991, Ramesh, then a 20-year-old Diploma in Film Technology student at the Adyar Film Institute, was on a bike roaming the streets of Chennai with a friend when he heard rumours, at a little past 10.30 pm, that Rajiv Gandhi had been killed in a bomb blast at Sriperumbdur, 35 kilometres away.
"I and my friend Kamalnath were in the Nandanam area in Chennai when around 10.30 pm, rumours started that Rajiv Gandhi had been killed in a bomb blast. As the news spread, we could see the tension and panic among the locals, who were murmuring to each other," Ramesh recalls.
"Soon, crowds of other people began to pour into the streets and violence broke out in a few places. Vehicles were stopped, cars smashed, miscreants threw stones at buildings and windows. Somehow, we managed to escape unhurt, telling whoever stopped us that we were local Tamils, even though my Kawasaki bike bore a Karnataka registration plate."
Sivarasan, the mastermind in the assassination plot, shot himself dead at a hideout in Konankunte, Bengaluru on August 20, 1991.
But Ramesh did not go home to safety. Instead, "We went round the city, we wanted to understand the pulse of the city, how people would react. Doordarshan started to broadcast the news around 10.45-11 pm. We rode through Nandanam, K.K. Nagar, Vadapalani, Mandavelli, Poonamallee and so on. People poured into the streets throughout the night. Everyone was shocked, everyone was scared."
The two couldn't sleep that night. Ramesh wanted to see Rajiv's body. "We reached Government Hospital around 5 am. There were policemen all around. We had to show some kind of identity that would get us past the security. Luckily, just that year, Karnataka had introduced smart card driving licence and I had one. I flashed it saying I was from the press!"
They were waved through into the sterile zone and headed for the mortuary. "We were whispering about the security lapse when we came by a room where several bodies lay on the ground. And there were the remains of Rajiv Gandhi, too. In fact, a few days later, we learned that Sivarasan, the mastermind, too, had gained entry into the same place using the same trick!"
It was an unimaginable scene -- there were 10-12 bodies, and severed parts of bodies strewn around, there were shocked relatives and friends, wailing loudly. And there were the unclaimed bodies of the human bomb, Dhanu, and of Haribabu, the photographer who was also part of the plot but whose pictures came to form the primary evidence in the assassination case.
The CBI constituted a Special Investigation Team under D.R. Karthikeyan to investigate the assassination plot. Using pictures from Haribabu's camera, the SIT tracked, identified and nabbed several involved, but Sivarasan and Subha had escaped.
Three months later, yet another shocking development brought Ramesh right back into the thick of the assassination saga. Police and commandos surrounded a house in Konankunte in Bengaluru where Sivarasan, Subha and five other LTTE cadre had holed up since August 6, 1991. Seeing that they had no chance of escape, on August 20 on the birth anniversary of the man they had assassinated weeks earlier! Subha and the five others bit on cyanide capsules and died, Sivarasan, the one-eyed Jack, shot himself dead. Ramesh realized that the house they had taken shelter in belonged to Jayaram Ranganath and his wife Mridula, a couple he had known for years and whom he knew to be LTTE sympathisers.
Velupillai Prabhakaran, the LTTE leader who ordered the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, and who was killed by Sri Lankan forces in March 2009.
I feel this is my destiny that I am the one destined to make the movie on the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, Ramesh says, I have been surrounded by events and people involved in the whole saga ever since May 21, 1991. That I was destined to be in Chennai that night, that the assassins took shelter with a couple that I knew
In 1999, soon after Ranganath was released from jail, Ramesh made Cyanide, a movie about the last 20 days of Sivarasan. It took many more years of research before he was ready for Aaspota.
Human bomb
Dhanu was the suicide bomber who wore the belt bomb, an LTTE speciality. For several hours, nobody knew that it was a suicide bomber that had blown up Rajiv. Investigators were looking all over the blast site to see where the bomb had been planted, Ramesh recalls
Haribabu, a freelance photographer in Tamil Nadu, was also a part of the assassins group at the Sriperumbdur election rally. He had taken pictures of Rajiv Gandhi as he was talking to a young girl and her mother. His tenth picture of the night was clicked with his hands raised above the crowd. Just then Dhanu bent down and pressed the button. The explosion shred Haribabus body, too, to pieces. His camera and the film roll inside survived, later found lying several yards away.
The assassination plot
One day, Sivarasan told Chinna Santhan, an LTTE activist who had helped him carry out the massacre of 13 leaders of a rival Sri Lankan Tamil group, EPRLF, in June 1990, Oru surave addikanum (a shark has to be killed. Ippo thane oru surave adichom (Weve just killed a shark a reference to K. Padmanabha of the EPRLF) Chinna Santhan replied. Idhu periya sura (this is a bigger shark), Sivarasan replied, without saying who he wanted to kill. Chinna Santhan assumed it was Varadharaja Perumal, chief minister of a Sri Lankan province who Prabhakaran suspected was colluding with the Lankan government against the LTTE.
Up till almost the last few days to May 21, 1991, only three assassins knew who the target was Sivarasan, Dhanu, and Subha, who was the back-up suicide bomber for Dhanu, Ramesh says.
Sonia Gandhi, Rahul and Priyanka at Rajivs funeral on May 24, 1991.
May 21, 1991
Sivarasan, Dhanu and Subha stayed at Nalinis house for over two weeks as they plotted and prepared for their dastardly act. As D-Day approached, Dhanu fell ill. Subha offered to wear the belt bomb, but Dhanu insisted that she would finish the task assigned to her.
Like most Tigers that had heard that an assassination was being planned, Nalini, too, had assumed that the target was Varadaraja Perumal. It was only when they had boarded a government bus at Parrys Corner to Sriperumbdur that she would begin suspecting otherwise. When she heard Subha telling Dhanu that the latter was about to make history, she knew it was to be Rajiv Gandhi.
They reached Sriperumbdur at around 8 pm. They had dinner there, and immediately decided to go as close to the election rally stage as they could. Rajiv Gandhis arrival was already delayed, and they were not sure how much time they would have. Sivarasan instructed Nalini to go and sit with Dhanu and Subha in the gallery. He and Haribabu would enter the sterile zone, posing as a press team of reporter and photographer. A little past 10.20 pm, Dhanu bends down as if to touch Rajiv Gandhis feet and seek his blessings, simultaneously pressing a button on the belt shes wearing under her dress. Boom!
Aaspota (The Blast)
I have researched, interviewed, collected documentary evidences, etc., from every police and CBI officer involved in the investigations. I travelled to Sri Lanka a couple of years ago to research the story from the early stages of the assassination plot, Ramesh says. Twenty-five years after the assassination, the movie will go on the floors on August 20, Rajivs birth anniversary, and Ramesh plans to release it in the cinemas on May 21, 2017, Rajivs death anniversary.
Twenty-five years after the assassination, the movie will go on the floors on August 20, Rajivs birth anniversary, and Ramesh plans to release it in the cinemas on May 21, 2017, Rajivs death anniversary.
To be shot in three languages -- Aaspota (The Blast) in Kannada; Manidha Vedigundu in Tamil; and, Human Bomb in Hindi the 150-minute movie tells the story of a 110-day drama that unfolds on May 1, 1991 when a nine-member LTTE team from Sri Lanka lands on Indian soil at Kodiakarai in Tamil Nadus Nagapattinam district -- and ends on August 20, 1991. It has 67 characters and will be shot in 87 locations.
Indian Railways is poised to become Indias principal engagement with foreign countries. Suresh Prabhu, Union minister for railways, in a candid, free-wheeling interview to Manish Anand, said that his ministry would soon move the Union Cabinet for approval of government-to-government partnerships with foreign countries, a step beyond the concept of foreign direct investment.
We saw big-ticket FDI investment in the railway workshop projects at Madhepura and Mahraura in Bihar to the tune of Rs 40,000 crore. What would be the next big FDI investment in the railways?
We have seen massive interest from a number of countries in the modernisation of our railway stations. South Korea has already submitted its model of redevelopment of the New Delhi railway station. South Korea is ready with a proposal to invest as much as Rs 8,000 crore in the modernisation of the New Delhi railway station. The model is with us, which will be a complete gamechanger as far as a railway station is seen. France is keen to redevelop the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai. The French are also working for the re-development of Ludhiana station. In the coming times, we will see major FDI inflow into the railway sector.
You have been to Germany, France, Japan and many other countries. The railways appear to have become Indias engagement with foreign countries. What can we expect from these countries in the railways?
We are soon going to the Union Cabinet for approval to enter into government-to-government (G-G) investment (agreements). We are ready to sign agreements with as many as 14 countries. They are ready to partner with Indian Railways to make their governments partners in the progress of the railways. Among the 14 countries are Japan, China, Germany, Czechoslovakia, South Korea, France and the United Arab Emirates.
G-G investment is better than FDI for the railways because here we do not have to worry about the involvement of private players. The money will come from the government of the partner country. In the coming years, we are going to witness massive G-G investment in the railways. Japan alone is going to invest close to $25 billion in Indian Railways, besides the bullet train project.
After commissioning the semi-high-speed rail between New Delhi and Agra, what progress can we expect on speeding up the railways?
We are going to offer one semi-high-speed route each to the 14 countries with which we are soon going to operationalise the G-G investment model. These countries will build the infrastructure and Indian Railways will integrate them into the existing system. Thus, we can have a large number of semi-high-speed rail networks getting commissioned at the same time; this can change the very face of the railways and the country in the next four to five years.
We already are holding trials of the Spanish semi-high-speed Talgo trains.
Its a matter of a few weeks in which we will know the full details of the claims being made by Talgo. Once we get the details, we will take the next course of action.
The Bibek Debroy Committee on the restructuring of the Railway Board was constituted soon after the Narendra Modi government came to power. Many more committees have in the past submitted reports. What is being done about their reports?
So far we have already implemented almost 90 per cent of the recommendations of the Bibek Debroy Committee. We have constituted two cross-functional directorates for non-tariff revenue and mobility, which will directly report to the chairman, Railway Board. We have already delegated powers to the general managers and divisional railway managers. Soon we will sign a memorandum of understanding with the zonal railways in which we will ensure their functional autonomy. Thus, much of the desired outcomes of the various committees have been implemented so far, and much more will be done. Very soon we are also going to establish the rail tariff authority. We are currently examining the legislative and non-legislative components of the proposed authority.
In the beginning of the coming to power of the Modi government, we heard much talk about the lateral entry of professionals in government departments. Is the idea still alive?
We are soon going to induct 100 interns from outside the railways who would become part of the organisation. We are keen to take outside professionals, and the cross-functional directorates would look to benefit from their talent pool.
With a soft loan from Japan in place for the bullet train project between Ahmedabad and Mumbai, the popular perception persists that such investment should have come in for existing railway infrastructure.
There is a place for a five-star hotel in an economy and similarly a bullet train project too is important for the country. In our economy we have five-star hotels where we do not expect the common man to go. We are not going to invest anything in the bullet train project. The money is coming from Japan. But we will gain from the induction of technology, the safety standards, the capacity to execute big-ticket projects, besides the huge spin-off effect on the economy by spending such a huge sum of money in the country.
When are we going to see the fruits of the investment being made in capacity augmentation by the railways, which has been the priority of your two projects?
In the last financial year we commissioned 2,828 km of new lines, broad gauge conversion and doubling. In the next two years we will add almost 7,000 km of such lines. We are going to invest close to Rs 45,000 crore in the next two years for such projects. By 2019, we hope to commission the twin dedicated freight corridors between Dadri and JNPT, Mumbai and Ludhiana-Kolkata. With their commissioning, much of the tracks will be available for running of trains and will also allow us to time-table the goods trains. In the next three to four years trains will not only run on time, but fast and tickets would also be available on demand.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, welcomes the external propellant tank ET- 94 after being unloaded from a barge at the Marina del Rey, Calif. (Photo: AP)
Los Angeles: A massive space shuttle external propellant tank will be squeezed through the streets of Los Angeles to join a display of the retired orbiter Endeavour at the California Science Center. The big move was scheduled to begin at 12:01 a.m. Saturday and take 13 to 18 hours to squeeze down 16 miles of streets, avenues and boulevards from Marina del Rey on the coast to the center in Exposition Park near downtown.
The tank's trek was expected to be not quite as difficult as when the 122-foot-long Endeavour, with a wingspan of 78 feet, was similarly hauled 12 miles to the center from Los Angeles International Airport. Extensive preparations included removal of trees, street posts and other obstacles but that journey took about 17 hours longer than planned.
It nonetheless became a spectacle enjoyed by big crowds along the way. Although longer 154 feet the 65,000-pound external tank is much narrower than the shuttle with a diameter of 27.5 feet.
The giant orange tank was shipped to California by barge from a NASA facility in Louisiana. The tank traveled through the Panama Canal to the Pacific and arrived Wednesday at Marina del Rey, a yacht harbor on the Los Angeles County coast where it was offloaded to await the weekend move. Known as ET-94, it was NASA's last flight-qualified external tank but was never used before the shuttle program came to an end.
External tanks not only carried propellant for space shuttles' main engines but were the backbone of the launch system. An orbiter and two solid rocket boosters would be attached to the tank for the fiery ascent into space. Inside ET-94 are two internal tanks for millions of pounds of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen as well as other equipment.
The tank's surface is covered with a layer of foam to keep the propellants at the proper temperature, reduce the formation of ice and to provide protection from heat as it sped through the atmosphere.
External tanks used on shuttle missions would be destroyed, burning up as they fell back through the atmosphere after being discarded by the orbiter. ET-94 was built for use by the shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated over Texas as it was returning from a mission.
The investigation found that foam fell off that mission's external tank during launch and punched a hole into a wing, allowing hot gases of the fiery re-entry inside the structure. Investigators used many pieces of foam from ET-94 in tests to come to the conclusion.
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The Leadtek NVIDIA Quadro M2000 has 768 CUDA cores, powered by the latest NVIDIA Maxwell architecture and 4GB of DDR5 GPU memory with fast bandwidth up to 106GB/s that delivers up to 2x the visualization performance of the previous-generation product.
New Delhi: LEADTEK, the authorized channel partner of NVIDIA professional graphics card in the Asia-Pacific region, Leadtek releases NVIDIA Quadro M2000 featuring an NVIDIA Maxwell-based GPU, 4GB of ultra-fast on-board memory, and the power to drive four 4K displays natively. It provides industry-leading performance in the mid-range segment, giving designers the performance and features they need to realize their designs.
The Leadtek NVIDIA Quadro M2000 has 768 CUDA cores, powered by the latest NVIDIA Maxwell architecture and 4GB of DDR5 GPU memory with fast bandwidth up to 106GB/s that delivers up to 2x the visualization performance of the previous-generation product. This makes it an excellent choice for artists, animators, and editors to accelerate product development and content creation workflows that demand fluid interactivity with complex models and scenes.
Designed for stability, Leadtek Quadro M2000 supports the latest OpenGL, DirectX, Vulkan, NVIDIA CUDA standards, and certification with over 100 professional applications by ISVs to ensure hardware compatibility. Plus, creative professionals can tap into this increased performanceas well as hardware HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) encode and decode enginesallowing professional applications to rapidly create and display high-resolution videos.
The Leadtek Quadro M2000 is the perfect balance of superb performance, compelling features, compact form factor, and price, delivering incredible creative experiences across a broad range of professional 3D applications. Whether you're developing revolutionary products or telling spectacularly vivid visual stories, Leadtek Quadro gives you the performance to do it brilliantly.
Leadtek NVIDIA Quadro M2000 4GB GPU Specifications:
GPU Memory: 4 GB GDDR5
Memory Interface: 128-bit
Memory Bandwidth: Up to 106 GB/s
NVIDIA CUDA Cores: Up to 106 GB/s
System Interface: Up to 317 GB/s
Max Power Consumption: PCI Express 3.0 x16
Max Power Consumption: 75 W
Thermal Solution: Active
Form Factor: 4.376 H x 6.6 L Single Slot
Display Connectors: DP 1.2 (4)
Max Simultaneous Displays: 4 DP 1.2 Multi-Stream
Graphics APIs DirectX 122
OpenGL: 4.53
Shader Model: 5.0
Vulkan: 1.03
Compute APIs: CUDA, DirectCompute, OpenCL
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While we understand it is next to impossible to produce a perfect phone, the Motorola Moto G4 and the G4 Plus did fall just a tad lower than the high expectations that the lineup has set.
Motorola announced the Motorola Moto G 4th generation in New Delhi this month. The event was one of the most anticipated ones, given how popular the Motorola Moto G has been. In fact, India has been the second biggest market in terms of units sold globally after Brazil and the phone here has become quite synonymous with the budget category of Android phones. We pretty much knew it all about the device, thanks to the open world of the internet that we live in, but it would have been unfair to say anything about the device until it is officially out.
While we understand it is next to impossible to produce a perfect phone, the Motorola Moto G4 and the G4 Plus did fall just a tad lower than the high expectations that the lineup has set. Here is what we feel, the devices missed out on.
Opting for a flatter design: If you have held any of the Motorola Moto G devices, the first thing you will notice is the curved backs on them. These backs made the Motorola Moto G devices some of the best to hold in the hand, as they fit your palm very well. With the Motorola Moto G4 coming with a flat back, we cannot help but miss the curved back. While the flat back would mean the phone can sit back on table top without moving all over the place, we would much rather give up some shakeup on table for a good in hand feels.
No IP Rating: Living in a city like Mumbai, where it rains pigs for a good solid, two months, the IPX7 rated Motorola Moto G 3rd generation was a God send. You could use the device without any fear of water killing it away making it a fantastic option for a second phone, the sorts you could just carry with you outdoors. However, the Moto G4 or the G4 Plus comes with just a nano coating, making the phone just resistant to occasional splashes and no more IP rated. Missing out on a proper IP rating is definitely a blow and sort of a downgrade.
The fingerprint scanners: We are not really sure about the fingerprint scanner, available only on the Moto G4 Plus, for two reasons. One, we are not sold on the shape, as the square just looks very very odd, making the front of the phone ugly, and secondly, why would Motorola not include a fingerprint scanner on a phone that is selling for around Rs 12,000 which you would expect from the Moto G 4th Gen when it releases? Did Motorola themselves not say that all phones using Moto branding will have a fingerprint scanner by default and all lower end devices will be bearing the Vibe branding if they did not? It looks like Motorola and Lenovo are still to sort things on that front.
Both phones sporting 5.5 inch displays: The Motorola Moto G 4th generation and the Moto G4 Plus come with 5.5 inch 1080P displays. If Motorola was anyway going to be going with two devices, we feel it would have been better to give users a shot at a lower display size on the unit which did not hold the Plus moniker, just like Apple has done starting with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. It is a little odd that both, the Plus and the normal Moto G4 have the same size while the only real difference being some added clock speed, a 16MP camera as opposed to 13MP and aforementioned fingerprint scanner. It feels like Motorola, even though wanted to give the users options, did not want to give too many of them away.
No Type-C: With it being clear that USB Type-C is the way forward in the coming years and it set to being the standard, we were a little surprised to not see the Type-C port on the Moto G4. The device still comes with a Micro USB port out of the box, so you are still stuck with a port that does not allow reversible input or high read-write speeds. In fact, devices like the LeEco Le1S already come with the Type-C port and they are available pretty much in the same sort of price range as the Moto G4. While obviously, this is not a deal breaker, it would have been nice to have a device that is future proof, and having a Type-C port, which clearly will be present in more and more devices as the time goes on, would have ensured just that.
The Motorola Moto G4 is a fine device, at least on paper it looks like a solid and reliable performer. However, a little bit of fine tuning especially not ditching things that Motorola did so well, would have made it a really desirable product. However, we still expect it to compete strongly against the likes of Lenovo K4 Note and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 for supremacy in the budget ranged phones.
This article has been contributed by Arpit Verma, who manages Digital Marketing initiatives at Pricebaba.com
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The photos appear to show the heavily-damaged remains of plane seats, life jackets - one of which is seemingly undamaged - and a scrap of cloth that looks to be part of a baby's blanket (Photo: Facebook)
Cairo: The first photographs have emerged of debris of EgyptAir flight 804, which crashed into the Mediterranean on its way to Cairo from Paris, killing all 66 people on board.
The Egyptian military posted the photos Saturday on its spokesman's Facebook page. They appear to show the heavily-damaged remains of plane seats, life jackets - one of which is seemingly undamaged - and a scrap of cloth that looks to be part of a baby's blanket or sleeping bag.
The Egyptian military posted the photos Saturday on its spokesman's Facebook page
The Egyptian military announced Friday that it had found debris in the eastern Mediterranean, around 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Alexandria.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Saturday that no theory on the cause of the EgyptAir crash has been ruled out, after revelations of smoke in the cabin minutes before the disaster.
"At this time, all theories are being examined and none is favoured," he told a news conference after meeting with relatives of passengers who were aboard the doomed A320 which left Paris early Thursday for Cairo.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Saturday that no theory on the cause of the EgyptAir crash has been ruled out.
"The reports circulating here and there, which by the way are sometimes contradictory, give rise too often to nearly definitive conclusions," Ayrault said, warning of the "painful tension" caused to the families of the victims.
Read: French Investigator say smoke reported on EgyptAir jet before crash
"Finding the plane is of course the priority, along with finding the black boxes to analyse them, which will allow us to answer legitimate questions," he said, referring to the voice and flight data recorders.
France's "dual goal" is to offer "solidarity with the families but also transparency on the circumstances of this plane's disappearance," said the foreign minister, who was joined by Egypt's ambassador to France at the meeting with the family members.
The passengers included 30 Egyptians, 15 French citizens, two Iraqis, two Canadians, and citizens from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. They included a boy and two babies.
he fight then escalated into a huge argument, following which the accused sliced off the victim's genitals with a sharp knife. (Representational Image)
Nakuru, Kenya: In a weird case of revenge, a prostitute in the Kenyan city of Nakuru ripped off a man's penis and placed it in a paper bag after he refused to pay for sex.
According to a report in the Mirror, the accused was picked up by the victim from a street in Nakuru and he took her to his flat.
After having sex, the prostitute demanded money and the victim started arguing about the charges. The fight then escalated into a heated argument, following which the accused sliced off the victim's genitals with a sharp knife. She then placed his penis neatly in a paper bag and fled the spot.
The victim's neighbor, upon hearing his screams, found him covered in blood, lying on the floor. His neighbor then called up the victim's aunt who later informed the cops.
Police officials found the man wriggling on the floor, screaming in pain with blood flowing from his groin. He was rushed to the nearby Nairobi Women's Hospital and his condition is said to be stable.
Speaking on the incident, victim's mother said that she wanted her son to get married, start a family, have kids, but her dreams have been dashed, adding that, "I received a phone call from my sister informing that my son had been stabbed, but she did not explain under what circumstances."
Investigators are on the lookout for the accused sex worker who is on the run.
Trump's remarks at the NRA's national convention in Louisville, Kentucky, were not a surprise, but they could solidify his status among conservatives who see protecting the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment as a top priority. (Photo: AP)
Louisville: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump assured gun owners on Friday he would protect their constitutional right to bear arms and eliminate gun-free zones if elected, accusing Democrat Hillary Clinton of wanting to weaken gun rights.
Trump, who will almost certainly be the Republican presidential nominee, picked up the endorsement of the National Rifle Association, a politically powerful lobbying group which claims more than 4 million members.
Trump's remarks at the NRA's national convention in Louisville, Kentucky, were not a surprise, but they could solidify his status among conservatives who see protecting the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment as a top priority.
Trump also planned to meet on Monday with U.S. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, a source close to the Trump campaign said. The two are expected to consult on foreign policy. The source said Corker remains on Trump's list of potential vice presidential running mates.
Clinton, who is close to clinching the Democratic Party's nomination for the Nov. 8 election, has vowed to take on the gun lobby and expand gun control measures to include comprehensive background checks for gun buyers, including at open-air gun shows and online.
Trump, who is trying to unite the Republican Party behind him after a brutal primary battle, accused Clinton, a former secretary of state to President Barack Obama, of wanting to end the 2nd Amendment, which says in part that the people's right to keep and bear arms "shall not be infringed."
"Hillary Clinton wants to abolish the Second Amendment, not change it; she wants to abolish it," Trump said.
Clinton campaign senior policy adviser Maya Harris said Trump is peddling falsehoods and denounced "Donald Trump's conspiracy theories." She said Clinton believes there are "common-sense steps we can take at the federal level to keep guns out of the hands of criminals" while protecting the Second Amendment.
Trump told the NRA he would eliminate gun-free zones imposed in some areas, noting that the 2015 shooting deaths of four U.S. Marines at an armed forces recruiting center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, took place in a gun-free zone.
Modi's strategically important visit, at the invitation of the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, comes as India looks at stepping up engagement with the sanctions-free energy-rich nation. (Photo: AFP)
New York: Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Iran, an advocacy group in the US has said he should focus his efforts on pressuring Tehran to halt its "destabilizing and provocative" behaviour.
It also claimed that Iran should not be rewarded with lucrative business opportunities as there are "numeorous risks" for Indian companies in doing business there.
The United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), one of the most influential anti-Iran advocacy groups in the US, said Iran's "irresponsible and belligerent" behavior is in complete contrast to Modi's "powerful and timely determination" to tackle terrorism and corruption.
Modi has a "special opportunity to focus his efforts on pressuring Iran to halt its destabilizing and provocative behavior, rather than prematurely rewarding the regime with lucrative business opportunities," UANI Chairman Senator Joseph Lieberman and UANI CEO Ambassador Mark Wallace said in a statement released ahead of Modi's visit to Iran on May 22-23.
Modi's strategically important visit, at the invitation of the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, comes as India looks at stepping up engagement with the sanctions-free energy-rich nation. Modi will also meet Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the visit.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had said in New Delhi that the visit will provide thrust to expanding bilateral cooperation in the wake of lifting of sanctions against Iran earlier this year.
"The visit of Prime Minister to Iran will seek to build on these commonalities by focussing on specific cooperation in regional connectivity and infrastructure, developing energy partnership, boosting bilateral trade, facilitating people-to-people interaction in various spheres and promoting peace and stability in the region," the MEA statement said.
"For these reasons, India's formidable economic and diplomatic power should not be used to further embolden and enable Tehran," it added.
The influential group warned that the "risks" of doing business with the Iranian regime are "simply too great and too numerous" for Indian companies and the larger global business community.
"World leaders cannot declare they are fighting terrorism and corruption around the world, while at the same time doing business with Tehran," it said.
Citing the tough stand taken by Modi against terrorism and corruption, UANI said his call to the international community to tackle terrorism together is "particularly relevant" to Iran, which the group described as the "world's leading state sponsor of terrorism".
"The Ayatollah and his regime continue to openly support Hezbollah and Hamas, and even recently welcomed a delegation from the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad," it added.
The group also pointed out the Iran fares poorly on global indexes on corruption and in this context Modi "should be mindful" of his statements about fighting terrorism and corruption.
UANI, an independent, not-for-profit, group, was founded in 2008 by Wallace, former US Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke and former CIA Director Jim Woolsey.
Modi's joint address to the Congress - the first by a foreign leader in 2016 and the first of House Speaker Ryan - is likely to be attended by Vice President Joe Biden and several Cabinet members of the Obama Administration in a rare show of solidarity and support for the Prime Minister, Congressional sources said. (Photo: PTI)
Washington: A rare red carpet welcome awaits Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Capitol on June 8 when he will address a joint meeting of the US Congress, the first by a foreign leader this year.
This includes a rarest of the rare lunch hosted by Speaker Paul Ryan at the Capitol, meeting with the top Congressional leadership and a unique reception thrown in his honour jointly by House and Senate foreign relations committees in association with the two India caucuses.
Modi's joint address to the Congress - the first by a foreign leader in 2016 and the first of House Speaker Ryan - is likely to be attended by Vice President Joe Biden and several Cabinet members of the Obama Administration in a rare show of solidarity and support for the Prime Minister, Congressional sources said.
In an increasingly rancorous Congress, the invitation to Prime Minister Modi was one of the rare bipartisan act. Leaders of both the Republican party, which controls both the House of Representative and the Senate, and the Democratic party of the President Barack Obama, teamed together to invite Modi to address a joint session of the Congress, sources at the Capitol Hill said.
Given the sharp differences between the Republican and Democratic leadership and this being an election year, it is likely that Modi would be the only foreign leader to address a joint meeting of the US Congress this year, they pointed out.
Unlike in the past wherein a joint address by a foreign dignitary is restricted to this event only, Hill sources said that the Congressional leaders have so far chalked out as many as four back-to-back events for Modi on June 8 at the Capitol Hill.
The information is according to an itinerary of Modi's schedule chalked out part of which is still being developed - by the top Congressional leadership.
Modi's engagement at the US Capitol is expected to be kicked off by a meeting with the top leaders of the Congress including House Speaker Ryan; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
Thereafter, Modi would address a joint meeting of the Congress, wherein he is expected to lay out his vision for relationship between the world's largest and oldest democracies.
There is a great enthusiasm among Senators and Congressmen to attend the historic address, a Congressional aide said, based on the response from the lawmakers for Modi's joint address.
Manmohan Singh was the last Indian Prime Minister to address a joint meeting of the Congress on July 19, 2005. Earlier addresses have been by Atal Bihari Vajpayee (September 14, 2000), P V Narasimha Rao (May 18, 1994) and Rajiv Gandhi (July 13, 1985).
The tradition of foreign leaders and dignitaries addressing Congress began with the Marquis de Lafayette of France, who spoke in the House chamber on December 10, 1824.
Last year, four foreign leaders addressed a joint meeting to the Congress, Pope Francis (September 25), Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (April 29), Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani (March 25) and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (March 3).
According to Congressional sources, the joint address is likely to be attended by Vice President Joe Biden, and a number of Cabinet members of the Obama Administration and Supreme Court Justice.
Soon after the joint address, Ryan would host a lunch for the Prime Minister at the Capitol which will be attended by top Congressmen.
"This is first for any Indian Prime Minister," Hill sources said.
After lunch, the Prime Minister would attend a reception?jointly hosted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Committee on Foreign Affairs in association with the House Caucus for India and Indian-Americans and the Senate India Caucus.
Old timers say that House India Caucus had hosted a similar reception for Vajpayee after his address.
But this time, it is being done by the foreign affairs committees of the House and the Senate, in association with the two India caucuses.
"All these four back-to-back events are being hosted by the US Congress," sources said.
"This is a reflection of importance of India. The Prime Minister agreeing to spend quite a significant part of his one full day at the US Congress shows his acknowledgement and support to such a spirit of bipartisan support," Hill sources said.
The documents filed by LHD Lawyers allege that the Russian Federation has worked to keep its involvement in the plane disaster hidden (Photo: AP)
Sydney: Families of victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was shot down over Ukraine in 2014, are suing President Vladimir Putin and Russia for Aus $10 million each in the European Court of Human Rights, The Sydney Morning Herald reported Saturday.
The compensation claim was filed with the Strasbourg-based court by Sydney legal firm LHD Lawyers on May 9 on behalf of 33 next of kin from Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia, the Herald said.
All 298 passengers and crew -- the majority of them Dutch -- died when the Boeing 777 was hit by a Russian-made BUK anti-aircraft missile over war-torn eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.
The documents filed by LHD Lawyers allege that the Russian Federation has worked to keep its involvement in the plane disaster hidden.
Jerry Skinner, a co-associate of LHD whose signature is on the claim, told the Herald that his clients wanted accountability. "They want enough money to reflect that the Russians take this seriously," the paper quoted Skinner as saying.
Officials with the Dutch Safety Board (OVV) concluded last year as part of an international investigation that the Boeing 777 was hit by a BUK missile.
In February, a separate criminal investigation team said they hoped within months to pinpoint the exact spot from which the missile was fired.
Some families are also considering suing Malaysia Airlines for damages over loss of earnings as well as compensation for the "psychological" trauma of losing loved ones.
New Delhi: India today "deeply appreciated" Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's formal apology in the House of Commons for the Komagata Maru incident, saying it reflects Canada's commitment to the values of pluralism which India fully shares.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson said, "We welcome and deeply appreciate the gesture of Prime Minister of Canada to deliver a formal apology in the House of Commons for the Komagata Maru incident."
The Indian diaspora in Canada has contributed immensely to Canada's growth and development and acts as a bond between our two nations, the spokesperson said.
"Prime Minister Trudeau's gesture constitutes an acknowledgement of the positive role of the Indian diaspora. It also reflects Canada's commitment to the values of pluralism and multiculturalism, which India fully shares," he added.
On May 23, 1914, a Japanese steamship, Komagata Maru, carrying 376 passengers - majority of whom were of Sikh, Muslim and Hindu origin- was denied entry into Canada after an immigration dispute, only for some to be killed in protests on their return to India.
Earlier this week, the Canadian prime minister delivered a formal statement of apology in the House of Commons and said, "More than a century ago a great injustice took place."
Guzman's legal team has a month to appeal against the decision before it is carried out.
Mexico City, Mexico: Mexico on Friday approved the extradition of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the United States where he faces narcotics and murder charges, the foreign ministry said.
"The Mexican government grants his international extradition to the government of the United States of America for him to be tried," the ministry said in a statement.
The announcement follows a series of dramatic escapades by El Chapo or "Shorty" Guzman, considered the world's most wanted drug boss as leader of the Sinaloa cartel.
He escaped from a top-security jail in July 2015 and was recaptured in January after police investigations and a colorful episode involving a soap opera actress and the US Hollywood star Sean Penn, who met with the 59-year-old drug boss in hiding.
The ministry said it had approved the extradition after receiving assurances from the US government that Guzman would not face the death penalty if convicted, since he could not receive such a punishment under Mexican law.
It said it had notified the suspect's lawyers of the agreement to extradite Guzman, who is wanted by courts in California and Texas.
Guzman's legal team has a month to appeal against the decision before it is carried out.
A Mexican judge on Monday ruled that Guzman could be extradited to face drug trafficking, money laundering and murder charges in a US federal court in Texas.
Previously a judge had also endorsed an extradition request based on cocaine-smuggling charges in California.
Guzman's lawyer, Jorge Refugio Rodriguez, told AFP after those rulings that he would appeal if the foreign ministry decided to extradite his client.
Refugio has vowed to fight extradition unless US authorities negotiate good prison conditions for Guzman.
No theory on the cause of the EgyptAir crash has been ruled out. (Photo: AFP)
Paris: French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Saturday that no theory on the cause of the EgyptAir crash has been ruled out, after revelations of smoke in the cabin minutes before the disaster.
"At this time, all theories are being examined and none is favoured," he told a news conference after meeting with relatives of passengers who were aboard the doomed A320 which left Paris early Thursday for Cairo.
"The reports circulating here and there, which by the way are sometimes contradictory, give rise too often to nearly definitive conclusions," Ayrault said, warning of the "painful tension" caused to the families of the victims.
"Finding the plane is of course the priority, along with finding the black boxes to analyse them, which will allow us to answer legitimate questions," he said, referring to the voice and flight data recorders.
France's "dual goal" is to offer "solidarity with the families but also transparency on the circumstances of this plane's disappearance," said the foreign minister, who was joined by Egypt's ambassador to France at the meeting with the family members.
The passengers included 30 Egyptians, 15 French citizens, two Iraqis, two Canadians, and citizens from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.
They included a boy and two babies.
Seven crew members and three security personnel were also on board.
The cyclonic storm brought about heavy rains this week in Sri Lanka, triggering two landslides that were feared to have killed around 150 people and forced more than 223,000 persons from their homes. (Representational image)
Dhaka: Bangladesh is relocating around 2 million people from its coastal areas ahead of cyclone Roanu's likely landfall on Saturday evening, officials said on Friday, an event that has also kept authorities in neighbouring India and Myanmar on edge.
The cyclonic storm brought about heavy rains this week in Sri Lanka, triggering two landslides that were feared to have killed around 150 people and forced more than 223,000 persons from their homes.
"Low-lying areas of (Bangladesh's) coastal districts ... are likely to be inundated by storm surge of 4-5 feet height above normal astronomical tide," its weather office said on its website. (bit.ly/1TrZhmy)
India Meteorological Department said on Friday evening the storm was likely to move along the country's east coast and intensify into a "severe" cyclone in the next 24 hours, before crossing the south Bangladesh coast on May 21 as a cyclonic storm with lesser intensity. (bit.ly/25dJFvQ)
Bangladesh's disaster ministry secretary Mohammad Shah Kamal told reporters the country had already taken "all sorts of steps" to minimise any losses, including moving people away from the eye of the storm. India's Andhra Pradesh state has also moved some people from low-lying areas.
Bangladesh, a poor South Asian country, has been one of the worst victims of nature's fury in recent years. More than 3,000 people were killed by Cyclone Sidr in 2007 and around 200 lives were lost to Cycline Aila in 2009.
Like many people in the port city of Karachi, he was caught out by the severity of last summer's heat wave which killed more than 1,300 people, and has hired a digger to excavate three elongated trenches big enough for 300 bodies. (Photo: AP, Representational Image)
Karachi: Pakistani grave digger Shahid Baloch is taking no chances.
Like many people in the port city of Karachi, he was caught out by the severity of last summer's heat wave which killed more than 1,300 people, and has hired a digger to excavate three elongated trenches big enough for 300 bodies.
"Thanks to God, we are better prepared this year," said Baloch, 28, who works with three brothers at the vast Karachi cemetery run by the charitable organisation Edhi Foundation.
When the heat wave struck in the summer of 2015, hospitals, morgues and graveyards in the city of 20 million people were overwhelmed, and drug addicts, day labourers and the elderly were the biggest victims of the searing heat.
Temperatures hit 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit), their highest since 1981 and above normal summer levels of around 37C (99F).
Intervention by the army and charity groups staved off an even worse disaster, locals said, but the crisis exposed the shortcomings of Pakistani emergency services in coping with environmental disasters that scientists say will become more common in the future.
Pakistan's meteorological office is not predicting a repeat of last year's extreme conditions, but, like Baloch in the cemetery, officials are preparing for the worst just in case.
"It will not get out of control the way it happen last year," said Karachi Commissioner Asif Hyder Shah, adding that nearly 60 hospitals now have spare capacity for 1,850 heat wave patients.
Last summer patients slept on ward floors and long queues formed outside Karachi's main state hospitals at the peak of the heat wave.
Shah said nearly 200 first response centres have been set up across the city, offering basic heat-stroke treatment to swiftly stabilise patients. There are also 700 makeshift relief centres, dishing out drinking water and rehydration salts.
"This will save lives. It's a comfort," said street vendor Muhammad Mahmood, 32, after downing a cup of water at one centre. Next to him, children in school uniforms queued to quench their thirst.
Edhi Foundation, at the heart of efforts to limit the suffering caused by the heat wave last year, said it was expanding its huge fleet of ambulances, anchoring extra shelves in its morgue freezer and buying ice machines to keep patients and corpses cool.
Last summer, the Edhi morgue ran out of freezer space after about 650 bodies were brought in the space of a few days. Ambulances left decaying corpses outside in sweltering heat.
Under-Investment Hampers Plans
Similar macabre scenes plagued Karachi's cemeteries, where grave diggers refused to work in the baking sun and charged up to five times normal rates for burial plots.
"People were not able to buy those graves," said Faisal Edhi, managing trustee of the Edhi Foundation. "They buried their dead in their relatives' graves."
Efforts to prepare for extreme heat have been limited by decades of under-investment in Pakistan's crumbling electricity grid and water infrastructure, leaving the sprawling city vulnerable in times of crisis.
The problem last year was compounded by power cuts which left people unable to cool themselves with fans and air conditioners, particularly affecting those unable to afford generators.
Some Pakistani politicians pinned some blame on the provincial government and K-Electric, the company that supplies electricity to Karachi, for the high death toll. K-Electric did not respond to requests for comment.
Some Karachi residents said much would depend on whether any future heat wave struck during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, when under Pakistani law it is illegal to eat and drink in public places.
Abdul Qayyum Soomro, religious affairs adviser to the chief minister of Sindh province, said officials will meet clerics to discuss whether a fatwa, or religious edict, should be issued allowing people to break the fast for health reasons.
Commissioner Shah said the subject was "extremely sensitive" among a devout population.
"If things get really bad, I may abandon the fast since God says life is most precious," said a fruit vendor selling mangoes and bananas from a push cart.
Last year, his five-year-old son fell ill from the heat but was only treated at the third hospital they visited. The first two, including Karachi's biggest, were full.
A homeopathic doctor was today hacked to death and a professor was seriously wounded by machete- wielding Islamic State militants in Bangladesh amid a series of brutal attacks on secular activists and minorities by Islamists.
Sanaur Rahman, 58, a homeopathic doctor, was riding home on his motorbike along with Saifuzzaman, assistant professor of Bangla literature at Islami University, while they were attacked by the assailants in Kushtia town this morning.
Rahman died on the spot while Saifuzzaman has been shifted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital in critical condition, police said.
The deceased along with Saifuzzaman was going to his native village at Shishirmath to give free treatment to local people, Sahabuddin Choudhury, officer-in-charge of Kushtia Model Police Station, said.
They were intercepted by three to four people and attacked with machetes indiscriminately, he said, adding the assailants attacked them in a similar fashion that bears the hallmark of previous murders of bloggers and secular activists.The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack.
"Fighters from the Islamic State assassinated a doctor who called to Christianity in Kushtia, western Bangladesh," the IS-affiliated Amaq news agency said in a brief Arabic message, according to SITE Intelligence Group.
Proloy Chisim, superintendent of police (SP) of Kushtia, said that they were also probing whether personal enmity was behind the murder. Both the doctor and the professor were fans of a mystical musical tradition known as Baul, which is popular in western Bangladesh.
Rahman also used to arrange musical concerts based on Baul ideology at his native village every Friday, his relative said.
There have been systematic assaults in Bangladesh in recent weeks especially targeting minorities, secular bloggers, intellectuals and foreigners.
Earlier this month, a 65-year-old Muslim Sufi preacher was hacked to death by unidentified machete-wielding assailants in northwest Bangladesh, two weeks after a liberal university professor was killed in a similar attack claimed by the dreaded ISIS terror group.
The country's first gay magazine editor was brutally murdered along with a friend in his flat in Dhaka by Islamists two days after the professor's murder.
Less than two weeks ago, a Hindu tailor was hacked to death by machete-wielding ISIS militants in his shop in central Bangladesh.
Due to the poor response from Delhiites on rainwater harvesting, the city government is likely to extend the deadline for the third time for its compulsory implementation.
The deadline for installing rainwater harvesting structures is now likely to be extended up to September.
The government had in July last year issued notices to owners of property with an area of 500 square metres or more, warning them of penalties if the provisions for rainwater harvesting were not in place within one month. But the deadline was extended after some time.
As not many came forward to adopt the scheme, the government in March extended it again till June 30, 2016. After that, property owners who didnt comply could face an increase in water tariff rate by 1.5 times.
However, the initiative has not picked up even now and another extension is likely to be announced soon, a government official said.
After the water crisis in February due to the Jat agitation in Haryana, Delhis Water Minister Kapil Mishra had stressed on the need for rainwater harvesting as an alternative to deal with citys water shortages. According to the regulation, all existing buildings which are constructed on a plot of 500 sq metre or more or new buildings that come up in planned areas on plots of 100 sq metre or more are required to have rooftop rainwater harvesting structures (RWH).
Delhi Jal Board (DJB) officials say that a new model for rainwater harvesting has not been publicised well and that is the reason for the poor response.
Chennai model
The DJB recently changed its previous model and took up the Chennai model, under which the rainwater harves-ting structures dont require boring all the way down to the aquifer.
Instead, they capture rainwater and transfer it to a recharge pit where it passes through filters like gravel and sand before entering the storage tank.
There is a huge change in the design and till people understand it, we need to give them time, said a DJB official, adding that those who have installed the old structures are not required to adopt the new ones. The government will also unroll an advertisement campaign next week to promote rainwater harvesting and improve the compliance level.
A 70-year-old tantrik was arrested in west Delhi for raping a woman who visited him to get her stomach ache cured.
The incident happened on Thursday evening after which the woman went to the Nihal Vihar police station and registered a complaint against him.
Police sent the woman for a medical test, and after sexual assault was confirmed the tantrik was arrested. He is identified as Kapil Dev, a residence of Nihal Vihar.
According to police, Dev claimed to have the ability to cure several physical and personal problems by chanting religious mantras, and using his divine powers.
He claimed to remove obstacles for people who wanted to go abroad. He also claimed to solve family disputes. He said he could help people control their loved ones through his magical powers, said a police officer.
Dev has allegedly made more than a dozen women her targets till now, but only the victim in the latest case dared to expose him.
The 29-year-old woman, who lives in Shivram Park in Nihal Vihar area, had mentioned her chronic stomach pain to a friend.
The womans friend told her about a tantrik who lived in nearby Chandra Vihar and was known to cure ailments through the power of tantra. Convinced by her friend, the woman reached the tantriks house.
The woman later claimed that the exorcist asked her to remove her clothes so that he could treat her by touching her body with his fingers.
He told the woman that he will cure her through touch therapy, and for that she had to take off her clothes, said a police officer.
When the woman reluctantly removed her clothes, the tantrik sexually assaulted her. When she tried to raise an alarm, he threatened to ruin her life through his magical powers. Despite the threat, the woman lodged a complaint with police.
Federation of Resident Doctors Association, Delhi has threatened to go on strike on May 26 demanding a better pay structure for doctors. This would paralyse medical services across government hospitals in the Capital.
The FORDA comprises doctors in hospitals run by Delhi government, Centre, municipal corporations and New Delhi Municipal Council. With resident doctors forming the backbone of the majority of OPD services at hospitals, patients will face a harrowing time if they go on strike.
According to resident doctors, faculty members at hospitals are also likely to join the strike. However, there is no confirmation on it yet.
The FORDA has decided to go on strike on May 26. It will be a one-day strike. We are not happy with the recommendations of the Seventh Central Pay Commission (CPC), said FORDA president Dr Pankaj Solanki.
The FORDA recently wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the demands. The non practising allowance has been reduced to 20 per cent in the CPC recommendations whereas we had demanded that it be increased to 40 per cent.
There is a scarcity of doctors in the country. While the CPC has made this observation, it has done little to boost the morale of doctors, said Dr Solanki.
Resident doctors claimed the new recommendations are against their interests.Despite repeated requests, there has been no response from the government, doctors said. The FORDA has given the Central government time till May 25 to respond on the issue, following which the doctors will go on strike.
Though the demands have been placed with the Centre, we are keeping the city government updated on the plans of the FORDA, said Dr Solanki.
The doctors have also demanded same pay for same work, cutting across different categories like contractual, ad hoc and permanent employees.
They have also asked for allowances to cover telephone bills, extra duty hours and night shift, and hazard pay for diseases contracted by doctors on duty. The FORDA has demanded that doctors across hospitals be given the same allowances.
Parallel OPDs
If the resident doctors go on strike, medical services are likely to remain suspended across hospitals on May 26. However, doctors are thinking of running parallel OPDs outside hospital premises.
We are planning to run parallel services outside the hospital premises to minimise problems faced by patients. Patients who would need admission would be sent to the emergency where they will be attended to, said Dr Solanki.
However, with a huge OPD patient load, skeletal services like parallel OPDs are likely to be of little help.
At a time when resident doctors across hospitals have threatened to launch a one-day strike in Delhi, contractual doctors and paramedics of the states National Health Mission (NHM) have also demanded better work conditions from the city government.
Doctors under the NHM are posted at mohalla clinics, polyclinics, hospitals and dispensaries of the municipal corporations of Delhi. The doctors protested outside Health Minister Satyendar Jains house on Thursday.
The minister has now given us an appointment on Wednesday where we will raise our demands, said Dr Bhawna, president of Delhi State National Health Mission (NHM)/ Reproductive and Child Health Programme (RCH), Contractual Employees Welfare Society.
The doctors and paramedics have demanded that salaries of NHM workers should be on par with that of contractual employees of the state government. The employees have also sought regularisation of NHM employees along with other contractual employees of the health department.
Pay parity
Several workers have been on contract for over 10 years now. It is extremely difficult for them to be absorbed anywhere else now. We have repeatedly requested the government to regularise the employees. Also, the salaries of the employees should be brought on par with the other contractual staff of the state government, said Dr Suraj Gupta, secretary of NHM/RCH, Contractual Employees Welfare Society.
Last year, the employees had gone on a 17-day strike. The other demands included 10 days medical leave and a field allowance. They had called off the strike after the city government agreed to the demands.
However, one year on most of the demands have not been considered by the government, said Dr Gupta.
The NHM mostly works on improving child and maternal care in rural and urban areas. Employees under this scheme provide health services like immunisation of children and distribution of medicines to pregnant women. There are around 5,000 NHM employees in Delhi.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him "not to bring any ordinance to overturn Supreme Court's order on NEET" otherwise people would think that the Centre is backing those dealing in black money.
A few hours later the Union Cabinet passed an ordinance postponing the all-India National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for one year.
The Supreme Court in its recent order had said the admission for undergraduate medical and dental courses across the country would be only on the basis of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) from this academic session itself.
Marred by malpractices
In his letter to the PM, Kejriwal said: "We all know that the admission in private medical colleges is marred by malpractices. It involves a huge amount of money. Instead of talented students, those having money get seats.
"To put an end to these malpractices, the Supreme Court has passed an order that admission to medical colleges should be done through a common entrance test, NEET," he added.
Kejriwal said that students across the country want the NEET to be implemented.
Encouraging black money
So it's a humble request not to bring any ordinance to postpone the NEET otherwise people will get a message that the central government is helping those indulging in black money, he added.
The Delhi CM said that many leaders of political parties and some MPs have their own private medical colleges.
"While some private colleges are good, many others have become hubs of black money generation. So these leaders and political parties do not want NEET to be implemented," he added.
The Delhi government is one of the few governments which wants the NEET to be implemented from the current academic year.
Del govt favors NEET. Central govt, in collusion wid most state Govts, planning to kill NEET to favor mafia, Kejriwal had tweeted a few days ago.
"Kudos to @SatyendarJain who singlehandedly opposed efforts to kill NEET in Central n state Health Ministers meet today," said another tweet of the Chief Minister.
Last week, the apex court had turned down a batch of appeals by states seeking to conduct their own medical admission tests.
Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain claimed that medical education is allegedly a Rs 20,000 crore industry, which involves capitation fee and widespread corruption.
Delhi government is planning to involve proposed mohalla sabhas for identifying spots that need new street lights and also to report malfunctioning electricity poles.
After getting reports from the mohalla sabhas about dark spots on streets, governments Delhi Urban Development Authority will provide the funds, said government sources.
The mohalla sabhas, or resident groups, are Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwals brainchild for involving the community in governance. A total of 2,969 mohalla sabhas are planned.
Sources said a few legislators complained to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia about poor maintenance of street lights in their constituencies. At present, the civic agency pays a fixed amount per pole to the private power distribution companies, apart from energy charges, for maintenance.
Aam Aadmi Party legislators have also expressed dissatisfaction over the slow pace of work by the power companies on installation of new street lights under the MLA fund.
Sisodia recently held a meeting with senior officials of the Revenue Department and decided to involve the proposed mohalla sabhas in the process of identifying locations for new street lights at dark spots.
The funds for the street lights would be provided to mohalla Sabhas through DUDA.
The addition of streetlight maintenance to the list of jobs that mohalla sabhas can perform is being seen as an attempt to help MLAs save time for other work that involves dealing with public, officials said.
As per an earlier decision, the mohalla sabhas are going to be involved in overseeing construction of roads, maintenance of parks and other community services.
Mohalla sabhas are a medium for the AAP government to crowd source development by empowering these resident groups that would represent around 4,000-5,000 residents each at the polling booth level.
As an experiment, Sisodia last year started a pilot project in 11 Assembly constituencies. Each sabha was given a limit of Rs 20 crore within which it could suggest local development work.
Looking to counter the problem of officials illegally occupying official accommodation after retirement, the Delhi government has decided to impose penalties on employees who overstay in the houses beyond the permissible two months.
The Public Works Department has now decided to levy damage charges for the period of stay beyond two months, said an official.
All retiring officers who are residing in government flat should apply for retention of house (post-retirement) well in advance, in any case, not later than two months of retirement (the period of retention on normal licence fees), said a note circulated by Public Works Department.
Sources said there have been several cases of retirement in which the allottees do not timely apply for retention of government flat.
Seek retention
In some cases the allottees stay beyond the date of retirement up to 8to 10 months and there after seek retention of government accommodation (ex post facto approval), said an official in the administration department.
Now, the government has decided that the request for retention of a government house would be rejected if it is not received within two months of retirement of the allottee.
The AAP government has been trying to bring in optimal transparency in the process of allotment of government houses to officials.
Apart from an on-line mechanism for maintaining the date of priority of all employees eligible for housing, the government has also been paying attention towards housing for disabled officials also.
Initial allotment of 3 percent of clear vacancies in Type-I to IV residence is done to persons with disability. In addition to this, 2 percent in all of the clear vacancies is done on medical grounds if the applicant employee is suffering from specified diseases.
The government accommodation for officials is controlled under the provisions of the Delhi governments Allotment of Government Residential (General Pool) Rules, 1977.
According to an official of the PWDs allotment wing, the process of receiving applications for government accommodation for disabled employees and those seeking allotment on medical grounds was started last month.
Manmohan Singh, a 54-year-old farmer of a nondescript village here, does not even know who Vijay Mallya is, but his banking facilities have been terminated for standing as "guarantor" for the liquor baron, who has defaulted on loan repayment and is facing money laundering charges.
Singh, a resident of Khajuria Naviram village under Bilsanda police station, was informed by Naand branch of Bank of Baroda two days ago that his two accounts were being frozen for standing as "guarantor" for Mallya.
Acting on instructions of BOB regional office, Mumbai, Manager Mange Lal froze Singh's accounts, one having a deposit of Rs 12,000 and the other Rs 4,000.
Singh says he does not even know Mallya or anything about his company. "Leave alone Mallya or Kingfisher, I have never travelled to Mumbai or even Lucknow," he said.
The farmer said he had taken a loan of Rs four lakh some two years ago for which he had submitted documents relating to his land with the bank.
Meanwhile, Lal said he has got fresh orders from the regional office and Singh's accounts are being restored with immediate effect.
Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines has been accused of defaulting on bank loans of over Rs 9,400 crore.
Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh today pitched for handing over power to the youth in the organisation, saying there is "no option" as the party is "facing challenges" in the backdrop of its drubbing in the recent Assembly polls.
Singh's remarks come in the backdrop of a renewed buzz in the Congress circles about Rahul Gandhi's sooner than later elevation as party president.
"Now, we have to hand over power to the youth and there is no option. When I spoke about major surgery, some people had objections. But the power should go in the hands of youth and this is a necessity from the party's point of view," Singh said.
He was speaking at a function organised to mark 25th death anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi. The programme started with Vande Mataram and chants of Bharat Mata ki Jai.
Singh said youth forms a major chunk of the population and with benefits from the reservations over the years many have been elevated to the middle class. He also emphasised on the need to understand the "aspirations" of youth and the middle class.
Asserting that the party was facing "challenges", he said there was a need to take on them.
Youths are believed to have played a major role in the victory of Narendra Modi in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. One of the criticism of Rahul Gandhi after the loss of the Congress in the general elections was that the party vice-president failed to enthuse the young voters.
Attacking the BJP, he said the it was wearing the "mask of nationalism", but its "real face" is like British policy of divide and rule.
"The BJP and Modi ji are trying to take credit these days, but the pillar of the modern India is Rajiv Gandhi.
"Those who never participated in the freedom struggle are trying to wedge a divide in the society and are misguiding the youth and the country. Our fight is not against any person, but against an ideology. The RSS ideology is to divide," Singh said.
He also accused the BJP of "usurping" the legacy of leaders like Vallabhbhai Patel, B R Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi and Subash Chandra Bose.
"They wear the mask of nationalism, but their real face is like the British policy of divide and rule. They make use of religion in politics," Singh said, alleging that currently the "seeds of hatred, rumours are being spread through social media".
He said that the Congress party is often accused of appeasing the minorities, but the party will work to protect the interests of 16 crore minority population if there is any injustice.
The Congress general secretary said he is a strong votary of conducting polls in the Youth Congress and noted that it is important to expand this wing of the party.
At a time when the Congress is believed to be grappling with fund crunch, Singh said if Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal can charge Rs 500 for a selfie, then every youth Congress worker can contribute Rs 250 to the party once a year.
Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse today dismissed as "baseless" an AAP leader's charges that calls were made from underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's residence in Karachi to his mobile phone, saying the particular phone number was not in use for the last one year.
"The phone (number), which the AAP spokesperson is referring to, is not in use for the last one year. During this period, no international call was made from or received on this phone," Khadse said.
"The telecom service provider has sent a letter clarifying the facts. There is a possibility that the number was cloned," Khadse, a senior member in the Devendra Fadnavis cabinet, said.
"I have asked the CM and Jalgaon SP to probe if any person is using this number. I have also asked the CM to initiate an in-depth inquiry into the Gajanan Patil bribery issue," Khadse said.
The allegations made by the AAP leader are "baseless", he said. AAP spokesperson Preeti Sharma Menon had yesterday met the Chief Minister and demanded Khadse's resignation in connection with a bribery case involving his 'PA'.
She had also raised the issue of call records of four landline numbers registered at the underworld don's mansion in Karachi and of Khadse's name allegedly figuring on the list.
The year-long blizzard of propaganda could not shrivel her prospects. Disturbing TV visuals of her ministers taking bribe, collapse of a Kolkata flyover killing over 20 people prior to the election had little impact on the results in West Bengal as Mamata Banerjee stormed back to power for a second consecutive term, leaving many political pundits baffled and fumbling for words to explain her unbelievably massive victory both in terms of seats and vote share.
How can one explain Mamatas triumph? Is the mandate a yes in favour of her governments development activities or a no to a hastily conjured alliance of two ideologically opposed partners, the Left and the Congress? The story contains both.
The no factor
Trouble was brewing within the Left-Congress alliance since its inception. Many CPM leaders, from the Polit Bureau to the district committees, were ideologically opposed to the idea of joining hands with the Congress. It is no longer a secret now that many Left voters chose NOTA (None Of The Above) instead of an alliance candidate. Similarly, a large number of Congress supporters refused to vote for Left candidates, they voted for the Trinamool instead. In short, neither the arithmetic nor the chemistry worked for the alliance.
The Left-Congress partnership emerged too late, barely two months before the polls, giving it too little time to bloom. Also, after repeated electoral debacles, first in the 2011 Assembly polls and then in the municipal and Lok Sabha elections, the powerful organisation of the Left, which won them so many elections in the past, collapsed completely. So, while Trinamool workers were busy campaigning in the villages, the Left leaders had little option but to use air-conditioned studios of news channels as their primary vehicles of campaign.
The silent voters, whose votes finally determine the outcome of every election, did not trust the alliance. Many believed the Left-Congress bonhomie would not last long even if the alliance came to power. As a result, the government would fall, requiring another round of elections. These silent voters chose stability and voted for the Trinamool.
The Muslim community influenced electoral outcome in at least 80 of the 294 seats by supporting the Trinamool. The Left could be credited for preventing communal riots, but they virtually did nothing for the Muslims during their 30-year rule. True, Mamata promised much and delivered little, but unlike the Left, she delivered something, felt the Muslims, particularly those in the rural areas.
Finally, the Left-Congress leaders expectations on the possible swing in the BJPs vote share in their favour went horribly wrong. True to their calculations, the BJPs vote share came down from 17% to 10%, but the swing entirely favoured the Trinamool.
The yes factor
Strange though it may sound, but many of the accusations against Mamata in fact helped her. The Trinamool was accused of running a syndicate raj in West Bengal. True, the syndicates fleece realtors, supply low-grade building materials at prices much higher than the market rates, but syndicate members, mostly men in their 20s and 30s, have no other source of livelihood.
There are at least 30,000 syndicate members in the Rajarhat-New Town area alone, and the Left-Congress alliances promise of action against syndicates if they came to power worried these young men and they worked body and soul to ensure a Trinamool victory. Syndicates exist in all urban areas in Bengal and all of them worked for the Trinamool. Similarly, the Oppositions charge that the government was wasting tax payers money to give donations to the local clubs alienated the club members, who doggedly worked to ensure Mamatas victory.
On the other hand, in spite of the financial constraints and the resulting shoe-string budget, Mamatas government successfully implemented a slew of development projects, particularly in the rural and semi-urban areas. In spite of repeated incidents of violence against women, Mamata managed to win them over by distributing cycles to girl students. Owning a cycle in a village is like possessing a Maruti car in a city. Interestingly, the idea of distributing cycles was floated by a chief secretary during the last leg of the Left Front rule, but the proposal was bluntly shot down by the then finance minister Asim Dasgupta.
Finally, distribution of rice at Rs 2 per kg came as Mamatas masterstroke. Better road connectivity, availability of water and medicines increased the Trinamools vote share. Though corruption was clearly visible, local Trinamool leaders were pardoned by the rural voters. Issues like the Saradha chit fund scam, Narada sting operation, flyover collapse and campus violence eroded the Trinamools vote share, but the erosion was confined to urban seats and every Narada-tainted minister won, albeit with a lower margin.
So, where does Mamata go from here? Insiders say Delhi is her next target. If the Third Front takes shape after the Uttar Pradesh elections, she hopes to play a major role at the Centre. Till then, she will concentrate on the next panchayat election in West Bengal to further consolidate her position.
(The writer is a senior journalist based in Kolkata)
Artisans from different parts of India are attending training
Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), a weed which grows extensively on the floodplains of the northeast is neglected for several reasons. It chokes wetlands and degrades water quality and is a problem to pisciculture.
However, a joint initiative of sustainable development in Assam has successfully converted this menace into a wonder-weed by the use of Thai technology--a step which has changed the face of rural Assam.
The North-East Development Finance Corporation Limited (NEDFI) and the North Eastern Council (NEC) under the Ministry of Department of North-eastern Region (DoNER) have successfully trained many rural artisans on the use of dried water hyacinth by a system of interlacing through which brilliant artefacts and accessories of great aesthetic appeal can be created.
Eye-catching sandals, lamp-shades, bags, pen-stands are being deftly crafted by these rural artisans. After rigorous capacity building for 2 years by training as many artisans as possible, NEDFI has taken this endeavour to the next level.
Almost 2,000 artisans have been trained so far and a few of them have even become rural entrepreneurs themselves, said Ashim Kumar Das, Assistant General Manager, NEDFI.
With the help of United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, they got Thai experts to train 31 rural artisans in March this year. Under their guidance these artisans learned new techniques to make the products more fashionable and durable, fit enough for international standards. The exceptional success of the water hyacinth project in rural Assam has encouraged the showcasing of these products across many places, including the India International Hand-woven fair at Chennai.
The initiative has attracted several artisans from different states like Punjab and Haryana. Recently a few interested artisans from Africa had come over to undergo training and we have received very good response from them, Das added.
Branded under the name of Aqua Weaves, products made out of water hyacinth had also been displayed at India Exposition Mart, Noida, in November last year. It is a great substitute to cane and bamboo. The fact that it regrows in 12 days, is a boon since raw materials would be never a problem, explained Jagat Hazarika, an artisan. Removing water hyacinth also serves to conserve water as hyacinth doubles loss through evaporation.
After 2 years of rigorous capacity building, NEDFI now has plans to seriously market water hyacinth products. We want entrepreneurs to explore export opportunities and for that we need to make sure that quality is not compromised, said Das.
Income improves
In 2010, the cumulative income of all artisans was in lakhs but now it is in crores. Das said that since it is an attempt to generate sustainable livelihood the entire profit goes to artisans.
In Assam, particularly there are cluster of villages in districts like Darren, Nazario, Dhumma and Goldarina, people have now created raw material banks for dried stems to use when needed. Artisan Rita Das who was extremely poor until 2008 is now an established entrepreneur with almost 100 rural artisans working under her. I even made a jacket out of dried water hyacinth, which I presented to (now former) chief minister Tarun Gogoi, artisan Rita Das happily recalled.
Prices of Aqua Weaves are decided by artisans themselves. We have taken this step to ensure a fair trade policy and encourage these artisans, Das said. A unique feature is that artisans have their own brand ambassadors endorsing their own creations.
In March 2011, NEDFI had set up a water hyacinth craft gallery-cum-demonstration centre where artisans got free training on quality, pricing and market demand. The demonstration centre enabled them to display and sell their products.
Initially artisans who were specialised in jute, cane and bamboo work were trained. However, later training was imparted to those who were willing to work hard and learn.
Gain in productivity
National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, had earlier collaborated with NEDFI to enhance the skill-set and design quality. This had largely helped gain productivity while minimising cost.
The product is now highly valued since it is eco-friendly and provides inclusive growth to the villages while empowering women since most beneficiaries are from fair sex. Now the focus is to aggressively market the water hyacinth products and within 6 months a catalogue and website would be in place.
I was surprised to see these products. I have seen water hyacinth from childhood and never knew that they can be used to make such beautiful products. I have taken a bag and door mats said Sangreal Banerjee, a tourist from Kolkata who was visiting the gallery in Grammatic. It has not only given financial stability to rural people but also helped many families who lived in insurgency-ravaged areas of the Northeast see a new lease of life.
NEDFI next endeavour would be to help artisans make more valuable products like furniture. For this we have initiated talks with Indonesia who are the world pioneers in using water hyacinth on a massive scale. While we would try for exports, we believe that India has got a huge market in itself, the NEDFI official said.
This is not the first attempt with water hyacinth in the country. Earlier the Kottapuram Integrated Development Society, Kerala, in association with the India-Canada Environmental Facility, had tried similar technique since the backwaters of Kerala have water hyacinth in abundance.
However, they could not turn this into a large-scale process. Many environmentalists claim that the saline water systems of Kerala hamper the growth and depth of weeds. Northeast climate-wise definitely has a better scope.
Ninety-nine years back when Mahatma Gandhi came to know about the plight of indigo workers in Champaran, he decided to take up the cause of the oppressed against the British. Flanked by freedom fighter Raj Kumar Shukla, he travelled from Kolkata to Patnaon April 10, 1917 and went to the residence of Dr Rajendra Prasad (who later became Indias first President). But Rajendra Babu was not present in his house. A prominent barrister Mazrul Haq received him and invited him to his house.
Four days later, Gandhiji proceeded from Patna to Champaran to solve the problems of about 10,000 farmers who were forced to grow indigo. It was Gandhijis first satyagrah against the British. One year later, on May 1, 1918, Champaran Agrarian Act was passed by the Britishers which relieved the farmers from the curse of indigo farming forced by the foreign rulers.
The Champaran satyagrah catapulted Gandhiji on national scene during the freedom struggle. The restis history.
The state government now plans to showcase Gandhijis visit to Champaran and other nearby places in a grand way in the form of year-long centenary celebrations which will start from 2017. Gandhiji cannot be confined to any particular political party as he belongs to all, said Chief Minister Nitish Kumar while chairing a meeting of leaders, academicians and scholars, convened to plan the centenary celebration of Champaran satyagrah.
It was decided at the meeting that the basic school, which was launched by Gandhiji during his visit to Champaran in 1917, would be revived.
Buildings of many of these schools are now in a dilapidated state. All the structures will be renovated and basic amenities built there. Villages where he spent time during the movement period will be developed. Signage and plaques having Gandhijis connection with these places would be installed at these villages and routes leading to these villages, Nitish said. He wants people to join hands for satyagrah celebrations irrespective of their political affiliation.
It was decided that a Gandhi memorial will be constructed in Champaran which will display the life and thoughts of Gandhiji and also display the objects used by him.
The focus should be on farmers as the satyagrah was launched especially for them. Their development and welfare will remain at the centre of all activities, said the Chief Minister.
Praising Gandhi Sangrahalaya where the Mahatma visited first in 1917, Education Minister Ashok Choudhary, who also attended the meet, said that Gandhi museum had always been a source of awareness for the new generation.
Champaran Satyagraha is a symbol of a powerful movement. Even in the present era, its a source of inspiration for others, he said while sanctioning Rs 25 lakh for the development of Gandhi museum.
Recalling the genesis of the Champaran movement, noted Gandhian and secretary of the Gandhi Sangrahalaya in Patna, Razi Ahmed said, In January 1915, Gandhiji returned to India from South Africa and landed at the Mumbai port.
Before leading the freedom struggle, he met his political guru Gopal Krishna Gokhale who suggested to Gandhiji that he should travel across the country to gauge the prevailing mood in India.
Gandhiji writes
In 1916, when Gandhiji visited Lucknow, many leaders from Bihar met him there and urged Gandhiji to launch a movement against Britishs atrocities on farmers engaged in indigo cultivation. It was then that Gandhiji decided to come to Bihar in April 1917. In fact, Gandhiji later wrote a letter to his confidante Mirabehn saying that it was Champaran which introduced me to India.
But apart from Champaran, it was Bihar Vidyapeeth which was closely associated with Gandhiji as it was Bapu who laid its foundation on February 6, 1921. This institution, which gave education in science and arts, besides imparting training in social works like weaving/stitching, was started as an initiative under civil disobedience movement to boycott British-run educational institutes. Later many engineering students too joined the institute after Maulana Mazharul Haq donated a piece of land near Sadaquat Ashram.
The centenary celebration will therefore kick-start from Gandhi Sangrahalaya (museum) followed by other functions at Muzaffarpur, Motihari, Bettiah and Bhitiharwa, said Ahmed. It was precisely at Bhitiharwa Ashram in Champaran from where Gandhiji started his satyagrah against forced indigo cultivation in 1917.
The Bihar State Tourism Development Corporation too will be preparing a Gandhi circuit as part of the centenary celebrations of Champaran Satyagrah. But the past experience of creating a Gandhi circuit has not been good as despite proposals and provisions of fund, tourists still remain unaware of places visited by Gandhiji.
In fact, in the 1970s, a marble plaque carrying details about Gandhijis visit and stay at the villages in Champaran was installed on the main Motihari-Raxaul road.
But it disappeared a few years ago, informed a Tourism department official.Similarly, not much has been done at Bhitiharwa Ashram where Gandhiji stayed during his Champaran visit. Only the pictures of Gandhiji and the other Champaran movement leaders have been put in a systematic manner in the almirahs. Earlier, they were on the Ashram walls, said Brajkishore Singh, secretary of the Gandhi Memorial Museum, Motihari.
The various departments will have to pull up their socks and work in tandem to make the Champaran satyagrah centenary celebration a success.
A complaint has been filed with the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) against former chief minister S M Krishna (in pic) for extending support to the illegal lottery business in Karnataka.
The complaint, filed by the president of Karnataka State Lottery Sellers/Agents Association, C Ramakrishna, stated that the government had introduced online lottery in 2001 and simultaneously allowed single-digit and double-digit lotteries of other states to operate in Karnataka.
More than 100 lotteries of Sikkim, Nagaland, Bhutan, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram and Goa were allowed to operate without any revenue for the state government, the complaint stated, adding that the then state government had turned a blind eye and encouraged the illegal trade and economic offence.
According to the complaint, Krishna had made a statement saying that the revenue generated through lotteries online as well as of other states would be utilised for the benefit of the mid-day meal scheme.
This statement by the then chief minister resulted in misrepresenting the people of the state and, on the other hand, allowed the illegal business to thrive. S M Krishna abused his position as the chief minister by making false statements and making people believe that allowing online lottery would fetch revenue for the state government and for social cause, the complaint stated.
It further said that when Tamil Nadu imposed a ban on lottery, all the lottery traders shifted to Karnataka to run their illegal business. The Karnataka government encouraged lottery kingpin Santiago Martin by extending leniency and favour.
CBI investigation
The Central Bureau Investigation (CBI) is probing into the lottery scam in the state. Acting on a report on the scam, the state government had handed over the case to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on May 7, 2015. The CID submitted an interim report on May 22, 2015, mentioning the involvement of certain senior police officers. A senior IPS officer was placed under suspension based on the CID report and the government ordered a CBI investigation on May 26, 2015. The government order for CBI investigation stated that the agency would probe the lottery scam prior to 2007, the year lotteries were banned in Karnataka.
Bengaluru Development Minister K J George on Saturday instructed government agencies to work in tandem and follow deadlines while executing civic projects.
Speaking at a review meeting with officials from Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike ( BBMP), Bangalore Development Authority ( BDA), Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board ( BWSSB) and other agencies, the minister said that projects should be completed on time. He warned of action against officials found responsible for causing delay in completing projects.
Mayor B N Manjunath Reddy, Karnataka Government Chief Secretary Arvind Jadhav, Additional Chief Secretary Mahendra Jain (Urban Development), BDA Commissioner T Sham Bhat and others attended the meeting.
Action plan sought
Followed by the meeting, Mayor inspected Sirsi Circle flyover on Mysuru Road. He directed engineers concerned to prepare an action plan for widening the flyover and building a link road connecting flyover with Victoria hospital, directly.
Speaking to reporters, the mayor said that ambulances from city and neighbouring states were being stuck in traffic on the flyover leading to delay in providing treatment to patients. Hence, there is a need to build a link road for the benefit of patients, he added.
The minister did not mention the nature of inquiry, but was quick to say it would not be a departmental probe.
Ramesh had said that Khader, department principal secretary Shalini Rajneesh, Commissioner P S Vastrad, NHM Mission Director Sowjanya and several senior officials were involved in the scam. His argument has been that the Health department has misused crores of rupees sanctioned by the Centre. The total funds released under NHRM is Rs 1,463 crore. In violation of rules, drugs have been purchased from blacklisted firms. As many as 15 unregistered pharma firms had been awarded the drug procurement contract, he said.
Ramesh said that medicines were purchased at much higher costs, resulting in embezzlement of funds to the tune of Rs 1,463 crore.
Minister Khader said he is ready to come out with a white paper on the utilisation of Rs 1,200 crore. Bengaluru Mayor Manjunath Reddy has also been asked to initiate a probe as the BBMPs hospitals are also covered under NHRM. Ramesh had charged that in Bengaluru alone, Rs 40 crore was illegally spent while procuring drugs and medical equipment.
Khader said if any unauthorised drug companies were identified, they would be immediately blacklisted.
The minister said that the drugs and medical equipment were procured after a thorough screening process by 2 committees headed by the departments director and commissioner. The contract was awarded to 81 licensedcompanies through the e-tender process, he said.
Khader, however, rubbished the charges made by Ramesh. As per the rates mentioned by Ramesh, the total value of drugs stands at Rs 453.81 crore. However only Rs 60.91 crore has been spent. Rameshs charges are vague and baseless. If he is not mentally sound, I can get him treated in Nimhans, he said.
On Saturday, it was the turn of another minister in the Siddaramaiah cabinet to order a probe into his departments functioning.On Friday, BJP former corporator N R Ramesh had charged that largescale irregularities had taken place in purchase of drugs under the National Health Mission, by the Health department.The next day, Health Minister U T Khader said he would order a probe into the reported irregularities. Addressing the media, the minister initially defended himself and his department officials. But later, to certain pertinent questions by the media, he had no reply.
The deceased has been identified as Ramesh, a native of Vellore, Tamil Nadu. Police said that on Friday around 10.30 pm, Ramesh, along with his relative Vijay Kumar, were coming from Sarjapur after distributing the invitations.
Kumar, who was riding the bike, lost control while riding over a speed breaker. Ramesh, who was riding pillion, lost balance and fell down.
He suffered grievous injuries and the passersby shifted him to a hospital. He succumbed to injuries early on Saturday.
A senior police officer said, The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) had asphalted the entire stretch around two months ago. But, reflectors have not been fixed on the speed breaker nor they have been painted. Several motorists fail to notice the speed breakers and this results in a fatal fall. An official from NHAI said that they will visit the spot.
In another incident, a 37-year-old pedestrian was knocked down by a cab near Kadiganahalli gate in Chikkajala.
According to the police, the deceased has been identified as Manikanta, a resident of Chikkajala. He was working for a private company in Whitefield.
Around 10.15 pm, Manikanta was returning home when the accident occurred. Manikanta was crossing the road near Kadiganahalli Gate, when a speeding Meru cab coming from the airport mowed him down. The passersby alerted the police and shifted Manikanta, who had suffered serious head injuries, to a nearby hospital.
He succumbed to injuries in the early hours of Saturday. The police seized the cab and arrested the driver Ramesh.
A 27-year-old mechanic, who had come to city from Vellore for distributing his wedding cards, was killed in a road accident on Saturday.
Former union minister Janardhana Poojary has said that Priyanka Gandhi should enter politics and be made AICC general secretary.
He said on Saturday there is truth in party leader Digvijaya Singhs call for fresh style of functioning in the Congress. Sonia Gandhi should continue as the president of the party. Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka should become AICC general secretaries. Priyanka should be projected as chief ministerial candidate for Uttar Pradesh in the forthcoming Assembly polls.
He said Minister Anjaneya has insulted educational institutions by his statement and should seek apology from the people of the state. On Health Minister U T Khader abusing the person who made charges against him, Poojary said Khader should have control over his tongue.
Decades ago, when mainstream and social media were not so all-pervasive as today, drug abuse was a fatal thought. Bombarded with TV ads that showed dramatic visuals of how drug addiction could devastate lives, the youth baulked, parents took note. Strangely, that drive ended long ago.
Today, as drug addiction spreads its evil tentacles in Bengalurus school and college campuses, as its well-oiled demand and supply network flourishes with ease, awareness has vanished. So has regulation. Is there hope for the City as it slips deeper into this abyss of despair?
Law enforcers say they are helpless. They just cannot penetrate the complex network of international suppliers, inter-state distributors, local peddlers and a clientele that cuts across barriers of class. Bengalurus transformation as a major hub in this nefarious nexus has clearly left them stumped.
Over the years, the citys explosive growth has fuelled inward migration of unprecedented levels. This influx has completely transformed the old culture.
The police, de-addiction professionals and reformed addicts assert that the drug network is now so pervasive that it often sparks crimes and social unrest.
Evolved drug network
The network within the city is extremely evolved. Supplies from outside reach multiple destinations, from where the required drugs in small quantities are distributed to the hotspots close to colleges, slums and transport hubs.
But, as a source well-informed about the network discloses, the spots keep changing to hoodwink the police. The drug sachets are labelled in myriad ways to mislead the law-enforcers. The customer-supplier engagement too is kept discreet.
Multiple middle agents, including street urchins are employed to complete the sales connection.
Many long-time addicts too have turned distributors as they see big money involved in the supply chain, explains the source.
Heres an estimation of the costs as furnished by the city police: A single gram of cocaine costs about Rs 2,000. A kilogram of ganja can be as expensive as Rs 20,000. Opium sells at about Rs. 30,000 a kg. Each gram of hashish/charras costs Rs 1,500. It is Rs 4,000 for a small LSD paper and MDMA sells at Rs 3,000 for every gram.
International origins
These drugs have international origins, from Pakistan to distant African countries. The drugs enter Indian territories through the five river belts in Punjab that share the border with Pakistan. Nepal is another key route where peddlers exploit the free movement of men and machinery.
Taking the aerial route, the peddlers from Nepal often make use of low frisking at airports such as Goa. Delhi and Mumbai too are their favoured transit points. Distant destinations deeper into India are reached by road and rail. Police say the peddlers prefer domestic flights thanks to improper frisking and checking.
The message is clear: Multiple routes have been perfected to get the drugs into Bengaluru. This supply route and a flourishing network of distributors and varied customer base have amplified the threat of Narco Terrorism to the city. This brand of terrorism is designed to push banned substances to adversely affect the physical and mental health of youngsters.
The supply route from African countries, Nigeria and Sudan in particular, to Bengaluru is problematic for the police. Heres why: A big population of overstaying African students. As a senior official explains, these foreigners come on student and medical visa, stay illegally and turn drug peddlers.
College hotspots
Drug sales and abuse have been found to be rampant in those colleges and localities with a high proportion of African students. But it has slowly spread to other colleges as well.
Institutions close to areas such as TC Palya, JC Road, Jayanagar, Koramangala, Dairy Circle on Hosur Road, Yelahanka, KS Layout, Mathikere, Kengeri and Nelamangala are in the drug target list, say the police.
To get a sense of how well spread the drug network is in Bengaluru, check the police cases booked over the recent years.
Fifty-five cases were registered for banned drug sales in 2013, which fell to 45 in 2014 before peaking at 69 cases in 2015. Till April this year, the police have taken up a total of 24 cases.
Low conviction rate
But these numbers could have been much higher. The police themselves admit that the conviction rate is also very low in drug abuse cases. In quite a few cases, the forensic reports are adverse since the presence of banned substances in the durgs seized would be less than the permissible limit.
Tricky area
Tests are not evolved enough to track the other substances that peddlers add to dilute the drugs and evade police action. Getting mahazar and public witnesses in drug abuse cases is another tricky area. But the big problem, as the men in khaki themselves admit in private, cases are seldom taken to their logical ends. This could be one reason why the drug network has turned so powerful in Bengaluru!
Can a man be prosecuted for indulging in unnatural sexual act with his wife without her consent? Yes, according to Section 377 of the IPC.
But the amendment brought in penal laws in 2013 after the infamous gang rape case of a Delhi girl in a moving bus here has created an anachronistic situation. The protection granted to husbands under Section 375 (Rape) of IPC has been wrongfully extended to him for unnatural act as well, making it inconsistent with Section 377 (unnatural sexual act) of the IPC. The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013, by inserting clause (a) to (d) in Section 375 IPC, has broadened the definition of rape.
But the provision has retained the exception to the section stating sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under 15 years of age, is not rape. With this exception, a question arises whether husband should be prosecuted for his said unnatural sexual act on the complaint of his wife or not.
Such a legal issue arose before a Delhi court recently when a man, facing rape and unnatural sex charge by his wife, contended that in view of the amendment, he could not be tried for the offence.
Advocate Amit Kumar, representing the husband, contended before Additional Sessions Judge Lokesh Kumar Sharma that the man could not be prosecuted. He said since the issue has not been decided yet by the superior courts, the matter must be referred to the Delhi High Court.
The amendment in Section 375 IPC was made in haste and the same is incorrect. Amendment in Section 375 has made Section 377 inconsistent and uncertain for married couples, he argued.
The judge agreed to examine the issue and called for all trial court records on July 22. The court also issued notice to the Delhi government, seeking its response. The counsel said, In the present circumstances, prosecution of husbands on the similar complaint of wives deserves to be stayed across the country until the said issue is settled by superior courts. The present issue has wider social ramification.
India on Saturday lauded the gesture of Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, who apologised on behalf of the Government of Canada for turning away 376 migrants from India 102 years ago.
We welcome and deeply appreciate the gesture of Prime Minister of Canada to deliver a formal apology in the House of Commons for the Komagata Maru incident, Vikas Swarup, official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said.
The Indian Diaspora in Canada has contributed immensely to Canadas growth and development and acts as a bond between our two nations, said Swarup.
A steamship called Komagata Maru sailed from Hong Kong and arrived in Vancouver on May 23, 1914, carrying 376 migrants from India.
After a long journey from India, the majority of the passengers, who were of Sikh, Muslim, and Hindu origin, were denied entry into Canada due to the laws in existence at the time. When the steamship returned to Kolkata in September, the British police opened fire on the passengers.
President Pranab Mukherjees visit to China next week will see New Delhi and Beijing expanding cooperation in education sector with greater collaboration between varsities of the two nations.
The vice-chancellors, presidents and directors of universities and other educational institutions of India and China will meet for a round-table in Beijing during Presidents visit. The round-table will end with signing of some Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) for cooperation between institutions in India and China.
The directors of Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, Indian Institute of Technology in Bhubaneswar and Indian Institute of Management in Kolkata are among the members of the official delegation accompanying the President during his visit to China.
The vice-chancellors of the central universities of Gujarat and Jammu, directors of Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology at Nagpur in Maharashtra and National Institute of Technology at Agartala in Tripura will also join the delegation.
Authorities on Saturday imposed curfew-like restrictions in parts of Srinagar to foil proposed rally by moderate Hurriyat Conference at Eidgah to commemorate death anniversaries of two separatist leaders.
Elsewhere in Kashmir Valley, the strike called by moderate Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq affected normal life with most of the places registering partial to complete strike.
An official spokesman said restrictions under Section 144 CrPC were imposed as a precautionary measure in seven police station areas of the city. Hundreds of policemen and paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel wearing battle gear were seen patrolling the lanes and by-lanes of old city.
A day after VS Achuthanandan was formally eased out of CPMs power equations in Kerala, the veteran said he would continue his vigil to protect the interests of the people.
During a brief media interaction here on Saturday, the 92-year-old dodged questions on his age and related difficulties which, according to the CPM General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, made the party choose Pinarayi Vijayan as the next chief minister.
Im not here to discuss that, Achuthanandan said. The veteran leader said he would continue to live in Thiruvananthapuram; he also refused to respond when asked what would his message to the people who wanted to see him as the chief minister be. He dismissed talks about him accepting any other post offered as compensation saying People who know me know its not true.
Yechury had on Friday announced Pinarayi as the CPM legislature party leader, formally clearing decks for the latter as the chief minister. Yechury drew a parallel between Achuthanandan, who led the Lefts election campaign and Fidel Castro, effectively defining his new role as an adviser-inspirer away from action.
Before taking questions from the media, Achuthanandan read from a printed statement, thanking voters for the overwhelming victory of the Left Democratic Front (LDF). He also gave a glimpse of his prospective role as he reminded leaders of the next government to deliver promises made to the people. Its the LDF governments responsibility to expose culprits involved in the mass-scale corruption during the previous governments tenure and the killing of (Dalit law graduate) Jisha, he said.
Achuthanandan said he would continue to get involved in peoples issues and remain as a guard for the people.
Expressing interest in manufacturing in India, Apple CEO Tim Cook on Saturday discussed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi the immense potential of application development in the country.
Issues regarding cybersecurity and data encryption also came up for discussion with the prime minister encouraging Cook to help the global community cope with the challenges of cybercrime.
Cook shared Apple Incs future plans for India. He spoke of the possibilities of manufacturing and retailing in India. He appreciated the breadth of young talent in India and said the youth have significant skills which Apple would like to tap, an official statement from the PMO said.
The head of US-based Apple Inc, which makes iPhones and Mac computers, has already announced during this trip the setting up of an app development centre in Bengaluru and one for Maps in Hyderabad.
During his meeting with Modi, Cook highlighted the immense potential for app development in the country. He also launched an updated version of the prime ministers mobile app at the meeting.
During the nearly one-hour meeting, the PM explained his Digital India initiative, and identified three key objectives of Digital India as e-education, health and increasing farmers incomes. The PM also sought support from Apple in furthering these objectives, said the statement.
The PM, appreciating Cook, said that in India, seeing is believing and added that these experiences would definitely steer Cooks business decisions.
Cook also appreciated the prime ministers initiatives on ease of doing business and renewable energy, the statement said. Cupertino-based Apple runs on 93% renewable energy and Cook spoke of plans to move Apple's entire supply chain to renewable energy.
Though the company has been pushing the Indian government to allow it to import refurbished phones in the country, the government is not keen on the proposal.
The government wants Apple to set up its plant in India. Every aspect has been discussed with the company and it is now up to them to decide, a senior official told Deccan Herald.
In an interview with a news channel on Friday, Cook said Apple plans to import second-hand phones and refurbish them at a facility in India. However, it is not clear whether Cook raised this issue with the PM or not.
The AVCP Executive Board and Staff offer condolences to the immediate and extended family of Bea Kristovich.
Bea was born in Napaimute and lived most of her life in Bethel. She was a leader for the Y-K Delta and devoted a lot of time to education and working to protect Native rights. Bea was a trailblazer. As the first woman to hold the position of AVCP Second Traditional Chief, she demonstrated to everyone what is possible for our Tribes and Tribal organizations. She always thought about the regions people first and tried to help everyone.
After being elected as Second Traditional Chief during AVCPs 51st annual convention, Bea said, Women were always left outthe men were the leaders. But over the years, theres been more people, or more ladies, more women getting more active, going into active roles as leaders from the villages. And theyre still silent. But I think being the first one, it will show these other younger generations that they can do it.
We will miss her and her strong leadership.
From a 2017 Letter of Appreciation to Bea from AVCPs Executive Board:
You accepted the role as second traditional chief in addition to the many other responsibilities you had family, civic duties, and other volunteer opportunities. Thank you for attending board meetings for arriving early and staying late. Thank you for encouraging the executive board for always helping us brainstorm solutions. Thank you for challenging the executive board for pushing us to strive for the best outcome.
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) The federal government and Colorado have made little progress in remedying damages from the 2015 release of millions of gallons of wastewater from a southern Colorado mine, New Mexicos top prosecutor charged in a pair of scathing letters sent to officials this week.
The wastewater, which contained arsenic, copper, lead, mercury and other dangerous pollutants, rushed down a Colorado mountainside and eventually fouled rivers in three western states, setting off a major response by government agencies and private groups.
Attorney General Hector Balderas wrote to the head of the U.S Environmental Protection Agency and Colorado officials as New Mexicos threat to sue the agency, the neighboring state and two mining companies remains on the table.
Balderas said New Mexico reached out to discuss independent monitoring and remedial measures in the wake of the spill, but hes concerned about the lack of progress.
New Mexicos requests have been disregarded and minimized, he said.
I am disappointed by the continued unwillingness to respond to the New Mexico Environment Departments numerous attempts to resolve this matter diplomatically and outside of court, Balderas said. The safe and peaceful livelihood of our citizens should override any political or scientific indifferences that we face.
The EPA didnt comment directly on the letter, but a spokeswoman told The Associated Press that the agency takes responsibility for the cleanup of the spill.
The agency announced last month that it would reimburse states, tribes and local governments about $1 million for their costs after an EPA-led crew triggered the release of 3 million gallons of wastewater from the inactive Gold King Mine while doing preliminary cleanup work.
Most of the money is for the cost of responding to the spill, but requests for another $570,000 in expenses from the immediate aftermath are still being considered.
During the spill, water utilities briefly shut down their intake valves and farmers stopped drawing from the rivers as the bright yellow plume moved downstream.
The EPA said the water quality quickly returned to pre-spill levels, but some continue to warn about heavy metals collecting in the sediment and being stirred up each time rain or snowmelt results in runoff.
In his letters, Balderas said New Mexicos agricultural landscape was severely damaged by what he described as a catastrophe. He said meeting the states repeated and reasonable demands for compensation and long-term monitoring would be a step toward justice.
Following this tragic incident, our greatest concern should be ensuring that the people and the lands we live on are free from hazardous materials, he wrote.
According to the EPA, $2 million has been allocated to support the states and tribes monitoring plans. Another $628,000 will help to fund a real-time alert system that will monitor water quality.
Sampling locations also have been set up in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and on Southern Ute, Ute Mountain Ute and Navajo tribal lands as part of the EPAs monitoring program.
New Mexico has developed its own monitoring plan and the city of Farmington, which taps the Animas River for drinking water, has installed sensors to detect contamination.
Coloradans and visitors can enjoy Minnesota without leaving the 303 area code starting Saturday at the Five Points Jazz Festival, when the Instagram-inspired MNstagram Booths roll into Colorado.
Each booth has a different immersive Minnesota travel experience inside, where visitors can take a picture for their social media with the hashtag #ONLYinMN.
There is no charge.
One booth depicts the famous First Avenue nightclub in Minneapolis, which the late performer Prince featured in his 1984 movie Purple Rain. Another shows northern Minnesotas Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
Sunday, the booths will be at the Metro Denver Farmers Market in the Highlands Ranch Town Center.
On May 27, it will be at Coors Field for the Colorado Rockies v. San Francisco Giants game.
On May 28, Memorial Day, it will be at the Denver Day of Rock in downtown Denver.
On May 30, it moves to the Bolder Boulder 10K.
Colorado is considered a top advertising market for Explore Minnesota, the states tourism agency.
This year Explore Minnesota won a Webby Award for Best Use of Photography for its 2015 building murals in Denver and Chicago.
Low-cost airfare makes Minnesota an affordable getaway for Coloradans, said Alyssa Ebel, spokeswoman for Explore Minnesota. We hope the MNstagram Booths and our popular hashtag, #OnlyinMN, which has 300,000-plus uses will inspire trips to our state this summer.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174, jbunch@denverpost.com or @joeybunch
This is part 1.
Update: 2016: When we first wrote this article we'd only been living in Ecuador for 5 months...wow that's almost just a long vacation. Read on to find out any changes and updates in Cuenca in the last 4.5 years.
Weve written on this subject before, but we have to say it again because we think it is important. Are you prepared for a move to South America?
This blog post is not going to be talking just about moving to Cuenca but South America and Latin America in general. Why? Because all Latin America culture is going to be pretty much the same way of life, such as how they do things, how they live, how they prevent crime and how they will behave toward the foreigner.
Manana Land is Latin America
Any Latin American culture is going to be manana land. Being here for five months now, were getting used to this way of life and really try and go with the flow of thingswe put it behind us rather than complain about it. It can be a little frustrating when youre waiting for paper work to get processed but its not about your paperwork but about when they get around to processing it.
You cant get angry about it because its not in your control to controlyoure in their country now and that means getting used to the way they do things. If this kind of laid back lifestyle annoys you then no Latin America country is going to be compatible with your personality. If you dont want to put up with manana land, probably the best countries to live are North America or Europe but there goes your great cost of living.
UPDATE 2016 - We've lived in Cuenca going on five years and have actually adapted to life here. We've written our fair share about, processing paperwork, getting a document notarized and trying to find certain items for a project because at the time it was worth writing about so we could let folks know how things are done here...but it's starting to just seem normal now...and that is because we now know what to expect. And that is the key to adapting; do not expect anything and then you won't be disappointed. - We've lived in Cuenca going on five years and have actually adapted to life here. We've written our fair share about, processing paperwork,andbecause at the time it was worth writing about so we could let folks know how things are done here...but it's starting to just seem normal now...and that is because we now know what to expect. And that is
Motto: Do not expect things to be a certain way and accept things the way they are.
Internet
When waiting to get your Internet connected, you may wait up to two to four weeks. They may say that theyll be out on a certain day, but never show up, or never call to say they cant make it. HINT: Although if you know someone here who can go down to the Internet Company with you it may get them to get on the ball and connect your Internet sooner.
UPDATE 2016 - about Internet Service: the service is much, much better now; they even come out within a few days vs. sometimes not at all.
Deliveries
If youre waiting to have anything delivered like furniture or appliances, you may not get it delivered on your time schedule. If youre having furniture custom built, here again, you may wait for weeks or months for them to finish your furniture. These things are all just a part of the Latin American way of life. No worries though, manana does come, even if its later than sooner.
Update 2016 - we have found that if we call them and keep reminding them about it they will respond quicker.
Wild Goose Chase
This has happened to us on several occasions. When we have asked for directions to something we are looking for, even if they dont know where it is, they will act like they know where it is and give you directions somewhere, but not to where you are going. This can be exhausting if youre walking on foot, which both times we were walking downtown and led to not the place we were actually looking for. But at least it is good for your health. Be prepared to be taken on a wild goose chase at least once while living here.
Update 2016 - this has not changed 2016 (LOL)
Taxi cab drivers usually know where most hotels, hostels, major stores restaurants, and government offices are, but some dont. Just the other day an expat friend of ours told us that when she was taking a taxi, the driver all of a sudden stopped the cab and told her to get out of the cab. She thought it was really strange and later she was told that when the taxi driver does not know where a certain place or address is, hell just tell you to get out of the cab, rather than admit he doesnt know where the address is.
Crime Prevention in Latin America
The other day while we were out shopping, we briefly met up with some retired gringos visiting Cuenca. We talked with him and his wife for a brief period of time and they seemed like nice people, until we asked him how they liked Cuenca. He adamantly shot back with I hate it!
We were mildly shocked at such a response. Usually when you ask someone how they like it here they might have a few complaints or they absolutely love it here. But in this case it was an adamant, I hate it!
We asked him why he hates it here and he said the security. At first we all just looked at him with blank stares, not really understanding what he meant. And then he blurted it all out. He said he hated the tall walls around the homes and the tall locked gates, and the security guards all over town with sawed off machine guns, and broken glass for some of the roofs, and always having to be on guard to protect your things, and lada, lada, lada. At the end of his rant about how he hates the feeling of having to always be fearful living here, we noticed he was pretty agitated.
We cordially said our goodbyes and went back to our shopping. After listening to this mans frustrations we realized that he and his wife did NOT do their homework. It was a good thing they were just here on a 3-month visit (typical tourist visa) because he clearly was not a happy camper.
This type of visitor or mover to Ecuador, who does not do their homework is probably quite typical. What the problem is they simply read a few articles from a popular travel magazine about how wonderful moving to a certain hyped up city abroad is and they jump on the band wagon and come here with blinders on. Basically this retired couple was going through the process of culture shock because they didnt know what to expect when coming herethey werent prepared!
Anyone who does their due diligent research will know that any Latin American culture is going to be like this as far as crime prevention goes, whether it's Mexico, Spain, Argentina, Panama, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, or Costa Rica. They all have bars, gates, tall walls surrounding your home, broken glass roofs, and security guards with scary looking loaded weapons, at least in certain neighborhoods.
Update 2016 - we hardly ever see the sawed off shot guns anymore; it's now regular rifles and pistol. I think they were just too intimidating for some tourists and they are doing away with them. And most of the tourist police only carry batons and maybe tasers.
Funny thing is there is more violent crime in many smaller cities in the states than there is violent crime in Cuenca! You have to be aware and security conscious anywhere you live, just about. Here you do have to worry about petty theft; there you have to worry about petty theft and violent crime. Not to say that violent crime does not happen here, because it does, it just means there is less of it.
Crime prevention techniques seem and look dramatic here because it is dramatic, but it is what works for Latin America. For an example, the house on the street that does not have a tall gate, tall walls, and a whole house alarm system will get broken into while you are away and your valuables will get taken. This is because that house is a targetits the most vulnerable house on the block!
Update 2016 - this still holds true today. Cuenca will never do away with tall cement walls and gated bars around the homes, at least not in this generation. It's just the way it is and we must accept it for what it is.
No, you wont see guards with sawed off shotguns in North America, and no, there are no bars on the windows or tall walls surrounding homes, or cut-glassed roofs in North America but this does not mean that an armed robber will not break into your home while you are sleeping and rob you blind, or if youre a woman alone, rape and beat you. This kind of violent crime happens in the states everywhere. Both rape and armed robbery is almost nonexistent in Cuenca.
The point is, if you dont like dramatic security prevention, or if it makes you feel more fearful, then perhaps Latin America is not for you. You may be better off finding a nice small secluded town in Kansas somewhere where you wont have to worry about personal security, maybe a sleepy little town like Hutchinson, Kansas.
Do Your Research
Its funny how people watch a few retire abroad videos and read a few articles from the retirement press that hype up Ecuador and then think that Cuenca or some other city in Ecuador is thee place to live. It may very well be thee place to live for certain types of people, but are you that type of people? Maybe you are and maybe you arent.
Only you can figure out if you and your family are that type of people, and you do that by being diligent in how you decide on the best place to live is.
The most important thing to remember when trying to figure out the best place to live is: understand that the best place to live will never be the best place to live if you are not a happy and content person to begin with.
On the opposite end of that spectrum: if you are content person within yourself then you can pretty much bet that youll be happy living just about anywhere.
Update 2016 - when you first get here there will be mild shockers, whether you adapt or not remains to be seen but we think it starts with moving abroad for the right reasons and not for the wrong reasons. Wrong reasons for m0ving abroad might be because the new place you are moving to is cheap and you think you'll have a better life...maybe you will and maybe you won't. But moving abroad because you heard it is cheap might not be a reason to keep you here.
If you liked this article, you might like to read these articles too.
Update 2016 - Hello folks, we have another updated article for you. With this article EVERYTHING we said in it four years ago, July 2012) still stands true today, the only really new update is we think more expats are renting and checking out Cuenca with a fine tooth comb FIRST before investing in real estate. There's been far too many scams going on abroad with gringos rushing in without doing their due diligence research first.
Ecuador has been referred to as one of the lower priced retirement havens on Earth. So then, why does it appear that a lot of people that are moving here are overqualified? Judging by what were seeing theres a lot of people coming to Cuenca Ecuador that could easily be going to a lot of other places, why go to the least expensive retirement haven on the sales pitch of the retirement press? Well duh, its cheaper, I hear you saying. Or is it? Please follow me on this.
Update 2016 - Is property cheaper in Ecuador? Well, that depends a lot on where you want to buy and what condition the property is in. Lots and land is out of this world for a developing country!! Cuenca's market is higher than many towns its same size in the U.S. Why do people keep saying the real estate prices are cheaper in Ecuador for? All a person has to do is some online research to see it isn't true.
The very first real estate book I ever read (are we talking about real estate again?) was William Nickersons How I turned $1000 into a million in three years and if memory serves me right, it came out in the fifties. That was a long time ago, so forgive me if I dont remember correctly, but it seems that back then in the book he spoke of income to real estate ratios, and I think it was 25%. That is, if someone was making $25,000 a year they could theoretically afford a $100,000 house. Those figures changed through the decades and the amount of indebtedness that North American families took responsibility for.
Eventually people took on more and more debt and the amount of house they could buy was only three times their incomes. Research shows that the historical average median affordability number for the U.S. has been 2.7 times income as an average. i.e. multiply household yearly income by 2.7 and thats the maximum affordability ratio under safe lending practices. This is just a median figure, so Donald Trump types dont fit into this equation. This was before all the recent banking scandals of course, where people that really couldnt afford the housing were put into brand new super expensive housing with practically no money of their own. The affordability ratios were quite skewed to the upside during that period.
Relating this information to Cuenca Ecuador, my son was on a Cuenca Ecuador newspaper yesterday, looking through the jobs section. He tells me there are job offers for Ecuadorians with accounting degrees starting at $1000 a month. Some of the higher paying jobs were for $1500 a month. This is obviously the higher end of the pay scales for the well educated folks.
If you wanted to assume two higher income earners, lets say $2500 a month family income, I dont think you could call that median income here in Ecuador. My guess is it would be the higher end of the earning population. A local told us that a doctors salary here in Cuenca is $2000 a month. So lets just play along with this for a moment: $2500 a month is $30,000 a year multiplied by 2.7 = $81,000.
Thats the maximum that the higher earning families would be spending on housing according to this example. Remember folks, thats the maximum affordability for the higher income earning households here in Cuenca. This article does not even begin to address the median income earning households, although we have written some such figures previously on this blog. Too, professionals such as doctors and accountants arent going to live in mediocre housing, so I have to believe that you can get a pretty nice house for that.
A couple of weeks ago I got an email from a reader asking for contacts to see houses up to $150,000. He had never set foot in Cuenca Ecuador before. I hope youre starting to see a picture here.
Can anyone spell, BUBBLE? It looks like this, G-R-I-N-G-O. This article is in no way intended to offend or degrade. It is meant to inform, and if just a few gringos avoid getting stuck into real estate they cant later sell to a greater fool, then Ive done my job. Oh, I realize that some that get in early enough may make some money off their real estate when they sell. But thats speculation. Are you a seasoned speculator? Or are you just gambling?
Remember when we were in Salinas and we were asking the (gringo) real estate agent to show us the beachfront penthouse condo? Well guess what, she was also touting (because we did not ask to see) a few other used condos owned by gringos that needed to get out of their high priced real estate. You gotta love these gringos.
Update 2016 - When we first visited Salinas in the winter 2012, property prices in Salinas on the Malecon were already somewhat high and now Salinas real estate market "on the Malecon" has almost doubled in price, and...the area the gringos love called Chipipe Beach has also skyrocketed. For an example (wish I would have made a screenshot): in Chipipe you could buy in 2012 a four bedroom three bath house (not on the beach) maybe one to three rows back for $75K. Today that same house is $180K. Chipipe rents and real estate prices are almost comparable to Panama's now. Take a look at this small 1 bedroom, 1 bath 109M Casita, asking 160,000 dollars. Whose buying this stuff?
Two to three rows back from the Salinas Malecon in 2012 you could get a fixer upper house for $25K (seriously) and today (not sure if it is fixed up or not but,) these VERY SAME houses go for $65 to $120K. These homes are nothing special, older homes with out-dated 70's green tiles on the bathroom walls, maybe 140M, three or four bedroom, no green space but a small lot, maybe what they call a "garage", which is actually some tiles. It would need updated and remodeled.
If we were going to buy property in Ecuador, we would first, get to "know the market" and when we found something we liked. we'd make a reasonable offer that coincides with market prices before all the foreigners came. This takes several days of research both online and on the ground but is well worth it in the long run.
Buy property because you want to live in the home and in the area, not because you want to turn around and make a profit...there is already too much of that going on. The markets in well-worn expat areas of Ecuador are already over-priced and that means you might have a hard time getting out.
Oller: How John Frank found peace after life of football punishment
Former Ohio State tight end John Frank finds joy and meaning in Orthodox Judaism, which ironically would have precluded him from playing football.
Amid a weak outlook across the globe, India's experience of strong economic growth, a comfortable price situation, low current account deficit and adherence to the fiscal recovery path have projected it as an outpost of opportunity for global investors, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Friday. Calling for an expansion of the World Bank's role in social sector areas like education and health, agricultural development, small-scale industry and handlooms, Jaitley said, ''There is need for the World Bank to have a larger capital base, more activity and more projects.'' He was speaking at a meeting with a group of rxecutive directors of the World Bank Group in Delhi. The discussions held ranged from the performance of ongoing World Bank projects in India to various policy issues related to the World Bank Group financing. Jaitley pointed out that the Indian economy is estimated to register 7.6 per cent growth in 2015-16, notwithstanding contraction of global exports and two consecutive years of shortfall in monsoon. ''India has become an outpost of opportunity for global investors,'' he said. Jaitley reiterated that the focus of the government is on areas like non-conventional power generation, a nation-wide sanitation campaign, electrification of villages, major and minor irrigation projects and rural housing for all, among others. He also highlighted the various macroeconomic variables favourable to India - a good monsoon forecast, political reform process and the current low oil prices. All these, he said, were the key drivers of economic growth. Emphasising the macro-economic benefit that India is experiencing due to the fall in oil prices, he stated that the fall in global oil prices during the time when India was recovering from the impact of the global financial crisis, has greatly benefitted India in the recovery process. Talking about the role of the World Bank Group in world development, Jaitley stressed on the need for the Bank to have a larger capital base, more activity and more projects. He also pointed out that '' role of World Bank Group could be expanded in areas like social sector - education and health, agricultural development, small-scale industry and handlooms etc.'' A group of nine World Bank Executive Directors is currently on a six day official visit to India as part of their South Asian Region visit, during which they will also visit Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. While in India, their visit will cover meetings with senior government officials and evaluating the implementation of World Bank projects in Agra, Bhubaneswar and Jaipur.
World Bank launches $500-mn emergency fund to combat pandemics
The World Bank Group today launched the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF), an innovative, fast-disbursing global financing mechanism designed to protect the world against deadly pandemics, which will create the first-ever insurance market for pandemic risk. Japan, which holds the G7 Presidency, committed the first $50 million in funding toward the new initiative.
''Pandemics pose some of the biggest threats in the world to people's lives and to economies, and for the first time we will have a system that can move funding and teams of experts to the sites of outbreaks before they spin out of control,'' said Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group. ''This facility addresses a long, collective failure in dealing with pandemics. The Ebola crisis in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone taught all of us that we must be much more vigilant to outbreaks and respond immediately to save lives and also to protect economic growth.''
The announcement came a week ahead of the May 26-27 Summit of Group of Seven Leaders in Ise-Shima, Japan. G7 leaders had urged the World Bank Group to develop the initiative during their May 2015 summit in Schloss-Elmau, Germany.
''Japan is proud to support the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility, which prevents pandemics from undermining important development achievements",'' said deputy prime minister and minister of finance of Japan Taro Aso.
''Innovative financing for crisis responses by the PEF, together with financing for preparedness and prevention in peacetime including through IDA, are important to mitigate human and social losses and to help quickly recover in the event of a crisis. It is cost-effective and should be emphasized at all stages of economic development.''
The new facility will accelerate both global and national responses to future outbreaks with pandemic potential. It was built and designed in collaboration with the World Health Organization and the private sector, introducing a new level of rigor into both the financing and the response.
''Recent years have seen a dramatic resurgence of the threat from emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases,'' said Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization. ''WHO fully supports the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility as a critical contribution to global health security and a crucial line of defence against high-threat pathogens.''
The fund includes an insurance window, which combines funding from the reinsurance markets with the proceeds of World Bank-issued pandemic (catastrophe, or Cat) bonds, as well as a complementary cash window. This will be the first time World Bank Cat Bonds have been used to combat infectious diseases. In the event of an outbreak, the PEF will release funds quickly to countries and qualified international responding agencies.
The insurance window will provide coverage up to $500 million for an initial period of three years for outbreaks of infectious diseases most likely to cause major epidemics, including new Orthomyxoviruses (eg new influenza pandemic virus A, B and C), Coronaviridae (eg SARS, MERS), Filoviridae (eg Ebola, Marburg) and other zoonotic diseases (eg Crimean Congo, Rift Valley, Lassa fever).
Parametric triggers designed with publicly available data will determine when the money would be released, based on the size, severity and spread of the outbreak.
The complementary cash window will provide more flexible funding to address a larger set of emerging pathogens, which may not yet meet the activation criteria for the insurance window.
All 77 countries eligible for financing from the International Development Association, the World Bank Group's fund for the poorest countries, will be eligible to receive coverage from the PEF. The PEF is expected to be operational later this year.
Recent economic analysis suggests that the annual global cost of moderately severe to severe pandemics is roughly $570 billion, or 0.7 per cent of global GDP. A very severe pandemic like the 1918 Spanish flu could cost as much as 5 per cent of global GDP, or nearly $4 trillion.
During the past two years alone, pandemic threats have included the devastating Ebola crisis in West Africa - which crippled the economies of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and cost them an estimated $2.8 billion in GDP losses ($600 million in Guinea, $300 million in Liberia and $1.9 billion in Sierra Leone); the MERS outbreak, which took a toll on the South Korean economy; and the Zika virus that is spreading in the Americas and putting thousands of unborn children at risk.
Four global expert panels that were convened over the past year in the wake of the Ebola crisis concluded that the world must urgently step up its capacity for a swift response to outbreaks before they become more deadly and costly pandemics.
The PEF will do a number of important things to prevent another Ebola crisis:
It will insure the world's poorest countries against the threat of a pandemic.
In the event of a severe infectious disease outbreak, it will release funds quickly to the countries and/or to international responders, to accelerate the response - saving lives and reducing human suffering.
By mobilising an earlier, faster, better planned and coordinated response, it will reduce the costs to countries and their people for response and recovery.
It will promote greater global and national investments in preparing for future outbreaks and strengthening national health systems.
It will combine public and private resources to advance global health security, and create a new insurance market for managing pandemic risk.
The World Bank Group estimates that if the fund had existed in mid-2014 as the Ebola outbreak was spreading rapidly in West Africa, it could have mobilised an initial $100 million as early as July to severely limit the spread and severity of the epidemic.
Instead, money at that scale did not begin to flow until three months later.
During that three month period, the number of Ebola cases increased tenfold. The Ebola epidemic has claimed more than 11,300 lives and cost at least $10 billion to date. International assistance has totaled more than $7 billion for Ebola response and recovery.
Apple's Cook meets Airtel's Sunil Mittal, Hike's Kavin
Apple Inc chief executive Tim Cook met Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of India's largest telecoms operator Bharti Airtel, and discussed matters like 4G roll out in the country and growth in the Indian telecom space.
Cook, who is on his maiden visit to India, has already met Vodafone India chief executive Sunil Sood in Mumbai.
Other top leaders from Bharti Airtel including chief executive of India and South Asia Gopal Vittal were also present in the meeting that lasted nearly a hour.
According to PTI, Hike Messenger founder and chief executive Kavin Bharti Mittal was also present and he made a presentation to the head of the Cupertino-based company about the growth seen by the instant messaging app.
Hike competes with Facebook-owned WhatsApp, and others like Line and Viber.
The discussions revolved around forging alliances to help the US-based firm expand its retail presence in the country. ''It was a great meeting. Airtel and Apple go a long way back. Given the lead of Airtel in 4G, this relationship is going to grow stronger,'' PTI cited sources as saying.
Besides, he has also met leaders from India Inc including ICICI Bank's Chanda Kochhar, Tata Group chairman Cyrus Mistry and Tata Consultancy Services chief executive N Chandrasekaran. He also had a chance meeting with Mukesh Ambani's younger son Anant when he visited Siddhivinayak temple earlier this week.
Cook has said he believes it is ''exactly the right time'' to be in India as telecoms firms roll out 4G high speed internet services. Cook has said earlier that 4G is essential to experience the full features of the iPhone.
Apple, which is seeing declining sales elsewhere in the world, is betting big on India for growth as sales here saw an impressive 56 per cent growth in January-March.
Apple had entered the Indian market in 2008 in partnership with Bharti Airtel. In the following years, the US-based firm has expanded partnerships with players like Vodafone and distribution firms like Ingram Micro and Redington.
In the US, iPhones are often carrier-locked to make them more affordable. However, under Indian rules that is not possible.
Analysts have attributed high cost of Apples devices to be a major deterrent to sales of iPhones, which compete with Android-based smartphones.
Apple is also pushing for introducing refurbished phones in the country that may help in making its smartphones more affordable. Cook, who is to meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi today, is expected to take up the issue.
(Also see: Apple is in India for next 1,000 years: Tim Cook)
Charlie Daniels considers himself blessed.
I enjoy what I do, he said. I thank God that I can make a living doing what I love entertaining people.
The Charlie Daniels Band will play the Toadlick Music Festival on Saturday, June 4. Daniels is no stranger to the Circle City, having played here several times over the past 40 years.
We look forward to it, Daniels said. Weve been to Dothan many, many times. I feel at home with the folks there.
Daniels said the Toadlick show will include his hits as well as a few new or less well-known songs.
Well play Devil Went Down To Georgia and Long-Haired Country Boy, he said. Thats what people come to see us for, but we add new things and change it up.
Daniels will release a new album, Nighthawk, later this year. He said the new album will consist of songs about cowboys that hes collected over the years.
Some of them have been recorded, but theyre not widely known, he said.
Daniels said the acoustic album is a tribute to working cowboys.
A voracious reader, Daniels reads three to four books at a time on his iPad. He said Westerns are among his favorite fiction works.
I think Ive read everything Louis LAmour ever wrote, he said.
Daniels said technology has had a huge impact on the music industry, particularly recording.
The technological advances in the recording studio have been astronomical, he said. There are so many changes that have simplified the process and made it cleaner.
Daniels doesnt listen to as much music as you think he would. He said that of the current generation of country artists, his favorites are the Zac Brown Band and Chris Stapleton. Daniels said that when he does listen to music, he doesnt just stick to country.
I dont put restrictions on what I listen to. If I want to listen to a Beethoven record, I listen to a Beethoven record, he said. If I want to listen to Bill Monroe, I listen to Bill Monroe.
Daniels said much has changed about the music industry during his career, but one of the most welcome changes has been in travel. Daniels said the nations highway system and travel infrastructure make working as a touring musician much easier than it was when he started.
It makes a real difference when you travel 100,000 miles a year, he said.
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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.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission on Monday announced a joint investigation into the issue of mobile device security updates.
The FTC issued an order requiring eight mobile device manufacturers Apple, BlackBerry, Google, HTC America, LG Electronics USA, Microsoft, Motorola Mobility and Samsung Electronics America to provide information about how they issue security updates to address mobile device vulnerabilities.
The information they must provide includes the following:
What factors they consider when deciding whether to patch a vulnerability;
Detailed data on the mobile devices theyve offered for sale since August 2013;
The vulnerabilities that have affected those devices; and
Whether and when they patched the vulnerabilities.
FTC members voted unanimously to issue the order under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act.
Its part of the commissions ongoing efforts to understand the security of consumers mobile devices, which included a workshop in 2013 and a follow-up public comment period in 2014.
Carrier Focus
On Monday, Jon Wilkins, the FCCs Wireless Telecommunications Bureau chief, wrote to wireless carriers asking about their processes for releasing security updates.
His letter is divided into four sections: general questions, questions about the development and release of security updates, consumer-specific questions, and questions specific to the Stagefright Android bug.
The letter was sent to AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Sprint and TracFone, FCC spokesperson Neil Grace said.
The letters were sent yesterday, so I cant confirm that weve received responses, he told TechNewsWorld.
Reason for Concern
Americas shift to mobile devices has been speeding up. Meanwhile, vulnerabilities associated with mobile operating systems, including Stagefright which may affect almost 1 billion Android devices worldwide are increasing, the FCC said.
NorthBit earlier this year detailed anew version of Stagefright, named Metaphor, which affects 30 percent of all Android devices.
Delays in patching vulnerabilities could leave consumers unprotected for long periods, the FCC asserted. OS providers, original equipment manufacturers and mobile service providers have addressed vulnerabilities as they arise, but there are significant delays in delivering patches to devices, and older devices might never get patched.
Features First
Carriers may delay updates because they first want to test them for reliability and compatibility with their own software and apps.
The carriers are saying that maintaining a base of unique software features is more important than the consumers safety and security, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.
This shouldnt be an either/or problem, but since they make it that, safety and security should come first, he told TechNewsWorld.
Nearly 28 million Android devices with medical apps are likely to house high-risk malware,Skycure has found.
Complicating the issue, 26 percent of Android devices worldwide run Android 4.3, released in 2013, or earlier, according toStatista.
Neither OEMs nor OS providers want to update older devices or versions of the OS, partly because of the cost and partly because older devices dont have the muscle to run new versions of Android.
However, OS suppliers and OEMs want the patches to be applied quickly, Enderle pointed out, and that could lead to a massive reduction in control by the carriers.
Regulatory Oversight
Governments first focus is on their citizens, and right now those citizens are badly exposed as a result of [carriers] ill-conceived practices, he said.
That said, for the FCC to assert regulatory oversight in this area so everybody has to file plans for rolling updates is going to slow things down, noted Mike Jude, program manager, Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.
The vendors will probably take them to court, he told TechNewsWorld, because regulatory oversight will increase costs, slow down maintenance of devices, force vendors to support archaic devices, and make the cost of updating unmaintainable.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week announced that the company would investigate allegations that its Trending Topics feature had an anticonservative bias.
We have found no evidence that this report is true, he said, referring to a news report earlier this month that kicked off the storm. If we find anything against our principles, you have my commitment that we will take additional steps to address it.
The company stands for giving everyone a voice, Zuckerberg said. We are one global community where anyone can share anything from a loving photo of a mother and her baby to intellectual analysis of political events.
It is conducting a full investigation to ensure our teams upheld the integrity of Trending Topics, he asserted, adding that he would hold discussions with leading conservatives and people from across the political spectrum on the allegations.
Accusations of Bias
Gizmodo spoke to five former curators of Trending Topics, who selected trending news from a list topics provided by Facebooks algorithm and picked which news sites each selected topic linked to.
The curators reportedly were told to select articles from a list of preferred media outlets. They regularly would avoid certain sites, such as The Blaze and Breitbart, although they were not explicitly instructed to do so.
They could deactivate or blacklist trending topics, according to the report.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, wrote to Zuckerberg, demanding that Facebook answer these serious allegations and hold those responsible to account if there has been political bias in the dissemination of trending news.
Doesnt every person, company and news agency have a bias? asked Jim McGregor, a principal analyst at Tirias Research. Hell, yes.
Editors must make choices on what news to cover, and that goes for anyone covering the news, he told TechNewsWorld. Unfortunately that leads to coverage according to personal biases, the agencys biases and the push for clicks. So, is Facebook guilty of anything that other press agencies arent guilty of? Probably not.
No Voice for Everyone
Facebook previously has pledged to remove anti-immigrant posts from its pages in Germany.
Further, Zed Books Facebook page had been removed following a series of posts on books by Ece Temelkuran, a Turkish journalist critical of her countrys government, it said.
Touchy Subject
Censoring Web posts and Facebooks is a delicate topic, McGregor said. What should and should not be considered free speech, whats appropriate, and whether governments should get a say in content on the Internet are all touchy subjects subject to local and regional ethical standards.
Even if Facebook absolutely was unbiased, folks who disagree with something on, or left off, of Facebook would conclude its biased, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.
Arguing that Facebook is a business and therefore cant afford to antagonize governments of various countries, or, in the case of Germany, is working for the greater good by suppressing hate speech wont do them any real good because the folks they likely need to convince will have made up their minds and the core goal is to manipulate Facebook, he told TechNewsWorld.
All About Engagement
I dont think Facebook will lose advertising dollars over this, said Zhaowen Wu, an analyst at Strategy Analytics.
Facebook cares about engagement, and biases aside, they will continue to drive their internal metrics towards greater engagement numbers, she told TechNewsWorld.
The company could effectively lose half their audience if one side or the other came to believe [it] was actively biased, and it might be sanctioned or blocked in a number of countries, Enderle noted. It also could be hurt financially if the brands that advertise feel Facebooks problems will damage their image and weve seen that boycotts can have a huge impact on advertisers.
Its best option, he said, is to get credible conservative influencers to back up their claims and hope the left doesnt suddenly start screaming bias as well.
Google on Thursday filed an appeal with Frances supreme administrative court over an order from a privacy regulator requiring it to scrub certain search results around the world under a law called the right to be forgotten.
The March order from the CNIL requires Google and other search engines to delist the information of Europeans that shows up in searches for their name, even if the link points to truthful information and lawfully published websites referencing newspaper articles or government websites, according to Google.
The company complied by delisting search information on sites available from the country of origin of person who makes the request, as well as other EU country domains, it said.
The order to delist that information from all of Googles global search capabilities is a bridge too far, general counsel Kent Walker said in an op-ed in Le Monde.
Race to the Bottom
As a matter of both law and principle, we disagree with this demand, Walker said. We comply with the laws of the countries in which we operate. But if French law applies globally, how long will it be until other countries perhaps less open and democratic start demanding that their laws regulating information likewise have global reach?
Enforcing such a law could lead to a global race to the bottom that potentially would block from French citizens information that is perfectly legal in France, he said.
Googles concern is not just hypothetical; it has resisted similar demands from other countries and has in some cases led to the blocking of its services, Walker noted.
Global Information Police
Such a requirement would place Google in an untenable position, according to theElectronic Frontier Foundation.
CNILs specific demand that search engines modify their results universally to comply with a uniquely French administrative decision would set an extremely damaging precedent, said Danny OBrien, international director of the EFF.
If every country demanded the same, it would transform what you see on the Worldwide Web into the sorry remains, after every countrys censorship policies had been subtracted, he told the E-Commerce Times.
It feels like Google has it about right: The EU can police and regulate itself, but not the rest of the globe, said John Carroll, mass communications professor atBoston University.
That said, there seems to be a discrepancy in the number of removals that have occurred over the past two years. Google says it has reviewed almost 1.5 million requests, with 40 percent resulting in the removal of a search result. Other data suggests that the denial rate is closer to 75 percent, he told the E-Commerce Times.
Regardless, the EU might more profitably address its criteria for removal: that search results appear to be inadequate or irrelevant. That gives Google an awful lot of wiggle room. Maybe before trying to widen the geographic scope of RTBF, the EU should attempt to narrow its criteria, Carroll added.
Spanish Origin
The order in March followed a 2014ruling by the European Court of Justice in a case involving Google and Google Spain against the national data protection agency of Spain.
In 2010, a Spanish citizen, Mario Costeja Gonzlez, filed a complaint with the agency against a large newspaper in Catalonia alleging that a search of his name resulted in a 1978 real estate auction to recover social security debts allegedly owed by him, according to the 2014 ruling.
The Spanish agency initially ruled against him, arguing that the newspaper had published the information lawfully, but the complaint was upheld with regard to Google. Google and Google Spain went to the National High Court of Spain to fight the order requiring Google to scrub the information.
The company decided in 2014 to scrub a blog post by TV journalist Robert Peston regarding the case of Merrill Lynch chief Stan ONeal, who was pushed out of the company after it took massive losses on reckless investments a year before the 2008 economic collapse.
The experience with the implementation of Google v. Spain is that the vast majority of requests were made by private people concerning private matters, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of theElectronic Privacy Information Center.
And Googles unwillingness to delist globally, he told the E-Commerce Times, is both illogical as a matter of harm and inconsistent with its treatment of similar delinking requests for copyright violations.
Google last week announced that it would minimize use of Adobes Flash Player in its Chrome Web browser by the end of the year by turning off its default status.
When Chrome encounters a Web page, it will report the presence of Flash Player only if a user has indicated that the domain should execute Flash or if the site is in one of the top 10 domains using Flash, said Anthony LaForge, technical program manager for Google Chrome.
When a Web surfer using Chrome encounters a site offering HTML5, the change in Googles browser will make that the primary experience, he said.
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, LaForge said.
While Flash historically has been critical for rich media on the Web, today in many cases HTML5 provides a more integrated media experience with faster load times and lower power consumption, he added. This change reflects the maturity of HTML5 and its ability to deliver an excellent user experience.
The Whitelist Hedge
This is part of a 10-year effort by the industry to get rid of Flash, said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.
This is the next step in that process as people move to HTML5 and H.265 video, he told TechNewsWorld.
After the proposed change, if youre not a top 10 website and you use Flash, youre going to have trouble with people who visit you and are running Chrome, Moorhead noted.
Googles change in Chrome creates a whitelist of 10 domains where Flash will be turned on by default. They are YouTube.com, Facebook.com, Yahoo.com, VK.com, Live.com, Yandex.ru, OK.ru, Twitch.tv, Amazon.com and Mail.ru. However, Google intends to get rid of even that whitelist after a year.
The companys support of a whitelist may be an indication of just how tough its going to be to purge Flash from the Web. Getting rid of Flash is going to be an onerous task due to its pervasive influence on the Internet, said Rahul Kashyap, chief security architect withBromium.
Already Google is resorting to poking holes in their strategy by whitelisting popular websites to minimize user impact, he told TechNewsWorld. This is going to be a long and slow process, and Googles timeline is definitely aggressive.
Dead by 2018
Googles move could give competing browsers a helping hand. Potentially, theres an opportunity for people to move to other browsers if theyre not happy with Googles move, Moorhead said.
Nevertheless, I dont see why Flash would be in existence in 2018, unless you didnt care about people coming to your website and watching your videos, he added.
Even Adobe is resigned to Flashs phase-out. Googles initiative is part of an industry-wide transition to open Web standards, said Adobe spokesperson Russell Brady.
At Adobe we are working closely with Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others to facilitate the adoption of these standards, including 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, he told TechNewsWorld. Looking ahead, we encourage content creators to build with new Web standards.
Security Woes
Among the advantages of the standards supplanting Flash is better security.
The industry is moving to new technologies, which provides higher security, said Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research.
Googles move is more forgiving than the way others have treated Flash, he told TechNewsWorld. The technology still will be supported in Chrome, although it will have to be turned on manually for many sites.
While this may be a bit of discomfort to some users, all users are better off using the latest software to minimize security threats, McGregor said.
Eye to Eye on Flash
Vulnerabilities can appear in almost any type of software, but Flash has become a popular target of hackers. According to Symantecs latest Internet Security Threat Report, four of the five most exploited zero-day vulnerabilities in 2015 were found in Adobe Flash.
Once discovered, the zero days are quickly added to cybercriminal toolkits and exploited, noted Kevin Haley, director of security response at Symantec.
At that point, he told TechNewsWorld, millions will be attacked and hundreds of thousands infected if a patch is not available, or if people have not moved quickly enough to apply the patch.
In 2010, Steve Jobs defended Apples decision not to support Flash on the iPhone. Flash was created during the PC era for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low-power devices, touch interfaces and open Web standards all areas where Flash falls short.
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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...
Postal warning after stamp prices rise
People on the Isle of Man are being urged to check they're using the correct stamps on their post.
The Isle of Man Post Office says some residents are sending items without considering the recent price rises - a local stamp went up to 45 pence in April.
Anything with incorrect postage will be either returned to the sender or the recipient will be required to make up the difference and pay an administration fee.
Nameless air ambulance tribute to 'finally' have names engraved
A 'nameless' plaque at Noble's Hospital which marks the loss of an air ambulance will be changed to include the details of those who died.
16 years ago five people were killed when the flight they were travelling on from the Isle of Man to Liverpool crashed into the River Mersey.
Afterwards a plaque was placed at the hospital - it read 'This courtyard is dedicated to the loss of the Air Ambulance on June 14th 2000'.
The children of Lynne and Stephen Charlton, who died in the crash, have been campaigning for years for some kind of tribute - branding it "disgraceful" that their parents' names weren't included.
This week, with the help of MLC David Cretney, the Health and Social Care Minister has confirmed the plaque will now be rectified to have the names included.
Taking to Facebook Mr Cretney said he hoped it would "bring some comfort to the families involved in this sad matter".
In an effort to understand the trends of farmer suicides, this article uses data from the National Crime Records Bureau to estimate the suicide mortality rate of farmers and non-farmers for India and its states. The methodology used corrects for an error present in previous studies and alters some commonly held views about the level and trend of farmer suicides in India.
Between 1995 and 2014, more than 3,00,000 farmerscultivators and agricultural labourershave committed suicide in India. This is roughly equivalent to a staggering figure of one farmer suicide every 30 minutes. The phenomenon of suicide by farmers is especially worrisome for India because the majority of the workforce is dependent on agriculture for its livelihood. According to data from the latest census in 2011, about 55% of Indian workers were employed in agriculture, either as cultivators or as agricultural labourers. Quantifying Farmer Suicides
Barcelona, Spain: Obesity is on the rise throughout the world, and in some developed countries two-third of the adult population is either overweight or obese. This brings with it an increased risk of serious conditions such as heart disease, stroke, cancer and osteoarthritis. Many of these conditions do not appear to affect the parts of the body where the excess fat accumulates, but rather to involve body systems that are remote from the fat accumulation. Now an international group of scientists has taken an important step towards understanding the links between obesity and the related, yet physically distant, diseases it causes, the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics will hear today.
Ms Taru Tukiainen, D.Sc., a postdoctoral researcher working at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), Helsinki, Finland and colleagues from the UK and US, set out to study the relationship between body mass index (BMI), a common-used way of measuring obesity, and gene expression in 44 different tissue types, including some that are rarely accessible in large sample sizes, for example the brain and internal organs. "Most tissue sampling is invasive, but we were able to use the GTEx* dataset of tissues from autopsy donors, and therefore sample a far wider range than is usually possible," Ms Tukiainen explains. "This is the first time that such changes in human tissue function in response to alterations in BMI have been explored among so many body systems simultaneously."
The researchers found simultaneous changes in response to obesity in almost all the tissues studied. "These results show that obesity really is a systemic condition, and particularly a condition of systemic inflammation. Interestingly, though, the changes in tissue function appeared to be only partially shared between different types of tissues; some tissues clearly act in pairs with one half of the pair compensating for - or enhancing - the dysfunction of the other. For instance, adipose tissue and adrenal glands, which are both organs secreting hormones essential to metabolism, often react to changes in BMI in completely opposite ways, including a decrease in metabolic activity in the former and an increase in the latter," Ms Tukiainen will say.
Although lifestyle changes are the most effective way to combat obesity, they can be hard work and difficult to maintain. Therefore the biological processes identified by the researchers may help the treatment of obesity by identifying potential drug targets, and particularly tissue-specific targets, they say. The results may also help to distinguish groups of individual who are at higher risk of developing complications, and lead toward personalised care.
"Our research highlights the burden of overweight and obesity on the digestive system. Although this is unsurprising, given the role of digestive system tissues in food processing, we found alarming links between BMI-related changes in different parts of the digestive tract and genes implicated in some diseases, for example Crohn's disease.
"An association between two variables does not necessarily imply there is a causal link and, from the gene expression results alone, we cannot tell which is driving which. Do changes in BMI or changes in gene expression come first? We can, however, address the potential causes by using genetic variants known to be associated with BMI in combination with our data on gene expression," says Ms Tukiainen.
Large-scale genome-wide association studies have already identified nearly 100 genetic variants that influence BMI. Analyses by the group that interpret this information further have shown that many of these gene expression changes, particularly in adipose tissue, appear to be caused by increased BMI.
"I believe that our work adds to the weight of evidence, and provides hypotheses for other researchers to follow up in the hope of being able to translate the results into ways of preventing and treating the very serious complications of obesity," Ms Tukiainen will conclude.
###
*GTEx is a dataset consisting of thousands of tissue samples in which the RNA from each sample has been sequenced to measure gene expression. Because it is not a dataset collected specifically for obesity research, the donors are representative of the population as a whole, and the obesity epidemic is clearly reflected in that only 31% of GTEx donors are or normal weight; the remainder are either overweight or obese.
Abstract no: C08.1 - Multi-tissue transcriptome analysis reveals disease-relevant and causal links between obesity and gene expression
GTEx is funded by the US National Institutes of Health. Ms Tukiainen is funded by the Academy of Finland.
University of California, Berkeley, scientists are releasing a Japanese version of an Android app that crowdsources ground-shaking information from smartphones to detect quakes and eventually warn users of impending jolts from nearby quakes.
The app, called MyShake, will be publicly available on Sunday, May 22 (Tokyo time), through the Google Play Store, which can be accessed via the MyShake website. It runs in the background and draws little power, so that a phone's onboard accelerometers can record local shaking any time of the day or night. For now, the app only collects information from the accelerometers, analyzes it and, if it fits the vibrational profile of a quake, relays it and the phone's GPS coordinates to the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory in California for analysis.
Since it was first released in English on Feb. 12, 2016, more than 170,000 people have downloaded the app from around the world, and on any given day 11,000 phones provide data to the system. In these three months, the network has recorded earthquakes in Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, New Zeland, Taiwan, Japan and across North America, including induced earthquakes in Oklahoma. The system has recorded earthquakes as small as magnitude 2.5 and as large as the April 16, 2016, magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Ecuador.
Once enough people are using the app and the bugs are worked out, UC Berkeley seismologists plan to use the data to warn people miles from ground zero that shaking is rumbling their way.
"We think MyShake can make earthquake early warning faster and more accurate in areas that have a traditional seismic network, such as Japan, and can provide life-saving early warning in countries that have no seismic network," said Richard Allen, the leader of the app project, director of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory and a professor and chair of UC Berkeley's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
Allen will give an invited talk about the MyShake app and an early-warning system called ShakeAlert for the West Coast of the United States on Sunday morning, May 22, the opening day of the annual meeting of the Japan Geoscience Union. The meeting, held jointly with the American Geophysical Union, takes place at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba, outside of Tokyo.
"In my opinion, this is cutting-edge research that will transform seismology," said UC Berkeley graduate student Qingkai Kong, who developed the algorithm at the heart of the app. "The stations we have for traditional seismology are not that dense, especially in some regions around the world, but using smartphones with low-cost sensors will give us a really good, dense network in the future."
Spanish and Chinese versions of the app are planned for the future, as is MyShake for the iPhone.
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Shopmatic, a homegrown e-commerce SaaS (Software as a Service) company, has announced a strategic partnership with Aramex, a global provider of comprehensive logistics and transportation solutions. The partnership will allow online merchants to deliver their products efficiently and securely, thereby improving the entire e-commerce experience for business owners.
This collaboration between Shopmatic and Aramex serves to boost Shopmatics capabilities as a reliable and comprehensive e-commerce solution provider for anyone who wishes to sell online.
Anurag Avula, CEO and Co-Founder, Shopmatic Group said, There is enormous potential for online shopping spending in Singapore, which is projected to grow from $4.8 billion in 2015 to $6.9 billion by 2018. Shopmatic wants to enable its users to take advantage of this growth by simplifying the online selling experience. We recognize that managing the last-mile delivery is one of the biggest challenges for Homepreneurs and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and we want to help them solve this problem.
He added, We feel that the partnership with Aramex is a natural fit because both companies share many of the same values, including a shared passion for excellence and a customer-centric mindset. We are confident that our collaboration will enhance our one-stop-shop value proposition, managing the entire ecosystem, enabling anyone to sell online.
Othman Aljeda, CEO, Aramex in Asia said, We are excited to partner with Shopmatic to enable local entrepreneurs, particularly SMEs and Homepreneurs, to sell their products internationally. Aramex offers a wide range of customized e-commerce solutions. We are committed to expanding our e-commerce offerings and geographical footprint to meet the increasing demand for global online shopping delivery solutions and to support e-tailers to grow their business.
Aramex e-commerce solutions will come as part of all custom-built Shopmatic platforms, which is now available in India, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Read more news about (marketing news, latest marketing news,internet marketing, marketing India, digital marketing India, media marketing India, advertising news)
I did but it's out of date, this is where we're at now (hopefully final). Note, this reflects the removal of the additional savings statements as per your last reply:
- Priority receipt
- Printed waybill for return of documents
- Additional envelope for return of documents
- Stamped biometrics appointment form
- Printout of online submission of VAF4A form
- Completed Appendix 2 form
- Proof of meeting the financial requirement (category D)
- Letter confirming the gift of 65,000, which is not expected to be returned
- Posted original one page statement from original savings account holding 65,000, showing balance of previous few months and the transfer to donors current account
- Posted original 9 page statement from donors current account, showing 65,000 arriving and being transferred out to sponsors current account
- Posted original statement 5 page from sponsors current account, showing arrival of 65,000 and subsequent transfer out to savings account
- Posted original one page statement from sponsors savings account showing 65,000 balance since account was opened until day of application, which will have been 6 months. )Only shows transactions that have taken place, ie. transfers in last year and interest accrued this year, but is clear that it covers last year until May this year
- Applicant documents
- One passport photo of the applicant (in Ziplock bag)
- Letter of introduction
- Current passport (in Ziplock bag)
- Sponsor documents
- Letter of support for applicant
- Copy of sponsors passport
- One passport photo of the sponsor (in Ziplock bag)
- Accommodation
- Copy of title deed from Land Registry
- Council tax bill issued in March 2015 for April 2016 onwards
- Water bill for Sept 15 to March 2016
- Proof of Relationship
- 16 photos of the applicant and sponsor together, some with family
- Communication logs, made up of Whatsapp texts, phone screenshots, emails and Facebook messages
- Travel itinerary detailing trips taken to see each other, including etickets for all but 3 trips, plus small selection of boarding cards
- Evidence of intention to marry
- Letter from local council confirming booking and payment receipt for applicant and sponsors wedding, booked for August
- Email correspondence with local council relating to making an appointment to give notice to marry
- Payment receipt from local council for booking appointment to give notice to marry
- Proposed travel itinerary suggesting the day the applicant would like to arrive in the UK, and explaining the applicants cousin is a flight attendant and can put the applicant on a standby flight, giving some flexibility about day of flying
I've also included copies of all paper documents mentioned above. Are all of these needed, including things like flight itineraries which I really don't need back?
Thanks again Joppa
hi I am new to Cyprus and look forward to meeting some fellow expats.
happy to get to know people from different countries , from the UK myself but speak German as well and have friends in many countries .
Hi, I work at the Dubai Airport and have been commuting from Al Hamra for the last year and a half.
The time it takes is totally dependant on the time of day and as I'm a shift worker I'm driving RAK-DXB at 04.30, 11.30 or 20.30 and DXB-RAK at 13.00, 22.00 or 06.00. I tend to drive fairly fast so it normally takes 45-55 mins from parked at home to parked at work and the trip to the Airport has only taken more than an hour three or four times but that's purely down to the times of day that I'm on the road and the Airport being to the North of Dubai. Best time I've done is 35 mins, worst time 3 1/2 hours but I'm not actually travelling into Dubai itself.
There are really only two choices of route, E311or E611 and as Steve has said the southbound traffic after 05.30 on the 311 or 6am on 611 is a complete nightmare. If I want to be somewhere in Dubai at 8am i'd leave Al Hamra before 6am and for the trip back to RAK I'd want to be past Sharjah by 15.30 otherwise it could be 90mins due to about 5km of crawling along in first gear stop start queues.
If I worked a normal office hours job there is no way I'd be commuting from RAK but for me the benefits of life up North are worth it and I love driving which helps.
fmartin_gila said: News this morning reports that the US Navy Strike Group has arrived in Subic & will also be visiting Manila shortly. Consists of Aircraft Carrier and some supporting Ships. They say it is just a routine visit but seems coincidental with the escalation about the South China Sea. Seems I heard something the other day about an interception of a US Observation Flight by a couple Chinese Fighters.
Fred Click to expand...
Morning Fred,Yep, you're right on all counts. Here's The Story. This sends a very-very strong message to China having an entire strike group in port here.Also, the International courts decision on the South China Sea is due within days now. With that, if found in favor of the Philippines, Scarborough Shoal is not only within the Philippines economic zone, it is within it's territorial waters. So even if the strike group is out of port, the Chinese know it's in the area and the mutual defense treaty between us and the Philippines will come into play and China "removed" from the shoal. ~ Related Story ~ {source: FOX News}Things could get very interesting very quickly.. My understanding is that there is a 2nd carrier strike group in the area somewhere as well and also Japanese and Australian war ships are close by.I hope it doesn't come to having to use force but if it does China will learn a lesson it will never forget.{news source: GMA7}
Exporting is not the first thing that pops into everyones mind when San Antonio is mentioned.
The healthiest cities economically export as much as possible because that constantly brings new money to cities instead of just circulating the money already there. This builds job bases with higher-paying wage scales.
San Antonio has looked at exporting strategies for decades and produced its latest one in 2013 with the help of the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution.
Since then, several tools have materialized to help area companies find foreign companies to sell to or to buy from or just how to prepare an export plan with effective marketing research and lists of opportunities.
The possibilities are as big as the world itself.
The Free Trade Alliance San Antonio is the latest to arm itself with three databases that, when used together, can help just about any company prepare an export strategy, along with identification of foreign buyers actively seeking products.
As the alliance recently reorganized the former Export Leaders program into its new Export Management Program with the help of JPMorgan Chase & Co., the organization acquired the databases known as Euromonitor International, Panjiva and Kompass.
Companies participating in this years program will use the databases extensively, but the alliance is offering access to the databases for free, along with assistance in customizing them.
Euromonitor International easily and quickly can help companies find foreign business-to-business buyers in the contexts of income levels in different countries and cities and the pace of population growth.
Brazil is a good place, for example, to sell medical devices, while Germany has 7 percent growth in purchasing aircraft parts, said Rogelio Garcia, alliance executive vice president, as he navigated the software in a demonstration. Companies can quickly eliminate certain countries while finding trends and opportunities that best favor their products.
Panjiva is different, specializing in helping exporting companies find buyers seeking supplies from companies throughout North, Central and South America, Garcia explained.
Panjiva reveals who is buying and selling. If a U.S. company is selling probiotic products, it can learn the three U.S. companies that supply Mexico and who they are selling to, Garcia said. Panjiva does this by using customs data and making the information searchable.
In some cases, U.S. companies can find (foreign) buyers who have never been approached by U.S. companies, he said. Exporting companies can see volumes of trade to make educated decisions about the best opportunities, he added. In some cases, Panjiva can give potential exporters the contact information and Web addresses for suppliers.
Kompass is the Yellow Pages of the world, Garcia said. More than 3 million companies in 60 nations are listed through the trade classification coding system of 57,000 products and services. Potential exporters can learn about their competitors with Kompass, Garcia said.
In addition, exporters can see where the buyers are and if there is a market. They are able to filter the data. This is specific, he said.
Separately or combined, the databases are much faster and more effective than just searching the Internet for information, said alliance CEO and President Jose Martinez.
Companies can save hundreds of thousands of dollars. They wont be going out there knocking on doors, Martinez said.
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.
Once an export strategy is formed, Martinez said, the alliance can bring in the U.S. Commercial Services Gold Key Matching Service, which can assist with appointments and translators, Martinez said.
The University of Texas at San Antonios International Trade Center has another valuable trade tool, which it started offering in 2014.
The center organizes U.S.-style Small Business Development Centers throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean based on the U.S. Small Business Administration model.
The idea arose to create an online trading system linking U.S. small- and medium-sized companies with their foreign counterparts receiving assistance in the UTSA-assisted SBDCs in Latin America and the Caribbean. The system, called SBDCGlobal, allows SBDC client companies to post what they need to buy and what they want to sell.
The UTSA trading system covers the United States, Mexico, El Salvador and Belize, but a planned expansion will include a total of 18 countries, said Carla Cardenas, project manager at the UTSA Institute for Economic Developments International Trade Center at the downtown campus.
San Antonio-area companies with fewer than 500 employees can participate in the UTSA trading system for free as long as they are registered clients of the universitys Small Business Development Center. They can receive advice and personal assistance with executing SBDCGlobal transactions, Cardenas said.
With tools and assistance available basically for free, San Antonio-area companies have no reason not to begin exporting or expanding what they already do internationally. Theres nothing to lose but profits.
dhendricks@express-news.net
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A new city fee levied on farmers market vendors has riled an otherwise placid group by threatening their notoriously thin profit margins and convinced at least one to fold her tent.
The fire inspection fee is part of a food booth ordinance passed in October. The ordinance requires vendors who cook or warm food over an open flame or with electrical appliances to pay a $35 fee (plus a $1.05 technology fee) per location, per day.
For vendors who work a single booth once a week and who prepay, this works out to a cut in their bottom line of $1,874.60 annually. A day-of-event fee is $45, or $2,340 annually.
For many vendors, thats a fee too far.
When you add up the cost to rent the space, pay for a Health Department permit and now this fire inspection fee, youre looking at more than $100 before you even open your doors, explained Stephen Paprocki, owner of Top Chefa a food and beverage consultancy and a chef who has cooked at many local restaurants. After all their costs, many vendors dont make much more than $50 a day.
For vendors who work several markets and operate larger booths, the fire inspection fee would be substantially higher.
Ming Qian, co-owner of Mings Things, an Asian street food booth at the Saturday and Sunday Pearl Farmers Market, calculated that the new fee will eat up more than half the $7,000 profit she said she made last year.
Qian notes that, by comparison, food trucks pay only a $300 annual fire permit fee, which allows them to operate at multiple locations and for unlimited hours.
I feel we are being treated very, very unfairly, she wrote in a message. Its very frustrating.
The new rules only concern vendors who prepare and serve ready-to-eat food. Those who sell fresh produce, fresh or frozen meat, or canned, jarred and other packaged food are unaffected. But many still fear the additional fee could endanger San Antonios burgeoning farmers market industry.
Vic Benavides, whose Wabi Sabi Kitchen specializes in Japanese/Latin fusion fare, said the new fee has convinced her to stop selling at the Trinity Market, which is open Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Its not like we make a lot of money there, she said. Its like everyone wants a piece of what we make.
The fees also are hampering the incubation of new businesses at the Peoples Nite Market at La Villita, say Jovanna Lopez and Valeria Hernandez, who launched the enterprise last summer. The market operates Tuesdays from 6 to 10 p.m.
Weve been discussing the $46 permit vendors pay each week to the city health department, Hernandez said. Now theyre being hit with another $35 from the fire department. One of our vendors sometimes cant make it because she cant afford the fee. Its definitely putting our market in danger.
Calls to the fire department for comment were referred to the office of City Councilman Roberto C. Trevino, whose district includes The Pearl. Several calls to his office were not returned.
While traditional farmers markets primarily sold produce grown by area farmers, in recent years, theyve morphed into a combination of community gathering place and outdoor food court, where shoppers can buy prepared goods such as honey, salsa and even chocolate and then enjoy a hot breakfast or lunch cooked over a propane-fired grill.
Efforts to either reduce or rescind the fee are already underway. Representatives from The Pearl market told the San Antonio Express-News that they have a meeting scheduled for next week to address the matter with Fire Chief Charles Hood.
We have a multitier relationship with the fire department because of all the development here, and they seem open to discussing the matter, said Elizabeth Fauerso, chief marketing officer at The Pearl. We hope to expedite the process of creating a fair and sustainable situation.
The Food Policy Council of San Antonio also has formed a farmers market working group to look into them, according to Paprocki, who also sits on the council board.
In addition to selling packaged pesto, hummus and salsa at his Humble House Foods booth at The Pearl market, Luis Morales also runs a small cafe where he whips up pancakes, french toast and his biggest seller, breakfast tostadas, for hungry patrons.
The new fee means Im going to have to sell six to eight more plates of food a day, he said.
The new requirements may force some market operators to rethink their own business model. Instead of charging vendors a per-space fee, Trinity Market manager/coordinator Hayley Sayrs said she might consider switching to what she called an honor system and having vendors pay a percentage of sales.
She is especially disappointed about the new fee because of previous declarations by city leaders supporting the expansion of farmers markets.
We need a whole new way of thinking about these markets, said Sayrs, who estimated than one-third of the Trinity markets 30 vendors would be affected by the new requirements. We cant only think about them culturally and socially, we need to think about them politically, too.
Most vendors have no objection to the inspection fees per se; they simply feel that the cost as it stands is way too high.
I agree that farmers markets with mobile cooking situations pose a risk and should therefore contribute to the fire department, wrote Hinnerk von Bargen, co-owner of Mings Things in a message. However, that a business on a regularly re-occurring event is expected to re-apply for a new permit every week is absurd and beyond any common sense, and the fees are simply outrageous.
This is not the first time the city has big-footed local farmers markets. In 2013, the city health department introduced a farmers market vendor permit intended to make it easier for farmers to sell their products. But it also prohibited vendors from selling meals cooked on site. Following criticism, the city reversed itself and passed a proposal liberalizing the rules.
rmarini@express-news.net
Twitter: @RichardMarini
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AUSTIN - Hillary Clinton was expected to raise more than $1.2 million in Texas Friday as the states beleaguered Democrats dreamed about a boost from her expected November faceoff against presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
You do the math. If 60 percent of the women in Texas arent supportive of Trump, and the polls say its higher than that, how does he win? asked former state Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, a state leader for Clintons campaign.
Im an old, unreconstructed Texas Aggie. I learned to count. And if he cant do better than 40 percent of women he cant win. Its just simple math. So yeah, Id say Texas was in play, said Mauro.
Its a heady thought for Democrats, who are outnumbered in the Legislature and last won election to statewide office in Texas in 1994 (one Republican statewide officeholder on the Court of Criminal Appeals switched parties to give Democrats one seat).
While Clinton would have an uphill climb to pull off a Texas win, some Republicans were sounding the same message as they looked to capitalize on her visit. Gov. Greg Abbotts campaign director, John Jackson, for example, cited Clintons visit in a fundraising pitch.
Her team knows that if we dont turn out the vote, Texas could be in play, and that would guarantee her a national victory. Dont let that happen. Its critical that we hold our ground in the Presidential election and all the way down the ballot, Jackson said by email, asking for contributions to our Conservative Victory Fund.
The fate of Texas, and the nation rests in your hands, he wrote.
Other Republicans expressed straightforward confidence.
"Republican leadership continues to serve Texas well. We look forward to trouncing Texas Democrats up and down the ballot once again in November," said Republican Party of Texas spokesman Mike Joyce.
The latest New York Times/CBS News national poll of registered voters found 60 percent of women have an unfavorable view of Trump. Almost as big a percentage of men viewed Clinton unfavorably.
If the election were now, the poll found 47 percent support for Clinton and 41 percent for the billionaire Trump, whose comments about women and immigrants and unconventional political background have stirred controversy.
Polling has been mixed on a match between Trump and Clintion, who still is working to formally nail down her nomination in the face of an unflagging challenge from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. A national Fox News poll of registered voters found Trump with lead of 45 percent to 42 percent over Clinton, which was within the surveys margin of error. An earlier CNN/ORC poll showed Clinton leading Trump 54 percent to 41 percent.
Rice University political scientist Mark Jones said he didnt expect Clinton to pull off a Lone Star State victory. But he said that Trump is unlikely to have the typical 12- to 15-point cushion enjoyed by Republicans in Texas.
"I suspect the gap is going to be relatively small," Jones said.
That could have implications for races lower on the ballot if it reduces GOP turnout or cuts down on straight-ticket voting, leading to the possibility of Republicans failing to vote for every candidate down the ballot.
The Clinton fundraisers also are a double-edged sword, however, since her campaign is expected to take the money raised here and spend it in more competitive states. Clintons campaign didnt provide a figure when asked how much she expected to raise at her events in Austin, Dallas and Houston. A source close to the campaign, however, said she was well over her target of about $400,000 per event.
Its always the tough part for Texas Democrats, Jones said. You love having Hillary Clinton come, but you dont like that money flowing out of the state.
pfikac@express-news.net
Twitter: @pfikac
The discussions over the patentability of plant traits continue to gather pace with the issue set for debate in Europe.
EU co-operative Copa & Cogeca have warned against using patents in the plant breeding sector, warning it will reduce the amount of new varieties on the market and add to costs.
The warnings were broadcast at a Conference hosted by the Netherlands Presidency this week.
Speaking at the Conference, 'Exploring solutions in the debate surrounding patents and plant breeders rights', Thor Kofoed Chairman of the Seed Working Party said: "A system of patents is not the best way to protect plant varieties if you want to have better inventions.
"It will also result in less products for consumers on the market and less new varieties.
"The biggest problem is that it is incredibly expensive to run a patent system, and these extra costs will kill a lot of the small breeders."
"The Plant Breeders Right (PBR) answers the need of breeders and farmers.
"Royalties collected under the PBR makes the breeding business profitable enough and allows the marketing of more than 1.800 new plant varieties of very high quality and increased yields every year.
"It helps farmers to have new varieties and products suited to local conditions all over Europe, which is crucial when farmers are confronted with so many challenges like climate change and rising world food demand," added Kofoed.
He continued: "Patents on natural genes will reduce access for further plant breeding and reduce innovation that we are used to in Europe thanks to an unlimited breeders exemption.
"Patenting plants will change the relation between plant breeders and farmers. It will also increase legal uncertainties in the breeding programme because of much opposition to plant patents.
"Copa and Cogeca consequently call for all natural genes in plants to be excluded from patentability to ensure a viable and innovative agriculture sector in the future."
Whats the problem with patents?
Patents grant the holder the right to prevent third parties from making, using, selling or importing their invention.
As such any plant variety containing patented material would not be eligible for the breeders privilege as use of the patent would require a license, and this form of intellectual property would override the existing PVR system.
These licenses are controlled by the patent holder and negotiations can take many years, hence allowing the holders of key patents to potentially dominate the market blocking investment during proceedings.
Transaction costs within the supply chain would also increase as breeders divert money towards legal protection and away from breeding, this would discourage future agricultural R&D and will ultimately impact at farm level.
The NFU has warned that patents granted for plant traits and varieties obtained through biological processes sets a dangerous precedent, and if such an approach were to continue it would undermine the existing PVR system posing a long term threat to agricultural research, genetic diversity and ultimately food security.
A decision on whether or not to re-approve the herbicide glyphosate for use in Europe was today postponed for the second time, following disagreement among representatives of EU governments.
A revised proposal by the European Commission to re-approve glyphosate for use in Europe for 9 more years, with almost no restrictions, failed to secure the required majority among EU governments.
The decision was due to be taken by representatives of EU governments in the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed.
The proposal by the European Commission to approve glyphosate for a further 9 years, with no restrictions on its use, would have to have been approved by a qualified majority of member states.
It is not yet clear when the next meeting of the committee will take place but the Commission is now expected to work on a new proposal together with the lead/'rapporteur' member state, Germany.
Another Europe 'is possible'
Green MEP, Molly Scott Cato, a member of the European Parliaments Agricultural Committee, said: "The rebellion from several EU countries to the relicensing of glyphosate and a previous vote by MEPs calling on the Commission to restrict permitted uses of the toxic herbicide shows another Europe is possible one where we are not willing to cave in to pressure from corporations.
"Sadly, the UK has been absent from the list of dissenting voices. The Tories have been cheerleaders for both agribusiness and GM crops two sides of the same coin.
"National governments have powers to ban glyphosate if they choose to and France has already indicated it will impose a ban.
"This is not the EU forcing glyphosate down our throats; the UK government can choose whether or not to allow the use of this toxic chemical which poses risks to both human health and biodiversity."
Soil Association policy director Peter Melchett said: "Time is running out for glyphosate its licence for use in the EU expires at the end of June.
"The views of not only the EU Parliament but also one of the largest farming countries in the EU France, which has independently decided to ban glyphosate supported by Sweden and others - have signalled a firm position in favour of a precautionary approach.
"Even Germany, whose scientists carried out the study for the EU that cleared glyphosate, is not voting in favour of continued use.
"The European Commissions decision to postpone the vote on glyphosate means it is surely only a matter of time before glyphosate is banned.
Farming unions criticise 'unnecessary delay' on glyphosate
Four farming unions are fully behind the European Commissions initial proposal for a full renewal of glyphosate and welcome the UK Governments positive stance on renewal.
NFU Vice President Guy Smith said: "Like most farmers who use glyphosate regularly, I am nothing short of exasperated as to why this key herbicide cannot simply and quickly be given the reauthorisation that has been recommended by EFSA - the appropriate EU scientific body.
"Some member states in the committee are prevaricating and wasting time when they could be taking decisions based on scientific evidence.
"Glyphosate is a pesticide which allows farmers to combat weeds while supporting cultivation methods that can preserve good soil structure.
"There is no sense behind this delay and we look to Member States to support an evidence-based, full re-approval at the earliest possible opportunity."
NFU Scotland President Allan Bowie said: "This is a chance for the European Union to show a commitment to evidence led policy-making; the European Food Safety Authority along with the UN Food and Agriculture organisation have confirmed that glyphosate is safe.
"Scottish farmers need to know that decisions are being made on sound evidence not held up by political tactics."
NFU Cymru President Stephen James added: "The list of those confirming that glyphosate is safe for use is getting longer by the day.
"Even the RSPB advocates the use of glyphosate to control bracken in the uplands in Wales and only last month the European Parliament confirmed it should be re-authorised.
"Farmers and the environment need glyphosate and it is imperative we waste no more time in re-approving it."
Ulster Farmers Union President Barclay Bell also commented: "Glyphosate is Europes most commonly used herbicide and it is important that it remains as widely available to the industry as it is now.
"I cannot understand the logic behind delaying a decision on a product which is proven to be safe and beneficial.
"Farmers in Northern Ireland will take a dim view of this decision to delay and I urge all parties to reach an agreement immediately."
'Probably does not cause cancer'
However, recent studies have come to the conclusion that glyphosate "probably does not cause cancer", according to a new safety review by United Nations health, agriculture and food experts.
In a statement likely to intensify a row over its potential health impact, experts from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) said glyphosate is "unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans" exposed to it through food.
Having reviewed the scientific evidence, the joint WHO/FAO committee also said glyphosate is unlikely to be genotoxic in humans.
In other words, it is not likely to have a destructive effect on cells' genetic material.
The conclusion contradicts a finding by the WHO's Lyon-based International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which in March 2015 said glyphosate is "probably" able to cause cancer in humans and classified it as a so-called Group 2A carcinogen.
Seven months after the IARC review, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), an independent agency funded by the European Union, published a different assessment, saying glyphosate is "unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans".
The differing findings thrust glyphosate into the centre of a row involving EU and U.S. politicians and regulators, the IARC experts, environmental and agricultural specialists and the WHO.
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 Scottish Association of Young Farmers Clubs have unveiled their new mental health campaign Are Ewe Okay?.
The association will focus on raising awareness of mental wellbeing over the next twelve months by encouraging rural youth to listen, talk and share.
SAYFCs National Chairman Stuart Jamieson commented: "One in four people in Scotland will suffer from poor mental health at some point during their life.
"Everyone has mental health, it can be good, it can be less than good but everyones mental health is different as well as constantly changing, depending on many different aspects."
He continued: "SAYFC has 3500 members who are aged between 14 and 30 years old so there are so many different life events and pressures going on during this period that can influence how they feel including education, relationships, employment, health and finance."
9 out of 10 young people facing poor mental health said they received negative treatment from others with nearly half noting this happened monthly, weekly or daily.
Breaking the stigma surrounding mental wellbeing
Mr Jamieson said this was key to why Are Ewe Okay? would be a focus for Scotlands largest rural youth organisation.
"This statistic is one of the reasons SAYFC has chosen to encourage those all-important conversations and break the stigma surrounding mental wellbeing.
"Its about looking out for each other by taking the time to listen, offering a situation where someone feels confident enough to talk or by sharing information to aid our members. Everyone can get involved by just asking Are Ewe Okay?"
The campaign will be delivered regularly through social media with the aim of specifically targeting the associations audience of young people living in Scotland's rural communities.
By raising awareness of poor mental health triggers and conditions, the association hopes to aid members with the knowledge they need to recognise the signs, and how to seek help if someone is suffering.
Mr Jamieson concluded by highlighting the impacts of poor mental health across Scotland: "Scotlands population continues to rise reaching the highest ever total in 2014 with the National Records of Scotland (NRS) estimating a population of over 5.3 million.
"We already know that one in four people in Scotland will suffer from poor mental health but to put it into context, more than 1.3 million individuals in Scotland will face mental health challenges during their lifetime.
"And at SAYFC, 25% of our membership equates to over 800 members. It is therefore more vital than ever that we raise awareness showcasing the help and support available whilst highlighting how others share the same mental health challenges."
Thousands of acres of South Pennines moorland and peat bogs to be better protected as a new EU-funded restoration project gets underway.
The MoorLIFE 2020 project - which received 12 million funding from the European Union - will restore and preserve areas of blanket bog developed over thousands of years which are internationally rare due to their high concentration of carbon-storing peat.
The project will also provide new habitats for birds and other wildlife, and provide new facilities to boost local tourism.
The five year scheme is run by Moors for the Future Partnership - which brings together partners including the Environment Agency, Natural England and MoorLIFE project, which protected 2,500 hectares of blanket bog in the Peak District and South Pennines between 2010 and 2015, with 5million provided by the EU towards the 6.7million cost.
On a visit to mark the start of work beginning, Minister Rory Stewart highlighted the benefits of the UKs membership of the EU which makes provides access to additional funding to support environmental conversation.
Protecting the UK's distinct landscapes
Environment Minister Rory Stewart said: "EU membership provides clear benefits for our natural environment, both at home and abroad.
"Funding provided from the EU to the Moors for the Future Partnership, will ensure the protection of our distinct landscapes and priority international habitats across the South Pennines.
"Through partnership working, crucial conservation and scientific work, alongside innovative techniques, we can fully understand and protect our moorland habitats for future generations.
"We can protect and enhance the environment far more effectively if EU countries continue to work together as part of a reformed European Union.
The EUs LIFE fund supports environmental, nature conservation and climate action projects throughout the UK, and Europe.
Benefits of the project include:
Enriching biodiversity to provide breeding habitats for moorland plants, birds, insects, mammals and amphibians.
Improving water quality in our reservoirs and rivers.
Reducing fire risk as wetter moorlands resist the spread of wildfires which can release tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere and devastate wildlife habitats.
Retaining carbon in the soil which is a major factor in action on climate change. Peatlands are the UKs biggest carbon store, holding 40-50% of its carbon, but bare, damaged peat releases it to the wind.
Reducing flood risk in towns and villages as re-vegetated moorland reduces the flow-rate and volume of downpours into our rivers and streams.
Boosting the local economy by attracting more visitors to use local holiday accommodation, shops, cafes and pubs.
An innovative event looking at the future of farming has seen Scotlands farming union and young farmers look to further strengthen ties in the future.
The McConchie family, who have developed the Laggan Outdoors activity centre at Gatehouse of Fleet, played host to a NFU Scotland event, stage in conjunction with the Scottish Association of Young Farmers Clubs (SAYFC) looking at: Future Farming for Success Whats the future for young farmers in Dumfries and Galloway?
Innovative young farmers - Duncan McConchie of Laggan Outdoor, Alan Blackwood of Ayrshire, Robert Craig of North East Cumbria and Duncan McEwan of West Stirlingshire - provided short talks to an audience of young farmers on what they do and how they have altered their farming practice to improve their businesses.
The group then discussed the challenge: "If the average age of a farmer in Dumfries and Galloway was 35 rather than the current age of 55 - would things be different?"
With the success of the event, the region is now looking to work again with the SAYFC to strengthen relationships and help young farmers and workers in the area.
Possible future events could include discussion groups, farm visits and collaboration with other stakeholders to provide assistance and guidance.
NFU Scotland Regional Chairman Gary Mitchell said: "I thought it was an excellent day of discussion and sharing from our speakers regarding their achievements along with the aspirations of the young farmers who attended.
"The one thing that became clear to me is that our future generation would benefit from linking up with good mentors to help encourage them in bringing their new ideas to our industry and to our union throughout Dumfries and Galloway and Scotland."
Local young farmer Colin Ferguson, who represents Dumfries and Galloway on SAYFCs Agri Affairs committee said: "It great to see the young farmers association in Dumfries and Galloway getting involved with the NFUS.
"I think we are tackling the stigma that it is only the older generation that attend meetings but reality is that there are more young people coming into the industry.
"This is something that the young farmers movement through the Agri Affairs committee has looked to tackle in the last three years.
"It has strived to give young people in the industry a voice and also provide training and opportunities.
"The meeting at Laggan was fantastic and the speakers did a tremendous job in inspiring the audience!"
Welsh Lamb has featured in a major news item on Denmarks DR television networks flagship news programme, TV Avisen.
As part of an item on European trade, journalist Anna Gaarslev spent a day with the Lloyd-Williams family at Moelgolomen, an organic upland farm in Bontgoch, near Aberystwyth.
Denmark is an important emerging market for Welsh Lamb. Hybu Cig Cymru Meat Promotion Wales (HCC) has recently undertaken a programme of media and PR activity to promote PGI Welsh Lamb to Danish supermarkets, chefs and consumers.
Research has showed growing awareness of PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) status and the Welsh Lamb logo following the marketing campaign.
The research also showed that lamb from Wales is strongly linked by consumers with being a high quality product, and associated with traditional and sustainable farming practices.
Alex James, Export Development Executive at HCC, said: "Denmark and other Scandinavian countries have been identified as key emerging markets for PGI Welsh Lamb.
"HCC has been promoting Welsh Lamb with major retailers, and also through chefs and trade fairs.
"Welsh Lamb is a growing choice for Danish consumers as a high-quality meat for barbecues and special occasions.
"Market research suggests that supermarkets and consumers are taking the message on board, added Alex.
"The fact that Denmarks premier TV network, DR, has chosen to feature a farm in Wales on its main evening news programme is a good sign of the growing awareness of Welsh Lamb."
Owner of Moelgolomen Farm, Rhodri Lloyd-Williams said: "I enjoyed showing the film crew from TV Avisen a day in the life of our farm at Moelgolomen.
"Denmark is an exciting new market for quality PGI Welsh Lamb; it will be great for a prime-time television audience to see the beautiful natural environment where the meat is reared."
Following last week's story in Farm Weekly citing a move by the Association of Volunteer Bush Fire Brigades of WA (AVBFB) to fight for an independent fire authority, the Country Regions Council of WA (CRCWA) reiterated the need for a rural fire service to replace the Department of Fire and Emergency Services' (DFES) role.
More than half of employees who work for CCS make $43K or more a year
Materials Sciences Corporation, a government contractor headquartered in Horsham, Pennsylvania, agreed to pay the United States $219,909 to resolve allegations that it unreasonably billed federal agencies to cover depreciation and other expenses associated with a 58-foot Hatteras Yacht Fisherman.
The DOJ alleged that between 2006 and 2015, Materials Sciences Corporation described the yacht as its Mississippi office. The company incorporated yacht-related expenses into its indirect cost rate submissions to receive payment under government contracts, primarily with the United States Navy.
The government said the yacht-related costs were unreasonable and therefore unallowable.
As part of the settlement, Materials Sciences Corporation also agreed not to use the yacht for any purpose and to dispose of the vessel within a specified period of time, the DOJ said Monday.
The company didnt admit liability or wrongdoing.
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Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog. Hell be the keynote speaker at the FCPA Blog NYC Conference 2016.
Ryan Coogler says that Black Panther is going to be his most 'personal' movie to date.
Ryan Coogler
Coogler is set to take up the director's chair for the upcoming solo Marvel film as he tackles a Marvel project for the very first time.
Black Panther will be the third feature of his career to date - coming after the huge success of Fruitvale Station and Creed - and will be his biggest film to date.
And while Black Panther is going to be a big movie, Coogler says he is going to make this a 'personal' film.
Speaking to Fast Company, the director said: "It's a specific challenge. What Marvel's doing, and what you see a lot of studios doing now that Marvel has done it so successfully, is making content that exists in a particular universe, where the characters tie in and crossover, and I think that's a great creative challenge to me - to make this movie as personal as possible.
"It's going to be my most personal movie to date, which is crazy to say, but it's completely the case. I'm obsessed with this character and this story right now, and I think it's going to be very unique and still fit into the overall narrative that they're establishing."
Black Panther is already one of the most anticipated films on the Marvel schedule - after we got a little taste of the character and Chadwick Boseman in the role in Captain America: Civil War.
I am looking forward to seeing Boseman explore this character further and he will be joined on the cast list by Michael B. Jordan and Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong'o.
This will be the third collaboration between Jordan and the filmmaker but the first time that the director has worked with Boseman and Nyong'o.
John Boyega, who is currently filming Star Wars: Episode VIII, has also been linked to a role in the movie.
Sadly, we do have quite a wait for Black Panther to hit the big screen as it is scheduled for UK release on 6th July 2018.
by Helen Earnshaw for www.femalefirst.co.uk
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Starring: Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Lucy Boynton, Jack Reynor, Aidan Gillen, Maria Doyle Kennedy
Sing Street
Director: John Carney
Rating: 4/5
John Carney is a director that I am a huge fan of and loved Once when it hit the big screen back in 2007 - yes, it was nearly a decade ago.
This week he is back in the director's chair as he returns to the musical/drama with Sing Street, a movie that has been winning over critics and audiences since it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival at the beginning of the year.
Sing Street takes us back to 1980s Dublin where an economic recession forces Conor out of his comfortable private school and into survival mode at the inner-city public school where the kids are rough and the teachers are rougher. He finds a glimmer of hope in the mysterious and uber-cool Raphina, and with the aim of winning her heart, he invites her to star in his band's music videos.
She agrees, and now Conor must deliver what he's promised -calling himself 'Cosmo' and immersing himself in the vibrant rock music trends of the '80s, he forms a band with a few lads, and the group pours their hearts into writing lyrics and shooting videos.
Carney has delivered another gem of a film as Sing Street is a charming and warm-hearted film that will win you over from the word go. Not only is it a loving nostalgia fest to the eighties, but it is also a celebration of how music can bring people together and a fantastic coming of age tale.
Carney has a knack of discovering great new acting talents - we saw that with Once - and Ferdia Walsh-Peelo is another young star to keep an eye one. Walsh-Peelo makes his big screen debut as he takes on the central role of Cosmo in Sing Street.
It is an effortless performance from the young actor and you would think he had been doing this for years. There is an energy to his performance as he really captures the infectious spirit of rock and roll. There may be more experienced actors around him, but, for me, it is Ferdia who truly shines.
Sing Street is a movie that I have been looking forward to all year and it is a film that does not disappoint. It is a vibrant charming movie that is full of life and spirit - you really help but be swept along by it.
Carney mixes great dialogue, wonderful characters and some great humour with some fantastic musical numbers that celebrates the music from that era. It really is a trip down memory lane if you were a child of the eighties.
Sing Street is a movie that celebrates music and youth and it is set to be the feel-good film of the summer. So, if you are looking to get away from the big budget blockbusters, this is definitely a movie that you cannot afford to miss. A true joy from start to finish.
Sing Street is out now.
by Helen Earnshaw for www.femalefirst.co.uk
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Even as a little girl who fetched firewood and grazed cattle in the remote Bharnara village of Jammu and Kashmir, Shakti Devi knew she had more to give to the world, but wasn't sure if she'd be able to achieve it. "I had no dreams. I still do not have any. Being a girl from a lower-middle class background in a remote village in J&K, I didnt even dream of clearing my Std 10 exams. The UN Peacekeeper award is just a testament to my last 15 years in the police service where I have managed to wake up every single day and work towards giving back to society. I still dont believe I have won it. Forty-two-year-old Shakti Devi Sharma may have trouble believing it, but those whove watched this firebrands trajectory cant really be surprised.
Shakti Devi was honoured with the UN International Female Peacekeeper Award for her groundbreaking efforts in fast-tracking cases of violence against women in the western Afghanistan region of Herat. She was deployed there since May 2013 as the Police Advisor for Afghanistan Democratic Policing Project (ADPP). During her first few weeks there, she noticed that while the exploitation of women was rampant, there was great fear of reporting abuse. In December last year, a young girl came to me saying her father chopped off her mothers ears and nose in front of her, and she didnt know who to turn to. I immediately took action and got the woman transferred to Kabul and then to Turkey, where she got medical attention. Her husband is still absconding, but she has recovered and plans to start her life afresh, she says.
In Herat, her role is to create awareness about the help available to women. I have met women who have been working in the police department for years without letting their families know. That is how strongly they feel about bringing change to their society. Their spirit fuels my determination and I feel if they can do it, I must do my part. She was nominated for the mission in Afghanistan in 2012 by the UN Headquarters (New York) while she was still on a mission in East Timor. It took her close to six months to convince her family to let her go to Afghanistan. I told them that even in J&K, there is no guarantee that I would come back home safe once I step out of my house, so how would Afghanistan be different? If theres a pattern in this rebels life, it is that she just cannot resist a challenge.
Born in a joint family in Bharnara village in Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir, Shakti Devi was the fourth of five children. The girls of the village used to drop out of school after Std 5 or 8. My father had a flour mill and my childhood was spent fetching firewood from forests, helping my father at the mill and rearing cattle. But I insisted I would not drop out of school. Shakti Devi studied at the government higher secondary school in Majalta and walked 20 km to school every day. When she was 16, she lost her mother and it was then that her father began to seriously support her decision to study further. She became the first graduate and post-graduate from her village.
In college, Kiran Bedi, Indias first woman IPS officer, served as her role model. After she completed her studies, she recalls her conversation with her father where she informed him of her decision to join the police force. He wanted me to become a teacher and said that being a woman, it would not be easy for me. He paused for a moment. Then he said he would give me his consent if I promised to never misuse my power. That was one of the happiest moments of my life.
Shakti Devi joined J&K Police as a sub-inspector in 1999. During her three-year tenure as the station house officer (SHO) of the Womens Cell, she handled over 3,000 complaints. There were times when my male counterparts tried to make things tough for me but I stuck to my guns, she says.
The role of protector is one Shakti Devi took seriously and not just at work. After my father passed away, I became the head of the family. My decision to join the police opened new vistas for other girls in the Dogra community and that would not have been possible without the support of my father. When Shakti Devi was awarded at the International Association of Women Police (IAWP) Conference held in October 2014 in Winnipeg, Canada, she knew shed kept that promise she made to her father. She smiles as she remembers the night she got to know she was chosen for the UN Peacekeeper Award. I was having a hard time sleeping that night, so to kill time, I decided to check my mail. My eyes popped out when I saw the mail from the UN perched at the top of my inbox. I wondered if I was having a really vivid dream!
While her tenure in Afghanistan will wrap up in May 2015, her plans for invigorating the women police force in J&K are already in place. I want to go back to more villages in my state and encourage the parents there to make their daughters join the police. If nothing else, this award acts as a great impetus for them to finally realise that their daughters dont need to be mollycoddled, they are capable of great things.
Her tenure in Afghanistan ended in May 2015. And her focus is now on the women police force in J&K. I want to go back to more villages in my state and encourage the parents there to make their daughters join the police. If nothing else, this award acts as a great impetus for them to finally realise that their daughters dont need to be mollycoddled, they are capable of great things.
Dating is an equal opportunities game. Not because we like it so, but because sometimes the guy is just too thick or may be our signals are like those of my phone service provider--weak.
Having said that, Im more than willing to roll up my sleeves and get to work to show the guy that my hormones are bubbling excitedly under my mint blue Zara cold-shoulder top. I have, like Phil Collins sang, "...been waiting, waiting here so long and I have no intention of letting a good guy slip through my fingers for want of trying. So here goes sisters, if youve been leaning against the wall being a shrinking violet, time to change your colours and walk across the room and say hello.
Step 1: Have him at hello (or not):
So youve spotted this interesting man and your heart is flip-flopping. Theres the wide expanse of your friends living room in her 400 sq ft apartment that separates you. He may be with friends or you may be with your crew. First things first. Tell the girls to scat and that you have important business to attend (guy in the checked shirt). If you dont feel brave enough to go up and introduce yourself, ask a friend to introduce you.
Step 2: Introductions done, now what:
Yes, strike up a conversation. Easier said than done, but you could have your three favourite topics to break the ice and then move on to something that will give you a peek into his personality. As you speak, and if he still interests you, maintain eye contact, ask questions, smile, sound like you are really enjoying his company.
Step 3: Get his number:
If the conversation is really going well, you will certainly come to a point where youre exchanging digits. If you dont feel brave enough to ask, talk about Facebook and say, "Ill send you a friend request if you dont mind, and then take it from there. Most men will find it refreshing when a woman asks for their number so he may just give you his full co-ordinates.
Step 4: Future secure:
Drop hints about a possible meeting in future and see how he reacts. If hes talking about his collection of monopodial orchids, quiz him about it and just before your eyes glaze over with TMI, say, "How fascinating. Id love to see them sometime.
Step 5: Until next time:
End the conversation with a hook to something in the near future, and leave before he starts looking around the room desperately for an exit route. Leave him with a thought that will make him pick up the phone and dial you first thing next morning.
Next step: Check back in with us on first date how-tos.
Diaverum, one of the world's leading renal care providers, is presenting its service portfolio and the new education programme d.ACADEMY at the ERA/EDTA 2016 in Vienna. The international provider cares for more than 29 000 patients in 350 clinics in Europe, Middle East/Asia, Latin America and Australia/New Zealand.
"ERA/EDTA is an important venue for us to meet the leading nephrologists and the best medical professionals as well as our business partners. We are looking forward to discuss the upcoming challenges, opportunities and solutions in the renal care market with them", says Dag Andersson, CEO and President of Diaverum. "To improve quality of life for renal patients, we are bringing different medical disciplines and services together and coordinating patient care".
"We strongly believe in education, and therefore we have created a unique education programme for clinicians, nurses and patients: d.ACADEMY. This virtual university delivers state-of-the-art education at the right place and right time for our people", explains Professor Giovanni Strippoli, Chairman of the d.ACADEMY. "All our educational activities pursue the clear goal of improving medical outcomes and quality of life for renal patients."
Diaverum will also present two posters with data of scientific research run in Diaverum kidney centers at the ERA/EDA 2016 on Sunday, 22 May (SP 607) and Monday, 23 May (MP 597).
Exhibition
The exhibition starts on Saturday, 21 May 2016 and ends on Tuesday, 24 May. The Diaverum booth is situated in hall x2, booth Number 2.350. Visitors are welcome to learn more about Diaverum and to meet the Diaverum experts and the top management team.
About Diaverum
At Diaverum, our mission is to improve the quality of life for renal patients by revitalising them both physically and emotionally. Being one of the world's leading renal care providers, Diaverum offers a holistic approach, from preventive and early stage renal care to all renal replacement therapies. As a product independent provider the largest in Europe we are able to focus solely on caring for the individual needs of our patients. Our experience in renal care dates back 20 years, when the first dialysis clinic was established, previously under our former name Gambro Healthcare. Today, 9,000 employees care for 29,000 patients in 20 countries in Europe, Latin America, Middle East/Asia and Australia/New Zealand. Diaverum has its roots in Lund, Sweden and a corporate office located in Munich, Germany.
This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160521005016/en/
Contacts:
Diaverum
Ulrike Beringer, 49 89 45 2444 124
Corporate Communications
Ulrike.Beringer@diaverum.com
This Could Send Boeing Stock SoaringBoeing Co (NYSE:BA) has moved up and down like a passenger aboard one of the company's planes during heavy turbulence. Indeed, some investors may already be heading for the sick bag in the pocket of the seat in front of them. Yet, for those with the ability to withstand pressure, Boeing stock will come out of the turbulence in one piece and stronger.Nobody should buy Boeing for a short stint. This is a wide-body jumbo-sized stock where the benefits come gradually and steadily. Indeed, if Boeing has any issues.
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.
Tensive, a Milan, Italy-based biomedical startup, raised 500k in venture capital funding.
Backers included Invitalia Ventures and Unicredit.
The company, which has raised a total of 1.9m to date, intends to use the funds to acceleerate the development of its solutions.
Founded in 2012 as a spinoff of Filarete Foundation and led by and led by CEO and CSO Gianfranco Bellezza and President Alberto Cantaluppi, Tensive develops vascularizable biodebradable prostheses offering natural breast reconstruction. Regenera is a porous implantable prostheses based on biodegradable synthetic biomaterials and fabricated with internal mirco-channels mimicking the blood-vessels architecture.
The technology aims to trigger the regeneration process of the adipose tissue, while the implants synthetic biomaterial deteriorates.
The product, which has not been tested in human patients yet, is in pre-clinical development.
The team of Tensive also includes:
Irini Gerges, Ph.D. (co-founder, Chief Technology Officer & R&D Director)
Federico Martello, Ph.D. (co-founder, Chief Operating Officer),
Margherita Tamplenizza, Ph.D. (co-founder; Chief Regulatory Officer) and
Alessandro Tocchio, co-founder.
FinSMEs
21/05/2016
NEW DELHI Indian refiners have cleared part of the $6.4 billion owed to Iran for crude oil imports in euros through Turkey's Halkbank, three sources privy to the payment said on Saturday.
This is the first payment to Iran by India since the lifting of Western sanctions against the Persian Gulf nation earlier this year and comes just ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit beginning on Sunday.
State refiner Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd paid $500 million while Indian Oil Corp has settled $250 million through the Union Bank of India, the sources said.
The refiners had been holding back 55 percent of the oil payments to Iran after the route to make payments through Halkbank was stopped in 2013, although payment of some of those funds was allowed after an initial temporary deal to lift the sanctions.
It is not yet known when the second instalment will be paid, the sources said.
India is one of the biggest buyers of Iranian crude, and is set to import at least 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Iran in the year from April 1. But it built up a backlog of payments when Iran was under sanctions.
Modi is making a first trip to Iran since he took office in 2016, aimed at deepening energy ties. During the visit, India will sign a contract to build and operate the port of Chabahar on the southern Iranian coast that is aimed at boosting connectivity with Afghanistan and central Asia.
(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Kim Coghill)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
AVAZA, Turkmenistan Turkmenistan is in talks with the Islamic Development Bank, the Saudi Fund for Development and Japan's government on financing the construction of a gas pipeline to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, a project official said on Saturday.
The TAPI pipeline is supposed to carry 33 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas a year from Turkmenistan's giant Galkynysh gas field - a project designed to ease the former Soviet state's dependence on Russia and China.
Turkmenistan, which sits on the world's fourth-largest gas reserves, started building its section of the link in December. But its partners in the project - the state energy companies of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India - have yet to begin work.
The 1,814-km (1,127-mile) route also faces security challenges - current plans send the underground pipeline through one of Afghanistan's most violence-wracked provinces, Helmand, where the Taliban insurgents hold sway.
"The Islamic Development Bank has expressed interest and readiness to finance the project, not only on Turkmenistan's territory, but also in Afghanistan and Pakistan," Muhammetmyrat Amanov of TAPI Pipeline Company Limited told a conference in the Turkmen resort of Avaza.
"We are also working with the Saudi Fund for Development ... We have had meetings with the government of Japan. They have expressed interest," he said.
Amanov said the project company, controlled by Turkmen state firm Turkmengas, was working on estimating the total cost of the project.
(Reporting by Marat Gurt; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
New Delhi: With a pass percentage of 88.58 percent, girls once again outperformed boys in the CBSE Class XII Board examination, the results of which were declared on Saturday.
Boys recorded a pass percentage of 78.85 per cent.
Region-wise, South India has done better than others with the over all pass percentage of Thiruvanathapuram Region at 97.61 percent being the highest followed by Chennai which has a pass percentage of 92.63.
The overall pass percentage this year is 83.05 which is an improvement over last year's 82 percent.
In all, a total of 10,65,179 candidates had registered for the exam this year, a 2.38 percent increase over the number of candidates that appeared last year.
In a statement released in New Delhi, the CBSE said that for the second consecutive year, CBSE has declared results of all ten regions on the same day.
The duration of examination was from March 1 to April 26 2016.
The Board results for all its regions can be accessed at on three websites - www.results.nic.in, www.cbseresults.nic.in and www.cbse.nic.in.
The schools will automatically get their results on the email ids already registered with the Board.
Starting this year, CBSE will also provide Class XII digital mark sheets in DigiLocker at www.digilocker.gov.in.
The DigiLocker account credentials will be sent to students via SMS on their mobile number registered with CBSE.
New Delhi: A 23-year-old Congolese national was allegedly beaten to death by a group of men in south Delhi's Vasant Kunj area, police said on Saturday.
The incident took place around 11.45 pm on Friday when the man, MT Olivia had a heated argument with a group of three persons at Kishangadh locality in Vasant Kunj.
Following the argument, the group pounced on Olivia, and as he tried to escape, they chased him for around 20-25 metres and attacked him again with stones.
"A case of murder has been registered. We are checking CCTV footage to identify the accused," additional DCP (South) Nupur Prasad said.
What exactly led to the argument between Olivia and the group is yet to be ascertained. The case is being probed from all angles including robbery and a possible racist attack on the African national.
The Embassy of Congo has been informed about the incident.
Olivia taught foreign languages at a private institute in New Delhi. He lived in South Extension area. Why he had gone to Kishangadh at that hour has also not been ascertained yet, police said.
It was another group of locals who rescued Olivia and called up police. He was rushed to a hospital, where he later succumbed to his injuries.
The locals, however, could not identify the perpetrators or say what had led to the incident. Investigation is underway, police added.
Mumbai: Mumbai Police on Saturday said that it would rope in ethical hacker Manish Bhangale to probe into alleged telephonic conversations between Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse and gangster Dawood Ibrahim.
The investigations began after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis asked the police to get into the bottom of the matter on getting a letter from the Aam Aadmi Party on the alleged exchanges. The matter came to light after Bhangale could trace the calls from Dawood's residence in Pakistan.
"The hacker had even sent the information to the Prime Ministers Office but no Central agency seems to have any interest in actually locating the most wanted terrorist and criminal Dawood Ibrahim. Despite the fact that he is the most wanted man in Maharashtra, and that a Maharashtra leaders name figured in the list, no agency from Maharashtra had contacted the hacker. When AAP wrote to the chief minister he instructed Mumbai Police to begin an investigation," AAP spokesperson Preeti Menon told Firstpost.
On Friday, Khadse said that he urged Fadnavis to probe the allegations that telephonic exchanges happened between the minister and the don. The minister apparently requested Fadnavis to inquire into the issue as he suspects someone hacked his phone and used it illegally.
"I am not using that number anymore and have acquired the call detail records which show that there is no international call on that number. But yet I have asked Fadnavis to inquire into the issue as I suspect someone may have hacked my number. It is a serious issue," Khadse told Firstpost.
In a release issued later in the day on Saturday, the minister said, "AAP spokesperson Priti Menon's allegation of calls from my mobile number to Dawood Ibrahim is baseless. The number which she is saying9423073667belongs to me and I have not been using it since a year. There is a possibility that my number was cloned and someone talked to Dawood in Pakistan. So I have request the chief minister and the Jalgaon superintendent of police to ensure a detailed enquiry in this issue."
The probe has picked up pace after the minister's demand.
The Maharashtra revenue minister is already mired with controversies after his aide Gajanan Patil was recently arrested by the Anti-corruption Bureau and his son-in-law was found to be driving illegally modified Hyundai Sonata vehicle.
Khadse also served a legal notice to social worker and activist Anjali Damania for allegedly making false charges against him over disproportionate assets. The notice blamed Damania for dragging his son-in-law over the illegally modified car.
Damania's allegations had came following the Patil's arrest for allegedly seeking a Rs 30 crore as bribe over a land deal from economist Ramesh Jadhav.
Khadses son-in-law Manish Khevalkar owns a Hyundai Sonata, registered with Jalgaon RTO, which has been converted into a limousine. Khevalkar has modified the car without seeking permission from the RTO, Damania said.
Reacting to the social activist, Khadse said, "She has levelled baseless charges of corruption and highhandedness against me and my family without having a shred of proof and also made defamatory statements and so we have sent her a notice asking for explanation. We will wait for her to apologise or else take action."
Talking to Firstpost, Damania said, "Eknath Khadse has sent me a legal notice. I have not still received it. It has been first forwarded to media who have sent it to me on WhatsApp. I am quite happy to get it, as it is a great opportunity for me to systematically show all documents which I have got from all over Maharashtra. I refuse to give a reply, but will wait for him to file a defamation case. Anyway, I am not bothered for legal notice."
Although the probe has started into the phone call issue, the AAP is not quite hopeful of a positive outcome.
"From previous instances it is very clear that in Maharashtra in cases related to Pankaja Munde, Vinod Tawde and Ekanth Khadse himself, that this state government will not act against corruption in its own ministries or ask them to resign," Menon said.
The AAP spokesperson even met the chief minister demanding Khadses resignation.
The topic also figured in the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Fadnavis on Wednesday.
Senior BJP leaders, however, admitted the call issue is a matter of concern.
Khadse is the seniormost leader of the party and considered the second-in-command in the ministerial council after Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. If his name gets dragged in such a controversy, we have a reason to worry, said a senior party leader on condition of anonymity.
Two other BJP ministersRural Development Minister Pankaja Munde and Education Minister Vinod Tawdewere also in the dock over allegations of irregularities.
Fadnavis has briefed the PM about the political situation in the state, said a senior BJP leader.
The Maharashtra revenue minister is now hoping that his long association with the BJP will be his saving grace.
I have given 40 years of my life to the party. I have come this far because of the faith of the party leadership, Khadse said.
The Union home ministry has meanwhile asked the state agencies to go deep into the matter and submit a report, said a senior Mumbai Police official in know of the matter.
Srinagar: Authorities on Saturday imposed restrictions in parts of summer capital Srinagar to prevent a separatist called rally.
"Restrictions have been imposed in areas falling under the jurisdiction of seven police stations in Srinagar city today. The police stations whose areas shall remain under restrictions include Khanyar, Nowhatta, M.R. Gunj, Rainawari, Safa Kadal, Maisuma and Nigeen," Farooq Ahmad Lone, district magistrate Srinagar told IANS.
"The restrictions are purely of prohibitory nature and have been imposed to maintain law and order in the city," Lone added.
Separatists including Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Syed Ali Geelani, Muhammad Yasin Malik and others have called for a public rally to the martyrs graveyard in Eidgah area of old city Srinagar on Saturday.
This has been done to commemorate the deaths of two senior separatist leaders killed by unidentified assassins.
While Mirwaiz Muhammad Farooq, father of Mirwaiz Umer, was killed in his uptown Nigeen residence on May 21, 1990, another senior separatist leader, Abdul Gani Lone was killed in the Eidgah martyrs graveyard in Srinagar on May, 21, 2002.
The separatist are blaming the Indian intelligence agencies for these murders while the government said these killings were the result of internecine rivalry between various armed separatist groups in Kashmir.
Contingents of police and paramilitary forces in full riot gear have been deployed in areas placed under restrictions to ensure that the separatists are prevented from creating a law and order situation in the city.
Saturday being a public holiday in the state because of Buddha Purnima, educational institutions, government offices, banks and post offices are closed in Jammu and Kashmir.
Thanks to the wonderful performance of the spin doctors belonging to the Congress-mukt Bharat camp, we have now been led to believe that the grand old Indian National Congress is almost gone for good.
We have also been gripped by the perception that the Bharatiya Janata Party will, sooner rather than later, be marching ahead winning elections across the nation from Kamrup in the East to Kutch in the West, Kashmir in the North to Kanyakumari in the South.
And all this would happen by 2019. Little wonder then that an over-zealous Times of India came up with this front page banner headline Friday morning: A Congless India, Almost.
But a spin is a spin. And perceptions and realities often differ in politics. Scratch the surface just a little and you will come up with at least three political realities that may not jell well with the current perception:
First, Congress has bagged 115 seats in total compared to the BJPs overall tally of 64 in the recently concluded Assembly elections in five states. This effectively means that the BJP could win just four seats in as many states if you leave aside Assam.
By now all the details are out in the open. The Congress has, in fact, bettered its performance in three states West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
After a long, long time in West Bengal, the grand old party finds itself placed in the second spot with 44 seats 11 seats above the combined strength of the Left. Thats no mean achievement in the face of what is now known as didigiri on one hand and big brotherly attitude of the leftists on the other.
The BJP remains stuck at three seats even as the Congress could raise its tally by two seats compared to the 2011 Assembly elections. In Tamil Nadu, the Congress won eight seats this time against five in the 2011 polls.
And in Puducherry, the party has now got 15 seats compared to just seven in the 2011 Assembly elections.
Second, even a casual look at the voting percentage figures makes it clear that Amit Shahs party couldnt match its 2014 performance in four of the five states that went to polls not even in Assam where the BJP could get just above 29 percent votes on its own this time. At the peak of the Modi wave in 2014, the BJP had polled here over 36 percent votes.
Indeed, Kerala is the only state in India where the BJP could match its 2014 performance voting percentage wise. Its a different thing if the party could win a solitary seat in this southern state.
Third, BJPs ignominious defeat in Bihar and morale-boosting victory in Assam are more or less similar in nature and spirit. The only difference is that Amit Shahs party was at the receiving end of a potent coalition called mahagathbandhan in Bihar compared to Assam where the party romped home on the strength of a rainbow coalition of not-so-similar political forces. The Congress refused to learn lessons from Bihar. But the BJP did and quite commendably at that.
Few people know that in the second week of December last year, the Congress, the AIUDF and the AGP had almost stitched a deal to fight the Assembly elections together in Assam.
Prompted by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, a series of meetings had taken place in this regard in New Delhi. Everything had been decided upon and only a formal announcement remained to be made in this regard.
Even Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi wanted this alliance to materialise. But there is always a gap between the proverbial cup and the lips.
For reasons best known to himself and his son, it was Tarun Gogoi who set his foot down and called off the formal announcement. The alliance was dead even before it was born.
The fate of the Congress was sealed in turn. Can you imagine what would have happened in Assam, had this proposed coalition seen the light of day?
The BJP, which had been smarting under the weight of the Bihar debacle, had learnt its lessons rather well. Ably aided by Sarbananda Sonowal, who had migrated to BJP from AGP, and Himanta Biswa Sarma, who had joined the saffron camp deserting the Congress, Amit Shah didnt lose time in stitching a coalition with AGP and BPF.
The day this alliance was formed, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who happened to be Tarun Gogois master strategist in the earlier days, declared: The BJP will win hands down. And they did win hands down. Their confidence was based on the failure of the Congress to stitch an alliance with AIUDF and AGP.
Will the Congress survive after the 2019 General Election?
Thats the biggest question facing the grand old party of India, as it lost yet another stateAssamin the recently concluded Assembly elections.
The signs are imminent. From ruling the Centre and a majority of states, big and small, it has now been pushed into a corner with its governments in only seven states. Of these, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are the only three that have a bearing on national politics.
As senior leader and general secretary of Congress, Digvijay Singh mentioned in his tweet, has the time come for a surgery in Congress?
Senior leaders, state heads and workers of the Congress party have expressed serious concern over the party's consistent poor performance and have raised a voice for remedial measures before the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh and Punjab Assembly polls. The crux is that the party now needs intensive care to survive.
10 key factors that can help it revive and survive:
Need and acceptability of fresh ideas to boost electioneering and its campaign strategy. To bring in new faces with winnability quotient. Organisational rejuvenation and restructuring with bottom-up approach. Re-structure and revitalize every state unit. Instead of arm-chair politics, leaders have to reach out to grass-root voters. Maintaining balance between the old guard and new generation. Political re-orientation. Tendency to nip dissidence should be discouraged. Dynastic politics need to be discouraged. Get back to older model where a local leader used to have a strong bond with the voters of his /her constituency.
It was sometime in the beginning of the year, when poll strategist Prashant Kishor had met Assams three-term Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and suggested him that Gogoi shouldn't lead Congress after 15 years in power, and instead of individual centric campaign, an alliance with regional parties would prove beneficial. Gogoi didnt agree to Kishors ideas. The result is for all to see now.
Kishor, who was roped in by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi to strategize Assembly elections, has started facing resistance from old guards within the Congress party.
Gogoi refused to pay attention to Kishors suggestions and the result is before us. The Congress leadership should have stopped Himanta Biswa Sarma from leaving the party and join BJP. Today he has been elected as a BJP MLA, but Congress has lost Assam. The party should accept fresh ideas and stop axing a dissident, said an ex-MLA of Congress from Assam, who has lost this election.
The Assembly election result announced on 19 May has again exposed the decay within the Congress. Besides its senior leaders like Digvijay Singh and Shashi Tharoor, who have openly come out in public by questioning the partys style of functioning and demanding serious action, other Congress leaders and workers at the state-level are speaking in whispers.
Himanta Biswa Sarma raised the issue of dynastic politics by saying that sons and daughters of senior leaders instead of parachuting should work their way up. Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Tarun Gogoi promoted their sons, and the Congress lost in Haryana and Assam. This blue-blood politics should stop, said Sarma.
The Congress party has witnessed gradual decay in its state unitsbe it West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh or any other state. Despite having strong cases of corruption against the ruling parties, the Congress miserably failed to capitalize the opportunity in many of these states.
Congress ruled Madhya Pradesh for so many years, but today, it doesnt have the strength or leadership to counter the ruling BJP government which is involved in big scams and cases of corruption. Besides MP and Chhattisgarh, the organisational structure of Congress in Bengal too has collapsed. Its with our support that they won seats in West Bengal. The situation is similar almost everywhere. If Congress has to revive, it should focus on its political re-orientation and organizational rejuvenation, said Badal Saroj, CPI (M) central committee member and state secretary, Madhya Pradesh.
The only silver lining in this grim scenario is the emergence of Congress in the recently concluded civic by-polls in Delhi. By winning five seats, it was at par with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). These results have acted as a morale booster for the party which was completely wiped out in Delhi in 2015 election.
Congress won those wards where it had no presence. Its due to the inclusive leadership of our state president Ajay Maken, who restructured the state unit and maintained a balance between the old guard and new generation. You cant make everyone happy, but you can move ahead by taking all members along. Along with responsibility the leader should also get authority to implement decisions. This is required at the national level, if Congress has to survive beyond 2019 general election, a Delhi Congress leader said on condition of anonymity.
Maken has adopted the old method of Congress and asked workers to establish bond with the voters of the area. It was done during civic polls and gave happy results. At national and state-level, our leaders have to connect with the grass-root voters, from whom they had distanced gradually. Leadership cant be exercised by sitting in air-conditioned chambers and by discussing issues on television, the leader added.
Congress is open to new ideas, and its alliance with its strongest opponent-- the Left in West Bengal is a classic example. The party in future will look forward to similar alliances based on political ideology with an eye on 2019 General election, said Congress leader Tom Vadakkan.
I am what you call a prabashi (non-resident) Bengali, born and raised in Uttar Pradesh but with strong roots in West Bengal. I have intently pursued election trends ever since campaigning began. Now that the verdict is clear and Mamata Banerjee and her supporters are euphoric over Trinamool Congress' overwhelming victory, it's time for the triumphant Chief Minister to sit down and think about how to take the state forward. It's time to put the previous term behind her and move forward with renewed fervour and zeal.
Mamata's last innings was marked by poor governance, inept handling of the law and order (especially in the way the communal riots in Malda were handled this January), the lack of industrialisation, the state's inability to draw investment all of this has given West Bengal the image of a state in the grips of policy paralysis.
Ordinarily, it's recommended that the defeated party needs to introspect after elections but here, the winning party needs to jot down the corrective measures to improve their performance in the second term. The vindictive policy of routinely blaming the Left for practically everything has to be dispensed with, and with immediate effect.
Once the dust settles, Mamata Banerjee needs to address the serious corruption charges leveled against her party. Simply crying "political conspiracy" just won't do.
Many of her party colleagues are currently being probed by the CBI. What exactly went wrong in Sharada and Narada scams? They can't be just wished away just because TMC is now victorious. They have to be addressed instead of adopting an ostrich-like attitude.
Causes for rampant corruption need to be identified and loopholes plugged to prevent any recurrence. The electorate which has given her this resounding victory may not repose the same trust once again. Mamata Banerjee has an impeccable record of probity but some of her partymen may not be above board. Remember, close Mamata aide and former minister Madan Mitra was arrested by the CBI as well.
Further, the state has witnessed severe law and order problems between 2011 and 2016 with rampant cases of crime against women. TMC MP Tapas Pal's outrageous statementwhere he threatened the women folk of political opponents with rapedidn't help matters either. Worse, there was barely any action from the party leadership against Pal.
Police morale has been at its lowest. Party workers and goons have had a field day, engaging in political violence, ransacking police stations and physically assaulting cops a sad commentary on the custodians of law. This was compounded with the disturbance in Malda. There has been scant respect for the state machinery.
Often incidents appeared as if they were state sponsored acts. It's a shame that in the land of Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, JC Bose and reformers like Ram Mohun Roy such vagrant incidents of mindless violence have repeatedly been reported. I am sure they would be turning in their graves.
The other worrying trend is the state government's counter-terror operations. The blasts in Burdwan with help from foreign hands put a question mark on the state of state intelligence and policing. There have been several reports of youngsters being radicalized and tilting towards the Islamic State.
A recent arrest by the NIA was of a suspected recruit from Hooghly. He was reportedly tasked to strengthen the Islamic State in the state. Having Bangladesh next door adds to West Bengal's vulnerability. This cannot be ignored by the security apparatus. Mamata's government needs to pay extra attention to this growing threat.
It's also pertinent to point out that there were caustic and unparliamentary remarks made by senior party leaders. Senior leader Firhad Hakim went so far as to reportedly call a part of Kolkata 'mini Pakistan'.
Such politically motivated statements during an election season are avoidable and those making the statements must be reined in. The semblance of the bhadralok culture, once a hallmark of Bengal, is glaringly missing. Anyone can say anything and get away with it, giving a perception that such acts have the state's tacit sanction.
Also, media management of the party has left much to be desired. Party leaders and activists need to be more tolerant instead of confronting the press. The media's job is to ask questions and they deserve answers from those who are in power.
Investors like Tata and Ambani must feel welcome. The Singur project could be revived by extending a renewed invitation to India Inc. This will generate employment and see progress. West Bengal seems to be stagnating, but it is still not late. The state should wake up and be on a mission to modernize without resorting to politics. The party's popularity and the huge electoral mandate must be consolidated to refurbish image of the state.
Bengal Renaissance of the 19th century was an upheaval of immense proportions. Didi has the capability to resurrect the state in all fields by mobilizing resources and bring 'acche din'. Such opportunities do not come often.
Now with an even bigger mandate, the challenging task is even more doable. Emerging with a taller stature after the fresh victory and with an eye on national level politics in the next elections, Didi remains a crucial and decisive factor for 2019 and it would seem to be an intelligent move to transform herself as a statesman by playing a constructive role rather than remaining cocooned in the state mindset. Her vision must transcend with generosity and large-hearted politics instead of lashing out at her detractors and adversaries for everything.
Under Mamata's new leadership, Bengal should start reliving the old maxim "What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow".
(Shantanu Mukharji is a retired IPS officer and a freelance writer. Views are personal).
Several Indian banks are going all-out to recover their dues running into several thousands of crores from the defunct Kingfisher Airlines' chairman Vijay Mallya, who is safely stay put in the UK. But in the process, a nationalised bank in India has frozen the account of Manmohan Singh, a farmer, for being a guarantor to Vijay Mallya, who is embroiled in charges of money laundering.
Singh, a farmer from Pilibhit, was left running from pillar to post since September last year after Bank of Baroda's Mumbai branch asked the Nandgaon branch to freeze two his accounts for being guarantor to the disgraced business tycoon.
In fact, Singh said he was informed about the same when we went to deposit money into the bank.
I went to deposit four lakh to the bank but they refused to accept the money. The bank manager said I have taken a guarantee for Kingfisher Company. I dont know anything about this company, an Indian Express report said quoting Singh.
Sardar Manmohan Singh, who has never boarded a flight in his life, was told in December last year that he was a director of the now-defunct airlines, a Hindustan Times report said.
I have heard his (Mallyas) name but never met him. I have no idea how I was made the director of his company, said Singh whose name, according to bank officials, appeared in the list of guarantors/directors of Kingfisher Airlines. The list contains nine names, including Vijay Mallya, his son Siddharth, and Singh.
However, Mange Ram, manager of Bank of Barodas Nand branch in Pilibhit, said, We received a letter to seize his (Singhs) account for recovery of the loan amount in December last year. The letter was sent by the banks regional office at Nariman Point, Mumbai.
When asked about the credits Singh has taken from the bank, Ram said the former has taken a loan of Rs 5 lakh.
Singh came here to deposit money and I told him that he can deposit money but cant withdraw it, he added.
The bank, however, has not clarified to him how his name came up in connection with Mallya in the first place.
On verifying his accounts, the local manager wrote back to the Mumbai branch, asking them for permission to de-freeze Singhs accounts. Finally on Friday, the Mumbai branch responded positively, asking the Nandgaon branch to open Singhs accounts, a Mid-Day report said.
It is not yet clear how the error occurred or whether the lapse will be probed. Securing loans using fake guarantors is not unheard of in smaller bank branches. Mallya has been on the run since March 2, when public sector lenders to whom he owed more than Rs 9,000 crore moved the Debt Recovery Tribunal against him.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is set to conduct a forensic audit of Mallyas related companies accounts, to collect money trail details in connection with the Rs 6,963 crore borrowed by him and his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.
Puducherry: Congress could have won more seats in the Union Territory in its "historic" win but for the anti-party activities by some workers, Puducherry Pradesh Congress Committee president A Namassivyam said on Saturday.
"Congress registered a historic win in the 16 May assembly polls and could have annexed a few more seats, but anti-party activities by some Congress workers had resulted in it losing winning chances in other segments."
Congress won 15 of the 21 seats it contested in the 30-member assembly. Its poll partner DMK was earmarked the remaining nine seats, of which it annexed two one each from Puducherry and Karaikal regions.
Namassivayam said the party would not let those who had indulged in anti-party activities go scot free. "We will not brook indiscipline at any level in the party," he said.
He was addressing a meeting of workers and functionaries of different wings of the party on former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's 25th death anniversary at the PCC office in Puducherry.
Namassivayam said Congress is people-centric and their record of performance in the past had convinced people that the party would deliver on its promises.
He said the outgoing AINRC government had failed to measure up to people's expectations and lost their confidence.
Thanking all party cadres, Namassivayam, who retained Villianoor seat for the second successive term, said he was also grateful to DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi and leaders of other alliance parties for their sustained cooperation to help the party establish a record.
AICC General Secretary V Narayanasamy and most of the 15 newly elected Congress legislators were present at the meeting.
Namassivayam administered an 'anti-terrorism' pledge to all present and silence was observed for a couple of minutes.
He later told newsmen that a joint meeting of all elected legislators would be held later today. CLP leader's election would take place soon with guidance of the high command.
Namassivayam later paid homage at a statue of Rajiv Gandhi at a main junction here. He later left for Sriperumbudur near Chennai to pay homage at the memorial of the former prime minister there.
The election king has done it again. For the 174th time, Salem-based K Padmarajan has lost an election. He was contesting against DMDKs Vijayakanth from Ulundurpet and S Semmalai from Mettur.
I have registered my 174th loss with this election. This was the first time I was contesting against Vijayakanth and I am happy to have lost, says Padmarajan.
The 57-year-old homeopathic doctor turned tyre trader has only one goal, to set a record of contesting the maximum number of elections. He began contesting in elections in 1988 with an intention to raise awareness that anybody, whether rich or poor can contest in an election. While he has never campaigned for any election he has lost Rs 20 lakh as deposit money.
Though he has already entered the Limca Book of World Records and the Guiness Book of World Records as the Most Unsuccessful Candidate a couple of times, he still contests all the elections he can.
I am going to continue to contest elections all my life. On May 24th, I will be filing my next nomination for Rajya Sabha elections in Chennai, he says.
From local Panchayat elections to the Presidential elections, he has fought them all. In the past he has contested against PM Narendra Modi, former Tamil Nadu CMs J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi, President Pranab Mukherjee, former presidents APJ Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Patil, former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, PV Narasimha Rao, Kerala chief minister K Karunakaran and former Union minister AK Antony.
I have contested against five prime ministers, 11 chief ministers and 13 Central ministers. Next I hope to contest against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi or whoever will become a PM candidate, Padmarajan said.
The only other person to have such a record is Kaka Joginder Singh, who contested and lost over 300 elections in his lifetime.
He claims that he is the reason why the Election Commission brought in an amendment in 1996 restricting candidates to contest only from two seats. This was after he filed nominations to contest from five Lok Sabha constituencies at a time.
He is currently in the process of registering his own political party Election King Failure Party. Recently he even featured on Star Plus show On Air with AIB.
Even if a Thulla is caught demanding money from the street vendors, we can't try him."
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal in a TV interview, on 17 July 2015
Thulla has landed Kejriwal in a city court which has now to decide whether the term is defamatory, for which it must first ascertain the exact meaning of the word. This is not going to be easy as the word does not figure in any standard Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apbhransh, Hindoostani, Hindi or Urdu dictionary.
I have checked over two dozen authoritative wordbooks published during the last hundred years or so but have not found the word anywhere. I have, no doubt, stumbled upon similar sounding words like Thalla, Thaliya, Thallu, Thalua and Nitthalla, but not Thulla.
The words mentioned above are common in the Hindi region and are all listed in Hindi dictionaries as variants of Prakrit Thall meaning idle, indolent, laggard, lackadaisical, lazy, slack, slow, slothful, poor, moneyless, and destitute. Thulla, however, is not given as a variant of Thall, nor is it listed as an independent word derived from a different source. Thall is recorded in dictionaries as deshaj in origin, that is, a word whose origin cannot be traced to Sanskrit and which is, therefore, assigned the status of country born, or one born among the common people, the aam aadmi.
This means that Thulla is a neologism that has not yet come to the notice of lexicographers. I called up friends in some cities and towns in the Hindi states to find out if they had heard the word used in their neighbourhood. Most of them said that, though the word sounded familiar, they had not actually used or heard it used in their social circles until, of course, Kejriwal made it famous. Those who said that they seemed to have heard the word, even if not used it themselves, apparently confused it with Thalla and Nithalla, meaning the shirker or idler in common parlance. Thulla is new even to Google where it made its first appearance after Kejriwal gave it currency last month.
Taking the hint from him, some bloggers have given its slang meaning as policeman or cop. However, its meaning cannot be as simple as that, for it would not have generated such heat if it merely denoted a policeman or was merely a euphemism for one. It must have a certain snide aspect to it to cause such uproar.
If it is not listed in standard dictionaries, it must certainly be a slang word and, if it is new even on the Net, it must be hot off the street. This is understandable as there is always a time lag between the slang use of a word and its inclusion in wordbooks. It seems that Thulla started its career quite some years ago as a cant word among street urchins, rag pickers, drug pushers, pickpockets and chain snatchers from whom it spread among roadside vendors, their helpers and delivery boys, rikshaw-pullers and three-wheeler drivers. Soon it sneaked into the jargon of the citys uppity adventure bikers and has from there crept almost stealthily into the informal lexicon of middle class teenagers and school and college students.
Kejriwal must have picked the word from the streets during his election campaign. The fashion for spicing up ones conversation with street slang started among the American haute monde and upper crusts some years ago. As the poor, the jobless and the disadvantaged immigrants and all those living on welfare became increasingly assertive, radicalised, demanding and even hostile, the privileged American classes began shedding their elitist attire, looks and lexicon and went folksy. Soon the American Presidents cast away their Sunday best and slipped into denims and tea shirts and began sprinkling their talk with street slang to gain social acceptance of what they called the folks and whom we here call the aam aadmi. Kejriwal was, obviously, among the earliest Indian public spirited men to catch the whiff wafting in from America and, though the trend may have come from America, the discovery of Thulla is solely his own.
It seems from the context in which Kejriwal used the word Thulla during his TV interview, the tenor and tone of his utterance, and the indignant and snide expression on his face that he used the word rather contemptuously for the police, insinuating a tainted and rotten character. The sense that the word conveyed was that of a cheap and disgraceful, good for nothing fellow who fleeces the helpless instead of earning his keep according to the calling of his duty. That is also more or less what the street use of the term implies, though in the beginning Thulla may have been a bare euphemism, sort of a street watchword. Some net fanciers have tried to link Thullu with the Mumbai slang word Thullu which has gone viral since the TV standing comedian Kapil Sharma gave it currency in his recent shows.
Thullu, however, is a coarse coinage fit for bawdy, slapstick comedy. The TV jokster makes the smutty Thullu even smuttier by adding his double-dealing hand gesture.
Kejriwal certainly could not have intended such a meaning when he used the word Thulla, which is, anyway, different both in origin and meaning from Thalla, Nithalla as also from Thullu.
So what does Thulla mean? Clearly, it means exactly what Kejriwal intended it to mean: a sleazy, shameful and wretched cop. Whether or not that is defamatory is for the court to pronounce. As for its origin, it is not a deshaj or slang word like Thalla and its variants Nithalla, Thalua, etc. Thulla is of pure Sanskrit origin and is the Prakrit, Apabhransh, Hindi derivative from sthul which is pronounced with soft th as in thermos. Change of dental or soft th to cerebral or hard Th is common as, for instance, the shift from soft th in Sanskrit sthapan, to fix, to hard Th in Hindi Thappa meaning mark, stamp, seal, engraving. Sanskrit sthul means big, large, thick, gross, etc, and was originally identical with sthur which is also the source of similar meaning words in various Indo-European languages like Greek and Latin taurus meaning bull, Lithuanian storas meaning thick, Swedish stura meaning big or large and English store meaning depot, storehouse.
Though of Sanskrit origin, it is rather uncommon in Hindi and is, therefore, not seen in Hindi dictionaries. The word is, however, common in the Nepali language as Thola and Thulla and is given in good detail in Turners comprehensive comparative and etymological dictionary of Nepali language published in 1831. In Nepali language, the word means big or large, as in Ghulam Alis now famous Nepali folk song Gazalu ti Thulla, Thulla aankha (Gazalu your big, big eyes...). Yet another common meaning of the term in the language is elder or older as in Thola buwa meaning the elder or older father meaning fathers elder brother.
It is from the Nepali language that the word Thola entered the two hill dialects of Garhwali and Kumaoni on the edge of the KhaDi Boli or Saurseni Prakrit-Hindi region. Here the Thola sound changed permanently to Thulla and the meaning got fixed to elder as in Thulla bhai or the elder brother like they say mota bhai in Gujarati. How they slipped into the two dialects should become clear from the fact that for about a quarter of a century from 1790 to 1815 the two districts were ruled by the Gorkhas from Nepal. The word moved over to Delhi with the Nepali and Garhwali immigrants. Here Thulla became standardised in the sense of big, burly and bulky and from there a euphemism for policemen who keep sauntering self-importantly from one handcart to another collecting their keep.
The author is engaged in compiling an etymological dictionary of Indian and Pakistani slang
With the results of the Assembly elections in four states having given a boost to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the focus is set to quickly shift to Uttar Pradesh where election to the 403-member Assembly is likely to be held early 2017. As campaigning would take a more aggressive tone in coming months, the dilemma of all non-BJP parties is simple: do they target the BJP for a state election where the BJP is not in power? Or, target the ruling Samajwadi Party at the risk of appearing soft towards the BJP?
While the BJP seems to be taking its Congress-mukt Bharat campaign seriously, such a campaign will be ridiculous in UP as Congress is not the main rival: it has been out of power for close to three decades. In UP, the BJP will have to give a twist to the slogan to include Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in it.
On the other hand, for the BSP and Congress, their campaigning may have to focus more on attacks against the SP government headed by Akhilesh Yadav rather than targeting BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi as has been the case till now. Both SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati have, in their frequent public appearances and statements in UP, preferred to target BJP and Modi even when talking about states affairs. So much so that even Akhilesh refers to his governments development achievements vis-a-vis Modi governments accomplishments when seeking support for another term.
But with poor policing and rising crime set to acquire important dimensions in the forthcoming election campaign, it remains to be seen whether BSP and Congress will continue with their anti-BJP tirade, thus giving a respite to the SP. A BJP spokesman said that the BJPs promise of a Congress-mukt Bharat was taking shape all over India but in UP, the party aimed to give an alternative to the goondaism and corruption of previous BSP and present SP governments. If people are indeed looking for a change, then they would look for a party which raises anti-SP issues more aggressively, rather than attacking BJP for the sake of ideological opposition, he said.
As the political focus is now set to shift towards UP where election is due early next year, a realignment of sorts could be in the making with indications that the BJP would initiate its UP campaign more aggressively than before in view of the Assam verdict and gains in other states. The BJP is also likely to present the argument that parties that sided with the Congress suffered in the recent Assembly elections.
This might trigger a rethink in the Congress to launch an all-out assault on the SP, rather than occasionally side with the latter in the garb of strengthening anti-communal forces. During the UPA regime both the SP and BSP had on more than one occasion helped the Congress corner the BJP during discussion on various issues. In the latest such instance, the BSP extended support in the crucial floor test in the Uttarakhand Assembly to help the beleaguered Congress Chief Minister Harish Rawat win his battle against the BJP.
However, within SP there is a difference of opinion with a large section feeling that it is too early to write off the Congress. But as long as the SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav does not make a definitive statement in this regard, other leaders in the party are not willing to be identified with their statements. For this section of SP leaders, the larger issue of secularism versus communalism makes it imperative for all like-minded parties to come together to fight the BJP-RSS combine. The decimation of the Congress is nothing but propaganda of BJP and RSS, said an SP leader, adding that the performance of the Congress had actually improved in terms of numbers, rising from five to eight in Tamil Nadu and from 42 to 44 in West Bengal.
On the other hand, the BSP might need to express its distancing from the Congress more clearly and assertively since rumours of its alliance with the Congress surface regularly. Mayawati also appears to be a little soft towards Congress in her pronouncements, reserving the venom only for the BJP. The SP, on the other hand, has made it clear that it will not ally with any party for the 2017 Assembly election. The situation, however, is emerging quite to the liking of the BJP. With little possibilities of any alliance involving the SP, BSP and the Congress, strategists in the BJP are confident that this would help the party. All parties stand to benefit from making the election appear as a one-against-one contest. This gives the impression that only these two parties are strong enough contenders while the others are not worth consideration. The BSP claims its main rival is only the BJP and not the SP; the SP, too, claims its main rival is only the BJP and not the BSP.
This multiplicity of parties has in the past several elections helped the BSP and the SP alternately. But this time, the BJP, buoyed by its government at the Centre and recent gains, may force the hand of Congress and BJP in taking a clearer stand against the SP. It remains to be seen ultimately who benefits by this game of one-upmanship.
New Delhi: In a veiled criticism of CPM, CPI on Friday said the Left Front's electoral tactic of "non-aggression" with Congress in West Bengal assembly polls did not help communist parties and instead reduced their strength, as it called for analysis of the results.
The CPI though hailed the "historic" return to power of CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala and thanked people of the southern state for their "positive" support to the Left forces. It also hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his claim that the result in Assam has reflected acceptance of ideology and politics of the NDA major and termed the same as one "without basis".
"CPI expresses shock at the unexpected defeat of the Left in West Bengal, in spite its best efforts to defeat the arrogant, anti-democratic TMC government. "TMC winning with bigger margin is definitely not a positive development. Apparently the electoral tactics of the Left Front of non-aggression with Congress in each others seat did not help the Left.
"It further reduced the Left strength. This is to be deeply analysed by the Left and its partners," CPI general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy said in a statement without naming any party specifically.
Hailing LDF's victory in Kerala "with a big majority in seats and votes", Reddy said the "consistent and massive" struggles of the Front on the issues of corruption and misgovernance had "exposed" Congress.
"The programmes and policies of LDF won hearts of the people. Now the LDF should work to fulfill the aspirations of the people, maintain harmony and secular values of the Kerala," he said. Reddy refused to buy Modi's claim that the poll outcome in Assam, where the BJP put on an impressive show to clinch power for the first time, reflected acceptance of the saffron party's ideology and politics by people.
He noted the BJP could not open account in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry but for the first time got one seat in Kerala assembly and bagged three seats in West Bengal. Reddy further observed there was drop in BJP's vote share in West Bengal, where the latter bagged three seats, from 17 percent in 2014 Lok Sabha polls to 10 percent in the assembly election.
The CPI national executive will meet on 28 and 29 May in Delhi to review the electoral results and decides the future course of action.
As BJP made debut in north-east with its victory in Assam assembly polls, Modi on Thursday hailed win as "historic" and "phenomenal" and said the mandate reflects growing popular support for the party's ideology of development and effort to transform the lives of people.
No one can second guess what happened to EgyptAir Flight 804 the latest bruise to civil aviation. The only thing one can say for sure is that an aircraft like the A320 does not stop flying mid-air unless someone interferes with the crew or the controls. Accidents take place on landings and take-offs, not at cruising altitudes. The odds of both engines flaming-out simultaneously are less than that of you being hit by lightning.
It is natural to look at the flight deck crew first, to see if pilot error and the human factor played a role. We always do that because often enough in most countries that is the easiest way of shrugging away from maintenance and security glitches, and government responsibility. After all, what can we do if the pilot made a mess of things, thats a global risk.
No, it is not. This is a cop out and is very unfair. Pilots do not crash their planes. They do their best to get out of a crisis situation.
In the case of EgyptAir 804, with no Mayday warning or indication of malfunction, one can assume that the aircraft entered a catastrophic frame that means that the crew were incapacitated, and were unable to even punch-in 7700, the emergency code.
After congratulating the Egyptian authorities for not ruling out an act of terror in the face of adversity, every nation should wake up to the fact that you do not need the caricatures of the 1970s brand of terrorists with bandanas and weapons as guides for upping airport and aircraft safety. Aircrafts can be taken over with ease with just a hatpin, a pen, a serving knife, or a fork.
I am not trivialising things, but people who are ready to die dont need guns, they have options ranging from non-combatant hostages to mere threats. We will all be intimidated.
And lets be brutally honest. Aviation has a weak and vulnerable underbelly. An aircraft moves from competent airports to inept airports to farcical airports. There are more red starred airports (dangerous and inefficient) on the aerial map than orange (adequate).
That gives us a very good idea of how easy it is to duck security. There is only one defence left and that is for nations, who have multi-laterals, to share information and data on the thousands of suspicious individuals who are on their lists, but often kept secret.
Unless there is a global no-fly list and a real time sharing of information aided by the presence of profilers at airports and computers on a 24/7 Be On The Lookout trawling of all passengers and catering, cleaning and ground crews with access to aircrafts, there will invariably be someone who will wriggle through our relatively pathetic safety nets.
It can only be done if political hostility does not come in the way. Aviation is without frontiers, yet, all those who are involved in it continue to work for most part in their watertight compartments, unwilling or under orders not to share intelligence with other blocs which may be politically inimical to them.
Does it make sense to fly to these hostile territories, and allow the safety parameters to be held at ransom because of political demands? Yet carriers do it every day.
Profiling may come off as ugly, racist and prejudiced. It is a tag that has been abused but it is our only friend.
Ask the next of kin of those on that ill-fated flight how they would feel if people at Paris had allowed a motley number of individuals from different countries where terrorism is rife to get on board and not noticed a pattern; why should they?
Exactly the point. The time is coming when we will need to watch for the signs; drug lords, psychotics, alcoholics, terrorists, ex-cons with a history of violence, same difference.
Air security has to go hi-tech not just with stopping liquids and lighters in hand bags but by adding to that sanitising process a new dimension of electronic and professional surveillance across the board at the airport and on the flight. All cabin crew should be trained in spotting the unusual. Kinesic studies should be mandated because body language is eloquent.
Aircrew and airlines know that they are vulnerable. Time to do something serious about it. We dont want more victims like Flight 804.
Yesterday LG announced that it will begin pre-orders for the flagship LG G5 smartphone in India starting today. Now the phone is available on pre-order exclusively on Flipkart for Rs. 52,990. Customers who pre-book the phone till May 30, 2016 will get a free LG Cam Plus companion device. After pre-order you can head to LG India website to fill the form providing your details and the invoice copy to redeem the free LG Cam Plus.
The G5 has a 5.3-inch (2560 x 1440 pixels) Quad HD Quantum always-on display that lets you can check the time, battery status, and notifications without waking the phone. It is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, runs on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with LG UX, has a 16-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, OIS 2.0, Laser auto focus, manual mode and a secondary 8-megapixel rear camera with 135-degree wide angle lens.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juB1Ud40w1E
LG G5 Specifications
5.3-inch (25601440 pixels) Quad HD always-on display, 3D Arc Glass
Quad-Core Snapdragon 820 64-bit processor with Adreno 530 GPU
4GB RAM, 32GB internal memory, expandable memory up to 2TB with microSD
Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)
16MP rear camera, laser auto focus, dual-tone flash, 4K video recording
8MP secondary rear camera with 135-degree wide-angle lens
8MP front-facing camera
Dimensions: 149.4 x 73.9 x 7.7~8.6mm; Weight: 159g
Fingerprint sensor, Infrared sensor
4G LTE, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (dual-band), Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, NFC, USB Type-C
2800mAh (removable) battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0
The LG G5 comes in Silver, Titan, Gold and Pink colors and is priced at Rs. 52,990. It will start shipping from June 1st. We went hands-on with the G5 at the MWC, check out the video below.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M9mlJq_w_A
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxvEQdr4cjA
Check out the new FoneArena Daily video that gives you a quick roundup of todays technology news.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQRZJsofCKI
Googles Advanced Technology and Projects division (ATAP) announced at the Google I/O that it will release the developer version of the Project Ara modular smartphone in the fall of 2016. The consumer version of the Project Ara will be available only in 2017.
YouTube is working on a standalone virtual reality app for its recently announced virtual reality platform Daydream. The app comes with similar features like voice search, discovery, playlists and more.
OnePlus CEO Pete Lau took on Chinese micro-blogging website Weibo teasing that the OP3 feels good to hold and also shared a camera sample from the phone.
Googles Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) division has demoed Project Soli, a radar-based gesture control technology on a LG smartwatch and JBL speaker at the I/O developer conference.
Todays deal New Kindle Paperwhite at Rs. 8,999.
Modern advances in medicine means we're living longer than ever before, and that means that long-term care is in the cards for most of us. That's a problem, because long-term care is costly. Planning ahead for long-term care expenses is critical to retirement planning, so here's what you need to know about long-term care, including some tips that can help you prepare for it.
Increasingly common
The most common reasons for requiring long-term care are stroke, Alzheimer's disease, and cancer and those are most often diagnosed later in life. For example, more than a third of all cancer cases are diagnosed in patients older than 75 and 95% of all Alzheimer's disease cases are diagnosed in people older than 65.
Since Americans are living longer, the likelihood of requiring long-term care because of one of these conditions -- or another illness or injury -- is high. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, more than two out of every three Americans turning age 65 this year will require long-term care at some point in their lifetime.
Incredibly expensive
Long-term care is expensive and its cost is increasing every year. Sometimes, long-term care can be provided in home, which is cheaper, but assisted living or nursing home care is often required, and that care is no bargain.
According to Genworth's annual cost of care survey, the annual cost of an assisted living facility and a semi-private room in a nursing home is $43,539 per year and $82,125 per year, respectively.
Longer stays
About half of long-term care patients require help for more than one year, so plan on coin-flip odds of needing long-term care for more than 12 months.
Among people who receive long-term care for more than one year, the average period of time that care is needed lasts 3.9 years.
Since a lot of that care is likely to be provided in pricey nursing homes, the lifetime cost of long-term care can be sky-high.
Picking up the tab
Many people believe that the costs associated with long-term care will be picked up by private insurance or Medicare. But that's not the case.
Private insurance and Medicare will pay for some healthcare services, but only if certain requirements are met and just for a short period of time. Importantly, private insurance and Medicare won't pay for costs that are associated with custodial care or personal care services. Those costs can be significant.
Medicaid will pay for long-term care, however, qualifying for Medicaid isn't easy. Most states will only consider someone eligible for Medicaid if they have limited assets and income.
Therefore, it may make sense to plan ahead and buy a long-term care insurance policy. The annual premiums associated with long-term care insurance will vary depending on age, health, and coverage, but they can be bought for a few thousand dollars per year. That may sound like a lot of money, but it's not, especially when you consider how quickly retirement savings could disappear if you're forced to pay for long-term care out of pocket.
Choosing care
It can be incredibly difficult navigating all the decisions that have to be made when its determined that a loved one requires long-term care. However, it may help to keep a few things in mind when selecting an appropriate facility for care.
First, consider if there are any facilities that specialize in the kind of care that your loved one requires. For example, some specialize in dealing with dementia patients.
Second, keep in mind that costs associated with specialized care may be higher. For instance, memory care centers can cost 30% more than regular facilities.
Third, visit multiple facilities in person so that you can see first-hand what kind of care your loved one will receive. Sources for possible facilities include family, friends, and online services, such as the Department of Health and Human Services Eldercare locator. When you go, don't be shy of asking residents and their families how they like it there. You might be surprised by the responses.
Finally, you may benefit from visiting Medicare's online nursing home comparison tool. This tool can help you compare nursing homes based on quality. It also allows you to see if there are any blips in health and safety inspections, and it also offers insight into how people rate a facility's staff.
Planning ahead
Reduce the mistakes associated with making long-term care decisions by putting a plan in place ahead of time. Unfortunately, too few people appear to be doing that.
Although more than 40 million people receive Social Security, only about 8 million Americans have purchased long-term care insurance. Since most Americans will require some long-term care at some point, and 20% of Americans will require long-term care for longer than five years, putting off long-term care insurance may be foolish.
Visiting with an elder law attorney in your area may make a lot of sense as well. Elder law attorneys focus on retirement and long-term care planning strategies that may help protect assets and that insight can be critical if Medicaid gets involved in your loved one's long-term care. Medicaid eligibility requirements include a five-year look-back period that can result in penalties if individuals attempt to qualify by gifting money or assets. Medicaid can also place a lien on your home to recoup expenses paid for long-term care after you die. Medicaid won't force a spouse to sell a home once you pass away, but it may place a lien on your home once they pass away too. A skilled elder law attorney may be able to help you avoid that risk.
Overall, the odds are that long-term care costs will quickly deplete all but the biggest retirement nest eggs. Discussing long-term care needs ahead of time may be difficult, but failing to prepare can have a long-lasting impact on your family years after you're gone. Therefore, if you're in or approaching retirement, make sure you consider the possibility of needing long-term care and take steps to protect the assets you've spent a lifetime accumulating.
Alphabet 's Google recently revealed Google Home, its response to Amazon 's Echo. Like the Echo, the Home is an always-on speaker which listens for search queries, plays music, and controls connected home automation devices.
Google Home. Image source: Google.
Home is powered by Google Assistant, which can be useful for users who store lots of data on Google services like Gmail and Calendar. Responses to search queries are optimized for audio, which produces more concise results than text. It also synchronizes with any device using the Cast standard, so it can communicate with Chromecasts to play videos, music, or other content. Moreover, Google made the speaker base customizable to better blend in with other home decor.
Google has stated that Home will launch later this year for an unspecified price. Several media outlets have already calledthe Home an "Echo Killer,"but I believe that awarding that title to Google could be premature for three simple reasons.
1. Amazon owns product search
Google is the most widely used search engine in the world, but it has repeatedly failed to match Amazon's dominance of product searches. Back in 2014, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt admitted that "more than twice" the number of shoppers started their product searches on Amazon instead of Google. Amazon leveraged that dominance to expand into its customers' homes via Kindle tablets, Fire TV set top boxes, and several versions of Echo, then tied all those devices into its prisoner-taking Prime ecosystem.
In January, research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) estimatedthat its Prime user base in the U.S. had grown 35% annually to 54 million. Meanwhile, Amazon has continuously expanded its list of perks for Prime members, which includes Dash buttons and appliances for reordering consumables, grocery and restaurant delivery services, new original shows and movies, and faster delivery options. As Amazon integrates these new features into Alexa, the voice service which powers Echo, it could become an indispensable tool for Prime members. An April report from CIRP claims that Amazon has sold3 million Echos so far.
The Amazon Echo. Image source: Amazon.
Since Google lacks that well-established product-based ecosystem, Home could be considered a redundant device when compared to a smartphone -- which also processes Google voice searches and communicates with Cast standard devices.
2. Amazon is (arguably) less creepy
Amazon generates most of its revenue from its online marketplace and cloud services. Google generates most of its revenue from targeted ads, which are crafted from user data and search histories. That crucial difference could encourage customers and partners to embrace Echo while shunning Home.
Google's data mining has turned off potential partners in promising industries before. Many banks refused to work with Google when it launched Google Wallet in 2011, since it insisted on collecting customer data and purchase histories to craft better targeted ads. German automakersblasted Google's driverless plans last year, warning that they could turn vehicles into data miners. That's why a consortium of German automakers subsequently bought Nokia's HERE mapping unitas an alternative to Google Maps.
Similar concerns likely prevented the Nest thermostat -- which was intended tobecome Google's smart home hub -- from achieving mainstream adoption. The Nest unit also released an Internet-connected camera last year, andThe Guardian warned that "Google could be watching your every move, if you let it." Earlier this year, Re/code reported that the Nest division wanted to make an Echo-like device, but privacy concerns prevented it from launching one. Google Home wasn't developed by the Nest division, but it could face similar concerns as those devices.
3. Amazon has a big head start
Those privacy concerns could keep potential partners away from Google Home, which would make it less useful than Amazon Echo. Amazon already holdspartnerships with Fitbit, Ford, Uber, Domino's Pizza, Samsung, and a wide range of smart appliance makers. It's also opened up its API to developers.
Google hasn't opened up Home's API to partners or developers yet. But even after it does so, it could face tough questions about how it plans to use the data gathered through Home. If those concerns prevent major partners from working with Google, Home could face an uphill battle against Echo when it finally launches.
Google Home has a lot to prove
Google has a weak track record with hardware -- its purchase of Motorola became a money pit, numerous Android-powered set top devices failed, and Google Glass was punted back to the drawing board. On the bright side, the development of Home was led by Mario Queiroz, who oversaw Google's only big hardware hit, the Chromecast.
Unfortunately, Google Home will need to be more than "Google in a can" to be successful. Amazon has a bigger product search based ecosystem, more partners, and faces fewer privacy concerns than Google. Unless Google can address all three challenges, the Home could simply become the next Nexus Q -- a pretty device which fails to find an audience.
The article 3 Simple Reasons Google Home Won't Beat Amazon's Echo originally appeared on Fool.com.
Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Leo Sun owns shares of Amazon.com and Ford. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Amazon.com, and Ford. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The retail industry is going through a particularly challenging period, and most companies in the sector are delivering dismal sales figures. However, in a time when most competitors are struggling, TJX looks stronger than ever, and this says a lot about the company and its management team.
A bloodbath in retail
When looking at department stores and retailers focused on apparel, things seem quite gloomy. Consumer spending in fashion and apparel has been remarkably weak lately, and brick-and-mortar retailers are facing daunting competition from online players. Many companies in the business are delivering stagnant and even declining sales figures.
Some noteworthy examples to consider:
Macy's announced a 7.4% decline in revenue during the first quarter of fiscal 2016. This was driven by the impact of 41 store closings and a 5.6% decrease in comparable-store sales during the quarter.
announced a 7.4% decline in revenue during the first quarter of fiscal 2016. This was driven by the impact of 41 store closings and a 5.6% decrease in comparable-store sales during the quarter. Total revenue at J.C. Penney was down by 1.6% during the quarter ending April 30, while comparable-store sales declined 0.4%.
was down by 1.6% during the quarter ending April 30, while comparable-store sales declined 0.4%. Sears announced a decline of 9.9% in total revenue for the quarter ending Jan. 30, while comparable-store sales at Kmart and Sears Domestic declined by 7.2% and 6.9% respectively.
announced a decline of 9.9% in total revenue for the quarter ending Jan. 30, while comparable-store sales at Kmart and Sears Domestic declined by 7.2% and 6.9% respectively. Total sales at GapInc. fell 6% during the first quarter of 2016, with comparable sales declining by 5%. Comparable sales from The Gap brand fell 3%, Banana Republic declined 11%, and Old Navy registered a 6% decline in comparable-store sales.
Obliterating the competition
When a wide variety of companies in a particular sector are reporting declining sales, you know the industry is going through difficult times, since disappointing performance across the board can't be attributed to a single company and its mistakes in areas such as merchandising or competitive strategy.
You wouldn't have guessed that by looking at TJX, though. The company reported $7.5 billion in sales during the quarter ending April 30; this represents a vigorous increase of 10% in total revenue, while comparable-store sales grew 7%.
Importantly, growth was broad-based, with the company's different business segments delivering healthy increases in comparable sales. The Marmaxx segment, which is a combination of Marshalls and T.J. Maxx, grew 6%; comparable sales at HomeGoods increased 9%; TJX Canada delivered a 14% increase in comparable sales; and TJX International reported a 4% jump during the quarter.
Last quarter was not an exception. The following chart compares revenue growth for TJX versus Macy's, J.C. Penney, Sears, and Gap Inc. over the last decade. The difference is quite staggering: Sears and J.C. Penney have experienced major contractions, while Macy's and Gap Inc. are mostly stagnant. TJX, on the other hand, has delivered consistent sales growth in the last ten years.
TJX Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts.
Moving forward
Not only did TJX deliver impressive financial performance for the first quarter of 2016, but management also increased both sales and earnings guidance for the full year. According to the company's internal research, traffic increases are being driven by both new customers and existing customers shopping more frequently at the company's stores, and this bodes well for the business in terms of customer engagement.
Management is planning to encourage more frequent visits and cross-shopping at the company's chains by strengthening its loyalty programs. This sounds like a smart strategy to drive sustained growth, and also to consolidate TJX's competitive position in an increasingly challenging retail industry.
Most industry operators are aggressively focused on e-commerce nowadays, but TJX is taking a different approach in this key area. E-commerce is relatively small for TJX, and management wants to grow that segment methodically to make sure that online platforms play a complementary role, as opposed to cannibalizing sales at physical locations.
In a time when most competitors are reducing store counts to protect profitability and stabilize sales at existing locations, TJX is broadening its presence across the world. The company plans to open 195 new stores in 2016, a 5% increase in the store count versus 2015. Management is not planning to close any stores in 2016, which indicates that the company has been widely successful at opening new stores in the last several years.
Over the long term, management believes it has enough room for 5,600 stores, including current concepts and current markets alone. This represents almost 2,000 store openings, or a huge increase of over 35% versus the current 3,614 stores it had as of the end of last quarter.
These growth estimates don't even account for possible expansion into additional countries, or opening new chains in existing markets. The company has been successfully expanding into countries such as Austria, the Netherlands, and Australia, so management is proving that it knows how to replicate TJXs winning strategy across different markets.
Even a mediocre company can do well when the wind is at its back, but TJX is producing impressive performance in times when the competition is struggling, and the business looks stronger than ever going forward. It's only fair to say that TJX is an exceptional player in the challenging retail industry.
The article This Retailer Is Downright Crushing the Competition originally appeared on Fool.com.
Andrs Cardenal 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.
When I think about the best funds for a 401(k), I think of a few traits in particular. A fund should be inexpensive to hold, have diversity in its portfolio, and perhaps invest in higher-yielding stocks to generate more income.
Of course, no single fund will hit every requirement. But some come pretty darn close. Here are three top-tier mutual funds selected from the funds you're most likely to find in a retirement account -- target date funds, index funds, and income funds:
1. Vanguard 2050 Target Retirement Fund 2. Schwab S&P 500 Index Fund 3. Vanguard High Dividend Yield Index Fund
Target retirement funds
Want a one-and-done retirement plan? It doesn't exist, but target date funds are the next closest thing. It's all about convenience -- target date funds automatically allocate to lower-risk investments as you near your retirement date.
You shouldn't buy one of these funds without first looking under the hood, however. The allocation you might expect for any given retirement date might be vastly different than how a manager allocates its funds. Note that Fidelity's funds carry significantly more stock allocation than Vanguard's funds at a given retirement date, for example.
Can retirement planning be one-size-fits-all? Absolutely not. Could you do better than a target date fund? Possibly. But it's probably the best option for hands-off investors. That goes double for younger investors, whose ultimate results have more to do with their savings rate than how perfectly allocated their funds are.
Widely available in retirement accounts and, most importantly, inexpensive, these funds are great for the low-effort crowd. Vanguard's funds costs less than 0.20% annually, while Fidelity's carry expense ratios as high as 0.76%.
Take the index
Over long periods of time, the value of all businesses should go up. Naturally, stock prices should go up too, and you could do much worse than to simply get the results of large cap stocks in the United States.
Even the world's most successful investor, Warren Buffett, agrees -- he's instructed his trust to manage his wife's wealth by putting 90% of its money in the S&P 500. The other 10% will be allocated to short-term government bonds.
A fund like the Schwab S&P 500 Index Fund can be an excellent way to invest in a diversified manner across 500 of some of the world's most important companies. It's also the least expensive fund available, carrying an expense ratio of 0.09%.
Given that the S&P 500 makes up roughly 80% of the value of all stocks listed on American exchanges, you're not missing out on much by holding an index that tracks it. Therefore, making it a core part of your portfolio wouldn't be unwise. Most importantly, these funds are almost universally dirt cheap, ensuring that more of the return makes it into your pocket.
A fund for income
There are countless dividend funds out there, many of which sacrifice safety in their strategy to generate the most income on a current basis. (Several funds just buy the highest-yielding stocks, regardless of the prospects for the underlying business.)
I like the Vanguard High Dividend Yield Index Fund because it currently generates about 50% more yield than the S&P 500 index, all from a portfolio of well-known household name stocks. Among its top positions are companies like Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, and Wells Fargo, hardly anything exotic.
Recent performance has been spectacular, as it beat the market by about 0.6% per year over the last 5 years with a simple indexing strategy that results in a tiny expense ratio of just 0.16% annually.
The article The 3 Best Retirement Funds for Your 401(k) originally appeared on Fool.com.
Jordan Wathen has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Johnson & Johnson and Wells Fargo. The Motley Fool owns shares of Microsoft. 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.
Frontier Communications recently completed the biggest transaction in company history.
The cable, broadband, and phone company purchased Verizon's wireline operations in California, Texas and Florida for $10.54 billion. The deal, which closed April 1, more than doubled the size of the company, giving Frontier approximately 3.3 million voice connections, 2.1 million broadband connections, and 1.2 million FiOS video subscribers.
It's a huge move for the company, and one that comes with considerable risk. CEO Daniel McCarthy, as you might expect, anticipates big things from this purchase.
Everything the CEO said is true, but that doesn't mean Frontier will have smooth sailing ahead. It does have a significant opportunity to succeed, but it could just as easily fall flat on its face, either due to its own actions, or due to industry conditions in general.
Image source: Frontier.
Frontier could botch the transition
McCarthy admitted during the company's Q1 earnings call, which was transcribed by S&P Capital IQthat things did not go flawlessly.
"As with any transfer of this scale and complexity, there were some issues at the outset, but these affected less than 1% of our customers in total and much less than that at any point in time," he said, acknowledging that the need to train employees "...delayed the rate of reaching a normal business cadence, and as a result, we were slower in responding to customers and restoring service. This disappointed some customers and resulted in some negative publicity in the market."
Some problems were to be expected given the size of switch-over, but media reports in the former Verizon territories suggest that not all issues have been resolved, and some customers have been without service for extended periods. There is likely to be a certain amount of understanding and good will because it's a new company taking over, but that will evaporate quickly if the issues are not resolved.
It does not take many disgruntled customers to create a media storm, and that could lead to former Verizon customers leaving and new subscribers being harder to obtain.
The market for pay-television could shrink
So far, the loss of pay-TV customers to cord-cutting has proven more of a trickle than a flood, with the entire industry only losing about 385,000 subscribers in 2015, and actually gaining 10,000 in Q1 2016, according to information from Leichtman Research Group. But just because cord-cutting has not caught on does not mean it won't.
Frontier stock is exposed to the risks of a shift in consumer behavior, if people start ditching full-service cable for streaming options or even skinny bundles. With the streaming leaders constantly adding to their content lineups, and a number of companies planning skinny bundles or new streaming services, it remains possible that a major shift in the pay-television market could still occur.
A big competitor could eat Frontier's lunch
Frontier, despite the Verizon deal, remains a relatively small fish in a big sea. This expansion will help it spread out its research and development costs, but it does not give the company the resources of some of its potential broadband rivals.
Because of that, Frontier could take a hit if, for example, Alphabet's Google expands its fiber service into any of its markets. In fact, the telecoms industry in general faces the risk that the search giant, or any of the other potential players in the space, finds a viable, alternative way to deliver broadband. That might mean blimps, drones, or technology not-yet widely known, but that type of product -- while probably not imminent -- could undermine telecoms, and therefore Frontier's, business model and its stock price.
The article 3 Reasons Frontier Communications Stock Could Fall originally appeared on Fool.com.
Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Daniel Kline has no position in any stocks mentioned. He is never sure when it's too late for lunch and he should just wait for dinner. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), and Verizon Communications. 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: Getty Images.
Although retirees are generally advised to avoid undue amounts of risk, younger investors hoping to beat the broader markets shouldn't necessarily shy away altogether from buying the occasional speculative equity. Tech giants like Apple and Microsoft, after all, were once speculative plays in their own right. With this in mind, our Foolish contributors thinkShopify (NYSE: SHOP), Trevena (NASDAQ: TRVN), and PotashCorp(NYSE: POT) are worth a look by folks searching for high-risk, high-reward types of investing vehicles. Here's why.
Shopify may be the next Amazon, but not tomorrow
Jamal Carnette, CFA: Among financial professionals, it's well known that the proportion of your investment portfolio allocated to risky stocks should have an inverse relationship to your expected holding period. This is a fancy way of saying if you're retired, it's advised to manage your equity risk by allocating less to equities and opting for stocks with lower levels of total risk, even if they have potentially higher projected returns.
One stock I'm bullish on for in the long run isShopify. The company provides retailers with a plug-in digital platform, much like long-term success storyAmazon. Unlike Amazon, though, Shopify focuses on improving the digital platform on the merchant's website instead of an aggregated marketplace. In the end, Shopify is a much friendlier merchant solution than Amazon, where a vendor has to compete with thousands of other vendors, potentially including Amazon itself.
Unlike many recent IPOs that shot up quickly to only reverse once enthusiasm ebbed, Spotify has continued to outperform the market. Shopify shares now trade hands at approximately $43, more than 150% more than its $17 IPO price in May 2015. Investors continue to plow money into the investment because the company has reported four straight quarters of year-over-year revenue growth in excess of90%. Even better, the company's gross merchandise volume, or GMV, was 106% lastquarter, which shows the company is growing by helping its merchants succeed and not simply by increased prices.
Still, it's not a perfect investment. The company reported a wider loss last quarter than the year before as costs of goods sold outpaced revenue growth. In the short run, this could be interpreted as increasing employees in anticipation of more growth, but it could impact results if growth slows. Additionally, Shopify would most likely be negatively affected in the event a larger competitor, like Amazon, decided to enter into this niche business. So, while I like Shopify for investors with long timeframes, I'd stay clear if I was a retiree.
Trevena is an ultra-high-risk play, but the payoff could be spectacular
George Budwell:If you're looking for a stock that could skyrocket soon, clinical-stage biotech Trevena needs to be on your radar. Trevena's value proposition centers on theinjectable analgesicoliceridine that's presently in two late-stage studies formoderate-to-severe acute pain. The short story is thatoliceridine is designed to essentially be a replacement for the go-to acute pain drug morphine. To achieve this lofty goal, Trevena is assessing the drug's ability to relieve pain quicker and with fewer side effects than morphine in the post-surgical setting.
The good news is that investors won't have to wait much longer for oliceridine's late-stage results, with both ongoing trials expected to produce top-line data in the first quarter of 2017. And if oliceridine hits its primary endpoints in both trials, Trevena plans on filing for the drug's regulatory approval with the FDA by mid-2017, putting a possible launch on track for early 2018.
Where Trevena's story gets particularly intriguing is inoliceridine's commercial opportunity compared to the company's tiny market cap of around $300 million. The acute pain market in the U.S., after all, is valued at over $10 billion, and there's a clear need for alternatives to morphine. Put simply, ifoliceridine can capture even 10% of this huge market, Trevena's stock would almost certainly sport a radically higher valuation.
Of course, clinical-stage drugs likeoliceridine are far from a sure bet, even after generating impressive mid-stage results. So, while Trevena's compelling risk-to-reward ratio may warrant a smallish position, it's probably not a good idea to back up the truck, so to speak.
A good turnaround stock, but not without risks
Neha Chamaria:A turnaround play can occasionally prove to be a great bet for investors in the long run, but it is almost always a bad idea for retirees; especially if the company operates in a cyclical industry industry. Turnarounds don't always, well, turn themselves around and cyclicalality inherently makes earnings and dividend growth unpredictable. Case in point: Fertilizer giant PotashCorp. While an intriguing situation for venturesome investors, this is one stock that retires should emphatically avoid. Here's why.
Potash markets have been hit hard in the past couple of years as prices plunged following a massive supply glut. Unsurprisingly, PotashCorp stock is down almost 50% over this time period. Thankfully, potash prices appear to be bottoming-out even as PotashCorp prepares to merge with Agrium Inc.. This union will create the world's largest publicly traded fertilizer company. If the merger does goes through, the deal should reduce the volatility in PotashCorp's earnings from fertilizer price shifts thanks to Agrium's solid foothold in the relatively resilient retail side of agriculture (seeds and crop protection products). That's a promising growth catalyst -- something value investors may find interesting today, especially as PotashCorp stock is hovering close to its 52-week lows.
However, I still wouldn't suggest PotashCorp to retirees as a potential investment for the simple reason that it is a commodity stock. A recovery in fertilizer markets could be painfully slow, limiting the growth in PotashCorp's earnings and cash flows. That could also mean unstable dividends: PotashCorp has already slashed its dividends twice this year. That's not to say I'm suggesting PotashCorp will cut its dividend again, but while young investors have time on their side and can take risks, retirees need stability -- something PotashCorp isn't capable of giving them.
A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early, in-the-know investors! To be one of them, just click here.
Neha Chamariahas no position in any stocks mentioned. George Budwell has no position in any stocks mentioned. Jamal Carnette owns shares of Apple and Shopify. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon.com, Apple, and Shopify. 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. 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.
American Airlines , United Continental , and Delta Air Lines have been posting disappointing unit revenue results for more than a year now. American and United have seen the biggest declines, but unit revenue has also fallen steadily at Delta.
Executives at all three airlines have predicted more than once that a revenue recovery was right around the corner. However, falling jet fuel prices and rising competition from ultra-low-cost carriers (ULCCs) have kept fares on a downward trajectory. Industry unit revenue is declining just as quickly today as it was a year ago.
Unit revenue trends haven't improved yet at most U.S. airlines. Image source: American Airlines.
However, fuel prices are starting to bounce back. As a result, some airlines' profit margins are starting to come under pressure. This has finally forced American, United, and Delta to get serious about putting unit revenue back on a sustainable positive trajectory.
Fixing irrational pricing
Some of the recent revenue weakness at U.S. airlines can be blamed on a change in the legacy carriers' philosophy about competing with ULCCs. Two or three years ago, the legacy carriers mainly ignored ULCCs, figuring that it wasn't worth competing for the most price-sensitive customers.
In the past year or so, they have executed a 180-degree turn and now typically match ULCC fares. Not surprisingly, that has created pricing pressure.
To serve this market profitably, Delta, American, and United are all in the midst of rolling out no-frills "basic economy" fares. By better differentiating between customers who are willing to pay for quality and those who just want the cheapest price, legacy carriers should be able to mitigate the negative impact of matching ULCC fares.
Capacity discipline is the key
Still, pricing strategy hasn't been the main cause of legacy carriers' weak unit revenue. Capacity growth that outpaced demand deserves most of the blame.
When oil prices were plunging, it was profitable for airlines to add capacity at the margins, even if it led to unit revenue declines. However, it now looks like most airlines will face year-over-year increases in their fuel bills within the next two or three quarters. That makes it imperative to keep capacity in line with demand.
All of the major airlines recognize this and are acting accordingly. United Airlines -- which has kept the tightest lid on capacity in recent years -- reduced its 2016 capacity growth plans by 0.5 percentage points last month. It is cutting back in weaker markets like Houston, Brazil, and the Middle East. Most of its growth is concentrated in San Francisco, where it is adding a slew of long-haul routes that won't face any direct competition.
United is focusing its growth on routes where it won't face competition. Image source: The Motley Fool.
Delta Air Lines is also ratcheting back on capacity growth. In Q4, domestic capacity will rise just 2.5% year over year, compared to 4%-plus growth in the first three quarters of 2016. Meanwhile, international capacity will remain flat-to-down year over year throughout 2016, with capacity down across all regions during Q4.
American Airlines is also slashing its growth. Last month, the carrier announced that it will increase international capacity just 2.5% year over year in 2016, compared to its original plan for 6% growth. American should also benefit from rivals' cutbacks in Brazil, a market that has been a big source of unit revenue pressure for the past year and a half.
United, Delta, and American have also made recent fleet plan changes that should limit capacity growth over the next few years.
Delta is deferring some aircraft deliveries. Image source: The Motley Fool.
In March, United decided to retire its 747 fleet by the end of 2018, a few years ahead of schedule. Just in the past week or so, Delta has deferred the deliveries of four A350s from 2018 to 2019 and 2020, while American Airlines has accelerated retirements for several different aircraft types. All of these moves foreshadow a slowdown in U.S. airlines' international growth.
Results coming soon
Airlines' near-term capacity cuts and longer-term fleet plan changes won't get unit revenue growing immediately. Nevertheless, investors are likely to see measurable progress this summer, as unit revenue declines start to moderate, with further sequential improvements coming in the fall.
Now that airlines are getting serious about reining in capacity growth to match demand, the industry should be able to return to unit revenue growth within the next 12 months. That will make investors a lot more comfortable about airlines' long-term profit potential.
The article Airlines Are Getting Serious About Unit Revenue Growth originally appeared on Fool.com.
Adam Levine-Weinberg owns shares of United Continental Holdings, Inc. and is long January 2017 $40 calls on Delta Air Lines, Inc. 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.
Wearable technology leader Fitbit announced this week that it's purchased a wearable payments platform from Coin. You may remember that Coin made the smart cards that allowed users to load multiple debit and credit accounts onto one card (sadly, Coin says it won't continue selling those cards now).
Fitbit says it's also bringing key personnel over from Coin and that the purchase will "accelerate" its ability to add near field communication (NFC) enabled payments to its devices, though it noted it won't happen anytime this year.
This is a big move for Fitbit as the company's increasingly being squeezed by Apple at the higher-end of the wearable tech spectrum, and cheaper vendors at the lower end.
Why wearable payments matter
Buying Coin's wearable payments platform should bring two major benefits for Fitbit:
The first is that Fitbit will now join other technology companies that are betting on the multi-billion dollar wearable payments market. Nearly $500 billion worth of NFC wearable payments will be made in 2020, according to Tractica.
Fitbit is wisely jumping into this market soon (hopefully, next year) and its wearable device sales could benefit as users become more used to making payments with smartwatches and wristbands.
Secondly, moving into wearable payments allows Fitbit to differentiate itself from the cheaper wearable devices on the market.
Recently released data from IDC shows that the "other" vendors category made up 37% of all wearable device shipments in the first quarter of this year, while Fitbit took just under 25%. Fitbit's lead as the No. 1 vendor could eventually be challenged as companies from China release good-enough fitness trackers that undercut Fitbit's prices.
But adding wearable payments could help Fitbit keep other devices at bay, because NFC chips add additional costs to the device and need to be paired with an established wearable payment system.
What investors need to see now
I think investors should be looking for two things from Fitbit following this news: A quick release of an NFC-enabled device anda price point for the device that is priced significantly lower than the Apple Watch's $300 introductory price tag.
Fitbit shouldn't wait too long to update one, or a few, of its products with wearable payments so that it doesn't miss the window when its lower-priced competitors don't have this technology. If it can get ahead of the "other" vendors category with wearable payments then I think it could help drive sales by offering a feature that other devices (besides more expensive ones) don't offer.
Which leads to why Fitbit needs to price its wearable payment device right. The company's Blaze smartwatch sells for $200, while the Apple Watch (with its recent price drop) starts at $300. Fitbit would be wise to add wearable payments to the Blaze and keep the price tag the same. Otherwise it would be encroaching on Apple's territory, and the Blaze -- even with built-in wearable payments -- can't match Apple's software, third-party app integration, etc.
Aside from Apple, Samsung and Google already have their own versions of wearable payment systems, so buying up Coin's wearable payments platform isn't a sure win for Fitbit. The company is still fighting against the biggest tech players in the market, but adding payments is a great step in keeping the company's products innovative -- and that may be more than enough to keep the company moving forward at this point.
The article Fitbit Buys Its Way Into Wearable Payments originally appeared on Fool.com.
Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fools board of directors. Chris Neiger has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares) and 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.
This Acura RLX has been fitted with a prototype of Honda's latest self-driving system. It will begin testing soon, Honda said this past week. Image source: Honda.
Like its biggest global rivals, Honda is making a point of showing off its self-driving-car development efforts. The Japanese automaker unveiled a new test vehicle fitted with the latest prototype of its "Automated Drive" system this past week. It's a modified Acura RLX sedan that will begin testing in California soon.
What makes this self-driving Acura special?
According to Honda, the new RLX test car has "a new suite of radar, Lidar, camera and GPS sensors, complemented by higher performance CPUs and GPUs, and improved cabling, heat management and circuitry." In addition, the car's software has been beefed up "to support more complex testing scenarios," the company said.
Specifically, Honda said that the new system in its latest test cars "is designed to achieve high reliability by fusing overlapping information together from various sensors." Honda may be taking a page from Tesla Motors' book here: Tesla's Autopilot system combines fairly simplistic sensors with sophisticated software that seeks to make the best use of all of the information the car's systems gather.
Tesla's system is able to function (albeit only in limited situations) without an expensive and cumbersome LIDAR unit. "LIDAR" -- for "light detection and ranging" -- is a sensor system that uses a laser to precisely determine the car's position relative to its surroundings. It's considered a key to self-driving technology by most automakers and suppliers (as well as by potential auto industry entrants like Alphabet's Google Cars unit).
The challenge with LIDAR is that currently available units are expensive and clunky: That's why nearly all of the self-driving test cars we've seen so far, including this latest Acura test car, have sensor apparatus on their roofs. Fortunately, LIDAR units are expected to get smaller and cheaper over the next few years. Ford has said that by the time self-driving cars go into production, it expects to be able to integrate LIDAR units made by Velodyne into its rearview mirrors.
It's likely that Honda is thinking along the same lines.
For now, the self-driving Acura will be confined to a test facility
It may be a while before a self-driving Acura hits public roads. Honda said that the new self-driving RLX will be tested at GoMentum Station, a special testing facility near San Francisco.
According to Honda's statement, the GoMentum facility has 20 miles of "city-like roadway grids" and "urban infrastructure," creating a realistic testing environment that doesn't require putting a prototype product on public roads.
But Honda was also clear that this isn't just an experiment. "This testing program is aligned with the company's goal to introduce automated driving technologies around 2020," it said in its statement.
Long story short: While it's just a test vehicle now, Honda will be gearing up to introduce self-driving Acuras before long.
The article Honda Takes Another Step Toward Self-Driving Cars originally appeared on Fool.com.
John Rosevear owns shares of Ford. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Ford and Tesla Motors. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Store credit cards operate as a sort of loyalty program that keeps customers shopping at a particular chain.
Some people have more than one, but many focus on maximizing their rewards at a favorite retailer. Sometimes they pick the card based on which store they like most, but other customers make the call based on which retailer offers the best rewards. Of course, "best" can be a subjective term, because, for example, cash back on gas purchases matters little to someone who doesn't drive, while the ability to earn airline miles may not matter much to someone who rarely flies.
Now with Costco in the midst of a complicated credit-card shift, dropping American Express in favor ofVisa , the wholesale club has given its customers a reason to consider their options. Under Costco's change, the company began sending new branded Visa cards to customers in April, and as of June 20, not only will some people not like the switch, but others will also be angry that the chain no longer accepts American Express in any fashion.
It's possible that the changeover makes some Costco customers -- at least ones on the fence about sticking with the warehouse club -- consider what rival Target has to offer. Both cards come with significant perks. Here's a look a at what each one has to offer.
Target's REDcard could be a big money saver if you buy big-ticket items and then pay off your balance. Image source: Target.
Why you might choose Costco Anywhere
Costco isn't merely switching from American Express to Visa. It's also providing improved perks to members who elect to sign up for the house credit card. Those increased cardholder benefits come probably because Visa and AmEx both fought for the account, with the winner having to up the offer of the losing incumbent.
In this case, the new Costco Anywhere Visa doesn't come with an annual fee, but it does, of course, require that holders pay Costco's $55 annual membership fee. The new card increases cash back on gas purchases from 3% to 4% for the first $7,000 spent in a year, up from a $4,000 limit. It also increased givebacks from 2% to 3% onrestaurants and eligible travel, while returning 2% cash back on all Costco purchases, and offers the same 1% American Express did on everything else.
Costco Anywhere also offers global car rental and travel accident insurance. It also comes with damage and theft protection that "may cover you for repairs or refunds for items you purchased with your Costco Anywhere Card that are damaged or stolen within 120 days of purchase (90 days for New York residents), according to a card issuerCitigroup.
The case for Target RED
Target has a fairly simple proposition with its REDcard. Holders of the card get 5% off anything they buy on Target or at Target.com. There are some exceptions, but in many cases the 5% can be in addition to any savings from the retailer's Cartwheel digital coupons, Target Subscriptions, and traditional paper coupons.
REDcard holders also get free shipping from Target.com and an extra 30 days for returns. They also have the advantage that the 5% savings comes off at the register, so they don't need to do anything to claim it. The Target credit card does come with a 23.5% annual percentage rate for purchases, a number that "will vary with the market based on the prime rate," according to a Target Web page.
Which card is better for consumers?
It's worth noting that Citi hasn't made the APR public for its new card, instead directing existing members to "refer to the information you received, or will soon receive, in the mail for your account information, terms, and details," on its website. That's a bit of a red flag, but it's fair to say that with either retailer -- and really with any credit cards -- that any perks or benefits aren't worth it if you don't pay off your balance each month.
For dedicated Target shoppers -- people who buy groceries, clothes, household items, and who knows what else from the chain -- REDcard is clearly a better deal. The 5% off on pretty much anything is an impressive perk that makes sense if you spend significant money at the chain.
The Costco Anywhere card should appeal to consumers who frequent the warehouse club and will also take advantage of the other cash-back offers. The gas perk in particular could be very lucrative, and 2% off at Costco might pile up fast, given the bulk purchases made at the chain.
Responsible credit users who shop at both stores and have the discipline to pay their balances off each month may want to consider getting both cards.
The article Target REDcard vs. Costco Anywhere: Which Is Better for Consumers? originally appeared on Fool.com.
Daniel Kline has no position in any stocks mentioned. He doesn't trust himself with store credit cards. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Costco Wholesale and Visa. The Motley Fool recommends American Express. 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.
Shareholders of Triangle Capital (NYSE: TCAP), Ares Capital (NASDAQ: ARCC), and Hercules Capital (NYSE: HTGC) should look at these stocks' sky-high yields with skepticism. As business-development companies (BDCs), these stocks reward investors with high yields, thanks to a requirement that they distribute 90% of their income to shareholders. BDCs can be thought of as closed-end funds that make loans and equity investments in small, private companies around the United States.
Recently, the yields BDCs can earn on new investments have come down, and loan losses have increased. It's likely that these three companies will have to cut their dividends to align their payouts with their true earnings power.
Triangle Capital
In 2012, Triangle Capital was flying high as one of the most richly valued BDCs on the market. It rapidly issued stock to deploy new capital, but time has shown that it grew by sacrificing lending standards rather than by finding a new pool of vast opportunity.
In the third quarter of 2014, cracks began to appear when the company wrote down investments by $0.79 per share in a single quarter. It papered over the loss with a large equity offering, which helped the company show an increased book value on a per-share basis, but it was a warning sign of what was to come. The company ultimately slashed its regular quarterly dividend from $0.54 per share to $0.45 per share starting in the second quarter of 2016. That cut may not have gone deep enough.
Triangle Capital has recently failed to earn its dividend from operating income, reporting $0.42 in net investment income in each of the last three quarters against a dividend rate of $0.45 per quarter. On a recent conference call, executives explained that the shortfall was partially because Triangle isn't operating at capacity, pointing out that it has $500 million of dry powder to make new loans and equity investments. This could, theoretically, generate about $0.07 to $0.08 in additional operating income per share on a quarterly basis if it were deployed in full.
I buy their math, but I'm not buying that it will be easy for Triangle to responsibly grow its portfolio fast enough for income to rise to meet the dividend. Over $120 million of investments at fair value will come due by the end of 2018. Add its dry powder of $500 million to repayments of $120 million and you have $620 million of investments that Triangle Capital needs to make in the next 18 months to become fully invested, an amount that doesn't include any unexpected repayments or future loan losses. Loan losses are the wild card; it seems likely that we have yet to see the full brunt of losses from investments made during its rapid expansion period.
Lenders can generally grow quickly, or grow responsibly, but only rarely can they do both simultaneously. In the past, Triangle's rapid loan growth led to large losses, as the company prioritized growth over underwriting quality. Given this, cutting the dividend by 10% to 15% to give it ample dividend coverage in the here and now is perhaps the most responsible thing to do.
Ares Capital Corporation
The bellwether of the BDC industry grew larger when it closed on its acquisition of American Capital at the beginning of 2017, growing its equity base by roughly 40%. But that acquisition may have been untimely, if only because it gave Ares Capital excess capacity to underwrite new loans, just as yields were plummeting. Like Triangle, Ares Capital has substantial capacity to underwrite new loans and equity investments, but yields are much less attractive than they were just a few short quarters ago.
Based on my analysis of its most recent quarterly filing, the company has about $961 million of investments that will mature by the end of 2018, plus another $1.9 billion of capital that will come back as it winds down a relationship with a subsidiary of GE Capital.
Management looked at its capital differently on the conference call, suggesting that it has about $3 billion of total capital to rotate into new investments, a figure that includes $1.1 billion of low-yielding assets it acquired from American Capital, plus the $1.9 billion coming back from the unwinding of its partnership with GE Capital.
But no matter how I slice and dice the amount of capital that Ares Capital has to invest, it's my view that the math simply doesn't work. I calculate that Ares Capital needs a 10% yield on its entire investment portfolio to maintain its dividend, a return that it hasn't been able to achieve. And any loan losses only add to the required-return hurdle. A blue sky loss assumption of 1% of loans -- which would be remarkable, given where we are in the credit cycle -- would put the required return Ares needs closer to 11%.
Even for the industry's largest company, $3 billion is a lot of money to rotate into new investments, equal to roughly one-fourth of its asset base. Furthermore, Ares Capital is on borrowed time. A fee waiver that adds about $0.10 to annual operating income on a per-share basis is only in effect for 10 quarters.
A combination of lower yields on available investment opportunities, temporary earnings support from fee waivers, and a need to deploy $3 billion of capital, makes it likely that Ares Capital will cut its dividend in the not-so-distant future.
Hercules Capital
This business-development company lost a lot of luster when it proposed a change to its operating model. At issue was how its employees are compensated. Under the current model, Hercules pays employees directly. Under the proposed model, Hercules Capital's employees would go to work for a management company owned by Hercules' current CEO, and Hercules would pay a fee, based on the size of its assets and its returns, to the management company.
Shareholders voted on the proposal with their feet. After trading at roughly 1.6 times book value, shares cratered, and have found a new valuation range between 1.3 and 1.4 times book, reflecting the lost trust between Hercules and its shareholders.
Although the plan was scuttled when it became clear that management lacked the votes necessary to approve externalizing its management team, it's my view that the issue will come up again in the future. Hercules' CEO Manuel Henriquez said on a conference call that followed its announcement that he had "spent nearly four years working on this project" to externalize the management team. Rarely are big plans allowed to die so easily.
Henriquez has a huge incentive to push the issue. He owns just over 2% of the company -- thus he receives roughly 2% of the value created by its low-cost internal-management structure. If externalized, his newly created management company would effectively collect 100% of the value created. It's fair to characterize the externalization proposal as a complicated payday for Henriquez.
Compensation appears to be the crux of the issue. Henriquez stated on a conference call following the announcement that the effort to externalize the management team was "there to hopefully retain and encourage those valuable employees to continue to remain at the asset manager and continue to develop value for our shareholders."
There are multiple ways for managers to extract value from a business development company -- externalizing is only one way. I'm left to believe that if Hercules cannot externalize its management team, compensation expenses will likely trend higher. Hercules' expenses will go up, and earnings will go down. With operating income of $0.28 recently failing to cover its dividend distributions of $0.31 per quarter, and management dreaming up plans to extract more value from the BDC, I think this 9% yield is living on borrowed time.
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Jordan Wathen has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Earlier this month, just about every department store you could imagine reported a Q1 sales decline. At the two biggest department store chains -- Macy's and Kohl's -- comparable-store sales fell 5.6% and 3.9%, respectively.
Sales fell at department stores like Macy's last quarter.
This sales slump didn't extend to off-price giant TJX Companies , though. The parent of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls reported a stellar 7% year-over-year increase in global comparable-store sales.
To make matters worse, efforts by department stores like Macy's and Kohl's to protect their own margins could ultimately help TJX grow at their expense during the next few quarters.
Market share gains accelerate
TJX's Marmaxx business segment -- made up of Marshalls and T.J. Maxx stores in the U.S. -- accounts for about 65% of the company's revenue. However, in recent years, its growth appeared to be slowing. For the year ending in Jan. 2015, comparable-store sales rose just 1% at Marmaxx.
Given that Marshalls and T.J. Maxx are relatively mature businesses, it wasn't that surprising that their growth was slowing.
However, the opposite now seems to be occurring. In Q1, Marmaxx segment comp sales rose 6% year over year for a second consecutive quarter. Ironically, growth is accelerating at Marshalls and T.J. Maxx just as department stores like Macy's and Kohl's are recording their biggest sales declines since the Great Recession. This indicates that TJX is rapidly gaining market share.
TJX profits from chaos
Marshalls' and T.J. Maxx's strong growth in the face of plummeting department store sales shows just how much TJX benefits from chaos in the retail world.
In effect, TJX serves as a buyer of last resort for its more than 17,000 vendors. When supply chain disruptions (like last year's West Coast port slowdown), unexpected changes in demand, or other inventory miscues leave department stores and specialty stores with more product than they want, TJX steps in to buy the excess at bargain prices.
TJX can then offer great deals to its customers. This helps it drive more traffic to Marshalls and T.J. Maxx stores -- and away from department stores like Macy's and Kohl's.
Expect more share gains this year
Unfortunately for the department stores, the threat from TJX is likely to become more potent as the year progresses. In light of the recent slowdown in sales trends, many retailers are reducing their orders for later this year.
That will help them avoid margin-killing inventory pileups. However, vendors facing order cuts will probably be looking to unload excess merchandise at a big discount. TJX is likely to buy a lot of this inventory. It will then be able to undercut department stores' prices even further in its T.J. Maxx and Marshalls stores.
The retail inventory glut will continue to benefit T.J. Maxx for the next year.
Furthermore, due to weak sales of winter seasonal merchandise across the retail industry, TJX has gotten great deals on so-called "packaway" inventory in the past few months. These goods will show up in its stores during the upcoming winter season, allowing TJX to continue undercutting department stores on price.
Maybe next year?
The dynamics highlighted here show how difficult it is for department stores to compete with Marshalls and T.J. Maxx. Even chains that have been pretty careful about managing inventory (like Kohl's) will be hurt by the fact that their rivals are cutting orders and thereby giving TJX opportunities to pick up high-quality goods at cut-rate prices.
If department stores and specialty stores can keep orders and inventory in line with demand over the next year, the current merchandise glut will subside. In that scenario, conditions could turn more favorable by next spring.
TJX is a formidable competitor under any circumstances. But if other retailers' inventory miscues allow it to keep finding great deals, department stores will continue to suffer mightily.
The article T.J. Maxx and Marshalls Are Destroying Department Stores originally appeared on Fool.com.
Adam Levine-Weinberg owns shares of Macy's, Inc. and is long January 2018 $60 calls on The TJX Companies, Inc. and short January 2018 $90 calls on The TJX Companies, Inc. 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.
Judgment Day for the American egg industry arrived in 2010.
That was the year Subway shook up the restaurant industry with a plan to phase out the use of eggs produced from chickens raised in "battery cages" and begin moving to all-cage-free eggs in its breakfast sandwiches.
Cage-free eggs. Cal-Maine produces 'em. Wal-Mart sells 'em. McDonald's and Subway cook 'em.
Other restaurants had previously announced pilot projects to explore the use of cage-free eggs at some locations, but Subway really got the ball rolling. McDonald's followed Subway's lead with a comprehensive 10-year cage-free plan in 2015. McDonald's move was arguably bigger, but also later. Prior to 2010, nothing had matched the scale of Subway's announcement -- a multi-year initiative to move toward 100% cage-free eggs used in all of Subway's 32,000 restaurants (now more than 40,000) worldwide.
What could possibly be a bigger deal than that? Well, I suppose if the biggest retailer in the world made a similar announcement to go all cage-free, that might be a watershed moment even bigger than Subway's announcement ...
And as a matter of fact, that's just what happened.
Wal-Mart going cage-free
Last month, the world's biggest retail chain, Wal-Mart Stores , announced that it, too, is going cage-free.
Wal-Mart began offering cage-free eggs in 2001 and went cage-free on its private-label eggs sold in-store in 2010. The results of that move have so far been positive enough to convince Wal-Mart to take the next step. As the company announced in April, the company's entire egg supply chain will go "100% cage-free" by 2025.
The Humane Society of the United States, which has been urging Wal-Mart to make this move for years, immediately hailed the move. Said HSUS, "the trajectory ... is clear." Thanks to Wal-Mart's announcement, "the era of confining hens in cages in America's food system is officially sunsetting."
So what does this mean to you?
What it means to you if you're a consumer
If you're an egg eater, then it's about to get easier than ever to find cage-free eggs on the menu -- and cheaper than ever, too.
Wal-Mart sells 25% of the groceries sold in America. You can't throw a brick in this country without hitting one of its stores. What's more, the 75% of the grocery industry that isn't Wal-Mart must now compete with the lower prices on cage-free eggs that Wal-Mart will be demanding from suppliers who want access to its shelf space. Those other retailers won't be able to charge obscene (and unnecessary) mark-ups on cage-free eggs and still compete with Goliath.
On the plus side, though, as Wal-Mart uses its market power to demand lower prices for cage-free eggs from its suppliers, that could exert downward pressure on cage-free egg prices more generally, wherever they are sold, making cage-free eggs cheaper for everybody.
What it means to you if you're an investor
Speaking of suppliers, here's one to keep an eye on if you're an investor watching this story: Cal-Maine Foods . Easily the largest supplier of shell eggs in the U.S. (by a factor of three), and the only one that's publicly traded, Cal-Maine clearly has a hen in this fight. Cal-Maine eggs are sold at Wal-Mart, but it's not clear how many.
Cal-Maine doesn't break out revenues among those derived from selling cage-free eggs, and eggs produced from hens raised in battery cages, extra-large cages, or free range(i.e. allowed to range outdoors). But the simple fact of the company's size -- $2 billion in annual revenues -- tells us that Cal-Maine is the company to watch on the supply side, to see the first effects of Wal-Mart's decision to go all-cage-free. As the nation's biggest egg supplier, and the one with the greatest scale of operations, it would be natural to expect Wal-Mart to turn to Cal-Maine as the company best-able to ramp up and supply its cage-free, egg-selling needs -- and the one best able to spread out costs across a large production base.
Last quarter, the rising popularity of higher-priced cage-free eggs probably contributed to the company's ability to grow earnings 26% on only 3% revenue growth. Costs should be rising soon, though. Cal-Maine management notes that "restaurant chains and major retailers are increasingly demanding more cage-free eggs in response to market forces," and said Cal-Maine is launching "major capital projects ... to further expand our cage-free capacity to meet expected customer demand." What we'll really want to see is what happens when the additional operating costs, involved in producing cage-free eggs, meet Wal-Mart's demands for "always low prices."
What it means to you if you're ... a hen
"Customer demand." That reminds me, when Wal-Mart made its promise to go 100% cage-free last month, it did so with the caveat that its commitment is "based on available supply, affordability, and customer demand by 2025." Cal-Maine, too, says its decision to expand cage-free egg production depends on customer demand.
So what does this mean to America's 155 millionegg-laying chickens? Basically, it means this:
Currently, most of you live cradle to grave with no more room allotted to you than the area of an 8.5-by-11 piece of printer paper. If there's sufficient demand among the egg-eaters for cage-free eggs, though, you could soon be set free from your cages and allowed to live out your life cage-free. If demand falters, though, it's back to the battery cage you go.
In short, Subway, McDonald's, and now Wal-Mart have done their part to set you free. From here on out, it's up to the consumers to decide.
The article Wal-Mart Goes All-In on Cage-Free Eggs originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributorRich Smithdoes not own shares of, nor is he short, any company named above. You can find him onMotley Fool CAPS, publicly pontificating under the handleTMFDitty, where he's currently ranked No. 299 out of more than 75,000 rated members.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.
Where willWhole Foods Market, Inc. be in 10 years? That's become a much tougher question to answer recently.
The company was a stock darling for much of the last generation, but its leadership in organic grocery has been challenged by the likes ofKroger,Costco,Trader Joe's, and others, and as a result customers have been deserting. Comparable sales have fallen for three straight quarters, dipping 3% in its most recent report. The company's reputation for high prices seems to have been its undoing, as customers can now find similar organic goods at lower prices, at a plethora of stores. Whole Foods management seems to be scratching its head for a solution. Despite efforts to lower prices, a loyalty program, and other moves to spruce up the business, customers are not coming back.
Is this just a speed bump for the popular high-end grocer, or a permanent shift in the industry that will continue to hinder the company's profit growth? We asked three of our top retail analysts to peer into their crystal balls. Here's what they had to say about Whole Foods' future.
: For decades, Whole Foods benefited from the general shift toward healthier eating and organic foods -- but now that competition has caught up, there's no doubt that the company is facing some serious challenges. That's especially true when millions have come to know the company by its nickname, "Whole Paycheck"; its history of charging premium prices for its higher quality offerings is likely keeping a large portion of shoppers away from its stores.
In an effort to appeal to value-conscience shoppers and shed its unfortunate label, management has been "investing in price," which is a roundabout way of saying lowering prices in order to attract and retain customers.
As you can imagine, this strategy has hit the company's financial statements hard. Last quarter same store sales actually declined by 3% on the back of lower traffic and a decrease in basket size. If that wasn't bad enough, gross margins also fell by a full percentage point too.
Despite the short-term headwinds, I'm a believer that this strategy is the right move in the long term. With other supermarkets dramatically stepping up their organic options and offering lower prices, Whole Foods faces a real risk of consumers choosing their grocery store based on convenience and price alone. With only 446 stores in operation, the company still has only a tiny footprint when compared to its larger rivals (Kroger alone has 2,778 stores), so I think it needs to do everything in its power to increase its value proposition.
Ten years from now I could easily see Whole Foods stores being known for their high-quality offerings and competitive prices, which would make all of this short-term pain worth it. However, making the transition won't be easy, so success is far from guaranteed.
Demitri Kalogeropoulos: As excited as management is about the new 365 brand store launch, Whole Foods' true growth engine will remain its traditional markets. Yes, these 40,000 square foot buildings have a high cost structure, stuffed as they are with wood-burning pizza ovens, juicing stations, espresso cafs, and wine bars. Those luxuries, and the labor expenses they require to maintain, mean that Whole Foods needs to charge higher average prices, which put it at a disadvantage to many rivals.
The grocer is no Costco, after all, which brags about its bare-bones approachto retailing: "Our warehouses are not elaborate facilities.... because shoppers are attracted principally by the quality of merchandise and the availability of low prices." Whole Foods locations areelaborate facilities, and that's the point. "We strive to transform food shopping from a chore into a dynamic experience," the company says in its 10-K.
Executives believe that the market will eventually support 1,200 traditional stores, almost three times the current base. The 365 brand should contribute extra growth, but a decade from now shoppers will still associate Whole Foods with ahigh-quality, service-heavyshopping experience that's more expensive than a lap around a warehouse club. If the company can't win over a large enough segment of shoppers on that basis, then it has a bigger problem on its hands than just falling profit margins.
Jeremy Bowman:Whole Foods has learned some tough lessons recently. The company that pioneered organic grocery has seen the concept taken mainstream and co-opted by larger competitors. The most valuable lesson in its current predicament seems to be that customers just aren't that interested in paying premium prices for Whole Foods wares when comparable products are available for less elsewhere.
That's why I think Whole Foods' new 365 chain will be a big part of the company 10 years from now. The new budget-priced stores seem to borrow liberally from Trader Joe's, a juggernaut of an alternative grocer known for high quality, unique products, and low prices. The new chain will also feature partner businesses such as a vegan restaurant in the Los Angeles location set to open May 25, which seems like a smart move to differentiate the brand and drive traffic.
I think Whole Foods will have to borrow from other competitors to continue to thrive, as the grocery industry is under assault on multiple fronts. One niche industry that seems like a direct threat is the packaged dinner delivery from companies such as Blue Apron and Plated. Blue Apron is only three years old, but is valued at $2 billion; rival HelloFresh is worth near $3 billion.Whole Foods would seem to have the brand and customer relationships to take this concept to the next level. And why shouldn't it? After all, these are Americans who are willing to spend for the convenience of a high-quality dinner they can prepare themselves, but don't have the time to go shopping -- just the kind of folks Whole Foods is losing.
Similarly, I expect it to expand its partnership with Instacart, as delivery is becoming increasingly important as e-commerce options continue to transform consumers' convenience expectations. Through a combination of those kinds of strategic moves, I think Whole Foods will be in good shape 10 years from now, well on its way to opening 1200 stores or more nationwide.
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The article Where Will Whole Foods Be In 10 Years? originally appeared on Fool.com.
John Mackey, co-CEO of Whole Foods Market, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Jeremy Bowman has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Costco Wholesale and Whole Foods Market. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
I can't remember the last time I called someone on the phone to place an order for pizza. Apparently, that's the case with a lot of people.
Papa John's told investors during its first-quarter earnings call that 55% of its total sales now come through digital. That's up from 50% the year before. Sixty percent of those digital transactions came from mobile devices.
Competing pizza chains Domino's and Yum! Brands' Pizza Hut are also investing heavily in e-commerce. Both have invested in ordering methods for smartwatches, connected cars, and video game systems. Domino's even introduced "zero-click ordering" on its smartphone app, and more than half of its U.S. sales came from digital channels last year.Pizza Hut says digital sales also make up about half of its total.
So why the rush to grow sales through digital channels?
More efficient use of staff
As more orders come through digital platforms, pizza restaurants can have fewer employees in their stores. That's particularly important in light of recent legislation to raise minimum wages in some states, and the potential for minimum wage increases in still more states.
During Domino's first-quarter earnings call, CFO Jeffrey Lawrence told investors, "The biggest thing going against us [at company-owned stores] is more labor rate than anything else."Wage pressure weighed on Domino's operating margin in the first quarter, resulting in lower-than-expected earnings.
Papa John himself, John Schnatter, told investors that digital is the best way to counter those wage increases. "The drivers make more than the $15 an hour, and that leaves you, really the people in the store that are prepping and doing the phone, and the more you drive your IS platform, the less of those folks you need. So I think we're in a perfect position to handle any kind of wage increase."
And it's not just pizza places looking to drive more orders through mobile. Starbucks introduced its mobile order and pay system last fall. The system reduces lines at its stores, enabling Starbucks to serve more customers more quickly and efficiently. It also helps reduce attrition from the line, boosting sales. Ten percent of sales at Starbucks' high-traffic stores now come through mobile order and pay.
While most pizza places like Papa John's or Domino's don't have to worry about lines out the door the way Starbucks does, these systems come in handy during big events such as the Super Bowl. Pizza Hut fulfilled a record $12 million worth of orders through digital platforms on Super Bowl Sunday.
Bigger orders
Not only do pizza restaurants benefit from labor efficiencies from digital ordering, but people are also more inclined to buy more through digital. Whether that's from the visual aspect of digital orders or the ability to automatically "upsell," Domino's says its online order values are on average higher than phone sales. Yum! has noticed a similar trend, with mobile orders for Taco Bell averaging 30% more than in-store orders.
So not only is digital ordering less labor-intensive for the restaurants and easier for customers, but it also drives an increase in average tickets. That's not a recipe for great pizza; it's a recipe for bigger profit margins. It's clear why all three major pizza chains are dumping boatloads of money into digital platforms.
Domino's has been most aggressive. You can now order Domino's through Amazon.com's Echo smart speaker. You can send a text or tweet. And, as mentioned, you can simply open the app, and it will automatically place your favorite order if you just wait around for 10 seconds with its new zero-click ordering. Domino's is also testing an automated vehicle in Australia to help deliver pizzas, adding another layer to the automation.
But Papa John's is still the leader in digital sales, with 55% of its its total sales coming from digital orders. Part of that is coming from improvements to its mobile app and website and the natural migration of consumers to the Internet. But part of it is a concerted effort by management to drive customers to digital through incentives (i.e., coupon codes).
Both Papa John's and Domino's efforts require significant upfront costs, but they're finding it worth it as digital customers spend more and cost less, producing better long-term profits.
The article Why Papa John's and Domino's Are All About Digital Pizza Ordering originally appeared on Fool.com.
Adam Levy owns shares of AMZN. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends AMZN and SBUX. The Motley Fool owns shares of PZZA. 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.
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Uma Thurman found herself in an unexpected lip-lock at amfAR's 23rd Cinema Against AIDS Gala in Cannes, France, on Thursday.
Thurman was helping to auction off the Victorias Secret Fashion Show experience, which included two tickets to brand's annual runway show and a pair of tickets to the exclusive after-party. With a bid of $196,000, Fiat heir Lapo Elkann was declared the winner, and he celebrated by planting a huge smooch on the 46-year-old actress -- all the while keeping his cigarette in hand. However, Thurman's rep told ET that the feelings were not mutual.
Theres no shortage of critical takes on all of the work Congress doesnt do. From budget bills to Supreme Court appointments, theres a reason why hundreds of thousands of Americans tweet at our legislators with the hashtag #SenateDoYourJob. For the Women Air Force Service Pilots of World War II, recognition of their sacrifices remained a job left undone for 72 years.
And now, with President Obamas action signing HR 4336 into law on May 20, that recognition has come.
My grandmother, Elaine Harmon, served as a member of the WASP with over a thousand other women between 1942 and 1944. These fearless femmes took on domestic flying and pilot training duties under the auspices of the Department of the Army to increase the number of available male combat pilots for overseas combat missions. It wasnt easy. Dozens were injured. 38 women died in service to their country.
The WASP served honorably, and for their service Congress passed a 1977 law granting them limited veteran status with the Department of Veterans Affairs. In 2010, they received the Congressional Gold Medal. But when my grandmother passed in 2015, the Department of the Army denied her - and all WASP - burial honors at Arlington National Cemetery. They were veterans, the Army admitted, but only with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Their official status remained second class.
It wasnt my first choice to seek Congressional action. I shared the cynicism of many in America about our largest legislative body. Congress was where good ideas went to die. So I turned to regular people across the country to amplify our voice.
After several weeks of promoting a petition on Change.org, the ground began to shift. Local and national print and broadcast media reached out to hear my grandmothers story. What started as a campaign to right one wrong has become something much larger. It isnt just my story anymore. Our story - and petition - started a national conversation that wouldnt have been possible without online social activism.
Representative Martha McSally of Arizona, a retired Air Force Colonel, was one of the first to hear our collective voice. After hearing the story of Elaine Harmon and the WASP veterans, McSally stepped forward to present a legislative solution: an amendment to the 1977 law that would grant full veteran status to the WASP.
Id seen plenty of legislation fail before, but Id never lobbied for policy reform with an army of supporters empowered by social media. I visited Congress directly, making weekly trips to Washington and standing in offices until staffers spoke to me about our petition and the McSally Amendment. Armed with support from Change.org and more than 178,000 signatures on our petition, I prepared for a long fight.
Despite public perception of Congress as polarized beyond repair, I found countless allies in both political parties. Almost every office I visited offered time to discuss the issue. Some offices co-sponsored our bill on the spot.
More than I expected, members of Congress were moved by the personal narrative of the WASP. #SenateDoYourJob takes on a different meaning when youre waiting to bury a loved one. It may take the pressure of nearly 200,000 voices to move Congress to action, but their movement is a positive sign for our democratic process.
Thanks to the efforts of Rep. McSally and her staff, HR 4336 passed unanimously in the House of Representatives on March 22, 2016, only eleven weeks after she promised to fix the problem. Faced with growing legislative and media buzz, Acting Secretary of the Army Patrick Murphy took the unprecedented step of reversing the Armys position.
Unanimity followed in the Senate, where partisanship took a rare pause in favor of honoring American heroes. 19 weeks from its debut in Congress, the bill that once seemed so implausible a year ago is a law. After decades fighting for equal respect, my grandmother - and all WASP - will have the full honors they deserve.
After seven decades with their service hidden in shadows and veterans in all but name, the United States will finally honor the contributions of these brave women warriors. The time has finally come.
Donald Trump has agreed to meet privately with some of the nations most prominent Evangelical leaders a meeting seen as critical to garnering support from social conservatives, Fox News has learned.
Our goal is to be able to have a conversation that could lead to a better understanding of what Donald Trump has to offer to the country, said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.
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Perkins is one of the key conservative leaders spearheading the gathering set for June 21 in New York City. As many as 500 conservative leaders from around the nation are expected to attend the invitation-only event, as first reported by Time.com.
The meeting was convened by a whos who among Evangelicals including Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd, James Dobson, Ralph Reed, Penny Nance, Bob McEwen, Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association, Kelly Shackleford of First Liberty, and mega-church pastors Jack Graham and Ed Young.
I want to be actively supportive of a candidate who can help turn this nation around, Perkins told me. With Trump Im not there yet. I hope to be there but Im not there right now.
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Perkins said Trump will not be delivering a speech. He will be there to answer questions. There will be no straw poll. There will be no endorsement from the conservative leaders.
There is no preconceived outcome here, he told me. Im hoping we can have a conversation that could lead to helping conservative leaders make a decision about what to do in this election.
The meeting comes as a small, but vocal number of Christian leaders is urging people of faith to stay at home on Election Day.
And thats why Tony Perkins is worried.
Our goal is to be able to have a conversation that could lead to a better understanding of what Trump has to offer to the country, he said. If we dont try, the outcome is not going to be good.
Specifically, the leaders want to hear detailed plans on potential Supreme Court nominees and the vetting process. They also want to hear about Trumps policies regarding religious liberty, pro-life issues and possible vice presidential candidates.
A vice presidential pick is going to be very crucial, Perkins said. Mr. Trump doesnt have a track record so I am going to rely very heavily on who he is going to pick as a running mate.
Floyd, the president of the nations largest Protestant denomination, said he just wants to do the right thing.
The vast majority of Southern Baptists are very much where I am today were trying to figure this out, he told me. Were trying to navigate through these waters that are very uncertain and very difficult.
Floyd had strong words for Christian leaders who are suggesting voters should simply stay home.
We cannot change what exists or even alter it or adjust it sitting on the sidelines and prognosticating about the situation, he said. We have a biblical responsibility, but we also have a responsibility as citizens of the United States to express the privileges afforded to us that men and women have died on the battlefield to give us and Im not walking away from that.
Floyd said the conversation with Trump is a way for Christians to share their hearts with him.
None of us have endorsed Mr. Trump, nor have we condemned Mr. Trump, he said. This is about the possibility of being able to appoint the next four Supreme Court justices. This is about the dignity of human life from the womb to the tomb. This is about religious freedom. Im not about to sit at home and not express something. Im accountable to God and I believe Im accountable to my fellow Americans.
But at the same time, he acknowledged that many people of faith are struggling to come to terms with some of Mr. Trumps past statements statements that are contrary to biblical teachings.
Could you vote for him? Thats the question at hand, Floyd said.
A group the White House recently identified as a key surrogate in selling the Iran nuclear deal gave National Public Radio $100,000 last year to help it report on the pact and related issues, according to the group's annual report. It also funded reporters and partnerships with other news outlets.
The Ploughshares Fund's mission is to "build a safe, secure world by developing and investing in initiatives to reduce and ultimately eliminate the world's nuclear stockpiles," one that dovetails with President Barack Obama's arms control efforts. But its behind-the-scenes role advocating for the Iran agreement got more attention this month after a candid profile of Ben Rhodes, one of the president's top foreign policy aides.
In The New York Times Magazine article, Rhodes explained how the administration worked with nongovernmental organizations, proliferation experts and even friendly reporters to build support for the seven-nation accord that curtailed Iran's nuclear activity and softened international financial penalties on Tehran.
"We created an echo chamber," said Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, adding that "outside groups like Ploughshares" helped carry out the administration's message effectively.
The magazine piece revived Republican criticism of the Iran agreement as they suggested it was evidence of a White House spin machine misleading the American people. The administration accused opponents of trying to re-litigate the deal after failing to defeat it in congressional votes last year.
Outside groups of all stripes are increasingly giving money to news organizations for special projects or general news coverage. Most news organizations, including The Associated Press, have strict rules governing whom they can accept money from and how to protect journalistic independence.
Ploughshares' backing is more unusual, given its prominent role in the rancorous, partisan debate over the Iran deal.
The Ploughshares grant to NPR supported "national security reporting that emphasizes the themes of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and budgets, Iran's nuclear program, international nuclear security topics and U.S. policy toward nuclear security," according to Ploughshares' 2015 annual report, recently published online.
"It is common practice for foundations to fund media coverage of underreported stories," Ploughshares spokeswoman Jennifer Abrahamson said. Funding "does not influence the editorial content of their coverage in any way, nor would we want it to."
Ploughshares has funded NPR's coverage of national security since 2005, the radio network said. Ploughshares reports show at least $700,000 in funding over that time. All grant descriptions since 2010 specifically mention Iran.
"It's a valued partnership, without any conditions from Ploughshares on our specific reporting, beyond the broad issues of national and nuclear security, nuclear policy, and nonproliferation," NPR said in an emailed statement. "As with all support received, we have a rigorous editorial firewall process in place to ensure our coverage is independent and is not influenced by funders or special interests."
Republican lawmakers will have concerns nonetheless, especially as Congress supplies NPR with a small portion of its funding. Just this week, the GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee tried to summon Rhodes to a hearing entitled "White House Narratives on the Iran Nuclear Deal," but he refused.
Ploughshares' links to media are "tremendously troubling," said Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas, an Iran-deal critic.
Pompeo told the AP he repeatedly asked NPR to be interviewed last year as a counterweight to a Democratic supporter of the agreement, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who he said regularly appeared on the network.
But NPR refused to put Pompeo on the air, he said. The network said it had no record of Pompeo's requests, and listed several prominent Republicans who were featured speaking about the deal or economic sanctions on Iran.
Another who appeared on NPR is Joseph Cirincione, Ploughshares' president. He spoke about the negotiations on air at least twice last year. NPR identified Ploughshares as an NPR funder one of those times; the other time, it didn't.
Ploughshares boasts of helping to secure the deal. While success was "driven by the fearless leadership of the Obama administration and supporters in Congress," board chairwoman Mary Lloyd Estrin wrote in the annual report, "less known is the absolutely critical role that civil society played in tipping the scales towards this extraordinary policy victory."
The 33-page document lists the groups that Ploughshares funded last year to advance its nonproliferation agenda.
The Arms Control Association got $282,500; the Brookings Institution, $225,000; and the Atlantic Council, $182,500. They received money for Iran-related analysis, briefings and media outreach, and non-Iran nuclear work.
Other groups, less directly defined by their independent nuclear expertise, also secured grants.
J-Street, the liberal Jewish political action group, received $576,500 to advocate for the deal. More than $281,000 went to the National Iranian American Council.
Princeton University got $70,000 to support former Iranian ambassador and nuclear spokesman Seyed Hossein Mousavian's "analysis, publications and policymaker engagement on the range of elements involved with the negotiated settlement of Iran's nuclear program."
Ploughshares has set its sights on other media organizations, too.
In a "Cultural Strategy Report" on its website, the group outlined a broader objective of "ensuring regular and accurate coverage of nuclear issues in reputable and strategic media outlets" such as The Guardian, Salon, the Huffington Post or Pro Publica.
Previous efforts failed to generate enough coverage, it noted. These included "funding of reporters at The Nation and Mother Jones and a partnership with The Center for Public Integrity to create a national security desk." It suggested using "web videos, podcasts, photo-based stories" and other "attention-grabbing formats" for "creatively reframing the issue."
The Center for Public Integrity's CEO, Peter Bale, confirmed the grant.
"None of the funding received by Ploughshares was for coverage of the Iran deal," said Bale, whose company received $70,000. "In general, we avoided that subject because the topic did not lend itself to the type of investigative reporting the Center does."
Caitlin Graf, a spokeswoman at The Nation, said her outlet had no partnership with Ploughshares. She referred queries to The Nation Institute, a nonprofit associated with the magazine that seeks to strengthen the independent press and advance social justice. Taya Kitman, the institute's director, said Ploughshares' one-year grant supported reporting on U.S.-Iran policy, but strict editorial control was maintained.
Mother Jones' media department didn't respond to several messages seeking comment.
The AP has taken grants from nonpolitical groups and journalism foundations such as the Knight Foundation. As with all grants, "AP retains complete editorial control of the final news product, which must fully meet AP standards for independence and integrity," Standards Editor Thomas Kent said.
Bill Clinton rode into office 24 years ago on the campaign mantra, Its the economy, stupid and apparently, it still is.
In an election where dim economic prospects have fueled the campaigns of both Democrat Bernie Sanders and Republican Donald Trump, a new Fox News poll shows the economy still is far and away the top priority for voters. And faced with flashing warning signs of tepid growth, barely rising wages and factors that signal an even further slowdown, what would a President Trump or Clinton or Sanders do about it?
The proposals span the gamut: Trump wants big tax cuts and tariffs on trading partners. Sanders wants a hike in the minimum wage and free college tuition. Hillary Clinton wants more infrastructure spending.
And each candidate has taken the others to task on their positions and plans.
Clinton economic adviser Gene Sperling recently warned that if Trump was elected he would put the entire financial system at risk. That was after Trump said he could reduce the national debt by getting the government to pay back less than it has borrowed.
Trump, though, has slammed his likely Democratic rival over trade policies, including the North American Free Trade Agreement that Clintons husband signed into law in 1993.
"It has cleaned out our country of jobs," Trump told Fox News on Friday.
Trump says hed be the greatest jobs producer in history by slapping tariffs on Mexico, China and other trade partners.
That's a big shift for Republicans.
The lines have been crossed, Carroll Doherty, director of political research at Pew Research Center, said. The Republicans were always known as the party of free trade and now they are less supportive of free trade than Democrats.
The stakes are high, as the next president is likely to face a lingering economic challenge all in the wake of the last recession.
A Wall Street Journal survey of economists earlier this month showed an elevated risk (about 20 percent) of another U.S. recession in the next year. One of those economists, the National Association of Manufacturers Chad Moutray, cited: Decelerating employment growth, growing uncertainty and sputtering GDP growth.
Income inequality continues to strike a deep divide between the haves and have-nots, which the candidates also have seized on.
Clinton pledges to enact the Buffett Rule a basic principle that ensures no household making more than $1 million annually should pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than a middle-class family pays.
Clinton also promises to strip tax benefits from U.S. companies that move jobs to foreign countries to get a more favorable rate. And she says shell help small businesses by expanding access to capital and vows to invest $350 billion in secondary education.
Clinton supports as well raising the federal minimum wage to at least $12 currently, its at $7.25 for covered nonexempt employees. Clinton has also shown support for the Fight for $15 campaign which pushes for even higher minimum wages in individual states.
Its a fight Sanders has taken on since the start of his campaign. And he's accused Clinton of being late to the party. At a CNN debate in April, Sanders mocked Clintons declaration of support: What has happened is that history has outpaced Secretary Clinton.
Sanders repeatedly has described tackling income inequality as the hallmark of his campaign. He also has vowed to break up big banks, cap credit card rates at 15 percent and limit ways some in the financial industry have been able to monetarily benefit from taxpayer bailouts.
Trump, meanwhile, takes the opposite tack. Trump says dismantling the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul would be one of his top priorities. Hes also said hed boot out Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen.
While the candidates push for more economic changes, there are bright spots.
When President Obama took office, the economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month. The unemployment rate has since fallen dramatically, from 10 percent to 5 percent. During Obamas two terms, the private sector has added jobs for 73 straight months.
Still, hard economic realities face the country, putting pressure on the next Oval Office occupant to engineer a jump-start.
The economy grew at its weakest quarterly pace in two years between January and March -- 0.5 percent -- as consumers spent cautiously. Businesses cut back on investments to levels not seen since the financial crisis of 2008. And there was a massive stock market sell-off at the start of the year which eroded consumer confidence.
And while the budget deficit -- the federal government's annual shortfall -- has shrunk by nearly $1 trillion, Washington continues to spend far more than it earns, swelling the national debt beyond $19 trillion. It's a factor that could increasingly limit the government's ability to spend its way out of an economic downturn.
Should the country find itself in another recession, James Pethokoukis, an expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, says a Trump response would likely be based on a truly massive tax cut -- and more.
He also likes to do infrastructure. Fantastic, he can throw in some infrastructure in there as well. Doesnt care about the debt? Who cares? Fine. So we have a massive tax cut, maybe massive infrastructure spending, Pethokoukis said. A Donald Trump presidency during a recession assuming that his trade conflict doesnt cause the recession might just be like the Democratic dream president.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin vetoed a sweeping and unprecedented measure Friday that would have made performing an abortion a felony punishable by prison time, saying the bill was vague and would not be able to withstand a criminal constitutional challenge.
The bill, part of an overt strategy to challenge the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling, had passed the state senate 32-12 without debate and had gone to the governor's desk.
The bill is so ambiguous and so vague that doctors cannot be certain what medical circumstances would be considered necessary to preserve the life of the mother, Fallin, a Republican, said in a statement.
The absence of any definition, analysis or medical standard renders this exception vague, indefinite and vulnerable to subjective interpretation and application, she said.
Fallin is staunchly pro-life and has signed 18 bills supporting pro-life causes. Lawmakers can still attempt a veto override, which requires a two-thirds majority in each chamber.
Abortion-rights supporters said the measure was clearly unconstitutional, but the bill's author said he hoped it would be a first step toward overturning the 1973 Roe ruling that legalized abortion.
Since I believe life begins at conception, it should be protected, and I believe it's a core function of state government to defend that life from the beginning of conception, Republican Sen. Nathan Dahm, the bills author, said.
Under the bill, doctors who perform abortions would have faced three years behind bars and lose their medical licenses. There were no exceptions in the case of rape or incest but consideration would have been given if a mothers life is in jeopardy.
Abortion rights supporters -- including the states medical association argued the bill was unconstitutional and vowed to fight it.
State Sen. Ervin Yen, the only doctor in the Senate and a Republican, described the legislation as insane and voted against it.
The Center for Reproductive Rights also slammed the bill, describing it as cruel and unconstitutional.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A group of Republican Oklahoma lawmakers introduced a resolution Thursday urging the states congressional delegation to start an effort to impeach President Obama over the White Houses directive to allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their gender identity.
The Obama administration issued the recommendation to all public schools last week that transgender students must be allowed to use the bathroom of their choosing. The directive has caused fury among lawmakers across the nation.
Reuters reported the bill introduced in Oklahoma calls on the states members of the House of Representatives to file articles of impeachment against Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Secretary of Education John B. King and several others.
Lawmakers on Friday also introduced a separate measure that would allow students to use religious grounds to have separate but equal bathrooms to segregate them from transgender students.
According to The Oklahoman, a state Senate committee approved a measure to grant religious accommodations for students who object to the transgender bathroom order. The bill now goes to the full Senate for consideration.
John Bennett, a Republican state representative, said in a statement that the White Houses policy on transgender bathroom usage was biblically wrong, and a violation of state sovereignty.
According to Reuters, advocates for Obamas impeachment said that the president has overstepped his constitutional authority.
However, supporters of the transgender bathroom guidelines called the impeachment resolution a promotion of fear mongering.
"In a time when our state is facing an unprecedented economic crisis, our lawmakers should be focused on righting the ship rather than stigmatizing transgender youth," Troy Stevenson, executive director of the LGBT advocacy group Freedom Oklahoma, told Reuters in a statement.
The measure was introduced hours after Gov. Mary Fallin vetoed a bill that would have criminalized abortion procedures.
Click for more from Reuters.
A Nazi gold train. The Amber Room. Claims of legendary Nazi-era finds have been surfacing of lateand, it's worth noting, not panning outand Nazi nukes now join that list.
In what it describes as a "fantastical" claim, the Local reports retired mechanical engineer and amateur historian Peter Lohr believes nuclear material has been housed in a large subterranean chamber near Chemnitz, Germany, for 71 years.
That worries the 70-year-old, who suspects that when the metal decays "a second Chernobyl" will follow, reports the German tabloid Bild. Using ground-penetrating radar, Lohr has for years been investigating a network of Nazi tunnels built by those held at the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Now that he's been able to use 3D modeling software, he says he has discovered an underground chamber containing five large metal objects. The shape of two of them, according to Lohr, echoes that of nuclear bombs.
Not everyone is concerned; treasure hunters and historians alike have been on the hunt for similar artifacts from WWII for decades, and historians generally agree that no evidence of nuclear success exists; the Local cites one historian who points out that Joseph Goebbels, "Hitlers closest confidant," made no reference to a bomb in his diary.
But the Telegraph reports there has been a lot of speculation regarding the tunnels' purpose, which has remained elusiveperhaps it was a weapons test site, or a planned hiding place for Nazi leaders.
Either way, Lohr says the authorities aren't taking his find seriously: "They just told me that Im not allowed to continue my research anymore."
This article originally appeared on Newser: German Man Claims 'Fantastical' Find: Nazi Nukes
The grief-stricken mom of a 13-year-old girl who died suddenly during a game of tug-of-war at her Alabama school said Saturday that her daughter was full of life and never met a stranger.
Sixth-grader Maddison Wentworth was playing Thursday with other students when she collapsed during an end-of-the-year Field Day event at Williams Intermediate in Pell City, according to authorities.
Leslie Wentworth told FoxNews.com she was at work when the school called and said her daughter may have suffered a seizure.
Im pulling my strength from God, she said. The love Ive received from the community has just been overwhelming.
Wentworth said Maddisons death was a shock. She said her daughter had no known health problems.
School nurses administered CPR until paramedics arrived. Maddison was taken to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Pell City Police Sgt. Don Newton told Al.com paramedics continued to work on Maddison on the way to the hospital.
She was pronounced dead at 12:34 p.m., the news outlet reported.
An autopsy was scheduled to determine the cause of death, AL.com reported.
"We have suffered a great loss at Williams Intermediate School. Field day is supposed to be one of the best days of the year, Pell City Schools Superintendent Michael Barber said in a statement. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family, and with the faculty and students who knew her and loved her every day. And I would ask everyone to keep this family and the system in their prayers as well."
Classmates wrote notes to Maddison during school Friday and put them in her locker, Fox 6 News reported.
The notes will be given to her mother, according to the station.
The school was also planning to hold a celebration of life event in honor of Maddison on the last day of school next week, Fox 6 reported.
A GoFundMe account has been established to help with the financial side of this horrific time in the lives of the girls family. As of early Saturday, more than $2,500 has been raised to help the family.
Click for more from Al.com.
Click for more from Fox 6 News.
Police say they're looking for an armed robber who exchanged gunfire with an officer, leaving a bystander seriously hurt, in the Washington suburb of Springfield, Virginia.
Fairfax County Police said in a statement the bystander was driving by Saturday and was hit by a bullet apparently fired by the robbery suspect. They called the injury life-threatening.
Police were called shortly after noon to a jewelry store at the Brookfield Plaza shopping center. Police say an officer saw a man exit the store and confronted him.
Police say the suspect fired at the officer, who shot back.
They say the robber fled in a car that crashed, then carjacked another vehicle, crashed that one, and ran away.
An Indiana burglary suspect got more than he bargained for when the alleged victim caught him and beat him up, Fox 59 reported Saturday.
According to court papers, Rey Cruz, 20, broke into an apartment near College Mall Wednesday night.
The complaint said the resident spotted Cruz in his jacket and ran after him, according to the station.
He tackled the male on the sidewalk (then) punched the male approximately three to four times in the face and nose, causing him to bleed, Fox 59 reported Friday, quoting the court papers.
Cruz went to the emergency room at a hospital and that's where cops arrested him, the station reported.
He was charged with felony burglary, the station reported.
Click here to read more from Fox 59.
Graduates of a Southern California high school received a head-scratching surprise on their diploma covers Thursday.
Students of the Ontario High School class of 2016 received their diploma covers with an egregious spelling error on the front. Photos on social media showed the cover was spelled as Ontario High Shcool.
A Chaffey Joint Union High School District official told KTLA Friday that a printing error was to blame for the typo that was on the covers.
WOOO GRADUATED FROM ONTARIO HIGH SHCOOL !!!!!! pic.twitter.com/zZPzF7mSm3 Yaya (@jacedoooo_) May 20, 2016
The misspelling was a printing error made by the grad products company, Chaffey Joint Union High School District Superintendent Mathew Holton said in a statement to KTLA.
Holton said that all graduates will be given a corrected diploma cover along with an apology letter.
Click for more from KTLA.
Homicide detectives have identified a vehicle of interest in the search for the killer of a Texas fitness instructor inside a church last month, according to a report Saturday.
Midlothian police want to question the owner of that vehicle in connection with the murder of 45-year-old Terri Bevers, Fox News reported. Her body was found inside the Creekside Church of Christ in Midlothian early in the morning of April 18.
Surveillance video shows the vehicle pulling into a parking lot less than a mile from the church on the day of the murder.
Detectives want to question the driver, though the person is not necessarily a suspect, according to the report.
Police released images from the video Friday and said the vehicle appears to be a light-colored Nissan Altima that is a few years old, Fox 4 reported Friday.
According to the station, police have ruled out Bevers husband and father-in-law as suspects in the murder.
This is a frustrating case, Assistant Police Chief Kevin Johnson said, according to Fox 4. Its a hard investigation. Some people may think we are not equipped to deal with this investigation. You have to know that we have some really good help.
Bevers went to the church to teach a 5 a.m. exercise class and was attacked by a person carrying a hammer.
Investigators said the killer wore a helmet, gloves and a jacket labeled "Police," but have not determined if the person was a man or a woman.
Click here for more from Fox 4.
Afghan authorities confirmed Sunday that the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammed Akhtar Mansour, was killed in a U.S. drone strike.
The National Directorate of Security said in a statement that Mansour was killed at 3:45 p.m. local time Saturday. The Associated Press, citing a statement from the spy agency, said the attack took place in Baluchistan province, in southwestern Pakistan.
"The attack happened on the main road while he was in his vehicle," the statement said.
Mullah Abdul Rauf, a senior Taliban commander, told the Associated Press earlier Sunday that Mansour was indeed killed in the drone strike.
A U.S. official told Fox News Saturday that Mansour was likely killed in the strike, while the White House is awaiting official confirmation of Mansours death before releasing their own statement about the strike.
President Obama authorized the strike in a remote area along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Mansour was traveling in a vehicle when the strike occurred. It was carried out my multiple unmanned aircraft operated by U.S. Special Operations Forces. Officials said there was no collateral damage in the aftermath of the strike. The official told Fox News Mansour was killed in a vehicle.
"Mansour killed American soldiers and thousands of Afghans. The world is a better place without him."
Secretary of State John Kerry praised Mansours death while on a visit to Myanmar. He also spoke about Mansour in the past-tense, even though the White House hasnt officially confirmed Mansours death.
"Mansour posed a continuing imminent threat to U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, Afghan civilians, Afghan security forces and members of Resolute Support," Kerry said. "Peace is what we want. Mansour was a threat to that effort."
Kerry called for a post-Mansour Taliban to engage in serious peace negotiations with the Kabul government, saying, "It is time for Afghans to stop fighting and to start building a real future together."
The official declined to say if Pakistan gave the US military permission to strike.
Mansour was not listed on the State Department's Rewards for Justice list, a placement reserved for America's top enemies.
However, there was a $10 million bounty on the head of previous Taliban leader Mullah Omar, who was pronounced dead by the Afghan government in 2015 and reportedly died in 2013 in Pakistan.
Mullah Omar had sheltered Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan.
The Taliban and Al Qaeda have "worked closely" at times, a US general tells Fox News. But, they are not categorized as a foreign terrorist organization as defined by the State Department.
Members of Congress lauded the attack. One lawmaker said Mansour's death, if confirmed, would be a significant blow to the Taliban, though not be enough to allow the U.S. to disengage from a conflict that has involved thousands of U.S. troops for nearly 15 years.
"We must remain vigilant and well-resourced in the field, and must continue to help create the conditions for a political solution," said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., said he was glad Mansour "has met his just end" but urged stepped up coalition attacks on the Taliban.
"Our troops are in Afghanistan today for the same reason they deployed there in 2001 to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for global terrorists," McCain said.
Mansour was chosen to take the helm of the Afghan Taliban last summer after Omar's death became public. Omar's longtime deputy, Mansour had actually been the Taliban's de facto leader for years, according to the Afghan government.
His formal ascension was divisive in the Taliban, handing him the challenge of uniting a fractured but still lethal insurgency that has seen fighters desert for more extreme groups such as the Islamic State.
The Taliban ruled Afghanistan according to a harsh interpretation of Islamic law until the group was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Almost 15 years later, there are about 13,000 troops in the country from a U.S.-NATO coalition, including around 9,800 Americans. While they are mostly focused on training and helping Afghan government forces battle the insurgency, about 3,000 of them are conducting counterterrorism operations against the Taliban and the extremist groups Al Qaeda and Islamic State.
They have increased their ranks by 20 percent since 2009, and have taken over Helmand Province. A bumper poppy crop and opium harvest there last month ensured the Taliban have renewed a major revenue source according to officials.
Fox News Lucas Tomlinson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Egypt's president said on Sunday a submarine belonging to his country's Oil Ministry was headed to the site of the crash of EgyptAir Flight-804 in the eastern Mediterranean to join the search for the cockpit voice and flight data recorders, commonly known as black boxes.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi also said Egypt was jointly investigating the Thursday crash with the French government. "It is very, very important to us to establish the circumstances that led to the crash of that aircraft," he said in comments broadcast live on Egyptian TV channels.
He said the submarine, which has the capacity to operate at a depth of 3,000 meters below the surface, left for the site Sunday. He gave no further details.
Making his first public comments since the crash of the Airbus A320 while en route from Paris to Cairo, el-Sissi says it "will take time" to determine the exact cause of the crash, which killed all 66 people on board.
The announcement comes just one day after the first available audio from the doomed EgyptAir Flight 804 was released.
The audio showed the pilot in normal contact with Swiss air traffic controllers as the flight continued on its course from Paris toward Cairo, hours before officials lost contact with the jet.
The seemingly standard dialogue came to light hours after Egypt denied media reports the doomed jet's black boxes had been located.
The new audio indicated that all was routine as the plane checked in with air traffic controllers in Zurich late Wednesday night, before being handed over to Italian air traffic controllers in Padua.
Control: "EgyptAir804 contact Padova 1-2-0, decimal 7-2-5, good night."
Pilot: "This is 0-7-2-5 Padova control. (Unintelligible) 8-0-4. Thank you so much. Good day, er, good night."
The audio recording was taken from www.liveatc.net, a website that provides live air traffic control broadcasts from around the world.
The communication occurred around midnight local time, about 2 hours before Greek air traffic controllers in Athens lost contact with EgyptAir Flight 804.
A senior official at the Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry refuted the reports as did a spokesman for Egypts military who said he had no information to share on the retrieval of the black boxes, or cockpit voice and flight data recorders.
The statements came as French investigators announced Saturday that smoke was detected in multiple places on the ill-fated EgyptAir plane before it plummeted into the Mediterranean Sea.
The Aviation Herald initially reported that sensors detected smoke in a lavatory, suggesting a fire onboard the aircraft before it went down.
David Learmount, a noted aviation expert, told Fox News Friday that the data received from some satellites indicates that a fire couldve started in the avionics compartment of the plane which knocked out computers and control mechanisms on the flight. He said that wouldve caused the plane to crash.
French officials didnt say what could have caused parts of Flight 804 to fill up with smoke. Spokesman Sebastien Barthe told the Associated Press the planes automatic detection system sent messages indicating smoke a few minutes before it disappeared from radar.
He said the messages generally mean the start of a fire.
"We are drawing no conclusions from this. Everything else is pure conjecture, Barthe added.
According to The Wall Street Journal, sensors aboard the plane detected smoke in the lavatory on the aircrafts nose. The paper, citing someone familiar with the aircrafts data, reported the messages suggest there was damage to the right-side of the cockpit windows.
Officials who have reviewed the data told the Journal that the broadcast information by itself is insufficient to determine whether the plane crashed because of a bomb or another cause. Rockwell Collins, a global aviation telecommunications provider, said late Friday it transmitted the messages over its networks to the carrier in real time.
Learmount said the possibility of terrorism couldnt be ruled out. He said there were a couple other scenarios that could have caused the plane to crash.
A terrorist got into the avionics compartment and placed a device that triggered the fire and alarm
That all of these sensors were picking up smoke and then disablement following a bomb going off.
That the fault in the avionics and the terror attack happened concurrently.
An EgyptAir official confirmed Friday that wreckage of the missing plane was found, including body parts, luggage and passengers seats. The announcement came hours after a Greece official also reported evidence being found.
"A short while ago we were briefed by the Egyptian authorities... on the discovery of a body part, a seat and baggage just south of where the aircraft signal was lost," Defense Minister Panos Kammenos told reporters in Athens, according to Reuters.
The Cairo-bound Airbus 320 had left Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris late Wednesday night with 66 on board, and disappeared from radar as it neared its destination.
A mile-long oil slick was identified from satellite images from the European Space Agency, which cautioned that there was no guarantee the slick was from the missing aircraft. The agency said the slick was about 25 miles southeast of the plane's last known location, and passed the information to relevant authorities late Thursday.
The Egyptian presidency Friday expressed its "deep sadness and extreme regret" over the deaths of the passengers and crew members aboard the flight -- the first official recognition of the tragic crash.
Egyptian army spokesman Brig. Gen. Mohammed Samir wrote on his Facebook page that Egyptian jets and naval vessels participating in the search for the missing plane had found "personal belongings of the passengers and parts of the plane debris."
No terror groups has taken credit for the disaster and authorities were going through the passenger manifest, crew members' backgrounds and airport staff for possible links to terror.
Authorities said the plane swerved and spun wildly before plummeting into the sea. The Egyptian military said that no distress call was received from the pilot.
In Paris, French authorities scoured Charles de Gaulle Airport, the country's main hub, for any sign of a security breach prior to the flight's departure. Reuters reported that investigators were interviewing officers who were on duty at the airport Wednesday night to determine whether they heard or saw anything suspicious.
"We are in the early stages here," a police source told Reuters about the investigation.
Flight 804 was carrying 56 passengers, including one child and two babies, three security staff and seven crew members, officials said. Egypt's aviation minister, Sharif Fathy, described those on board as including 15 French passengers, 30 Egyptians, one Briton, two Iraqis, one Kuwaiti, one Saudi, one Sudanese, one Chadian, one Portuguese, one Algerian and one Canadian.
In Egypt, home to 30 of the victims, grieving families and friends wondered if their loved ones would ever be recovered. Many gathered in mosques for Salat al-Ghaib, or "prayers for the absent," held for the dead whose bodies have not been found.
"This is what is ripping our hearts apart, when we think about it. When someone you love so much dies, at least you have a body to bury. But we have no body until now," said Sherif al-Metanawi, a childhood friend of the pilot, Mohammed Shoukair.
Among those killed were Salah Abu Laban, his wife Sahar Qouidar, their son Ghassan Abu Laban and daughter-in-law Reem al-Sebaei
The relative, Abdel-Rahman al-Nasry, told The Associated Press, "I ask God for forgiveness. This is very hard for the family."
Magdi Badr, a family friend, said, "we pray for the victims."
Fox News Greg Palkot and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
As pieces of luggage, human remains, wreckage and what could be a tell-tale oil slick were found early Friday in the Mediterranean Sea, one aviation expert said telemetry received by satellites from the doomed plane suggested a fire could have started onboard, knocking out computers and control mechanisms.
David Learmount said the fire could have started in the plane's avionics compartment. Such a scenario could indicate an electrical fire, and not terrorism, brought down EgyptAir flight 804 on Thursday.
The first physical clues to the crash of flight 804, which carried 66 passengers, crew and security officers, surfaced about 190 miles off the coast of the Egyptian city of Alexandria. Reports of debris being found on Thursday proved false, but the verified debris field could bring authorities closer to the all-important flight data recorder, which could provide insight into what caused the crash.
An EgyptAir official said midday Friday that wreckage of the missing plane has been found, including body parts, luggage and passengers' seats. The announcement came hours after a Greek official also reported evidence being found.
"A short while ago we were briefed by the Egyptian authorities... on the discovery of a body part, a seat and baggage just south of where the aircraft signal was lost," Defense Minister Panos Kammenos told reporters in Athens, according to Reuters.
The Cairo-bound flight had left Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris late Wednesday night, and disappeared from radar as it neared its destination. Authorities have said terrorism is more likely than technical failure, but the investigation is still in the early stages.
A flotilla of international ships and boats were searching a wide swath of the sea Thursday and during the night for debris from the ill-fated Airbus 320. The mile-long oil slick was identified from satellite images from the European Space Agency, which cautioned that there was no guarantee the slick was from the missing aircraft. The agency said the slick was about 25 miles southeast of the plane's last known location, and passed the information to relevant authorities late Thursday.
The Egyptian presidency Friday expressed its "deep sadness and extreme regret" over the deaths of the passengers and crew members aboard the flight -- the first official recognition of the tragic crash. Egypts military also confirmed for the first time Friday that plane debris and passengers personal belongings were found in the Mediterranean Sea.
Egyptian army spokesman Brig. Gen. Mohammed Samir wrote on his Facebook page that Egyptian jets and naval vessels participating in the search for the missing plane had found "personal belongings of the passengers and parts of the plane debris."
Egyptian airport officials said Friday that three French and three British investigators and an AirBus technical expert had arrived in Cairo to join the investigation.
No terror groups had taken credit for the disaster as of Friday morning, and authorities were going through the passenger manifest, crew members' backgrounds and airport staff for possible links to terror. Authorities said the plane swerved and spun wildly before plummeting into the sea. The Egyptian military said that no distress call was received from the pilot.
In Paris, French authorities scoured Charles de Gaulle Airport, the country's main hub, for any sign of a security breach prior to the flight's departure. Reuters reported that investigators were interviewing officers who were on duty at the airport Wednesday night to determine whether they heard or saw anything suspicious.
"We are in the early stages here," a police source told Reuters about the investigation.
The Wall Street Journal reported that French investigators were poring over surveillance footage from the airport, as well as performing background checks of those on board the plane and anyone who may have had ground access to the aircraft.
Flight 804 was carrying 56 passengers, including one child and two babies, three security staff and seven crew members, officials said. Egypt's aviation minister, Sharif Fathy, described those on board as including 15 French passengers, 30 Egyptians, one Briton, two Iraqis, one Kuwaiti, one Saudi, one Sudanese, one Chadian, one Portuguese, one Algerian and one Canadian.
Families of the victims spent the night in a hotel in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, while they awaited the news of their loved ones. Egyptian officials said some arrived from Paris late Thursday, among them eight relatives of the 15 French passengers on board the missing jet.
Later Friday, the relatives of those killed held prayers for the dead at Sultan Hussein mosque in Cairo. Some of them cried as they prayed.
Among those killed were Salah Abu Laban, his wife Sahar Qouidar, their son Ghassan Abu Laban and daughter-in-law Reem al-Sebaei
The relative, Abdel-Rahman al-Nasry, told The Associated Press, "I ask God for forgiveness. This is very hard for the family."
Magdi Badr, a family friend, said, "we pray for the victims."
In the U.S., Los Angeles International Airport announced Thursday that it was stepping up security in the wake of the EgyptAir disappearance. A statement from airport authorities said they were eliminating or restricting airport worker access to 150 doors in the terminals. The statement also said additional airport police officers had been assigned to monitor employee access points and conduct random screenings.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
In a reminder of the dangers US troops still face in Afghanistan, a US military convoy was attacked by a suicide bomber on Saturday morning and "heavily damaged," an armored vehicle, a Kabul-based US military spokesman tells Fox News.
There were no injuries to the US troops in the convoy, according to a statement from the US-led mission to Afghanistan.
The suicide attack was the third by the Taliban this week. An attack against Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior and a "major" rocket attack in Kabul was thwarted by US and Afghan forces, according to a US defense official in Kabul.
The attack occurred four miles outside Bagram Air Base in northern Afghanistan, where the majority of US forces are based.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
A spokesman for Resolute Support, reached by phone by Fox News said the suicide bomber approached the convoy on foot.
In late December, six US Air Force airmen were killed during a foot patrol outside Bagram Air Base.
An estimated 30,000 Taliban fighters remain in Afghanistan, according to Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland, the US military's top spokesman in Afghanistan. The estimate represents a 20 percent increase over 2009 estimates.
Late last year, the Taliban took over most of Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. A bumper poppy crop and opium harvest there last month ensured the Taliban have renewed a major revenue source according to officials.
In January, Staff Sgt. Matthew McClintock, 30, a Green Beret, was killed in Helmand while "advising" Afghan special forces there. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star in March.
A month later, a battalion of roughly 500 US Army soldiers was sent to Helmand to reinforce Afghan Army troops who were forced to retreat from scattered checkpoints.
There are nearly 300 al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, according to Cleveland, who briefed reporters earlier this month.
When asked about the current level of coordination between Al Qaeda and the Taliban, Cleveland said there is evidence the two groups are working "closely" at times.
"We have seen more interaction. We have seen them working more together," Cleveland said. "Bottom line is there is still an Al Qaeda presence here in Afghanistan."
Nearly 10,000 US troops remain in Afghanistan. That number is supposed to be cut in half by the time President Obama leaves office in January.
Nearly 3,000 of those 10,000 are focused on counterterrorism missions against al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliated groups.
There have been more than 120 airstrikes against ISIS and al-Qaeda figures since January.
Earlier this week, Afghanistan's ministry of defense said the US military killed a senior al-Qaeda leader in southern Afghanistan, Mullah Mohammad Ali.
The US military confirmed the strike to Fox News but refused to name the target.
Gen. John W. Nicholson, Jr. the new head of US and allied forces in Afghanistan is nearing the end of his 90-day review period where, at the end of this month, he will make a recommendation to the Pentagon about whether or not the current level of US troops need to stay.
In a closed door session with top US and NATO commanders meeting in Brussels this week, there appeared to be a willingness to maintain the current level of forces in Afghanistan, according to the Washington Post who spoke to top officials following the meetings.
The teacher crisis is real, and were not going to work our way out of it simply by making it easier to hire teachers.
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There is a great deal to gain from better exploitation of existing information on egg and poultry units, according to one of Europes leading experts in the use of data in livestock systems.
Data is the foundation of better farming, not just for producers but all the players involved, said Kristof Mertens at last months annual meeting of the World Poultry Science Association (WPSA) in Chester.
We try to make the animals talk to the people that need to know what is going on with them, using modern ICT solutions and big data, he said.
See also: 3 key ways to improve free-range egg production
As co-founder of Dutch company Porphyrio, his company has developed software systems that automatically collect and analyse the data generated by the computers and the software that modern poultry farms have already invested in, and have in place.
The business is associated with Belgiums University of Leuven, where researchers have spent years analysing data from poultry farms to generate algorithms that offer raw interpretation of existing shed data.
It is our mission to provide agricultural entrepreneurs with an instrument that they can use to get an edge on the highly competitive market, said Mr Mertens.
Thanks to automated data collection, it is now possible to gather information in real time on flock health, and instantly inform a farm manager, he said.
However, few modern poultry farms can collate and truly analyse this data because of insufficient time, lack of theoretical knowledge, or other obligations.
Valuable information unused
As a result, valuable information that could provide farmers with insight goes unused.
It is our mission to provide agricultural entrepreneurs with an instrument that they can use to get an edge on the highly competitive market Kristof Mertens, co-founder Porphyrio
This often meant producers missed important warning signs that something was going wrong, which could result in significant damage and loss, he suggested.
On a technological level, there are a lot of exciting things happening that we as a livestock production sector can adopt, to improve and solve the problems we have.
There is a vast range of sensor technologies currently available to farmers, and many are still developing, meaning even more data will be in hand in the coming years.
Convenient, affordable data
And with it will come huge opportunities to drive efficiencies through the supply chain, if that data is taken advantage of.
Mr Mertens business builds software which collects such information and offers an interpretation based on biological data and analysis of other farms.
It has two products, Lay-Insight, for hens, and Broiler Insight.
If everything is stored centrally, we can compare it very easily. Theres a lot of power in that.
The software then presents the data as a dashboard that can be viewed on a smartphone or tablet.
Those dashboards had to be easy to use, said Mr Mertens. It was vital that the user interface had to be fit for everybody, and not just made by engineers for engineers.
Once the software has analysed the data, production managers receive useful, ready-to-use information on their PC, tablet or smartphone that allows them to immediately act if a problem arises.
It is not only convenient and immediately ready to use, but is also affordable.
We are focusing very hard on poultry sector, so we have solutions for egg and meat production.
The company has adopted the concept of management by exception; identifying where are the problems, where do I need to look?
The current challenge was embracing all the expertise available in the sector, moving from an animal-centred approach, to a multi-expertise approach.
Digitalising data
Historically, there has been a lot of people, such as feed providers, stock suppliers, vets and other consultants, moving around farms, drinking coffee, he said.
The modern farm manager is not be happy with a casual chat every month the future will be ancillary services and expertise the moment it is needed.
Our goal is to enable collaboration between these parties so that each can bring value back to the complete chain and deliver a solution.
By starting to collect data in a standardised way, a producer can gain the information required to make more informed choices about the services and supplies they chose to use.
A remaining difficulty is that the sector is still run mainly by pen and paper. There was a lot of information still on farms that posed a challenge.
Some people are willing to put in data manually, but more recently we have an produced an app where a manager can scan his production sheets and we digitalise them.
San Jose, Costa Rica - Poker players looking to take their game higher might want to park their chips at Americas Cardroom this June. The US-facing online poker site today announced the next High Five, a 5-day online poker series slated to get underway on June 8th. The series packs 25 tournaments into five days and features its signature $420,000 guaranteed Main Event.
Grab your buds and get ready to burn through tournament after tournament in our next installment of the High Five, stated Michael Harris, spokesperson for Americas Cardroom . Were putting $942,000 in guaranteed prize money on the table through five tournaments a day for five straight days. With so much action, Americas Cardroom is guaranteed to be the hottest online poker joint around.
The High Five runs from June 8th through 12th and features $942,000 in guaranteed prize money. The 5-day schedule has 25 tournaments spread out equally over five days. Players can participate in a variety of poker tournaments and formats, including No Limit Holdem, PLO, Hyper Turbos, Rebuys, Knockouts, and more.
The hallmark event is the $420,000 GTD Main Event on the final day of the series, which features a $420+35 buy-in. While $420,000 is guaranteed, Americas Cardroom has a history of seeing the signature series event rocket well over the guaranteed prize pool.
A surge in Americas Cardroom traffic and a growing community could send the prize pool to record heights. Just a few weeks ago, their Million Dollar Sunday surpassed the $1 million guarantee for the first time in history a sure sign that Americas Cardroom is one of the top choices for players looking for series action.
Fasting is defined as a willing abstinence or reduction from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. It has been a tool for prayerful reflection and a vehicle for nonviolent activism.
George Washington recorded in his journal that he fasted during an intense episode with the British. In 1798, the United States was on the verge of war with France and President John Adams proclaimed a day of solemn humiliation, prayer and fasting for the nation. Mahatma Gandhi fasted many times, usually to demonstrate nonviolence while calling attention to political issues. Mother Teresa fasted often and encouraged interfaith fasts.
There are many examples of fasting by biblical prophets and leaders, including King David, Isaiah, Moses, Elijah, Esther, and the apostle Paul. In Matthew 4:1-2, we read that Jesus Christ, himself, went into the wilderness and fasted 40 days and nights. He found strength against opposition through fasting.
Fasting is a well-practiced principle in many cultures and countries. It is a cornerstone tenet in most of the major religions. And now, it has even been demonstrated to have health benefits, when done in moderation.
Within the practices of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, fasting plays an important part. The first Sunday of the month is set aside as a time for fasting by the membership. Individuals are encouraged to conduct a fast from food and water for two meals. This is a choice and no one is asked to divulge whether they are fasting. The very young, pregnant women, or those who are ill are not encouraged to fast.
Fasting and prayer go together. Someone once said that fasting without prayer is just starving.
Four simple steps have helped me in the fasting process:
Pray before beginning your fast.
Fast with a purpose, and think often about that purpose.
Try to remain cheerful and patient.
Offer a prayer of gratitude at the end of your fast.
In the LDS church, the money saved by not having to purchase and prepare meals is donated as a fast offering, which is then used to help people in need. Bishops in each congregation make confidential determinations on how best to use these donations. I asked Taylor Wilson, the bishop of the congregation I attend, how he has allocated the donations to families and individuals. He shared that during the past few months, these local donations have been used to provide assistance with housing, clothing, food, utilities, car insurance, and gas for travel to work.
The late LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley asked: "What would happen if the principles of fast day and the fast offering were observed throughout the world? The hungry would be fed, the naked clothed, the homeless sheltered. A new measure of concern and unselfishness would grow in the hearts of people everywhere."
Fasting has blessed my life. When coupled with prayer, fasting has given me answers to questions, insights into problems, and strengthened my belief in a loving Heavenly Father.
Recently our daughter underwent cochlear implant surgery for a hearing loss. Before her surgery, my husband and I asked our children and their families if they would consider joining us in a family fast for this daughter. This focus of thoughts and prayers brought unity to our family and gave our daughter an understanding that we cared enough to pray, focus on her needs, and go without meals on her behalf.
Fasting is a paradox. While one may feel weakened physically when fasting, the process will often bring strength to the soul.
More than 100 Oregon State University faculty, staff and graduate students have called on the nonprofit foundation that supports the university to dump its financial holdings in fossil fuel companies.
In a letter to the OSU Foundation posted, the group cited the need to combat climate change by keeping oil, coal and natural gas reserves in the ground, where they wont produce greenhouse gases that will further heat the atmosphere.
We understand that some 6 percent of the foundations money is invested in fossil fuel companies, and thus the financial future of OSU, its students and its research, is currently tied to the future exploitation of reserves of coal, oil and gas which have lain underground since dinosaurs roamed the earth, the letter says in part.
Written by OSU research associate Ben Phalan, associate professors Glencora Borradaile and Ken Winograd, the letter asks the foundation to take a leadership role by committing to immediately halt all new investments in the top 200 fossil fuel companies and to liquidate all holdings in these companies within three to five years.
OSU Foundation officials could not be reached for comment last week, but the organization has resisted previous calls for divestment from the activist group OSU Divest, the OSU Faculty Senate and he universitys student government.
Representatives of OSU Divest met April 19 with the foundation's executive committee, which requested that the activists provide written materials to assist the foundation in its deliberations.
A previous meeting involving OSU Divest and the foundation's advisory committee in 2014 resulted in a rejection of OSU Divest's suggestion. The Faculty Senate approved a resolution backing divestment in Dec. 2013, an action also recommended by the ASOSU Senate. The ASOSU House, however, narrowly rejected a divestment resolution.
Steve Clark, a spokesman for the university, noted that the foundation is an independent organization that is not controlled by OSU.
At the same time, he noted that OSU President Ed Ray has called divestment an important issue.
Clark said the administration would continue to work with student members of OSU Divest on a proposal to eliminate the universitys own holdings in fossil fuel companies through the Public University Fund, which is managed by the state treasurer and invests money on behalf of six public universities in Oregon.
A foundation official said the foundation currently manages $667.4 million in assets with $37 million, or 5.6 percent, in fossil fuels.
This log includes incidents in which there might have been a public disturbance or a risk to the public. Information comes from the Corvallis Police Department, the Benton County Sheriffs Office and Oregon State Police. It does not include all calls for service. The status of incidents might change after further investigation. Locations are approximate. People arrested or suspected in crimes are considered innocent until proven otherwise.
Corvallis Police Department
THURSDAY, MAY 19
BURGLARY: 12:15 p.m., 2000 block of Northwest Harrison Boulevard. Police responded to a burglary report. Residents reported that they woke up to find their apartment broken into, the back door ajar and a purse missing.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 18
DOMESTIC ASSAULT: 10:59 p.m., 2900 block of Southeast Summerfield Drive. Officers responded to a reported assault in progress and arrested and charged Mark Weber, 29 with fourth-degree assault. Weber allegedly hit his girlfriend several times until the girlfriend's mother held Weber down and waited for police to arrive.
Benton County Sheriff's Office
DUII OF DRUGS: 1:39 a.m., Northwest Kings and Northwest Circle boulevards. Deputies arrested and charged Josselyn Henney, 24, of Salem with DUII of drugs, reckless driving and reckless endangering following a traffic stop. A drug recognition expert reportedly determined that Henney was impaired by marijuana. She had a reported blood alcohol content of 0.0.
There will be an increased police presence at tonights Oregon State Dam Jam at the Memorial Union Quad.
More than 100 law enforcement officials and security personnel are expected to be among the 9,000 attendees when OSUs Dam Jam kicks off at 7 p.m., OSU officials said in a press release. The Corvallis Police Department, Oregon State Police and Campus Public Safety will have a tactical action plan in place during the event and the MU quad will be fenced and gated, officials said.
Students and guests should expect extra officers, bike officers, and more strict enforcement of livability related issues like ordinances for noise, public urination, MIP (minors in possession) and disruptive behavior, Corvallis police posted on social media this week.
On a normal Saturday, police normally have 10 officers on duty, said Jonathan Stoll, director of Corvallis Community Relations for Oregon State University, in a press release. For Dam Jam, more than 100 campus safety, city and state police, and security personnel will be onsite and patrolling surrounding campus and Corvallis neighborhoods.
Corvallis police are expected to have a presence around and on campus to assist Oregon State Police and OSU Public Safety. Emergency medical technicians also will be present during the event.
The safety of OSU students, our community and guests is our No. 1 priority. We want students to be safe, party smart and be respectful of their neighbors and our community, Stoll said in the release.
Benton County Sheriffs Office detectives say the 25-year-old man arrested last month in connection with a traveling asphalt paving scam operating in Benton County was involved in at least six different properties in north Corvallis.
Peter Joseph Jennings, 25, was arrested and released in April on a charge of first-degree attempted theft by deception. He is scheduled for an initial appearance on May 26 in Benton County Circuit Court.
But Jennings denies the allegations, noting that he had not received any written complaints from customers and that the properties receiving substandard work were involved with a different company.
"It's not part of my company," Jennings told the Gazette-Times on Friday. "There was a different company that was doing shoddy work."
Jennings added that he has retained an attorney and plans to fight the allegations. Jennings declined further comment and asked that questions go through his attorney Robert Gunn of Salem. Gunn did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Friday afternoon.
Detective Christopher Dale of the Benton County Sheriffs Office said Jennings was charged after several customers living in north Corvallis claimed they were deceived into agreeing to a paving deal. The customers said Jennings did substandard work and then later charged prices much higher than the agreed-upon price. In one instance, a customer tried to cancel before the paving began, but Jennings didnt relent, Dale said.
Mr. Jennings attempted to get (the customer) to still pay several thousand dollars, saying he had already bought the asphalt, Dale said. They did this to at least six customers that we know of, but its likely there are others.
Jennings was released from the Benton County Jail on the same day of his arrest, April 23. Dale said Jennings was released due to a lack of space at the jail. Dale noted that Jennings was not charged with a violent crime and that "our jail is just not big enough to hold people in those circumstances."
Nevertheless, Dale cautioned that he could still attempt to operate his business in Benton County illegally.
Jennings was operating under the name and license of Peters Paving LLC, a company first licensed through the Oregon Construction Contractors Board on March 15.
Last week, however, the board revoked the license, in part because Jennings was associated with a previously revoked license for a company named PJs Asphalt LLC.
Stan Jessup, enforcement manager with the board, said while the suspension came roughly a month after Jennings' arrest, the process took less time than most suspensions.
"This is actually incredibly fast," Jessup said, adding that the board initiated a special "emergency suspension" of the Peters Paving license. "Normally the notice just says we intend to suspend the license and you have 21 days to respond, and there's the possibility of appeals that can take months and in all of that time the license is still active. Ive got one weve been working on for over a year."
In Jennings' case, suspending the license required reports from several local agencies, as well as data compiled from Jennings' previous company, PJ's Asphalt, Jessup said.
Jessup said the former company lost its license after the company accrued about $10,000 in penalties due to customer complaints.
In a press release this week, the Sheriff's Office urged customers of Peters Paving to file a complaint with the state's Construction Contractors Board if they believe they are the victims of any breach of contract, negligence or improper work. Information on how to file a complaint can be found at the agency's website, www.oregon.gov/CCB/complaints or by calling 503-934-2247.
Youth violence : Youth fear going out evenings
Bad Godesberg After the brutal beating death of Niklas P., youth and their parents worry about them being out nights in Bad Godesberg. What do crime statistics say?
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When Tim tries to recall what happened on the evening of April 15, there are things he does not remember. But his friends can tell exactly how he was beaten up, receiving kicks to his head. The consequences: 24 hours in an intensive care unit with a concussion and bleeding in the brain. Five suspects are now being investigated in the incident.
For the 18-year-old, it is difficult to talk about what happened but his parents explain with help from his friends. Their son was with ten friends at the Rheinaue, near the south bridge, when another group of young people came along. At first, all was calm. Then came two girls from that group who wanted to talk to Tims group. Their guy friends didnt like this situation and began to verbally attack Tims group. Tim tried to say something to calm the situation but the visiting girls slapped him on the face, their male friends joining them. Other friends tried to diffuse the situation but to no avail. Tim pushed away one of the girls and one of the boys from that group hit him back. The situation escalated. His memory ends at the point when he heard his T-shirt being ripped. Massive kicks and blows to the head followed until Tim was unconscious.
Two of Tims girl friends pulled him away to try and help him while the violent group called on their cell phones for back-up. They (the two girls) had to support him, he spoke funny and was bleeding from his nose and ear. Classmates called the police. The police left the youth alone at first to go look for the suspects. Another police unit came; they took information from the youth and brought the two girls and Tim to the tram station. The reasoning; they should go home so they wouldnt get attacked again. At the central train station, Tim collapsed. The mother of one of the girls drove him to the hospital where his condition was diagnosed.
Tims parents criticize the police for the way they handled the situation. Friends had described exactly what had happened to the police. In response to the criticism, a police spokesperson said the officers at the scene had taken down all the information and Tim told them he would call a doctor on his own. Thats why they didnt call an ambulance. Later in the evening, they met one of the possible perpetrators at the south bridge, and it is being investigated whether or not he was involved in the beating.
As for Tim, he still has headaches and difficulty concentrating. And he doesnt go out at night anymore. What happened to me, happens to others. Ive heard that, he said. Everyone who was there that night was deeply affected. I think back on it and have flashbacks. Tims father believes violence has always been present but whats new is that someone is massively beaten to the ground out of frustration.
Brennan is a 16-year-old student from the U.S. and he is lucky it didnt come to such violence. In April, he was in Bad Godesberg walking home around 8 p.m. when he noticed two men were following him. He tried to lose them by taking side streets and didnt go to wait at the bus stop on Rheinallee as there were no other people around. He kept moving by foot until the men came suddenly within two meters of him. At that point, he felt he needed to act, I had a pocket-knife in my pants so I pulled it out and held it up in their direction. They stopped for a moment. Brennan turned around and ran full speed until he got home.
Brennans mother called the police, They told me that the next time something like that happens, my son should call the police emergency number. After the death of Niklas P., she again called the police to explain what had happened, but no action was taken. They didnt even take her name, although she had tried to explain the situation in German. Police say they didnt have a record of a complaint from the family.
The brutal death of Niklas P. has caused fear not only amongst young people but also their parents. 16-year-old Lorien says My parents have forbid me to go out in the evening on my own. Her friend Douaa has to be home evenings by 7 p.m. but she is afraid anyway to be out and about in Bad Godesberg later in the evening. Lucas, 17,will only go out with a large group of friends, otherwise he prefers to stay at home. Kevin, also 17 said he doesnt like to be around the Kurpark, There are strange people there in the evenings. Besides that, it is very dark there. His mother insists he always has Pepper spray with him.
16-year-old Julio says he was aware that there were sometimes violent acts occurring in Bad Godesberg but knowing that you can also get beaten to death here makes me frightened. Abdel-Aziz has developed a strategy to avoid becoming a victim, When I run into a big group of other young people, I quickly pass them and try to avoid any eye contact. This has worked well for him so far. 16-year-old Sevin worries about being a young lady and what could happen but believes that young men are more often attacked.
According to police, there are some areas known to them where Bad Godesberg residents feel unsafe. They are near the traffic circle at Rheinallee, Bastei Park and Kurpark, Rungsdorfer Strae and Friedrich-Ebert-Platz. The parks and Rheinallee are areas where youth frequent. What do the statistics say?
Rheinallee (including turning circle area and Bastei park):
2015 - four robberies (2014 - four)
2015 - 12 assaults (2014 - 18)
2015 - four threats (2014 - two)
2015 - 17 property damage cases (2015 - 21)
Rungsdorfer Strae:
2015 - 1 robbery (2014 -0)
2015 - no assaults (2014 -none)
2015 - 2 threats (2014 - none)
2015 - 7 property damage cases (2014 - one)
Von-Groote-Platz:
2015 - 1 robbery (2014 - 1)
2015 - 8 property damage cases (2014 - 3)
no reports of assault or threats in either year
Kurpark:
2015 - 1 robbery (2014 - 1)
2015 - 5 assaults (2014 - 1)
2015 - 4 threats (2014 - none)
2015 - 4 property damage cases (2014 -6)
Friedrich-Ebert-Strae:
2015 - 1 robbery (2014 - 2)
2015 - 17 assaults (2014 - 6)
2015 - 6 threats (2014 - 1)
2015 - 32 property damage cases (2014 - 9)
Police say altogether there were 5,918 offenses in 2015; this is 313 fewer than in 2014. In cases of criminal violence, there were 237 in 2015 and 200 in 2014. These include murder and manslaughter, rape, robbery and dangerous assault. When it comes to street crimes that happen out in the public, there were 1,778 such offenses in Bad Godesberg in 2015 and 1,870 in 2014. To compare this to statistics for all of Bonn, there were 32,422 total offenses in 2015 and 31,816 in 2014. Criminal violence occurred 1,143 times in 2015 and 1,105 in 2014. Street crimes went from 9,776 to 9,887. Theft numbers went up from 390 to 423.
Microsoft chief Nadella to visit India this month News oi -GizBot Bureau
Close on the heels of Apple chief Tim Cook's visit to India, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will be in India later this month.
In his third visit to the country in just seven months, Hyderabad-born Nadella is expected to meet entrepreneurs and developers as part of the trip. Microsoft will also host an event with Nadella on May 30.
Xiaomi Mi 5: These 5 Useful Tips & Tricks Will Enhance Your User Experience
According to invites, the head of the US-based software giant will talk about "how technology is fostering a culture of innovation to solve real-world problems and driving Indias transformation". Nadella was in India last December.
He had met Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and visited the campus of startup incubator T-hub and Microsoft development centre in Hyderabad.
In November, he had delivered a keynote address at Microsoft's 'Future Unleashed' event in Mumbai and met industry leaders like Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra and Axis Bank managing director Shikha Sharma.
Here are 5 reasons why fingerprint scanners have replaced the pattern lock
These visits and increasing engagements by global leaders highlight India's rise as a huge technology consumer and not just as an outsourcing destination.
Source PTI
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Google's Project Ara Likely To Debut This Fall: Here are 5 reasons to be excited about it Features oi -Sachin
Google had teased its modular phone a couple of years back, and there were so many things to get excited about. Consumers finally had dreams of actually assembling a phone for them, by them.
The company has announced that their modular phone Project Ara would be available to developers later this fall. The LG G5 is just the tip of the iceberg, as many manufacturers will jump in on the opportunity to meet consumer demands of fully customizing their devices in every way.
So let's find out how the platform can change the mobile industry and why we need it.
Customizability
Project Ara aims to bring in different manufacturers to supply modules or individual pieces of hardware that snap onto the phone casings. Any major brand can bring in their high-end camera, audio, battery or display technology and introduce them as modules for the phone.
It's all in the choice
Consumers hate it when they have a lot of options to choose from. They just can't decide on which device to go for. With modular phones, they can choose the device they need from the hardware that they want.
Also read: LG G5 Pre-Order In India Begins From May 21: 5 Reasons To Buy The Modular Smartphone
Endless possibilities
There could be as many as 15 modular slots in your phone. There are endless possibilities of the way you want to design your module case and the hardware that goes in.
Ease of service
If any Android device ends up getting damaged, we give up the entire device to the service centers to get it fixed. But with modular phones, it only will require you to remove the faulty module and replace it with a new one.
Also read: Toshiba Shows Off Camera Modules For Google's Project Ara
Easy upgrade
Tired of having a slower RAM? Wish you had Quad HD screen? Want to expand your storage? No worries, as the modular phone can upgrade your hardware with just a few snaps.
Project Ara was previously called 'Phonebloks' and is the brainchild of Dave Hakkens. It received widespread social coverage and later the idea was taken over by Google. Watch the video to know more.
Source 1
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Global smartphone sales up 3.9pc in Q1 2016: Gartner News oi -GizBot Bureau
Global sales of smartphones totaled 349 million units in the first quarter of 2016, up 3.9 per cent over the year-ago period, driven by demand for low-cost and 4G-enabled handsets, research firm Gartner said. Smartphone sales represented 78 per cent of total mobile phone sales in the first quarter of 2016, it said in a report.
"Smartphone sales were driven by demand for low-cost smartphones in emerging markets and for affordable 4G smartphones, led by 4G connectivity promotion plans from communications service providers (CSPs) in many markets worldwide," Gartner said.
10 Motorola smartphones that are available under great exchange offers on Flipkart.
In a slowing smartphone market where large vendors are experiencing growth saturation, emerging brands are disrupting existing brands' long-standing business models to increase their share, Gartner Research Director Anshul Gupta said.
"With such changing smartphone market dynamics, Chinese brands are emerging as the new top global brands. Two Chinese brands ranked within the top five worldwide smartphone vendors in the first quarter of 2015, and represented 11 per cent of the market," he added.
Samsung led the market with 23.2 per cent share, followed by Apple (14.8 per cent), Huawei (8.3 per cent), Oppo (4.6 per cent) and Xiaomi (4.3 per cent).
"Samsung's Galaxy S7 series phones and renewed portfolio positioned it as a strong competitor in the smartphone market, and more so in the emerging markets where it has been facing fierce competition from local manufacturers," Gupta said.
On the other hand, Apple had its first double-digit decline year-on-year, with iPhone sales down 14 per cent. Lenovo disappeared from the top five smartphone tally in the first quarter of 2016.
"Lenovo had another challenging quarter with its worldwide smartphone sales declining 33 per cent... Lenovo is also struggling to bring synergies with Motorola's device business, managing lower costs and overheads of the two brands," Gupta said.
Here are 4 to prove holographic technology is bound to shape the future
In terms of the smartphone operating system (OS) market, Android regained share over iOS and Windows to achieve 84 per cent share. Apple's iOS had 14.8 per cent share, while Windows and BlackBerry had 0.7 per cent and 0.2 per cent share, respectively.
Source PTI
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Canada Opens Intelligence Center in Iraq to Boost Anti-Daesh Fight
Sputnik News
17:28 20.05.2016(updated 17:29 20.05.2016)
The collected intelligence will be used for operational planning and force protection.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) Canada has increased its contributions to the US-led Coalition against Daesh by creating an all-source intelligence center in Iraq and deploying additional helicopters and trainers, according to an announcement by Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan.
"As a part of Joint Task Force-Iraq, the CAF[Canadian Armed Forces] officially opened an all-source intelligence centre, responsible for collecting, synthesizing, and analyzing information derived from a variety of sources," the announcement said.
Sajjan explained that the collected intelligence will be used for operational planning and force protection.
The increased contribution, announced on Thursday, also includes three CH-146 Griffon helicopters to boost tactical support and eventual deployment of 830 troops by late summer, according to the release.
"Canada's expanded mission is setting the conditions for Iraqi security forces and regional partners to achieve long-term success by enabling them to effectively plan and execute military operations aimed at defeating ISIL [Daesh] and improving security and stability in the region," the minister stated.
Canada participated in the air campaign against Daesh that is conducted by a US-led coalition of 66 states since August 2014. However, in February, Ottawa ended the strikes and started providing aircraft for refueling and surveillance, as well as by training local military forces.
Sputnik
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Strikes Continue Against ISIL Terrorists in Syria, Iraq
From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release
SOUTHWEST ASIA, May 20, 2016 U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Iraq and Syria yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.
Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.
Strikes in Syria
Attack and remotely piloted aircraft conducted two strikes in Syria:
-- Near Raqqah, a strike destroyed an ISIL oil pump-jack.
-- Near Palmyra, a strike destroyed two ISIL vehicles.
Strikes in Iraq
Bomber, attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 15 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government:
-- Near Baghdadi, a strike destroyed an ISIL mortar position.
-- Near Albu Hayat, a strike destroyed an ISIL vehicle bomb and an ISIL front-end loader.
-- Near Rutbah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position and an ISIL heavy machine gun.
-- Near Fallujah, a strike destroyed two ISIL fighting positions and two ISIL heavy machine guns.
-- Near Kisik, a strike destroyed four ISIL tunnel systems.
-- Near Mosul, five strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed seven ISIL assembly areas, four ISIL vehicles, an ISIL fighting position, and 26 ISIL rocket rails.
-- Near Qayyarah, a strike destroyed four ISIL tunnels.
-- Near Sinjar, a strike destroyed an ISIL fighting position and an ISIL heavy machine gun.
-- Near Sultan Abdallah, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL rocket rail, an ISIL weapons cache, and an ISIL rocket launcher.
-- Near Tal Afar, a strike destroyed two ISIL bed down locations and an ISIL weapons cache.
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.
Part of Operation Inherent Resolve
The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat they pose to Iraq, Syria, and the wider international community. The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the 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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'Strong Commitment from NATO' in Afghanistan, Dunford Says
By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity
ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT, May 20, 2016 After discussing the Resolute Support mission during the NATO's Military Committee/Chiefs of Defense session in Brussels this week, Joint Chiefs Chairman Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford said he detects among allied nations "a strong commitment to finish what they started" in Afghanistan.
"I think most NATO nations have invested quite a bit, and everybody is interested in landing this in a good place," he said.
Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of the Resolute Support Mission, briefed the chiefs on the strategy in Afghanistan in 2016 and talked about the strategy for 2017, Dunford told reporters traveling with him.
Current Ops in Afghanistan
Nicholson also gave a campaign update to all of the alliance members plus partners who have troops supporting the effort in Afghanistan.
"The Afghans have been very aggressive this year in going after the Taliban early, so they understood what the Taliban campaign plan was for the summer," Dunford said. "What we think is the Afghans did some preemptive operations to break that up."
The chairman mentioned that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has been under enormous pressure in Afghanistan, and Taliban forces took on the foreign terror group causing "quite a bit" of ISIL attrition.
Czech Gen. Petr Pavel, NATO's Military Committee chairman, said yesterday that he expected the European allies and partners to maintain about the same number of forces in the train-and-assist mission in Afghanistan next year.
Comprehensive Commitment
Dunford said he was pleasantly surprised by the attitude of his fellow chiefs of defense, and the will of American forces remains strong, too.
"Special operators, aviation units, human exploitation units, intel units have all been running pretty hard," he said. "I ask the question and what I sense is when they know what the mission is, and they believe in it and are committed, they keep wanting to run."
U.S. leaders across the spectrum are keeping an eye on the deployment-to-dwell time, Dunford said. "From a readiness perspective, it is really two issues," he said. "One is the human factor, and then there is the capability development factor - you need time between deployments to reset."
In infantry terms, Dunford wants "sustained rate of fire -- not a cyclic rate of fire." The cyclic rate means the gunner jams his finger on trigger until the barrel burns out. Short, aimed bursts allow a weapon to be used far longer.
Defense leaders continue the conversation with President Barack Obama about troop levels in Afghanistan. Now there are 9,800 troops in the country, and they will remain there through the year. The plan calls for that number to drop to 5,500 at the end of 2016.
"General Nicholson has not provided a recommendation for 2017 that is different from the decision that has been made," the chairman said. "At some point in the future, we will talk about that with the president."
NATO allies are concerned about the number of American forces dropping, Dunford said.
"The biggest thing they were concerned about was enabling capability, especially the lift and sustainment capability," he said. "I was able to tell them that was inside of the 5,500 that we would go to, and [we would] still have the ability to do the intelligence, the strategic lift, medevac support, the aviation capability."
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Dunford: NATO Military Chiefs Coalesce on Threats
By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity
ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT, May 20, 2016 NATO cohesion was the big takeaway for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as he left the alliance Military Committee meeting today.
Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford told reporters traveling with him that cohesion among alliance allies was encouraging.
Russia dominates concern in the East and the threat of terrorism threatens allies in the South.
"We had a big discussion of security challenges facing NATO to the east and south and making sure the alliance had a common sight picture of the east and south and a common approach to dealing with those challenges," he said. "We made a lot of progress since February in that regard and that was a positive."
360-Degree Alliance
This was Dunford's second Military Committee Meeting since taking office and he was pleased with the results. He said the alliance military chiefs coalesced around strategic planning by the committee since February.
Now he believes all nations of NATO "recognize that an alliance, by definition, has to address the security challenges of all members of the alliance," he said. "In the case of NATO, it is a 360-degree alliance, and so in my judgment, the countries that would primarily orient to the east as a result of their own national interests and those counties that are primarily challenged by the south have come together in a very positive way so we have an overarching strategy to deal with NATO security."
The military chiefs did identify areas where the strategy needs more work. These are certain issues where the methodology needs to be further refined and applied to specific security challenges or capabilities. Dunford said he expects announcements at the Warsaw Summit of NATO leaders in July.
Unanswered Questions
The chiefs of defense also discussed Libya. The chairman said ungoverned spaces and failed states "attract extremism and external attacks, so we need to address that."
But with Libya, much remains unanswered. "Number 1: Do the leaders of NATO want to do this?" Dunford said. "Number 2: What would it look like? Number 3, who is interested in participating, and what's a reasonable timeline to establish such a mission? There are many questions still looking for answers."
Much depends on the Government of National Accord led by Libyan Prime Minister Faiz al Siraj, and it remains to be seen what the GNA asks of NATO and what groups affiliate with the nascent government, the general said. "All those pieces have to come together," he said, acknowledging that the GNA is the conduit for NATO and the United States training Libyan forces.
"We know who the groups are that are working with GNA leader Siraj to coalesce under a single government," Dunford said. "We know who the people are on the ground, but we are waiting for those people to pledge loyalty to the GNA, the GNA to accept them, and then for the GNA to develop a construct for security forces."
He stressed that this process must be done by Libyan leaders. "This is something that will be done by, with and through the Libyan government," he said.
That said, if the United States detects "a specific threat stream against us, we are going to take action," Dunford said.
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U.S. Military Aids EgyptAir Search, Rescue Operations
By Karen Parrish DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, May 20, 2016 U.S. European Command and the U.S. Navy's 6th Fleet are coordinating with officials in Greece in support of Egypt's search-and-rescue operations for EgyptAir Flight 804, which disappeared from radar screens while en route from Paris to Cairo yesterday.
Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, director of Defense Press Operations, updated Pentagon reporters today on those efforts.
Eucom and 6th Fleet officials, he said, "continue to coordinate closely with the Hellenic armed forces, the Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Greece, and the U.S. Embassy in Athens, Greece, all of which are supporting Egypt's lead in this search-and-rescue operation."
News reports today say Egyptian officials announced the discovery in the Mediterranean Sea of some parts from the missing airliner, as well as suitcases and some remains. Sixty-six people were reported aboard the missing airliner.
Yesterday, the Defense Department "did respond to a request to provide U.S. Navy P-3 Orion aircraft to support the search efforts," Davis said.
That aircraft, he said, assigned to Patrol Squadron 4, or BP-4 in Sigonella, Italy, conducted a search mission yesterday.
Two additional P-3 aircraft missions occurred today, Davis added, one from the Naval Air Station at Sigonella.
Another sortie began around 8 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, he added.
"I will tell you that thus far none of our aircraft have reported sighting any debris," Davis said.
He said the U.S. sorties are flying "with and in support of the Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Greece, which has search-and-rescue responsibility for that water there, and is coordinating among other contributions from ships and aircraft and assigning them sectors in which to search."
Davis added, "We're obviously in continued close contact with our French counterparts as well."
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U.S. Department of Defense
Press Operations
News Release
No. NR-181-16 May 20, 2016
Navy to Christen Amphibious Transport Dock Ship Portland
The Navy will christen the newest amphibious transport dock ship, USS Portland (LPD 27), Saturday, May 21 during a 10 a.m. CST ceremony at the Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
The future USS Portland is named in honor of Portland, Oregon with Bonnie Amos, wife of the 35th Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James F. Amos (ret.), to serve as the ship's sponsor.
Director, Expeditionary Warfare, Marine Maj. Gen. Christopher Owens, will serve as the principal speaker during the ceremony. Highlighting the event will be Amos breaking a bottle of sparkling wine across the bow to formally christen the ship a time-honored Navy tradition.
"The christening of the future USS Portland brings this great warship one step closer to joining our nation's growing fleet," said The Honorable Ray Mabus, secretary of the Navy. "The skill and dedication of the men and women who brought this ship from an idea to a reality, our country's incomparable shipbuilders, will be remembered for years to come by the sailors and Marines who will serve aboard LPD 27 around the world."
This will be the third U.S. Navy ship named Portland, honoring both the Oregon seaport and Maine's largest city. The first was heavy cruiser USS Portland (CA 33), which was commissioned on Feb. 23, 1933. Serving throughout World War II, she saw action at a number of important battles, including Guadalcanal, Leyte Gulf, Corregidor, and Okinawa. The second, dock landing ship USS Portland (LSD 37), was commissioned Oct. 3, 1970. Over the course of nearly 33 years of service, she participated in a number of important operations, including the 1976 evacuation of American citizens from Lebanon, the 1983 multi-national peacekeeping mission to Beirut, Lebanon, and deployment of Marines to Kuwait in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Portland will be the 11th San Antonio-class ship, and is currently scheduled to be delivered to the Navy in 2017. The ships are designed to support embarking, transporting, and landing elements of over 800 Marines with both a flight deck, which accommodates CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters and MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, and a well deck that can launch and recover landing craft and amphibious vehicles.
The San Antonio-class ships are versatile players in maritime security with the ability to support a variety of amphibious assault, special operations or expeditionary warfare missions, operating independently or as part of Amphibious Readiness Groups (ARGs), Expeditionary Strike Groups (ESGs), or Joint Task Forces (JTFs). In addition to performing their primary mission, San Antonio class ships have supported anti-piracy operations, provided humanitarian assistance, and foreign disaster relief operations around the world.
Media may direct queries to the Navy Office of Information at 703-697-5342. For additional information about this class of ship, please visit the Navy Fact File at http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4200&tid=600&ct=4.
http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/777428/
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Foreign Ministers agree to sustain NATO-led mission in Afghanistan beyond 2016
NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
20 May. 2016
Foreign Ministers from the nations participating in Resolute Support agreed today (20 May 2016) to sustain the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan beyond 2016 in a sign of strong commitment to the stability of the country.
"The Afghan forces are showing real courage, determination, and professionalism; and they are benefitting from our training, advice and assistance; but Afghanistan continues to face serious security challenges. That is why today, ministers agreed to sustain the Resolute Support mission beyond 2016. Our military authorities will now address the details of the mission beyond 2016, including in the regions of Afghanistan", NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.
Ministers also reviewed financial support for the Afghan security forces, with total contributions to the Afghan National Army Trust Fund now exceeding 1.4 billion US dollars.
"I am confident that we will be able to announce at the Warsaw Summit firm commitments to continue funding the Afghan forces through the year 2020. This is critical for Afghanistan's ability to build sustainable security forces and ensure Afghanistan's lasting security. Ministers also reaffirmed our long-term ambition for a strong political partnership and practical cooperation with Afghanistan," Mr. Stoltenberg added.
The Afghan Foreign Minister expressed his appreciation for NATO Allies and Partners' continued support to Afghanistan and briefed the Ministers on the Afghan National Unity Government's continuing reforms to fight corruption, protect human rights and advance the peace process.
Today's meeting was an important stepping stone towards the NATO Summit in Warsaw, as Ministers made clear that the Allies and Partners' political, military and financial support for Afghanistan will endure.
The United Nations Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan, the Secretary General of the European Union External Action Service and high level officials from Japan and South Korea also attended the meeting of Foreign Ministers from the Resolute Support mission.
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Doorstep statements by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and EU High Representative Federica Mogherini before the meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers on cooperation with the European Union
NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
20 May. 2016
(As delivered)
Good morning.
It's really a pleasure to welcome High Representative Federica Mogherini here to the NATO Headquarters.
She became High Representative and I became Secretary General almost at the same time back in the fall of 2014. We met very early after that and we decided that we should do what we could to enhance and to step up NATO-EU cooperation.
So that has been high on our agenda ever since we assumed our offices.
And we made that decision because we believe it's a lot of added value if the European Union and NATO are able to work even closer together. Because NATO and the European Union, we are unique partners and we share the same values and we share the same challenges.
And we are working closer together than ever before.
We work side-by-side to help cut the lines of illegal trafficking and illegal migration in the Aegean.
We have a closely coordinated stance following Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea. The EU delivered economic sanctions. And NATO delivered the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War.
We also coordinate our support for partners to the east and to the south.
And since February, NATO and the EU have reached two formal arrangements.
One on cyber defence, and the other on our practical cooperation in the Aegean Sea.
So we have concluded more arrangements in the past three months than in the previous thirteen years.
And I think that indicates that we are making progress in the EU-NATO cooperation.
This is an important fresh start. We can, and must do more.
In late June, the European Council will address its new strategic security policy.
Ten days later, the NATO Summit will begin in Warsaw.
We must seize this opportunity. Today, we will address how we can do that.
First, I foresee a joint statement on NATO-EU relations.
It will identify key areas for expanding our cooperation.
Including fighting hybrid and cyber threats, supporting our partners in defence capacity building, and increasing maritime security.
Second, we are developing new Playbooks to enable our organisations to closely coordinate when facing hybrid threats.
On key issues such as information sharing, civil preparedness, cyber, and strategic communications.
And third, we need to step up our readiness by exercising more together.
We need more EU involvement in NATO exercises, and more NATO involvement in EU exercises.
Today we will also be joined by Sweden and Finland, members of the EU and two of NATO's closest partners.
This illustrates both, the importance of NATO and EU cooperation and the vital role of Sweden and Finland on issues of common concern, such as hybrid threats and the security situation in the Baltic Sea.
NATO and the EU share twenty-two members, and more than four hundred and fifty million citizens.
We need to take our cooperation to a higher level and that's exactly what we are working on now.
So, once again, welcome Federica, it's good to have you back.
HIGH REPRESENTATIVE FEDERICA MOGHERINI: Thank you very much, Jens. It's a pleasure to be back. Indeed, you highlighted in perfect way how in this one year and a half of our parallel mandate we have really energized and intensified cooperation between the European Union and NATO, as it was our intention to do.
And indeed, the preparation for the Warsaw Summit in July and the European Council taking place in a few days before that, will create an excellent synergy for highlighting the fields where working together brings an added value.
You mentioned many of them, and also the very concrete things on which we are working or which we have been working. Also, and let me thank you for that, thanks to your constant presence to our Defence Ministers' meetings of the European Union and the constant invitation you extend to me to attend the Ministerial meetings here at NATO, both Foreign Ministers and Defence Ministers.
You mentioned very concrete and clear things we're doing on hybrid, on cyber. There are other three elements where our cooperation is excellent and brings a real added value. The first one is maritime security. We're working very well together in the Aegean. We are obviously also looking at ways in which we can work together and NATO can support the activities of the European Union, in particular Operation Sophia in the Central Mediterranean, to dismantle the traffickers' business. But also maritime security at large in other parts of the world.
There are theatres in which we are both present: Balkans, for sure, where our cooperation is key to the stability of countries that are extremely important for both NATO and the European Union. And others, that are a little bit more far away, like Afghanistan, where again, the Warsaw Summit would provide an excellent complement from a European points of view. So the Brussels Conference that we'll organise on Afghanistan and with Afghanistan on the civilian part, so the political and the pledging support to the country in early October. This is the perfect example of how our two organisations that are different but complementary somehow can work together, bringing an added value in terms of security and stability in the world.
Let me add one last point. I am personally very glad that Montenegro signed accession protocol. This is something that I believe highlights very well the complementarity again of our work. And I stop here, because our statements were somehow complementary; I do not have to mention things you mentioned already.
Q&A
QUESTION (Wall Street Journal): Secretary General, I wonder if you could talk about whether the cooperation on hybrid threat and other matters of the EU can lead to sort of meaningful intelligence sharing, or if there are too many political hurdles. And the High Representative, I wonder if you could tell a little bit more specifically, what kind of support you would like NATO to give the EU in the Central Mediterranean to Operation Sophia and your other efforts.
SECRETARY GENERAL: I think that what we see related to hybrid, is that we are faced with threats where we see a combination of civilian and military means. And we see overt and covert means of aggression. Therefore, it is an obvious need for enhanced coordination between the European Union and NATO. We speak about cyber. We speak about infrastructure. We speak about energy supplies. We speak about the importance of strategic communications. And in all these areas, there are capabilities and assets in the European Union and there are capabilities and assets in NATO.
And since we are, to a large extent, representing the same countries, we have to coordinate our efforts in defending those countries against hybrid threats.
One element of this is of course related to sharing information. I think that we should have an approach which enhances the sharing of information, taking into account sensitivities and integrity of the different organisations.
And I think we have been able to do exactly that, when we now have an arrangement on cyber, a practical arrangement, where we have found a pragmatic way to enhance our cooperation on cyber. We have agreed how to share information in the Aegean Sea, a practical solution where actually NATO ships are collecting information, doing monitoring and surveillance, and then sharing that information real-time with the Greek Navy, the Greek coastguards, and with the EU border agency, Frontex. So also in constant information sharing, different kinds of information sharing, I think there are ways to solve that in a practical way, taking into account the integrity and differences of NATO and the European Union.
HIGH REPRESENTATIVE MOGHERINI: When it comes to the Mediterranean, you know very well we have already a coordination mechanism in place, SHADE, that is working very well. And we have the experience in the Aegean, that is working indeed in a perfect way. It is true the situation in the Aegean and the Central Mediterranean is different. It's different geography. It's different situation we are facing there. It's also a different kind of European Union presence. Obviously, in the Central Mediterranean, we have an operation up and running since several months operational. And that has achieved already some important results, saving lives, but also apprehending almost 70 suspect smugglers and neutralizing more than 100 boats.
Obviously, as we move to potential additional tasks of the operation, such as the training of the coast-guards of Libya or the potential work on the implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution on the arms embargo, we would need also to strengthen our assets and our capacities and the support and the cooperation with NATO in this respect could be essential.
There are many different valuable ways in which NATO could support our work in the Mediterranean. For sure, and we started to discuss that, for sure when it comes to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, but also when it comes to communication systems, logistics, there is a lot that NATO and the European Union can do together in the Central Mediterranean.
The important thing in this, and we agreed, is that we put at the service of the security of the Mediterranean and the security of the lives of the people that are crossing the Mediterranean, and at the service of dismantling the networks of smugglers, all the assets that we can, in a coordinated way, so that we do not have overlappings, that we manage to support the efforts that are already ongoing. And I am sure that we will work on that direction in a very practical way, as we managed to do very effectively in the Aegean.
QUESTION (DPA): Mr. Secretary General, a quick question on the NATO-Russia Council: Will NATO ask for a new meeting before the Summit in Warsaw? Did you agree on it yesterday evening, last night?
SECRETARY GENERAL: We discussed our relationship to Russia during our dinner last night. And we agreed on the dual-track approach, meaning that we need strong defence, deterrence, and we have to enhance our defence and deterrence, combined with political dialogue. And that was something which was very clearly expressed by all the ministers who took part in the debate. It's a very strong and united NATO behind the message about defence and dialogue. There is no contradiction between strong defence and dialogue. Actually, we believe that strong defence and predictability, a firm approach is the best foundation for a political engagement with Russia.
Our practical cooperation with Russia remains suspended, but we have decided to keep channels for political dialogue open. And the NATO-Russia Council is one such platform for political dialogue. And we all agree that in current situation, we need a platform as the NATO-Russia Council to pursue transparency, predictability, and to work for enhancing mechanisms for risk reduction, to avoid dangerous situations, incidents which can spiral out of control.
We have seen the downing of Russian plane over Turkey. We have seen some unsafe behavior of Russian planes in the Baltic. This is the kind of situations which we have to try to avoid.
So we agree on the message of dialogue and defence. We are delivering on enhancing our deterrence and defence posture. But based on that, there was broad agreement yesterday, that NATO should convene a new meeting of the NATO-Russia Council before our next Summit in July. So we will now start to look into the modalities and practical arrangements around such a new meeting of the NATO-Russia Council.
QUESTION (Kiev Post): Thank you, to the High Representative, Russia's war against Ukraine is now in its third year. Given all the trouble Russia is causing there and elsewhere, is it time to start talking about increasing sanctions and imposing a timeline for Russia's continued refusal to meet its Minsk obligations? And to the Secretary General, when you hear critics call NATO obsolete, how do you react? And do you find any validity in the criticism?
HIGH REPRESENTATIVE: You know very well that decisions on the sanctions, on the existing sanctions, have been taken even recently. Let me also underline that all those that were foreseeing divisions in the European Union were always proven wrong. We've managed to build and keep our unity. Even if we have different points of view, this is an element of the richness of the European Union, not an element of weakness, in the moment when we manage to unite the differences on a single policy, and be united on its implementation.
We will have a political discussion in the coming weeks with the member states on the roll-over of the existing sanctions. There is no discussion at the moment on increasing the level of sanctions. And I also mentioned in last days the need to have, at a certain moment this year, a political reflection I believe guided by Germany and France as the European members of the Normandy Format, together with the European Union obviously on the assessment of the Minsk implementation and the way forward. But we are working every single day and every single night, most of the times, on the Minsk implementation. This is needed on all sides and at full. And this stays the European Union united position. Thank you.
SECRETARY GENERAL: NATO and NATO Allies face a more challenging and a more dangerous environment now than we have done for a long time. We see a more assertive Russia in the east, illegally annexing Crimea and destabilising eastern Ukraine. And we see all the turmoil over violence and instability to the south: Iraq, Syria, and North Africa.
And NATO is responding to this with the biggest enhancement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War, with a combination of forward presence of troops, but also with increased ability to reinforce if needed. And the combination of defence and dialogue, which I just addressed.
We are also responding to threats and the challenges stemming from the south. We are supporting efforts in the region to build local capacity. We have started to training Iraqi officers. We are supporting Tunisia, Jordan, other countries in the region to enable them to fight terrorism, to stabilise their own countries. And we continue to support Afghanistan, which is high on our political agenda and which is also linked to our broader efforts to fight terrorism. We do this in cooperation with the European Union and others because NATO is part of a broader international effort. And we also work with the European Union in the Aegean.
So I think what we have seen is that NATO is as relevant and as important as ever because we live in a more dangerous world and therefore we need strong collective defence. We need a strong Alliance, which both understands the importance of military strength, but also the importance of diplomacy and political dialogue.
Yesterday, we signed the Accession Treaty for Montenegro, underlining that NATO is in the position where we are able to enlarge and NATO's door is still open. So, especially in Montenegro, I think they feel that NATO is more relevant than ever, because they want to join the Alliance.
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Future USS Zumwalt will have San Diego Homeport
Navy News Service
Story Number: NNS160520-10
Release Date: 5/20/2016 2:23:00 PM
From Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet
SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- The Navy announced today the future next-generation guided-missile destroyer USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) is scheduled to be homeported at Naval Base San Diego following its commissioning in fall 2016. Zumwalt is scheduled to arrive in San Diego in late 2016.
Construction of Zumwalt commenced February 2009 and the ship was launched Oct. 29, 2013. Currently, the ship is conducting hull, mechanical, and electrical tests and trials with a subsequent period to follow for combat and mission system equipment installation, activation, and testing.
The ship is commanded by Capt. James A. Kirk.
DDG 1000 is the lead ship of a class of next-generation multimission surface combatants tailored for land attack and littoral dominance with capabilities to defeat current and projected threats. Zumwalt will triple naval surface fire coverage, add an improved sonar system to track deep and shallow water threats, as well as pace current anti-ship cruise missile threats. For today's warfighter, DDG 1000 fills an immediate and critical naval warfare gap, meeting validated Marine Corps fire support requirements.
The multimission DDG 1000 is tailored for sustained operations in the littorals and land attack, and will provide independent forward presence and deterrence, support special operations forces, and operate as an integral part of joint and combined expeditionary forces. Its multimission design and littoral capabilities make it a 100 percent globally deployable asset to the fleet.
The U.S. Navy continually monitors force readiness and ability to provide the most robust, capable maritime force possible. Stationing destroyers in a West Coast port supports rebalance to the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, placing our most advanced capabilities and greater capacity in that vital theater. By 2020, approximately 60 percent of Navy ships and aircraft will be based in the region.
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Venezuela starts military drills to stave off 'foreign aggression'
Iran Press TV
Fri May 20, 2016 10:13AM
Venezuela has launched two-day military drills aimed at staving off what the government says are acts of foreign aggression against the Latin American country.
The drills, in which half a million troops are said to be participating, kicked off on Friday amid political and economic crises pushing the country to the edge.
The Venezuelan opposition has said it is trying to legally oust President Nicolas Maduro, whom it blames for the country's severe economic woes.
The opposition has also called on the country's military to clarify its position. Opposition leader Henrique Capriles has called on the army to choose whether it is "with the constitution or with Maduro."
A series of severe economic misfortunes have turned into a political crisis in Venezuela.
The country faces critically low electricity supplies, and working days have been reduced to two days a week only amid the power shortage.
Hospitals are said to be in critical need of supplies; some medical devices are broken; and a number of hospitals are even said to be running without enough water to wash away blood from operation beds.
Maduro earlier declared a 60-day state of emergency to counter what he called a domestic and US push to topple his administration amid the economic problems.
The state of emergency has been rejected by the country's opposition-led National Assembly.
Since 2014, Venezuela has been grappling with protests against Maduro, with the opposition vigorously pushing for a recall election.
Opponents have been calling for his removal more vociferously since last December, when the opposition gained control of the National Assembly in legislative elections.
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NATO mulls deploying AWACS 'against Daesh'
Iran Press TV
Fri May 20, 2016 5:51AM
NATO weighs deploying sophisticated AWACS surveillance aircraft to Iraq and Syria to fight Daesh, but observers believe it is aimed at Russia which is carrying out airstrikes in support of the Syrian government.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday that the surveillance aircraft could be flown over "NATO territory and international airspace" to help the fight against Daesh.
AWACS are aircraft with powerful radars that allow them to monitor airspace for hundreds of kilometers around.
The use of such a complicated system against Daesh and other militants, as claimed by the US and NATO, is questionable.
The system is designed to detect aircraft, ships and vehicles at long ranges and control and command the battle space in an air engagement by directing fighter and attack aircraft strikes.
According to Stoltenberg, the deployment of AWACS aircraft comes at the request of US which is opposed to the Syrian government.
In February, the alliance agreed "in principle" to the US request under the caveat that NATO planes would not be directly involved in the conflict.
Several European NATO members have been wary of becoming too involved in the bloody conflict.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Thursday that "explicit and formal involvement" of NATO in the fight "is certainly not the answer."
More NATO-Russia confrontations?
Observers believe such a deployment could fuel tensions between NATO and Russia, which regards the alliance's eastward military buildup as a threat to its strategic interests.
Moscow is already involved in an aerial campaign against terrorists in Syria. Backed by the Russian air power, the Syrian army has been making significant gains against the terror groups in the country.
On Thursday, NATO foreign ministers in Brussels finalized details of a massive military build-up in Eastern Europe aimed at Russia.
The two-day meeting was aimed at preparing for a "landmark" summit in Poland in July during which the members will officially approve deploying more troops into east Europe.
The summit came after the US activated a land-based missile system in Romania last week despite Russia's warning against a US-led military buildup on its borders.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has strongly criticized the deployment and vowed to neutralize any threats against Russia.
NATO is also set to ink the accession accord with Montenegro despite Russian concerns over NATO expansion.
Senior officials in Moscow have repeatedly warned that the move could complicate security in the West Balkan region.
Moscow has also denounced NATO's training of Georgian forces as provocative, accusing the Western military alliance of seeking to destabilize the Caucasus region.
Ties between NATO and Russia have been tense over the crisis in Ukraine, where the government and its Western allies accuse Moscow of having a hand in the militancy in the east.
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NATO Should Strengthen Bloc's East, South Flanks - Latvian Foreign Ministry
Sputnik News
18:26 20.05.2016(updated 18:47 20.05.2016)
Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics and his Canadian counterpart Stephane Dion agreed on Friday that NATO should focus on strengthening of the military alliance's southern and eastern flanks, Latvian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Earlier in the day, Rinkevics and Dion met in Brussels to discuss the upcoming NATO summit and the security issues of the Baltic states.
"The Ministers also were of one mind that under the current geopolitical circumstances the Alliance should place a stronger focus on reinforcing security on its eastern ans southern flanks," the statement published following the meeting of the top diplomats read.
It was added in the statement that the ministers agreed that the Minsk deal on Ukraine settlement should be fully implemented.
Since 2014, NATO has been building up its military presence in Europe, particularly in eastern European countries bordering Russia, including Latvia, using Moscow's alleged interference in Ukraine as a pretext for the move.
Moscow has repeatedly rejected assertions about its intentions and actions in the region. Moreover, Russia has warned against NATO's increasing military buildup along its borders despite previous agreements, stating such actions are provocative and threaten regional and global stability.
Sputnik
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Russian Company to Repair Mi-8 Helicopters Operated by Czech Military
Sputnik News
17:37 20.05.2016(updated 17:42 20.05.2016)
The Russian Helicopters manufacturer will conduct repairs by the end of 2016.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The Russian Helicopters manufacturer has reached an agreement with the Czech state-owned LOM Praha company on repair of components for Russia-produced Mil Mi-8 helicopters operated by the Czech Defense Ministry, the manufacturing company said in a statement.
"Russian Helicopters Holding (part of the Rostec state corporation) and the Czech state company LOM Praha have concluded a contract on repair of parts for the Mi-8 helicopters operated by the Defense Ministry of this European country," the statement read.
According to the statement, the Russian company is due to conduct repairs under the contract by the end of 2016.
Several dozens of helicopters produced in Russia are currently in operation in the Czech Republic. According to the statement, Russian Helicopters is ready to provide maintenance and spare parts required for the aircraft.
Russian Helicopters, a subsidiary of Oboronprom (part of Rostec corporation) is a global leader in the field of helicopter manufacture and the only developer and manufacturer of helicopters in Russia.
Sputnik
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Largest Regional Special Forces Drills Wrap Up in Lithuania Ministry
Sputnik News
17:04 20.05.2016(updated 17:09 20.05.2016)
Largest special forces exercises in Eastern Europe concluded in Lithuania.
VILNIUS (Sputnik) Flaming Sword 2016, the largest special forces exercises in Eastern Europe this year concluded in Lithuania on Friday, the country's defense ministry said in a press release.
"On May 20 largest special forces Exercise Flaming Sword 2016 in the region this year wrapped up," the press release reads.
The exercises lasted for three weeks and were attended by British, Danish, Georgian, Latvian, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish, US and Ukrainian special forces, according to the statement.
"The exercise scenario was based on collective defence developed with regard to the geopolitical changes in the region over the recent years. Land, air and maritime special operations task forces and squads coordinated actions as they recognise the fact of military aggression and neutralised high-value targets of hostile forces," the ministerial statement noted.
Flaming Sword exercises have been held in Lithuania annually since 2012. This year's drills were held alongside Exercise Trojan Footprint 2016 organized by the US Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR).
Sputnik
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NATO Vows to Continue Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan Beyond 2016
Sputnik News
16:40 20.05.2016
NATO foreign ministers agreed on Friday to continue the Resolute Support Mission (RSM) in Afghanistan past 2016, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a press conference on the heels of the ministerial meeting.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Stoltenberg was responding to reports that the Taliban militant movement had been making gains in parts of Afghanistan.
"We decided today to sustain our Resolute Support Mission beyond 2016, so we'll continue to be there with NATO and partner forces to help train, assist and advise the Afghan army," the NATO chief told reporters.
The secretary general added that the NATO leadership was "in the process of mobilizing necessary funds for continued financial support of the Afghan army and security forces," and was poised to continue political and practical cooperation with Kabul.
The NATO mission to train, advise and assist Afghan security forces was launched on January 1, 2015 as a follow-up on the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) combat mission, which completed at the end of 2014. NATO foreign chiefs agreed in December 2015 to sustain the RSM presence during 2016.
Sputnik
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McCain: China Behaviour Warrants Exclusion From RIMPAC Maritime Exercises
Sputnik News
01:29 20.05.2016
John McCain said that the United States should not engage with China in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) military exercises due to Beijing's provocative behaviour.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The United States should not engage with China in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) military exercises due to Beijing's provocative behaviour, US Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain said.
"I don't believe China's behavior warrants joint exercises with the United States, because they are acting in a way that, in my view, is in violation of international law," McCain said at a Brookings Institution discussion on Thursday.
McCain cited the recent Chinese intercept of a US aircraft that was reportedly flying in international airspace, as well as island reclamation in the South China Sea, as reasons China should be excluded from RIMPAC.
Earlier on Thursday, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work stated that there is still an open invitation for China to participate in the multinational maritime drills.
The details of RIMPAC 2016 have not yet been released, but the exercises are expected to take place in June and July. Nearly two dozen countries and 25,000 sailors participated in RIMPAC 2014, including China.
Sputnik
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FEATURE: Between protracted and emergency crises - a case study of the humanitarian funding conundrum in Sudan
20 May 2016 One of the expected outcomes of the first World Humanitarian Summit (WHS), which will take place next week in Istanbul, Turkey, is a commitment from the international community to dedicate more resources to prevent and reduce human suffering.
Given, however, the unparalleled extent and frequency of humanitarian emergencies in the world today, the necessity to attend to people's most urgent needs tends to draw resources away from preventive and resilience-building actions.
Prioritizing humanitarian needs in a context of limited resources is a task handled regularly by Bavo Christiaens, a 40-year-old Belgian national working at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Sudan.
Mr. Christiaens, as Head of Humanitarian Financing and Resource Mobilisation, manages OCHA's Sudan Humanitarian Fund (SHF), which oversees the allocation of funding to UN agencies as well as to national and international non-governmental organization (NGOs) in the country. In 2015, thanks to generous donor contributions, the SHF allocated over $50 million for humanitarian action in Sudan.
"A huge advantage of being an 'in-country fund' like SHF, is that we can support front-line responders, those working on the ground, day in and day out, to help people in need. We are one of the few funding mechanisms to be able to support national NGOs," Mr. Christiaens said of the pooled fund, which allocated 15 per cent of its resources in 2015 directly to NGOs.
One of the main priorities for OCHA Sudan relates to the country's significant number of internally displaced persons (IDPs), caused by years of armed conflict, mainly in the Darfur region. According to the Government of Sudan and the United Nations, there are currently 2.2 million IDPs in need across the country, including two million in Darfur. In addition, 4.6 million people are estimated to be food insecure in Sudan, and over 40 per cent of these are IDPs.
"Thousands of people have been displaced for over a decade, but there are also new crises that force other people to flee their homes," said Mr. Christiaens, adding that, since the beginning of the year, Sudan has witnessed significant displacement from the Jebel Marra, a mountainous region in Darfur.
"The Sudan Humanitarian Fund is currently focusing on the humanitarian needs of those people who have recently been displaced from the Jebel Marra," explained Mr. Christiaens, who said that, in dealing with this emergency situation, SHF has had to redefine some of its geographic priorities.
The Outreach Therapeutic Program Mobile Clinic is a nutrition project dedicated to children of IDPs in the the state of Khartoum, an area that used to be considered as a humanitarian priority by SHF, but was deprioritized this year following the Jebel Marra crisis and other more urgent needs.
Run by the national NGO Almanar ('Lighthouse' in English), the clinic was founded in 2013 in Jabarona, an open area on the outskirts of the capital that has been hosting IDPs for more than two decades.
"They started coming in the late 1980s. And they continue to come. There's donor fatigue because the people have been there for a long time, but many keep coming every day," said Dr. Nadia Ali Eltoum, the Executive Director of Almanar, who runs the clinic.
According to her, the Jabarona open area currently hosts 15,000 IDPs from Darfur, and South Kordofan, West Kordofan, and Blue Nile states, as well as from rural areas affected by climate change. An additional 60,000 have established themselves around the area, she said, including some 6,000 South Sudanese.
"There is very high poverty in the area. The market prices are very high. Hygiene conditions for IDPs are bad, and there are virtually no water, electricity, sanitation or health services," described Dr. Nadia.
The Almanar mobile clinic is dedicated to Jabarona's children under five who are suffering from malnutrition. According to the Sudanese Government and the United Nations, two million children suffer from global acute malnutrition, of which 560,000 have severe acute malnutrition.
The clinic relies on the help of volunteers from the IDP community itself, known as community health promoters, who are selected and trained by Almanar to identify malnourished children.
"These volunteers are accepted by the community. They know the traditions and the language, and can communicate easily with community members," explained Dr. Nadia, adding that the majority of them are young women.
Each community health promoter is responsible for monitoring about 20 houses in the Jabarona open area and periodically visits them to see if children are showing any sign of malnutrition.
"If a child is malnourished, he or she is referred to Almanar by the community health promoters and treated at the clinic. If the child has other medical complications in addition to malnutrition, he or she is sent to the nearest hospital for medical support," explained Dr. Nadia.
According to Dr. Nadia, from April 2015 to March 2016, over 3,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition and over 7,000 children suffering from moderate acute malnutrition were treated at the clinic, which also develops preventive measures, including raising the awareness of best practices for nutrition, breast-feeding and treatment of HIV and other diseases among IDP mothers.
In its first year, the clinic was funded by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
"We wrote a proposal. We approached UNICEF. And then once we received the funds, we started treating the children," Dr. Nadia explained.
In 2015, the clinic was mainly funded by the SHF, which considered Khartoum state to be a humanitarian priority for IDPs and refugees. But as a result of the Jebel Marra crisis this year the situation has changed.
"After this month, there is no guarantee for anything. We won't receive any funding because Khartoum state is not a priority anymore for SHF because of new emergencies," said Dr. Nadia. Mr. Christiaens is well aware of the difficulties that come with having to redefine the funding priorities of SHF on a yearly basis.
"SHF planning is done on an annual basis," he explained, adding that multi-year programming would allow SHF to provide more stable support to and invest more in early-recovery, resilience-building and durable solutions, as well as to ensure that new crises do not take away funds from longer-term responses.
One of the core aims of the upcoming WHS is to secure commitment to more resources for resilience- and capacity-building projects as a way to prevent or reduce human suffering in case of conflicts and natural disasters. The WHS will also call for increased investment in people, local actors and national systems.
"But if you have a multi-year approach, you also need to have a more stable and better funding outlook than what we have today," he said, adding that it would require expanding the pool of donors from which SHF's resources are drawn. This would also allow the fund to depend less on a small number of donors.
"On the other hand, a multi-year approach would also require efforts from the humanitarian community," he added. "If you ask donors for multiyear funding, the humanitarian community has to be more transparent on costs, methodologies and risk-based approaches," Mr. Christiaens said.
These are global humanitarian issues that Mr. Christiaens hopes will be addressed at the World Humanitarian Summit, starting with raising awareness of the danger of letting longstanding, protracted crises, as in Jabarona, slip off donors' agendas in the face of new emergency crises, as in Jebel Marra.
"There can be both. There should be both. But we are a bit limited resource-wise on the longer-term programming," he said. "Everybody is dealing with finite resources, but there needs to be an understanding that the resources in general have to increase and that non-traditional donors should join new initiatives to fund responses to humanitarian crises."
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Sudan Seeks US Visa for President al-Bashir
by James Butty May 20, 2016
The Sudan government hopes the Obama administration will grant a visa to President Omar al-Bashir to attend this year's United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Information Minister Ahmed Bilal said President Bashir has been invited by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to attend the General Assembly in September. He said the United States is obligated, as host of the United Nations, to grant a visa to President Bashir.
"In fact, actually, the last time he applied for the visa, but it was not granted. But now he got an invitation, and we think he should be granted the visa because the United States is hosting the international organization and we have to attend the activities of this organization. We shouldn't be prohibited for any reason. And that's why our president applied, and we think it is very fair to be granted a visa. If he has been granted a visa, he will come," he said.
Last week, Bashir attended the fifth inauguration of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in Kampala. The U.S. delegation walked out after Museveni called the International Criminal Court "a bunch of useless people" and said he no longer supports the court.
"We believe that walking out in protest is an appropriate reaction to a head of state mocking efforts to ensure accountability for victims of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly when his country has committed to accountability as a state party to the Rome Statute," said State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau.
Bashir has been indicted by the ICC for war crimes he allegedly committed in Sudan's Darfur region where it has been estimated at least 300,000 people have been killed and two million displaced.
ICC Prosecutor Fatour Bensouda Thursday sent a letter to the Ugandan government requesting an explanation for why it refused to arrest Bashir during his Kampala visit.
Uganda, as a signatory to the Rome Statue under which the ICC was created, is obligated to arrest anyone wanted by the ICC.
Bilal said Sudan does not recognize the authority of the ICC and an increasing number of African countries are distancing themselves from what he called the "bad reputation" of the ICC.
"It is a court for the black people, not for the white people because the measures being taken by the ICC is a double standard, and it is meant specifically toward African leaders. We don't care about ICC anymore because now there is almost 90 percent of African leaders against the ICC," Bilal said.
While it has been a strong advocate of international criminal justice, the United States has refused to subject U.S. citizens to the jurisdiction of the ICC, even going so far as to threaten the use of military force to "free members of the armed forces of the United States detained by the ICC", according to the American Service Members Protection Act of 2002. U.S. officials have said American armed forces personnel would be a target for retribution because of the unique role the United States plays in global security.
Bilal said even if the United States were a signatory to the ICC, it could not arrest President Bashir while he's attending the U.N. General Assembly.
"Absolutely no because the USA is not a partner in the ICC; they didn't sign, and they are not actually complying with the rules of the ICC. Like Sudan, we didn't sign, and American soldiers are exempted because of the veto from ICC laws. It's only the weak; it's only the blacks who are being indicted," Bilal said.
He said Sudan, as a member of the United Nations, has every right to attend the General Assembly in New York.
"It is our right to actually attend the activities of the U.N., and America should not at all speak about arresting the president because they are not a member [of the ICC], and even if they are member, the president is not coming for America; he's coming for the U.N.," Bilal said.
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Paris Attacks Suspect Refuses to Speak
by Lisa Bryant May 20, 2016
Top Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam refused to talk during his first appearance before judges at a court in Paris Friday. A French citizen who grew up in Belgium, Abdeslam is charged with terrorism and murder for the November attacks in the French capital that killed 130 people.
Those who wanted to hear Salah Abdeslam explain his actions were disappointed, since he remained silent in court. Abdeslam is believed to be the only direct participant in the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris who is still alive.
His French lawyer, Frank Berton, said Abdeslam exercised his right to remain silent at the morning hearing in a Paris courthouse. He complained that 24-hour video surveillance of Abdeslam's maximum security cell is taking a psychological toll on his client, and called it illegal.
Berton had previously said Abdeslam was eager to talk. He told reporters his client would choose the time to speak.
Abdeslam arrived with a police motorcade for the closed-door hearing early Friday morning. This was his first appearance before judges since his extradition from Belgium last month.
Role in attacks unclear
The 27-year-old Frenchman, born in Morocco, faces a half dozen terrorism charges, as of now.
Abdeslam's exact role in the Paris attacks is still unclear. The Paris prosecutor claims he abandoned plans to blow himself up like the other attackers, including his older brother, Brahim.
He also has been tied to the bombers who attacked Brussels airport and the Belgian city's subway in March. After four months on the run, he was arrested just before the Brussels bombings.
His Belgian lawyer has described Abdeslam as a moron with the intelligence of an ashtray and little knowledge of Islam. Media leaks of previous interrogations in Belgium suggest Abdeslam has lied and ducked questions.
Jean Reinhart, one of the lawyers for the Paris victims, has described Abdeslam as a manipulator and liar. Anything he says, the lawyer told an interviewer, must be viewed with caution.
Belgian broadcaster RTBF reported this week that Abdeslam posted an Islamic State group flag on his Facebook page three weeks before the Paris attacks.
RTBF also reported that an informer had tipped off police as early as January 2015 that Abdeslam had been in touch with Abdelhamid Abaaoud, considered a ringleader in November's attacks. Belgian authorities have acknowledged mistakes were made ahead of both the Paris and Brussels attacks.
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Iran Still Isolated From Global Financial System Despite Nuclear Deal
Sputnik News
21:31 20.05.2016
Iran is still experiencing difficulties with rejoining the international financial system due to the West's failure to comply with commitments under the nuclear deal reached with Tehran in 2015, Iran's Central Bank head Valiollah Seif said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) On Thursday, Seif took part in the Euromoney Iran Conference in London, where he urged all the financial institutions to "actively communicate and work with Iranian banks with full peace of mind."
"Banks need enough reassurances, even if this means rewriting guidelines or revising regulations, or giving banks written guarantees. Until our western interlocutors have fully fulfilled their obligations under the nuclear deal, we won't see a real change in our banking relations," Seif told The Guardian.
On Monday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for European and American Affairs Majid Takht-Ravanchi said that his country was not satisfied with the implementation of the nuclear agreement for the reason that European banks were still hesitant to do business with Iran.
In July 2015, Iran and six world powers, including the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, signed the nuclear agreement to ensure the peaceful nature of Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
However, certain restrictions regarding payments in US dollars and using the US banking system have remained, prompting major European banks whose operations are closely tied to the US banking system abstain from restarting their work with Iran.
Sputnik
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Clashes erupt in Baghdad reform protest
Iran Press TV
Fri May 20, 2016 3:42PM
Clashes have erupted in the Iraqi capital Baghdad as a fresh wave of reform protests called by a respected cleric turns violent.
Local media said police fired tear gas and live shots to disperse hundreds of protests who were attempting to break into the Green Zone, a fortified area in central Baghdad that houses government offices and foreign embassies.
The protesters stormed the Green Zone and headed toward the prime minister's office. A curfew was slapped on Baghdad after the Green Zone breach.
Reports said at least 17 people were injured in the police crackdown while many were taken to hospitals to receive gas inhalation treatment.
Images circulating on social media showed protesters escaping tear gas while blood was spilled on the streets and victims were being taken to hospitals.
The protests come amid a turbulent political situation in Iraq where repeated attempts by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi for introducing a reform-minded cabinet have failed due to consistent differences among rival political factions.
The reshuffle plan came after weekly demonstrations in Baghdad by followers of Najaf-based Muqtada Sadr, who has repeatedly slammed government's failure in dealing with corruption and mismanagement.
Earlier this month, Sadr followers broke into the compound of parliament inside the Green Zone area, protesting a stalled vote in the chamber for endorsing Abadi's nominees.
The vote has also been undermined by the fragile security situation in Baghdad. More than 200 people have been killed in bomb attacks in and around Baghdad over the past 10 days. The Takfiri group Daesh, which has lost its control over territories in west and north of Iraq, has claimed the attacks.
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Angry Protesters Storm Into Baghdad's Green Zone Again
May 20, 2016
by RFE/RL
Iraqi security forces have fired tear gas and live bullets at protesters who stormed into Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
The incident on May 20, involving thousands of demonstrators who gathered outside of the Green Zone's security check points before storming the district, prompted Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to declare a curfew in Baghdad.
Some protesters also overwhelmed security forces to enter Abadi's office.
Journalists at the scene reported seeing dozens of demonstrators with injuries, including one man who was shot in the head.
The demonstrators included supporters of the powerful Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and people from other groups who are angry about the government's failure to approve anticorruption reforms and improve security.
Later on May 20, Sadr issued a statement in support of the protesters and condemning the use of force against them by security forces.
Addressed to the demonstrators, Sadr's statement said: "I respect your choice and your peaceful spontaneous revolt. Curse the government that kills its children in cold blood."
The protest followed a demonstration on April 30 where demonstrators also stormed into the Green Zone -- a district that includes the parliament, government buildings, and many foreign embassies.
In February, Abadi revealed plans to appoint a government of independent technocrats to uproot a system of political patronage that contributes to corruption.
Sadr supports Abadi's plan.
But the cabinet reshuffle is opposed by Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite militias -- the Saraya al-Khorasani Brigade and the Badr Organization -- which receive funds, weapons, and training from Iran.
That puts them at odds with Sadr, who was once supported by Iran but recently has positioned himself as more of a nationalist leader in Iraq.
Khorasani fighters, Badr militia, and Sadr's so-called Peace Brigades are all part of an umbrella group known as Hashid Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Forces.
They have been fighting alongside the U.S.-backed Iraqi army against Islamic State (IS) militants.
But their unity appears to be fraying, raising concerns about the ability of Iraqi forces to fight against IS extremists.
Since last week, politicians from the blocs of Badr and Sadr have accused each other of complicity in recent bombings claimed by Islamic State.
With reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP
Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/iraq-baghdad-shia- green-zone-stormed-again/27747853.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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Baghdad Protests Turn Violent at Green Zone
by VOA News May 20, 2016
This story was reported by Behn in Baghdad and written in Washington
Anti-government protesters appear to have broken into the International Zone of Baghdad, the seat of the Iraqi government, where most foreign embassies are located.
VOA correspondent Sharon Behn reports hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered Friday near the secure area, popularly known as the Green Zone. While crossing a bridge from Tahrir Square to the zone, she heard explosions and "very heavy gunfire, big booms, big booms" - some of them apparently coming from inside the fortified area.
Then wounded protesters began to flee toward the bridge, as scores of young men rushed toward the Green Zone area. "Protesters are running by me toward the gunfire," Behn reported, heading toward the office of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
"They're saying, 'We're going to kill Abadi,'" Behn said.
Up to 15 ambulances rushed toward the protest area, but there was no specific information about casualties.
An official at the crisis desk at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said he could not confirm the protesters' location, then told VOA: "We have a situation here, I can't talk."
However, Colonel Steve Warren, the American officer based in Baghdad as a spokesman for the coalition fighting against the Islamic State group, said: "We're fine. Same as last time. They don't appear interested in us."
Warren, whose words were relayed to Pentagon reporters from the Baghdad embassy, referred to a large demonstration two weeks ago when protester overran the Green Zone and entered parliament, forcing members to flee.
The demonstrators, followers of Shi'ite religious leader Muqtada al-Sadr, have been demanding that Abadi step down and a new Cabinet of technocrats be named to run the country.
Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report
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Ya'alon quits amid row with Netanyahu
Iran Press TV
Fri May 20, 2016 7:17AM
Moshe Ya'alon has officially resigned as Israel's minister of military affairs, citing "lack of trust" in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has already offered the post to hawkish Avigdor Lieberman.
Announcing his decision in a Friday post on his Twitter account, Ya'alon said he was resigning both from the cabinet and the Israeli parliament, Knesset, and "taking a break from political life."
"I told the prime minister this morning that due to his conduct in recent developments, and in light of my lack of trust in him, I am resigning," he said.
Ya'alon had been at loggerheads with Netanyahu ever since he supported an analogy by Deputy Chief of Staff Major General Yair Golan between the current state in Israel and Nazi Germany.
Netanyahu summoned Ya'alon on Wednesday and reportedly upbraided him. The Israeli premier then met Lieberman and offered him the post as the minister of military affairs which he accepted.
In the meeting, Netanyahu reportedly agreed to a number of demands which Lieberman had outlined during a press conference earlier in the day.
Among his priorities was introducing the death penalty for the Palestinians who are accused of carrying out attacks against Israelis.
On Thursday, Palestinians denounced the planned appointment, saying the decision showed Israel was intent on spreading extremism and expanding illegal settlements.
"The inclusion of Lieberman, known for his extreme right-wing stance toward the Palestinians, is new evidence that Netanyahu, as usual, has preferred to promote extremism," the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said.
Netanyahu is now set to form the most extremist cabinet in Israeli history, raise international concern about his policies, especially on the conflict with the Palestinians.
As the minister of military affairs, Lieberman would oversee military operations in the Palestinian territories and have a major say in policy towards the settlements.
Lieberman himself lives in a settlement which the international community considers illegal and persistent expansion of settler units as one of the biggest causes of the escalating tensions.
He has long expressed mistrust in Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and called for his removal.
Just a month ago, he said that if he were the minister of military affairs, he would give Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh 48 hours to hand over the bodies of soldiers killed in the 2014 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip "or you're dead."
He has also called on the Israeli regime to treat Palestinian resistance movement Hamas the same way as the United States treated "the Japanese in World War II."
The notorious politician has also openly supported a soldier charged with murder for shooting dead an injured Palestinian.
The changes come after Golan stirred an uproar earlier this month by saying he was concerned by some of the extremist voices within the Israeli reigme.
Golan purportedly said, "It is unimaginable that in an effort to ensure our soldiers' safety, we can destroy whole apartment buildings."
"Killing women, children, uninvolved civilians. Unacceptable. The use of force in civilian areas must always be kept under control, and restricted to the minimum necessary," he was heard saying.
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What's Behind Lieberman's Return to Israeli Gov't as Defense Minister
Sputnik News
20:48 20.05.2016(updated 21:46 20.05.2016)
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon announced his resignation over "the lack of trust" in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policies and is likely to be replaced by former Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. In an interview with Sputnik, political analyst Ofer Zalzberg and Fatah member Abbas Zaki commented on the issue.
According to Zaki, Yaalon's resignation hasn't taken him by surprise.
"It was expected, because in Israel there has been no power for a long time. Israel has transformed from a state into chaos a long time ago. Lieberman's appointment is the beginning of massive turmoil in the country," Zaki said in an interview with Sputnik.
aalon and Netanyahu have sparred in recent weeks over the use of deadly force on neutralized Palestinian assailants.
Following Yaalon's resignation, former Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman accepted the offer by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take the post of defense minister in the new coalition government, a move that has been criticized by several politicians and political experts.
Ofer Zalzberg, a senior analyst with the Middle East Program of the International Crisis Group, said Lieberman's appointment surprised many analysts as the latter lacks military experience for this position and has been declared persona non-grata in many Western countries.
"Lieberman was already a foreign minister. Several Western countries declared him to be a persona non-grata. They would not welcome him to visits and [] Netanyahu will have to nominate someone else [] to manage the strategic relations between Israel and the US," Zalzberg told Radio Sputnik, adding that it would add complexity to Israel's decision making and its relations with Western countries.
According to Zalzberg, the main goal of Lieberman's appointment is to ensure that he wouldn't pose a challenge to Netanyahu in the next elections. However, his lack of experience in the military sphere might have negative consequences for Israel's military policy and escalate already existing crises.
"Lieberman has none [military experience]. In this sense, small incidents may develop into major crises quite quickly," Zalzberg said. "He has never managed a military operation. [] He also spoke about very bold moves of reconquering Gaza in order to remove Hamas totally from power. I think he shows a lack of experience in such statements," the expert stated.
Sputnik
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Pakistani police kill 14 al-Qaeda militants in shootouts in Punjab
Iran Press TV
Fri May 20, 2016 12:48PM
Pakistani authorities say the country's police have killed 14 al-Qaeda militants in two separate shootouts in the central province of Punjab.
The police acting on intelligence killed eight al-Qaeda operatives near the city of Multan in Punjab on Wednesday, the province's counter terrorism department said in a statement on Friday.
The statement added that the security forces traced a number of accomplices who fled the first shootout to the district of Dera Ghazi Khan, killing six others on Thursday.
One of the slain men was involved in a 2010 terrorist attack on two mosques in Lahore city which claimed the lives of 97 people, the counter terrorism department said.
Some of the militants were also involved in attacks against the security forces, according to the statement.
Meanwhile, police official Shakir Ullah said three bombers on a motorcycle were killed on Friday when one of the militants accidentally detonated his booby-trapped jacket near the restive city of Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
The official added that the police are still trying to identify the bodies of the men.
On Wednesday, at least one policeman was killed and 10 others injured in two bomb blasts targeting a police patrol in Peshawar.
Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in bombings and other militant attacks since 2001, when Pakistan entered an alliance with the US in the so-called war on terror.
Late last month, pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan killed a provincial minister in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Minister of Minorities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Sardar Soran Singh was killed by bike-riding militants in his native village in the Buner Valley, some 160 kilometers (100 miles) northeast of Peshawar, on April 22. Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the assault.
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Seoul Rejects Pyongyang's Offer of Military Talks, Demands Denuclearization
Sputnik News
18:38 20.05.2016(updated 18:39 20.05.2016)
The South Korean Defense Ministry rejected on Friday a proposal by the North to hold inter-Korean military talks, instead demanding real steps toward denuclearization from Pyongyang.
TOKYO (Sputnik) Earlier in the day, Pyongyang urged Seoul to accept its offer to hold military talks and called for joint steps to carry out "practical" measures for national unity, citing the need to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula.
"Before offering military talks between the North and the South, one must effectively demonstrate a real turn toward denuclearization," the South Korean Defense Ministry said, as quoted by Yonhap News Agency.
Since 1953, Seoul and Pyongyang have been legally at war following the signing of an armistice, and not a peace treaty, at the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War. Relations between the two nations fluctuate sporadically, in particular, after 2005, when North Korea declared itself a nuclear power, and conducted several nuclear weapon tests.
Their relations deteriorated significantly in January when Pyongyang successfully carried out a hydrogen bomb test.
Sputnik
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Russia bewildered by NATO meeting announcement
Iran Press TV
Fri May 20, 2016 1:7PM
Russia has censured NATO officials for an announcement that the military alliance is planning to hold a meeting with Moscow without seeking prior confirmation from the Russian side.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that Moscow was quite bewildered about the unilateral announcement, saying that NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg should have consulted Moscow before the decision was announced.
"Why on earth did he say that? The Russia-NATO council works on the basis of consensus," Lavrov said, adding, "If they want to discuss this, let him discuss this with us instead of making his way to the microphone."
Stoltenberg said earlier in the day the alliance has reached a "broad agreement" to seek another meeting with Russia before NATO leaders meet in Warsaw this July.
He said NATO foreign ministers agreed in a meeting in Brussels on Thursday to adopt a "dual track approach" toward Moscow, so that the body can improve its defense against what he termed as mounting Russian threat while it keeps pursuing dialogue with Moscow.
Stoltenberg said the ministers "all agreed in the current situation that we need a platform (like) the NATO-Russia Council to pursue transparent and predictability."
Ties between NATO and Russia have been tense for the last two years over a crisis in Ukraine, where the government and its Western allies keep accusing Moscow of having a hand in the militancy in the east. The Kremlin strongly rejects the claims. Russia has also criticized NATO's expansion policy to include countries in the Western Balkan region, saying the move directly harms Russia's strategic interests in the area.
NATO and Montenegro signed an accession agreement during the ministerial meeting Thursday, with Stoltenberg and others dismissing speculation that the agreement would threaten Russia.
The NATO-Russia Council was created in 2002 when relations between Russia and NATO were much better. The council convened a meeting last month for the first time in two years although it failed to bridge differences between Russia and the US-led alliance.
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US Has No Agreement to Conduct Joint Airstrikes With Russia in Syria - DoS
Sputnik News
20:14 20.05.2016(updated 20:59 20.05.2016)
The United States has no agreement to conduct joint airstrikes with the Russian military in Syria, US Department of State spokesperson John Kirby told Sputnik on Friday.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) Earlier in the day, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Moscow offered Washington to jointly plan and conduct airstrikes against al-Nusra Front, as well as other illegal armed groups in Syria.
"There is no agreement to conduct joint airstrikes with the Russians in Syria," Kirby stated. "What we are discussing with our Russian counterparts in keeping with the ISSG [International Syria Support Group] communique last week in Vienna are proposals for a sustainable mechanism to better monitor and enforce the cessation of hostilities."
Washington and Moscow have not yet agreed upon a mechanism to hold accountable violators of the Syrian cessation of hostilities (COH) agreement, Kirby told Sputnik on Friday.
"As the ISSG [International Syria Support Group] made clear, there must be a mechanism for resolving violations a mechanism agreed upon and endorsed by the ISSG," Kirby said. "Proposals for such a mechanism to hold violators of the COH are what we are discussing with Russia. None of those proposals have yet been agreed upon."
Kirby explained that enforcement of the Syrian cessation of hostilities must be implemented by all sides, and any violator of the ceasefire terms should be held to account.
Sputnik
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US Not Planning Any Joint Operations With Russia to Liberate Raqqa
Sputnik News
20:05 20.05.2016(updated 21:14 20.05.2016)
The US is not planning any joint operations with Russia to liberate the Syrian city of Raqqa from Daesh.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The United States is not planning any joint operations with Russia to liberate the Syrian city of Raqqa from Daesh, US Department of Defense spokesperson Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza told Sputnik on Friday.
"We are not planning any operations with Russia to jointly liberate Raqqa from ISIL [Islamic State] control. In Syria, our focus remains on equipping and enabling local, motivated forces who can take the fight to ISIL," Baldanza said.
Media eports on Thursday indicated that Kurdish forces may be planning an imminent operation to liberate the Islamic State stronghold. According to reports, coalition aircraft dropped leaflets over the city on Thursday, calling on civilians to evacuate.
During a US Senate hearing earlier in May, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter stated that the ultimate purpose of the United States deploying additional military personnel to Syria is to reclaim Raqqa from the Islamic State.
Raqqa has served as the Islamic State's de facto capital in Syria since the terrorist group overran the city in 2014.
Sputnik
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Pentagon Rejects Joint Strikes With Russia
by Jeff Seldin May 20, 2016
The Pentagon is dismissing a Russian proposal to carry out joint airstrikes against al Qaida-linked terrorists in Syria.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu floated the notion Friday during a meeting that was broadcast on Russian state television, adding that the strikes could begin as early as May 25, and would be coordinated with the government of Syrian President Bashar al Assad.
"We believe the adoption of these measures will allow a transition to a peaceful process to be achieved in the entire territory of Syria," said Shoigu.
"Nothing's formally been presented to us," Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters Friday.
"I can only tell you from where I sit, and from where we sit today that we do not collaborate or coordinate with the Russians on any operations in Syria," Davis said. "We don't have military-to-military relations with Russia."
The U.S. suspended all military ties with Moscow following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and subsequent annexation of Crimea.
U.S. and Russian military officials have engaged in deconfliction talks, however, to make sure U.S. and Russian forces operating in Syria do not accidentally engage each other.
"They [the Russians] are certainly aware in a broad sense of where we are on the ground and have been advised not to do anything that would put our personnel at risk," Davis said.
The U.S. and Russia are both part of the multi-nation International Syria Support Group (ISSG), which met earlier this week in Vienna.
The group has been working to enforce a cease-fire in Syria and speed up the delivery of humanitarian aid to areas hit hard by ongoing fighting. It also this week urged rebels groups to end any associations they have with Jabhat al Nusra, the al Qaida affiliate in Syria, as well as with the Islamic State terror group.
Neither Jabhat al Nusra nor Islamic State are covered under the cease-fire agreement, and both have been targeted by U.S. and Russian airstrikes.
Still, the Pentagon's Capt. Jeff Davis said it made little sense for the U.S. and Russia to join forces.
"Russian operations are supporting and enabling the Assad regime, and our focus is solely on degrading and defeating ISIL," he said, using an acronym for Islamic State.
Some material from Reuters was used in this report.
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Full text of President Tsai's inaugural address
ROC Central News Agency
2016/05/20 11:49:33
Taipei, May 20 (CNA) The following is the full text of President Tsai Ing-wen's () inaugural address as released by the Presidential Office Friday:
Esteemed heads of state and guests from our diplomatic allies, distinguished ambassadors and representatives, dear friends, our fellow citizens across the country:
Our Gratitude and Responsibilities
Just moments ago, in the Presidential Office building, Dr. Chen Chien-jen and I were officially sworn in as the 14th President and Vice President of the Republic of China. We must express our gratitude to this land for nurturing us and to the people for placing their trust in us. Most importantly, we deeply appreciate the democratic institutions of this country, which have allowed us to accomplish Taiwan's third transition of political power through a peaceful electoral process. We also overcame many uncertainties throughout a four months-long transition period that concluded peacefully today.
Once again, the people of Taiwan have shown the world through our actions that we, as a free and democratic people, are committed to the defense of our freedom and democracy as a way of life. Each and every one of us participated in this journey. My dear fellow Taiwanese, we did it.
I would like to tell you that, regarding the results of the January 16th elections, I have always had one interpretation only. The people elected a new president and new government with one single expectation: solving problems.
At this very moment, Taiwan faces a difficult situation that requires its leaders to shoulder the burdens without hesitation. This is something I will not forget. I would also like to tell you that, the multitude of challenges before us require that we face them honestly and shoulder the responsibilities together.
Therefore, this speech is an invitation. I invite every fellow citizen to carry the future of this country.
It is not the leader who makes a country great; it is the collective striving of the people that makes this country great. A president should not only unite her own supporters; she should unite the entire country. To stand united for change -- that is my earnest hope for this country. Here, I sincerely call on everyone to give this country a chance.
Let us leave behind the prejudices and conflicts of the past, and together fulfill the mission that the new era has entrusted to us.
At this moment and as President, I declare to the citizens of this country that my administration will demonstrate resolve in spearheading this country's reform, and will never back down.
Building a Better Country for the Younger Generation
The path forward is not a smooth one. Taiwan needs a new government that readily takes on each and every challenge. And it is my job to lead such a government.
Our pension system will go bankrupt without reform.
Our rigid educational system is increasingly out of touch with society. Our energy and resources are limited, and our economy lacks momentum, with the old model of OEM manufacturing facing a bottleneck. This country urgently needs a new model for economic development.
Our population is rapidly aging, while the long-term care system remains inadequate.
Our birthrate remains low, while a sound childcare system seems a distant prospect.
Our environment still suffers from severe pollution.
Our country's fiscal situation is far from optimistic.
Our judicial system has lost the trust of the people.
Our families are deeply disturbed by food safety scandals.
Our wealth disparities are still widening.
Our social safety net is full of holes.
Most importantly, and I must stress: our young people still suffer from low wages. Their lives are stuck, and they feel helpless and confused about the future.
Young people's future is the government's responsibility. If unfriendly structures persist, the situation for young people will never improve, no matter how many elite talents we have. My self-expectation is that, within my term as President, I will tackle this country's problems step by step, starting with the basic structure.
This is what I want to do for the young people of Taiwan. Although I cannot give every young person a raise instantly, I can promise that the new administration will initiate actions immediately. Please give us some time, and please join us on this journey of reform.
To change young people's predicament is to change a country's predicament. When its young people have no future, a country is certain to have no future. It is the solemn duty of the new administration to help young people overcome difficulties, achieve generational justice, and deliver to the next generation a better country.
1. Transforming Economic Structures
To build a better country, going forward, the new administration must accomplish the following tasks. The first is to transform Taiwan's economic structure. This is the most formidable task that the new administration must take on. We must not think lightly of ourselves, and we must not lose confidence. Taiwan enjoys many advantages that other countries lack.
We have the vibrancy and resilience of a maritime economy, high quality human resources, the pragmatic and reliable culture of engineers, a well-developed industrial chain, nimble and agile small and medium enterprises, and of course, our relentless entrepreneurial spirit. In order to completely transform Taiwan's economy, from this moment on, we must bravely chart a different course - and that is to build a "New Model for Economic Development" for Taiwan.
The new administration will pursue a new economic model for sustainable development based on the core values of innovation, employment and equitable distribution. The first step of reform is to strengthen the vitality and autonomy of our economy, reinforce Taiwan's global and regional connections, and actively participate in multilateral and bilateral economic cooperation as well as free trade negotiations including the TPP and RCEP.
We will also promote a "New Southbound Policy" in order to elevate the scope and diversity of our external economy, and to bid farewell to our past overreliance on a single market.
Furthermore, the new administration believes that the only way for Taiwan to overcome the current economic stagnation is to stimulate new momentum for growth. Our export and domestic demand will serve as twin engines for growth, allowing business production to become closely integrated with the livelihoods of the people, while building close ties between foreign trade and the local economy.
We will prioritize our plans to promote five major innovative industries, with the goal of reshaping Taiwan's global competitiveness. By protecting labor rights, we will also actively raise productivity and allow wages to grow in lockstep with the economy.
This is a crucial moment for Taiwan's economic development. We have the resolve and the ability to communicate. Going forward, we have systematic plans to engage in interagency cooperation, in order to consolidate the strength of the entire country and bring forth this new model.
As we pursue economic development, we must not forget our responsibility to the environment. Our New Model for Economic Development will be fully integrated with national land-use planning, regional development and environmental sustainability. Industrial planning strategy and national land-use should not be fragmented or shortsighted.
We must also pursue balanced regional development, which requires planning and coordination by the central administration. And it requires our local governments to uphold the spirit of regional joint governance.
We must not endlessly expend natural resources and the health of our citizens as we have done in the past. Therefore, we will strictly monitor and control all sources of pollution. We will also bring Taiwan into an age of circular economy, turning waste into renewable resources. We will gradually adjust our energy options based on the concepts of sustainability.
The new administration will seriously address issues related to climate change, land conservation and disaster prevention. After all, we only have one earth, and we only have one Taiwan.
2. Strengthening the Social Safety Net
The second area that the new government must address is to strengthen Taiwan's social safety net. Over the past few years, several incidents of violent crime affecting the safety of children and youth have shaken our entire society.
However, a government cannot remain in a state of shock. It must demonstrate empathy. No one can endure the pain and suffering on behalf of the victims' families. However, the government, and especially the first responders, must let the victims and their family members feel that, when unfortunate incidents occur, the government is on their side.
Beyond offering empathy, the government should propose solutions. We must do everything we can to prevent the repeated occurrences of tragedy, by swiftly mending holes in areas such as public safety, education, mental health and social work. The new administration will address these issues with the utmost seriousness and readiness to act, particularly on public safety and anti-drug efforts.
The issue of pension reform is crucial for the survival and development of Taiwan. We should not hesitate, nor should we act in haste. Vice President Chen Chien-jen is spearheading the establishment of a Pension Reform Committee. Previous administrations have devoted some effort to this issue, but public participation was inadequate. The new government will launch a collective negotiation process, because pension reform must unite everyone involved.
For this reason, we will convene a national congress on pension reform that brings together representatives from different social classes and occupations to engage in negotiations on the basis of societal unity. Within a year, we will offer a workable proposal for reform. Whether you are employed in the private or the public sector, life after retirement for every citizen should receive fair protection.
Furthermore, on the issue of long-term care, we will establish a high-quality, affordable and extensive long-term care system. Like pension reform, long-term care is a process of social mobilization. The new administration's approach is for the government to lead and plan, while encouraging citizens to organize in communities; through the efforts of collective social assistance, our goal is to build an adequate and comprehensive system.
Every senior citizen can comfortably enjoy life after retirement in a community they are familiar with. Every family will see their burden of care lightened. We cannot leave senior care entirely to the free market. We will take up our responsibilities, plan and implement step by step, and get adequately prepared for the arrival of a hyper-aging society.
3. Social Fairness and Justice
The third area the new government must address is social fairness and justice. On this issue, the new government will continue to work with civil society to align its policies with the values of diversity, equality, openness, transparency, and human rights, so as to deepen and evolve Taiwan's democratic institutions.
For the new democratic system to move forward, we must first find a way to face the past together. I will establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission inside the Presidential Office, to address the historical past in the most sincere and cautious manner. The goal of transitional justice is to pursue true social reconciliation, so that all Taiwanese can take to heart the mistakes of that era.
We will begin by investigating and sorting through the facts. Within the next three years, we plan to complete Taiwan's own investigative report on transitional justice. Follow-up work on transitional justice will then be carried out in accordance with the truth unveiled by the report. We will discover the truth, heal wounds, and clarify responsibilities. From here on out, history will no longer divide Taiwan. Instead, it will propel Taiwan forward.
Also related to fairness and justice, I will uphold the same principles when addressing issues concerning Taiwan's indigenous peoples. At today's Inauguration Ceremony, before they sang the national anthem, the indigenous children first sang the traditional melodies of their tribes. This means that we dare not forget who arrived first on this island.
The new government will address issues concerning indigenous peoples with an apologetic attitude. My administration will work to rebuild an indigenous historical perspective, progressively promote indigenous autonomous governance, restore indigenous languages and cultures, and improve the livelihood of indigenous communities.
Next, the new government will actively promote judicial reform. At this juncture, this is the issue the people of Taiwan care the most about. The general sentiment is that the judicial system is not close to the people, and is not trusted by them. It is unable to fight crime effectively, and has lost its function as the last line of defense for justice.
To demonstrate the new government's resolve, we will hold a national congress on judicial issues this coming October. By allowing public participation and letting in social forces, we will advance judicial reform together. The judicial system must respond to the needs of the people. It will no longer be a judicial system for legal professionals only, but for everyone. Judicial reform is not only the business of legal professionals; it must be inclusive. These are my expectations for judicial reform.
4. Regional Peace and Stability and Cross-Strait Relations
The fourth area for the new government to address is regional peace, stability and development, as well as the proper management of cross-Strait relations. Over the past 30 years, Asia and the world have undergone dramatic changes. And governments have become increasingly concerned over global and regional economic stability and collective security.
Taiwan has always played an indispensable role in the region's development. But in recent years, regional dynamics have been changing rapidly. If Taiwan does not effectively use its strengths and leverage to proactively participate in regional affairs, it will not only become insignificant, it may even become marginalized and lose the ability to determine its own future.
But where there is crisis, there is opportunity. The present stage of Taiwan's economic development is highly connected and complementary with many countries in the region. If our efforts to build a New Model for Economic Development can be linked to other Asian and Asia-Pacific countries through cooperation, to jointly shape future development strategies, we will not just contribute to the region's innovation.
We will also contribute greatly to the region's structural adjustment and sustainable development. Together with other members of this region, we will forge an intimate sense of "economic community."
We will share resources, talents and markets with other countries to achieve economies of scale and to allow the efficient use of resources. This is the spirit on which our "New Southbound Policy" is based. We will broaden exchanges and cooperation with regional neighbors in areas such as technology, culture and commerce, and expand in particular our dynamic relationships with ASEAN and India.
We are also willing to engage in candid exchanges and pursue possibilities for cooperation and collaboration with the other side of the Strait on our common participation in regional development.
As we actively develop our economy, the security situation in the Asia-Pacific region is becoming increasingly complex. Cross-Strait relations have become an integral part of building regional peace and collective security. In this process, Taiwan will be a "staunch guardian of peace" that actively participates and is never absent. We will work to maintain peace and stability in cross-Strait relations. We will make efforts to facilitate domestic reconciliation, strengthen our democratic institutions, consolidate consensus, and present a united position to the outside world.
For us to accomplish our goals, dialogue and communication are absolutely crucial. Taiwan will also become a "proactive communicator for peace." We will establish mechanisms for intensive and routine communications with all parties involved, and exchange views at all times to prevent misjudgment, establish mutual trust, and effectively resolve disputes. We will handle related disputes in adherence to the principles of maintaining peace and sharing interests.
I was elected President in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of China, thus it is my responsibility to safeguard the sovereignty and territory of the Republic of China; regarding problems arising in the East China Sea and South China Sea, we propose setting aside disputes so as to enable joint development.
We will also work to maintain the existing mechanisms for dialogue and communication across the Taiwan Strait. In 1992, the two institutions representing each side across the Strait (SEF & ARATS), through communication and negotiations, arrived at various joint acknowledgements and understandings.
It was done in a spirit of mutual understanding and a political attitude of seeking common ground while setting aside differences. I respect this historical fact. Since 1992, over twenty years of interactions and negotiations across the Strait have enabled and accumulated outcomes which both sides must collectively cherish and sustain; and it is based on such existing realities and political foundations that the stable and peaceful development of the cross-Strait relationship must be continuously promoted.
The new government will conduct cross-Strait affairs in accordance with the Republic of China Constitution, the Act Governing Relations Between the People of Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, and other relevant legislation. The two governing parties across the Strait must set aside the baggage of history, and engage in positive dialogue, for the benefit of the people on both sides.
By existing political foundations, I refer to a number of key elements. The first element is the fact of the 1992 talks between the two institutions representing each side across the Strait (SEF & ARATS), when there was joint acknowledgement of setting aside differences to seek common ground. This is a historical fact. The second element is the existing Republic of China constitutional order. The third element pertains to the outcomes of over twenty years of negotiations and interactions across the Strait. And the fourth relates to the democratic principle and prevalent will of the people of Taiwan.
5. Diplomatic and Global Issues
The fifth area for the new government to take up is to fulfill our duty as a citizen of the world and contribute towards diplomatic and global issues. We will bring Taiwan closer to the world, and the world closer to Taiwan. With us here today are many heads of state and delegations.
I would like to thank them for their longstanding assistance to Taiwan and for giving us the opportunity to participate in the international community. Going forward, through governmental interactions, business investment and people-to-people collaborations, we will continue to share Taiwan's experience in economic development and build lasting partnerships with our allies.
Taiwan has been a model citizen in global civil society. Since our democratization, we have persisted in upholding the universal values of peace, freedom, democracy and human rights. It is with this spirit that we join the alliance of shared values and concerns for global issues. We will continue to deepen our relationships with friendly democracies including the United States, Japan and Europe to advance multifaceted cooperation on the basis of shared values.
We will proactively participate in international economic and trade cooperation and rule-making, steadfastly defend the global economic order, and integrate into important regional trade and commercial architecture. We will also not be absent on the prevention of global warming and climate change.
We will create within the Executive Yuan an office for energy and carbon-reduction. We will regularly review goals for cutting greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the agreement negotiated at the COP21 meeting in Paris. Together with friendly nations we will safeguard a sustainable earth.
At the same time, the new government will support and participate in international cooperation on emerging global issues including humanitarian aid, medical assistance, disease prevention and research, anti-terrorism cooperation and jointly tackling transnational crime. Taiwan will be an indispensable partner for the international community.
Conclusion
From the first direct Presidential Election in 1996 to today, exactly 20 years have gone by. Thanks to two decades of hard work by successive governments and civil society, we have overcome many obstacles that emerging democracies must confront. Throughout this process, we have had many touching moments and stories. But like other countries, we have also experienced anxiety, unease, contradictions and conflict.
We have witnessed confrontation within society; confrontation between progressive and conservative forces, between pro-environment and pro-development views, and between political ideologies. These confrontations have sparked the energy for mobilization during election seasons. But also because of these dichotomies, our democracy gradually lost its ability to solve problems.
Democracy is a process. In every era, those who work in politics must recognize clearly the responsibilities they shoulder. Democracy can move forward, but it can also fall backwards. Standing here today, I want to say to everyone: for us, falling backwards is not an option.
The new government's duty is to move Taiwan's democracy forward to the next stage: before, democracy was about winning or losing the election. Now, democracy is about the welfare of the people. Before, democracy was a showdown between two opposing values. Now, democracy is a conversation between many diverse values.
To build a "united democracy" that is not hijacked by ideology; to build an "efficient democracy" that responds to the problems of society and economy; to build a "pragmatic democracy" that takes care of the people - this is the significance of the new era.
As long as we believe, the new era will arrive. As long as our leaders have unwavering faith, the new era will be born in the hands of our generation. Dear fellow Taiwanese, this speech is coming to a close, but reforms are just about to start. From this moment on, the weight of the country rests upon the new government. It is my duty for you all to see this country change.
History will remember this courageous generation. This country's prosperity, dignity, unity, confidence and justice all bear the marks of our struggle. History will remember our courage. It will remember that in the year 2016, we took this country in a new direction. Everyone on this land can be proud of having participated in changing Taiwan.
In the earlier performance, I was really touched by a verse in the lyrics of a song:
"Today is the day, my brave fellow Taiwanese."
Dear fellow citizens, dear 23 million people of Taiwan: the wait is over. Today is the day. Today, tomorrow, and on every day to come, we shall all vow to be a Taiwanese who safeguards democracy, freedom, and this country.
Thank you.
Enditem
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Tsai Ing-wen sworn in as Taiwan's first female president
ROC Central News Agency
2016/05/20 10:52:33
Taipei, May 20 (CNA) Tsai Ing-wen () of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was inaugurated Friday as the Republic of China's first female president and only the second non-Kuomintang (KMT) leader in the country's history.
Tsai, 59, was sworn in for a four-year term as president at an inauguration ceremony at the Presidential Office, during which the national anthem was sung.
The swearing-in ceremony was also attended by outgoing President Ma Ying-jeou () and outgoing Vice President Wu Den-yih () of the KMT.
Dressed in a beige jacket and black trousers, Tsai sang the entire national anthem before she was sworn in.
At the ceremony, the great seal of the nation was handed over to Tsai by Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan () of the DPP, symbolizing her assumption of office as head of state.
Chen Chien-jen () was also sworn in as vice president, after which he and Tsai walked Ma and Wu out of the Presidential Office.
Shortly after the ceremony, Tsai's first official duty was to sign a document to officially appoint Lin Chuan () as premier, or head of the Cabinet, Lin Bih-jaw () as the secretary-general of the Presidential Office, and Joseph Wu () as secretary-general of the National Security Council.
It is the second time that the pro-independence DPP has come to power in Taiwan, and this time around it also holds a majority of 68 seats of the 113-member Legislature.
During the previous DPP administration under Chen Shui-bian () from 2000-2008, the KMT was the majority party in the Legislature.
Tsai, DPP chairwoman and a former vice premier, won 56 percent of the votes in the presidential election on January 16. She succeeds Ma, who was first elected in 2008 and served two four-year terms.
(By Tai Ya-chen, Sophia Yeh, Jay Chen and Elaine Hou)
ENDITEM/pc
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Taiwan's new president vows to continue cross-strait cooperation
ROC Central News Agency
2016/05/20 13:57:34
Taipei, May 20 (CNA) Taiwan's new President Tsai Ing-wen () of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) pledged in her inaugural speech Friday that her administration will make efforts to maintain the existing mechanisms for dialogue and seek cooperation across the Taiwan Strait.
Tsai said she was elected president in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of China, and thus it is her responsibility to safeguard the sovereignty and territory of the country.
With regard to disputes in the East and South China seas, she proposed setting aside differences to enable joint development, adding that her administration will "work to maintain the existing mechanisms for dialogue and communication across the Taiwan Strait."
On the issue of cross-strait ties, Tsai did not give in to Beijing's demand on the so-called "1992 consensus" but said that in 1992, both sides of the strait achieved "various joint acknowledgements and understandings" through negotiation.
Since then, interactions and negotiations across the strait over the years have enabled and accumulated outcomes that both sides must cherish and sustain, she added.
"It is based on such existing realities and political foundations that the stable and peaceful development of the cross-strait relationship must be continuously promoted," she said in her speech in front of the Presidential Office, shortly after she was sworn in.
By existing political foundations, she said she was referring to four key elements.
The first element is the fact of the 1992 talks between the semi-official Taipei-based Straits Exchange Foundation and its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, when there was joint acknowledgement of setting aside differences to seek common ground, she said.
"This is a historical fact," she added.
The second element is the existing Republic of China constitutional order, while the third element pertains to the outcomes of over 20 years of negotiations and interactions across the strait, she said.
The constitution was enacted in 1947, when both mainland China and Taiwan came under the rule of the Republic of China government.
The fourth "relates to the democratic principle and prevalent will of the people of Taiwan," said the new president.
Tsai also pledged that her administration will conduct cross-strait affairs in accordance with the ROC Constitution, the Act Governing Relations between the People of Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, and other relevant legislation.
Under the terms of the act, the relationship between Taiwan and China are one between two "areas," not two states.
During her speech, Tsai said that Taipei and Beijing should set aside the baggage of history and engage in positive dialogue, for the benefit of the people on both sides of the strait.
She added that her administration is willing to engage in candid exchanges and pursue possibilities for cooperation with the other side of the strait on their common participation in regional development.
As cross-strait relations have become an integral part of building regional peace and collective security, "Taiwan will be a staunch guardian of peace that actively participates and is never absent," she said.
"We will work to maintain peace and stability in cross-strait relations. We will make efforts to facilitate domestic reconciliation, strengthen our democratic institutions, consolidate consensus, and present a united position to the outside world," she added.
Tsai made no mention of the "1992 consensus" in her inaugural speech.
Both Beijing and Taiwan's outgoing government under President Ma Ying-jeou () have said that the consensus should serve as a foundation for the development of relations between Taiwan and China.
The consensus refers to an understanding that both sides agree there is only one China, with each side free to interpret its meaning. Tsai and the DPP have never accepted that any such consensus exists.
Compared with Ma's Kuomintang party, Tsai is chairwoman of a party that is more inclined towards Taiwan independence.
(By Elaine Hou)
ENDITEM/J
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President extends greatest good will to China: spokesman
ROC Central News Agency
2016/05/20 20:50:36
Taipei, May 20 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen () showed maximum flexibility and good will to China in her inauguration speech Friday, and her stance on cross-strait relations represented Taiwan's "greatest common denominator," Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang () said.
Tsai's speech also fulfilled the international community's expectations of stable and peaceful cross-strait relations and upheld the bottom line of Taiwan's sovereignty and democracy, Huang said.
The president also kept her promise to "build a consistent, predictable and sustainable cross-strait relationship," he said.
Tsai's inauguration speech on Friday had been widely anticipated to see how she would address Taiwan's relations with China, especially after Beijing made moves in recent months intended to pressure her to accept the "1992 consensus."
The Taiwan Affairs Office under China's State Council described Tsai's speech on Friday as an "incomplete test paper," and Huang said he had "no comment" on the statement.
When told that Tsai's remarks on cross-strait affairs have been interpreted by some as indirect recognition of the "1992 consensus," Huang said there was no need to "over-extend" the president's remarks.
Tsai said Friday that "in 1992, the two institutions representing each side across the Strait, through communication and negotiations, arrived at various joint acknowledgments and understandings."
"It was done in a spirit of mutual understanding and a political attitude of seeking common ground while setting aside differences. I respect this historical fact," she said.
The "1992 consensus" refers to a tacit understanding between Taipei and Beijing on a formula for relations between the two sides that would allow dialogue between them -- that there is only one China, with each side free to interpret what "one China" means.
Huang said the "various joint acknowledgments" mentioned in Tsai's speech referred to the acknowledgment that "the two sides can in fact hold a dialogue, let go of the burden of history and engage with each other."
It is also the acknowledgment that "even if there was a fundamental difference between the two sides in the past, we can sit down and talk," he said.
The president and her Democratic Progressive Party are willing to let go of the burden of history, and she hoped China could also do so and hold a dialogue with Taiwan, Huang said.
(By Sophia Yeh and Christie Chen)
ENDITEM/ls
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Taiwan will build lasting partnerships with its allies: president
ROC Central News Agency
2016/05/20 15:54:34
Taipei, May 20 (CNA) Taiwan's new President Tsai Ing-wen () of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) pledged in her inaugural speech Friday that the country will continue to share its experience in economic development and develop lasting relations with its diplomatic allies.
While giving her inaugural speech in front of the Presidential Office after being sworn in, Tsai noted the leaders and delegations of Taiwan's allies that attended her inauguration and thanked them for their long-standing assistance to Taiwan and for their support for the country's international participation.
"Going forward, through government interaction, business investment and people-to-people collaboration, we will continue to share Taiwan's experience in economic development and build lasting partnerships with our allies," she said.
Taiwan has 22 diplomatic allies, most of which are countries in the South Pacific and Latin America. All the allies sent delegations to attend Tsai's inauguration.
Meanwhile, Taiwan will continue to deepen its relations with "friendly democracies, including the United States, Japan and Europe, to advance multifaceted cooperation on the basis of shared values," she added.
In the future, Taiwan will seek to participate in international economic and trade cooperation and rule-making, steadfastly defend the global economic order, and integrate into important regional trade and commercial architecture, she said.
Taiwan will also not be absent on the prevention of global warming and climate change, Tsai added.
To this end, she said, her administration will create within the Executive Yuan an office for energy and carbon-emission reduction, and will also regularly review goals for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, in accordance with an agreement negotiated at the United Nations climate change conference in Paris last November.
In addition, the country will support and participate in international cooperation on emerging global issues, including humanitarian aid, medical assistance, disease prevention and research, anti-terrorism cooperation and jointly tackling transnational crime, she said.
"Taiwan will be an indispensable partner for the international community," she asserted.
Taiwan will also seek to participate in regional economic development, she said.
Taiwan's economic development is highly connected and complementary to many countries in the region, she continued.
If Taiwan's efforts to build a new model for economic development can be linked to other Asian and Asia-Pacific countries through cooperation, it will also contribute greatly to the region's structural adjustment and sustainable development, she added.
Taking note of her "new southbound policy," she said her administration will broaden exchanges and cooperation with regional neighbors in areas such as technology, culture and commerce, and expand in particular relationships with Southeast Asian countries and India.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, about 700 dignitaries from 59 countries attended Tsai's inauguration Friday, including a large group of Japanese lawmakers and a U.S. delegation led by former U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.
The Holy See, Taiwan's only diplomatic ally in Europe, also sent its ambassador to Japan, Archbishop Joseph Chennoth, to lead a delegation to attend the inauguration, while many European countries also sent delegations, the ministry said.
(By Elaine Hou)
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Tsai shows flexibility, good will on cross-strait ties: MAC
ROC Central News Agency
2016/05/20 23:13:37
Taipei, May 20 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen () showed maximum flexibility and good will on cross-Taiwan Strait ties based on the existing reality in her inaugural address, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said Friday.
To demonstrate her determination to deal with cross-strait affairs pragmatically, the president said she wanted to develop consistent, predictable and sustainable relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, the MAC said in a statement issued in response to comments by China's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) earlier Friday.
Although Tsai pledged in the speech that she will continue to promote stable and peaceful ties with China, the TAO expressed dissatisfaction with her comments.
While noting that Tsai said the two sides "arrived at various joint acknowledgments and understandings" in 1992, the TAO said she did not clearly recognize the "1992 consensus" or agree to its core meaning.
She also did not propose concrete ways to guarantee the stable and peaceful development of the cross-strait relationship, it said.
"On the fundamental question of the nature of cross-strait relations that people on the two sides of the strait are most concerned about, (Tsai) adopted a murky attitude," the TAO said in a statement.
The office described the speech as "an incomplete test paper," and it reiterated China's resolve to deter "splittist Taiwan independence in any form."
In response, the MAC reaffirmed its stance to safeguard the stable and peaceful status quo across the strait and called for rational communication and dialogue between the two sides.
Peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is the common responsibility of Taiwan and mainland China and this is also the highest expectations of the international community and people on both sides, the MAC stressed.
It urged the two sides to leave historical rancor behind, cherish the fruit of past exchanges with an open mind and jointly protect the existing communication mechanism.
(By C.L Chen and Flor Wang)
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KMT laments Tsai's failure to recognize '92 consensus'
ROC Central News Agency
2016/05/20 21:12:36
Taipei, May 20 (CNA) The Kuomintang (KMT) on Friday congratulated Tsai Ing-wen () on becoming president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) but lamented her failure to recognize the "1992 consensus" as the political basis for the future development of ties with China.
"President Tsai mentioned the historical fact that the two sides met in 1992 and sought common ground while setting aside differences, and have reached outcomes worth cherishing over the past 20 years," the KMT said in a statement.
"But she ultimately failed to recognize the 1992 consensus as the political foundation for the future development of cross-strait ties."
The consensus, reached by Taiwan and China in 1992, is a tacit agreement that there is only one China across the strait, with Taiwan and China free to interpret what that means.
It underpinned the cross-strait policy of Tsai's predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou () of the KMT, during his eight years in office, and Ma has expressed the hope that Tsai's new administration will follow it.
But Tsai and her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have never accepted the existence of the consistence.
Tsai, who was sworn in as Taiwan's president Friday morning to succeed Ma, said in her much anticipated inaugural speech that "in 1992, the two institutions representing each side across the strait, through communication and negotiations, arrived at various joint acknowledgments and understandings."
"It was done in a spirit of mutual understanding and a political attitude of seeking common ground while setting aside differences. I respect this historical fact," she said.
Legislative caucus whips of the KMT also criticized Tsai for what they called a lack of "bright spots" in her inaugural address at a news conference held at the Legislative Yuan, reminding her "We'll be watching you."
"Without bright spots, how can you light up Taiwan," said KMT lawmaker Wang Yu-min (), referring to a common slogan used by the incoming administration.
Tsai's framework for cross-strait relations did not transcend the "one China, respective interpretations" concept of the "1992 consensus," Wang said, and her foreign policy direction followed that of the Ma administration.
Wang said she hoped the new government could bring progress to Taiwan based on the foundation established by Ma over the past eight years.
"Taiwan cannot afford to stand still and not move forward in the coming years," she said.
Meanwhile, Johnny Chiang () said that while the ruling DPP has painted a rosy picture for Taiwan's future, opposition parties must strictly scrutinize its deeds.
"We hope that President Tsai will lead Taiwan to a brighter future," he said.
(By C.C. Wang and Flor Wang)
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Beijing describes Tsai's speech as 'incomplete test paper'
ROC Central News Agency
2016/05/20 18:35:35
Beijing, May 20 (CNA) China has expressed its dissatisfaction with the inauguration speech of Taiwan's new president Tsai Ing-wen on Friday, describing it as an "incomplete test paper."
The Taiwan Affairs Office under the State Council issued a statement of about 1,000 Chinese characters in response to Tsai's much-anticipated speech, in which many people were looking for clues about the future of Taiwan-China ties.
China said it noticed that the "new leader of the Taiwan authorities" mentioned that in 1992, the two institutions representing each side across the Taiwan Strait arrived at various joint acknowledgments and understandings through communication and negotiations.
Tsai also said her new government will continue to promote the stable and peaceful development of the cross-strait relationship based on existing realities and political foundations, the statement said.
But Tsai did not clearly recognize the "1992 consensus" nor agree to its core meaning, and she did not propose concrete ways to guarantee the stable and peaceful development of the cross-strait relationship.
"On the fundamental question of the nature of cross-strait relations that people on the two sides of the strait are most concerned about, (Tsai) adopted a murky attitude," the statement said.
"This is an incomplete test paper," it said of her speech.
Tsai of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was sworn in as Taiwan's first female president on Friday. Her inaugural speech was regarded by Beijing as a key barometer of the DPP government's cross-strait policy.
Cross-strait exchanges have slowed since Tsai and her party scored resounding victories in presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 16, achieving a complete transformation of power in Taiwan.
Tsai has refused to accept the "1992 consensus," seen by the government of her predecessor Ma Ying-jeou () as a tacit agreement between the two sides of the strait that there is only one China, with the two sides free to interpret what that means.
Beijing has used it to stress its "one China" principle," which emphasizes that Taiwan is a part of China.
(By Yin Chun-chieh and Elizabeth Hsu)
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U.S. House passes amendment to invite Taiwan to RIMPAC
ROC Central News Agency
2016/05/20 22:24:36
Washington, May 19 (CNA) The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed the U.S. military budget for 2017, with an amendment that directs the U.S. secretary of defense to grant Taiwan observer status in the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC).
The amendment, proposed by Mark Walker, a Republican from North Carolina, "directs the Secretary of Defense to grant observer status to the military forces of Taiwan in any maritime exercise known as the Rim of the Pacific Exercise."
The amendment specified that "this section takes effect on the date of the enactment of this Act."
The RIMPAC is the world's largest international maritime warfare exercise.
Other amendments related to Taiwan include one that requires the secretary of defense to submit a report at the end of each fiscal year listing each request received from Taiwan, and each letter of offer to sell defense articles or services to Taiwan during that year.
The approved bill also states that the secretary of defense should conduct a program of senior military exchanges between the United States and Taiwan with the objective of improving bilateral military relations and defense cooperation.
The bill also mentions the Taiwan Relations Act, saying it is the policy of the United States to provide Taiwan with defensive arms and to maintain the capacity of the United States "to defend against any forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan."
(By Tony Liao and Christie Chen)
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China warns Taiwan's new president against independence
Iran Press TV
Fri May 20, 2016 9:28AM
China warns Taiwan's new leader against seeking independence, saying peace would be "impossible" if she attempts to move away from the mainland.
"If independence is pursued, it will be impossible to have peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits," China's Taiwan Affairs office said in a statement on Friday.
The warning came hours after Tsai Ing-wen was sworn in as the self-ruled island's president after her pro-independence party won the January elections.
In her inauguration speech, Tsai called on mainland China to drop the "baggage of history" and engage in "positive dialog."
Tsai, who is Taiwan's first female president, told a jubilant crowd at the presidential palace in Taipei that her government would be a "staunch guardian of peace" in its relationship with Beijing.
"Cross-Strait relations have become an integral part of building regional peace and collective security," she said.
"The two governing parties across the strait must set aside the baggage of history, and engage in positive dialogue, for the benefit of the people on both sides," she added.
Tsai took office after eight years under China-friendly president Ma Ying-jeou. Ma and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping held a historic meeting in Singapore last November.
China and Taiwan are physically separated by the Taiwan Strait in the west Pacific Ocean.
They split politically following the 1927-1950 Chinese Civil War and there have been no formal cross-strait diplomatic relations ever since.
China regards Taiwan as part of its territory, but the island considers Beijing as a threat, an attitude which has been invigorated since the pro-independence party's electoral victory.
Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won presidential and legislative elections in January.
After the victory, Beijing warned Taiwan against any independence activities and said it was willing to strengthen contact with any political party or social group that "agrees that the two sides of the (Taiwan) Strait belong to one China."
In her speech, Tsai referred to East China Sea and South China Sea, where China and its neighbors are involved in territorial disputes.
"We propose setting aside disputes so as to enable joint development," she said.
She also stressed that Taiwan should end its dependency on a "single market" without mentioning China by name.
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China Ties on Hold as New President Takes Office in Taiwan
by Ralph Jennings May 20, 2016
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, backed by a historically anti-China party, has taken office with pledges to seek peace with Beijing, but snubbed its demand for dialogue, setting the stage for at least a short-term pullback in relations after eight upbeat years.
The new president, also Taiwan's first female leader, said in her inauguration speech Friday that she would seek peace. She advocates neither declaring Taiwan's formal independence from China a red line for Beijing nor unifying with the political rival of 70 years per Beijing's long-term goal.
But the 59-year-old law scholar ignored Beijing's warnings that she consent to dialogue on the premise that China and Taiwan belong to one country.
"Relations with mainland China are an important link in the regional security system," Tsai said in her 25-minute speech before an estimated 30,000 people. "We will work to maintain peace and stability in cross-Strait relations. The two governing parties across the Strait must set aside the baggage of history and engage in positive dialogue, for the benefit of the people on both sides."
Change in direction
Outgoing President Ma Ying-jeou agreed to dialogue under conditions that cast both sides under Beijing's one China demand, with Taiwan as the Republic of China and Beijing as the People's Republic of China. Over Ma's eight years, the two sides reached 23 deals on trade, tourism and investment while building mutual trust that was absent under other presidents.
Tsai acknowledged the talks in 1992 that created the one-China backdrop, but said the government must approach China also based on the constitution, Taiwanese laws and the "democratic principle and prevalent will of the people of Taiwan."
Diplomats worldwide, but especially in Beijing, had counted down to Friday on expectations that Tsai might propose a dialogue mechanism agreeable to China.
But Tsai's party rejects ideas that the two sides fall under one flag. She advocates talks with Beijing, but more cautiously compared with Ma.
Voters handed Tsai a landslide victory in January because many felt Ma's Nationalist Party had grown too close to China through economic ties, including two-way trade that hit a record $130 billion in 2014. At mass protests in 2014, those skeptics vented fear Beijing would use economic ties to exert more political control over the self-ruled island.
Beijing has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s. As late as 2005 it had threatened military force if Taiwan veer too far toward legal independence from China.
"What matters is what Professor Tsai personally thinks of the kind of relationship between Taiwan and mainland China is at this moment," says Liu Yi-jiun, public affairs professor at Fo Guang University in Taiwan. "If things don't go as expected on the part of mainland China for sure [relations] will undergo severe changes. No one will deny any chance of that."
Beijing's view
China has warned Tsai since the election to keep up dialogue on the one-China condition, but made no specific threats. Beijing, however, carried out a military drill Wednesday.
Tsai might spend her first two to three months collecting opinions and data to form a dialogue proposal that both sides can accept, political analysts say.
In case Tsai makes an overture, Beijing is not expected to cancel the broadly popular agreements reached under Ma's government. Chinese officials hope those deals excite Taiwan's public about ties with China and someday bring about political unification.
But China may dial back on some deals as a reminder that a lack of dialogue can hurt the island's economy and world political standing.
China may buy off a few of Taiwan's 22 remaining diplomatic allies, issue fewer permits to Taiwan-bound tourists, ask exchange students to avoid the island and have more Taiwanese deported from third countries to China if suspected of fraud.
That effort began after the election. In March China formed diplomatic ties with former Taiwan ally Gambia and a month later ordered 67 Taiwanese fraud suspects deported from offshore to China. Since the election, it has cut the number of travel documents, noticeable especially during China's May 1 holiday week.
Tsai is also expected to hold off any action on Taiwan's disputed claim to the 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea. Ma has championed the claim over the past year, but his effort effectively supports Beijing. China and Taiwan use the same historic basis for the maritime claim, irking four Southeast Asian countries.
Tsai's policies
The president will focus largely on domestic economic policies aimed at helping common Taiwanese live better, her Cabinet spokesman Tung Chen-yuan says. She has pledged to develop solar and wind power while cutting back on nuclear energy. Other policies will favor biotech and defense, government spokesman Tung says. Tsai will also "balance" trade ties weighted now toward China toward other markets, he adds.
"She needs to show she has the policies of policy direction for Taiwan's economy, so that will be one of the many policy areas that she needs to address whether she can come up with a policy to diversity our trade partners, our tourist markets and so on," said ruling Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Lo Chi-cheng.
Tsai said during the campaign she would build 200,000 units of affordable housing, a boost to youth with low salaries. Later, Tung said, she will target wages and jobs.
"The work search environment isn't too strong and salaries have been pressured very low," said Huang Chun-jung, a leader in the advocacy group Taiwan Youth Public Affairs. "Basically what we hope most is that the new government can help young people find work. We need to see actual policies. We have an expectation but we need to keep watching."
The United States, which has long supported the so-called one China policy, said Friday it looks forward to working with the new government in Taiwan.
A statement issued by the American Institute in Taiwan, which represents U.S. interests in Taipei in the absence of formal diplomatic ties, said, "We look forward to working with the new administration, as well as with all of Taiwan's political parties and civil society groups, to further strengthen the ties between the people of the United States."
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Turkey parliament adopts first clause of bill on MPs' immunity
Iran Press TV
Fri May 20, 2016 10:35AM
Turkey's parliament has approved a government-backed bill which would strip lawmakers of their immunity from prosecution in a move which critics say targets Kurds and dissidents.
In a secret ballot, 373 MPs in the 550-seat parliament voted for the bill on Friday with a quorum which is sufficient to avoid a referendum on the issue.
The lawmakers were also set to hold two further votes on elements of the bill later in the day, which will determine the final outcome.
Under the Turkish law, members of parliament are immune from prosecution while in office. The police can file "dossiers" against politicians, which can lead to a legal process once they cease to be members of parliament.
The new law will authorize prosecutors to purse the MPs who currently face investigation; 138 deputies, of whom 101 are from the HDP and main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).
The bill had already led to unprecedented scenes at the Parliamentary Constitutional Committee, with angry legislators exchanging fist and feet blows.
The pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) says the legislation is essentially a move to drive its MPs out of the parliament.
The HDP said the bill could lead to the prosecution of 50 HDP legislators out of its total contingent of 59.
Erdogan has called for the prosecution of HDP members, accusing them of being affiliated to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group.
Should a number of HDP lawmakers leave the parliament, it would ease the way for Erdogan to push for his bid to change the constitution and create a presidential system in Turkey.
Tensions have been on the rise between the Turkish government and PKK militants over the military's campaign in several regions with a majority Kurdish population in the past few months, following a number of deadly bombing attacks in the country last year.
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Turkey's Pro-Kurdish Party to Appeal Law Stripping Lawmakers of Immunity
Sputnik News
19:27 20.05.2016
The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party of Turkey is due to appeal a law stripping the country's lawmakers of immunity from prosecution, the party's co-chair said Friday.
ANKARA (Sputnik) The bill was approved by the Turkish parliament earlier in the day.
"Lawmakers represent the people's choice, and nobody can encroach on it. We will use every opportunity to challenge the decision of the parliament, including in the Constitutional Court," Selahattin Demirtas told reporters in Ankara.
The Turkish Prosecutor's Office has submitted proposals to the country's parliament to strip of immunity from prosecution as many as 138 lawmakers, the majority of whom represent two main opposition parties, namely the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party and the left-wing Republican People's Party. Demirtas is among those facing a criminal prosecution.
Sputnik
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Erdogan: Adoption of Bill to Strip Lawmakers of Immunity 'Historic'
Sputnik News
18:42 20.05.2016
By allowing the removal of lawmakers' immunity, the Turkish parliament has made a decision that has "historic" significance for the country, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Earlier in the day, the parliament backed a bill that provides for 138 lawmakers to be stripped of immunity from prosecution.
"Today's vote is historic. My people do not want legislators who back a separatist terror organization [the Kurdistan Workers' Party] to sit in Parliament. The ruling [Justice and Development] party, the Nationalist Movement Party say 'They should not be here'," Erdogan told supporters in the northeastern Turkish town of Rize.
The ruling Justice and Development Party-sponsored bill, was mainly opposed by lawmakers from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) who are afraid of being prosecuted because of the party's pro-Kurd positions.
Currently, 138 Turkish lawmakers in the 550-seat parliament are under investigation, including 41 HDP legislators.
Sputnik
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New helicopter deal boosts UK's investment in military flying training to 2.8 billion
20 May 2016
A new contract worth around 1.1 billion has been awarded to UK industry to supply rotary wing training to the Armed Forces.
As announced by Babcock International Group to the stock exchange this morning, it brings the value of Ministry of Defence (MOD) contracts with Ascent Flight Training to 2.8 billion. Their work delivering the four core elements of future military flying training will sustain 500 UK jobs.
The 1.1 billion rotary wing contract, awarded by the MOD to Ascent, will pave the way for the design, delivery and management of a new military helicopter aircrew training service until the early 2030s.
It will see the delivery of Airbus H135 and H145 training aircraft, and install new infrastructure and ground-based equipment at RAF Shawbury in Shropshire to train future aircrew to use aircraft such as Apache, Chinook, Merlin and Wildcat. It will also support a further 220 jobs, on top of the 280 already established by the UK Military Flying Training System (UKMFTS).
Today's announcement follows February's award of a 1.1 billion contract for fixed wing training, which will prepare future aircrew to fly aircraft such as Atlas, Voyager, Typhoon and Lightning II.
The award means all core training elements within UKMFTS, which covers training for rotary wing, fixed wing, fast jet and rear crew, are now under contract with a total value of 2.8 billion.
Minister of State for Defence Procurement Philip Dunne said:
"This is the final element in re-fashioning the UK Military Flying Training System into a state-of-the-art structure to develop suitably qualified aircrew to secure the future of air elements of our Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force. Our Armed Forces will benefit from consistent, world class training across the board. It will ready them for the next stage of their careers and equip them with the skills they need to deploy on operations around the globe."
"A 2.8 billion Defence investment with Ascent in the four core elements of this training system has, and will, bring new aircraft and new facilities to the UK, as well as sustaining around 500 jobs across the country. Supported by our rising Defence budget, which went up for the first time in six years in March 2016, these contracts will ensure that the UK continues to be a world leader in military flying training."
Air Marshal Sean Reynolds, the Senior Responsible Owner for UKMFTS, added:
"This is a significant milestone for the UKMFTS programme and the future training of our Military's aircrew. The modern aircraft, ground based training equipment and infrastructure procured to sustain the training out to 2033, along with a new training system design will optimise the students time in training and skill sets attained."
"This will in turn ensure that they can be available to conduct operations in defence of the UK and her international interests earlier than ever before and in doing so will provide an overall saving to Defence."
Under the new contract, aircrew across the three Services will continue to conduct their basic and advanced rotary training at RAF Shawbury and Army Air Corps Middle Wallop. Aircrew selected for training in mountain and maritime helicopter operations will receive instruction at RAF Valley.
Defence Equipment and Support Chief Executive Officer Tony Douglas said:
"This contract will provide world-leading facilities for aircrew training in the use of our advanced aircraft such as Apache, Chinook, Merlin and Wildcat."
"The success of the UKMFTS Programme demonstrates how the MOD, through DE&S, can create a positive and innovative partnership with industry to deliver real, tangible results, both commercially and for our Armed Forces."
Managing Director of Ascent Paul Livingston said:
"The award of the Rotary and Fixed Wing contracts marks the delivery of two critical milestones for the UKMFTS programme. Modern training aircraft selected specifically to meet the bespoke needs of the UK's Armed Forces will deliver optimised training alongside high tech simulators and classroom trainers."
Ascent, selected as the MOD's flying training partner in 2008, will be required to deliver instruction, infrastructure and support required to provide military flying training across the three Armed Services until 2033.
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The DMV website was fully functional shortly before 1 p.m.
Throughout the morning, the DMV website had a note stating: "Due to a statewide technical outage, all DMV offices are closed and online transactions are currently unavailable."
Most DMV offices in Virginia are open from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays, but DMV was never able to provide in-office services.
"The website just went back up," DMV spokeswoman Brandy Brubaker said, adding that customers can use the site for 40 types of transactions.
"I also just got word that the IT problem has been resolved, so we will be open as scheduled on Monday," Brubaker said.
The Virginia Information Technologies Agency, or VITA, said today it believes the outage was caused by a hardware failure at the Commonwealth Enterprise Solutions Center in Chester, but it did not know the cause of the failure. The agency said the outage was widespread and affected the websites of numerous state agencies.
Early this afternoon, a hardware repair was completed, VITA spokeswoman Marcella Williamson said. As a result of the repair, current indications are the outage is over."
"VITA and Northrop Grumman are verifying with customer agencies that their network access has been restored, Williamson added. "This process will take several hours to complete due to weekend staffing levels at certain agencies."
The Chester center is owned and operated by Northrop Grumman under a 13-year contract with the state that will expire in 2019. VITA said its engineers and staff were working with those of Northrop Grumman and its subcontractors to resolve the issue.
Brubaker said there might be a small number of customers whose driver's licenses expired Saturday, but she said many of those customers would be able to renew their licenses online.
"Those who aren't eligible for online renewal can visit us on Monday," she said.
State police Sgt. Stephan Vick said the outage temporarily prevented police Saturday morning from checking certain drivers' records, such as suspended licenses.
However, it had no effect on access to more essential information, such as whether someone is wanted for a crime.
Later Saturday morning, Vick said police had regained full access to the DMV records.
Matthew Roy, a Richmond resident, said he was at the main office for DMV on West Broad Street in Richmond when the office opened at 8 a.m., and while DMV employees let customers in, they were unable to provide any services.
It was definitely pretty clear that they had no idea when it was going to be resolved, Roy said, adding that the DMV employees seemed to handle the situation well by keeping customers informed.
Roy waited for about two hours, hoping that the system would be up and running eventually, but he finally gave up.
The department has had IT problems before. A similar computer outage that affected DMV in January 2015 hobbled state agencies and aggravated members of the public.
During that outage which lasted 11 hours state, local and federal police officers could not access Virginia driver and vehicle records. That outage was on a Friday and Saturday.
Following last year's outage, state officials extended the expiration dates for more than 7,000 driver's licenses and other ID cards.
Also, during a five-week period in 2009, DMV suffered 12 computer system outages.
Northrop Grumman informed state officials just over a week ago that it would not compete to become prime contractor under a different model the state has adopted for bidding out contracts among multiple providers to run different parts of the Virginias vast information technology system as it disentangles itself from the expiring contract.
The letter from Northrop Grumman to Secretary of Technology Karen Jackson also warned that the states proposed new approach would make the system less secure and more costly to taxpayers, who the company said face a potential bill up to $200 million for the state to begin exiting the contract now. Those costs include the disposition of the Chester center and other assets controlled by Northrop Grumman, which said it had invested $300 million in the state IT system under the public-private contract signed in 2006 by then-Gov. Mark R. Warner.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - May 20, 2016) - Pure Gold Mining Inc. (TSX VENTURE:PGM) ("Pure Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has closed the sale of surface rights on certain non-core patented mining claims (the "Buffalo Claims"), first announced on December 2, 2015, to Premier Gold Mines Ltd. ("Premier Gold"), in exchange for $0.5 million in cash. These proceeds are in addition to the $2.0 million in cash and approximately $3.4 million in net proceeds received from the sale of Premier Gold shares, received by the Company for the sale of the underlying mineral rights on the Buffalo claims.
Pure Gold is also pleased to announce it has received $1,020,750 from the exercise of 2,041,500 warrants, with an expiry date of September 4, 2016.
ABOUT PURE GOLD
Our mandate is pure and simple. To dream big. To colour outside the lines. To use smart science and creativity to unlock the next major discovery at the Madsen Gold Project in Red Lake, Ontario. And become Canada's next iconic gold company.
Additional information about the Company and its activities may be found on the Company's website at www.puregoldmining.ca and under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
Darin Labrenz, President & CEO
Certain statements made and information contained in this news release and elsewhere constitutes "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance are not statements of historical fact and may constitute forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. Many of these uncertainties and contingencies can affect the Company's actual performance and could cause actual performance to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made by, or on behalf of, the Company. Readers are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those acknowledged in such statements. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except to the extent required by applicable laws. Accordingly, readers are advised not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by the Company or on its behalf, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.
VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - May 20, 2016) - Brixton Metals Corp. (TSX VENTURE: BBB) (the "Company" or "Brixton") is pleased to announce it has entered into a purchase and sale agreement to acquire a 100% interest in the claims near its past producing Langis Silver mine (the "Property"). Brixton will issue 10,000 common shares of the Company (the "Brixton Shares") and make a cash payment of $3,000 to acquire the Property, subject to a 2% net smelter royalty ("NSR"). Brixton holds the option to purchase the NSR at $250,000 per 0.5%. In addition Brixton has staked 461 hectares of mineral claims in the area which are subject to approval by the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines of Ontario. Brixton's lands in the Langis and Cobalt camp now total 3,276 hectares.
The issuance of the Brixton Shares is subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange and, if issued, will be subject to a four month and a day hold period.
Brixton also announces that Mr. George Salamis has resigned from the Company's board of directors due to over-boarded concerns and other commitments. The Company wishes to thank Mr. Salamis for his long-standing contribution and service to Brixton shareholders.
Mr. Sorin Posescu, P.Geo, VP Exploration, is a Qualified Person as defined under National Instrument 43-101 standards and has reviewed and approved this news release.
About Brixton Metals Corporation
Brixton is an exploration company focused on the advancement of its gold and silver projects toward feasibility.
The Langis project does not currently contain any mineral resources or mineral reserves.
The 100% owned Langis project and lands in the Cobalt Camp is 3,276 hectare in size. The project is located 500 km north of Toronto, Canada. The high-grade silver mineralization occurs as steeply-dipping veins within any of the three main rock types; Archean volcanics, Coleman Member sediments and Nipissing diabase. The unmined zone intersected by historic drilling: 1,550.34 g/t Ag over 9.45 metres and 19,229.13 g/t Ag over 0.49 metres.
The 28,000 hectare, 100% owned Thorn Project is located in northwestern British Columbia, Canada, approximately 105 km ENE from Juneau, AK. The Thorn project hosts a district scale Triassic to Cretaceous volcano-plutonic complex with many styles of mineralization related to porphyry and epithermal environments. Targets include sediment hosted Au-Ag, Ag-Au-Pb-Zn diatreme-breccia, Au-Ag-Cu veins; and volcanic hosted structurally controlled Au-Ag. Brixton has established a maiden inferred resource of 21.5Moz AgEq from 7.4 Mt at 89.75 g/t AgEq based on limited drilling. Further information regarding the Thorn Project, including resource estimates, can be found in the Company's technical report prepared by SRK Consulting dated December 12, 2014 and filed on SEDAR. Read more at http://brixtonmetals.com/thorn-technical-reports/
Brixton Metals Corp. shares trade on the TSX-V under the ticker symbol BBB. For more information about Brixton please visit our website at www.brixtonmetals.com.
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.
Information set forth in this news release may involve forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements are statements that relate to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", and "intend", statements that an action or event "may", "might", "could", "should", or "will" be taken or occur, including statements that address potential quantity and/or grade of minerals, potential size and expansion of a mineralized zone, proposed timing of exploration and development plans, or other similar expressions. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein including, without limitation, statements regarding the issuance of the Brixton Shares and TSXV approval and the exploration potential of the Langis property based on historical information resources estimates on the Thorn Project are 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 others, the following risks: the need for additional financing; operational risks associated with mineral exploration; fluctuations in commodity prices; title matters; and the additional risks identified in the annual information form of the Company or other reports and filings with the TSXV and applicable Canadian securities regulators. Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as required by applicable securities laws. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.
associated press file Five days after boosting its unsolicited takeover bid for Tribune Publishing Co. by 22 percent, USA Today owner Gannett, in a letter Friday, urged Tribune shareholders to reject the company's slate of nominees to sit on its board.
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By Marcy Gordon, Associated Press
WASHINGTON Five days after boosting its unsolicited takeover bid for Tribune Publishing Co., USA Today owner Gannett is urging Tribune shareholders to reject the company's slate of board nominees.
In a letter Friday that disparaged Michael W. Ferro Jr., the publisher's non-executive chairman, Gannett criticized the Tribune's decision to adopt a "poison pill" to avert a buyout.
"Gannett believes the Tribune board operates with significant corporate governance deficiencies," it wrote.
In February, Ferro gave Tribune a $44.4 million cash infusion through his company Merrick Media. Tribune's board sold control of the company to Ferro at a discount, the letter said, and Ferro then led the board to take actions that gave him excessive control, compromising its independence, Gannett charged.
At least four of the eight director nominees have significant ties to Ferro, who has "an unproven track record" in the publishing industry," Gannett said.
It also said that in a May 12 meeting, Ferro told Gannett that an acquisition would make sense, "as long as Mr. Ferro would have a 'significant role' at the company post-closing and was its "largest shareholder."
The Tribune didn't immediately return a request for comment Friday.
Gannett said that Tribune's board "is disregarding your interests by preventing you from realizing superior and certain cash value for your shares." It asked investors to withhold their votes for Tribune's eight director nominees on proxy cards mailed in advance of Tribune's annual meeting on June 2.
Gannett on Monday raised its bid to $15 per Tribune share from $12.25 offered earlier for the owner of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and other newspapers, after Tribune adopted a "poison pill" plan. Chicago's Tribune rejected the original offer as too low, and said that it is reviewing the revised proposal.
Gannett, based in McLean, Virginia, puts the total value of the revised offer at around $864 million, which includes assuming certain Tribune liabilities, such as some $385 million in outstanding debt.
On Thursday, Gannett's President and CEO Robert Dickey downplayed as rumors recent reports that Ferro is preparing a counter bid to acquire Gannett. In a letter to Gannett employees, Dickey said the board, management and advisers "continue to focus on taking the right steps for Gannett" and are committed to the $15-a-share offer for Tribune despite its unwillingness to negotiate.
"We know that a number of Tribune's shareholders support our offer," he wrote.
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The Standard-Times publishes news of special events and programs. We do not accept items detailing regular weekly sermons or schedules. Items will be run only once. Church news can be submitted by email at maria.hagland@gosanangelo.com or by fax to 325-659-8133. Forms also are available in the Standard-Times lobby from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Deadline for submission next week is Wednesday before the date of publication. Dates, times, address and a publication number are required.
Belmore Baptist
Belmore Baptist Church, 1214 S. Bell St., will celebrate Toby Irwin's 47th anniversary in the ministry May 26.
There will be a viewing of the DVD "The Case for the Gospel" at 5 p.m. Sunday.
The Esther Bible Study ladies will meet at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.
An awards program with the church's children and youth organizations, the Royal Ambassadors, Girls in Action and Acteens will be held at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The Seekers Sunday school class will have a fellowship at 6:30 p.m. Thursday.
Call 325-651-4661 for more information.
First Christian
First Christian Church, 29 N. Oakes St., will hold the cook-off fundraiser and luncheon A Taste of FCC's Best to benefit the 2016 Mission Trip to Central Texas following the 11 a.m. service Sunday. Visitors are invited to bring their dish and taste everyone else's after the service.
Call 325-653-4523 for more information.
First United Methodist
First United Methodist Church, 37 E. Beauregard Ave., will celebrate Heritage Sunday and recognize its graduating high school seniors Sunday. Traditional Sanctuary service is at 8:30 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. Sunday school begins at 9:30 a.m. and the 11th-Hour Contemporary service will be in Celebration Hall.
Call 325-655-8981 for more information.
First Presbyterian
First Presbyterian Church, 32 N. Irving St., will prepare and serve a meal for the Wesley Trinity Daily Bread Soup Kitchen Monday, at 301 W. 18th St. Anyone who would like to volunteer should meet at the Soup Kitchen by 9 a.m.
Registration for vacation Bible school that will take place from 9 a.m. to noon May 31 through June 3 at the main church campus will continue through Wednesday.
Children age 3 through entering fifth grade are encouraged to participate at the free event. To register visit groupvbspro.com/vbs/ez/fpcvbs2016.
Call 325-655-5694 for more information.
Sierra Vista Methodist
Sierra Vista United Methodist Church, 4522 College Hills Blvd., will honor its graduating high school seniors at the 8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. worship services Sunday.
To register for the June 6-9 vacation Bible school visit 2016.cokesburyvbs.com/svumc or stop by the church office.
Pastor Tamara Strehli is offering a summer challenge called B90x. The challenge is a commitment to read the entire Bible in 90 days through daily reading of the Bible and weekly participation in an online accountability group.
Call 325-944-4041 for more information.
St. Luke United Methodist
St. Luke United Methodist Church, 2781 W. Ave N, will hold Camp St. Luke from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays from June 7-30 and registration is still open.
The "Surf Shack"-themed camp will offer activities for students 18 months through fourth grade. The cost is $120 for the first child and $100 for each additional child.
Call 325-949-8311 or email ccdc.slumc@stluke-sanangelo.org for more information.
St. Margaret's
St. Margaret's Church, 2619 Era S., will have a Spring Festival from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. There will be barbecue-chicken plates served, in addition to an auction, raffle, country store, games and more. The cost is $10 for adult dinner plates are $6 for children dinner plates.
Call 325-651-4633 for more information.
Our place begins with obedience, submission to government
There's a new girl in my youth group. The other day at church, she told me she had "the Force." Being the Star Wars nerd that I am, I understood this to mean she was claiming to be able to move things without touching them and do mind tricks.
And she was right.
She proceeded to lick her palm and tried to touch my face with the same hand. Sure enough, my head moved the way she wanted it to without touching it. She knew exactly how to control the circumstances around me to convince me to do what she wanted.
If an 11-year-old girl can do this to an adult with more education than sense, then it would stand to reason that the all-powerful, most-wise God can direct the affairs of paltry humans and their faulty governments. But though it follows logically, it does not seem many Christians actually believe it.
The Bible is clear and concise about the role of government. Romans 13:4 says the government is "God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil." 1 Peter 2:14 affirms that the government is "for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good."
The Bible is equally clear, but much less concise, about the role of the believers who find themselves subject to a government. Repeatedly, Scripture admonishes believers to submit to and obey the government. Romans 13:1-7, 1 Peter 2:13-17 and Hebrews 13:17 all admonish believers to submit to and obey governments that actively and physically persecuted them with imprisonment, beatings and execution. In 1 Timothy 2:2, Paul encouraged Timothy to pray for the same king that would later execute Paul.
Something makes me think that Paul's advice would have remained the same even if Nero the emperor of Rome at the time had a weak foreign policy or signed an unconstitutional executive order. Whatever the average Christian has to complain about, it pales in comparison to the political situation of first-century Rome.
I'm not saying we have no place in the culture wars. I'm saying our place has to begin with obedience and submission to the government, and we're really bad at that.
Americans, and Texans especially, seem to have rebellion built into our DNA.
The 13 colonies rebelled from England because they didn't like paying taxes without having a say in how much those taxes were. Remember than until then, there was almost no precedent for this expectation in all of human history. Texas rebelled against Mexico because the Americans who had moved to Texas no longer wanted to follow the rules they had agreed to follow when they moved to Texas in the first place. The South attempted to secede because the mean old Yankees were trying to take away states' right to legitimize the practice of owning other humans.
None of the rebellions in our history has been biblically warranted.
Rebellion of any kind is actually expressly forbidden for believers. Obedience is expressly commanded. And we can submit even when we disagree with our government because we trust God.
If that seems radical, it isn't because it's not biblical. It seems radical because we don't have many good examples of it in our own history. Good thing we have the Bible to confront such misguided cultural ideals.
Instead of viewing history from the perspective of our high school history class, Acts 17:26 gives an interesting glimpse of history from God's perspective, "From one man (God) made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands." It isn't just the officials in authority over a government which God controls. The land each government commands, the time in which they do it, and the people which inhabit them are all under God's sovereign control. We as Christians either believe this or we don't. We betray whether we actually believe this or not by the way we talk about our government and the measure of respect we show our elected officials in private conversation.
Perhaps we don't actually believe God is in control because we misunderstand the purpose God is trying to accomplish with his sovereign control. I'm so glad the very next verse in Acts 17 makes that clear, "God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us" (Acts 17:27). God uses history and governments to draw people to himself. His goal is not to make Christians comfortable in public bathrooms or to protect them from baking cakes for gay weddings. His desire is for unbelievers to be won to himself "when they see the purity and reverence of your lives" (1 Peter 3:2).
Christians can remain respectful, submissive and obedient to the government because we do not depend on the government to protect or provide for us. We don't need to fight for our own rights because our "rights" don't come from the government. We can trust God to be in control of history. The question is not whether you trust the government. It is whether you trust God enough to submit to the government like he commands you to.
There is a time and place to stand up, but we will never arrive at that place until we have really trusted God with the mess our country is in and rely on him to use it to draw people to himself. I fear that on the whole, the American church hasn't done this yet. It's about time we started.
Kyle Hooks is the associate pastor at Angelo Bible Church. Contact him at 325-716-4258 or kyle@lookingupfrombelow.com. You can like Looking Up at facebook.com/lookingupfrombelow.
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Prosecution to try to prove cohabitation
By Matthew Waller
Follow the Wendell Loy Nielsen trial proceedings as they happen: Log into Cover It Live at gosanangelo.com starting Monday at 9 a.m.
MIDLAND ? The Texas Ranger had to squeeze through a hole in the wall to get into the vault, grasping a gun and flashlight.
Inside the locked precinct sacred to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Texas Ranger Lt. Jesse Valdez found rows of cabinets laden with boxes of records. It was April 2008 when he first entered the vault within the Temple Annex on the YFZ Ranch in Schleicher County, and now those records are being used as evidence against former FLDS President Wendell Loy Nielsen.
Nielsen, 71, a former president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is charged with three counts of third-degree bigamy, each count punishable by two to 10 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine. Friday was the third day of the trial, and the day began with testimony from Valdez.
Prosecutor Eric Nichols asked Valdez about gaining entrance to the building, the gleaming white Temple Annex, which housed the vault.
"Were law enforcement officers forced to make a forced entry into the building?" Nichols asked.
"Yes," Valdez said. He was one of the officers involved in the April 2008 raid on the ranch, triggered by a phone call that alleged to a women's shelter hotline that sexual abuse was occurring on the FLDS compound. Twelve men were indicted from evidence seized during the raid, and 10 of them have been convicted of charges such as sexual assault and bigamy. Nielsen's case is the first bigamy charge to go to trial; others have pleaded no contest to the bigamy charges.
Nielsen also pleaded no contest, but he withdrew his plea when he said he didn't like the terms of probation, and when he couldn't transfer his probation to Colorado where he has family.
Valdez and other Texas Rangers testified Friday about materials recovered from "Building 1," which has ties to Nielsen. The state is required to prove where the alleged offenses occurred, and the state intends to prove cohabitation. One name, "Ilene," is written on the floor plan to Building 1, and one of the women who allegedly was married in bigamy was Ilene Jeffs.
Jurors learned from documents that the three women with whom Nielsen is accused of having bigamous marriages were Ilene Jeffs, who would've been 43 at the time of the "marriage," Margaret Lucille Jessop Johnson, who would've been 58 at the time of her "marriage" and Veda Barlow Johnson, who would've been 65 at the time of her "marriage." Linda Black was Nielsen's legal wife, whom he married in 1965.
Also in Building 1 was a "birth center," as Texas Rangers described it. Jurors were shown photos of stirrups on a "hospital type" bed that, according to testimony given by Texas Ranger Danny Crawford, would've offered leg support. Crawford said he also found medicine and equipment there for taking care of infants.
Crawford said it was the only place on the ranch to have a birthing center. Outside the jury's presence, Nichols said the state intends to show records from now-imprisoned sect leader Warren Jeffs regarding the connection between the birthing center and Nielsen's home.
Warren Jeffs has been imprisoned from charges that came out of the raid. He is serving a life plus 20 year sentence in Palestine for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl and a 15-year-old girl.
Jeffs left a trail of records wherever he went, and the YFZ Ranch was no exception.
"I then took a tour through brother Wendell Nielsen's house. ... The delivery and recovery rooms were well organized," Nichols read from Jeffs' dictation.
The judge allowed photos to be shown, although the defense was afraid it would be prejudicial since there already had been a mention of children and a rescue mission before the jury when talking about the raid. The judge told the jury that Nielsen's charges have "nothing to do with children."
The state alleges that extraneous offense documents show Nielsen married 34 women in addition to his legal wife, among them sets of mothers and daughters and groups of sisters.
The documents also state Nielsen performed ceremonies to wed 16- and 12-year-old girls to Warren Jeffs, who has been named a witness in 258 allegedly bigamous marriages, and been involved in the marriage of 37 girls ages 12 through 16, with 29 of them having been bigamous.
The Texas Rangers spent much of Friday authenticating documents that came from the Temple and Temple Annex.
One ranger testified about the inside of the Temple and Temple Annex building. He described the colors on the first floor of the Temple as earth tones, blue and white colors on the second floor and then pure white on the top floor.
"It was all white, blinding white," Texas Ranger Capt. Aaron Grigsby said.
The Temple Annex also had white and blue tones, he said.
The jurors were dismissed about noon, and the attorneys spent the remainder of the day discussing redactions to portions of documents that the judge didn't believe the jurors should see because they might be prejudicial or redundant.
They also discussed how they would proceed when trial starts again Monday morning concerning expert witnesses. Defense attorney David Botsford expects to challenge ex-FLDS member Rebecca Musser's testimony as being an expert witness, and he said that if the state brings their expert family law expert, University of Texas law professor Jack Sampson, he would bring his own for a "battle of experts."
The trial resumes Monday at 9 a.m. in Midland district court, with attorneys assembling half an hour earlier to settle matters regarding witnesses.
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By Jennifer Rios
A memorial of fresh flowers and white candles in the parking lot of an east San Angelo bar acts as a farewell for the city's most recent homicide victim.
Four investigations revolving around the shooting death of Michael Neeley continue as more facts come forward about San Angelo's fourth homicide of the year. Texas Rangers and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission are investigating the incident, along with criminal and internal investigations led by the city Police Department.
Neeley, 29, was shot and killed Sunday night in the 13th Hour Bar parking lot after an argument with Darrell Sellers, 48, of Eldorado, police said.
Neeley was shot three times, twice in the torso and once in the head, said San Angelo police Detective Patti Stooksberry.
Sellers is being held in the Tom Green County jail in lieu of $1 million bond.
So far in the investigation, it doesn't appear that Neeley and Sellers knew each other, she said.
Sellers had been at the bar only a few minutes when both he and Neeley went outside, she said.
The bar owner, Ouida Blackledge, did not return phone messages left Tuesday.
Officer Robert Pullen and Apprentice Officer Travis Griffith were at a convenience store when Pullen became aware of a fight across the street in the bar's parking lot, police said.
When Pullen ran toward the parking lot, he saw a body on the ground and a man holding a handgun, police said. Pullen fired two rounds directly at the man but did not hit him. The man, later identified as Sellers, surrendered shortly afterward.
Stooksberry said that because Sellers was standing between his truck and a fence, the officer had a narrow window in which to shoot.
When officers shoot, Stooksberry said, they intend to hit the suspect.
"The public runs from the bullets, and the police run toward them," Stooksberry said. "That's our job. (Pullen) did what any officer would do."
Stooksberry said police determined that the .45-caliber handgun found in Sellers' possession had been taken out of his truck immediately before the shooting, not carried into the bar.
Police Chief Tim Vasquez said Pullen was placed on administrative leave in compliance with department procedure.
Police found a bullet hole in a window of the bar, Stooksberry said, and a bullet inside the bar. Whether the bullet hole came from the shooting Sunday night was not clear. On Tuesday, the bullet hole in the window was patched over with cardboard and tape.
Lt. Randy Motz, with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission in Abilene, said as far as he knew, the bar has not turned over its license. Tuesday, the TABC was working on its own investigation.
"We're interviewing witnesses as we speak," Motz said Tuesday morning. "We're looking not at criminal but the administrative protocol."
The bar was not closed Monday because of the weekend incident, he said.
TABC closes down an establishment only if investigators feel there could be retaliation, such as a gang-related shooting, Motz said. In those cases, a business will be shut down for several days to "let people cool down."
Motz, who oversees investigations in 20 counties, said an emergency shutdown is rare - he sees one maybe once a year.
The length of investigation varies, he said, and in this case he is looking at three weeks to a month.
"We're just trying to hunt people down now," he said, "trying to get the truth."
Stooksberry said Sellers had been drinking but was not drunk at the time of the shooting. Neeley's toxicology results will be among results from his autopsy, which is being conducted by the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office.
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Three years ago President Obama responded to a question from a White House reporter about why he was unable to force congressional leaders to agree on a measure to replace sequestration. "I am not a dictator," he said.
With his administration's order that every public school in America must make accommodations in bathrooms and locker rooms for children born as one sex but who "identify" as another sex, the president apparently has changed his mind even threatening to cutoff federal funds to states that refuse to comply.
This comes just after a federal judge ruled the administration is violating the Constitution by spending money to subsidize health insurers without an appropriation from Congress. It doesn't matter to Obama, who in his waning months in office acts as if he is bigger and more important than the Constitution. If our founding document conflicts with his agenda, he ignores it, or twists it to reflect how he thinks it should read. Obama has changed his mind on the "dictator" question.
Before getting to the issue that has outraged governors in North Carolina and Texas and others coming soon consider where this can lead.
The administration is using for its authority Title IX, which has its roots in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and was codified in education amendments in 1972. The key phrase reads: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."
As with so many other laws, that phrasing has been interpreted to mean whatever this administration wants it to mean and to offer "protection" to any behavior the administration defines as a discriminated against "class."
Because this is a directive and not law, a President Trump, or any future president, could reverse it. It is doubtful that any but the most liberal states are likely to comply.
Secular progressives are going to have a difficult time selling this to Middle America, especially in key states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida where religious and conservative voters make up significant portions of the population. Many voters might legitimately wonder why this issue is more important than the large number of college graduates who can't find a job or who are working at lower-paying jobs that don't require a college degree or beating the Islamic State.
Perhaps America's dictator has provided the last straw for many parents. Overall enrollment in alternatives to traditional public schools, such as secular and religious private schools and home-schools, has increased in recent years, in part due to concern about what is being taught and not taught in public schools. More parents might take advantage of private education, especially if they could afford it, particularly in urban areas. More states than ever are offering voucher programs.
Take one city Denver as an example of what can happen when children are allowed to escape failing and unsafe public schools. According to David Osborne in Education Next, "a journal of opinion and research," since 2008, Denver Public Schools began expanding choice and as a result has markedly increased its on-time graduation rate from less than 39 percent in 2007 to 65 percent last year.
More impressive is the achievement rate of African-American students who, as Osborne writes, "now take advanced math classes at the same rate as whites, while Hispanics lag only 1 percentage point."
Perhaps this transgender bathroom issue will be the final straw in ending the education monopoly in the U.S. The secular left is going to have a difficult time selling the president's diktat to the public. Donald Trump is right when he says this should be an issue for the states and not the federal government.
Cal Thomas is a syndicated columnist and member of the USA TODAY Board of Contributors.
Doyle McManus is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Readers may send him email at doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com.
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Politicians bend the truth. All politicians spin the facts. But Donald Trump is mounting an audacious experiment in mendacity: How brazenly can a candidate lie and get away with it?
Consider the bizarre (and, in any other context, comical) events of last week.
The Washington Post published a 1991 audiotape with the voice of a man who sounded uncannily like Trump, but he identified himself as "John Miller," a Trump spokesman. In the recording, Miller told People magazine that Trump, newly divorced, was fending off a surfeit of girlfriends (not counting Madonna, in whom Miller said Trump had "zero interest").
When the 2016 candidate was asked about the 1991 tape, his denial was absolute. "It was not me on the phone," he told NBC. Not only that, "I don't know anything about it. You're telling me about it for the first time."
Yet, back in 1991, Trump admitted it was him on the phone. People printed his apology back then for what he called a joke that went awry. And that wasn't Trump's first brush with pseudonymity. In a 1990 court case, he testified under oath that he also made phone calls under the name of "John Barron," the Post reported.
A trivial controversy? Not really, because it fits into a rich pattern of whoppers and falsehoods often followed by equally bogus denials.
Trump fibs so often that the fact-checking website PolitiFact awarded him its 2015 "Lie of the Year" award for his entire body of work, a lifetime achievement award for prevarication.
He's lied about small things and large. He's lied so many times that some of his falsehoods are famous in their own right: His assertion that he watched Muslims cheer as the World Trade Center collapsed and his charge that the Mexican government deliberately sends criminals across the U.S. border.
Bizarrely, he has lied about statements that are easy to check. In January, he denied a report that he had called for a 45 percent tariff on imports from China. "It's The New York Times; they're always wrong," he said. The Times published the tape; "Forty-five percent," Trump said.
In March, when asked if he would reject the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, Trump said: "I just don't know anything about him." That was nonsense; in 2000, Trump publicly denounced Duke as a racist.
On foreign policy, Trump says he'd be a better president than Hillary Clinton because he opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2011 war in Libya. But that's not true: Trump publicly supported those wars before they started.
If there are undecided voters out there, fact-checking could help them decide not to vote for Trump (although it wouldn't guarantee that they'd vote for Clinton).
Trump has called for a gigantic tax cut that would reduce federal revenue by an estimated $10 trillion over 10 years. His campaign says the tax cut would produce an economic boom, generate $7 trillion in new revenue, and wipe out the federal deficit.
He doesn't seem to have noticed that $7 trillion (the new revenue) is smaller than $10 trillion (the added deficit, piled atop the existing deficit).
Will any of this matter?
It's true that Trump's likely Democratic opponent has had problems with credibility too. Some polls suggest that voters consider Trump the least honest candidate in the race, but others give that honor to Hillary Clinton.
Still, say what you like about Clinton, she plays by traditional rules. She doesn't deny her past statements when they're on tape.
It's also true that media fact-checking exposes (like this one) don't always work. Political scientists have long noted that partisan voters are hard to shake from their allegiances, no matter what the facts. They call it "motivated reasoning," the tendency of people to disbelieve arguments that challenge their beliefs (Democrats practice it as well as Republicans).
Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth College has even found that fact-checking makes some voters more committed to their candidate, not less a phenomenon he calls the "backfire effect."
But Trump's cost-free dissembling may be coming to an end, Nyhan told me via email. "It didn't hurt him in the Republican primary race, but he's heading into the general election with the worst favorable/unfavorable ratings ever."
If there are undecided voters out there, he said, fact-checking could help them decide not to vote for Trump (although it wouldn't guarantee that they'd vote for Clinton).
This campaign will be a test of Trump's own advice from his 1987 best-seller and it really was a best-seller, no lie "The Art of the Deal":
"You can't con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don't deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on."
Doyle McManus is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Contact him at doyle.mcmanus@latimes.
The Carl Chavis YMCA in High Point hosted the grand opening of its Splash Park on May 12.
Nido Qubein, High Point University president, announced last year that HPU would make the lead gift of $100,000 for the Splash Park to be built at the Carl Chavis YMCA. The university dedicated the Splash Park in honor of Carlvena Foster, executive director of the YMCA and a HPU alumna.
Other organizations such as the High Point Community Foundation, the City of High Point, Molly Millis-Hedgecock Foundation, High Point Convention and Visitors Bureau, Tannenbaum-Sternberger Foundation, Carolina Thomas, Vann York Auto Group, Davis Furniture, Jones and Peacock, North State Communications and Ilderton Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram, contributed to make the Splash Park at the Carl Chavis YMCA possible.
The Splash Park is an interactive, zero-depth water park designed for all ages. Activities include spraying, splashing, dumping and walk-through features.
As a part of the grand opening, children from the YMCA enjoyed the park for the first time.
This place is so much fun, said Zion Robinson. It is so colorful and beautiful. I am involved in the after school program here and I cant wait to come and play in this all the time to cool off and have fun.
The Salvation Army of High Point will hold a celebration honoring the one-year anniversary of opening Family Store No. 3.
The celebration will be from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. May 28 at 2100 N. Main St., Suite 116 in High Point.
Guests will enjoy live music, snow cones, popcorn, and more. Each customer who enters the North Main Street store will be entered into a grand door prize drawing for a $100, $50, and $25 gift certificate.
All three High Point Family Stores will have Memorial Day Flash Sales, giving discounts to customers throughout the day.
The Salvation Army of High Point Family Stores will also use this celebration to kick off a Veterans and College Student Discount program. Starting on May 28, college students with a current student ID and veterans with a military ID will receive a 15 percent discount of their total purchase anytime they shop in the High Point Family Stores.
For information, call (336) 881-5436.
Youth City Academy deadline approaching
The deadline to apply for Youth City Academy, a program designed to bring high school students together to learn about the municipal programs and services available to them, their families and their communities, is June 1.
The program sessions will be held from 2-5 p.m. June 30, and July 14, 21, and 28 at various City facilities.
Students applying must live within the City limits of Greensboro.
To apply, visit www.greensboro-nc.gov/Youth CityAcademy or call (336) 373-2723.
City Park rides will be open Memorial Day
The Burlington City Park amusement rides will be open on Memorial Day, weather permitting.
Rides include the Historic Dentzel Carousel, train, planes, boats and cars.
The park is at 1333 Overbrook Road in Burlington.
For information, all (336) 222-5030 or visit www.BurlingtonNC.gov/recreation.
Bennett College offers five summer programs
This summer, Bennett College is offering five summer programs including the Entrepreneurial Institute Program, which gives students an opportunity to enhance their professional development. The SEI offers a rigorous enrichment program for students who are interested in entrepreneurship, leadership, business, and social media.
To qualify, students must be a rising junior or senior in high school, have an interest in small business ownership, complete the online application at www.bennett.edu, and submit payment of $300 for registration once accepted.
This year, there will be 40 applicants accepted into the program. SEI begins on June 19 and ends June 29.
Several other summer programs will be offered as well; to see the schedule, visit http://www.bennett.edu/articles/2016_04_01_Summer_Programs/Summer_Programs_Brochure_2016.pdf.
For information on SEI, contact Sacha D. Blalock at (336) 517-1971 or sblalock@bennett.edu.
Financial-planning firm shortens name
Harris, Crouch, Long, Scott, and Miller in Whitsett has shortened its name to Harris Crouch, accompanied by a more user-friendly website, www.harriscrouch.com.
We felt it appropriate that our name reflect current management of the firm, states founding partner Nat Harris.
The new website and name change are effective immediately.
Safety Around Water series at Ragsdale Y
Ragsdale YMCA, at 900 Bonner Drive in Jamestown, will host the fourth annual Safety Around Water series for ages 3 to 15 May 23 through 26. The cost for the four lessons is $5.
A USA Swimming Foundation national research study revealed that African American children ages 5 to 14 are three times more likely to drown than their Caucasian peers.
Furthermore, 70 percent of African American children cannot swim, compared to 60 percent of Hispanic children and 40 percent of Caucasian children.
This particular program reaches out to the community to support all children, including those who may not have the financial ability to participate in swim lessons year-round, says Justine Intiso, aquatics director at the Ragsdale Y. Participants learn about boat safety, water-park safety, beach safety and backyard pool safety, and will also be introduced to beginning swimming skills.
Session times are: Ages 3-5, 5-6 p.m.; ages 6-12, 6-7 p.m. and ages 13-15, 6:15-7:15 p.m.
The Ragsdale YMCA is also collecting toothpaste, toothbrushes, dental floss and mouthwash May 23 through 26 for Back Pack Beginnings, a program that provides meals and hygiene supplies to low-income children in the Guilford County School Systems.
For information, visit ragsdaleymca.org or contact Intiso at (336) 882-9622 or Justine.Intiso@ymcagreensboro.org
Update: The City Council has changed the date of its meeting on the downtown contract to its regularly scheduled meeting on June 7. That meeting starts at 5:30 p.m.
GREENSBORO The City Council will revisit who should run downtown's business district during its regular meeting June 7.
The council will hold a public hearing to hear proposals from Downtown Greensboro, Inc., and from Qub, a company led by downtown developer Eric Robert. Then it will vote on whether to award the $600,000 contract to Downtown Greensboro, Inc., which the staff is recommending.
Members had been set to make that decision last Tuesday. But they postponed their decision after Robert, whose company bid on parts of the contract, accused the city of showing favoritism to DGI.
Two days later, the city manager and city attorney said their investigation showed city staffers did nothing wrong when they let DGI revise part of its application after the bids had closed.
In previous years, the council didnt have to let other groups compete with DGI to get that contract. A vote by the General Assembly changed that last September.
The process for running any business improvement district like downtown Greensboro is now subject to a competitive bid process.
Over the last 90 years, the achievements testifying most dramatically to the courage of Americans are ending the Great Depression, helping to win the Second World War and fulfilling at last the promise of equal protection under the law to all citizens.
Each of these mighty deeds defeated racial and economic oppression. To revive the demons that so many Americans died to obliterate betrays whats best in this nations soul.
But the resuscitation of economic greed and white supremacy has been the foul hallmark of Gov. McCrorys administration. He and his co-conspirators have legalized bias against senior citizens, public school children, college students, voters, the poor, the middle class and the LGBT community. Every segment of the non-rich population has received the Republican lash. McCrory has become a plutocrat. If he continues on his backward course, he will ally himself with Govs. Orville Faubus of Arkansas, George Wallace of Alabama and Ross Barnett of Mississippi. Their resistance to democracy lives in infamy.
Lets end McCrorys chokehold. Join organizations concerned with equal rights; sign petitions; put yourself on the line in demonstrations; support Democratic candidates; and make sure when they win, they honor the achievements on which we proudly stand.
Michael Gaspeny
Greensboro
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GREENWICH The sudden loss of their 16-year-old daughter in a 2014 boating accident off Greenwich Point left Joe and Pamela Fedorko looking for a sign.
How could it be that their little girl with the big, strong voice was taken without warning while doing what she loved, spending a sunny August afternoon on the water with three of her closest friends?
They looked for a sign that their girl, who couldnt help but smile even when she was nervous, whose academic achievements didnt stop her from staying up late tutoring her friends, who volunteered her time to make peanut butter sandwiches for the homeless, wasnt completely gone.
The sign emerged some 50 miles away from Greenwich, at the Fedorko familys second home in Westbrook. On the day of Emilys wake, four days after her death, their neighbors in Westbrook noticed something at their beachfront property and quickly sent a picture to the family.
Literally right in front of our house at low tide there are miles and miles of sandbars, Joe Fedorko explained this week. Directly in front of our beach, the sandbar was shaped like a heart. If you walked down our steps onto our beach, you are right dead center in that heart. It made us feel that Emily was with us.
It was confirmation to us that she was OK, Pam Fedorko said. Thats how we got through that week. It was huge for us.
Foundation
Emily grew up on the water. While many might have understood if the Fedorkos and their two
children, Joey, 20, and Kelsey, 15, never went near the water again after the events of Aug. 6, 2014, her parents said it was quickly apparent that was not an option.
We know her personality, and she would be extremely upset with us if we did not continue to do what we loved to do forever, Pam Fedorko said.
It also was soon clear they needed to do something to honor their daughter.
There was so much outpouring of support that it was overwhelming, and we wanted something positive to come out of this, Joe Fedorko said.
The family has thrown itself into the Emily Catherine Fedorko Foundation, a nonprofit charity dedicated to increasing boater safety that they operate out of their Old Greenwich home.
We decided to do that two days after it happened, Joe Fedorko said.
We didnt quite know what we were going to be doing, Pam Fedorko added. But we knew we had to do something. We wanted to educate people. We didnt want this ever to happen to anyone else.
Emsway Walk
The foundation has successfully pushed for new legislation strengthening Connecticuts boating-safety laws, and has led safety education efforts, including producing a video now used in boater training in Connecticut (www.emsway.org).
But one of the first missions was to create a personal item in Emilys memory.
My son said to us almost as soon as she had passed that we should do a bracelet, Pam Fedorko said. She and her husband wear the beaded jewelry on their wrists at all times. We designed these bracelets and there is a meaning to every color in it. The tan represents the sandbar in front of the property in Westbrook. The navy blue represents the water, which is where she passed, and the light blue represents the color of her eyes, so you know she is always looking out for you. There are 16 white beads for how old she was.
The bracelets, in plastic and Swarovski crystal models, are sold to raise funds for the foundation, which has held several small-scale events to promote safety.
Now, the foundation is sponsoring its first large event, the Emsway Walk. The two-and-a-half-mile trek, scheduled for June 5 at Greenwich Point, will end at the Innis Arden Cottage, part of a day of family activities, including safety demonstrations and quizzes with prizes.
Its a beautiful place in Greenwich where everyone loves to spend time, but its also the last place where Emily was, Pam Fedorko said. We wanted to be able to honor her by walking around the Point. Well have a couple of stations with some pictures of her, and you can pause and take a moment of silence or reflect or say a prayer, whatever you choose. For us it was important to do it at Tods Point.
The family hopes for a crowd of 700, and reports the response has been great so far. More information is available at https://emsway.org/walk/.
The timing of the walk coincides with the start of the boating season. The choice of the first Sunday in June was deliberate. Last year the Greenwich Shellfish Commission and the Bruce Museum honored Emilys memory on that day with an event called Emsway Safety Day. It was the foundations first event.
We would love this to be an annual event, but we will see, Pam Fedorko said.
At least 250 of the participants will receive free life vests. And that many will be able to register for free safe-boating classes.
Emilys Law, signed last year, requires any boat operator to complete a course on safe towing. It makes it illegal for anyone under 16 to operate a boat towing a rafter or water skier.
Emily was in an inner tube being pulled by a boat when she was killed.
When that law got passed, the goal was never to keep anybody from boating or restrict them, said longtime Fedorko family friend Gary DellAbate. We just want it to be safer. These are boating people.
Giving back
The goal of the walk is to bring people together, while promoting water safety. But the Fedorkos said they also wanted a chance to give back after the community has been there for them.
This community is special, Joe Fedorko said. We are surrounded by water, and this could have happened to anyone. The summer is filled with kids and parents boating and we have people in every river and body of water. We have so many yacht and boating clubs just in Greenwich alone. The support comes from that and also because Emily was very well known and liked in school.
She is greatly missed still, Pam Fedorko added. When she walked into a room, you knew she was there. People realize shes not there anymore.
Emilys class will graduate from Greenwich High School next month, making this a difficult time for the family.
We are doing OK, Pam Fedorko said. Were going day by day, and we have a lot of good friends and family who are there for us all the time. What we are doing with the foundation keeps us busy in a positive way. It makes us feel like we are keeping Emilys memory alive and she is here with us.
The family is gratified to have seen some good arise from their tragedy, and say the foundations work is only beginning.
You have two choices when something like this happens, Joe Fedorko said. You can crawl into a ball and forget everything, or you can move forward and push. We find it very helpful to be positive. We try to be positive every day.
kborsuk@scni.com
Apple's CEO Tim Cook is on an official visit in India, meeting up with the government and carriers to talk about the company's future in the country. Amidst those talks he went for an exclusive interview on NDTV, where he shared Apple's plans for making a move on the Indian market.
For one, Apple sees India as having an "enormously bright future" and it's one Apple wants to be a part of. "We're here for a thousand years" were the exact words. Tim Cook sees the rollout of 4G as key to both India's future and Apple's part of it.
Tim Cook was clear that he sees talent in India, and it's talent that needs to be given a chance, hence the opening of the iOS app development accelerator, planed for next year. Additionally, several hundred million dollars will be put in the Maps development facility.
One challenge that the company is facing is bringing certified pre-owned devices to the country, which has so far been limited by government restrictions. And since that's the affordable entry into the Apple ecosystem, the low market share is partially a consequence of the lack of such a practice.
On the matter of ecosystem, which doesn't currently exist for Apple in India quite the same way it does in the US, Tim Cook said that the plan was to bring all of the existing services to the local market, and if new ones were found, unique to India, to develop those as well. Apple Pay, specifically, is also on the table, with talks going on with Indian banks.
Another issue to deal with is the India tax structure, which makes it difficult for carriers to sell products, and while iPhones are commonly sold by the carriers in the US and other parts of the world, in India it's third-party retailers' job. Related to this, Apple is also in talks about the future of Apple retail in the country, but the green-light hasn't been given yet.
Apple's CEO was clear that indianisation of the company will take place, unlike what many other companies have done to adapt to the local market. Apple remains a California company, no matter the market, is the summary of that topic.
Those were a few of the main points in the conversation, and you can watch an excerpt below. For the full interview, head over to the Source link on the bottom.
Source | Via
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ZTE's nubia sub-brand has already announced the Z11 mini, the first member in its Z11 family. And earlier this month we've seen the other two devices in the line getting certified for sale in China by TENAA. So both the Z11 and the Z11 Max should become official soon.
In the meantime, Ni Fei, nubia's general manager and co-founder, has decided to start teasing the Z11 Max. He's done so on Weibo by posting the image you can see below.
The render of the upcoming Z11 Max is accompanied by a claim that should bring very good news to people who love big displays on phones but hate handsets that are themselves huge. It turns out that the Z11 Max will come with an 83.27% screen-to-body ratio, which is up there with the best in the business.
This has obviously been achieved by using minimal bezels, both on the sides of the display but also the top and bottom of the phone. As per TENAA's images from a while back, the nubia Z11 Max should sport a metal construction and a fingerprint scanner on the back.
Spec-wise, we'll get a 6-inch 1080p touchscreen, a 16 MP rear camera, an 8 MP selfie shooter, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 652 chipset, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of expandable storage, and a 4,000 mAh battery. It's likely to run Android 5.1 Lollipop underneath nubia's own UI.
Source (in Chinese)
Haiti - FLASH : Attack of the driver of the Secretary General of the CEP
Tuesday evening, a driver assigned to the office of Marie Joachim Frantz, General Secretary and representative of women's organizations within the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), was victim of an armed aggression by several unidentified individuals, in Delmas 75 prolonged Faustin 1st Street. The driver was shot 3 times, including one bullet in the jaw and the assailants fled with his vehicle, a rental car.
The driver was taken to a hospital where he received emergency cared until a definitive diagnosis is made and appropriate interventions are carried out.
The CEP's security unit has seized the authorities concerned of the police and information and testimonies was collected for the purposes of the investigation.
The CEP strongly condemns this attack and calls on the authorities to take responsibility, especially since this act occurs in a general climate characterized by a rise in insecurity and armed assaults.
The Provisional Electoral Council presents its sympathies to the parents and relatives of the victim while ensuring its full solidarity.
In a note, the Women's Collective for the political participation of women, "Fanm Yo La" says to be convinced that "this kind of attack is to prevent women from exercising their civic duty in public spheres and policies" and calls the police and judicial authorities to guarantee the physical and moral integrity of the electoral Adviser.
HL/ HaitiLibre
By William Schwartz | Published on 2016/05/20
Flying into Cheongju from Jeju Island en route to Seoul, I had two choices. The sensible choice was to go to Cheongju and find some other nice subway-connected interpoint to get to Seoul. The second choice was to stumble around like an idiot through the rural countryside. I chose the latter. Don't let the tourist maps at the airport fool you- Jincheon County () is not easily reachable from the Cheongju Airport. In general it's not really traversable at all except by car. And for what? To see Kim Yu-sin's placental chamber?
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The placental chamber is not pictured above. Rather, that's the marker which indicates you are near the vertical kilometer long mountain trail that leads to the placental chamber. The marker is a lot more picturesque. This is what the placental chamber looks like-
...By the way, the placental chamber is exactly what it sounds like. It's where Kim Yu-sin's placenta is kept. I can see why Jincheon has not been able to capitalize on the fame of Uhm Tae-woong. Ancient Korean people had rather odd ways of honoring their heroes.
In all fairness that Gilgan Temple () is much easier to get to, and somewhat more rewarding in that an ancient picture of Kim Yu-sin is stored at the very top of all those endless stairs, cleverly angled so that glare makes it difficult to get a good photograph. Still, I was able to get a good wide view of what Jincheon looks like from this perch-
...And that, perhaps, is the more relevant story of Jincheon anyway. It's not about who used to live here over a thousand years ago. It's about who lives in the county today.
This rather striking structure is the county library, situated right next to the city library, because apparently whoever is in charge of public funds in Jincheon believes the people need good books located in striking architecture. As far as I'm concerned this was money exceptionally well-spent. I'm not a fan of modern buildings in general but this one really does sparkle in the moonlight, like a shining beacon a hill. A rather appropriate metaphor for knowledge isn't it?
One part I rather like about these small towns is the sense of community. I was in Jincheon for Children's Day and pursuant to that, there was a big event for children with the usual clowns, taekwondo demonstrations, and posing with the police mascots. Yes, there is more than one. There's Podoli, and there is Posooni, who is like Podoli except she's a girl. On the surface anyway. Who knows, after all, the gender of the poor rookie stuck inside that suit who has to take photos with kids all day. Look, somebody's gotta improve the reputation of the Korean police.
As part of the same event there was a screening for Hotel Transylvania 2, Korean dubbed, where it is rather more sensibly just called Monster Hotel 2. But for all that I really just needed some context to take a picture of this Kim Yu-sin statue in the lobby. This version of Kim Yu-sin has no placenta- just horse, dragon and poleaxe, because that's all he needs to start kicking butt and acting all generally heroic. Now that is a statue of the man who unified the anceint Silla, Goguryeo, and Baekje kingdoms, providing an inspiration to us all.
Lastly, as to be expected, the kids were pretty restless for the whole movie screening, and couldn't even stay still during the official ceremony when the raffle winners were announced. Hey, there were bikes given away for this raffle. You'd be sneaky too.
Maybe it's just because I'd recently been to Gangjeong where that hideous naval base seemed like the worst white elephant possible but...that's oddly enough the main takeaway I got from Jincheon. That this is a county which knows how to use its tax dollars. By maintaining ancient difficult-to-access monuments and giving kids free bicycles. Seriously, maintaining that stupid base will probably cost more in one month than it takes to run Jincheon for an entire year, with no happy children to show for it. Harumph.
Article by William Schwartz
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Published on 2016/05/21 | Source
Actress Ku Hye-sun arrives at a district office in Seoul to register her marriage to fellow actor Ahn Jae-hyun in Seoul on Friday. The pair is to hold a small, private ceremony on Saturday.
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No thanks, Village says to park purchase offer
FLAT ROCK If the Village Council ever gets fed up with the citizenrys demands for improvements, complaints about loose dogs and jeremiads about park crime and traffic, it can always sell the towns park.
Mayor Bob Staton received a feeler recently from a real estate broker asking if the village would be interested in selling the 66-acres parcel of land. Staton thinks the broker most likely spotted the vacant land in a digital map search.
The Charlotte-based broker with National Land Realty office said his client was looking for 60 acres in the Flat Rock area.
Staton said the Village Council, which bought the property in 2013 for $1.15 million and has invested that much more in improvements, would decline the offer.
Despite the urgent need for housing, caution has been urged for Poolbeg as work begins on ambitious plans for vacant land in the area.
The new Minister for Housing Simon Coveney has revealed plans for up to 3,000 homes to be delivered on a fast-tracked basis.
Fianna Fail TD for the area Jim OCallaghan acknowledged mistakes have been made in the past with some strategic development zones and these must not be repeated.
Everyone welcomes the building of new houses and apartments but we must ensure that any development has all of the necessary infrastructure in place, for instance public transport and sufficient school placements, he said.
There must be a process of public consultation and full transparency about what the proposals are, he added.
Openness
[Adamstown] didnt go to plan There just needs to be more openness about what is being done, people need to be informed about whats coming on, he said.
We cant make mistakes with these proposals. Obviously, there has to be urgency but not without consultation.
Transport links to the site must also be prioritised urgently, Sinn Fein councillor Chris Andrews said.
Plans for extending the Luas or delivering a BRT rapid bus route to the area have all been tabled as options for connecting the area with the city centre and beyond by the National Transport Authority (NTA).
The NTA has included the projects in their 2016-2035 Dublin strategy which was published in April but had planned the extension of the Luas to take place at the back end of the strategy period.
A new bridge must also be built across the Dodder to improve local access to the peninsula. A waterbus option which would travel along the Liffey was also recommended in a previous report prepared for the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA). Extending six bus routes in the city out to Poolbeg is also a short-term option to improve access to the area.
However, the Herald understands that Dublin City Council will now pursue the Luas and bus upgrades in the area as a priority. In drawing up the SDZ (Strategic Development Zone) scheme, access will be examined.
The rapid bus route is likely to be included in the early phases of the development, with the Luas being delivered when the final phase of the area is being built.
It must all come hand in hand and be developed in line, Mr Andrews said.
Integration with the existing communities has to be key and social infrastructure must be in place that will allow it to stand for our grandchildren, he added.
Green Party leader Eamon Ryan welcomed the plans for the site and called for integration with the local community on top of a new model of cost-rental housing to get a mix of people into the area.
It reminds me of building out in the 30s in areas like Marino and we should be using that as our template to build really high quality developments, he said.
We need to improve the transport links and look at extending the Luas ... but we know it can be done.
At the moment, it looks as though the new development will have a 10pc allocation for social housing, however, the minister is set to face opposition on that from various quarters.
Mr Andrews said that just wont fly with local representatives. His council colleague Dermot Lacey said that he wants to see 30pc of the development given over for social and affordable housing.
Opposition
The most pressing issue is housing as it is everywhere and there is a need for social and affordable housing.
Id like to see a 15pc balance of social and affordable housing which could be delivered by the Ringsend Housing Association, he said.
City planners are currently drawing up a scheme for the SDZ which they will bring to
the council in the autumn for approval.
It is hoped that work on the site will begin early next year.
The defunct Irish Glass Bottle site which was sold at the peak of the boom for 400m but remained undeveloped will make up part of the SDZ.
Gardai entered the offices of an investment firm linked to the sale of Clerys as an investigation continued into the closure of the department store with the loss of more than 450 jobs.
A High Court challenge has now been launched against the powers used during the investigation into redundancies at the Dublin department store.
D2 Private Ltd and its director and owner Deirdre Foley brought the case after inspectors, along with gardai, entered the companys offices on Harcourt Terrace on Thursday.
The inspectors had been appointed by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) following the OConnell Street stores closure last June.
About 460 people, employed by either Clerys or concession-holders, lost their jobs.
The store closed shortly after it was sold to Natrium Ltd by the previous owners, the Gordon Brothers Group.
Natrium is a joint venture between Irish investment group D2 Private Ltd and Cheyne Capital Management in the UK.
In court yesterday, Mr Justice Tony Hunt heard the inspectors relied on parts of the 1977 Protection of Employment Act and the 2015 Workplace Relations Act.
These include the powers to enter premises and seize documents.
After entering D2 Privates offices, the inspectors demanded to be furnished with a laptop belonging to an employee and certain books and records. The laptop was taken away, the court heard.
Reject
The documents include correspondence with the liquidators and directors of the company that had operated Clerys, OCS Operations, before Natrium acquired the store.
However, Ms Foley and D2 Private reject that the inspectors have the power to enter their premises and to lawfully take the computer or documents.
In their action against the WRC and the inspectors, they want an order quashing the requirement to hand over materials and a declaration that the use of the investigatory powers is unlawful.
Barrister Breffni Gordon, for Minister for Jobs Mary Mitchell OConnor, said his client opposes the application. He said the investigation was being conducted to see if a criminal prosecution should be brought arising out of the workers collective redundancy.
However, barrister Eoin McCullough, for Ms Foley and D2 Private, said they were never the employers of and had no connection with the Clerys workers.
The documents sought and the materials on the computer are outside the remit of the investigation and there was no valid basis for taking them, said Mr McCullough.
He added that there were concerns about commercially sensitive information on the laptop. It was their case that the inspectors were not entitled to take it, and they want it back.
Mr Justice Hunt adjourned the case to Monday, saying he accepted an undertaking that the laptop would be kept by a solicitor for the department and not be interfered with.
A judge has asked the DPP to make progress in the case of a Dutch man arrested in a luxury Dublin apartment during a Garda operation targeting the Kinahan crime cartel.
Naoufal Fassih (35), who is of Moroccan origin, faced bogus passport charges and appeared again at Cloverhill District Court yesterday. He was further remanded in custody to appear on June 3. A State solicitor said a garda had to make some enquiries and directions from the DPP would be finalised in two weeks.
Fassih had been refused bail on April 15 by Judge Cormac Dunne at Dublin District Court after gardai argued that he was a flight risk.
He is charged three offences under the Theft and Fraud Act for possessing a fake Belgian and a false Dutch passport and using them to incite an other to believe they were real.
He was arrested at an apartment on Lower Baggot Street on April 7, the court heard, where runners worth 800 and three designer watches worth 83,000 were found. He is also charged with possession of a small quantity of cannabis.
Gardai later established his real name and that he is a Dutch national.
A decision has yet to be made on whether the case will remain in the district court or go forward to the circuit court. Fassih has not yet entered a plea.
Gerry OMeara has not yet indicated how he will plead
A patient has appeared in court accused of seriously assaulting a medical professional by throwing a chair at her.
Gerry O'Meara (45) is alleged to have hit the nurse - who was sitting at her desk at the time - on her head.
Judge David McHugh remanded Mr O'Meara on continuing bail and adjourned the matter to a date in July for the DPP's directions on the charge.
A court heard gardai are still waiting on a medical report of the victim's alleged injuries.
The accused, with addresses at North Circular Road, Dublin 7, and Woodhazel Estate in Ballymun, appeared before Blanchardstown District Court charged with seriously assaulting a woman.
The alleged assault took place at a ward in James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown on June 8 last year.
In relation to the allegation, Sergeant Maria Callaghan said it will be alleged that Mr O'Meara picked up a chair and threw it at the injured party.
Seriousness
Sgt Callaghan told the court the alleged victim was sitting at her desk at the time of the assault.
The sergeant said it will be claimed the chair hit the victim on her head.
Sgt Callaghan also said it will be alleged the female victim was cut on her head.
The sergeant said she was unaware of the seriousness of the head injury, as she was still awaiting a medical report of the victim's injuries.
The court heard the DPP is waiting on the medical report before issuing directions on the charge.
The court also heard that Mr O'Meara is out of work and he gets disability allowance.
Judge McHugh assigned defence solicitor Michael Staines on free legal aid.
Mr O'Meara has not yet indicated a plea to the charge.
The alleged assault is contrary to the non fatal offences against the person act.
His defence lawyer said there was consent to a long adjournment for the preparation of the medical report.
Travellers planning to enjoy a tipple on their European city break should head to Prague for the cheapest drinks, according to new research.
The Czech capital was ranked number one out of 16 popular destinations across the continent based on the price of a dozen drinks, while Dublin was the fourth dearest.
Post Office Travel Money found that the bar bill cost 37.50 in Prague, including 1.63 for a bottle of beer, 2 for a glass of wine and 2.20 for a shot of tequila. The same 12 drinks cost more than twice as much in the Spanish coastal city of Marbella, which came bottom of the list at 93.
Eastern European cities dominated the top of the rankings, with Budapest at number two (39) followed by Krakow (44), Riga (64) and Tallinn (68).
Calculated
Palma on the island of Majorca emerged as the cheapest in Western Europe at 73, while Dublin was at number 12 (81).
The totals were calculated by taking the average price for each drink at several restaurants, bars and nightclubs in each city.
Andrew Brown of the UKs Post Office Travel Money said: Our research shows that the cost of a special celebration evening out can vary dramatically, depending on your choice of drink and which city you visit. Check out prices before booking a city break because some advance homework can help to ensure the bar bill doesnt bust the celebration budget.
This is the ranking of 16 popular European city break destinations based on the cost of 12 drinks for travellers (total in brackets), according to Post Office Travel Money:
1. Prague, Czech Republic (37.50); 2. Budapest, Hungary (39); 3. Krakow, Poland (44); 4. Riga, Latvia (64); 5. Tallinn, Estonia (68); 6. Palma, Majorca (73); 7. Berlin, Germany (75); 8. Amsterdam, Netherlands (75); 9. Barcelona, Spain (79); 10. London, UK (79); 11. Rome, Italy (80); 12. Dublin, Ireland (81); 13. Paris, France (81); 14. Ibiza Town, Ibiza (85); 15. Bruges, Belgium (85); 16. Marbella, Spain (93).
A woman in her 30s has been hailed a hero for fearlessly diving into a river to save a child who had slipped and fallen into the water.
The rescuer, Maria Foley from Cobh, Co Cork, was the focus of glowing tributes from Cork fire brigade, gardai and Irish Water Safety for the remarkable courage she displayed in saving the three-year-old girl from the River Lee at Cork city centre quays.
Ms Foley - who had to be winched to safety from the river with the child - shrugged off the tributes of onlookers at St Patrick's Quay.
"Anyone would have done the same," she told one rescue volunteer. "All that matters is that the child is OK."
Hailed
Her son Kyle publicly hailed his mother for being a hero. "So happy the child is safe mam. You are a hero for doing this," he posted on social media. "Love you - so happy you are okay. Mam saved a beautiful child's life by jumping into the river."
The little girl was walking with an au pair at noon in Cork city centre yesterday when she suddenly ran forward to look at fish swimming in the River Lee.
However, before the au pair could grab her, the child slipped on a wet surface and skidded beneath safety railings and into the river. The incident occurred near the Brian Boru Bridge with the nearby streets packed with shoppers, commuters and holiday makers.
Ms Foley, who was walking nearby, saw what happened and immediately jumped into the water to rescue the child.
She had to jump more than 10 feet into the water below to reach the little girl. The au pair was also about to jump into the water but was urged by other pedestrians to remain onshore to assist with the rescue.
The brave woman grabbed the child in the water and managed to get to the quay wall which she used as a support to keep both afloat until the emergency services arrived.
She held the child over her head with one hand while holding onto the quay wall with her other hand.
Cork fire brigade third officer Victor Shine said the woman's actions required quick-thinking and remarkable stamina.
"Maria displayed incredible heroism by going into the water to rescue this child. Her actions and her courage undoubtedly saved this little girl's life," he said.
A male pedestrian rang the emergency services and stayed on the quay wall directly above the stranded pair to offer encouragement.
Treatment
Because there was no ladder access and he was afraid to get Ms Foley to move from safety at the quay wall, he could not drag them to safety.
Cork fire brigade units and gardai were at the scene three minutes later. Ms Foley and the child were both removed from the river having spent less than five minutes in the water.
Medical treatment was given at the scene to both the woman and little girl. Both avoided serious injury in the incident.
However, as a precautionary measure they were taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital for medical assessment. The child was deeply shocked. Both were discharged yesterday evening. Locals have now vowed to nominate Ms Foley for a water safety award to honour her courage.
Today is exactly halfway to Shavuot! Or, weve just completed counting four omer!
And most of you are saying, "Huh, what?"
Lets go back just a little. There is a slight possibility that you remember my admitting that I am an April fool. In context of fourth century Christianity that meant that I observe the biblically commanded feasts instead of the celebrations that the Catholic church created.
So, the biblical New Year is usually around April first. All of the festivals commanded in Lev. 23 and Deut. 16 follow from that date on the Hebrew calendar.
Why is that important? Why should we even care? Because God loved us and wanted to reveal His plan for us. Each one of the festivals is both historic and prophetic. These festivals tell us what to expect.
The first festival commanded is Pesach or Passover. That is followed by the week of unleavened bread. Those show us that Yeshua, Jesus, is our Passover lamb, offered as atonement for our sins so that we can receive the gift of eternal life.
Upon accepting that gift by repenting of our sins and accepting Yeshua as our Messiah, Savior and King, we are made sinless, symbolized by eating no leaven that week.
But then there is the momentous tiny ceremony tucked in there. In Lev. 23:10-11 we are told "Speak to Bnei-Yisrael [children of Israel] and tell them: When you have come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you are to bring the omer of the firstfruits of your harvest to the kohen [priest]. 11 He is to wave the omer before ADONAI, to be accepted for you. On the morrow after the Shabbat, the kohen is to wave it." (Holy Bible, Tree of Life Version)
Theres that odd word "omer." An omer is a sheaf. In this case, its a sheaf from the early, smaller harvest of barley.
We see that it was imperative for the priest to cut and wave the first sheaf of barley on the day after the Sabbath during the days of unleavened bread. Only after that sheaf was accepted by God as a proper sacrifice could the children of Israel begin the spring harvest.
Deut. 16 tells us what to do next. Verses 9-10 say, "Seven weeks you are to count for yourself from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain you will begin to count seven weeks. 10 Then you will keep the Feast of Shavuot . . . ." (TLV)
That harvest then was counted in weeks until the next festival, and to emphasize the harvest it is customary to count each week as an omer or sheaf.
Today we are smack in the middle of that counting.
So whats the big deal? Well, after His resurrection Yeshua appeared to the disciples for 40 days. And then He told them something vital!
In Acts 1:4-6 we are told, "Now while staying with them, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father promised which, He said, you heard from Me. 5 For John immersed with water, but you will be immersed in the Ruach ha-Kodesh [Holy Spirit] not many days from now." (TLV)
No wonder they gathered together on Shavuot! That word means "weeks" because we are to be counting the weeks from Passover to that day. Thats the Hebrew, but most people know it as Pentecost, from the Greek "to count 50".
Today is right in the middle week four. Can you imagine the excitement and anticipation the disciples were feeling at the end of the fourth week after Yeshuas resurrection? He was appearing to disciples, He had fulfilled Passover and the wave sheaf right on time, and they knew the Kingdom of God was very near!
Do we?
Each of those people, from chief apostle to newest convert, had to know that they had been called out, chosen, for an important job. They knew they were called individually but they also understood that they were part of a whole. They knew that they needed to be together as a group, as a congregation, and so they were together in that upper room, praying and anticipating.
And, wow, did God show up!
Do you want more of God in your life? Believe it or not, thats tough to do if you isolate yourself from other believers. And far too many believers are choosing to be loners in their walk of faith.
Can you have a relationship with God without a congregation? Yes. But thats not what He intends.
Congregations and their leaders can be a real pain to deal with. But when we seek Gods leading as to where He wants us to worship, both we and the congregation benefit, if we only have faith.
Rom. 8:23-39 just brims over with encouragement. But Rom. 8:28 is the verse I love most in all of scripture. "Now we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose." (TLV)
If you have accepted Yeshua, Jesus, as your Savior then you are called according to His purpose. If you are planted in a congregation, prayerfully pursue more service. And if you are not planted with a congregation, prayerfully find one.
Come on, brethren! Theres work to do! Only three weeks left to harvest!
Terrific 10: Championship season brings out best in county athletes
Tesla Cup and Central Maryland Conference championships were decided last week, with county teams and athletes rising to the occasion.
An image of bright red lipstick looks glamorous on a plain white paper. On the other side, hangs another paper with a similar image, but in blue.
A lipstick image is considered top fashion and wow! but a similar image on pants is gross, eew!, says artist Saviya Lopez, 22. The young artist questions this contradiction through her works as part of an art exhibition titled River with a thousand holes.
In the exhibition, five women artists address issues concerning the plight of women and deterioration of the environment, says co-curator Zasha Colah. Drawing parallels across works, Colah says the exhibitions theme is eco-feminism.
Partition, by Sucheta Ghadge talks about drawing artificial partitions in rivers and forest lands for the benefit of humans.
A branch of feminism that co-relates devastation of environment with policies against women, says Colah. For instance, Saviya in one of her works charts her Mumbai-based mothers life and the fact that she has no time to pursue her passions and hobbies. While fulfilling the needs of urban living my mother and other women in city hardly have any time left for themselves.
In the work I dont bleed blue, artist Saviya Lopez ridicules advertisers practice of showing blue instead of red on sanitary napkins.
Then there is Kumari Ranjeeta, 30, whose works talk of farmlands getting destroyed to make room for concrete jungles, and the plight of farmers and their families who work as construction labourers on the same site.
Landscape, by Kumari Ranjeeta - The bricks made of jowar, bajri, mustard seeds and cement indicate how more and more farm lands are turned into concrete jungles and in the process, the production of local Indian seeds is dwindling, posing a threat to its extinction.
Artist Maria-Maika Koeing, 54, highlights the plight of those women who fled from Turkey during the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923, where about 2 million people were forced to be refugees. My works also deal with subjects such as marriage and how a woman is boxed into the roles of a wife, a mother and a homemaker, says Koeing.
Mans gift but fire - the miniature images talks of the confinement of women to the roles of a wife and a nurturer. Maria-Maika Koeing sticks lace borders around all her frames. These borders belong to Greek women in Turkey, who fled the latter to live in Greece in 1923, during the population exchange between two countries.
Sucheta Ghadge, 30, and Shernavaz Colah, 59, art deals with destruction of the environment and highlight building of boundaries around nature, whether in rivers or forest lands.
Monkeys in Khandala, by Shernavaz is an ink drawing is inspired by an incident that the artist witnessed she saw people in the hill station trying to shoo away monkeys. Through this, she tells viewers that we are the intruders in their territory and that they should not be ousted from their home.
WHERE: Clark House Initiative, Clark House, Nathalal Parekh Marg, Colaba
WHEN: Until June 5, 11 am to 7 pm. Closed on Monday
CALL: 98198-43334
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[We] assure you with the utmost sincerity that distance has not made the slightest difference in our love and affection for you; that we remember you, and remember you very often, with the same brotherly feeling that for so long characterised our relations.
The words are from a letter (above right) written to Amar Kapur, by his friend, Asif Khwaja on April 6, 1949, after the Kapurs left Lahore after Partition. The Kapurs lived at 7, Egerton Street in Lahore and had stayed on after Partition until they finally left their home on September 5, 1947. The pain of leaving his home is still etched in Amars memory, he even remembers the exact time when they left, 4.30 pm.
Many of us have heard such stories in our families or from others, of suffering and of longing. The memories were hardly chronicled, let alone documented in a Partition museum. Last year, journalist Kuldip Nayar had written about how he wanted to establish a museum on Partition soon after August 1947, but he found that the wounds were too raw.
Watch: A sneak peek into the past
This fear, of losing a part of our history, led to the start of the Partition Museum Project last year. The project plans to establish a museum, a peoples museum, in Amritsar, Punjab, by the year end, to commemorate the 70th year of the largest mass migration in history in 2017.
We dont have any documentation and we dont know about the trauma of the people who went through Partition. It is part of our heritage, says Kishwar Desai, chair of the trust that is helming the museum project. Desais parents also came from Lahore. The stories are important. We are witnessing large scale migration even today where people go through the trauma of displacement.
Read | Looking backwards and forwards from Partition
The museum will have oral histories, photographs, documents, objects that people brought with them, among other material. Its a work in progress but they already have more than 2,000 recorded histories. An exhibition, Rising From the Dust: Hidden Tales from Indias 1947 Refugee Camps, at New Delhis India Habitat Centre will be showcasing selected items over the next few days.
This letter was written to Amar Kapur by his friend Asif Khwaja, after the Kapurs had left Lahore after Partition. Amar lived with his parents and siblings at 7, Egerton Street in Lahore. They had stayed on after Partition while everyone around them left. They finally left their home on September 5, 1947, at 4.30pm.
Khwajas letter is also a part of the exhibition. The projects primary objective is to document the stories of people who migrated to India. Like SP Rawals story, who was just seven during Partition (see box below) or the story of Leelavati Khannas favourite book, about a Muslim artist Abdur Rahman Chughtai, the one thing that remained with her family as a marker of their home. Then how real was this division of culture into Hindu and Muslim?, reads the placard above the box that displays the dilapidated book at the exhibition.
Oral histories will be recorded during the exhibition too. So if you have a story to share, an item that you want to share, head to the venue or email them at thepartitionmuseum@gmail.com.
Rising from the Dust: Hidden Tales from Indias 1947 Refugee Camps
Where: Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre
When: 10.30 am to 8 pm; till May 26
Call: 24682001
Tales from Indias 1947 Partition refugee camps
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Vijayakanths DMDK will lose its status as a regional party after getting just 3% votes in the Tamil Nadu assembly elections in what is being seen as the final nail in the coffin for the actor-turned-politician chief ministerial ambitions.
Election Commission rules stipulates that regional parties have to secure at least 6% of the total votes to be officially recognized, officials said on Saturday.
The dominance of the two Dravidian majors during the elections means that, officially, Tamil Nadu now only has two state parties -- the ruling AIADMK and the DMK.
Chief minister J Jayalalithaa bucked a 30-year-long trend in the state to retain power, winning 134 seats with her allies while the DMK and its partners took the remaining 98.
Read More | Amma power: AIADMK emerges victorious in Tamil Nadu polls
The much-vaunted third front led by Vijayakanth, which comprised a six-party alliance between the DMDK, the PWF and the TMC, failed to make a dent in the elections, only securing 6.1% of the vote share.
In 2011, the DMDK managed to get 7.8% when it contested in alliance with Jayalalithaas AIADMK.
Its a sorry end for a party which had initially surpassed all expectations by becoming the official opposition five years ago.
As for 63-year-old Vijayakanth, the mercurial DMDK chief known as Captain, took to Twitter to thank his supporters and assured them that fate will be re-written.
He also shared images of his next film, Tamizhan Endru Sol (Say you are a Tamilian), expected to be released later this year.
But for the man who himself lost from Ulundurpet another political blockbuster seems a distant dream.
Read More : In bipolar TN, actor Vijayakanths 3rd front may not be a blockbuster
Everyone can stop waiting for the announcement with bated breath because Salman Khan has said that he will tell his fans through Facebook or Twitter about his plans to get married.
His remarks came soon after his brother Sohail reportedly got agitated and badly abused a journalist late Thursday night when he and their father Salim Khan came out of a restaurant, and amidst a crowd, were asked questions about Salmans marriage.
At the announcement of the IIFA Awards this year, Salman, to queries about if Sohail had misbehaved, said: He didnt misbehave. At 12 in the night, you are asking my father when am I getting married. Youre putting mikes and cameras to his face. He is 80 years old. What is that?
Read: Salman Khan sends three bodyguards for Iulia Vantur?
Salman Khan recently arrived at Mumbai airport along with mom Salma and rumoured girlfriend Iulia. (HT Photo)
Sohail had revealed that he got angry as the media had got aggressive and his 80-year-old father lost balance as lights, microphones and questions were fired at him.
Asked when is he getting married, Salman said, Why should I tell you? Ill tell my fans through Facebook and Twitter.
Read: Arbaaz on Salman Khans wedding rumours- You think Ill answer that?
Ever since Salman stepped out with his rumoured girlfriend Iulia Vantur, a Romanian news presenter, at Preity Zintas wedding, rumours were rife that the couple are going to get married soon. The camaraderie between Iulia and Salmans mother Salma at the airport, also indicated that things between them are getting formalized soon.
When his brother Arbaaz was asked about it on Thursday, he neither confirmed nor denied it.
Follow @htshowbiz for more
Actor Randeep Hooda hopes Bollywood film Sarbjit, which tells the hard-hitting story of an Indian farmer who was held captive and eventually died in a Pakistan jail, becomes the basis of protest against cases wherein people are punished merely for their origin.
Directed by Omung Kumar, Sarbjit is based on the real life story of Sarabjit Singh, who was convicted by Pakistani courts for spying and terrorism. He languished in a Pakistani jail for 23 years starting 1990, while his sister Dalbir Kaur, tried vigorously to get him released.
Randeep, who essays the title role in the movie, told reporters here: Sarabjit was tortured because he was an Indian rather than for what he was accused of. The film brings that point out.
If in India we are doing this to Pakistanis, then its wrong.
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Randeep Hooda during promotion of their upcoming film Sarbjit, in New Delhi on Friday. (PTI)
The actor cited the example of Mumbai-based engineer Hamid N. Ansari, who was sentenced to jail for three years by a Pakistani military court for espionage after he had crossed over to Pakistan from Afghanistan in 2012 and then went missing. He was later arrested and tried by a Pakistani military court, which pronounced him guilty of espionage.
Randeep pointed out: Both sides (India and Pakistan) should extend their hand now. Pakistan has an opportunity to extend a hand towards our government via his (Ansaris) case and India too has this opportunity to start making things right, perhaps. The honest people caught up on both sides should be released in this.
Read: Sarbjit Review-Aishwaryas yelling drowns the voice of Sarabjits sister
Sarbjit could definitely work as a basis of protest against the unfair, it might just shake things up and bring ones separated people together.
Sarbjit star-cast Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Randeep Hooda give an award to Dalbir Kaur, sister of Sarbjit Singh at a press conference to promote the upcoming film Sarbjit in Ahmedabad on Sunday. (PTI)
Referring to the India-Pakistan partition, Randeep said the division between brotherhood was a stupidity.
The actor was here to promote Sarbjit -- featuring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in a pivotal role as Dalbir Kaur.
Randeep believes a family culture is very much embedded in India.
After watching the movie, you will appreciate your family more, said the actor, who has Richa Chadha in the role of his onscreen wife in the movie.
Follow @htshowbiz for more
Actor Salman Khan has come to the defense of his brother Sohail Khan, who got embroiled in a spat with a mediaperson over questions about his impending wedding. On Thursday night, Sohail had reportedly misbehaved with a journalist who asked director Salim Khan to comment on the news about Salmans wedding plans with his rumoured Romanian girlfriend Iulia Vantur.
Sohail, along with his father Salim Khan and mother had gone for a dinner at a restaurant in Bandra where he was asked about Salmans wedding plans. Sohail reportedly lost his cool and abused the reporter.
Read: Salman Khan sends three bodyguards for Iulia Vantur?
At an event on Friday, when Salman was asked if he was aware of the incident, he retorted: He didnt misbehave. I dont think he will misbehave.
Read: In pics | Salman Khans mom accepts Iulia Vantur as the bahu?
Salman urged the media to refrain from hounding his family members, especially his parents. My dad is 80. You cant come and stick your mikes in front of him. What if he falls? This happened with Sohail... Please dont try this stuff with me, my parents, my family, friends, especially my mother, Helen aunty and my dad.
Read: Salman will tweet if hes getting married, so everyone get back to work
We are young people, you can do it with us. You wouldnt like it if we do it with your parents... Have some respect.
Salman said Sohail was concerned for the elders. Blaming the media for the situation, Salman said: He (Sohail) was not abusing you. If you guys had behaved yourself, it wouldnt have happened.
You guys were provoking. What is this ridiculous statement you want to find out at 12 o clock at night about whether I want to get married or not. Media should maintain decorum.
As some of you may remember, I recently ate my way through Sydney. So before I went off to Japan, I resolved that this would not be a food trip, with damaging consequences to my shape, my health and my wallet. Besides, I had eaten in Japan before. On my very first trip there I did the whole ramen thing, slurping down ramen noodles, and I discovered the joys (short-lived, as it turned out) of conveyor-belt sushi.
On a second trip, as part of a foodie delegation, we were hosted by the dark-suited executives of the Ajinomoto Corporation, who took us to many excellent restaurants, few of which we could have afforded on our own.
So I decided that I was not going to bankrupt myself by going to the top Japanese restaurants. And, by and large, I succeeded. On my first night in Tokyo, I asked the hotel concierge to recommend a place that tourists never went to. He looked dubious but sent us off to a small, crowded alley in Shinjuku. Many of the restaurants were jam-packed but we found a table at a small family-run restaurant where only the daughter who served us, spoke a smattering of English. We ordered sukiyaki and Asahi beer and enjoyed the first night of our trip in Japan.
The sukiyaki was great, but we were more fascinated by two middle-aged salarymen at the next table who were knocking back the sake. At the end of their meal, they had an exchange with the waitress which we could not follow as it was in Japanese. But it quickly turned nasty as the older of the two men started grunting loudly and angrily. The waitress crossed her arms across her chest and held her ground.
The kaiseki at a restaurant in Kyoto. (Getty Images)
Then, the younger of the two men turned and saw that we had stopped talking to each other and were staring at them. He responded with such speed that it was as though somebody had flipped a switch. Ah, so sorry. So sorry, he said to us, bowing his head. So sorry.
We looked mystified. Fortunately, he spoke a little English. The old owners of this restaurant very good. Now, new owner, he said, sadly. His companion nodded.
We had no idea what this was about but to mitigate his embarrassment, I said Yes, of course.
The two men got up, bowed to us and left without another word. Our waitress acted as though nothing had happened and our meal resumed without further incident.
Welcome to Japan!
On our second night, I thought we might risk going a little more upmarket and asked around for a teppanyaki place. It was a holiday so nearly everything good was closed. By default, we ended up at Morimoto, the Tokyo outpost of the global empire of Masaharu Morimoto, who collaborates with the Taj group on the Wasabis in Delhi and Bombay.
From the moment I entered, I knew this was a mistake. The restaurant was Tourist Central and if there were any Japanese guests then they were only there because they were escorting American business associates.
Japanese chef Yoshihiro Narisawa (left) restaurant is outstanding (AFP)
The food was fine. We had Morimotos signature dish of oyster, sea urchin and foie gras (it was on the first menu at the Bombay Wasabi) and steaks and while it was hardly a memorable meal, there was nothing to complain about.
But service was shockingly bad. Waiters struggled to avoid eye contact with guests, dirty tables went uncleared for up to 20 minutes and a young French waiter told us that he was actually in the import-export business but worked here part-time because 65 to 70 per cent of the guests only speak English and I need to practise my English.
For much of the rest of my trip, I stuck to little sushi places and tiny restaurants where the wife cooked and the husband served, and I never had a bad meal.
But, ultimately, from force of habit, I ended up booking three great restaurants, anyway.
Read: Japan is full of delights in cherry blossom season
The first was a no-brainer. I was staying at the Park Hyatt, the hotel where Lost In Translation was shot. One of the more famous scenes in the movie was shot at the New York Grill, on the highest floor of the hotel. And since Lost In Translation became a worldwide hit, the New York Grill has been a Tokyo landmark: for the view, the band and the food. Given that we were staying in the hotel, it seemed silly not to go.
And it turned out to be the right thing to do. The steaks were perfect and the sides (fries and mushrooms) even better. I bumped into Gresham Fernandes, the chef who, last year, cooked me the best European meal Ive had in Bombay for ages. Gresham was on a foodie tour of Japan. And I bumped into the designer Paul Smith who let me in on a secret. The New York Grill has an Indian chef. And for regulars like Paul Smith (who stays at the Park Hyatt every time he is in Tokyo and eats at the Grill every day), they will ask the Indian chef to make curry and rice!
The food at chef Masaharu Morimotos restaurant was unmemorable. (Getty Images)
The second of my big (ie expensive) meals was in Kyoto. A friend of a friend had managed to secure a booking for us at Kawakami, a casual kaiseki (kappo) restaurant in Kyoto. Kawakami is a favourite among Japanese foodies and is reported to have been the favourite restaurant of Apples Steve Jobs. (No idea if this is true, but that is the reputation). It is famous for what the chef does with the local tai fish. (Nopes. Me neither. It says on the net that it is a Japanese sea bream).
Ive heard of restaurants like Kawakami but never been there. It is located in Gion, the so-called restaurant district of Kyoto, on a tiny street in a row of more or less identical small houses. There is a dining room with a counter, around which ten people can sit. And there is a private dining room (for around six people I think). And thats it.
It is full every night so when we went there were 16 people in the house, serviced by a large kitchen (around six or seven cooks), one hostess (who spoke a little English), two senior chefs behind the counter and one man who wore a white lab coat like all the others. (All Japanese chefs dress like scientists). Except that his coat said Captain. I have no idea what this signifies, but I discovered later that he was the owner.
There is no menu. You eat what they give you. And it aint cheap: around US$230 or so per head without liquor. If, like me, you cant speak Japanese, then you have no real idea of what you are eating and a lot of the meal is spent in trying to work out what the hell is being served.
But it was worth it (at least for one visit; Ill never go back) just to watch the sheer artistry of the chef. Much of the meal was cold and he made it in front of our eyes, slicing very fresh fish, carving vegetables and arranging perfect plates. There was no meat at all; just fish and vegetables, all of it presented with raw beauty.
Morimoto is Tourist Central, and has terrible service.
As you may have guessed, the flavours were too delicate for my masaledaar palate so I didnt really enjoy all of the food. At some stage, I think they worked this out and served us some rice, which they had not served the other guests.
But this was Japan. So we mimed to indicate that we loved it. And the Captain and the hostess pretended to be delighted by our praise. And when the evening ended, they walked us out of the tiny street to the main road and told us where to find a taxi, bowing before they departed.
The final great meal of the trip on our last, full day in Japan was at Narisawa, one of Tokyos most famous restaurants. As you probably know, the French love Japan. Many French chefs have restaurants in Japan. So Tokyo has more Michelin-starred restaurants than Paris.
But Michelin likes one of two kinds of restaurant. The inspectors love the Tokyo outposts of great French chefs and applaud those Japanese chefs who cook French cuisine. And, somewhat to the surprise of the rest of the world, Michelin has cracked Japanese cuisine. So the great classical Japanese chefs and the sushi masters are all honoured. (Kawakami in Kyoto, for instance, has one Michelin star).
However, the Michelin inspectors are not wild about Japanese chefs who try and fuse the French and Japanese traditions. Nobu, the most influential Japanese chef in the world (and the creator of modern Japanese cuisine) doesnt even get a look in and his Tokyo restaurant remains unstarred.
The New York Grill at the Park Hyatt has been a Tokyo landmark, for its food as well as the view
Yoshihiro Narisawa is luckier than Nobu. But the Michelin inspectors still wont give him his due. Narisawa is regarded by other chefs as a genius (and usually makes the Top Ten in the San Pellegrino list of the worlds best restaurants) but Michelin will not give him three stars. In this years guide, the other restaurants are described as French or Japanese. But Narisawa is dismissed with Innovative.
I dont know how Narisawa, who is French-trained, feels about the snub. But I do know that I had the best meal of my trip at his restaurant.
All of it was extraordinary. The ingredients were fresh: the langoustine came from a tank in the basement and had been killed in the kitchen just before the meal. And most were traditionally Japanese: fugu or blowfish, sea snake from Okinawa, which was turned into a soup and wonderful Kobe beef, cooked by having hot olive oil poured on it.
So, after three trips to Japan, what have I learned about the food? Well, first of all, it is very good. It is almost impossible to eat badly in Japan no matter how cheap the meal is. Even an egg sandwich at a 7-Eleven can be delicious.
Read: Want a foodie holiday? Head to Sydney
But, as my meal at Kawakami taught me, Japanese is a complex cuisine. There are layers and layers of flavour and it takes years to understand what the food is about.
Just because a foreigner likes chicken tikka masala, it does not mean that he knows anything about Indian food.
So it is with Japanese cuisine. We love the sushi, the ramen and the teppanyaki. But, given how complicated the food of Japan is, that is only a very tentative beginning.
From HT Brunch, May 22, 2016
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Once upon a time, the only way you knew anything about your favourite Bollywood people was via gossip magazines. Now, thanks to Twitter, you see them the way they actually are.
Of all the Indian celebrities tapping out 140-character snippets for their followers, actor Rishi Kapoor and directors Shirish Kunder and Ram Gopal Varma are the pithiest and most acerbic, showing sides of themselves their fans perhaps never imagined.
This, says Pratiksha Rao, head of media partnerships for Southeast Asia at Twitter, is why their accounts simply buzz with followers. More popular accounts are set apart from the others because they are a fun mix of who the personalities are and the things they talk about, says Rao. They showcase a previously unseen side to themselves.
Heres what makes @chintskap, @ShirishKunder and @RGVzoomin tick.
Rishi Kapoor: Straight- talking thespian
I do not tweet to please people, I tweet because I want to
(Photo: Manoj Sharma)
Was Rishi Kapoor the original chocolate hero? Going by his Twitter timeline, the veteran actor is more caustic than chocolate. Why the term Chocolate heroes please? tweets Kapoor. Humen dekhkar chocolate yaad aata hai? Aur jo nahin woh kya nimbuheroes hain?. The father of todays superstar Ranbir and, one of the most successful actors from the first family of Bollywood, has been more in the news in recent times for his forthright comments on politics, co-stars and poking fun at himself: all hitting the mark in 140 characters or less.
I dont smoke; right now I am also jobless, says Kapoor. So whenever I am bored, I tweet!
Kapoors tweets are often witty, and almost always drenched in an acidic humour that is hard to resist. So much so that, of his more than million followers on Twitter, a fair number sign up for his tweets less because hes a star and more because hes so funny.
When I started tweeting, my wife was dead against it, says Kapoor. She thought I would miff a lot of people. But people liked my posts, they were honest and upfront. So I continued. I never force myself to be funny to get attention. This is how I am. People like that, and my following on Twitter keeps growing. But I never expected it to become this big.
Tweeting his mind
Why Indira G airport International ? Why not Mahatma Gandhi or Bhagat Singh Ambedkar or on my name Rishi Kapoor. As superficial! What say? Rishi Kapoor (@chintskap) May 17, 2016
Kapoors tweets are never limited to just one topic or kind of style. Go to his Twitter feed and you may find a still from the film Rafoo Chakkar in which he is dressed as a girl, or his agonised tweet looking back at his own sartorial choices: What guts! Dont miss the red shoes and the red belt. Aaaagggghhhhhhh.
What makes him different from other celebrities online? Kapoor talks to his followers as he might chat with his friends, with honesty and forthrightness, about whatever comes to his mind. Unlike most actors, he does not use Twitter to promote himself or his films, and that, on a PR-heavy platform, is indeed refreshing.
What I tweet depends on what I feel, what mood I am in, he says. I am a very honest and outspoken person in real life, and that reflects in my tweets. Sometimes people dont take it kindly, sometimes they dont get my sense of humour, sometimes they contradict my views just for the heck of it, and sometimes they really like it. Whichever the case, it doesnt really matter to me: I am not tweeting to please people, I am tweeting because I want to.
Change Gandhi family assets named by Congress.Bandra/Worli Sea Link to Lata Mangeshkar or JRD Tata link road. Baap ka maal samjh rakha tha ? Rishi Kapoor (@chintskap) May 17, 2016
Most of his tweets are directed at himself. Check this out: Obesity is not because it runs in the Kapoor family! It is because no one runs in the Kapoor family!
But he is just as forthright about political issues. When BJP MLA Ganesh Joshi brutally beat up police horse Shaktiman in Dehradun, he demanded legal action. And when Sunny Leone was subjected to some offensive questions during an interview, Kapoor tweeted: Very unfair& rude interview with Sunny Leone on CNN IBN. She is taking it on her chin sportingly, obviously in the interest of her coming film.
Kapoor says he is simply exercising his right to free speech. I have the right to speak my mind on a social platform. If I feel strongly about an issue, I tweet my opinion on it, he says.
I try to not be hurtful. I am not a hypocrite, he adds. In one or two instances I might have come close to being one, and retracted my statements. If I say something and then realise that I was wrong, I immediately apologise. I treat my Twitter followers as my family.
Facing Trolls
Sometimes even speech as direct as Kapoors can be misconstrued, as it was when he greeted Twinkle Khanna on her birthday with: Happy Birthday dear one! You were in your mums tummy when I was serenading her in Bobby Aksar koi Ladkain 1973 lol.
Quick as a tweet, rumours spread that Twinkles mother Dimple Kapadia might have been pregnant before she married Rajesh Khanna. But Kapoor was having none of that. Kuch logon ko problem Kya hai? Kakaji and Dimple were married, Bobby was still incomplete, we shot that song when Dimple was 3 months pregnant, he tweeted, annoyed.
Controversy struck again when, while shooting for Kapoor & Sons, he took a dig at Alia Bhatts IQ and Sonakshi Sinhas weight. Fans, feminists and activists were enraged. Kapoor deleted the tweet, but stated that both actresses concerned were like his own kids. These guys know me too well to feel offended by such a tweet! Kapoor says with a laugh.
More than trolls, what irritates Kapoor most are people who follow him hoping to get in touch with his actor son Ranbir Kapoor. Since Ranbir is not there on any social networking sites, I get so many posts from his girl fans and if I dont respond to their posts, they get offended. Youngsters today are so childish! he bellows.
It is time, perhaps to re-post his tweet that had his followers on Twitter double over with laughter (see picture): A Grumpy Cat with a sign: Im not Ranbirs mailbox!
Ananya Ghosh
Follow @ananya1281 on Twitter
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Shirish Kunder: The Jokester
On Twitter, theres no filter between how I think and write
(Photo by Vidya Subramanian/ Hindustan Times) (Hindustan Times)
For the longest time, the only way people knew Shirish Kunder was as Mr Farah Khan the man married to one of Bollywoods most successful directors and charming women, who appeared to display neither success nor charm himself. Kunder, we thought, based on the films he made and the gossip about him, was a non-achiever. He was just a man with some weird ideas of filmmaking.
So it was a jaw-dropper of mega proportions when we first encountered a tweet from the handle @ShirishKunder, laughed our heads off, floored by its intelligence, wit and sarcasm, and then thought, Huh? Shirish Kunder?
It was like the universe had suddenly been swallowed by a black hole and spat out completely rejigged when, still doubtful, we went to the film editor-turned-directors timeline and saw that all the tweets were like that. Yes, this was Shirish Kunder but what a different person he is with an @ attached to his name.
Tweeting his mind
Kunder is not at all different on Twitter from what he is in real life. Hes been this way on the social media platform since he first signed up in 2009, but at that time, the Twitterverse was not ready for the real Shirish Kunder.
Baba Ramdev, preparing to make his next statement. pic.twitter.com/A8fQVQ0aHT Shirish Kunder (@ShirishKunder) April 17, 2016
People judged me on the basis on the films I made, he says. But in both (Jaan-E-Mann and Joker), the result was a dilution of what I had intended. On Twitter, theres no filter between how I think and write; its my truest self.
Dripping with sarcasm
Kunder uses Twitter to exercise his humour. Hes abreast with current affairs and frequently calls famous personalities out for their stupidity. He has close to three lakh followers and more than a few of his tweets have been retweeted over a thousand times. The tweet, Delhi govt must learn from Haryana. Instead of wasting time improving the education system, just change its [sic] name to Indraprastha. #Gurugram, is a masterpiece of sarcasm.
In 2009, when I joined Twitter, a lot of people would say Yeh saala kya bol raha hai, samajh mein nahi aata. But I think peoples sense of humour has evolved in the last few years, says Kunder.
When someone tries to pull you down, do not misunderstand them. They're only looking for company. Shirish Kunder (@ShirishKunder) April 15, 2016
Kunders tweets are up to the minute, something that comes from his tremendous interest in the world around him.
Since I rarely hang out with others from the industry, I spend all that time on my laptop, says Kunder. I read about everything, especially political affairs. To be able to write well, it is important for one to be aware of everything thats happening. Thats where you find your stories.
He often takes politicians to task for their ignorant statements, accompanying his comments with gifs and pop-culture references. Tweeting a picture of Anupam Kher and Ashoke Pandit at the airport recently, Kunder called them Batman and Robin.
Batman & Robin detained at Srinagar airport and sent back. pic.twitter.com/luVAsshwoW Shirish Kunder (@ShirishKunder) April 10, 2016
When I see something stupid, a funny picture comes in front of my eyes, and I tweet it, he says. As for sarcasm, a lot of people find news boring. If something wrong is happening, I bring their attention to it through humour. They read it for the joke, but they also become aware. So the next time they vote or make a choice, they can make an informed one.
Kunders retreat to his laptop may actually make his professional life better. My popularity on Twitter gives me faith to do the kind of work that I want, says Kunder. My upcoming short film, Kriti, has turned out exactly how I thought it would. And Twitters 140-character format has helped my dialogue writing. Earlier, we would write long dialogues to make a point. Now, you can do the same with short, punchy lines.
Shikha Kumar
Follow @TheCommanist on Twitter
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Ram Gopal Varma: Sensation Seeker
I like trolls... it makes me rich in knowledge about ...jobless idiots...
It may be three years since his last Bollywood release (though his biopic on Veerappan opens on May 27), but thanks to the many controversies Ram Gopal Varma tweets his way into, Bollywoods maverick director has never really been out of the news.
Last month, he invited the ire of Rajinikanth fans when, in a series of tweets, Varma called the cine legend a bad looker who knows just 2nd half dance movements. He then defended himself tweeting, Dumb fans of Rajni who didnt realise my tweets are a compliment should realise Rajni himself makes fun of himself. In the past, Varma, who has 1.81 million followers, has Twitter-sparred with Karan Johar, tweeted about the size of Sridevis thighs, questioned the existence of God and equated the governments ban on porn to what Taliban and ISIS is doing to freedom.
His political incorrectness makes him an easy target for trolls, but Varma says he enjoys dealing with Twitters mobs. I like trolls... it makes me rich in knowledge about the sheer number of jobless idiots out there in the dark recesses of Twitter.
- Supriya Sharma
From HT Brunch, May 22, 2016
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The merger of the erstwhile Indian Airlines and Air India (AI) is responsible for all the ills plaguing the state-owned carrier, which now has a bureaucracy bigger than even the Indian Railways, CMD Ashwani Lohani said in a blogpost.
He also indirectly lashed out at government agencies for red-flagging the national carriers various business decisions, saying: The role of the watchdogs is also really what dogs do. They wait and watch and jump at the slightest hint of movement, and in the process create an environment where movement if any is at the peril of the mover.
How can a outside agency be entrusted with the task of ensuring probity in public life? It is simply the job of the executive and if he lacks integrity, the organisation does not have a future either way.
Air India was merged with Indian Airlines in 2007. It has also been a drag on the balance sheet, with the merged airline posting its first operational profit, since the merger, in 2015-16.
It makes me sad when the common employee is often blamed for the ills of the organisation, whereas the real reason for the debacle lies elsewhere, in my opinion on the head honcho, Lohani said in the hard-hitting blog post. An organisation is only as good or as bad as the head honcho, everything else is merely a symptom. A merger that really never happened and in the process resulted in a chaotic situation, is at the back of all ills that we are currently witnessing.
I always believed that the great Indian railways was the mother of all bureaucracies, but not any longer. Here at the national carrier the ridiculousness of the process and the diehard belief therein has been carried to a mind-boggling extent.
AI, he said, is now slowly getting back on track, but still has miles to go before one can relax and watch the planes fly.
Talking about the operational problems, Lohani said: Eight months at the helm of the national carrier has been a hectic affair. With almost everything in disarray, be it operations or engineering, public image or commercial, finance, or even personnel, it was fairly obvious even to a novice like me that what this organisation indeed lacked was that one magical word leadership.
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I want to be as factual as I can. Opinion, passion or colourful language shouldnt be unnecessary. The truth can speak for itself.
On Monday, Gen. Vijay Kumar Singh, a former army chief and now minister of state for external affairs, wrote to Venkaiah Naidu, suggesting Akbar Road be renamed after Maharana Pratap in recognition to his valour and spirit of secularism. Mercifully, Mr Naidu has indicated he intends no such thing. However, I want to explain why the dear generals suggestion is both historically mistaken and unnecessary.
Read: Renaming Akbar Road not our job: Urban development minister Naidu
First, there already is a road in Delhi named after Maharana Pratap. Its in Karol Bagh. In addition, the full name of ISBT is Maharana Pratap Inter State Bus Terminus. But not just the dear general, many others might be unaware of that too. Finally, theres a large equestrian statue of the Maharana astride Chetak in the Parliament complex. It shows him in battle, possibly Haldighati. So the Maharana is well commemorated and the dear generals claim he has not been given his due is incorrect.
Now, lets turn to Emperor Akbar. He was as valorous and secular as the Maharana. In addition, he was considered a great administrator and anecdotal history records the high quality of his justice.
The critical facts of his life eloquently testify to his secularism. He married a Hindu Rajput princess popularised by Bollywood as Jodhabai. He created his own religion, attempting to absorb the best of all faiths, called Din-e-Illahi. He had The Mahabharata and The Ramayana translated into Persian. He repealed the jizya tax on non-Muslims (1564). Finally, Hindus played a prominent role at his court. Todarmal and Mansingh are two that immediately come to mind.
Read: Illegal posters rename Akbar Road after Maharana Pratap
Regardless of this, Subramanian Swamy, now a BJP MP, calls him a butcher and philanderer. Lokendra Kalvi, the president of the Rajput Sena, insists he was a foreigner. In contrast, Kalvi claims the Maharana was a nationalist.
Im not sure one can apply the concept of nationalism to the 16th century in a meaningful leave aside accurate way. If he was a nationalist, what do you make of the Maharanas many Rajput opponents who he often fought mercilessly? Were they anti-national?
Also, if Akbar, who was born, brought up and died in India, is a foreigner then, I presume, Kalvi considers all Muslims, albeit at one remove, foreigners? I dont.
Read: Tansen Samaroh countdown begins
However, if theres still need to do more then surely the road that should be renamed after the Maharana is Prithviraj Road? At the moment it commemorates a Hindu king who lost the 1192 Battle of Tarain to Mohammed Ghori. That led to nearly 700 years of Muslim rule in northern India, first under the Sultanate and, then, the Mughal Empire. Prithviraj, you could argue, aint a monarch to remember.
Theres also Mansingh Road and Todarmal Road and Lane. Neither can claim popular precedence over the Maharana whilst Todarmal, you might inaccurately claim, is the etymological origin of the word toady!
Read: Akbar was The Great, Maharana Pratap was The Great of Greats: Rajnath
Finally, a parting word about the dear general. Many suspect his motivation is an antipathy to Muslims and a subtle attempt to provoke. I cant be sure but if this suspicion is correct Im horrified a man who spent 40 years in the army and rose to be chief should have secretly harboured such sentiments. The fact hes now revealed them must be disillusioning for thousands of Muslims who once served under him.
Even if hes not blushing, the dear general has embarrassed the army. Actually, yet again!
The views expressed are personal.
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Congress sources say whats left of the party will hold a meeting to decide which minor flunkey to blame for the election debacle. There is no question of blaming the top leaders, since they have crafted the fine victory in Puducherry. A family retainer claimed Rahul Gandhi was extremely popular with voters. In fact, many voters were so hysterical with joy on seeing him they forgot to vote on election day, he added.
Congress insiders say the silver lining in the state election results is that Rahul may have to embark on another voyage of self-discovery. While rushing about during the elections, Rahul lost the self he found during his last vacation. Hell have to find a brighter, shinier self now, said a guy who hoped the journey will be a very long one.
Read: Stick to principles, no failure is permanent: Sonia to Congress workers
Disgruntled voters all over India admit that the Congress is their default anti-vote option. I feel dissatisfied all the time because of the boil on my bum and dont feel like voting for any party, so I just go and vote against the Congress, said a peevish voter. Congress insiders say it shows how important the party really is.
Exit pollsters faith in Indian voters has been restored. After the Bihar and Delhi elections, many of us felt Indian voters were habitual liars, who delighted in humiliating us. Thankfully, that opinion has now changed, said a pollster.
Sources in the BJP say the entire credit for the increase in its vote share in Kerala should go to Mr Modi. His brilliant remark about Kerala and Somalia consolidated the pro-Somalia vote in the state, enabling us to do so well, said a fan.
BJP insiders say while Amit Shah is happy with the results, he is riven by doubts whether he should gloat over them, smirk or preen. Hotheads in the party want him to do all three together, while simultaneously crowing. More cautious folk say he should merely cackle now, reserving the gloating for the UP polls.
Analysts say cultural factors played a major part in Mamatas landslide victory in Bengal. Playing Rabindrasangeet at Kolkata street crossings was a big hit, especially after the Left used to play Beethoven, said a pundit. Sources say the BJP has asked all its members to start training for the next elections by learning Rabindrasangeet and is hopeful of persuading Mr Modi to sing Ekla Chalo Re at his next Kolkata public meeting.
An AIADMK supporter said she always knew Amma would win. Once we won the battle of sops, especially by providing the 50% discount on scooties to women, the nine months maternity leave and the free goats, the opposition was finished, she boasted.
Read: DMK runs Jaya close but fails to cross the finish line
A Communist insider claims there is actually a lot of anti-incumbency sentiment against Mamata in West Bengal. But, unlike in other states, anti-incumbency in West Bengal means voting out the party in power after 34 years, he clarified.
And finally, about the Kerala elections, I grab the opportunity to say I told you so, pointing to this remarkably prescient verse I wrote back in 2014, Oommen Chandy/Thinks hes Gandhi/And Sudheeran, of course, is a bum/If they ban rum, whisky and brandy/ Just wait till the elections come.
Manas Chakravarty is Consulting Editor, Mint. The views expressed are personal.
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DEHRADUN: Chief minister Harish Rawat met BJP MP Tarun Vijay in a city hospital on Saturday, a day after he was injured in a stone-throwing incident while leading a group of Dalits into a temple in the tribal-dominated Chakrata area.
Vijay, a Rajya Sabha member from Uttarakhand, is undergoing treatment for head injuries at Max Hospital.
Vijayji is getting full medical care in the hospitalWe have also kept a helicopter in reserve in case doctors advise him to be shifted to some specialty hospital outside the state, the chief minister said.
Upper-caste villagers allegedly threw stones at the BJP MP and other members of the Dalit community outside the Sindugur Mahraj temple, where the entry of backward caste people is prohibited, in Chakratas Punah village on Friday.
Rawat has ordered an inquiry by Garhwal commissioner CS Napalchyal into the incident.
We have ordered a commissioner-level inquiry into the violent incident. Those responsible for it will soon be arrested, Rawat said on Saturday, after chairing an urgently called meeting to discuss the incident.
Apart from state home minister Preetam Singh, a Congress MLA from Chakrata, several senior administrative and police officials also attended the meeting.
Rawat said he had instructed the officials to ensure that the atmosphere of social amity in Charkara was not affected by Fridays violence. We are also appealing to the senior citizens and enlightened people of the area to ensure social harmony, he said.
Principal secretary (Home) Umakant Panwar said the chief minister had directed officials to increase the police presence in Chakrata.
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A 29-year-old man from Congo was allegedly assaulted and battered to death by three intoxicated men following an argument over hiring an autorickshaw in south Delhis Kishangarh near Vasant Kunj on Friday night.
The trio had an argument with the Congolese man, Masonda Ketada Olivier, after both of them insisted on boarding the same autorickshaw. The trio then assaulted Olivier, chased him, and hit him on the head with stones.
Olivier, a French language teacher at a private institute in south Delhis South Extension area, lived in a rented accommodation. He has been in the country for the last five years.
Read: For African students, racial taunts never end
The police arrested one of the attackers, Mobin Azad Saifi, eight hours after the crime with the help of CCTV camera footage from the area. The footage showed the three fleeing after attacking Olivier. Saifis past criminal record helped investigators identify him while examining the video footage.
The police raided his Kishangarh house and arrested him. The other two accused, Mukesh and Prakash alias Musa, are still at large.
Ishwar Singh, DCP (south), dismissed any racial angle to Oliviers murder. We have recorded statements of four eyewitnesses, but at no point did they mentioned about any racial comments on Olivier. The argument between Olivier and the accused started over boarding an autorickshaw and it soon escalated into an ugly fight, the DCP said.
Oliviers friends Sam and Jonathan, who were with him, did not allege any racial angle behind his murder. They, however, said that facing racial comments from locals is a routine affair.
People (in India) call us hapsi (a racial slang for Africans) or negros but we never take such comments seriously. We have no problem facing such comments. But please dont kill us for this reason, Sam said.
Around 11:30pm on Friday night, Olivier and Sam were waiting for an autorickshaw on the Asaf Ali Road. When Sam went to fetch a packet of cigarette, Olivier flagged down an autorickshaw. Around the same time, three inebriated men approached the driver and insisted to travel in the same vehicle.
This led to an argument and exchange of verbal abuses between Olivier and the three men. When Olivier sat in the vehicle, the three pulled him out and began assaulting him, a police officer said.
Four passersby rushed to rescue Olivier but they were also assaulted by the three men. Olivier ran inside the lane adjacent to the main road but the trio chased and attacked him again, this time with stones.
Olivier lay bleeding by the time a passerby called the police control room and he was rushed to AIIMS Trauma Centre where he succumbed to his injuries. He died because of excessive bleeding, the officer said.
A case under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code was registered at the Vasant Kunj police station. Efforts are on to nab the other two accused, the officer said.
Delhiites who suffer unscheduled power cuts that last over two hours will be compensated with a discount on their electricity bills, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said Saturday, promising to hold distribution companies accountable for frequent outages.
He has called the citys three discoms BSES Rajdhani, BSES Yamuna and Tata Power for a meeting on Tuesday as complaints of outages poured in from across the Capital, which is in the grip of a severe heat wave.
No details were given on how the compensation amount would be fixed.
We have directed the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) that if any area has unscheduled power cuts and it is not rectified in two hours, then the people of that area have to be compensated. This policy will be implemented soon so that their (discoms) accountability is fixed, Kejriwal said.
A source said the regulator has taken the matter up with the discoms, who have demanded better infrastructure before such a compensation is brought in.
Read | Delhi power cuts due to under-purchasing, no technical flaws: BJP
The citys power demand has been soaring along with the temperature, touching an all-time high of 6,188MW on Friday. On Saturday afternoon, it came down to 5,833MW but power cuts continued.
A power department official blamed the outages on the harsh summer and high demand, saying the network has not had time to cool down. This can stress the electricity network and, at times, increase local faults.
But the government claimed there is no shortage of power in the city. There is a provision for more (power) if the need arises. It seems the discoms did not perform routine maintenance... Otherwise, what explains these local faults? power minister Satyender Jain said.
The government has given a direction under section 108 of the electricity Act that discoms should pay consumers for unscheduled outages beyond a certain limit. The notification will be out soon, he said.
Read | Running an AC and havent increased your load? You may trigger power cuts
We are keeping an eye on each and every fault. Why did we privatise power 15 years ago? For improvement, not tariff hikes. Discoms have to be held accountable. They keep blaming local faults. BSES areas have been experiencing more power cuts while TPDDL (Tata Power) areas have faced fewer snags, Kejriwal said.
Read | Soon, get a message about power outages in Delhi
Security officials were sent into a tizzy after they received a call from a man, who claimed to have planted bombs at the residences of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday afternoon.
The call later turned out to be hoax.
A senior police official said the call was received around 12.30pm at the control room of the National Investigation Agency, which informed the matter to the police immediately.
Several teams, with bomb disposal squads, were rushed to the Prime Ministers 7, Race Course Road residence and the Kejriwals residence at Flagstaff Road in Civil Lines.
Thorough checks were conducted in both places but nothing was found. It was a hoax call, the official said, adding Delhi Polices anti-terrorism unit Special Cell was also informed about the matter.
The call was made through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service and efforts are on to trace the man behind it. A case is also likely to be registered in connection with the matter, the official added.
Earlier this week, a man had called up the police control room threatening to have planted bombs in Rashtrapati Bhavan and undisclosed locations in central Delhi.
The man later was tracked down in southwest Delhis Sagarpur area and turned out to be a drug addict who had called up the control room seeking former city police commissioner B S Bassis phone number. When refused by the operator, he claimed having planted bombs.
A score of 90% may look very good on paper but the top colleges of Delhi University remain unimpressed.
With cutoffs ranging between 95% and 99%, students who score well find themselves out of contention in these institutes.
Take the case of Riya.
The 19-year-old, who did not reveal her last name, scored 93% in humanities but was not able to study psychology in a college of her choice.
I wanted to study at Lady Shri Ram College for Women. I thought I had done my part by getting above 90%, but I did not get through even by second or third choice. I finally chose BA programme in a north campus college, she said.
The number of students who are scoring above 95% has been consistently rising over the past few years. In 2013, this figure for Delhi was 1,523. In 2014, it shot up to 2,423.
The CBSE did not disclose how many students managed this feat in 2015 and 2016.
With the marks rising, the Delhi University cutoffs are also going up.
DU does not restrict the number of students who can take admission in a particular course if the seats are full.
If a student has met the cutoff, the colleges are bound to keep admitting students even if the seats are full. This is what makes DU colleges wary.
Read: As it happened: CBSE Class 12 results 2016 declared
We are forced to declare prohibitive cutoffs. The school boards have started doling out marks and we need to keep up. There have been cases where colleges have slipped up and ended up admitting five times the sanctioned strength of students, said a DU college principal who did not want to be named.
It is not just the CBSE students, who have been getting high scores over the past decade.
When SRCC had set 100% as the cutoff for economics (honours) in 2011, two students from Kerala had walked in with the perfect score.
Shivani Mohan, 19, had realised that her score of 92.5% would not get her admitted to SRCC or Stephens College. She decided to go to the US to continue her studies.
The cutoffs initially surprised me. But I realised that there were several students who were scoring much higher than I did. I decided to go to California to continue my education, said Shivani.
Months of anxiety for more than a million students ended on Saturday as the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) announced the crucial Class 12 examination results with Delhis Sukriti Gupta on top, scoring 99.4% marks.
Candidates scored exceptionally well in the humanities stream but a lengthy and tricky mathematics paper stumped many science students.
But the Class 12 results may only be the beginning of a frantic college admissions season as the high humanities scores are expected to send cut-offs soaring in Delhi University (DU) colleges, especially in the arts subjects. The first cut-off for English honours at St Stephens College last year was 99% for humanities.
The CBSE results directly affect cut-offs as mostly CBSE students apply to the 64 colleges affiliated to one of Indias largest universities.
Like last year, the board refused to share the number of students scoring above 95% marks the figure that determines the cut-offs of the most-coveted top 20 DU colleges. The CBSE also didnt give out subject-wise student performance data.
But school teachers and principals said the lower mathematics scores might translate into a marginal jump in science and commerce streams cut-offs.
Read | Gurgaon twins score identical marks in CBSE Class 12 exams, equal in JEE
Mathematics plays a pivotal role in deciding college admissions as it is a must-take subject for science and commerce streams as well as economics.
Many students scored high marks in subjects such as history, economics and chemistry but results in accounts and mathematics were disappointing. Even Gupta a science stream student -- missed a centum in the subject by one mark.
The overall decrease in aggregate percentage in my school is 1 percentage point because of mathematics, said Bindu Sehgal, principal of Delhi Public School, Vasant Kunj.
The mathematics paper drove thousands of candidates to tears during the examination and the board formed an expert committee for remedial measures following numerous complaints by students and parents. The CBSE said on Saturday students were marked leniently in the paper.
Gupta scored 497 out of 500, one point lower than the highest-ever percentage of marks scored by Sarthak Agarwal two years ago.
After a slight dip last year, the overall pass percentage rose from 82% to 83.05% this year. The highest pass percentage of 97.71% was recorded in the Thiruvananthapuram region. Girls, whose pass percentage was 88.58%, did way better than boys, whose pass percentage stood at 78.85%.
Read | Lucknow daily wagers daughter scores 97% in CBSE Class 12 exams
The Central Board of Secondary Education is set to announce the result for the Class 12 board examination on Saturday.
Ahead of the results, we revisit a controversy that erupted over the mathematics examination this year:
The unusually tough and lengthy mathematics question paper this year drove millions of students to tears across the country and triggered a debate in Parliament.
The CBSE was flooded with online complaints about the daunting paper for the March 14 exam and faced flak too over a reported question leak in the Patna region.
Board officials said students will get marks for following correct steps to solve a problem even if they failed to get answer right. More than a million students in the country appeared for the exam.
Students complained that they had to do elaborate calculations even for a one-mark question. For four-mark questions, calculations ran into pages.
Sections B and C were particularly tough, it took me nearly a half-an-hour to answer one of the questions, said Shubhankar Mishra, a Class 12 student from Rajhans Vidyalaya in Mumbais Andheri. This is also the first time that I needed 45 pages to answer a maths paper. My friends said it was tougher than last year.
Read: CBSE 2016 Class 12 results today, students apprehensive about Maths paper
The board had drawn criticism for setting a difficult maths paper in 2015 as well. The committee of subject experts reworked the marking scheme when answer-scripts were checked.
Students, who demanded a retest or grace marks to compensate for the difficulty level, said the 2016 paper was tougher than last years exam.
A high score in mathematics is imperative as it is expected to drive the overall percentage of marks obtained by the student and is crucial for college entrances, where cut-offs regularly touch 98-99%.
Class 12th students do last minute preparation for their CBSE exams in St. Thomas School of Gole Market area, New Delhi, on March 1, 2016. (Arun Sharma/HT Photo)
Parents complained that the paper was as difficult as the IIT entrance test. There is so much pressure on the kids because of Delhi Universitys abysmally high cut-offs, said Sonu Anand, a parent in New Delhi.
Moreover, kids planning to study abroad must have conditional marks. There will be suicides, depression, lack of confidence, and psychological problems.
Read: CBSE softens stand on tough Class 12 maths exam after complaints
The CBSE echoed prominently in Parliament, too, with the government promising an inquiry into the reported paper leak and complaints that the questions were extremely difficult.
The Central Board of Secondary Education will declare the results of all regions on the same day, a first this year. The results will be available on www.results.nic.in and www.cbseresults.nic.in .
Lucknow girl Anshul Bhadauria proved everyone, who believe that one cannot score high in subjects that are generally offered in humanities, wrong.
Anshul scored 98.6% to top the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Class 12 examinations in the Allahabad region, the results of which were declared on Saturday. She obtained 493 marks out of 500.
A student of Manipal Public School, Anshul has scripted history of sorts by scoring a perfect 100 in history, 99 in psychology and physical education, 98 in economics and 97 in English.
Believe me, it is wrong to say that one cannot score high in arts stream. Stop underestimating students of humanities. Arts stream offers several options today, Anshul says.
Read more | Live: CBSE Class 12 results 2016 declared, girls outshine boys again
The 18-year-old says if a student loves a particular subject, they are bound to do well and that is a misnomer to say that only students with mathematics and science subjects can score high.
Anshul now wants to pursue economics either from University of Delhis Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) or Benaras Hindu University.
Daughter of a banking sector employee and a homemaker, Anshul wants to become an economist to help the country fight poverty. My heart bleeds to see poverty all around. Even after several years of Independence, the country is not free from poverty, she rued.
Anshul credits her teachers and parents, who never put any burden on her to pursue a career in science, for her impressive performance.
I was one of those lucky ones whose parents never put an undue pressure to study science or mathematics. They allowed me to pick a career of my choice. I love economics and psychology and I decided to make a career in economics, she says.
Read more: Delhis Sukriti Gupta tops CBSE Class 12 exams with 99.4%
Showering a heap of praise for Anshul, school principal Anupama Shukla said that she was a bright child and remained focused in her studies.
Unlike most students of her age who remain hooked to social media, Anshul does not have a Facebook account. I find it to be wastage of time, Anshul, who likes reading and listening to music, says.
This is not the first time that a student of Manipal Public School scored high in arts stream. In 2014, Kriti Sapra topped in the Allahabad region by scoring 98.2%.
Kriti managed a perfect score in economics, 99% in history and psychology, 97% in English and 96% in physical education.
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A 17-year-old student of a government school committed suicide by hanging himself, reportedly after scoring low in the class 12 board exams.
The Central Board of Secondary Education declared the class 12 results on Saturday.
The boy was found hanging from a ceiling fan at his home in southwest Delhis Naraina village on Saturday afternoon, three hours after the results were declared.
Police said the boy used his school belt to hang himself from the ceiling fan. They said the boy was depressed and had locked himself in the room soon after he learnt that he had only scored 60%.
No suicide note was recovered from the boys possession or his room.
A senior police officer said the boys parents wanted him to become a doctor. The family told us the boy probably felt his familys dream to see him becoming a doctor was shattered after he scored only 60%, said the officer.
The incident, the officer said, came to light around 1pm after the police control room received a call regarding the suicide from a hospital where the boy was taken for medical attention by his family members.
Read: As it happened: CBSE Class 12 results 2016 declared
A police team reached the hospital and learnt from doctors that the boy was dead on arrival.
During inquiry, the boys family members told police that he was upset after finding out about his performance in class 12 exam. Even though nobody in the family reportedly raised the issue with him, he stopped speaking to his family members and locked himself in the room.
Around 12.45 pm, his parents went to call him for lunch and found the room locked from inside. Despite repeated knocks at the door, Raj did not respond. His family members then broke open the door and went inside only to see him hanging from the ceiling fan, the officer said.
Police seized the school belt that he used to kill himself. A probe has been ordered into the incident, the officer said.
Girls have again come out tops in the Class 12 Central Board of Senior Education (CBSE) examinations. Toppers in a majority of schools, and in the streams of commerce and humanities, are girls.
The results of the all-India senior school certificate examination (AISSCE) conducted by the CBSE were announced on Saturday.
Manushi Kumar, commerce stream, of Delhi Public School, Sector 45, emerged the overall topper in Gurgaon with 98.6%.
Shivangi Amba of the same school scored highest in humanities with 97.4%, while Pratyush Maini from DAV Public School, Sector 14, scored the highest in the science stream with 98.2%.
Manushi scored a perfect 100 in three subjects economics, mathematics and accounts. An elated Manushi summed up her success in one word concentration. She said she avoided long hours of reading the books aimlessly.
I divided my syllabus into parts and studied everything in detail. I ensured that if I touch upon a subject, I understand each concept properly instead of just reading what is in the textbooks, Manushi said.
She will be pursuing a degree in economics and hopes to secure a seat in one of the top colleges of Delhi University.
Read: As it happened: CBSE Class 12 results 2016 declared
Aditi Misra, principal of DPS, Sector 45, which had a good number of its students making it to the toppers list, said the school has been providing a lot of support as well as resources to students without putting pressure on them.
It is important that parents understand that Class 12 marks will not decide the entire course of their childs life; the percentage will make a slight difference in their future decisions. I am extremely happy with the overall result of the school. Even the students we were worried about have brought us laurels, she said.
She noted that though students were worried about their scores in maths, a majority of them secured a high percentage in that subject.
Aparna Erry, principal of DAV Public School, Sector 14, said children can only achieve success if they balance academics with extra-curricular activities.
Pratyush, who has topped the science stream, has always been involved in extra-curricular activities and was also the head boy of our school. He learned the art of balance, which helped him enjoy the best of both worlds. Children should not pressure themselves, instead they should enjoy learning, she said.
All major Gurgaon-based CBSE schools, including the two DPS branches, DAV Public School, Amity International School, Blue Bells Model School, Suncity School and Ryan International School claimed a 100 per cent pass percentage.
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The last time these twins differed from each other was when one of them saw the light of the world 14 minutes before the other.
Since then, Gurgaon girls Ankita and Harshita Chauhan have been pretty much alike.
Even their class 12 CBSE scores, which were declared on Saturday, were identical. The 17-year-old siblings, who studied science, scored 93%.
The duo also scored equal marks in the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) 2016, but couldnt qualify for the advanced examinations. They will now join the same college in Chennai to study software engineering.
We cannot get over the fact that our results are same. Neither can our parents believe it, said Ankita. Their father, RS Chauhan, would joke that this would be the case.
Ankita worked very hard and was expecting a higher score than me in the board examinations but our father used to say that we will score equally. When we opened the result, we were in shock to see that he was right, said Harshita.
Read: As it happened: CBSE Class 12 results 2016 declared
The girls studied at DAV Public School, Sector 14, and were neck and neck in every subject, with a score of 95 in both Physics and Physical Education. While Harshita scored 87 in English, 93 in Chemistry and 95 in Maths, her sister Anikita scored 93, 95 and 87 respectively.
Ankita and I always study together and clarify even the slightest doubts. She is stronger in physics while I understand mathematics better, said Harshita.
The parents of the girls are very proud, albeit surprised at how similar their scores turned out to be.
I do not know how to react. Its amazing as well as shocking. The two have always supported each other and their results reflect the same. We never pressurized either and always allowed them to follow their path, said Chauhan, who is a civil engineer.
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Jaipurs Ayush Jain is elated after scoring an impressive 98.4% in his Class 12 board examinations, the results of which were declared by Central board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Saturday.
A student of Saint Xaviers School, Jain scored the highest in Jaipur with an exceptional 99 in chemistry and physics and a 98 in biology. But it was Informatics Practices that got him a perfect 100.
The list of people whom I would like to credit for the result is too long but obviously my father and mother would come first, Jain said.
Jain wants to become a doctor like his father and credits him for being the inspiration in his life. I have already started preparing for AIPMT, Jain said.
Read more | Live: CBSE Class 12 results 2016 declared, girls outshine boys again
My friends are pulling my leg over my marks, he adds when asked about his friends reactions.
Another topper, Siddhartha Sharma, couldnt believe his marks when he saw them for the first time. An average scorer in pre-board exams, it took a special teacher for him to push him to score a 96 .6% in boards.
Sharma, a commerce student of Neerja Modi School, scored 99 in accountancy and 95 in mathematics.
A low scorer in maths, Sharma sought extra classes from his maths teacher before the boards.
I used to score 60-65% in my pre-boards. But my maths teacher Ajay Julka ji pushed me to score high. He arranged extra classes for me at the end and motivated me to stay confident, Sharma said.
Read more: Delhis Sukriti Gupta tops CBSE Class 12 exams with 99.4%
Sharma wants to join University of Delhi to pursue under graduation in economics.
I really want to study in SRCC, Hansraj or Hindu College, lets see now, Sharma said.
Another topper from Neerja Modi School, Aditi Moolchandani scored 95.8%. She scored 99 in business studies and a 98 in accounts and economics
I would like to credit my school teachers for my performance. I want to become a CA, Moolchandani said.
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Saloni Maurya, a daughter of a daily wage earner, could not hold her tears when she checked the results of her CBSE Class 12 board examination on Saturday.
Despite financial hardships, Saloni topped Lucknows St Anjanis Public School by scoring 97% in the science stream.
It is a big day for our family, Saloni, whose father does odd jobs of painting houses after being laid off from a private company to support the family, said.
Saloni obtained a perfect 100 in multimedia and web technology, 98 in physical education, 97 in chemistry and 95 in physics and English.
Read more: As it happened: CBSE Class 12 results 2016 declared
Manager of the school, Taru Saxena, said Saloni has been an extraordinary child with an indomitable will to excel in everything she undertook.
I will remain indebted to my school for it has given me all possible support to create a great life and taking care of many of my financial burdens by waiving off fees, Saloni, who has been studying on scholarship since Class 1, said.
Her school has a dedicated project to take bright but underprivileged children under its wing.
She has also cleared the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main and is extremely clear about what she wants to do in the future.
I want to be an IAS officer after pursuing engineering from one of the IITs, she said.
She won the Bal Ratna Khoj Award organised by Kabir Peace Mission in 2014 and was given the Inspire Award scholarship by the department of science and technology and Amity University after scoring a 10 CGPA in Class 10.
Saloni is also an excellent orator and has participated in inter-school debates on the state level.
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Chennai student Ajish Sekar has managed to top the CBSE Class 12 board examination in Tamil Nadu, a state in which historically girls have performed far better than boys.
Ajish scored 495 or 99% out of 500 and got full marks in this years notoriously difficult mathematics paper, he also managed to get 99 in physics, chemistry and computer science exams, and 98 in English.
Im ecstatic, the 17-year-old from PSBB Senior Secondary School in KK Nagar, who bagged the third rank in the country, says.
I knew I was going to do well, but I didnt expect this, Ajish, clearly still a little fazed at how well he did in this years exams, beams.
Read more: As it happened: CBSE Class 12 results 2016 declared
His mother Shanthi, whose broad smile hints at the excitement she feels, says he studies very hard. But he also plays with his friends and is a fan of computer games - he commits to whatever he does 100%.
We were expecting something in the region of 485-490 marks. Not a national-level award! explains his mother.
I like physics the best. But I want to follow computer science, like my dad, he says.
Ajishs father Sekhar R, who is in Trichy, says he is confident that his son can achieve whatever he wants to.
In fact, Im supposed to deliver a lecture to Plus 12 students tomorrow about how to progress in their desired careers: I can use my son as an example now, he laughs.
Read more | CBSE results: Lucknow girl tops in Allahabad region, scores 98.6%
But thoughts of relaxing and how his parents should treat him are far from Ajish mind, however.
I have an IAT exam tomorrow and another on the 25th. After that, Ill go celebrate with my friends, he says.
Scoring 96.4%, Rakshit Malik of Amity International School Noida is the third national topper under the physically challenged category in the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) class 12 board exams.
Rakshit, who has 10% vision, has been visually impaired since birth and took the exam with the help of a scribe. The 18-year-old scored full marks in history and a total aggregate of 482 out of 500.
He further scored 98 in economics, 96 in political science, 95 in psychology and 93 in English.
The biggest contribution to my achievement has been my mother who worked relentlessly with me day and night. I would sit right in the morning at 8 am to study and would only get up for food. In fact, during the boards, my mother got a tiffin service to deliver food at our house because she would sit with me to make me learn and could not cook for the family, said Rakshit.
A resident of Karkarduma in Delhi, Rakshit stays with his mother, a housewife, and his father who owns an electronics showroom in Krishna Nagar. His brother Rachit is also a top scorer and graduated from Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) in Delhi University this year.
Given his visual impairment, Rakshit is slow in reading and writing text. So, his mother and school teachers had his textbooks printed in large font to make reading easier.
There have been various challenges in facilitating Rakshits education at a normal school rather than a special school. He is not able to read the blackboard and hence would have to take help from a friend. I would take a bold marker and write down all economic formulas for him in big fonts so that he learns them. I had to keep special focus on his nutrition as well, during examination, as reading too much would strain his eyes sometimes, said his mother Rachna Malik.
Read: CBSE Class 12 results 2016 out, check your marks here
Teachers at Rakshits school say he has been a very active student and regularly participates in orations, debates and essay writing competitions.
Rakshit has been with us since class nursery and he is a very courteous and groomed child. He is one of our favourites as he would never let anyone feel that he is disadvantaged in any manner and is one of the best debaters at school. Our teachers would always help him out in studying and we would print out work assignments in large fonts to facilitate him, said Renu Singh, principal, Amity International School, Noida.
Read: Delhis Sukriti Gupta tops CBSE Class 12 exams with 99.4%
Rakshit now aims to pursue bachelors in history from his dream college, St. Stephens College in Delhi University.
I have scored full marks in history and hence plan to pursue graduation in the same as it is my favourite subject. I hope of getting into St Stephens college as it is one of the most prestigious ones in the country, he said.
So, will college be more daunting for Rakshit? He simply says slow and steady wins the race.
I started preparing for the board exams since May 2015 and worked slowly and steadily. Being slow in reading and writing, I had to work double but ultimately it has shown results. As a tip, I would tell the juniors that one should stick to the books provided by CBSE and not leave any topic as each topic is relevant in these exams, he said.
Read: CBSE 2016 Class 12 results today, students apprehensive about Maths paper
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A new large-scale US study has found that many cancer cases and deaths in individuals could be prevented by following a healthy lifestyle.
The team of researchers, from Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, looked at data from two study groups of white participants to examine the possible associations between a healthy lifestyle pattern and the rate of cancer cases and deaths from the disease -- the leading cause of death in the United States.
They defined a healthy lifestyle pattern as being a non-smoker or ex-smoker; no alcohol or moderate drinking of alcohol (one or less drink a day for women, two or less drinks a day for men); having a BMI of between 18.5 and 27.5,; and partaking in moderate exercise for at least 150 minutes a week or vigorous exercise for at least 75 minutes a week.
Read: Cancer grips nation, 1.45 million new cases expected this year
The study included 89,571 women and 46,399 men in total. 16,531 women and 11,731 met all four of the healthy lifestyle criteria and were considered to be at a low risk from cancer.Everyone else -- 73,040 women and 34,608 men -- was considered high risk.
The authors then compared the number of cancer cases and cancer deaths between the two study groups and against the US population to estimate the proportion of cancer that could be prevented in the high-risk group if individuals adopted the healthy lifestyle pattern of the low-risk group, and the proportion that could be prevented in the US population.
Partaking in weekly exercise is one of the lifestyle factors that could cut the number of cancer cases and deaths from the disease according to a new study. (AFP)
Their results showed that around 20 percent to 40 percent of cancer cases and around 50 percent of cancer deaths could potentially be prevented through making lifestyle changes and adopting the healthy lifestyle pattern of the low-risk group.
The authors acknowledged that as their study included only white individuals, the same results may not be found other ethnic groups. However the lifestyle factors that were considered to be cancer risk factors in this study have also been found to be risk factors in other ethnic groups in previous studies.
Read: Excessive intake of saturated fats increases risks of breast cancer
Commenting on the results the authors emphasized the importance of lifestyle factors in determining the risk of cancer, and advised that adopting a healthier lifestyle and focusing on prevention should remain a priority for cancer control.
The study was published online in the journal JAMA Oncology.
On a phone call from Ahmedabad, obstetrician Dr Mehul Damani of Planet Women hospital patiently explains how the Kutch-based Punjiben Patel, 60, got pregnant last year. The Patels had been trying for a baby for many years. We told them this would not be easy, and there were no guarantees, says Damani.
Over the next seven months, Punjiben, who had been menopausal for 15 years at the time, was injected with hormones to restart her menstrual cycles, and prepare her uterus that had shrunk with age. Subsequently, an embryo was created with a donor egg and her husbands sperm, and implanted in her womb.
Nine months later, Punjiben delivered a baby boy. Planet Women has since had three more cases of women in their 60s who have opted for IVF and are pregnant now.
This feat, however, is not specific to Ahmedabads Planet Women.Earlier this month, Amritsars Daljinder Kaur, 70, delivered a baby boy at Hisars National Fertility and Test Tube Baby Center. The Centers website boasts of several successful cases of IVF births in post-menopausal women, some of whom are well into their 60s and 70s.
Read:IVF helps 70-year-olds become first time parents
The latest in this list of successes, the case of Daljinder Kaur, has triggered an ethical debate: should doctors support the reproductive autonomy of women such as Daljinder and Punjiben? With technology, they can, but given the inherent health risks and the issue of childcare, should they?
Its totally unethical, says Dr Duru Shah, Mumbai-based gynaecologist and vice-president, Indian Society for Assisted Reproduction. In pregnancy at that age, the heart, the kidneys come under pressure; the tissues are already aging. Theres enough data to prove that risks exist in women over 50 years of age, Shah says.
Unfazed by the criticism, Dr Anurag Bishnoi, owner and embryologist at the National Fertility Centre insists that he ensures thorough medical check-ups for his patients, and claims that the centre has done about a hundred such cases, mostly from Haryana and Punjab.
Read:The search for heirs in Haryana
One of them is Rajo Devi, who became mother to a baby girl in 2009 at 71. When this author had met Rajo in 2010 in the district of Jind, she was breastfeeding her daughter, Naveen, and appeared confident of seeing the child through adulthood. However, Naveens birth has had consequences for Rajo: in 2010, she had to have her uterus removed after there was bleeding.
Six years later, Rajo has been diagnosed with cancer.
Bishnoi, however, argues that in such cases, risks exist only when more than one embryo is transferred into the womb -- a practice that is routine in many IVF clinics -- to ensure pregnancy, a procedure that he claims to have done away with.
Despite his assurances, however, many such as Shah feel that doctors need to draw a line when it comes to women over 50. This limit has been validated by the draft Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill, 2014, which prevents clinics from performing the procedure on women and men over 50. But Mumbai-based infertility specialist Dr Aniruddha Malpani disagrees: Pregnancies in older women do have an increased risk of medical problems such as hypertension or diabetes, but determining a safe age limit is unfair and arbitrary, he says. The safe age limit depends on how well the heart, kidneys and lungs function. Some countries have tried putting an age limit, but usually bureaucracies can never do a good job of determining what the right age is, he says. However, in cases such as that of Daljinder, Malpani advocates caution on part of doctors.
Chameli Devi with husband Kapoora Kandola and their twins Manish and Mansi at the Budain village in Jind district of Haryana. (Ravi Kumar/HT Photo)
Globally, debates around post-menopausal births have provoked equally passionate responses. In 2009, the death of the worlds oldest mother, Maria Carmen del Bousada -- a 69-year old Spanish woman who had children via IVF in 2006 -- due to ovarian cancer, three years after she gave birth, led to heated debates on the subject.In the UK, there were several discussions when the cut-off age for IVF was raised to 42 from 39.
In the Indian context, however, Bishnoi insists that the social pressures of being childless, having a legal heir, or, as in many cases, trying for a baby to compensate for the untimely death of a child, are reason enough to not deny parents choice. Surrogacy is not acceptable in these areas, so the only option for them is to go for pregnancy at that age, he says. Of course, the parents should appoint a local guardian to take care of the child after they are gone, says Bishnoi.
In the wake of Indias booming IVF industry and a lack of a regulatory mechanism, womens health activists have long argued that the tropes of freedom and choice in IVF treatments often mask the inherent risks. In the rural areas of Haryana and Punjab, technology howsoever invasive, expensive and risky offers an easy route to subvert nature and preserve family lineage, leaving long-term issues such as childcare, unresolved. Entrusting children to relatives is a dangerous prospect. What about their safety after the parents are dead? wonders advocate Anurag Chawla, who specialises in legal matters around assisted reproductive technologies.
Read:Outsourcing motherhood:India's Reproductive Dystopia
Its not that the new parents dont feel these dilemmas though. In a poignant comment to the British press, Susan Tollefsen, who became the countrys oldest mother at 57 (in 2006) has stated: I get a great emotional feeling when I look at her [her daughter], and a sadness when I realize time is running out.
When age is no bar: A mother at 70
Rajo Devi, 78, stands tall in the school corridor, proudly awaiting her seven-year-old daughter Naveen Lohans arrival from Class 2. The little girl, who looks more of a little boy in her uniform, runs to her, squealing in surprise. Normally, the bus takes her home but today her mother has come. An excited Naveen plays with her mothers dupatta as she smiles indulgently, the wrinkles on her face folding further.
Harayanas Rajo Devi became a mother in her 70s. She has cancer and is pinning her hopes on her sister who will take care of her daughter Naveen. (Ravi Kumar/HT Photo)
Back home, Naveen bangs impatiently at the door, calling out for her elderly father. Clad in a dhoti and white sleeveless kurta, Naveens illiterate father, Bala Ram, 78, looks on patiently as she sits on his thin, frail lap, tugging at his sagging cheeks and talks about her day at the school. Within a minute, the Nokia mobile phone on the bed catches her eye and she gets busy in her world.
Manga ladka tha par ladki mili. Abhi toh ladke se bhi pyaari hai hamein yeh (We prayed for a son but got a daughter. Now she is dearer to us than a son), Bala Ram says, lighting up a beedi. One of five brothers, he says he owns 5 acres. He took a loan of Rs 70,000, sold his buffaloes and the cart to fund Rajos IVF treatment and Caesarean section in 2009. He admits the surgery has taken a toll on Rajos health. She has undergone two more operations at the PGI, Chandigarh, since Naveens birth. She had to be operated upon for intestinal obstruction twice and was diagnosed eventually with cancer.
Ask them why they chose to become parents at such an old age, Bala Ram says, Kyun? Sabke 8-10 bachche ho sakte hain, hamara ek bhi nahin? (Why? People can have 8-10 children and we cant have even one?) Rajo, however, sees hope in her younger sister who stays with them. Naveen also says she has two mothers. Aware of her senior status, she jokes, My best friend is my niece who studies in Class 10. Yojana Yadav
Read: When science plays God: Meet the grand old parents in the age of IVF
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The first look of actor Charlize Theron from the upcoming Fast & Furious 8 movie was revealed on Twitter on Friday. The 40-year-old Mad Max: Fury Road star will be playing the villain in the film.
The picture shows the star walking into a gun shop in a ponytail and a Metallica T-shirt. Action star Vin Diesel also shared details about the her character in the eighth installment.
Cipher, her character, is forcing Dom into a place we have not seen. I first imagined her joining our saga back in 2012 when we were filming Fast 6 in London, but life has a way of dictating when your vision is manifested and this chapter proves to be the perfect time.
Read: Start your engines! Vin Diesel has shared the Fast & Furious 8 poster
What is surreal is that our kids have play dates while we are on set doing some of the most emotionally arduous scenes in the franchise, Diesel wrote.
The 48-year-old actor praised Theron and said the team appreciates her coming on board.
Wait until you meet Cipher, of all her films you have never seen this character she has created... She has truly brought her A game to this saga and we are all grateful for it, he added.
Read: Heres your first footage from Fast & Furious 8 with Vin Diesel and gang
Directed by Straight Outta Compton director F Gary Gray, Fast 8 will be released in the US on April 14, 2017.
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To mark the 30th anniversary of the cult teenage movie Ferris Buellers Day Off, fans have organized a weekend festival in Chicago where visitors will be able to visit some of the iconic filming locations and take part in a recreation of the famous Twist and Shout parade sequence.
Over three days, visitors to Ferris Fest will relive key moments from the 1986 film, paying visit to sites like Glenbrook North High School, which doubled as Shermer High School; Camerons House, where Buellers best friend Cameron crashed his dads 1961 Ferrari through the glass walls: and other iconic Chicago landmarks which were featured in the film such as Wrigley Field and the Art Institute of Chicago.
A still from the movie.
Likewise, fans will be able to visit Buellers iconic bedroom, recreated in meticulous details by Toronto designer Sarah Keenlyside, which originally premiered at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto.
Fans can also visit a recreated Ferris Bueller bedroom.
Fans will be transported back to 1986, with posters of retro artists like Simple Minds, Bryan Ferry lining the walls, a ghetto blaster in the corner, old IBM computer terminal and floppy disc providing the timestamp for the setting.
Some of the stars from the film, including Edie McClurg (who played Grace), Cindy Pickett and Lyman Ward who played Buellers parents will also attend the special film screenings scheduled for Saturday and Sunday at the John and Nancy Hughes Theater in Lake Forest, Illinois and include a Q & A.
Read: Charlie Sheen to reprise Ferris Buellers role in The Goldbergs
One of the highlights of the three-day event will be the restaging of the Twist and Shout parade scene in downtown Chicago at the end of the film.
Originally released in theaters June 11, 1986, Ferris Buellers Day Off was written and directed by the king of teenage coming-of-age films John Hughes, and would go on to become a cult classic, catapulting the acting career of Matthew Broderick and making a meme out of Bueller? Bueller?
Ferris Fest runs May 20 to 22.
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Actor Chloe Grace Moretz finds it difficult dating men who think they know her because of her public persona.
The star, 19, who is currently dating Victoria and David Beckhams son Brooklyn, said the relationship works because they both understand the celebrity lifestyle.
A photo posted by bb (@brooklynbeckham) on May 17, 2016 at 2:50am PDT
(People have) seen you in intimate scenes in movies, they know what you look like crying, and they can read your interviews and know your favourite bands, so it feels like they have all this in common with you... It happens a lot, she said.
But I did offer.. A photo posted by bb (@brooklynbeckham) on May 20, 2016 at 3:22pm PDT
Ill think, How are we vibing so hard right now? Then I realise, and I dont care anymore. I just go back to work. (People in the business) understand the travel, the intimate scenes with random people, the crazy schedules...
The couple made their first public appearance together at the recent red carpet premiere for Moretzs new movie Neighbours 2.
A photo posted by Chloe Grace Moretz (@chloegmoretz) on May 16, 2016 at 8:50pm PDT
A photo posted by Chloe Grace Moretz (@chloegmoretz) on May 12, 2016 at 4:34pm PDT
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The new trailer for Star Trek Beyond, the third in the reboot series is much, much better than the first one. But it still feels like a distant cousin of the source material and more like an action-packed summer blockbuster - which isnt a bad thing.
Watch: The first Star Trek Beyond trailer is beyond comprehension
Theres a reason why Justin Lin, director of four Fast & Furious movies was chosen to replace JJ Abrams. After the less-than-impressive performance of Star Trek Into Darkness, Paramount was looking to make the series more action-heavy in order to appeal to the general moviegoing audience. And the difference is clear from what we can see here.
Watch the trailer here
Theres mass destruction, epic space battles, and a menacing villain in the form of Idris Elba (in heavy prosthetics).
A hint of personal story is teased, but the focus is largely on adventures in space. Lin has retained Abrams visual approach to the material but has left his mark in noticeable ways.
It remains to be seen if this is the Star Trek movie that translates to a wider audience. Maybe thats why they named it Beyond.
Read: Paramount looks beyond Star Trek Beyond: Starts planning 4th film
The movie stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Jon Cho, Sofia Butella and Idris Elba. It arrives in theatres on July 22.
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Vin Diesel wants to bring Justin Lin, who directed four Fast & Furious movies back to direct the final Fast and Furious film.
Vin Diesel said he wants to bring the director back to the Furious franchise after helming the third-through-sixth films in the series.
Read: Everyone! Come take the first look at Charlize Theron from Fast 8
When asked if Justin will direct the finale, Diesel said, Im going to bring him back. Whenever we had a day off-even on Thanksgiving, his favourite holiday-it was Justin and me working on how far we could take it. Success comes from 10 years of that mentality.
Watch the trailer for The Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Lin laughed when asked about Diesels remarks.
Vin says you finish what you started, the Star Trek Beyond director says, and hes very persuasive.
Diesel is currently filming Fast and Furious 8 with Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Elsa Pataky, Lucas Black, The Rock, Kurt Russell and Charlize Theron.
Read: Heres your first footage from Fast & Furious 8 with Vin Diesel and gang
Directed by Straight Outta Compton director F Gary Gray, Fast 8 will be released in the US on April 14, 2017. Fast 8 will be followed by a ninth film to be released on April 19, 2019 and a tenth film planned for an April 2, 2021 release.
Universal also plans both Fast and Furious spin-offs and prequels.
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Senior Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Mohammed Taslimuddin on Saturday launched an attack on Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and asked party chief Lalu Prasad Yadav to walk out of the ruling grand alliance.
There is no law and order in the state. Nitish Kumar is not even fit to be a mukhiya, forget about being Prime Minister, the five time MP said and added What is he (Nitish) doing roaming outside. He should look after Bihar first. I want the RJD-JD(U) alliance to break today itself, if possible, but its Lalu jis decision.
Taslimuddins comments raised eyebrows within political circles with many citing it as an example of the growing rift between the JD(U) and RJD. BJP state president Mangal Pandey said the relations between the grand alliance partners were asymmetrical and the coalition was unworkable.
On Friday, senior RJD leader Prabhunath Singh had accused Nitish Kumar of allowing former Siwan MP Mohammad Sahabuddin to hold durbars in jail.
Unimpressed by RJD leaders tirade against the CM, JD(U) leaders said the Lalu Prasad-led party should take action against its members for giving unwarranted and provocative statements against Nitish.
Such statements coming from RJD senior leaders are not good. Paani sar ke upar ja raha hai (things are going out of control), said JD(U)s chief spokesperson Sanjay Singh.
Other JD(U) leaders like Shyam Rajak hit back at Taslimuddin for his remarks. We do not take comments from Taslimuddin seriously as he has lost political relevance. People like him only want to stay in limelight by issuing trivial and baseless statements. Has the RJD chief or Rabri Devi said anything about the coalition?, he said.
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For Shyamsundar and Chand Sachdeva, the CBSE Class 12 results declared on Saturday was another grim reminder of their son Aditya Sachdeva, who was allegedly shot dead by a legislators son in a road rage incident a few weeks ago.
Aditya had appeared for the examination. But now that he was gone, no one in the family had looked up his result. There was eerie silence in their house in Swarajpuri as his father shut himself in the bedroom. His mother was lying on a sofa.
Adityas brother Akash, who was at his shop, checked the results at the behest of reporters.
Oh my God, he has secured 69.6 % marks. Thats very good. But whos there to see his result now, Akash exclaimed, as he broke into sobs.
Relatives who had gathered at Adityas house spoke of how he had wanted to pursue higher education in business management and set up a luxury hotel in Bodh Gaya. He had been preparing for going to a B-school, said a relative.
Nazareth, the school he went to was closed on Saturday on account of Buddha Purnima.
On May 7, Rocky Yadav, son of now suspended JD (U) member of legislative council Manorama Devi and businessman Bindi Yadav, allegedly shot dead Aditya for overtaking him.
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A 23-year-old Congolese national was allegedly beaten to death by a group of men in south Delhis Vasant Kunj area, police said on Saturday.
What led to an argument that triggered the fight is yet to be ascertained. The case is being probed from all angles including robbery and a possible racist attack on the African national.
African students studying in colleges across India had earlier said a recent incident in Bengaluru, where a Tanzanian woman was allegedly stripped and paraded by an angry mob, was shocking but not entirely surprising.
Read: 23-year-old African national beaten to death in Delhis Vasant Kunj
Be it in Noida, Pune or Punjab, students from Africa pursuing higher education across the country shared the kind of hardship they face on a daily basis. In Punjab alone, African students have been victims of racial violence in at least three horrific incidents in the recent past.
Its very tough for us to travel or ride our bikes. The policemen harass us in the name of checking bike papers. In the market too, if we are roaming with girls, they pass sarcastic comments. They call us names and treat us as if we were running some crime rackets, said a Phagwara-based student who did not want to be named.
There are more than 2,000 African students residing in Jalandhar and Phagwara. Though there has been no major incident of violence on college campuses in the last one year, outside they face racial taunts at every turn. Even the Punjab Police refers to them as kaale (blacks) in the FIRs of petty or big crimes registered against them.
The situation is no different in Pune, where nearly 1,800 African students are enrolled in different educational institutions.
In September last year, home minister Rajnath Singh was caught off guard during a function at an educational institute, when Simon Kuany, president of Symbiosis International Students Council, complained about the racial slur he was facing in Pune.
Kuany had complained about people calling them Kaalia and also pointed to some of the stereotypes Indians had about African nationalsthat we are all drug addicts.
In the National Capital Region of Noida, on Delhis outskirts, the most common grouse of African students was being labelled as drug peddlers and denial of houses on rent.
College is good but India is bad. People in India are racists. They often make comments on my colour of skin and body. And they stare at me like I am an alien, says Maria, an engineering student at Sharda University.
Said Dan, a native of Congo, Friends in college are very good. I have never felt discriminated but outside the college, things are not the same. We avoid visiting public places because people stare at us.
According to Sharda University, there are around 800 students from various African countries enrolled in different study programmes. Around 40 per cent students stay in college hostel and rest stay in rented accommodation outside college campus.
Around 40 % African students stay in college hostel and rest stay in rented accommodation outside the campus. Every year we get more than 1,000 admission applications from African countries. Most of them return to their countries after finishing the course, said Amal Kumar, Joint Registrar of Sharda University.
In Amity University, they have a separate counselling centre for African students. We have around 150 African students in the college. We regularly call a counselling session with them. We have hostel facilities for them but it is their discretion to stay in college or outside, said Savita Mehta, Vice-President, Communications, Amity University.
An African woman was allegedly forced to give a urinary sample in public for a drug test during then Delhi law minister Somnath Bhartis raid in a south Delhi locality he claimed had a drug and prostitution racket, lawyer Harish Salve had said in 2014.
A group of young Africans had found themselves in the middle of a political and media furore in Delhi with the greenhorn minister in the new state government accusing them of being part of a prostitution and drug racket and demanding their arrest.
Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat visited BJP MP Tarun Vijay in the hospital on Saturday, assuring him of action against those who attacked him for visiting a temple with a Dalit leader.
Vijay was attacked by a mob when he visited the Silgur Devta temple in Chakrata on Friday with Dalit Bahujan Samaj Party leader, Daulat Kunwar, at Punah-Pokhri village.
The commissioner will give me a firsthand report and we will take stringent action accordingly. Peoples rights should be recognised and nobody can be stopped from going to a temple as God belongs to all, Rawat said before he met Vijay.
The chief minister acknowledged that certain issues have problems when it comes to relaxing norms, and said he did not have a concrete solution for people who strictly adhered to customs and traditions. He however said spreading awareness was one way to deal with it.
We are persuading the people and changes can be seen. Public awareness also needs to be cultivated in the matter. Yes, customs should be respected, but you cant stop someone from worshipping. I want to call on all religious leaders in the state to open the doors of their temples to people from all faith and also to the Dalits. After all, everyone is human, Rawat said.
He further said that besides the guilty, those who were lax in preventing the incident will also not be spared, assuring of some action by Saturday evening.
Rawat assured that Vijay will be given assistance from the state government for his medical treatment.
Dehradun: Uttarakhand CM Harish Rawat visits injured BJP MP Tarun Vijay at the hospital. pic.twitter.com/cNNdAwdnTT ANI (@ANI_news) May 21, 2016
I told the doctors that if we need to bring in specialists from outside, that can also be provided. I have also told them that if he needs to be transported somewhere else for further treatment, then we can provide a chopper. But Tarun Vijay is happy with this treatment, the chief minister said.
Meanwhile, director general of police MA Ganapati told the media that a team was constituted to help police track down the offenders. A case in the matter has been registered with the revenue police and further action will be taken against the culprits.
Where the incident happened does not come under the police jurisdiction but since a VIP team was going to the location, we sent a team for personal security, Ganapati said.
A few policemen were also injured in the scuffle and two police vehicles were damaged.
Vijay was on a campaign to allow Dalits in the temples in the Jaunsar-Bawar region.
Sardar Manmohan Singh, a modest farmer in Pilibhit, 247-km from state capital Lucknow, has never met beleaguered liquor baron Vijay Mallya nor heard of Kingfisher Airlines.
Ever since he migrated from Punjab four decades back, he has hardly set foot outside Uttar Pradesh, let alone board a flight. But in December last year, he was told that he was a director of the now-defunct airlines and that his two bank accounts were being seized for recovery.
I have heard his (Mallyas) name but never met him. I have no idea how I was made the director of his company, said Singh whose name, according to bank officials, appeared in the list of guarantors/directors of Kingfisher Airlines. The list contains nine names, including Vijay Mallya, his son Siddharth, and Singh.
Earlier, I thought it was just due to negligence on part of bank officials but now that no action has been taken, I have started to get worried, he said.
Mange Ram, manager of Bank of Barodas Nand branch in Pilibhit , said, We received a letter to seize his (Singhs) account for recovery of the loan amount in December last year. The letter was sent by the banks regional office at Nariman Point, Mumbai.
Singh submitted a clarification letter informing the bank that he had no knowledge of the loan, requesting it to reopen his accounts.
The bank officials said that my account would be reopened but they have done nothing. I have Rs 4,000 in one account and Rs 1,217 in another. How will they recover loan worth crores from my accounts? said Singh, who claimed his familys annual income is not more than Rs 3 lakh.
Manmohan Singhs house in Pilibhit. (HT Photo)
Reportedly, Singh owns eight acre of farmland. He had deposited papers of his land as security to secure a loan from the bank for his sons wedding two years ago.
I never defaulted on the loan and paid back the entire amount in instalments, said Singh.
A spokesperson of the United Breweries group, which had launched the airlines, said the person in question was never a director in the company.
The companys annual report in 2011-12 and 2012-13 listed one Manmohan Singh Kapur, a retired banker, an independent director in the company.
Manmohan Singh Kapur holds degrees of B Sc and MA from Punjab University. He is a career banker with more than 39 years of experience, mostly in the field of banking. He retired as chairman and managing director of Vijaya Bank, the report said.
The Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday claimed that Maharashtra revenue minister Eknath Khadse got several calls on his mobile phone from Dawood Ibrahim Kaskars Karachi residence in Pakistan.
The seniormost minister in the government, Khadse promptly dismissed the allegation by AAP spokesperson Priti Sharma-Menon as baseless even as chief minister Devendra Fadnavis ordered Mumbai Police to investigate the matter.
Maharashtra minister Eknath Khadses number seen in Dawood Ibrahims call logs. Its shocking. Minister Eknath Khadse has to resign, otherwise a free and fair investigation can not take place, Sharma-Menon said in a tweet and later told reporters the same.
She alleged that Khadse received calls from Dawood between September 5, 2015 to April 5, 2016, but the minister refuted the allegation saying his number may have been cloned and misused.
The information about Khadses number being in Dawoods most frequently called numbers was submitted to the Prime Ministers Office on April 29, but it preferred to turn a blind eye, Sharma-Menon said.
In a statement, Khadse while admitting that the number in question belonged to him, said it was not in service for the last one year, and furnished a report to the effect from Idea Cellular to the Jalgaon Police earlier this week.
The AAP spokesperson told mediapersons that the incident came to light after a Vadodara-based techie Manish L Bhangale, an ethical hacker, hacked into the call records of four phone numbers registered in the name of the dons wife Mehjabin Shaikh and detected four Indian numbers on which the don reportedly spoke regularly.
Bhangale checked the details of these numbers to make the shocking discovery that one of these, an Idea mobile phone number, belonged to Khadse on which the call had come from the dons residence, Sharma-Menon alleged.
She questioned the ministers claims about the phone being out of service and said techie Bhangale provided evidence showing that Khadses number was working till April 2016.
Earlier, she met Fadnavis to demand Khadses sacking if Bhangales documents were authentic and initiate a fair probe into the matter.
Bhangale has refuted Khadses claim that the number was not in operation... it may be true it was switched off after the story broke. On May 20, Bhangale sent me a recording of the Idea IVRS stating there is no bill for the current month for (Khadses No. 9423073667), but the bill was generated on April 23 for Rs.683.22, and the last payment made was Rs.700, Sharma-Menon pointed out.
This recording shows that when Khadse says the number is switched off since two years, he lies through his teeth, she charged.
Bhangales hacking also revealed that Khadse had changed his damaged SIM card in April 2016 for which he was charged Rs.50 and it reflects in the bill, meaning the number was still operational, she added.
Explaining how the hacking was done, Sharma-Menon said that Dawoods wife, Mahjabeens number (021-35871719) and address are available on the Internet and Bhangale exposed the call logs through the Pakistan Telecommunications Co. Ltd.
He met Vadodara Police with the data but no investigations were done and later he faxed the details to the PMO on April 29, with a willingness to help.
After Sharma-Menons meeting with Fadnavis, Mumbai Police Commissioner D. Padsalgikar called techie Bhangale for details last Thursday, May 19.
This is a very serious charge and the Maharashtra government must either authenticate or refute Bhangales claim and share the findings with the people... Till then, Khadse should resign to ensure a free and fair probe, Sharma-Menon demanded, adding that the Jalgaon Superintendent of Police is very close to the minister due to some favours in the past.
The government on Saturday released funds of Rs 600 crore more to Odisha after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Naveen Patnaik discussed the drought and water scarcity issue in parts of the state.
A statement from the Prime Ministers Office said Rs 600.52 crore had been released to the state under the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) after adjustments of the states balances.
This is in addition to the Rs 560.25 crore released as central share of the State Disaster Response Fund for 2015-16. Another Rs 294.375 crore has been released as first instalment of SDRF for 2016-17, it said.
It said Odisha had made several efforts at water conservation, including construction of 25,000 farm ponds and 7,000 check dams.
Patnaik said Odisha had completed the district irrigation plans for all 30 districts as required under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana.
The two leaders also discussed the progress in agricultural schemes and banking extension facilities in rural areas of Odisha.
Three Bengal climbers including a woman are missing after beginning their ascent to Mt Everest, a police official monitoring the expedition to the world highest peak said on Saturday.
The climbers went missing on Friday night, a day after another climber from Bengal was killed after successfully climbing Mt Dhaulagiri, the seventh highest peak in the world.
The three identified as Gautam Ghosh, Paresh Nath and Sunita Hazra launched the assault on Mt Everest along with five other climbers, also from Bengal.
They have not been since then, said Ujjwal Roy, a climber himself who is monitoring the expedition on behalf of the state government.
The five scaled Mt Everest on Saturday morning, he said.
A file photo of Sunita Hazra.
The owner of the agency conducting the expedition informed us around midday that the three persons cant be traced. The information was conveyed to him by Subhas Pal, one of the five who scaled the peak successfully, Roy added.
Besides Pal, others who climbed Mt Everest are Rudraprasad Haldar, Ramesh Ray, Satyarup Siddhanta and Maloy Mukherjee.
It was not immediately clear whether the three missing climbers out after the group of five.
Mt Everest has seen a rush of climbers in the past few weeks after Nepal government lifted a ban imposed after a devastating earthquake in 2015 killed at least 18 people at the base camp, situated at 17,800 feet altitude, and forced hundreds of climbers to abandon their expeditions.
Mount Everest has seen nearly 300 summits this season.
On May 19, another group of three Bengal climbers -- Debraj Dutta, Pradip Sahu and Chetana Sahu -- scaled Everest.
Another Bengal climber Rajib Bhattacharya died on Mount Dhaulagiri during descent. An operation to recover his body begun on Saturday morning.
On May 12, 2014 Chhanda Gayen from Bengal went missing on her way down from Yalung Kang (Kanchenjunga West), considered one of the most dangerous peaks in the Himalayas. Her body was never found along with three sherpas.
A file photo of Gautam Ghosh.
Read: Indian climber Rajib Bhattacharya dies while descending Mt. Dhaulagiri
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Senior IPS officer Rajeev Kumar, who was removed as the Kolkata police commissioner by the Election Commission during the West Bengal assembly polls, was reinstated to the post, a state government official said on Saturday.
The move to reinstate Kumar as the citys top cop comes two days after the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress stormed back to power, winning 211 of the 294 assembly seats.
Following directions by the Election Commission, Kumar was replaced by Soumen Mitra on April 12. Mitra will now be taking over as the additional director general, training.
Kumars removal had come following persistent calls by the opposition parties alleging he was working in favour of the ruling Trinamool.
Trinamool supremo and Chief Minister Banerjee had repeatedly attacked the poll panel for transferring a host of police officers, including Kumar, during the six-stage assembly polls.
For a second consecutive day, the Shiv Sena poked holes in the BJPs celebratory bubble for its performance in the state elections this week. Mocking the BJP for its motto of Shat Pratishat, BJP (100 per cent, BJP), the Sena claimed the party wasnt clocking even 1% in four of the five states that voted in new assemblies.
Despite being a part of BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the Sena argued against its alliance partner attributing its performance to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his governments policies.
If that was the case, then why did people in TN, WB not support the BJP, despite all their efforts? Must we believe that people supported Mamata and Jaya for implementing Modis policies correctly? an editorial in the Sena mouthpiece, Saamana, questioned.
Read | Opening an account not equivalent to acchhe din: Sena on poll results
On Friday, the publication had questioned the BJPs success for winning Assam, saying that opening an account in the other states didnt amount to much.
We have to admit that the BJP could not defeat the regional parties, the editorial read.
In its latest attack, the Sena also took potshots at the BJPs often-stated mantra of having a Congress-Mukt Bharat.
In Delhi itself, its call for a Congress-mukt India failed when voters rejected the BJP in 7-8 of the 12 seats and Congress won about four seats in civic bypolls. In Tamil Nadu, the BJP couldnt even open its account. But, it wont be fair to say that the people of TN want the state BJP-mukt.
This isnt the first time the Sena has used the publication to criticise BJP and Modi. Last year, a Saamana editorial derided Modi, taking shots at his foreign tours and Bihar election campaign, among other issues.
Read | Shiv Sena taunts PM Modi in party mouthpiece Saamna, yet again
A 19-year-old woman in north Bihars Madhubani was allegedly gangraped and stabbed 16 times by four men but survived the attack, police said on Saturday.
The Class 12 student was found unconscious and bleeding on Thursday morning in a bush where the criminals had allegedly abandoned her, taking her to be dead, sources said.
She was rushed to the local hospital by local residents of Sisauna village and miraculously survived, they added.
Deputy superintendent of police Indra Prakash said when the woman gained consciousness briefly on Friday, police recorded her statement in the presence of a magistrate.
Read: In Delhi, a rape accused has 83% chance of acquittal
Police recovered an ATM card, a mobile phone and a knife from the spot and registered a case. Sources said a local auto driver, Mohammad Suleman, was arrested after police found the mobile phone was registered to him. Three other accused are absconding.
The incident is the latest in a series of crimes in the state that have embarrassed chief minister Nitish Kumar and triggered allegations that the government was unable to control the rapidly deteriorating law-and-order situation.
The brutal crime also brought back memories of the 2012 Delhi gang rape that sparked massive nationwide protests and forced changes in Indias rape law.
Read: Only 12% of those charged with raping children convicted in Delhi
The DSP told HT that preliminary investigation suggested the victim was abducted and gang-raped. He said the vehicle used for her abduction was recovered on the basis of Sulemans interrogation.
Police said the victim alleged that last Wednesday she was abducted and taken to a lonely place by the auto-driver and three associates. All four allegedly took turns to rape her in an isolated house and proceeded to stab her several times. Taking her to be dead, they then allegedly dumped her in a nearby bush.
She survived so far as many of the 16 stab wounds are not deep, said a police officer. She reportedly fell unconscious soon after recording the statement, making it difficult to trace family members.
When she was taken to a local hospital for treatment, doctors referred her to the Darbhanga medical college, 45 kilometres away. But because of a strike by doctors, she was brought back to Madhubani.
Read: Runaway minor gangraped in Noida, three arrested
Congress president Sonia Gandhi told party workers on Saturday that no failure is permanent and asked them to stick to principles after the crushing defeat in the recently held assembly polls.
The Congresss electoral defeat in four states led to calls for an urgent introspection, with senior leader Digvijaya Singh suggesting a surgery was the need of the hour. The party, which has lost six state elections since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, however, picked up a consolation prize of sorts in Puducherry by defeating the regional All India NR Congress (AINRC).
A success achieved by discarding basic principles does not stay for long. If one sticks to principles, no failure is permanent, Sonia said, in an apparent dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which ousted the Congress government in Assam. The Congresss scandal-tainted coalition government lost to the Left in Kerala.
Read: After assembly poll debacle, Congress may go in for a reshuffle
Sonia was addressing party workers at a programme to commemorate the 25th death anniversary of her husband and former prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi.
Stressing the need for social harmony, Sonia said: We have to compensate for each drop of Rajivs blood on Indian soil by promoting and strengthening social harmony.
We will have to follow his values of simplicity, modernity, harmony and sensitivity. That will be our true homage to him. Only then we will be able to say that Rajiv is in us.
Sonias Congress party had in the past blamed the ruling BJP for alleged political and religious intolerance in the country.
Sonia said Rajiv Gandhi ensured the participation of youngsters and the deprived sections in the countrys development process.
India is walking with its head held high in the world due to the steps taken by him, she said, praising the late Congress leader for his contributions in the devolution of powers to panchayats and bringing in a revolution in telecom and communication.
Sonia said the former PM started the process of change that led to the gains that are visible in society, economy and politics, which we talk about loudly today.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who was not keeping well for some days, and former prime minister Manmohan Singh did not attend the event organised by the Youth Congress.
Rahul, however, tweeted : No matter how full of struggle and hardships the path ahead, the values that we hold are dear. The values of truth, freedom, equality and justice, are worth fighting for.
The party is expected to call its Working Committee (CWC) meeting soon to review its electoral performance. There is pressure on Sonia and Rahul to revamp the party organisation.
(with agency inputs)
Read: In depth: After Assam, Kerala losses, Congress struggles to stay relevant
While cyclone Roanu battered coastal Andhra Pradesh, a severe thunderstorm wreaked havoc in the state capital of Hyderabad, killing three people and injuring dozens of others.
Strong winds accompanied by heavy rains for half-an-hour on Friday evening led to huge trees being uprooted blocking roads in commercial and residential areas.
Electricity poles, communication towers, hoardings, and billboards were also dislodged while high tension wires snapped due to the ferocious velocity of the gale.
Many areas remained under darkness till late in the night.
Passers-by take photographs of uprooted billboards that were dislodged due to strong winds in Hyderabad on Friday. A thunderstorm left the city in disarray. (PTI)
One man died when the winds caused a water tanker to fall from the roof a house onto to him, crushing him to death. The deceaseds brother was also injured in the accident.
In another instance, a wall collapsed onto a labourer who sought shelter near it from the rain. The third death occurred when a labourer fell from the third floor, perhaps caught in gust of wind.
Similar incidents caused more than a dozen injuries across the city.
The heavy rains also inundated roads, causing major traffic snarls. Motorists returning from offices were stuck in traffic jams for hours.
Eight cars were crushed under a massive pillar of a hoarding which fell due to the gale. No one was injured though.
A billboard pillar smashed in to cars when it fell due to strong winds on Friday in Hyderabad. (PTI)
Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation commissioner Janardhan Reddy said 105 emergency teams of the corporation and 29 of the Water Board were engaged in clearing roads. Nearly 40 cranes were deployed to clear fallen trees and other major debris.
The Hyderabad Meteorological Centre clarified that the thunderstorm had nothing to do with cyclone Roanu in the Bay of Bengal. Instead, the heavy rains were results of cumulonimbus clouds over the region.
Bhartiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah attacked the Left Front, which has stormed to power in Kerala, over a party workers killing and accused it of violating the peoples mandate even as his party said it will not sit quiet and fight on the streets if violence continues.
Emboldened by securing its first seat and over 15% of votes in assembly elections, BJP said it will not sit quiet if the cycle of violence continues in the state as it claimed that it has emerged as a powerful alternative voice to the two main fronts led by CPI(M) and Congress.
While Shah attacked the Left in a series of tweets, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad later addressed a press conference to hit out at the Left.
I am deeply anguished to learn about merciless killing of our karyakarta (worker), Pramod. This act by supporters of ruling Left violates the democratic spirit and mandate that the people of Kerala gave them just two days back.
We are concerned about safety of our karyakartas and assure them our full support in their fight against an undemocratic Left regime. I have ordered constitution of a central committee that will visit and investigate this violence, Shah said.
Prasad said violence began soon after the polls, adding that 55 criminal cases have been registered against CPI(M) workers in Kannur district, a hotbed of struggle between the Left and RSS, BJP and its affiliates.
I want to warn them that BJP will not tolerate violence against its cadre and swayamsewaks (RSS volunteers)in Kerala. This will not be tolerated. CPI(M) needs to recognise one thing very clearly that BJP is ruling over the country and is ruling in 14 states...
BJP has very powerful electoral support in Kerala as we view this reckless attack on our cadre very seriously. Therefore, this cycle of violence must be stopped. We will expect the new CPI(M) government and the party to give serious thought to it. Otherwise, we will fight on the street, in Parliament and the entire country, he said.
Asked what the party intended to do, he shot back we will not sit quiet.
Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni single-handedly scripted Rising Pune Supergiants face-saving four-wicket win over Kings XI Punjab with a last-ball six to help them avoid a last-place finish in the Indian Premier League (IPL) in Visakhapatnam on Saturday.
Chasing 173, Pune never looked in contention, but Dhoni played the lone ranger with an unbeaten 32-ball 64 to secure an improbable win for the debutants.
Pune looked down and out at 86 for five in the 14th over before Dhoni brought out his best and smashed five sixes and four boundaries.
Needing 23 runs in the last over, Dhoni struck three sixes and a four. In the last ball, Pune required six for victory and the captain lofted one over the midwicket boundary.
However, for Dhoni, who had successfully led Chennai Super Kings in the previous editions of the tournament, mostly finishing in the top four besides winning the title twice, this has been his most disappointing campaign.
Earlier, Ravichandran Ashwin chipped in with a four-wicket haul to restrict KXIP to 172 for seven in the allotted 20 overs.
Captain Murali Vijay and Gurkeerat Mann hit fine half-centuries to take the team to a competitive total.
The loss has pushed Kings XI to the bottom of the table, with just eight points from 14 games.
Opting to bat, Vijay led from the front, scoring a 41-ball 59 that included four hits to the fence and three sixes. He also shared a valuable opening partnership of 60 runs with Hashim Amla (30).
Ashwin got the breakthrough for Pune when he dismissed Amla, and in the very next over wicketkeeper-batsman Wriddhiman Saha (3) was also sent back to the dressing room with Adam Zampa doing the damage.
But Vijay and Gurkeerat played with responsibility to steady the boat. The duo put on a 58-run stand for the third wicket before the skipper fell to Ashwin.
Ashwin further tightened the noose by dismissing Gurkeerat and new batsman David Miller in his next over.
None of the lower-order batsmen reached the double figures with Miller concluding a miserable tournament with another failure.
Ashwin was the pick of the bowlers for Pune with figures of four for 34 from four overs.
Commenting on the election results in five states, Gehlot said the BJP has forgotten its slogans of a party with a difference and good governance. They party now uses money and muscle power in elections, he alleged.
It is true that they have won in Assam, but they should not forget that for 15 years there was a Congress government. And also that during 2014 Lok Sabha they had a lead in 69 assembly seats and vote percent was 37, which has now reduced to 29.5% on 60 seats, he said.
The BJP faces a similar situation in the remaining four states. In West Bengal, the vote percent was 17.43 with lead on 24 seats, which fell to 10.16% on three seats. The same was the case in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry. On the other hand the Congress vote share and seats increased in West Bengal and Pondicherry.
He said people who talk of a Congress-free India should remember that in 1984 BJP had only two seats in Lok Sabha. Besides, even decades after formation of Jan Sangh and BJP they were not able to establish their identity in assembly elections but the Congress never spoke of Jan Sangh- and BJP-free India as the party believes in democracy.
Gehlot said the BJP has a Fascist ideology and wears a mask of democracy. So it talks of a Congress-free India, he said.
An additional district judge on Friday met doctors of Jawaharlal Nehru (JLN) hospital and inquired about the arrangements made after nine infant deaths in neonatal ward.
Ajay Godara, an additional district judge, arrived here on Thursday after the high court took suo motu cognizance of the infant deaths to order an independent probe.
Five children died on May 15 in the hospitals neonatal ward. Later, three more deaths were reported on May 16 and one on May 17.
Godara maintained a distance from the media all along his visit to the hospital.
The judge remained about three hours and inspected ground facilities at neonatal ward and outdoor patient departments, JLN hospital superintendent PC Verma said.
The judge noted down the names and addresses of parents whose infants died and took copies of the papers pertaining to their treatment, he added.
A control room has come up in the Ajmer collectorate office to monitor functioning of government hospitals and dispensaries in the district.
Additional district magistrate Kishore Kumar is keeping an eye on complaints registered at the control room. Complaints about doctors not reaching in time to attend patients have come down to near zero, he said.
Facing fire from various quarters, embattled Maharashtra revenue minister Eknath Khadse has demanded a probe into allegations levelled against him by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Preeti Sharma Menon that he received calls from a number registered in the name of fugitive Dawood Ibrahims wife.
Menon has alleged that an ethical hacker had hacked into the call data records of a number registered in the name of Dawoods wife Mehjabeen Shaikh and found that calls were made from it to a number belonging to Khadse.
Khadse, however, dismissed these allegations.
These are baseless and unsubstantiated allegations. The phone has not been operational since a year now. In fact, there is a strong possibility that the SIM card has been cloned and used.
The revenue minister, who was a chief ministerial aspirant before Fadnavis was hand-picked by the BJPs top leadership, is embroiled in multiple controversies with opposition parties gunning for his head.
The alleged Dawood links come at a time when the minister is already facing the heat over an alleged aide Gajanan Patil being arrested by the Anti-Corruption bureau (ACB) for demanding a bribe at his behest.
Menon, however, dismissed Khadses explanation that the phone was not operational for a year.
We have information that the bills were generated on Khadses number. In fact, a bill of `683 was generated on April 23, which shows that the number was operational till then.
Menons press conference featured Manish Bhangale, a resident of Vadodara, who claimed to have hacked into the call records of Shaikhs number.
The AAP leader also said that Khadse was trying to tamper with the probe into the issue.
We have discovered that the Jalgaon superintendent of police Jalinder Supekar wrote to the telecom company, asking for Khadses call data records. Hence, the chief minister must sack Khadse immediately, she said.
Trouble for Khadse, however, continued to mount after opposition parties such as the Congress and the NCP also demanded his resignation over the twin controversies.
The State BJP chief Raosaheb Danve also issued a statement on Saturday evening, saying that the chief minister had already ordered a probe into the issue and the probes final report was awaited.
Even as students and parents across the state celebrate the Centres move to defer the national eligibility-cum-entrance test (NEET) for admissions to government-run medical and dental institutes by one year, experts said the decision will give relief to only a handful of students.
In a press conference in the city on Friday, state education minister Vinod Tawde urged students to continue preparing for the second phase of NEET to be held across the country on July 24. Once the MH-CET results are out, admissions to colleges will take time. In the meanwhile, students can keep a back-up plan ready and appear for NEET. This will give them a chance to bag a medical seat in a private and deemed institute, in case they fail to score well in MH-CET, said Rajesh Jain, coordinator of Parents Association of Medical Students (PAMS).
Of the 1.89 lakh students who appeared for MH-CET, barely 20% (37,800) students qualified for admissions to the 2,500 seats in government medical and dental colleges. This year, more than 2.8 lakh students will compete for 2,810 seats under the state-run medical and dental institutes, leaving lakhs of students with no choice but to take the second phase of NEET to be eligible for the 3,395 seats in private and deemed medical institutes.
My daughter is expecting very good marks in MH-CET, then why should she go through another entrance examination? Im thankful to the government for taking into consideration the plight of students, said Meeta Adhikari, a parent who participated in the protest against NEET.
Ritika Shah, 17, a medical aspirant is happy with the decision. There has been confusion over the past few weeks. The move has brought things back on track. I hope to score enough in my CET to get a seat in KEM medical college, she said.
While some students have been spared this year, next year, they will have to take the test. The government needs to bring in a mechanism which ensures the next batch is well-prepared for the national test, said Dr Sagar Mundada, state president of Medical Association of Resident Doctors (MARD). He said the state education department should also focus on upgrading Class 11 and 12 syllabus to bring students on a par with other boards.
Grammy-winner Ed Sheeran and Northern Irish rock band Snow Patrol are working together to record new music. The Chasing Cars hitmakers, who co-wrote Sheerans song Bloodstream, said they are back in the studio together, reported Femalefirst.
Me and my man Johnny McDaid here have been working on a lot of movie soundtracks, weve been working on some independent film scores and stuff like that. Were writing again with Ed Sheeran and a lot of other guys as well, frontman Gary Lightbody said.
Read: Ed Sheeran Vs Pashmina | The Bollywood art of copying in choreography
Read: Never give yourself a Plan B, advices Lego House singer Ed Sheeran
McDaid, 39, said the band considers the 25-year-old hitmaker their brother. Ed is a very cool guy. He is one of our best friends and one of our brothers, he said.
Watch Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol here:
A month after his expulsion from the Congress, Jagmeet Brar on Saturday addressed a public rally as his show of strength, keeping his options open to join a party that would take the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Congress head on in the run-up to the assembly elections.
The cautious Brar opted not to name any political party, either as an enemy or a friend of the state, though he launched a direct attack on the ruling Badals and Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh terming them traitors of Punjab.
Also read I Ready to join AAP, if invited: Expelled Cong leader Jagmeet Brar
The Badals mean SAD and Amarinder means Congress in Punjab, he later told HT, on being asked why he did not name the two parties while condemning the rival leaders. Punjab lacks political and intellectual leadership, he said in his speech.
He addressed a face-saving crowd of 8,000-10,000, who thronged from Muktsar, Mansa, Bathinda, Faridkot, Ferozepur, Moga, Ludhiana and a few from Jalandhar, Nawanshahr, Gurdaspur and Tarn Taran districts.
NEXT COURSE OF ACTION
Brar set August 15 as a deadline for the Narendra Modi government at the Centre to bring the state out of the severe agrarian crisis wherein, he added, the farmers were committing suicides. If the Centre does not take any step like forming a committee to study the suicides in Punjab by August 15 and announce a concrete remedy, I will lead an agitation of the Punjabs poor peasantry, he said.
These poor farmers would include not only the Jat Sikhs but also all those Dalits and other backward classes who have become the victim of the states severe agrarian crisis, Brar said.
He said neither the Amarinders regime nor the Akali-BJP government had given any concrete policies focusing on agriculture, health, education and any model to handle the states fiscal health.
Also read: I called Kejriwal modern Gandhi; if AAP wise, will rope me in: Brar
Supporters of Jagmeet Brar during a rally at Chappar Chirri in SAS Nagar on Saturday. (HT Photo)
BRARS MAHA KUMBH
For Brar, the rally was the Maha Kumbh of Punjab. He made a dramatic entry into the pandal, climbing the stage and then getting off the stage for a few minute, bowing down on his knees in front of the crowd.
He pointed out the historical significance of Chappar Chiri, while terming the event historic, saying Punjab was now at a juncture where the people needed someone like Banda Singh Bahadur to lead.
The public faces by his side on the stage were his brother and ex-MLA Ripjit Brar, old-time Congress colleague former MLA Harbans Lal, his old pal Manjit Singh Jhalbutti from Mansa, who unsuccessfully contested the last assembly polls as an Independent, ex-MLA Vijay Sathi from Moga, Amandeep Singh Mangat from Chamkaur Sahib, ex-MLA Tarsem Jodha, who was earlier in the AAP and then in Yogendra Yadavs Swaraj Abhiyan.
Harbans had roped in Viresh Shandaliya, the self proclaimed national president of the Anti-Terrorist Front India from Ambala, who enjoys police security both from Punjab and Haryana.
They all read an almost similar resolution to fight against the present Akali-BJP government on agrarian crisis leading to farmer suicides, drug addiction, deteriorating law and order and corruption.
He said if the Badals were a single clan ruling the state, Amarinder was still living in the era of kingship. But the people of the state are fed up of both these clans parivarvaad (nepotism) and rajwarashahi (kingship), and they need someone like Banda Bahadur to lead them, Brar said.
Brar even stated that the ancestors of both CM Badal and Amarinder sided with the British regime whether it was the Jaito Morcha or the revolt of 1857.
HOPES FROM AAP
Brar told HT that he still had hopes from the AAP that could do some good for the people of Punjab. AAP had done too much for Punjab in the recent past, he said.
When asked why he did not name the party even once in his entire speech, Brar said he was here to address the issues concerning the state and not for being into any political game.
Whether any chance in the near future to join the AAP? Let us see if there comes any bridge at any juncture to do so, he replied. He said there were still many in the Congress who felt suffocated but were not coming out in the open.
Also read I Kishor said join AAP if made CM face as its sweeping Punjab: Brar
Brar said he did not feel alone as the people of Punjab were all out to greet him wherever he reached for his mass contact programme. He had so far covered 60 villages in his drive of getting signatures of the families of farmers who committed suicides, and 59 more such villages were to be covered, he added.
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Union minister for Food processing and Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal demanded that the Congress party must apologise for 1984 Delhi riots and operation blue star on the lines Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau tendered apology for century old Komgata Maru incident.
On the sidelines of her Sangat darshan programme, here on Friday, Harsimrat said if Canadian prime could apologise to Sikh community, why Congress could not do the same for hurting religious sentiments of Sikhs in the past.
The anti-sikh carnage in 1984 and operation blue star exposed anti-Sikh and communal approach of the Congress party and no Punjabi could ever forgive the Congress for their brutal acts, Harsimrat said.
Despite being in power for years in the past, no Congress leader has ever apologised in parliament, she claimed.
Taking jibe at the grand old party after its loss in assembly elections in four states, Harsimrat said the verdict has proved that Congress has lost its roots in the entire counrty.
The country is all set to become Congress free after 2017 Punjab assembly elections. The voters of Punjab will show them the door just like the people in other parts of the country have done, she said.
The Bathinda MP further said that even Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) would meet the same fate as its people of Delhi have seen the real side of the party in past one year.
The poor performance of AAP in Delhi municipal corporation elections recently, stood testimony to anti-people policies and autocratic working in Delhi. The people of Punjab would not lean towards wrong propaganda being spread by its leaders in the state, Bathinda MP said.
Meanwhile, Harsimrat accompanied by battery of senior officials heard to grievances of people and distributed funds for development purposes. She handed over cheque of Rs 30 lakh to panchayat of Virk Khurd village, Rs 27 lakh to Virk Kalan and Rs 18 lakh to Bhisiana village.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday apologised for the 1914 incident in which Komgata Maru, a Japenese ship, carrying Sikh passengers was turned away after reaching Canadian coast by the government of the day.
A 40-year-old farmer died while his wife and two children are in a critical condition after they allegedly consumed poison at Molkowal village in Machhiwara on Friday.
Sources said the farmer, identified as Gurdeep Singh, was reeling under huge debt. Last year, he had mortgaged five kanal of his eight-kanal land to a commission agent. On May 17, the agent came to his house to claim possession of the land. Gurdeep was disturbed since then, said sources.
On Friday, Gurdeeps brother Kuldeep Singh saw him lying unconscious outside his house. On entering the house, he found Gurdeeps wife Harjit Kaur, daughter Simranjit Kaur, 17, and son Navkaran Singh, 10, unconscious too. Froth was oozing out of mouths of all the victims.
The victims were rushed to hospital, from where Gurdeep was referred to a Ludhiana hospital, where he breathed his last. His family is admitted in a local hospital. Machhiwara station house officer Amandeep Singh said the victims are not in a condition to record their statements. Cops suspect the farmer consumed poison before serving a drink laced with it to his wife and children.
Mohan Singh, another farmer residing in the same area, had tried to end his life two days back.
The decomposed bodies of two siblings, aged 5 and 3, were found at a house in Gill Colony in the Daba area of Ludhiana late on Friday evening.
The bodies were covered with quilts. The police suspect the role of their mother behind the killings as she is missing since yesterday. The deceased were identified as Liza and Akshara. Their father, Jagtar Singh, who is a driver, had gone to Jalandhar for the past two days.
The bodies were spotted by a cousin of the deceased, Stephen, when he visited their house on Friday, the police said. He noticed foul smell emanating from a room and when he removed the quilts, he was shocked to see the decomposed bodies. He raised the alarm and informed the police.
The neighbours said they had not seen the childrens mother Manjinder Kaur, alias Jyoti, since Thursday afternoon.
Station house officer, Daba, inspector Vinod Kumar said that according to neighbours, Manjinder was suffering from some mental ailment and was undergoing treatment.
It is suspected that Manjinder killed her daughters by poisoning them and fled after dumping their bodies under the quilts, he said. The SHO said they were waiting for the post-mortem report to ascertain the cause of death.
The police have informed their father and have launched a hunt to nab their mother.
The district administrations move to convert the road leading to the Golden Temple into a no-traffic zone evoked tension among the shopkeepers, who, on Friday, staged a protest and damaged the structure that is being constructed to install bollards (short vertical posts arranged in a line to obstruct the passage of motor vehicles in order to control traffic).
The government is setting up bollards along the road leading to the Golden Temple in order to convert it into a pedestrian zone.
However, the governments move is not being swollen down well by the shopkeepers, who said the move would affect their business as they would not be able to bring vehicles to load and unload goods for their shops.
Raising slogans against the authorities, the protesters filled up the dug area and said they would not allow installing of bollards.
Police and the public works department (PWD) officials had to rush to the spot to pacify the agitated protesters, but the shopkeepers were stern with their decision.
Talking to Hindustan Times, PWD executive engineer JS Sodhi said, Developing the area into a no-traffic zone is part of the governments beautification project. We will have to talk to the shopkeepers to continue the project as they did not let the work progress on Friday. We will hold the work till the time we find a solution to the problem.
Agitated over no water supply to the area for past three days in this scorching weather, residents of LIG Colony in Jamalpur staged a protest against the municipal corporation (MC) by beating empty buckets at sub-office of MC at Sherpur, Ludhiana.
Residents, who were forced to live in severe water crisis owing to the negligence of civic body in taking care of the problem, alleged that they had been facing water shortage for past three months.
Residents have been running from pillar to post to get water. They have either been purchasing water bottles from market or bringing water tanks to the area.
Gurjit Singh, a resident of LIG Colony, said, There is no fixed schedule for water supply. For past three months, water is being supplied for one or half an hour in the morning and for an hour at midnight.
We have been subjected to inconvenience in this hot weather. Mostly people in the area are from economically weaker section. But, the MC is not paying heed to our problems, he said.
Singh said, MC officials generally focus on posh areas of the city. People in areas like our colony have been suffering as there is no check on water supply, sewerage and sanitation conditions.
Jasmine Kaur, another resident, said, It has become difficult to cook food with no water in our houses. Some residents are forced to visit other areas to bring water in buckets.
When contacted, MC Zone-B commissioner Kamlesh Bansal assured that a team of the MC would visit the area and ensure proper water supply. He directed the superintending engineer to take immediate measures in this regard. Following protest, water supply to the areas was resumed in afternoon.
Over 600 challaned for wasting water
Ever since it started the drive to issue challans for water wastage this summer, the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation has fined 616 violators for wasting water for washing of vehicles and floors till now.
The MC has issued 78 challans in Zone A, 177 challans in Zone B, 177 challans and 184 challans in Zone D. Sources said wastage of water is still going on in many areas.
MC commissioner Ghanshyam Thori said, Officials have issued over 600 challans for wastage of water from April 1 till now. Now, we are mulling the idea to start night vigil as well because there are reports that a few people have started washing their cars at night.
The officials have been told to take up the challaning drive strictly, so that wastage of water can be prevented, he said.
Additional commissioner Rishipal Singh said, We have also intensified drive against use of banned polythene.
The officials said that they were planning to target the end users for ensuring complete ban on its usage, they added.
Thori said, Since both the notifications are new, we are adopting twin method for its implementation. First, we are creating awareness over the issue and secondly, we are issuing challans only to repeated defaulters.
As the 69th edition of the Cannes Film Festival winds to a close on May 22, one of the movies that has made a mark with critics, and hopefully would with the George Miller jury as well, is a charmingly unpretentious work from Romania called Graduation.
Romanian director Cristian Mungiu has reaffirmed that style is unimportant while telling a story in a film, and he does this with admirable excellence in his Palm dOr competitor, Graduation. Earlier, he had won the Palm for his abortionist tale, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, and a directors trophy for Beyond the Hills.
In Graduation, he examines a universal dilemma of parental anxiety for a childs welfare. Dr Romeo Adrian (played by Adrian Titieni) is a respectable member of society, who wants the very best for his academically brilliant daughter, Eliza (Maria Dragus) -- which is to send her away from the morally bankrupt and corrupt Romania to England, where she has won a scholarship to study psychology. But she has to pass one graduation test that will see her getting on the plane.
Read: At Cannes, documentary Peshmerga and its gutsy cameraman applauded
With Graduation, Romanian director Cristian Mungiu has reaffirmed that style is unimportant while telling a story in a film. (Cannes Film Festival )
Read: How Irans independent cinema is drawing attention at Cannes
However, on the morning of her examination, she is assaulted outside her school and nearly raped, and the father finds himself being forced to make moral compromises to ensure that Eliza gets her required grades. Graduation is an extraordinarily powerful work where Mungius unassuming helming makes a great impact on the viewer -- a realist, indeed he is, who shuns stylistic adornments and firmly believes that technical tricks do not make a magical movie.
Will Graduation win the coveted Palm dOr or at least any of the other top prizes?
(Gautaman Bhaskaran is covering the Cannes Film Festival.)
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Take us away from this hell, said Boussam, a mother of seven cradling skeletal goats in Nigers Assaga camp, where thousands of desperate refugees fleeing Boko Haram Islamist insurgents are living in hunger.
She spoke to AFP in the south eastern camp near the border with Nigeria where some 6,000 people are crammed in UN tents in baking sun after being displaced by the violence.
The size of the camp has swollen quickly since people began to arrive from mid 2015, having fled attacks that have engulfed the region as Boko Haram seeks to carve out a hardline Islamist state in the north east of neighbouring Nigeria.
Conditions in the camp have deteriorated in recent months as food aid has struggled to reach its occupants who live with just basic medical care and schooling.
The UN emergency relief coordinator Stephen OBrien, who visited the camp this week, warned that the raging conflict has catastrophically exacerbated the vulnerability of the regions refugees, displacing people already dogged by chronic food insecurity.
An overloaded car travels through the Assaga refugee camp in Diffa. (AFP Photo)
Anger is rising in the camp that more is not being done to help them.
I think that everyone has abandoned us, said Ibrahim, a refugee in his fifties.
Nigers humanitarian affairs minister Lawan Magadji, who accompanied OBrien on his visit to the region, accepts that not enough aid has reached the camp.
There is not enough food. Distribution operations are based on the neediest households, he said.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has blamed a lack of funds for the shortages.
I am ashamed
Of the $316 million (283 million euros) needed to finance humanitarian efforts in Niger just under a quarter has been raised, according to the agency.
OBrien has promised to raise funds at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, starting May 23.
And despite receiving a warm welcome from children in the camp, OBrien and the UN have not yet eased the daily grind of life in Assaga.
I am ashamed not to be able to feed my family properly, said Elhaj Moustapha, a once wealthy pepper grower forced into exile by the violence.
Mariam, a Nigerian refugee living in the camp, accosted OBrien in person to complain about conditions in the camp.
It has been four months since we last received food aid, she said
But an influx of cash may not be enough to improve her situation and that of others like her.
Several charities have warned that tough security measures imposed by Nigers authorities in its battle against Boko Haram have hampered the flow of food aid to Assaga.
Markets have been closed, the fish and pepper trades suspended and whole areas evacuated, placing a major toll on the areas economy, already under strain from chronic shortages.
Abdou Kaza, the regions military governor, insists the measures are necessary to cut off funds destined for the insurgents and will only be temporary.
But according to the UN, restoring normality to the region will be a herculean task.
Some 9.2 million people in the Lake Chad basin that straddles Niger, Nigeria and Chad are in need of food aid as the Boko Haram insurgency, launched in 2009 and responsible for as many as 20,000 deaths, continues unabated.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the slaying of a doctor who was a promoter of Baul philosophy in western Bangladesh.
The sunni extremist groups news agency Amaq said that Sanaur Rahman, 60, was attacked along with a friend as the doctor called to Christianity.
Rahmans friend Saifuzzaman, a teacher at the state-run Islamic University, was also critically wounded in the attack which took place as they were travelling by a motorbike near Kushtia town.
The SITE Intelligence Group said the IS made the claim through a brief Arabic message posted on its Telegram channel, saying: Fighters from the Islamic State assassinated a doctor who called to Christianity in Kushtia, western Bangladesh.
The statement could not be verified independently and no further details were available.
At least three unknown assailants hacked Rahman and Saifuzzaman on Friday. Rahman died instantly while Saifuzzaman was being treated in the capital Dhaka.
Rahman was known to villagers as a kind person who used to give treatment to poor villagers free of cost.
Saifuzzaman, a professor of Bengali literature at Kushtias Islamic University and an ardent lover of Baul philosophy, had studied in India and had a PhD on mystic philosophy.
Fridays attack follows a series of murders of liberals, secular activists and religious minorities by suspected Islamist militants in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation ruled by secular laws.
A Buddhist monk was hacked to death last Saturday while an atheist student, two gay rights activists, a liberal professor, a Hindu tailor and a Sufi Muslim leader have been murdered since last month.
The Islamic State and the Bangladeshi branch of al Qaeda have said that they carried out several of the killings.
But the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has rejected the claims, saying these groups do not have any presence in the country.
The government blames homegrown militants for the attacks.
Read: Bangladesh blogger who opposed radical Islam hacked to death
Bangladesh professor hacked to death in suspected Islamist attack
High altitude sickness coupled with weakness claimed the lives of two foreign climbers on Mount Everest, the first deaths this season on the worlds tallest mountain, expedition organisers said on Saturday.
Eric Arnold, 36, from Rotterdam in Netherlands died on Friday night, while Maria Elizabeth Strydom, 34, a lecturer with Monash Business School in Australia, succumbed on Saturday. Both climbers were on their way down from the 8,848-metre peak, after successfully reaching the summit on Friday from the Nepal side, when they complained of uneasiness and collapsed.
Arnold died at Camp IV, located at 8,000 metres, while Strydom died further down. Both were suffering from high altitude sickness and weakness, Pasang Phurba Sherpa of Kathmandu-based Seven Summit Treks told HT.
The climbers had adequate supply of oxygen and there were several Sherpa guides from the expedition team with them. High altitude sickness happens due to scarcity of natural oxygen at heights over 2,500 metres.
Their bodies are still on the mountain and efforts are underway to bring them down.
The deaths, have cast a pall of gloom among climbers and guides, who were witnessing a busy season on the peak after two disastrous years.
An avalanche on the mountain in 2014, 16 Sherpa guides had died in . Last year, 19 climbers were killed in an avalanche triggered by the April 25 earthquake, bringing an end to all expeditions.
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A weakening cyclone that lashed southern coastal Bangladeshi districts left at least 20 people dead and more than 100 injured after triggering strong winds and incessant rains.
Domestic flights from the main airport in Dhaka and goods handling at Chittagong seaport, which handles almost 80% export-import business of the country, were disrupted or suspended on account of bad weather in the wake of Cyclone Roanu .
Officials and thousands of volunteers were engaged to help people across the countrys vast coastal region.
The deaths occurred in four districts--Bhola, Coxs Bazar, Patuakhali and Chittagong-- mostly due to collapse of homes, officials and local media said.
At least four people including a child were killed in Chittagong.
In impoverished coastal district of Bhola, three people died and more than 100 were injured after their poorly-built homes collapsed.
Local police chief Mohammed Alam said that at least four people were missing and hundreds of trees were uprooted in storms triggered by the cyclone.
In Coxs Bazar, at least three people were killed, police said, as many people in the region ignored warnings to get to safety by going to government-built cyclone shelters or other buildings.
An elderly woman died in Patuakhali district after her tin-roof home collapsed while hundreds of other homes were damaged.
Authorities have issued alerts across coastal districts of Chittagong, Noakhali, Laxmipur, Chandpur, Feni, Bhola, Borguna, Patuakhali, Barisal, Pirojpur, Jhalakathi, Bagherhat, Khulna, Satkhira and their offshore islands.
Coxs Bazar district faced huge challenge as more than 100,000 islanders had to leave their inundated homes on the Moheshkhali island, deputy commissioner of Coxs Bazar Mohammed Ali Hossain told a news conference.
They are suffering a lot but it is good that no casualties have been reported from Moheshkhali, he said.
The G7 on Saturday pledged to clamp down on financial support for terrorist networks, with a plan to step up intelligence-sharing, freeze assets and tighten reporting rules on international transfers.
The club of wealthy nations has been cooperating to block the financial pipelines that allow terrorists to travel, plan and carry out attacks, but said that more must be done.
Countering violent extremism and bringing perpetrators to justice remain top priorities for the whole international community, they said after two days of talks in northern Japan.
The G7 commits to working together to strengthen the global fight against terrorist financing, said an action plan to be adopted by the groups leaders who meet in Japan next week.
French finance minister Michel Sapin, whose country suffered devastating attacks in January and November of 2015, said the Group of Seven was now in the operational phase of its efforts.
We will introduce effective tools at our disposal in the war against terrorism financing, he told AFP. It is absolutely essential.
Sapin said that good exchanges between intelligence agencies were vital, especially to fight against large movements of money by, for example, the Islamic State in Syria or Iraq.
Another key tool is to counter the cover provided by prepaid but anonymous phone cards, movements of cash that allow anonymous access to finances, he said.
We must trace these.
The G7 action plan identified targeted financial sanctions as critical to hindering terrorist support networks.
It also emphasised the need to freeze terrorist assets, including those of individual militants.
Among specific measures, the bloc committed to reducing the threshold for declaring cross-border cash transactions from $15,000, 15,000 euros and two million yen to $10,000, 10,000 euros and one million yen.
It also said it would provide continued strong leadership to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which sets international standards to combat money laundering and terrorism finance.
While lauding FATF for establishing standards, it said that the evolving nature of current terrorist financing threats requires us to adapt our existing measures to combat those threats.
The pledge comes after Group of 20 finance ministers said in February that more work was needed to combat loopholes and deficiencies in the global financial system as part of the fight against terror.
The G7 consists of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States. All are also members of the broader G20, which takes China, India and emerging economies such as Turkey.
Egypt said on Saturday its navy had found human remains, wreckage and the personal belongings of passengers floating in the Mediterranean, the first confirmation that an EgyptAir jet with 66 people on board had plunged into the sea.
Unconfirmed reports about flight data from the Airbus plane that disappeared while flying from Paris to Cairo in the early hours of Thursday local time pointed to several problems that its veteran pilot may have struggled with minutes before the crash.
The Egyptian navy was able to retrieve more debris from the plane, some of the passengers belongings, human remains, and plane seats, the Civil Aviation Ministry said in a statement.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi offered condolences for those on board.
The navy was searching an area about 290 km north of Alexandria, just south of where the signal from the plane was lost early on Thursday.
There was no sign of the bulk of the wreckage, or of a location signal from the black box flight recorders that are likely to provide the best clues to the cause of the crash.
An Egyptian military search boat takes part in a search operation for the EgyptAir plane that disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea in this still image taken from a video. (Reuters)
EgyptAir chairman Safwat Moslem told state television that the radius of the search zone was 40 miles, giving an area of 5,000 square miles, but said it may be expanded.
A European satellite spotted a 2 km-long oil slick in the Mediterranean, about 40 km southeast of the aircrafts last known position, the European Space Agency said.
Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said it was too early to rule out any cause for the crash. The aviation minister said a terrorist attack was more likely than a technical failure, but offered no evidence.
DATA INDICATES SMOKE ALERTS
Although early suspicion centered on Islamist militants who blew up another airliner over Egypt seven months ago, no group had claimed responsibility more than 36 hours after the disappearance of flight MS804, an Airbus A320.
CNN reported on Friday that flight data, from an automatic system called the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), said smoke alerts were triggered aboard the EgyptAir jet shortly before it crashed.
ACARS routinely downloads flight data to the airline operating the aircraft.
Two US officials told Reuters they could not confirm CNNs report. But they said an electronic sensor system had detected some kind of disturbance outside the jet around the time investigators believe it began falling from cruising altitude.
One of the officials said the disturbance outside the aircraft may have been caused by its sudden and rapid breakup, but it also could have been generated by some kind of mechanical fault or accident or a possible explosion or attack.
The officials asked for anonymity when speaking about the still-evolving investigation.
A screen grab of the flight data transmitted by ACARS to operators on the ground, published on the website of the aviation journal AVHerald.com, indicated failures in the jets flight control system and alerts related to smoke in a lavatory and the avionics system, minutes before the crash.
The screen grab provided on the website showed only very terse messages sent from the aircraft, such as SMOKE LAVATORY SMOKE, AVIONICS SMOKE and F/CTRL SEC 3 FAULT.
The US officials said they could not confirm the authenticity the data, however, and EgyptAir officials could not be reached for immediate comment.
A greek air force mechanic checks a C-130 plane of the Hellenic Air Force on stand by for the searching operation of the EgyptAir plane, at the greek military air base in Kastelli on the island of Crete. (AFP)
Jihadists have been fighting Egypts government since Sisi toppled an elected Islamist leader in 2013. In October, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for blowing up a Russian airliner that exploded after taking off from an Egyptian tourist resort. Russian investigators blamed a bomb smuggled on board.
That crash devastated Egypts tourist industry, one of the main sources of foreign exchange for a country of 80 million people, and another similar attack would crush hopes of it recovering.
The plane vanished just as it was moving from Greek to Egyptian airspace control. Greek defence minister Panos Kammenos said it had swerved radically and plunged from 37,000 feet to 15,000 before vanishing from Greek radar screens.
Officials from a number of US agencies told Reuters that a US review of satellite imagery so far had not produced any signs of an explosion. They said the United States had not ruled out any possible causes for the crash, including mechanical failure, terrorism or a deliberate act by the pilot or crew.
Three French investigators and a technical expert from Airbus arrived in Cairo early on Friday, airport sources said.
Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, played down comments from US figures including likely presidential nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton that terrorism was the most likely cause.
At this point, we still cant corroborate the theory that terrorism brought it down or there was some structural problem with the plane, Schiff told CNN.
Certainly, the backdrop is suggestive of terrorism in the sense that we have the Russian plane in Sharm el-Sheikh and we have the aspiration weve seen time and time again, not only of ISIL (Islamic State) now but of AQAP (al Qaeda), still very potent and still very determined to bring down aircraft.
But the reality is, we dont have hard evidence that this was terrorism yet.
FAMILY OF PILOTS
Hardline Islamists have targeted airports, airliners and tourist sites in Europe, Egypt, Tunisia and other Middle Eastern countries over the past few years.
Khaled al-Gameel, head of crew at EgyptAir, said the pilot, Mahamed Saeed Ali Shouqair, had 15 years experience and was in charge of training and mentoring younger pilots.
Timeline of developments since an EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo crashed into the sea. (AFP)
He comes from a pilot family; his uncle was a high-ranking pilot at EgyptAir and his cousin is also a pilot, Gameel said. He was very popular and was known for taking it upon himself to settle disputes any two colleagues were having.
A Facebook page that appeared to be Shouqairs included criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood, repostings of articles supporting President Sisi and pictures of Shouqair wearing aviator sunglasses.
Two former senior crash investigators said the list of possible causes remained wide open and noted there had been cases where deliberate action had been suspected wrongly.
In 1996, a terrorism probe was launched after a TWA jumbo jet crashed off Long Island, New York, on the east coast of the United States, but investigators later found it had probably been brought down by a fuel tank explosion.
The EgyptAir plane that crashed Thursday was carrying 56 passengers, including one child and two infants, and 10 crew. They included 30 Egyptian and 15 French nationals, along with citizens of 10 other countries. The aircraft had made scheduled flights to Tunisia and Eritrea on Wednesday before arriving in Paris from Cairo.
The massive search for Malaysia Airlines plane MH370 in the remote southern Indian Ocean is expected to be completed by early August, the man leading the hunt said on Saturday.
Less than 15,000 square kilometres remain to be scoured out of a 120,000 sq km target zone off western Australia where the passenger jet is presumed to have crashed.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) head Martin Dolan said there was no indication the zone would be extended.
We have some way to go and our best bet is that we will complete that search late July, early August, depending on unforeseen circumstances, Dolan told The Australian newspaper, referring to rough weather.
The technical capability is there to continue the search but the resources to do it is a matter for government, he said.
Hopes of finding the Boeing 777 which vanished on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board, are receding.
At this point there is a diminishing level of confidence that we will find the aircraft, Dolan admitted.
There will be a lot of disappointment if we dont find it.
At worst we will know at the end of this process that the area we have searched does not contain the aircraft. At best we will find it.
The search zone has so far yielded no clues as to what happened aboard MH370, a scheduled flight that disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in one of the most enduring mysteries in aviation history.
Five pieces of debris which have been identified as either definitely or probably from the jet have been discovered thousands of kilometres from the search zone -- in South Africa, Mauritius, Mozambique, Mauritius and the island of Reunion -- likely swept there by currents.
Australia, Malaysia and China have said the hunt they have jointly organised would likely be abandoned if nothing is found in the search zone.
In a weekly operational update, the ATSB said three ships continue to seek the plane but winter weather has set in with giant waves and high winds hampering efforts.
The Australian added that in the event the plane is not found, the ATSB is working on a report looking at other possibilities, including the rogue pilot theory that the captain deliberately crashed it into the sea.
By 2025, India will lose 39.6 million years of healthy life to mental illnesses unless steps are taken to address the vast mental health treatment gap in the country, according to a research led by Vikram Patel, a prominent expert in the field.
Three papers published in The Lancet and The Lancet Psychiatry journals suggest that a third of the global disease for mental, neurological and substance use disorders occurs in India and China, which is more than all high-income countries combined.
Patel, a professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who was named one of the most influential 100 individuals by Time magazine in 2015, says though India has progressive policies on mental healthcare, implementation is patchy and treatment gaps very large.
The majority of people with mental disorders in China and India do not receive treatment, according to details of the study released by the school.
The three papers are the first of publications to be released over the coming year by the China-India Mental Health Alliance, jointly coordinated by the Shanghai Mental Health Center at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and the Public Health Foundation of India.
Less than 1% of the national healthcare budget in India and China is allocated to mental healthcare, and both have very few trained mental health professionals, poor access to mental health services (especially in rural areas) and high levels of stigma, which may prevent people from accessing services, the study says.
Besides community workers, the researchers highlight the importance of collaboration with traditional and alternative medicine specialists, such as yoga and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners.
Innovators have shown how these gaps might be reduced, for example through task-sharing with frontline workers and engagement of the community. These are the models of care which deserve public financing for scaling up, Patel says.
Additionally, we must explore how alternative medicine practitioners can work in collaboration with medical doctors to improve the lives of people living with mental health problems.
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North Korea on Saturday suggested holding a preparatory meeting with South Korea ahead of proposed military talks between the two foes that it said could prevent in advance a second Korean war.
The military dialogue had initially been offered by leader Kim Jung-Un in his speech to a rare congress of North Koreas ruling Workers Party earlier this month, but Seoul dismissed it as posturing.
Pyongyang reiterated the offer on Friday, only to be rebuffed again by Seoul the same day.
Apparently undeterred, on Saturday the North pushed for a preparatory meet.
We propose to hold working-level contact for opening the north-south military authorities talks at the date and place both sides deem convenient in late May or early June, North Koreas defence ministry was quoted as saying in a statement carried by state media.
It is an urgent matter directly related to the existence of the Korean nation to defuse the military tension and prevent in advance a second Korean war, it added.
Seoul insists it will only consider engaging in substantive dialogue with Pyongyang if the regime takes a tangible step towards denuclearisation.
The North has repeatedly said its nuclear arsenal is not up for negotiation.
Americas leading gun lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA), has endorsed presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who had once backed expanded control on guns.
Hillary wants to disarm vulnerable Americans in high-crime neighbourhoods, Trump said on Friday at the annual convention of the NRA, attacking the Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Whether its a young single mom in Florida or a grandmother in Ohio, Hillary wants them to be defenceless, wants to take away any chance they have of survival... And thats why were going to call her Heartless Hillary.
Clinton has made gun control a significant campaign promise, using it to relentlessly attack her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders on his somewhat ambivalent position on the issue.
Clinton shot back at Trumps attack in a tweet: Youre wrong, @realDonaldTrump. We can uphold Second Amendment rights while preventing senseless gun violence.
She did not mention, however, that Trump had a patchy record on gun control issues. As the Washington Post pointed out, he had supported a ban on assault rifles in 2000.
After the Newtown school massacre in 2012, in which 20 children were killed, he had tweeted: President Obama spoke for me and every American in his remarks in #Newtown, referring to Obamas call for policy changes on guns to prevent such shootings. But much to his later frustration with the NRA prevented him from carrying out even the slightest of changes.
On Friday, Trump said the right to bear arms was the the most basic human right, and he promised to end gun-free zones, arguing they are a standing invitation to sickos.
Trump has argued as did other gun lobbyists that mass shootings, and even terrorists attacks, can either be foiled by people carrying guns or minimize the damage.
And he threw in a personal touch as well to steal the show: My sons have been members of the NRA for many, many years, and theyre incredible they have so many rifles and so many guns, sometimes even I get a little bit concerned. I say: Thats a lot.
In what can come as inspiration for Indian rail engineers, the 57-kilometre long Gotthard rail tunnel the worlds longest rail tunnel cutting through the Alps is now ready for commissioning.
Eleven days from now, the tunnel will be handed over and commercial operations will begin shortly, said Peter Huber, CEO of the Transfer Gotthard, the Swiss-Italian consortium that executed the ambitious project, which aims to provide for a rail freight corridor from Rotterdam in Holland to Genova in Italy.
Indias longest tunnel is the 11.2 kilometre link from Banihal to Quazikund linking the Jammu region to the Kashmir valley.
The completion of the Gotthard tunnel provides a boost to Indias Kashmir rail link project that envisages the construction of the worlds highest rail bridge over River Beas. Rail technology has advanced. Austrian tunneling technology that is being used in the Kashmir project should enable faster execution, said Dr Alfred Veider, CEO of Thales Austria.Thales has commissioned signalling work for the Gotthard tunnel, including the installation of the European Train Control System (ECTS).
While providing seamless freight and passenger transportation across Europes north-south axis, the Gotthard tunnel will reduce travel time from Zurich in Switzerland to Milan in Italy from the existing four to three hours. Over an execution period of eight years, the tunnel has been built at a cost 1.9 billion Swiss francs.
The Gotthard not only connects two regions, but had also been an example of an engineering feat achieved by engineers working in two different languages. Swiss and Italian engineers worked on the project in their own languages.
Approximately 250 passenger trains running at speeds of 250 kilometers per hour will cross the Gotthard tunnel each day, besides 80 freight trains that will run at a speed of 160kmph, said Christian Glattli of Transtec-Gotthard.
Our aim is to ensure the shifting of heavy duty transport to the more environment friendly railway system, he said.
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In 1952, the U.S. Air Force ordered 32 Piasecki H-21A Workhorse search and rescue (SAR) helicopters. These were essentially improvements on a late World War IIera U.S. Navy design, the HRP-1 Rescuer, which was the U.S. militarys first tandem-rotor helicopter. Nicknamed the Flying Banana because of its upcurved fuselage shape, the H-21 was optimized for Arctic operations, but its comparatively powerful engines made it suitable for operations anywhere in the world. The Air Force quickly upgraded its H-21As to Bs by installing more powerful engines. The Army purchased that variant as the H-21C (later CH-21C) Shawnee troop transport, first deployed to Vietnam in December 1961. Its first combat service was with the U.S. Armys 8th and 57th Transportation companies, carrying Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) troops.
Vietnam quickly exposed its vulnerabilities. The first Shawnee was shot down near the Laotian border in July 1962. Both the SAR and troop transport versions were unarmored, and although the helicopters engine proved resistant to fragments and small-arms fire, its control cables and fuel lines were easily damaged.
The Army armed its Shawnees with either 7.62mm or .50-caliber door-mounted machine guns, and experimented with a gunship version fitted with a forward-firing .50-caliber machine gun in a remote-controlled turret under the nose. But its slow speed and lack of armor limited its utility in that role. More important, the introduction of more powerful gas-turbine engines rendered piston-engine helicopters obsolete. The Bell UH-1 Huey began to replace the CH-21 in 1964, reducing it to the logistics role until replaced by the CH-47 Chinook beginning in 1965. The last of the U.S. Army CH-21s and Air Force HH-21s were withdrawn by that December.
The Air Forces SH-21s became HH-21s in July 1962. Replaced by the Kaman HH-42 in the SAR role, they were withdrawn before the air war started over North Vietnam and probably would have suffered heavily over that countrys airspace. Nonetheless, the Flying Banana gave valuable service during its three years in the Indochina Theater. It was the primary tactical lift workhorse in the wars early years. It also set many helicopter flying records in the 1950s, including the distinction of being the first to fly across the United States nonstop and the first to be refueled in the aira capability that was not included in production models but has featured prominently in every U.S. combat SAR helicopter produced since 1967.
It seemed almost impossible now for a Confederate to leave Canada for the South without being followed by detectives, wrote Lieutenant John Headley, a Rebel secret agent in Canada. But Lt. John Ashbrook and Capt. Robert Cobb Kennedy, attempted the journey.
The two Southern operatives had little choice. Someone had to carry information from the headquarters of Confederate covert operations in Toronto to the Confederate authorities in Richmond, Virginia. Indeed, many other undercover couriers already had. But now, in February 1865, moving about freely was difficult for Rebel spies. Ashbrook and Kennedy were being watched by the time they arrived at the train station.
They got on the Grand Trunk Railway going west and crossed over to St. Clair Station in Michigan where they connected with a train going south and west of Detroit, wrote Headley.
Kennedy took the first vacant seat, while Ashbrook found one near the front of the car. They had traveled for about an hour when Ashbrook, looking back observed two men enter and go straight to Kennedy. Without saying a word, they seized him.
Ashbrook could not afford to wait. The two men had pistols drawn. One of them looked forward for a moment as if to locate him. The question was how to escape. He raised his window sash, put one leg out, ducked his head and went into the darkness. Fortune favored Ashbrook. He fell upon an embankment in the snow and rolled into a ditch. He had not sustained any injury. The train sped away leaving him in the darkness. He succeeded in finding a farmhouse and early next morning was conveyed across the country to a station on another railroad, where he caught a train and reached Cincinnati. Here he found friends and readily made his way across Kentucky to the Confederacy. The two men who arrested Kennedy were United States detectives who had gone all the way from Toronto with them.
Ashbrook eventually made it back to the South, but Kennedy was not so lucky. He was tried as a spy for his part in a Confederate plot to firebomb New York the previous November and hanged in April 1865.
With mishaps like the Ashbrook and Kennedy incident happening with increasing frequency, it was no wonder that Jacob Thompson, the director of Confederate secret operations in Canada, was at his wits end. By early December 1864, his mission was a shambles. Traitors in his inner circle had been in the pay of the U.S. government for months. Key operatives had been captured and jailed. Others had blown their cover and were on the run. Just a few floors beneath his suite in a Toronto hotel, detectives staked out the bar. Across the street, at Torontos main railway station, others noted the comings and goings of his contacts. Canadian authorities were so angry at what they believed was his abuse of their nations neutrality that they considered jailing him. Signs of failure were everywhere.
I had hoped to have accomplished more, the Mississippian mused bitterly in a letter written December 3, 1864, to Confederate Secretary of State Judah Benjamin. But the bane and curse of this country is the surveillance under which we act. Detectives, or those ready to give information, stand on every corner.
Most of the core problems of Thompsons operation were his own. In the 2,300 years since unknown Chinese authors wrote The Art of War under the name Sun Tzu, the keys to successful spying had not changed much: discretion, stealth, a secure local base of operations, and an ample purse. Naive and indiscreet, Thompson was clearly the wrong man to head a spy mission. Although he had considerable skills as a politician and businessman, they were of little use in his role of spymaster. The one thing he did have was money. The Confederate States had given him some $600,000 to fund his mission, a fortune in his day, but he spent the money freely and foolishly as he pursued various schemes.
Six hundred thousand dollars may have sounded like a reasonable investment in early 1864, when the Confederacy set up operations in Canada with the goal of finding men to fill the thinning ranks of its armies. The Confederate government believed that many Confederate prisoners of war held in camps along the northern frontier had escaped and made their way to neutral Canada. In February, President Jefferson Davis sent James Holcombe to the province of Nova Scotia to round up stray escapees. Holcombe, a University of Virginia law professor, set up a network that would collect these men and get them to Halifax, the provincial capital. From there, they would be taken back to the South aboard blockade-runners.
While in Nova Scotia, Holcombe picked up rumors that discontent with the war was growing in the Unions Northwest, known today as the Midwest. These reports coincided with similar ones from other sources. Seeing an opportunity to stir things up to the Souths advantage, Confederate authorities in Richmond sent Thompson and Clement Clay, a former U.S. senator from Alabama, to Canada in May.
Thompson kicked off his Canadian mission by sending a small guerrilla team south across the Canadian border to provide leadership for a Northwest rebellion to help finance it. The scheme would become known as the Northwest Conspiracy. Leading the uprising would be the so-called Copperhead groups, antiwar Democratic party organizations that Thompson wrongly believed to have well-organized armies numbering in the hundreds of thousands. They were supposed to be ready to overthrow the Union and form a new Northwestern Confederacy that would include Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Missouri. All they needed was some organizational help and some cash to pay for guns and ammunition. Thompson was only too happy to oblige. If a Northwest rebellion succeeded, the former United States would be broken into three pieces, and that should assure the Southern Confederacys survival.
In the summer and fall of 1864, Thompson poured his best efforts into supporting and encouraging these groups. It soon became apparent, however, that they were vastly overestimated and poorly led. To make matters worse, Union spies and informers had infiltrated them. Key leaders were arrested, and when Union armies succeeded in capturing Atlanta in September 1864, the fire gradually went out of the Copperhead movement.
Meanwhile, Thompsons team was moving on other fronts. In July, Clay and Holcombe were involved in secret Union-Confederate peace talks at Niagara Falls, Canada, with John Hay, an aide to President Abraham Lincoln. The talks were brief. Once Hay announced that Lincoln insisted on the full restoration of the Union as a condition for peace, there was nothing left to discuss. That condition was completely unacceptable to the Confederates.
Beginning in September of that year, Thompson turned to more overt acts of sabotage, including a series of cross-border raids from Canadian bases that he hoped would provoke Lincoln to invade Canada, which was a British colony at the time. He believed such an invasion would produce the same result as the Northwest rebellion would have: because the Union would not be able to sustain a war on two fronts, particularly against a world power like Great Britain, Lincoln would be forced to negotiate peace with the South.
One of the most ambitious of these raids was an operation on Lake Erie that Thompson authorized in mid-September. He planned for a raiding partymade up mostly of escaped Confederate prisoners of warto seize the gunboat U.S.S. Michigan, which was anchored at Sandusky, Ohio, guarding Johnsons Island Prison. The raiders were to board the ship, which would be rendered defenseless by infiltrators who would drug the crew with spiked champagne. Then, they would turn her guns on the prison, giving the 2,700 Confederate prisoners there a chance to escape. The escaped prisoners would form a foraging army and fight their way back to Virginia. The Rebel-controlled Michigan, meanwhile, would move down the lake, pounding Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Sandusky, Ohio, to rubble.
On September 19, the plan was put into action. At mid-morning a team of raiders seized the passenger steamer Philo Parsons for use in capturing the Michigan. The raiders steamed the Philo to the Bass Islands, about nine miles north of Sandusky. There, the passengers were put ashore after taking an oath not to raise the alarm. A second local steamer, the Island Queen, arrived at a critical moment and was also captured. Her passengers, including Federal soldiers on leave, took the same oath and were also put ashore.
The raiders towed the Island Queen offshore and scuttled her, while they pushed the Philo on toward Sandusky and the Michigan. The raiders expected a prearranged signal to assure them that the Michigans crew had been sedated, but that signal never came. Thompsons inside man, Charles Cole, had been arrested earlier that day, foiling the operation.
Cole had spent a month in Sandusky with his mistress Annie Brown, pretending to be a Philadelphia banker. The pair wined and dined the officers of the Michigan with Thompsons money, offering to host a lavish party aboard the gunboat on the 19th. But Cole had been exposed, and by the time the Philo arrived that day, he was under arrest and Annie was beating a hasty retreat to Toronto with the bad news. Far from being helpless, the Michigan was swarming with Union sailors and marines awaiting the attack.
After a tense few hours waiting for their signal, the Confederate raiders retreated. They sailed back across the lake flying a Confederate naval ensign, stripped the Philo of everything they could move, and scuttled her. A few weeks later, Canadian authorities arrested Confederate Acting Master Bennett Burley, second in command of the operation.
On its face a failure, the raid did cause considerable alarm along the Unions northern frontier. Federal troops were sent to Buffalo, Sandusky, and Detroit as a precaution and remained on high alert. Meanwhile, Mayor William Fargo of Buffalo, New York, set up his own intelligence network, if only as an early-warning system.
The Lake Erie raid might have been a real success had Cole not been betrayed by a Confederate turncoat at Windsor. The informer was an officer who operated a hotel where 60 Confederate refugees lived. His guests were unaware they were boarding with a Union detective who relayed every conversation to Colonel Bennett Hill, the provost marshal of Detroit. Hill, in turn, passed the information on to the Michigans commander, Captain Jack Carter. It may even have been Thompson himself, lodging in Windsor just before the raid, who let information slip and sealed Coles fate.
In any case, on September 17, two days before the raid, Hill had wired Captain Carter and warned him of the plot to capture the Michigan: It is reported to me that some of the officers and men of your steamer have been tampered with, and that a party of rebel refugees leave Windsor tomorrow with the expectation of getting possession of your steamer.
On the morning of the 19th, Hill furnished the specifics that led to Coles arrest. It is said that the parties will embark today at Maldon on board the Philo Parsons and will seize either the steamer or another running from Kelleys Island, Hill wrote. Since last dispatch I am again assured that officers and men have been bought by a man named Cole, a few to be introduced on board under the guise of friends of officers.
Coles rooms were searched, and among his papers were found some letters linking him to Thompson. Other documents indicated he had been paroled in Memphis that April, after taking an oath not to take up arms against the Union. Both documents were enough to have him charged as a spy. If convicted, he would be executed.
Alerted to Coles predicament by Annie Brown, Thompson wrote a letter to the commandant of Johnsons Island, where he believed Cole was incarcerated. He urged that Cole be treated as a prisoner of war rather than a spy. That would not get him out of jail, but it would keep him alive. It turned out that Cole was not at Johnsons Island, however. He had been taken to a Federal prison in Cincinnati, then moved to Columbus, and finally to Fort Lafayette in New York Harbor. He was found guilty of treason and sentenced to hang, but a full confession earned him amnesty. He would be released in the spring of 1865.
A month after the Lake Erie raid, in October 1864, Canadian-based Confederates were back on the offensive, raiding the Vermont town of St. Albans. This time, however, Thompson was not involveda symptom of yet another problem in his organization. The raid was authorized by Thompsons second in command, former senator Clay. Sickly and ill-tempered, Clay deeply disliked Thompson. He had no interest in his bosss plots and raids, and separated from him soon after they arrived in Halifax. While Thompson used Toronto and Montreal as his bases, Clay worked out of St. Catharines, a town on Lake Ontario about 15 miles from Niagara Falls. It was he who was responsible for the peace talks at Niagara Falls in July 1864. And it was he who was now launching one of the most politically controversial raids of the Canadian mission.
On October 19, 1864, about two dozen Rebel raiders commanded by Lieutenant Bennett Young, a Kentucky cavalry officer, descended on St. Albans, about 40 miles south of Montreal. They robbed three banks of up to $200,000, killing one man and wounding three other people. As they retreated, they unsuccessfully attempted to set fire to the town. Most of the raiders were quickly captured or eventually turned themselves in to Canadian authorities. Young was arrested at a farmhouse on the Canadian side of the border, and was about to be lynched by an angry mob of Vermonters when the timely appearance of a British soldier saved his life.
Young and his fellow raiders were accused of violating Canadas neutrality. But they claimed that they operated with the official sanction of the Confederate government, and were therefore carrying out legitimate acts of war against the United States on U.S. soil, and merely residing in Canada. Despite challenges, the defense worked. Clay, however, did not linger to hear the verdict. He denied any responsibility for the raid and fled Canada for the South.
Next to bungling, Union spies, and internal division, one of the greatest factors in the failure of Thompsons Canadian operation was deliberate betrayal from within the organization. The most reviled of Thompsons turncoat operatives was Godfrey Joseph Hyams, an Arkansan who had traveled to Toronto in late 1863, after being forced to move, as he later told a Toronto court, by Federal soldiers who seized his property and expelled him from the state.
Hyams was apparently poor and uneducated. By late 1864, his wife was six months pregnant, and he was eking out a living repairing shoes. He was so hard up that when Thompson paid him $50 for a mission, most of the money went straight to rent in arrears. On February 22, 1865, Mrs. Hyams gave birth to a boy, who was christened Stonewall Jackson Hyams. Tragically, the baby died a month later, on March 20, and was buried at the cost of $1 in a Toronto Catholic cemetery.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that Hyams first appears in dispatches as an informer just a few weeks after his sons death. On one hand, he loved the Confederate cause enough to name the boy after a revered Southern hero. On the other, he had no job prospects, and he was unable to pay the rent and buy basic necessities. His errands for Thompson had been dwindling, and along with it, his meager income. Soon any information he had would not be worth anything to anyone. It was a good time to sell out.
Whatever had caused his change of heart, on April 5, 1865, Hyams walked into the office of David Thurston, the U.S. consul in Toronto, and offered to make a deal. It appears he had first discussed the matter with Robert Harrison, Torontos crown attorney (a position similar to district attorney). At the time, Harrison was prosecuting numerous Thompson operatives on assorted charges. The defendants included the St. Albans raiders and Burley. It is possible that Hyams was questioned as part of those investigations and perhaps indicated a willingness to make a deal.
Thurston described Hyamss visit in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward on April 7:
A few days since, a person named Hyams who has been an intimate associate of rebels here, called on me. He stated that he was in possession of important information. It related to the plans of those rebels and the steamer Georgian [a second plot to capture the Michigan and free prisoners at Johnsons Island, involving a civilian vessel named Georgian]. He told me he had been connected with the rebels for several years and all their schemes and plots were known to him. He was desirous of communicating them to me if I would remunerate him for so doing. I said that the information would be submitted to the government of the U.S. and if it was considered of value, a proper recompense would be made, but under no circumstances could I guarantee it. He replied he was willing to accept those terms.
Hyams delivered high-grade information about the Georgian plan. An earlier report from a low-level Canadian informant known only as Fides stated that Thompson had hired James Bates, a former Mississippi steamboat captain, as a front man to buy the Georgian. [Bates] is a determined old fellow, an old maniac, Fides wrote. His Captain knows the lake well and is a man to succeed. It behooves people of Sandusky to keep a good lookout. Hyams added to this, describing a falling out between Thompson and Bates and how Colonel George Taylor Denison, a Canadian army officer with Southern sympathies, had taken title of the ship for Thompson.
The most startling revelation was related to a secret arms factory in a Toronto house, where Thompson was making torpedoes, hand grenades, and so-called Greek fire, a crude ancestor of napalm. Authorities searched the property for evidence. Thurston later reported:
The house [Hyams] described was empty, but his belief was that certain of these incendiaries were buried under the floor. Two policemen were detailed to examine the premises and in the extremity of the hall a portion of the floor was removed and under four inches of water and 18 inches of earth, several torpedoes were found buried.
These torpedoes are covered with a mixture of broken coal and pitch and resemble pieces of bituminous coal. They are made of cast iron of irregular shape, hollow and are filled with powder and covered. Hyams says they are to be thrown into coal bins in factories and steamboats etc., where they will, without being noticed, be shoveled into the fire and effect the purpose for which they are designed.
Thurston relayed all this information to Toronto police, the Canadian attorney generals department, and to Crown Attorney Harrison. Harrison responded that he hoped to arrest Col. Thompson as being concerned in a conspiracy to violate neutrality laws. He also suggested that perhaps Hyams could provide valuable assistance in the prosecution of the St. Albans raiders. It may have been at this point that Canadian and U.S. officials decided to put Hyams on the payroll.
On April 10, just three days after Thurston wrote to Seward, the Confederate cabal was shocked when Hyams appeared as a witness for the prosecution at the trial of raid leader Young. Hyams told the court of his meetings with Young and the plans for the St. Albans raid. He named names and pointed fingers in the courtroom.
After the war, Hyams would continue his association with Federal officials, appearing as a witness in the Lincoln assassination trials. Prosecutors initially believed that the plot to kill Lincoln involved the Canadian commissioners because a bank draft found on John Wilkes Booths body was drawn on a Canadian bank. Although Booth had been in Montreal in the fall of 1864, it was not proven that the assassination plot involved Confederates in Canada.
The Hyams case and similar situations had made it clear that bad luck and Thompsons ineptitude as a spymaster were stifling the Confederacys mission in Canada. The chasm between Thompson and Clay had done its share of damage, too. In a series of articles in Southern Bivouac magazine in 1886, the two mens military commander, Captain Thomas Henry Hines of Kentucky, identified their interpersonal tension as a destructive factor:
The Commissioners were not harmonious from the inception of their mission. This was a source of constant embarrassment and proved one of the most potent obstacles for success. [They] found it impossible to agree.
Col. Thompson was a man of sterling integrity, but he was inclined to believe too much that was told to him, to trust too many men, to doubt too little and suspect less. His subordinates were kept in continual apprehension, lest he compromise their efforts by indiscreet confidences.
One of Hiness close associates, Captain John Castleman, also wrote of the friction between Thompson and Clay in his memoir Active Service. Castleman thought highly of Thompson, but not of Clay. The latter was not practical, wrote Castleman. He lacked judgment. He was peevish, irritable and suspicious. He distrusted Mr. Thompson and relied on those who were often untrustworthy.
The mutual animosity essentially turned Confederate operations in Canada into two missions with two masters who did not talk to each other, who often worked at cross purposes, and who no doubt compromised themselves in more ways than one. Meanwhile, Canadian and U.S. authorities were working together closely by late 1864, passing information back and forth in an effort to foil the espionage efforts. Canadians did not want to be drawn into Americas Civil War and came to resent that Thompsons harassing actions were conducted from bases in their country. In the case of the Georgian, the United States/Canadian cooperation was particularly close. For the good of the Union cause, Canadian authorities impounded the vessel at Collingwood on Lake Huron, even though when they searched the vessel, they found no arms, munitions, or torpedoes.
By the end of 1864, it was obvious to Confederate authorities in Richmond that the Canadian mission was finished. Clay returned South in November, and on December 30 Secretary of State Benjamin ordered Thompson home: From reports which reach us from trustworthy sources, we are satisfied that so close an espionage is kept upon you that your services have been deprived of the value which is attached to your residence in Canada. The President thinks that it is better that you return to the Confederacy.
Thompson did not leave Canada until mid-April when he sailed for England. His wife joined him there, and they spent the next two years in Europe before returning to Mississippi. Clay turned himself in to Federal authorities and remained in prison until 1866. Fides and Hyams disappeared without a trace. Cole drifted to Mexico after he was freed from jail and then returned to Texas, where he reportedly went into the railroad business.
They could have made history, those fledgling spies who made up the Confederacys Canadian mission. Cast into the arena of international espionage, these would-be heroes had the chance to help rescue their cause from the brink of its demise. Unfortunately for them, and for the cause that counted on them, they failed miserably.
This article was written by Adam Mayers and originally published in the June 2001 issue of Civil War Times Magazine. For more great articles, be sure to subscribe to Civil War Times magazine today!
Nearly 20 years have passed since Glory, director Edward Zwicks treatment of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, made its debut in December 1989. When Glory opened, there had not been a true Civil War film for nearly a quarter-centurysince Shenandoah in 1965, although Westerns with Civil War connections such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1967), The Undefeated (1969) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) had appeared at regular intervals. Because Glory was not booked at any of the theaters in State College, Pennsylvania, where I was teaching, I drove with friends to see it in nearby Altoona, and shortly thereafter arranged a screening for students at Penn State University. I subsequently watched it for a third time at a large theater in New York City. As a result of those three viewings, Glory becameand has since remainedmy favorite Civil War film.
I find it very satisfying on three levels. First, the principal actors do a fine job. Denzel Washingtons Private Trip, Morgan Freemans Sergeant John Rawlins, Jihmi Kennedys Private Jupiter Sharts and Andre Braughers Corporal Thomas Searles comprise a memorable quartet, who as enlistees in the 54th follow Hollywoods venerable tradition of placing men of divergent backgrounds together in military service. I initially doubted whether someone best known as the teenager Ferris Bueller should play Colonel Shaw, but Matthew Broderick proved a very pleasant surprise. Cliff De Young as Colonel James Montgomery, who memorably ordered the burning of Darien, Ga., in June 1863, and John Finn as the unyielding Sergeant Major Mulcahy also contributed riveting performances in supporting roles. Kevin Jarres screenplay, which drew heavily on Shaws wartime letters and other historical documents, gave the actors first-rate material with which to work.
I also believe that Glorys staging of a Union attack at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, represents the best combat sequence in Civil War cinema. A junior officer in the 2nd Massachusetts at Antietam, Shaw wrote about his experience shortly after the action: Every battle makes me wish more and more that the war was over. It seems almost as if nothing could justify a battle like that of the 17th, and the horrors inseparable from it. Those horrors stand out in Glory, as viewers move forward with Shaws regiment. Artillery rounds burst in trees, Rebel defenders behind a rail fence send a shower of musketry into the blue ranks, and an officers head bursts into red spray when hit by a shell. Unable to stand the fire, the Federals retreat, including one soldier, his right leg reduced to a bloody stump, who drags himself toward the relative safety of Union lines as a slightly wounded Shaw hugs the ground.
I consider Glory to be most important as the first film to present black soldiers as significant military actors in the Civil War. Prior to its release, African Americans in the Union Army had been largely absent from modern American conceptions of the conflict. Sixteen students at Ohio State University played members of the 54th in the film, one of whom spoke to this point: This information wasnt in the history books. Its like an unquenchable thirst. The history is so richyou want to jump right in with both feet. Denzel Washington reacted similarly. I knew absolutely nothing, he confessed. I didnt even know that blacks fought in the Civil War.
Theatergoers across the United States left screenings with a similar realization that the military struggle between 1861 and 1865 had not been an all-white affair. In that respect, Glory worked a sea change in popular perceptions about the conflict.
Greater attention to U.S. Colored Troopsas the black regiments were denominatedreached a high point with the dedication on September 12, 1996, of the African-American Civil War Memorial in the historic Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The monument features a sculpture by Ed Hamilton titled The Spirit of Freedom, around which a series of stainless steel plaques list the names of approximately 200,000 black soldiers and 7,000 white officers who served in USCT units.
In January 1999, a facility that offered exhibits and research materials operated by the African American Civil War Memorial Freedom Foundation and Museum opened a short distance from the monument. Glory surely deserves considerable credit for spurring interest in creation of the monument.
Zwicks film gets most important aspects of the 54ths story right. These include the second-class treatment of black soldiers in terms of pay and duty, open hostility to their recruitment by many white Union soldiers and the importance of military service to the black mens sense of manhood. The film often aligns perfectly with historical evidence. For example, deployment of the 54th to Beaufort, S.C., brings the men, and the viewer, face to face with slavery. The soldiers encounter a number of local black children, and Rawlins urges them to tell their parents that the appearance of the 54th means the year of jubilee has come. On June 8, 1863, Corporal James Henry Gooding of the 54th wrote about recently liberated black residents in Beaufort: The contrabands did not believe we were coming; one of them said, I nebber bleeve black Yankee comee here help culer men. They think now the kingdom is coming sure enough.
This is not to say that no errors or distortions mar the film. The 54ths climactic assault along the beach toward Battery Wagner goes in the wrong direction, too many members of the regiment are former slaves (most were free black men from the North), Brodericks Shaw lacks some of the real mans ambivalence about abolition and Trips character betrays anachronistically modern attitudes, to name four instances.
Yet such lapses detract only slightly from a film that combines a compelling story, memorable characters, fine acting, strong direction, beautiful cinematography and a haunting musical score. Glory holds up remarkably well after 20 years, evoking a powerful range of emotions in viewersincluding many, such as I, who have seen it multiple times and certainly will watch it again.
A Carolina Moonshiner Helps Win WWII
SEVERAL SHOTS SEEMED to come out of nowhere. One bullet whizzed past Sheriff N.H. McGeachys face, almost nicking his nose, and another clipped Deputy Bill Wests ear. McGeachy had seen at least three men with guns scurry toward a wooded area when he drove up to David Williams Godwin, N.C., moonshining operation in July 1921, but they had all disappeared into the trees before opening fire. As McGeachy and West dropped to the ground, Deputy Al Pate, still standing, suffered a direct hit and died within seconds.
Williams turned himself in, though he claimed innocence. Indeed, the evidence against him was weak and mostly circumstantial, but his legal team advised him to plead insanity. They even enlisted his brother, the Rev. J. Mack Williams, to testify that David was clinically paranoid and his mania for guns could be traced to his childhood days hunting in the backwoods of Godwin. It was a risky legal strategy (Williams himself wasnt too pleased about being called unhinged) but a single juror remained stubbornly convinced that Williams was insane, and the judge declared a mistrial. Williams agreed to lesser charges and received a 30-year sentence. He maintained his innocence but knew that if he had attempted a second trial and lost, he could have faced life in prison or the electric chair.
[David Williams] was a sandy-haired, broad-shouldered youngster, his light-blue eyes hard and unsmiling, wrote Captain H.T. Peoples in a lengthy 1951 article about Williams and his time inside North Carolinas Caledonia Prison Farm. Peoples was the prisons superintendent, and he remembered Williams well. In the first month I dont believe young Williams spoke more than twenty words to anyone.
Williams kept mostly to himself, failing even to correspond with his parents. When Peoples nudged him to send a letter to his distraught mother, Williams opened up for the first time and told him that he didnt want to write home from a prison postmark.
A week later Williams requested a pencil and some paper, which Peoples gladly provided. When he caught Williams scribbling away after the other prisoners had gone to sleep, he saw that Williams was doodling instead of composing a letter. Peoples was disappointed at first but then noticed the hard, bitter eyes were softening. Whatever he was doing, it was making him a little happier.
Williams knack for fixing hopelessly broken-down machines earned him a coveted job running the metal shop. One night Peoples walked in on him slaving away with draft instruments; drawing boards and sketches were scattered everywhere. Williams made no effort to hide his handiwork, and the two men looked at each other for a moment.
Itsa new kind of gun, Williams said. Then he broke into a rare grin. Dont worry, this has nothing to do with an escape. I wouldnt try to escape now if the gate was wide open. Ive got too much work to do, and this is a good place to do it.
Superintendent Peoples not only encouraged Williams to keep at it but allowed him to pick through the prison junkyard for parts. Williams plunged in, collecting old tractor axles, Ford drive shafts, walnut fence posts and other scrap items that he filed down, pieced together and manipulated to construct half a dozen rifles. Guards stopped by to have Williams work his magic on their guns, too, whenever they needed repairs.
And it was at Caledonia that Williams constructed the prototype of what would become his most influential innovation: the short-stroke piston. In early models of semiautomatic carbine rifles, the entire barrel kicked back almost four inches to hit the breech mechanism. Williams cut that to one-tenth of an inch without losing substantial firepower. You know how you can hit one croquet ball a long distance by holding your foot on another ball and transmitting the shock of the mallet? Williams explained to Peoples. Its the same idea. This alteration alone led to the production of a shorter, lighter and more dependable rifle: the M1 carbine.
I didnt know it then, of course, but what this young prisoner was telling me that night would one day be considered by firearm experts one of the most revolutionary advances since Brownings development of the machine gun, Peoples later wrote.
The notion of a cop-killing inmate assembling a small arsenal of handmade weapons behind bars didnt sit well with some folks, and Peoples was summoned before the North Carolina prison board in Raleigh to explain himself. According to one report, Peoples stated that he was so confident Williams wasnt plotting to break out that he offered to serve the remainder of Williams sentence if he did.
That wouldnt be necessary. Newspaper articles and word of mouth soon transformed the young, self-taught engineer into something of a local hero. By the late 1920s, a number of influential figures had joined Peoples in lobbying Governor Angus McLean to release Williams early: FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, Sheriff McGeachy and reportedly even Deputy Pates widow. On September 29, 1929, almost eight years after his conviction, David Marshall Williams was pardoned.
The Winchester Repeating Arms Company hired Williams after he was released, but corporate life proved almost more arduous to him than prison. Paranoid that his colleagues would steal his ideas and feeling stifled in the bureaucratic environment, Williams became a raving hothead who stormed out of meetings and threatened his colleagues when he felt ignored or underappreciated. Winchester considered firing him but recognized that, despite his tantrums, Williams was a genius.
When the U.S. Ordnance Department requested designs for a light rifle prototype, Winchester submitted a semiautomatic carbine that incorporated Williams short-stroke piston concept, making the rifle more compact and reliable.
On October 1, 1941, Winchester officially received word that it had won the contract for the M1 carbine. During World War II and the Korean War, an estimated 8 million M1s were produced, more than any other American small arm, and the rifle was widely considered one of the strongest contributing factors in the Allied victory in the Pacific.
By the time Williams died at age 74, he had been credited with dozens of patents and earned numerous awards and tributes. In 1952 the feature film Carbine Williams, starring Jimmy Stewart, was released, and a state marker was erected near Williams Godwin home that says: 19001975, Carbine Williams, designer of short-stroke piston, which made possible M-1 carbine rifle, widely used in WWII. And, to top it all off, in 1968, ex-felon David Williams was made an honorary deputy U.S. marshal.
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Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., eloquent African-American Baptist minister and leader of the civil rights movement from the mid-1950s, was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929. Dr. King began his involvement in the civil rights movement in 1955 with his leadership of the Montgomery bus boycott, which ended segregated seating on city buses. Adopting Mohandas K. Gandhis principles of nonviolence, King led demonstrations, sit-ins and boycotts in cities throughout the South to show the injustice of racist policies. He explained his belief in nonviolence in a letter written during one of his many incarcerations: Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. Kings efforts helped to bring about the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Dr. Kings leadership of the civil rights movement brought many threats against his life and on April 4, 1968, he was killed by a snipers bullet in Memphis, Tennessee. Martin Luther King Day was established by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, for the third Monday in January.
Image: National Archives
The spearhead of Lees army was about to strike a lethal blow at the very heart of the Keystone State when the Battle of Gettysburg interrupted.
BY UZAL ENT
Gettysburg was a small rural town with no special significance or importance, like the thousands of other small towns that dotted the American landscape of the 19th century. Then came General Robert E. Lee, with his 75,000-strong Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, marching into Pennsylvania in June 1863. When Lees men stumbled onto Major General Joseph Hookers 95,000-man Union Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg on July 1, the tiny country town suddenly became synonymous with one of the greatest battles ever fought in the Western world.
If Lee had had his way, however, Gettysburg would have remained nothing more than it had ever been. In those few weeks before his fateful encounter with Hookers pursuing army, Lee seemed to have his sights set on Harrisburg, the Keystone States capital and stepping stone to the huge port city of Philadelphia. And before the Battle of Gettysburg changed his plans, Lee very nearly had his prize in his hands.
Northern officials swung into action with an urgency bordering on panic when reports of Lees invasion first came in. On June 12 and again on the 16th, Pennsylvania Governor Andrew G. Curtin issued a call for volunteers to defend the state. President Abraham Lincoln issued a similar call on June 15, for 100,000 militiamen from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, and West Virginia. But these efforts at raising an impromptu militia to fend off Lees battle-tested veterans came to nothing, and for good reason: Curtins call stated that recruits would be put on standby for active duty in the Department of the Monongahela in western Pennsylvania or the Department of the Susquehanna in the east, depending on where they lived, but it had no cap on how long the term of service could continue. Lincoln offered a six-month term, but without the bounty usually paid to men who enlisted for army service. And because Congress had not appropriated money for the militia force, there was a chance that the men might not be paid at all.
Curtin and Lincoln finally shortened their proposed terms of service to three months, and when the governor called for volunteers again on June 26, he pledged that, if the Rebel threat was gone before 90 days were up, the men could return home early. The federal government would provide the men with arms, ammunition, transportation, and subsistenceeverything but uniforms.
While the president and the governor waited in vain for a force of any size to materialize, a glimmer of hope came from New York. The Empire State, whose militia was better organized than those of most other states, offered 8,000 to 10,000 men from New York City to serve immediately, but only for three months. Union Secretary of War Edwin Stanton accepted the New Yorkers at once, and so it was that the defense of Pennsylvanias capital fell almost entirely to New York troops.
By June 28, Major General Darius Couch, commander of the Department of the Susquehanna, would have some 11,000 to 12,000 Northern troops at his disposal. Thirteen regiments of New Yorkers tramped off rail cars in Harrisburgeight of them to be deployed around the city, one to remain within the city, and four to guard two rail bridges over the Susquehanna River at Marysville, seven miles north of Harrisburg on the opposite riverbank. Five Pennsylvania regiments, along with assorted company-sized units of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, bolstered the citys defenses.
Civilians from the Harrisburg area joined with soldiers to dig defensive positions on the heights across the Susquehanna from the capital. The principal defense, Fort Washington, was protected by an outwork named Fort Couch, about 700 yards farther from the river on the same ridge. These forts were far from formidable. Each mounted a miscellany of poor-quality cannon, mostly 6- and 12-pounders. The inadequacies did not stop with the hardware, either. Except for a contingent of sailors who served a howitzer battery, the training of most of the artillerists was as lacking as their combat experience. In fact, most of the Northern troops had little training and less experience.
Perhaps the only thing that held Harrisburgs improvised defense force together was the professionalism of key principal officers: Couch, the able Brigadier General William F. Baldy Smith, Lieutenants Edward Muhlenberg and Rufus King of the U.S. Artillery, and Captain William H. Boyd of the U.S. Cavalry.
Approaching Couchs green, piecemeal force was a Confederate army of legendary skill and experience. As Lees troops fanned out across south central Pennsylvania, they formed an arc approximately 100 miles long, centered a few dozen miles north of Gettysburg at Carlisle. To the west, Rebel troops were in McConnelsburg and Chambersburg, and to the east they occupied York and Wrightsville. Lee had already ordered Lieutenant General Richard Ewell, commander of his 2d Corps at Carlisle, to capture Harrisburg if he had the means.
The means at Ewells disposal were formidable ones, and the corps commander had soon put them to work preparing to capture the capital city. Major General Jubal E. Early, one of Ewells division commanders, was to cross the Susquehanna over bridges at Wrightsville, capture Lancaster, in the midst of Pennsylvanias most fertile agricultural region, cut the main railroad to Philadelphia, and then attack Harrisburg from the rear. Major General Robert E. Rodess division would attack the citys front simultaneously. By the closing days of June, Ewell had his corps within striking distance.
Before any confrontation with Rebels happened, a running battle broke out between some of the residents of central Pennsylvania and the New York militiamen who had come to defend them. The Empire Staters were galled by the high prices the locals charged them for food and water. The historian of the 23d New York State National Guard called the areas residents poltroons who sold their goods at ruinous prices, and who were thinking of nothingexcept how to escape with their worthless lives andproperty.
In another example of this homespun profiteeringa practice in no way unique to Pennsylvaniathe owners of a bridge over the Susquehanna charged the Union army a hefty sum to use the span. The Camelback Bridge, a wooden covered bridge with a somewhat humpy profile, was the only feasible supply route from Harrisburg to defenses on the rivers western bank. The federal government eventually paid $3,028.63 for the privilege of using the bridge, thereby doubling the bridges stockholders dividends for the year.
There was, of course, another side to the civilian-soldier feud. Locals claimed that Federal soldiers stole more from them than the Southern invaders eventually did. A resident named John Mater accused the soldiers of taking all but about a dozen of his chickens, and the survivors were saved only because he had hidden them under a box. Mater and some of his friends stood on the box while the soldiers searched for more chickens. I guess the chickens knew it and kept quiet, he concluded.
The real confrontation, the showdown between Union and Confederate troops, finally began on the evening of Saturday, June 27, when Captain Frank Murrays Federal cavalry unit, known as the Curtin Guards, sighted Ewells pickets east of Carlisle and five miles from Mechanicsburg, a town nine miles west of Harrisburg. The enemy troops exchanged shots. At 8:30 the next morning, Murray reined up at the telegraph office in Mechanicsburg and wired a report to Smith. Fifteen minutes later, Murray led his troopers out of town, followed by a rear guard. At 9:00 a.m., according to an account published in the local Cumberland Valley Journal on July 23, 1863, two butternuts, bearing a flag of truce, dashed into town, and halting at the square, inquired for the civil authorities and the flag that had been flying before their arrival. The Rebels captured the Stars and Stripes.
These Confederates belonged to Brigadier General Albert G. Jenkinss cavalry brigade, serving with Ewells 2d Corps. Jenkins divided his command into two contingents of 700 and 800 men each. He put M.J. Ferguson, commander of the 16th Virginia Cavalry, in charge of the contingent that included the 16th, the 26th Virginia Cavalry Battalion, and Captain William L. Jacksons Virginia Battery, and sent it north on Hogestown Road to the Carlisle-Harrisburg Pike, which ran directly past the Union forts en route to Harrisburg. Jenkins himself oversaw the other contingent, and occupied Mechanicsburg with the 14th Virginia Cavalry, the 34th Virginia Cavalry Battalion, and Captain W.H. Griffins 2d Maryland Battery. He took over the Ashland House hotel and demanded that 1,500 rations be delivered to the town hall.
Jenkinss ragtag troops camped in a field east of town. Some were clad inbutternut uniforms, while a majority had no uniforms at all, reported the Cumberland Valley Journal. A few, with their stolen rig, looked very much like Pennsylvania farmers. Most of the men were well mounted on horses taken along the march. Nevertheless, the Journal admitted that the Rebels were pretty well behaved.
Carrying out their orders, Fergusons contingent of Jenkinss brigade had turned east off Hogestown Road onto the Carlisle-Harrisburg Pike, when they spotted some Union troops. The Confederates were near Salem Church, a mile and half from their turn-off, and the Yankees they saw were deployed on high ground a little more than a mile farther east, at Sporting Hill. These Federals were part of Brigadier General Joseph F. Knipes two-regiment brigadethe 8th and 71st New York State National Guardsupported by an untested battery commanded by Captain Elihu S. Miller. Jacksons battery exchanged fire with Millers guns, but the shelling had no effect, and the Federals withdrew east through their picket line at Oysters Point, a road junction midway between Sporting Hill and the forts.
Jacksons battery limbered up and galloped after the Yankees as far as the Eppley (later Albright) farm house, less than half a mile from the point. He placed two guns in front of the house, with a line of supporting infantry several hundred yards to the southeast, but no further action occurred. Ferguson and his men remained in the vicinity of the Eppley house for the rest of the day. Knipes men remained near Oysters Point, while Knipe himself was ordered back to take command of Fort Washington.
Jenkins, meanwhile, after arranging things in Mechanicsburg, rode north to visit Ferguson. After conferring with the colonel, he rode southeastward to Peace Church, at the junction of St. Johns Church Road and Trindle Spring Road, to meet Colonel James Cochran and part of his 14th Virginia Cavalry. Some of Cochrans men were in a patch of woods west of the Peace Church cemetery. The four Parrott rifles of Captain Griffins Maryland battery were in the road in front of the church, pointed east. Several cavalry companies were dismounted and deployed on each side of the building.
Cochran had scouts out grilling locals for information about the Federals and their whereabouts. They seized a Mr. Cromleigh, sexton of Peace Church, and his 16-year-old son, William. Both were imprisoned in the church.
As the prisoners arrived, Jenkins was looking through field glasses at the terrain to the east. Along a tree line about a mile away, he saw what he thought was a line of skirmishers. Perhaps it was Federal cavalry at Oysters Point; perhaps it was just some farmers. Jenkins handed the glasses to William Cromleigh and asked him to take a look and give his opinion. Young Cromleigh audaciously concluded that what the general had seen was just a line of fence posts on the Charles Rupp farm. Jenkins spat a few choice words at the boy and sent him away.
Convinced he had seen something more than fence posts, Jenkins ordered his artillery to fire toward Oysters Point. The first shell flushed out a Union cavalry picket, who hastily withdrew to an infantry picket line about a mile to the rear. Closer to Peace Church, a handful of advance infantry pickets took cover in a limestone quarry south of the pike.
This Yankee activity led Jenkins to believe the enemy was about to attack, so he ordered his men to take cover behind the cemetery wall and directed Griffin to fire a volley into the woods at Oysters Point. Millers Union batteryposted 200 yards east of the toll gate where Trindle Spring Road, on which Peace Church stood, met the Carlisle-Harrisburg Pikesoon answered. Most of the rounds fell well short of the Confederate position, where Griffins men kept firing until dusk. Toward evening, Jenkins withdrew his men and bivouacked near the John Neidig farm, closer to Mechanicsburg. One cavalry company was sent to camp just east of the town, with orders to maintain contact with the force at Carlisle during the night.
At 10:00 p.m. the 22d and 37th New York regiments quietly marched out in an attempt to cut off the Rebel cavalry. The column marched in silence for five miles but saw nothing. At 4:00 a.m. the force returned without incident.
June 29 dawned stormy, but Jenkinss men returned to their probing action. The artillery advanced on parallel roads, pausing to fire occasionally, one battery on Trindle Spring Road, the other on Gettysburg Pike to the south. Eventually, the Confederates established an eastward-facing battle line running generally from the Eppley farm southeast to Gettysburg Pike, with pickets about 100 yards out in front. In the Rebels path was an advance Federal line of 150 menconsisting of one company each from the 8th, 23d, and 56th New York and commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Elwell of the 23d. The Union line ran generally north and south from Oysters Point and a patch of woods a bit to the west.
Millers Union battery opened fire from behind Elwells line. Jenkinss advance, with its strong artillery support, soon persuaded the Federals to withdraw several hundred yards. About 11:00 a.m. one or two companies of Lieutenant Colonel Vincent A. Witchers 34th Virginia Cavalry Battalion, accompanied by a cannon, galloped boldly from near the Eppley farm to Oysters Point. There they ran into a hot fire from the Federal pickets and Millers battery, and were blocked by a log barricade. When the Confederates stopped briefly near the hotel, one of them was shot from his horse, and another was also wounded.
This seemingly futile Confederate sortie had been designed to divert Union attention so Jenkins could reconnoiter the Northern position from Slate Hill on the Union left. There, about noon, Jenkins studied the Federal defenses. Based on this reconnaissance, Ewell ordered Rodes to prepare to capture Harrisburg with his division on June 30.
June 28 and 29 had been exciting and dangerous for people living near Oysters Point. Zacheus Bowman remembered that bullets were flying all around[and] we got behind an old stone kitchen. Seeing that a New York soldier was running behind him, he yelled, Whats up? Just then a bullet struck his cap and knocked it right off his head. He said Now I guess you see what is up?' Bowman reported that the Rebels reached the toll gate at Oysters Point, but got no farther.
W.L. Gorgas watched Jenkinss party from his home at the intersection of Lisburn and Simpsons Ferry Roads, southeast of the point. He estimated that there were about 60 men moving within three-quarters of a mile of the Federal picket post on Cedar Spring Run near his house. No civilian remembered any Confederates advancing farther east than Limekiln Lane, though some Rebels did reach that point on the 29th.
While Jenkinss men were carefully feeling out Harrisburgs defenses, Robert E. Lee was trying to discern what the Army of the Potomac was up to. Late on the 28th he learned that Hookers Federals were approaching South Mountain on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border, so he decided to concentrate his army east of the mountains, and ordered Ewells corps to rejoin the army at either Cashtown or Gettysburg.
By 3:00 a.m. on June 30, only Jenkinss cavalry brigade, along with some artillery, remained near Harrisburg. Cochrans 14th Virginia Cavalry had left for Carlisle, but part or all of Fergusons command was near Salem Church on the Carlisle-Harrisburg Pike, with pickets near the west edge of Sporting Hill.
Murrays Curtin Guards entered Mechanicsburg on the morning of June 30 to find the Confederate troops gone. General Smith then ordered Brigadier General John Ewen to take the 22d and 37th New York regiments, accompanied by Millers battery, on a reconnaissance along the Carlisle-Harrisburg Pike. Preceded by Lieutenant Frank Stanwoods company of 3d U.S. Cavalry scouts, Ewens brigade departed at 9:45 a.m. Smith and several members of his staff, including Rufus King, accompanied Ewen.
The brigade inched forward for three hours and reached the Eppley farm, near which Jenkins had his line on the 29th, but no Rebels turned up. At Oysters Point, the brigade met Stanwoods men, who excitedly reported that elements of Jenkinss brigade had been encountered near Silver Spring Creek, several miles to the west. Ewen turned his brigade around and headed back against the Confederates. It was early in the afternoon, but Ewens column advanced so slowly that it was 4:00 p.m. before it arrived at the junction of the Carlisle-Harrisburg Pike and Sporting Hill Road, on the east side of Sporting Hill.
Just north of the junction stood Simon Eberlys redbrick house and a tavern. Also in that area were fields of foot-high corn and plowed land. On the south side were a coopers shop, a blacksmiths shop, and a 400-yard-wide field of waist-high wheat. In the wheat field stood the McCormick familys barn, 400 yards northwest of the crossroads. Beyond the fields, parallel to the pike, was a belt of woods. Beginning a mile and a third to the west, a plateau stretched west to Salem Church. The Gleim house and a few oak trees lay in a dip about 900 yards away in the same direction, on the north side of the pike.
Soon after Ewens men arrived at the junction, puffs of smoke rose from the barn, and Confederate musket balls whizzed overhead. Return fire struck harmlessly against the barns stone walls. Ewen halted his column, but did nothing more. Lieutenant King, cresting a hill, saw some Rebels run from the Gleim barn across the pike diagonally and into the woods south of the pike. Believing they might be trying to turn the Union left flank, King directed the 22d New Yorks two leading companies, A and C, into these woods. Seeing this, the Rebels withdrew to the woods around the Gleim house. New Yorkers on patrol captured only a frightened farmer.
The troops of four 22d New York companies were deployed on their stomachs south of the road, concealed by the wheat. Three similarly deployed companies to the north were only partially hidden by the short corn stalks. Finally, Ewen ordered the 37th to move up on the right flank of the 22d, deploy, and attack the McCormick barn.
As the 37th came over a hill, fire from the barn wounded a lieutenant and a drummer boy. The troops fell to the ground for cover and would not follow Ewens orders to move forward to a wheat field about 30 yards closer to the barn. The frustrated Ewen then ordered the three companies of the 22d north of the road to drive the 37th forward with fixed bayonets. Before the 22d could digest this strange order, the 37th, of its own accord, rushed forward to a fence and resumed its ineffective fire on the barn.
Confederate artillery began to fire from among Gleims oaks. Four rounds whistled over two companies of the 22d, which promptly moved en masse to the south side of the pike. The Rebel artillery shifted its fire to try to follow its runaway targets, but the Yankees had gotten too far away.
At 5:00 p.m. a Lieutenant Perkins arrived with two rifled guns from a unit known as Landiss Philadelphia Battery. King placed one gun on the pike atop the hill, and the other in a farm field north of the Eberly house. Their first shot hit McCormicks barn. The doors swung open, and the Southerners fled back to their main position. The Federals seemed to win the ensuing artillery duel, inflicting casualties and forcing the Rebels to limber up their cannon and withdraw.
It was then that Ewens men heard artillery fire from the direction of Mechanicsburg, about a mile and a half from their left. Shells seemed to be bursting on Trindle Spring Road to the southeast, not near Sporting Hill. Fearing he was being outflanked, Ewen had the 22ds flank companies turn and face the lines left rear.
It turned out that the fire was coming from a gun that had accompanied Lieutenant Herman Schurichts Rebel cavalry company to Mechanicsburg. Schuricht had driven out Murrays Federals and taken position east of town, where the Cumberland Valley Railroad crossed Trindle Spring Road. Schurichts horsemen were burning ties to heat and twist rails when the lieutenant detected men in a patch of woods between him and Shiremanstown, to the east. Believing them to be Yankees preparing to attack, he ordered the gunners to fire a few rounds into the woods. No one was hurt, and the Yankees proved to be local farmers.
Soon, Schuricht found himself in the same unnerving predicament as Ewen, as shifting winds brought the sound of artillery from the direction of Sporting Hill. Schuricht feared he was about to be cut off from the main Confederate force, so he withdrew his force to Carlisle. Ewen stayed in position almost until dark, then marched back east to Bridgeport.
The fighting across the river from Harrisburg was over. Union officials estimated that 16 Confederates had been killed, and 20 to 30 wounded, while the Federals had lost 1 officer and 19 enlisted men wounded. There had been more fear than fighting, and most of the troop movements and shooting had been part of reconnaissance efforts. What the enemies did not know about one another had shaped the skirmishing.
On the morning of July 1, Colonel William Brisbanes brigade (the 32d and 33d Pennsylvania) and Ewens brigade (the 22d and 37th New York), accompanied by Landiss battery, struck out from Fort Washington for Carlisle, on the trail of the Rebels. Captain William H. Boyds 120-man company of the 1st New York Cavalry reached the town well ahead of the infantry.
James W. Sullivan, a 15-year-old local boy, wrote years later about the entry of Union troops into Carlisle. They made a brave showing coming up Hanover Streetto the square, he recalled. First were the regiments of the New York National Guard, led by a drum and fife corps. After the ecstatic locals laid out a feast for the soldiers, Sullivan continued, the scene was that of a merry picnic.
But the feast was premature. The howl of an incoming artillery shell announced that a Confederate force was still nearby. This time it was not Jenkinss command, but Brigadier General Fitzhugh Lees brigade of Major General J.E.B. Stuarts Cavalry Corps, freshly arrived in the area. The ensuing bombardment, lasting until 3:00 a.m. on July 2, left 1 Federal dead and 12 wounded. The Confederates suffered about 8 casualties from return fire. A lumber yard, the local gas works, and the towns famous U.S. Cavalry barracks were all burned during the engagement.
The skirmishes near Harrisburg and at Carlisle in June and July 1863 caused probably less than 100 casualties, so they get little attention from military historians. But had this small-scale fighting not been interrupted by the huge Battle of Gettysburg, the Rebels might have captured the capital of Pennsylvania. And with that moral victory under their belt, who knows what the Confederates might have captured next.
Uzal Ent is a retired brigadier general of the Pennsylvania National Guard.
Donut Dolly: An American Red Cross Girls War in Vietnam, by Joann Puffer Kotcher, University of North Texas Press, 2011
There were 627 young women who served in the American Red Cross Supplemental Recreation Activities Overseas program during the Vietnam War. Joann Puffer, a University of Michigan grad with a mathematics degree, became number 45 in May 1966. She was part of the vanguard of women, dubbed Donut Dollies, formally allowed to venture into combat zones.
Forty years after her Vietnam adventures, Joann Puffer Kotcher has written Donut Dolly, An American Red Cross Girls War in Vietnam, based largely on her personal journal and subsequent interviews.
While Kotcher dishes up an entertaining, honest and insightful view into the day-to-day life of a Donut Dolly, she makes a strong case for the impact that the small cadre of women in Vietnam had on the arc of womens equality in the armed forces. The Dollies demonstrated the ability of women to go into dangerous situations in the field. As Kotcher notes, during World War II, women played an important role in a wide range of military and civilian jobs, but in the military their contributions did not develop into advancement of opportunity. That was not the case after Vietnam, and Kotcher claims, The Red Cross girls success opened up opportunities for military women.
Beyond recognizing the Dollies societal impacts, the strength of Kotchers memoir lies in its rare and detailed account of the life of one of these young women in Vietnam. During her tour, Kotcher went into combat zones in the Central Highlands, the Mekong Delta and even along the Cambodian borderand has a number of harrowing tales to prove it. The lessons she learned in these experiences are largely the same that soldiers encounter: One of the first things I had to learn, as I sat in a bunker while artillery shells flew over my head, was how to fight fear and worry, how not to feel. Otherwise I couldnt function. I might as well pack it up and go home.
The fear and uncertainty that Kotcher describes are among the many experiences these women shared with the soldiers they were there to servea fact that is often lost in the Donut Dollies stories. Just like the GIs, Kotcher admits that the closer I came to leaving Vietnam, the more impatient I became. I wanted to go home. I counted down the last 30 days, because everyone else did. It was the worst thing I could have done. The days dragged. They felt longer than they should have. Thirty days were forever.
Kotchers Donut Dolly is a welcome and worthy addition to our understanding of the Vietnam War experience.
R.V. Lee
The United States is trying to make a deal with Iran, by which that country would guarantee to keep its nuclear program peaceful. After winding down the war in Iraq, American troops are back in that country to fight ISIS. And the present governments of two longtime American allies, Israel and Egypt, gripe that we are not as friendly as we should be.
Rough times, to be surebut different only in degree from Americas experiences in the Middle East for many years. Whether the problem of the moment is Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Libya, Lebanon, Iraq or Iran, the United States has been holding hands, knocking heads or fighting wars in the Middle East for decades. We do it because we are the superpower that is most involved in Middle Eastern affairsa role assumed by Dwight Eisenhower. The Middle East needed a steady hand because it held the bulk of the worlds oil supply, and because it was subject to nationalist upheaval and possible Soviet penetration. It needed a steady hand because its previous imperial masters were too weak to do the job any longer.
At the end of World War II, the dominant powers in the region, on paper at least, were still France and Britain. France had a chain of mandates and possessions stretching from Morocco to Syria. Britains writ ran from Egypt to the Persian Gulf. French or British commercial interests heavily influenced those countries not aligned with either power. But this vestigial Anglo-French empire was moribund. France had been prostrated by defeat and occupation; Britain was near bankruptcy. The peoples they dominated yearned for complete independence. Local nationalists, some of whom had intrigued with the Axis, might now be wooed by the Soviet Union.
After the war, the United States helped Britain and France to recover economically, and worked with them to maintain the freedom of Western Europe. America had no intention, however, of propping up the Europeans spheres of influence in developing countries. As a former colony itself, the United States sympathized with the rhetoric of liberation.
Dwight Eisenhower, first elected president in 1952, brought a unique perspective to the postwar world. As the former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, he had worked closely with Britains political leaders as well as its military leaders. He knew them, liked themand never forgot that he had been Supreme.
The first Middle East crisis of the Eisenhower years concerned Iran. In 1953 Britain asked the United States to join in toppling democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who had nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the British-controlled firm that pumped and processed Irans oil. (Its refinery on Abadan Island in southwestern Iran was the largest in the world.) John Foster Dulles, secretary of state, and his brother, Allen, director of Central Intelligence, prepared a CIA plan codenamed Ajax. Eisenhower biographer Stephen Ambrose wrote that, although the president left no documents behind that could implicate him, he nevertheless maintained a tight control over this and other CIA operations. A combination of riots and army maneuvers brought Mossadegh down in August. In the aftermath, American oil companies won access to 40 percent of the Iranian market. The U.S. had helped Britainand helped itself.
Eisenhowers next Middle East crisis pitted the United States and Britain directly against each other. A Franco-British company operated the Suez Canal under an Egyptian government lease that was set to expire in 1968. But in July 1956 Gamal Abdel Nasser, the new president of Egypt, nationalized the canal, declaring that he would use revenue from tolls to modernize his country. Britain and France reacted with wounded pride and fear. (One British newspaper headline called Egypts president Grabber Nasser.) The Suez Canal was the conduit for the Middle Eastern oil on which their economies depended; if Egyptians mismanaged it, or closed it to them, they would be crippled.
The two countries reached out to Israel and came up with an elaborate scheme. Israel, reacting to Palestinian guerrilla raids from Egyptian soil, would invade the Sinai Peninsula. In response, Britain and France would send an armada to protect the canalfrom the conflict that Britain and France had encouraged. On October 28 the Israelis moved into the Sinai. On November 5-6 British and French troops took Port Said and Port Fuad at the northern end of the canal. Although the United States had been warned that its allies might intervene to recover the canal, the joint operation with Israel took Eisenhower by surprise. For Britain and France, acting on their own was the point of the exercise. Its rather fun, remarked one British diplomat, to be at Number Ten [the prime ministers London residence] the night we smashed the Anglo-American alliance.
Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers, however, were determined to stop them. We cannot be bound by our traditional alliances, the president said privately. Nothing justifies double-crossing us. If fighting cut off the fuel supply to Britain and France, he grumbled that they should boil in their own oil. In public Eisenhower used more dignified words to convey the same message: We cannot subscribe to one law for the weak, another law for the strong. . . .There can be only one lawor there shall be no peace.
The United States offered a motion in the General Assembly of the United Nations calling for a cease-fire under UN auspices. It passed, 64 to 5 (only Britain, France, Israel and two Commonwealth countries voted against it). International disapproval and fierce domestic debates, especially in Britain, weighed heavily on the three combatants, but the heaviest pressure came from Eisenhower and the United States. In December the British and French evacuated the canal. Eisenhower had imposed his will on our oldest allies, and, it seemed, on the Middle East. One British diplomat summed up the new situation: We have become very much junior partners in the Western Alliance.
Eisenhower had muscled his way to victory, but in two years he would shoulder the burdens of responsibility. In January 1958 Nasser announced a new pan-Arab state, uniting Egypt and Syria. In mid-July Iraqs royal family was murdered in a pro-Nasser coup in Baghdad. When the president of Lebanon, Camille Chamoun, was threatened with a coup, he asked for help not from France, which had created modern Lebanon in 1860, but from the United States, the 20th-century superpower. Eisenhower called a meeting of his advisers in the Oval Office. He was not seeking their counsel, but telling them what he intended to do. My mind was practically made up, he wrote in his memoirs. The U.S. Sixth Fleet would put Marines and soldiers ashore in Beirut to stop the trend toward chaos in Lebanon. Later that day Eisenhower informed British prime minister Harold Macmillan of his plans. You are doing a Suez on me, Macmillan joked. Eisenhower laughed, but he considered the two operations very different: Eisenhower was acting at the invitation of the local government. On July 15 U.S. troops went ashore, to be greeted on the waterfront by refreshment sellers. Lebanon remained peaceful, Nasser backed off and the Americans left Lebanon in October. The trend toward chaos was stopped.
But the trend toward American involvement had just begun. We backed Israel in two wars in 1967 and 1973 and brokered peace between Israel and Egypt in 1978. In 1979 our embassy in Tehran was overrun and our diplomats held hostage. In 1982 we sent armed forces once more to Beirut (where 241 Americans were killed by a suicide bomber the following year). We fought Iraq in 1991 and invaded it in 2003. Year in, year out, we dealt with terrorists, nationalists, Islamists and OPEC. No power has spent more, done more or been frustrated more. It is Dwight Eisenhowers worldwhat he found in the 1950s, and what he made of it. We are still living in it.
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA -- Oakwood Asia Pacific Ltd, which manages an award-winning portfolio of the finest serviced apartments in the world for business and leisure travellers, confirmed a partnership with Plenitude Berhad today to open the first Oakwood-branded property in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in the second half of 2016.
Located in the Malaysian capital's historic Ampang district, Oakwood Hotel & Residence Kuala Lumpur aims to provide spacious living, comfort and security for both business and leisure travelers.
"We are proud to establish our footprint in Malaysia with the opening of the first Oakwood-branded property in Kuala Lumpur," said Dean Schreiber, managing director of Oakwood Asia Pacific Ltd. "Kuala Lumpur is an important destination for us, especially with the Malaysian capital emerging as one of Southeast Asia's most alluring metropoles. We have seen a rising demand for a dual hotel and residence property in the city and know that Oakwood Hotel & Residence Kuala Lumpur will be an environment in which guests will feel right at home. As more travellers appreciate the benefits of the Oakwood accommodation offering, we will continue to grow its portfolio to meet these demands around the globe."
Elsie Chua, chairman of the board of Plenitude Berhad added, "We are excited to partner with Oakwood. They have a proven track record of more than 50 years in providing spacious residences to discerning travelers in key locations, complete with modern amenities and backed by informed, responsive service professionals which we think is suited to our building and its location. We picked the Oakwood Residence brand for its promise of elegance, comfort and convenience, supported by personalised service that cares for your every guest and resident. Plenitude has invested RM50 million for the renovation and upgrading of Oakwood Hotel & Residence Kuala Lumpur and the refreshed development will meet the varied needs of leisure and business travellers alike, seamlessly."
Oakwood Hotel & Residence Kuala Lumpur will boast of 252 units, offering residents a calm oasis in the heart of the business district with a swimming pool, a children's wading pool, gym and restaurant. These facilities are typical of the Oakwood Residence brand, which combines the spacious comfort of a private home with the services of hotel-like meeting rooms and a grand ballroom ideal for large group events.
Oakwood Hotel & Residence Kuala Lumpur will provide guests with a comfortable home environment that enables them to set their own schedules and enjoy day-to-day activities. Services and facilities also include a 24-hour concierge and front desk services, business services and high-speed internet connection.
Conveniently located along the bustling Jalan Ampang in the heart of the business district, the development counts many international embassies as its neighbours and is a short walk to attractions like the National Art Gallery and renowned restaurants. It is also a stone's throw away from some of the Malaysian capital's top attractions and shopping malls such as Petronas Twin Towers and Kuala Lumpur City Center, as well as an international school.
Oakwood Hotel & Residence Kuala Lumpur is the company's 28th Oakwood-branded property across 16 cities in Asia.
About Oakwood
Oakwood, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mapletree Investments, is a global leader in hospitality management and development. The company manages a portfolio of award-winning properties that combine the space and comfort of a private residence with the thoughtful services and amenities of a hotel, ideal for both short- and long-term stays. Through this specially crafted Oakwood experience, guests are invited to feel a sense of belonging, familiarity and reassurance whenever they stay at any Oakwood property around the world. For more information, please visit www.Oakwood.com.
Pam Krebs
Director, Global Communications
(310) 444-2552
Oakwood
At the beginning of the month, Soulja Boy announced that he had signed a lucrative deal to the tune of $400 million. Though there was no reason to doubt Souljas honesty, the number seemed too big to be true. Last week, he revealed that he had signed a deal with FilmOn TV, the same company that signed (and since suspended) Chief Keef. It was thought that some of the $400 million mightve come from the pockets of Alki David, the Greek Billionaire whos the CEO of FilmOn. It has now been confirmed, however, that Souljas deal with FilmOn is not the one worth $400 million that he initially revealed. Amazingly, that deal is still in the cards literally. Today, Soulja disclosed the company who signed him for $400 million: the World Poker Fund.
The deal was confirmed through an official statement written on Souljas behalf that was posted to the World Poker Funds website. In the statement, Soulja is referred to as one of the most influential urban entertainers and artists on social media today. Soulja also offered a quote on why he decided to diversify his portfolio and link with the World Poker Fund:
I invest in things I understand. I enjoy music, and of course gaming. Being an influencer is a form of currency. Having portfolio diversification is critical if you want to be an effective brand ambassador. With regards to World Poker Fund, I believe in its strategy, its team, the vision, and managements ability to target its financial goals.
Souljas main responsibilities will be to promote World Poker Funds online gaming assets such as CelebrityWorld.com and to its soon-to-launch in-flight gaming platform which aims to service the 3 billion plus global travelers across multiple airlines worldwide.
Matthew Bird, a spokesperson for the World Poker Fund, confirmed the deal and complimented Soulja on his reach as an individual influencer. Soulja Boy represents the best of the best and we are already seeing the impact from his presence, said Bird. Read the entire press release here.
Congrats to Soulja Boy on his deal of mammoth proportions. Look out Birdman, Souljas coming for that No. 4 spot on the Forbes list.
Soulja Boy
AKIU, Japan - Finance leaders of major industrial countries meeting in Japan need to find ways to use all the "policy levers" they have to help counter anxiety over global economic prospects, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Friday, in remarks echoed by his Japanese hosts.
The consensus was that while there is no one-size-fits-all approach, all economies are facing a stifling lack of demand, and the private sector must play a pivotal role in helping spur growth.
Chuck Russell hasn't done too badly attracting investment for his firm, Orbital Traction, which makes a device that makes diesel engines more efficient. But he hasn't done as well as he'd like at his factory on the Sam Houston Tollway, finding it tough to convince U.S. venture capitalists to look for promising companies beyond their hubs in San Francisco, Boston and New York.
That's why Russell, Orbital's chief operating officer, found himself pitching his firm last week to hundreds of Chinese businesspeople and government officials in Houston, looking for an infusion of cash to help his company commercialize its technology for larger trucking fleets. Russell said his company, which employs seven, could hire more engineers and machinists to ramp up production and tap into vast transportation markets in China and the United States - if he could raise another $20 million.
"They're so focused on biotech, the digital revolution and health care," Russell said of U.S. venture firms. "Broadening the net to China seems like the right thing to be doing."
Russell was among the 200 entrepreneurs trying to connect with Chinese investors at the inaugural U.S.-China Innovation and Investment Summit, a conference organized by local investors, economic development groups and public agencies with the goal of increasing the flow of funding to local technology firms. Of the $13.7 billion in venture capital invested in U.S. firms in the first quarter of 2016, only $592 million went to Texas companies, according to Thomson Reuters.
More Information U.S. tech deals involving Chinese investors, 2010-16 State No. of deals California 281 New York31 Massachusetts15 Texas11 Washington7 Georgia4 Illinois3 D.C. 3 Florida3 See More Collapse
China is viewed as a potentially rich source of venture capital after a decadelong boom that created billions of dollars in wealth, and a recent economic slowdown that is roiling the Chinese markets and driving Chinese investors to seek safer havens for their money. China, for example, became the largest foreign buyer of U.S. real estate in 2015, with its investors holding $350 billion in properties, according to a recent report by the nonprofit Asia Society and Rosen Consulting Group, a California firm.
"A lot of the wealth that has been developed there is looking for opportunities for investment," says Bernard Harris, CEO of Vesalius Ventures, a Houston-based investment firm that focuses on early to mid-stage medical technology companies. "What we're trying to do is let investors know that there is a number of tech companies right here in the Gulf area that they need to be looking at."
Faster pace
Chinese companies, state-owned entities and wealthy individuals began investing in Texas about a decade ago. But the pace of investment has accelerated in recent years, and the focus of those investments has shifted. Between 2010 and 2015, Chinese investors poured nearly $12 billion into Texas enterprises, including projects such as the $1.1 billion Tianjin Pipe Co. manufacturing facility in Gregory, according to a 2015 report from the office of Gov. Greg Abbott.
At the same time, Chinese investors have moved beyond their focus on real estate and established firms to consider emerging companies in a variety of innovation sectors. Last week, for example, the Chinese wind turbine maker Goldwind bought the 160-megawatt Rattlesnake Wind Project, a wind farm about 125 miles northwest of Austin that is still under development. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
"In the past, Chinese companies preferred more tangible companies, like hotels," says James Chen, the state's international business development director. "But as more and more Chinese students studied here and went back to China, investors learned that the more important business opportunities lie in other sectors, like high tech."
Houston visit
During the Houston summit, Chinese visitors were shuttled to technology incubators like the Houston Technology Center, home to several dozen young tech firms, and TMCx, the Texas Medical Center's home for medical startups. Conference coordinators also facilitated dozens of meetings between early stage companies and potentially interested investors
Katrina Alvarado is the co-founder of a Houston-based startup called Trucker District, which makes communications systems for trucking companies. She and her husband have bootstrapped the company so far but are seeking outside investors to help them get off the ground. After pitching the concept, she didn't lock down any funding commitments.
But she figured the stack of business cards she gathered might bear fruit down the road.
"We are hopeful that the discussions moving forward will be really good," Alvarado said.
At the summit, Chinese businessmen and officials said they were drawn to Texas by its burgeoning population, strong technology and manufacturing sectors and unqualified openness to investment. Texas ranks fourth among states in the number of deals involving tech startups that were funded by Chinese investors in recent years.
Of the 380 reported since 2010, 281 were in California, and 11 in Texas, according to the New York City-based research firm, CBInsights. New York had 31 and Massachusetts 15.
"We're looking into fast-growing and profitable opportunities," said Zhijun Yang, who as former managing director of Shuanghui International led the multibillion-dollar acquisition of the pork producer Smithfield Foods. He is now chairman of the Greenland Fund, a private investment fund.
In the short term, Chinese funding deals might get more difficult. Although Chinese Communist Party officials attended the summit and expressed hope it would lead to increased collaboration and investment, Thilo Hanemann, economist at a New York research firm Rhodium Group, said he has heard that the Chinese government is getting nervous about the amount of capital flowing out of the country.
"We're seeing a bit of a schizophrenic attitude in recent months," Hanemann says. "They support outbound investments, but there's a more cautious stance."
In a more restrictive environment for Chinese investors, it may be easier for American startups to partner with Chinese businesses by starting some operations in China, so money doesn't have to cross borders. Down the line, if capital becomes more mobile, Texas could be positioning itself to capture that investment.
"Our understanding of Houston is lacking compared to the East and West coast," said Li Qiangmin, consul-general of the People's Republic of China in Houston. "But this is important land. Texas citizens have really opened their arms."
Chicago-based mega-law firm Kirkland & Ellis hired corporate lawyer Andrew Calder away from the competition two years ago to open the global firm's Texas operation. With a blank check and the charge to build a first-class outpost in Houston, Calder enticed 65 attorneys to join him during the past 26 months. Another 20 are scheduled to join this fall.
Premium clients, including Houston-based Terra Energy Partners, Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings and private equity giants Blackstone Energy Partners and KKR, were signed as clients. Kirkland's revenue in Texas went from zero in April 2014 to $64 million in 2015 and will easily pass $100 million this year, according to legal analysts.
"The key has been to put together a team of young, hungry lawyers who want to dominate the market in their practice areas," Calder said. "The firm's goal is to be a major player in the Texas market."
Kirkland, which has 1,700 lawyers and $2.3 billion in revenue in 17 offices worldwide, is Exhibit A of a seismic shift underway in the Texas legal market - a shift that is radically changing the practice of corporate law in the state forever.
A new Texas Lawbook study of legal industry finances in Texas shows that elite, wealthy corporate law firms - most of them based outside the state - are achieving enormous financial success by stealing the best lawyers and the highest-paying business clients away from large, full-service legacy Texas law firms.
At the same time, dozens of national and regional law firms, including many that focus on upper-middle-market corporate clients in the health care, manufacturing, retail, technology and transportation sectors, have expanded into Texas and captured more than $1 billion in legal fees from longtime indigenous law firms in 2015 alone.
As a result, many old-line Texas law firms that once dominated the state are fighting for survival as their market shares plummet.
"A generational shift in the legal marketplace in Texas is taking place," said Rob Walters, managing partner of the Dallas office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, which is seeking to expand into the Houston during the next year.
The Texas operations of 11 law firms generated revenues of $1 million per lawyer, a statistic widely viewed by the legal industry as a symbol of elite success. Only three of those firms are based in Texas. Baker Botts and Vinson & Elkins are headquartered in Houston. Akin Gump claims Dallas and Washington, D.C., as its primary residences.
The 11 elite firms generated $1.7 billion in revenues in 2015, according to The Texas Lawbook data. By comparison, in 2008, there were only two law firms - Houston-based Susman Godfrey and New York-based Weil, Gotshal & Manges - that reported $1 million of revenue per lawyer and only four other Texas firms that recorded revenues of at least $800,000 per attorney.
Two firms - Houston-based Andrews Kurth and Philadelphia-based Morgan, Lewis & Bockius - fell just shy of the $1 million mark last year.
"The wealthy, elite law firms have the money to hire away the best lawyers," Walters said. "The best lawyers have the best clients. The best clients pay the most money, which means the highest revenues."
The Texas Lawbook survey confirms the trend. Financial data examining 35 large business law firms shows:
The 35 largest corporate law firms operating in Texas generated $4.3 billion in revenues from their Texas operations in 2015, up 2 percent from 2014.
Sixteen of the 35 highest revenue-generating law firms operating in the state in 2015 are headquartered outside Texas, up from 12 such firms in 2014 and four in 2008.
Texas-based law firms generated $3.3 billion in revenues in 2015, up less than 0.1 percent.
The Texas operations of the national law firms generated just over $1 billion in revenues last year, a 10 percent jump from the $909 million in 2014 and five times the $190 million in 2008.
Of the seven law firms with double-digit revenue increases in their Texas offices in 2015, six are non-Texas firms.
The biggest shift has taken place in the corporate transactional area, where the elite law firms have nearly conquered the mergers-and-acquisitions practice. More than half of the 25 firms that handle the most M&As and joint ventures in 2015 were not based in Texas, according to data from The Texas Lawbook's Corporate Deal Tracker.
The market shift started in 2010 but intensified and was magnified in 2015, when oil prices plunged and mergers and acquisitions in the energy sector went from hot to cold overnight.
"There is no doubt that 2015 was a challenging year for most law firms, including ours," said Rob Reedy, managing partner of Porter Hedges in Houston. "Mergers and acquisitions in the oil and gas sector went from a record high in 2014 to a near crawl last year. At the same time, the capital markets practice all but dried up."
Overall demand for legal work by Texas businesses was essentially flat in 2015, said Matt Anderson, senior vice president and regional analyst with the Private Banking Legal Specialty Group at Wells Fargo in Dallas. He said several Texas firms saw declines of 0.5 percent to 10 percent.
Law firm leaders and industry observers say lateral movement by partners from law firm to law firm hit a record high in 2015. National law firms seeking to enter the Texas market often make multimillion-dollar compensation guarantees to prominent lawyers who have books of business they could bring with them to the new firm.
"This shift happened in other parts of the country a couple decades ago, but skipped over Texas because the state's legal market was considered insulated from outside intruders," said John Wilmouth, a senior adviser with Citi's private banking law firm group.
"But the lateral hiring frenzy has certainly hit Houston and Dallas now," added Jerry Clements, managing partner at Locke Lord.
Many legal insiders point to a decision by corporate general counsel to stop hiring one or two large full-service legacy Texas law firms to do all their legal work. That decision by businesses to "hire lawyers, not law firms" put into motion a series of actions that triggered the current law firm invasion.
In 2010, Latham & Watkins hired seven prominent partners from Akin Gump, Baker Botts and Vinson & Elkins to open its Houston office. Latham gambled that the corporate clients would practice what they preached and follow its outside lawyers to their new law firms.
History and financial data show it worked.
Latham's office in Houston now has 85 lawyers, reports revenue per lawyer of $1.2 million and surpassed $100 million in revenue last year.
Other national law firms quickly followed.
As the elite law firms conquer the premier clients in the high-dollar practice areas, such as capital markets, large M&A transactions, tax law and jumbo-sized bankruptcies, the rest of the corporate firms fight to retain some business from longtime clients and seek new business in the upper-middle space, according to Anderson and other legal industry analysts.
"There's a lot of great legal work out there in the middle market and upper-middle market," said Gray Reed's managing director, Cary Gray, in Houston. "Some of our best clients used to be clients of V&E or Baker Botts, but these clients found they could no longer afford these firms when their rates jumped from $700 to $950 an hour."
Six of the state's oldest and largest law firms - Andrews Kurth, Bracewell and V&E in Houston and Haynes and Boone, Locke Lord and Strasburger in Dallas - saw revenue from their Texas offices decline in 2015 from one year earlier.
One Houston energy law firm didn't survive. Just 18 months ago, Burleson employed more than 110 lawyers and had revenues of nearly $100 million. It closed in December.
Bracewell has been hit hard, too. The Houston-based firm's revenues in Texas sank 16 percent in 2015, as the firm saw its attorney count decline 11 percent and revenues per lawyer drop 4 percent.
Andrews Kurth and V&E were also hit hard by troubles in the oil patch. Both firms saw their strong capital markets practices sitting idle for the second half of 2015 and so far in 2016. Both shrunk their lawyer head count in Texas by 7 percent in 2015.
Not all Texas firms suffered in 2015. Thompson & Knight increased its Texas revenue by 4 percent, while Jackson Walker's revenue grew by 3 percent. And no Texas-based law firm had a more prosperous year than Houston's Baker Botts. Total revenue for the firm's Texas operations skyrocketed 15 percent to $388 million in 2015.
Baker Botts also increased its revenue per lawyer to $1 million, which is 7 percent more than the year before and secured itself a spot as one of the elite law firms.
Analysts say national law firms continue to open outposts in Dallas and Houston.
"Texas is much more than just energy. It is an extremely thriving economy," said Kent Zimmerman, a law firm analyst with Chicago-based Zeughauser Group.
Leaders at four elite mega-national law firms - Los Angeles-based Gibson Dunn and Latham & Watkins and Chicago-based Kirkland and Sidley Austin - report that their Texas offices are the most profitable in their entire firms.
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We expect prosecutors to investigate when evidence suggests a corporation may have committed a crime, especially when the company may have harmed the public or deceived investors.
That's why the legal community was surprised that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton would try to stop an investigation by another attorney general into whether Exxon Mobil Corp. misled the public and investors about climate change.
Paxton's court filing defending Exxon Mobil is not surprising, though, coming from a man bold enough to remain in office while facing state and federal fraud charges. The former corporate lawyer has proved he's a political pawn who could care not less about law enforcement, because there is certainly enough evidence to warrant an investigation into Exxon Mobil.
Seventeen attorneys general, who unlike Paxton have criminal law experience, want to know when Exxon Mobil knew climate change was real, when it realized global warming would hurt its business, and whether it misled shareholders about the potential risk.
Exxon Mobil has denied wrongdoing, claimed freedom of speech as a defense and calls the investigations politically motivated. But Exxon Mobil's internal documents, obtained by investigative journalists, raise serious questions, and Exxon Mobil has not disputed their validity.
Scientists working for Exxon Mobil in the 1970s and 1980s were among the first to recognize global warming, and that carbon dioxide was a major contributor, according to company papers published online by Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times in September 2015.
"There is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels," Exxon Mobil senior scientist James Black told the company's management committee in 1977. Black told senior managers and scientists the following year that a doubling of the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere would increase average global temperatures by 4 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit and cause significant climactic changes, according to the documents.
The website DeSmog went through the reviews of environmental protection activities produced by Exxon Mobil subsidiary Imperial Oil, which were distributed to company officials worldwide.
"It is assumed that the major contributors of CO2 are the burning of fossil fuels," the 1978-79 edition states. "There is no doubt that increases in fossil fuel usage and decreases of forest cover are aggravating the potential problem of increased CO2 in the atmosphere."
Exxon Mobil managers recognized the threat to the planet and their business model. Exxon Mobil scientists studied atmospheric CO2 and built climate models in the early 1980s. Company scientists worked alongside the world's top climate experts and published academic papers, many of which are the basis for our understanding of climate change today.
A memo from 1980 called on Exxon Mobil managers to promote the company's research into finding a solution to "the Greenhouse Effect."
"It is significant to Exxon since future public decisions aimed at controlling the buildup of atmospheric CO2 could impose limits on fossil fuel combustion," the memo said. "It is significant to all humanity since, although the CO2 Greenhouse Effect is not today widely perceived as a threat, the popular media are giving increased attention to doom-saying theories about dramatic climate changes and melting polar icecaps."
But times were tough for oil companies, and by the late 1980s, Exxon Mobil reduced funding for the research. The company shifted tactics in the 1990s and joined with the American Petroleum Institute to create the Global Climate Science Team, which according to a document obtained by the New York Times, planned to cast doubt on "(a) climate change actually is occurring, or (b) if it is, whether humans really have any influence on it."
While individuals in the United States enjoy free speech, there are limits on how much corporate executives can spin the facts.
Companies cannot intentionally misrepresent their product or its potential for harm, and investigators want to know if Exxon Mobil deliberately lied about the impact of CO2 on the climate to keep selling gasoline and other fuels. Publicly traded corporations must also disclose any risks to the company's future profits in annual reports to the SEC. Exxon Mobil only began mentioning climate change as a regulatory risk in 2010.
Climate activists are behind these investigations and have adopted tactics used by health activists against tobacco companies. That's an imperfect analogy at best, as there could be reasonable explanations for why Exxon Mobil's leadership dismissed their own scientists' findings.
But we know from the tobacco cases that major corporations are capable of committing large-scale fraud on shareholders while inflicting harm on the public.
Prosecutors have a duty to investigate and determine if charges are warranted against Exxon Mobil.
But our attorney general prefers to turn a blind eye, while hoping the public will ignore the fraud allegations against him.
BISMARCK, N.D. - Crews in North Dakota excavated pastureland after more than 120,000 gallons of oil and drilling wastewater overflowed from a tank, the state Health Department said Friday.
The spill happened Wednesday morning near Marmarth in southwestern North Dakota at a site operated by Plano-based Denbury Onshore, according to Bill Suess, an environmental scientist who heads spill investigations for the state Health Department. Denbury notified state regulators of the spill immediately, he said.
Ursula Burns, the first African-American woman to run a Fortune 500 company, will step down as chief executive when the struggling technology and services company splits itself in two later this year, Xerox announced Friday.
Burns, who has spent her entire career at Xerox, is to become chairman of the printer, copier and document technology unit created from the split, the Norwalk, Conn.-based company said. The other new company is to focus on business services; Xerox has yet to name a chief executive for either.
"Our search for leadership is well underway, and we have an extremely strong pool of talent across our organization as well as external candidates to build our management teams," Burns said.
Burns' departure from the CEO role would leave the current count of female CEOs in the S&P 500 at just 23, and with very few minorities: PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi was born in India, but women of color remain rare in the corporate suite. Just 2.8 percent of directors on Fortune 500 boards are black, Latina or Asian women, according to the nonprofit research organization Catalyst.
The news follows a first-quarter earnings report that showed profit shrinking 85 percent at the company long associated with photocopiers. Xerox has been shedding workers, cutting 8,300 jobs in the first quarter, as it prepares to split the company in two by year's end.
The decision to break up the 109-year-old corporate icon unwound a deal Burns had championed early in her tenure as CEO, when she made the bet in 2009 to acquire Affiliated Computer Services, pushing the company into back-office services for governments and businesses. Activist investor Carl Icahn, who will get three seats on the services company's board after the split, had been pressuring change at the company, but Burns said in January he did not drive the decision.
Though she will continue to lead one of the boards, the job change closes a chapter in Burns' career, which began 35 years ago when she joined Xerox as an engineering intern. Raised in public housing on Manhattan's Lower East Side, she has written that "many people told me I had three strikes against me: I was black. I was a girl. And I was poor." Yet she went on to earn two engineering degrees and become a trusted lieutenant to her predecessor, Anne Mulcahy.
The succession from Mulcahy to Burns in 2009 marked the first time there had been a woman-to-woman handoff at the top of a major U.S. public corporation.
A man who led police on a slow-speed chase on Interstate 45 through Harris and Montgomery counties, prompting the closure of the northbound lanes and a standoff with a special tactical unit after his tires were blown out, is a convicted sex offender who was being sought on a new sexual assault charge, authorities said Friday.
The suspect, 38-year-old Scott Michael Inman, was being held Friday evening in the Harris County jail, online records show.
Authorities provided this account of what happened:
At around 10 a.m. Friday, Harris County sheriff's deputies went to the 400 block of Bickett Lane in Spring to serve Inman with a felony warrant for sexual assault.
Inman, however, wasn't at the location. Instead, he came driving down the street, where police cars were visible, and didn't stop.
Spotted by law enforcement, Inman steered his white pickup onto I-45 north, with units chasing him, said Deputy Thomas Gilliland of the sheriff's office.
It didn't seem Inman was about to pull over. Notified by Harris County of the pursuit, Montgomery County sheriff's deputies, with support from the public safety department, set to work.
A zone was created to put down spikes to blow out Inman's tires. One of Inman's tires popped, and Inman - who had never reached speeds above 55 or 60 mph during the chase - slowed to 10 or 20 mph, Gilliland said.
By the chase's end, all of the tires had blown out, Gilliland said. Inman, who deputies said had been waving a pistol and at least once pointed it to his head, rode on the wheel rims to a stop near FM 1488, just south of Conroe.
Motorists were prevented from entering or traveling on the northbound lanes of the freeway while deputies followed the suspect. The roadway was temporarily shut down in both directions near the end point of the chase.
At one point, Inman's pickup was facing some two dozen law-enforcement vehicles spread across the northbound lanes, including an armored vehicles that drove right up to his fender. Officers trained their weapons on the pickup, and there was a standoff of at least 15 minutes.
Deputies eventually coaxed Inman out of the truck. Dressed in blue-jean shorts, a dark shirt and sandals, he stepped onto the highway with his hands up and was instructed to kneel, live TV footage showed.
Inman surrendered peacefully about 11:40 a.m. No injuries were reported. He was transferred to the Harris County jail, where online records show he was booked for the sexual assault charge. Inman would also face a felony evasion charge, Gilliland said.
The sworn police statement issued for the original warrant said Inman had assaulted a victim who "had not consented and the defendant knew that the complainant was unconscious and physically unable to resist."In the statement, which was given by a detective in the Tomball Police Department, the victim is described as a 17-year-old who around the end of April had planned to go with a friend to San Antonio for the weekend.
The friend and Inman, who is a relative of the friend, had picked her up, the statement said. She spent the night at Inman's house, where he offered her vodka, and she at three times woke up to various forms of sexual harassment and assault.
An online sex offender registry maintained by the Texas Department of Public Safety describes Inman as 5 feet 11 inches and 230 pounds. His past offense was listed as indecency with a child in 2005, for which he was given a 10-year prison sentence.
He was convicted in 2002 of burglary of a habitation, according to the police statement.
A boy died in a Houston hospital on Tuesday evening after being stabbed multiple times in an apparent random attack.
Police say the child was walking home from school southbound in the 1900 block of Fulton Street in north Houston at about 4:45 p.m. Witnesses told police an unidentified man walking northbound stabbed the boy multiple times.
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A former Houston police officer and an ex-Harris County deputy constable are among 15 people indicted in connection with a statewide cocaine trafficking ring, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced on Friday.
The two are among several law officers from the Rio Grande Valley and Houston who have been indicted in the drug case, which is the result of a four-year investigation nicknamed Operation Blue Shame, the U.S. Attorney's Office told the San Antonio Express-News. Four current and former officers were indicted.
A former reserve deputy constable convicted of shooting a woman in an off-duty road rage incident should have never been licensed as a peace officer, his lawyer said Friday.
Kenneth Caplan, 35, was sentenced to 20 years in prison, the maximum, after being convicted of assault for shooting Lori Annab in another car on 610 Loop South in 2014. Annab survived and testified earlier this week about the attack, which led to Caplan's termination as a peace officer.
After the jury's verdict, Caplan's attorney said the deputy was too mentally ill to be a police officer.
"With his problems, he shouldn't have been licensed as a peace officer," said attorney Allen Isbell. "When you're bipolar, you don't need to wear a badge and a gun."
The conviction underscores the potential problems facing local law enforcement agencies as a result of shoddy work by Carole Busick, a Houston psychologist who was paid to screen hundreds of potential peace officers, including Caplan, and deem them fit for duty.
Busick and her husband, Don, pleaded guilty to tampering with a government document earlier this month in exchange for probation.
A Houston Chronicle investigation found that Busick did not do all the requisite work on providing certification that law enforcement candidates were mentally fit, including failing to conduct face-to-face evaluations as required by the state.
Busick apparently approved Caplan's mental health, despite the fact that he told authorities he took "mood stabilizers because of chemical imbalance in his brain."
Caplan, who was hoping to be sentenced to probation for the shooting, took the stand Friday to admit responsibility.
"I did pull the trigger," told jurors from the witness stand in the punishment phase of his trial. "This is a tragedy for her. I feel wrong. It's my fault."
He was convicted a day earlier of assault, a second-degree felony that capped his possible sentence at 20 years. Prosecutors had argued for a first-degree conviction, which is punishable by life in prison.
Prosecutors peppered Caplan with questions about more than a dozen documented incidents of threatening violence and a long history of mental health problems.
Assistant District Attorney Maritza Antu got Caplan to admit to using racial slurs and acting like a gorilla, while in uniform, to try to provoke a violent outburst from a suspect while working for the Precinct 6 Constable's Office.
"You knew that a badge and a uniform gave you instant credibility, didn't you?" prosecutor Maritza Antu asked. "And while you were wearing it, you used racial slurs, didn't you?"
Antu also noted that he had threatened to kill his grandparents, filed multiple false police reports blaming others for his actions and aimed his gun at a 6-year-old boy while investigating fireworks.
She said he had been fired from at least 15 jobs before becoming a licensed peace officer. After he was licensed, he had 18 incidents of road rage over two years, including waving his gun at other drivers while driving 95 mph on Interstate 45.
He also pulled over another driver while in his civilian vehicle. That driver was apparently a police officer who filed a report.
Because of all his bad behavior, he was on employee probation at the Precinct 6 constable's office when he shot Annab.
Annab, who is suing Caplan and Busick, has argued in court records that Busick should have discovered he was unsuitable to be a peace officer.
Isbell said Caplan was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when he was 7 years old.
Jurors in state District Judge Denise Bradley's court deliberated less than an hour before sentencing him to the maximum Friday.
St. John Barned-Smith contributed to this report.
'Long criticized by conservative Texans for alleged ties to a controversial Turkish scholar, the state's largest charter school system now faces attacks from inside the Turkish government.
A Washington-based law firm hired by the Republic of Turkey filed a 90-item public information request in November that Harmony Public Schools, a 30,000-student, Houston-based charter school network, estimated would cost at least $4.5 million to fill. Even after scaling back the request, the estimate reached $690,000. Harmony and Amsterdam & Partners, a London-based law firm hired for $50,000 a month by the Turkish government, now await a decision from the Attorney General's office.
Lawyers and a lobbyist hired by the Turkish government are expected to file a 30-page complaint with the Texas Education Agency in coming days that "will outline a series of allegations concerning Harmony's financial operations as well as their alleged misconduct, and request a comprehensive investigation by TEA," according to an email sent to the governor's office Tuesday by Austin-based lobbyist Jim Arnold, also hired by Turkey.
Arnold confirmed Saturday that Amsterdam & Partners will be filing the complaint early next week.
"Because of the size of Harmony, the amount of state funding they receive, and the seriousness of the allegations in the complaint, we anticipate a strong reaction from Texans once this information is made public," Arnold said.
Not a Turkish company
Amsterdam & Partnerswas hired by the Republic of Turkey to "provide legal advice and representation related to the extradition of persons from the United States to Turkey as required by treaty and as may be necessary to protect Turkey's interests in international law, international criminal law, and U.S. domestic law," according to paperwork filed with the U.S. Department of Justice.
"We are not a Turkish company. Harmony Public Schools is a Texas public charter school. They are manipulating our government," said Soner Tarim, chief executive officer and co-founder of Harmony Public Schools. Tarim has dual citizenship with Turkey and theU.S., where he has lived for 25 years. He earned his graduate degree at Texas A&M University and co-founded Harmony in 2000 to fill a gap in math, science and technology education in Texas.
About 70 percent of Harmony student are Hispanic or black. More than 60 percent are considered low-income.
Tarim and other Harmony leaders called the attacks mind-boggling and politically motivated. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, elected in 2014, has been criticized for human rights violations as he has attacked political opponents, including Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who exiled himself to Pennsylvania years ago. About 90 percent of Turkish citizens in the United States who voted in the election opposed Erdogan, and Harmony leaders said that opposition prompted the president to go on a witch hunt to shut down critics.
Magnolia Charter Schools in California, which has several Turkish board members, has undergone similar attacks. Earlier this year, Amsterdam & Partners filed a formal complaint urging the California Department of Education to conduct a full investigation of the charter network's financial practices.
"President Erdogan is a repudiation of everything that good American schools stand for. He has personally done tremendous damage to democracy in the Republic of Turkey," U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-California, wrote in an April 26 letter to shed light on the situation.
Sherman noted that Amsterdam & Partners was being paid $600,000 a year to disparage Magnolia Public Schools and that "at various times, President Erdogan's government has assisted ISIS."
"Accordingly, I cannot think of a worse source of information about American education than President Erdogan and his paid agents," Sherman wrote.
Reject 'intrusion'
Harmony leaders said government officials in Texas must also stand up to these attacks. "You have to reject this kind of intrusion from a foreign government," said Mustafa Tameez, managing director for Outreach Strategists, who is working with Harmony.
Most of the outcries from Texans concerned whether leaders were connected to Gulen, a Muslim cleric who is now considered a terrorist by Erdogan despite his emphasis on democracy and science education.
While critics have circled Harmony for years, the most substantial allegations surfaced around 2010 concerning its bidding process for school services and its high number of employees on H1-B visas, both of which seemed to favor those with Turkish ties. Tarim said both issues have been addressed - Harmony now outsources oversight of its bidding process to the Harris County Department of Education. Harmony has also reduced the number of employees on visas from about 20 percent of its 3,300 to less than 7 percent. It created a "grow your own teacher program" to encourage former students to become math and science teachers.
So far, 80 former students have returned to teach and another 300 are working as teacher aides while attending college.
Rather than spending his days focused on growing and improving the school system, Tarim said his full-time job is educating leaders about the misinformation being spread about his schools.
"It's exhausting," Tarim said. "I don't know what else they can say."
High performing school
The Turkish government is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless time attacking these American schools, forcing Harmony to match the effort. The money and energy would be better spent on students, Tarim said.
Harmony, which has 15 campuses and 9,000 students in Houston, is consistently high performing. The charter network is in good standing with the TEA and is nearing the end of a four-year, $30 million prestigious Race to the Top grant from the U.S. Department of Education. About 30,000 students are on the waiting list for Harmony and campuses are being added to meet the demand.
"This is not going to distract what we do as an organization," Tarim said. "The system will work. They have to file a complaint and we have to respond."
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A mysterious killer remained on the loose Friday as fear mounted anew in a tough northside neighborhood after police admitted they had arrested the wrong man in the stabbing death of a sixth grader as he walked home from school earlier this week.
The abrupt reversal in the case left families worried and angry over the death of 11-year-old Josue Flores in what appears to have been a random attack by a stranger. Acting Houston Police Chief Martha Montalvo vowed Friday to work with constables and transit authorities to maintain a highly visible law enforcement presence in the area.
"I understand that the community is scared," Montalvo told reporters Friday. "We are looking for a suspect, but it has to be the correct suspect ... We need help from the community; if someone knows something, it is important they call us."
Three days after the attack, the Northside Village neighborhood remained tense, and some residents quietly talked of taking matters into their own hands. A vigil at the school Friday afternoon was packed with students, neighbors, police and local officials to honor the boy who had stayed late at school on Tuesday for a Science Club party and who wanted to be a doctor.
Josue's older brother, Juan Flores, 23, asked people to give police a chance to find the killer.
"Keep calm and cool - the police are doing their job, they are hard at work," Flores said, as friends and relatives at the family's home. "No more violence. What happened to Josue is enough violence for this community."
A reward of $15,000 is being offered for information leading to the arrest of a suspect in the crime. Anyone with information is asked to call the Houston Police Department at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers of Houston at 713-220-TIPS.
Flores was attacked near the corner of Fulton and James streets as he walked the seven blocks to his home from Marshall Middle School.
He crossed paths with his killer about halfway there.
Two neighbors who rushed to Josue's aid said they did not get a look at the killer's face, but said they will never forget the boy's final moments.
Richard Guerra, who has lived near the corner for about 50 years, said he heard a scuffle.
"Please, you can take everything," he recalled the boy yelling. "Please don't kill me."
As Guerra ran outside, he saw Josue being pushed backward into a chain-link fence and the attacker, whose face he did not see, bolted down the street.
Guerra said he asked Josue if he was alright and he replied, "I just want to go home, just want to go home."
Josue then walked two or three steps and collapsed, he said.
It was then, when Guerra tried to turn Josue over, that he realized he'd been stabbed.
Neighbor Patricia Serna hurried out of her home, and sought to comfort the boy as Guerra jumped in his van and unsuccessfully tried to chase down the attacker.
"Hold on my little guy, hold on," she tearfully recalled telling him. "The ambulance is coming."
Guerra and Serna were among several people gathered at an ever-growing makeshift shrine for Josue on Friday. A mountain of flowers, toys, candles and balloons were spread over the spot where the boy fell to the ground.
"Even though you are gone so soon, you have touched and impacted many people all over the world," reads a note. "You won't be forgotten," says another.
A steady flow of supporters, even a food truck and police cars, filed past, donating money to support Josue's family and help cover the cost of a funeral, set for Tuesday.
"I grew up in the neighborhood," said James Orozco, 34, who handed some dollars bills out the window of his sedan to a volunteer. "I was a little kid walking around this same neighborhood. It touches me."
Orozco, like many here, points his finger at the new light rail line, which opened up through the area in December 2013 and is blamed by neighbors for bringing a criminal element to the area.
"There are a lot of weirdos around here because of that train," he said.
Police had quickly focused on Che Lajuan Calhoun, a 31-year-old Houston resident with a long record of minor crimes.
Calhoun had been involved in an altercation on a nearby light rail platform the day before the stabbing, and had fled from police after being tased.
Calhoun matched the admittedly vague description of the attacker and was identified in a photo lineup by an eyewitness who reportedly had seen the attacker's face.
Calhoun was arrested Wednesday afternoon, and during interrogation with police he admitted being involved in the dust-up on the rail platform, said Houston homicide Lt. Robert Blain. But he denied involvement in the boy's death and provided officers with an alibi.
Blain said the charges were dismissed against him Friday after investigators verified through witnesses and physical evidence that he was in Pearland at the time the boy was attacked.
Calhoun's family said Friday that the evidence was a surveillance video at a Pearland convenience store where Calhoun was recorded along with his girlfriend.
Flanked by Calhoun's fiance and members of her family, community activist Quanell X dismissed the murder investigation as "absolutely appalling," and called on the Houston Police Department to apologize.
"To put this man's face before the whole world as a child killer, a monster, is wrong," Quanell said. "I'd be ashamed to call this an investigation. If they had done one iota of work, they would have learned that this brother did not kill a child."
Although the murder charge was dropped at the request of authorities, Calhoun remains charged with assault and evading arrest in the Metro rail incident.
Blain said investigators are conducting DNA tests on possible evidence from the crime scene, though the murder weapon has not been found. The killer likely would have been covered in blood from the stabbing, he said.
Investigators still have leads in the case to follow, police said.
"There is a murderer on the loose," Blain said.
Anger as well as grief spread through the neighborhood Friday as residents learned that the killer had not been caught.
Some residents hinted that vigilantism could be in the offing.
"There are some bad dudes in this neighborhood," said one longtime resident who asked that his name not be published. "The homeless are going to catch some heat."
City leaders joined together with the community at the vigil in urging residents to stay calm and trust in the bolstered police presence.
"You are peacemakers," U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said as she addressed the students gathered at the vigil. "We will not let this come into our lives to think wrong or bad, but we will find the perpetrator. ... That person will be brought to justice, but what we will do the most is let you know you are safe in our arms."
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner also sought to comfort students.
"One thing I have learned in life is that life is sometimes not fair at all," he said, "but we still try to find a way to navigate through it."
He said he and other officials would do everything they could to make the city's streets safer as well as the area around Marshall.
As school let out Friday, students were wary. Some who would normally walk home with friends said relatives would be picking them up for the remainder of the school year, which wraps up next week.
"It is scary," said Faith Sanchez, an eighth grader, as she waited with friends for a ride home, "because you don't know if someone is going to come after you."
Chronicle resident Allan Turner contributed to this report.
CAIRO - In the minutes before an EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo crashed into the Mediterranean Sea, killing all 66 people on board, there were rapid and escalating failures in the plane's flight control system, according to sensor data transmitted by the aircraft to operators on the ground that was published Friday by a respected aviation journal.
As aviation officials sorted through the data, which was posted online by The Aviation Herald, Egyptian naval crews scoured the sea in the area where the airplane was last recorded on radar, and found bits of wreckage, including an airplane seat, luggage and human remains.
Even after the publication of the technical data, which could not be independently confirmed, and the recovery of parts of the plane in the water, the cause of the crash remained a mystery and the subject of intense speculation.
An Egyptian official has said investigators consider terrorism to be one possible cause of the disaster, but no terrorist group has claimed responsibility. Officials cautioned that there was no direct evidence to suggest a bomb aboard the plane, or any other deliberate act of sabotage.
EgyptAir Flight 804, an Airbus A320 jetliner, disappeared from radar screens early Thursday as it was flying to Cairo from Paris. Before it vanished, the jet apparently plunged from cruising altitude while swerving violently and then flying in a circle, the Greek defense minister, Panos Kammenos, said at a news conference Thursday.
The discovery of the remains and wreckage appeared to dash any lingering hopes of finding survivors. Among the dozen or so countries whose citizens were on the flight, Egypt suffered the greatest loss, with 30 people on board.
The Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority has provided what a spokesman called a definitive timeline on the disaster. The agency reported that the flight was proceeding normally at 1:48 a.m. Cairo time Thursday.
At 2:27 a.m., when the plane was passing from Greek to Egyptian-supervised airspace, the controllers in Athens tried and failed repeatedly to reach the pilots by radio.
At the same time, technical data was being transmitted from the plane through an automatic system aboard the plane called the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System.
Representatives of Airbus and the Federal Aviation Administration said they could not confirm the authenticity of the technical signals.
The data, first reported on AVHerald.com, is written tersely in abbreviations and codes. Robert W. Mann, a former commercial airline pilot and an industry analyst, said the jargon in the messages told a compelling, albeit incomplete, story.
At 2:26 a.m., a message indicated that the right cockpit window has been opened. This could have been done to vent smoke, Mann said, or something else could have cause the breach.
Over the next two minutes, there were two smoke indications.
Mann cautioned that these messages did not necessarily mean there was a fire. The messages could also have been triggered by rapid decompression of the aircraft, which can produce condensation that the plane's sensors could mistake for smoke.
Finally at 2:29, there were two more alerts regarding problems with the plane's flight control computer systems.
"The last two are troubling," Mann said. "You are starting to really see things rapidly degrade."
WASHINGTON - As Republicans start to coalesce around Donald Trump's presidential campaign, a high-stakes game is playing out over what role defeated rival Ted Cruz could play at the party's national convention in July.
Almost three weeks since the Indiana primary that knocked Cruz out of the race, the Texas senator continues to withhold his support for the outspoken real estate mogul, whom he attacked as "utterly immoral" and a "pathological liar."
At stake for Cruz is a coveted speaking slot at the convention, a platform that served as a launch pad to the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.
With his eye on 2020, Cruz faces a difficult time of choosing between his conservative principles and the pragmatic need for party unity in the face of the coming fall clash with presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Officials in the Trump and Cruz camps - the top two rivals in the GOP nomination battle - declined to comment on their plans for a possible stage appearance by Cruz, who will arrive at the convention with a throng of about 567 delegates.
"Conversations about the program are just beginning," said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski. "This is very much something we do alongside the campaign and have now started that process."
The negotiations are likely to be delicate, according to GOP operatives and analysts with experience in national conventions. The sensitivities involved could resonate from the top party echelons down to the grass-roots base.
"It certainly would not make sense for Ted Cruz not to have a speaking slot at the national convention," said Dr. Robin Armstrong, a Cruz supporter and RNC member from Friendswood. "If he did not have a role at the convention, I would be shocked. If everyone is talking about unity going forward in November, that would be a good step toward it."
Ford-Reagan battle
Former Texas GOP chairman Steve Munisteri, a veteran of the 1976 convention battle between Reagan and President Gerald Ford, said much could depend on the final position Cruz takes on Trump.
"In order to have a speaking spot you have to have endorsed the nominee," said Munisteri, one of Texas' 155 convention delegates. "That's the question that comes first."
Although decisions about speakers and other facets of the televised convention program technically are up to the party, Munisteri said the most critical decisions are heavily influenced by the nominee's campaign.
"My experience is that the presumptive nominee decides who speaks at the convention, and I would be surprised if the person deciding who speaks would agree to let somebody speak who's not behind him," Munisteri said.
Some analysts suggest that the decision may not be so clear-cut for Trump, particularly as he seeks to woo skeptical conservatives in what some now call the Cruz wing of the party.
"I don't know how much Trump can control, but at this point, Trump probably needs Cruz more than Cruz needs Trump," said Reagan biographer Craig Shirley. "Trump needs a unified convention, and Cruz leads an important constituency."
Shirley's chronicle of the contested 1976 convention between Reagan and Ford often is cited in Republican circles as a model for how Cruz could use a passionate convention speech to set the stage for another White House bid, as Reagan did.
After losing to Ford in a bitter floor fight, Reagan famously was invited at the last minute to join the incumbent president on stage. However unprepared, Reagan galvanized the crowd in a way Ford had not.
Shirley's account came from Reagan field operative Kenny Klinge, who recalled a Ford delegate from Florida turning to him and saying, "Oh my God, we have nominated the wrong man."
Few would expect Cruz to steal the show from Trump, a reality TV star who built his campaign on massively raucous televised rallies. Shirley, however, sees opportunities in Cleveland for both men, despite their bitter rivalry.
"What it requires is for both of them to get past the past and focus on the future," Shirley said. "Both have an interest in unity. Cruz gets to speak and lay the groundwork for a future run, and Trump gets a unified convention. So, they both have a shared interest during one narrow slice of history."
Houston convention recalled
There also are risks. Harris County Judge Ed Emmett recalled the 1992 Republican convention in Houston. The main business at hand was nominating President George H.W. Bush for re-election, but it is better remembered for long-shot rival Pat Buchanan's opening night "Culture War" call-to-arms for a nationwide battle over social values.
"A lot of people look back on that and say that it damaged Bush," said Emmett, a Republican who supported the former president's son, Jeb Bush, in this year's primaries. "But in this case, I don't think there's anything Cruz says that can damage Trump."
While the maverick billionaire has made no public overtures to Cruz since he became the presumptive GOP nominee, he still is laboring to win the support of other top Republican luminaries, from 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney to U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Some analysts say that Cruz, as a link to the party's grass-roots base, actually could be more important to Trump.
"Cruz has structural power, because he has delegates, and he has symbolic power, because he is seen to be the heir apparent to the Republican nomination," said University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus.
There are risks for Cruz, as well.
"The party is closing ranks, and you don't want to be the person who was not part of the team," Munisteri said.
Either outcome in November could have a downside for a GOP rival who holds out: A Trump victory would leave Cruz isolated within his own party; while a Clinton victory could be blamed on conservative disunity.
If the convention presents a delicate dance for the two rivals, Rottinghaus sees the potential for a face-saving accommodation in which Cruz could campaign against Clinton without explicitly endorsing Trump.
"I think the Trump campaign would be happy to have Cruz fill the role of 'attacker in chief' even if he never says 'Donald Trump is going to be the next president,'" Rottinghaus said.
Weighing on Cruz's decision is a Texas delegation that has grown increasingly reconciled to Trump, even as most of the delegates' loyalties remain with Cruz including more than half of the 48 delegates who are bound to Trump.
That was seen at this month's state GOP convention in Dallas, where Cruz got standing ovations and Trump's name hardly came up. "The Trump people just didn't show up," said Texas GOP strategist Brendan Steinhauser.
A similar display could be awkward in Cleveland.
"There's certainly some frustration and anger. There's some major disappointment among Cruz supporters," Steinhauser said. "So, I think they will focus on other things."
Platform battlegrounds
That would be the inevitable debates over the national party's platform and rules, both potential battlegrounds with implications for a 2020 Cruz candidacy.
While some Cruz holdouts remain, Texas GOP officials say the majority are going to Cleveland determined to beat Clinton. That means backing Trump with or without Cruz.
"I expect there will be a great emphasis on unity as we move forward to Cleveland, but I think people need to have time to adjust to it," said Texas GOP Chairman Tom Mechler. "It's still pretty fresh from what happened a few weeks ago in Indiana."
As Armstrong put it: "We all understand who the nominee is. We're not all happy about that, but we're going to get on board. You've got to put on your big boy pants, your cowboy boots and spurs, and move forward."
I hesitate to bring up facts.
If recent years have proved nothing else, they've proved that we have fully embarked upon a post-factual era wherein the idea that a thing can be knowable to an objective certainty - and that this should matter - has been diminished to the point of near irrelevancy.
Donald Trump is the avatar of the era. Not content to rest on his laurels, he recently provided superfluous proof of his supremacy in mendacity. Asked by the New York Times to name the most dangerous place in the world he's ever visited, Trump replied that "there are places in America that are among the most dangerous in the world. You go to places like Oakland. Or Ferguson. The crime numbers are worse. Seriously."
You wonder whether it's worth correcting him. After all, neither Trump nor his followers seem especially interested in truth. But for the record, according to the Citizens Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice in Mexico, which tracks murder statistics around the world, only four U.S. cities make the list of the 50 most dangerous places on Earth. None of them is Ferguson or Oakland.
Trump's use of those cities, both with high poverty rates and large black populations, is, of course, intended as a crude dog whistle to the angry white men he's courting - some old-fashioned victim blaming and shaming to rouse the rabble.
But it got me thinking about this whole concept of the most dangerous place on Earth.
If by that we mean the place with potential for the greatest amount of harm to the largest number of people, maybe we should broaden our definition of "danger."
For example, climate change is sure dangerous, linked as it is to increased risk of fire, flood, famine, drought, freakish storms, high temperatures and resultant illnesses. The World Health Organization says this contributes to 150,000 deaths a year and that between 2030 and 2050, the death toll could rise to a quarter of a million a year. A 2015 study in the journal Politics and Policy found the GOP is virtually the only major conservative party in any democracy on Earth denying this reality - and opposing measures to deal with it.
So the most dangerous place on Earth could be Republican headquarters.
Lead poisoning causes behavioral problems and irreversible brain damage in children and memory loss, high blood pressure, decline in mental functioning, reduced sperm count and miscarriages in adults. The water crisis in Flint, Mich., we now find, was the tip of the proverbial iceberg, with reports that high lead levels have been found in 2,000 water systems serving 6 million people in 50 states.
So the most dangerous place on Earth might be your local water department.
The economic collapse of 2008 wiped out $7.4 trillion in stocks, $3.4 trillion in real estate and 5.5 million jobs, according to a report from the Pew Charitable Trusts. It cost the average American household $5,800 in lost income. The effects were felt worldwide amid fears of a global financial meltdown, a Second Great Depression, brought about by too-big-to-fail-banks playing the U.S. economy like a Vegas casino. Some experts say the threat of a relapse endures.
So the most dangerous place on Earth may be Wall Street.
But it isn't. No, the most dangerous place on Earth is none of the above.
Consider for a moment: To lead America through a world of complex and difficult challenges, the Republican Party offers us Donald Trump. He is thin-skinned, loud-mouthed and volatile, a preening bully and serial liar who shows little evidence of core values, nor even inner life. Yet, some large percentage of us thinks he should have access to the nuclear codes.
So if you really want to know the most dangerous place on Earth, it's simple. It's every polling place in America, come November.
Pitts is a columnist for the Miami Herald. Send him email at lpitts@miamiherald.com.
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Mitchell Funk via Getty Images High angle view of person with red umbrella in snowstorm.
Despite 20-degree weather in other areas of Canada, parts of Alberta dipped back into the winter months.
Ahead of the Victoria Day long weekend, Environment Canada issued a snowfall warning for areas of north and central western Alberta.
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It started off nominally enough, but escalated rather quickly.
Counties across this area of the province have been dealing with either heavy rainfall or wet snow, just in time for the long weekend, causing power outages in certain cities and towns.
Albertans in Peace River, Grande Prairie, Banff, Greenview and other places were greeted by up to 35 centimetres of snow in some areas, and some areas will be hit with more than 50 millimetres of rain between Sunday and Monday, according to the Weather Network.
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Peace River update at over 14" of snow overnight. Now that's an #Abstorm More snow than the entire season? pic.twitter.com/SIviaV9u93 Jest Sidloski (@JestDempsey) May 20, 2016
#plant16 done couple days ago and The annual late May snowfall is here. 4" to 5" of heavy wet snow. Only in Alberta. pic.twitter.com/vUMLRtm3Tg David Tschetter (@THutterite) May 19, 2016
But at least a sense of humour about the province's erratic weather patterns is still holding on.
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Alberta right now: Snow, smoke, rain, fire. But no locusts. (So far.) Jana G. Pruden (@jana_pruden) May 20, 2016
Also on HuffPost:
An editorial denouncing Wednesday's incident in the House of Commons appears to have mistakenly referenced "facts" from a fake news site.
The Hamilton Spectator piece criticized Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for striding across the floor of the House of Commons to grab the Conservative party whip and elbowing NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau in the process.
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A few paragraphs in, the Spec mentions New Democrats showing up on Parliament Hill the next day in wheelchairs and neck braces.
"Thursday morning the NDP showed up for Parliament in fake bandages and in wheelchairs. They are hardly above reproach here, though none of their transparent comic book tactics are as bad as Trudeau's lapse in judgement and good sense."
But no such thing actually happened.
Satirical news website The Beaverton published a fake news story on Thursday entitled "Entire NDP caucus arrive in neck braces, wheelchairs to House of Commons after Trudeau's assault."
They posted a screenshot of the editorial on Facebook.
"Kudos to the Hamilton Spectator Editorial Board for using our story yesterday," the site wrote. "They'll never let facts get in the way of their courageous opinions!"
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The Spec has since removed the erroneous sentence from the editorial, but no correction was issued online.
The Beaverton's site disclaimer says it is a parody publication, and all its articles are fictitious.
"When public figures are mentioned by name, the corresponding story details are invented."
Also on HuffPost
Boris Johnson has turned his back on London and on the needs of our economy. Businesses I have spoken to who are contingency planning for a possible Brexit knowing that job losses are on the horizon with a likely fall in demand have felt let down by the former Mayor in his final days.
The facts show British economy is in a fragile and vulnerable state. Recent statistics have shown our construction sector shrinking, and industry in recession. Our trade deficit has reached an eight-year low.
The consequence for millions of working families is slowing wage growth, fewer job opportunities, increasing insecurity.
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George Osborne cannot shirk responsibility for this. He has failed on the fundamentals, with low saving, lagging investment, and poor productivity jeopardising future growth and prosperity.
That's why Labour is now focusing its efforts - as we will discuss at our "State of the Economy" Conference today - on how we can provide our industrial sector with more capital, provide stronger public support for research and development, and greater investment in education and training to create high-skilled jobs.
But the threat of Brexit is now adding to our woes, distracting debate from this essential task of building the balanced and sustainable economy that we so desperately need, and deterring vital investment in technology and jobs.
The Bank of England and the IMF have both made clear their honest assessment that the threat of Brexit poses a grave risk to our economy's short term stability and longer term potential.
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The uncertainty created by a vote to leave could tip the economy back into recession. And the lost investment and trading opportunities would likely mean a permanent reduction in growth, jobs, wages, and the tax revenues we need to pay for public services.
Vote Leave would have you believe that any such warning is an interference in democratic debate, but in truth none have publicly answered the question about the impact of Brexit on the economy. Privately they admit there will be uncertainty and likely slowdown. Whether the "short term" hit will be two years, or the five to ten years economists have talked about, they do not know but want us all to take the gamble.
I know from my own many conversations with businesses that the consequences they warn of are all too real.
A businessman recently shifted his view from neutral to Remain following a chat with an Indian business that is delaying a decision to invest in the UK. Their reason? If we Brexit, it will give them access to talent from a population of around 60million. For them, thinking long term and investing billions, they are asking why they should close themselves off from access to talent from 500million people, and the benefits that cross border collaboration can bring from bringing together the best minds and skills to compete in the global environment of today. That's the reality of choices that investors are having to make, and the threat to our prosperity is real.
Those voting Leave must do so with their eyes open. The world post-Brexit won't be the same as it is now. There will be economic consequences, and it's time they were honest about it.
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WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 16: Debbie Wasserman Schultz speaks onstage at the FORTUNE Most Powerful Women Summit on October 16, 2013 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for FORTUNE)
The Democratic National Committee chair has thrown fuel on the flames of infighting just as the party faces a critical November election.
To paraphrase the words of that Scottish master Robert Burns, the best laid plans of mice, men -- and women -- go often astray, or "gang aft agley," as they say in the Highlands. No one knows this better than Hillary Rodham Clinton.
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Twice now, the flight of her presidential aspirations has been forced to circle the airport as other contenders put up an unexpected fight: In 2008, Barack Obama emerged to grab the Democratic nomination away and this year, although all signs point to her finally grabbing the brass ring, unexpected and powerful progressive resistance came from the mighty wind of the Bernie Sanders campaign.
Certainly, Hillary Clinton is angered by all of this, but the one seemingly more aggrieved -- if public comments and private actions are any indication -- is Democratic National Committee chair and Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Hillary surrogate who takes umbrage like ordinary folks pop their vitamins in the morning.
As we recently wrote, "... She embodies the tactics that have eroded the ability of Democrats to once again be the party of the working class. As Democratic National Committee chair she has opened the floodgates for Big Money, brought lobbyists into the inner circle and oiled all the moving parts of the revolving door that twirls between government service and cushy jobs in the world of corporate influence."
And that ain't all. As a member of Congress, particularly egregious has been her support of the payday loan business, defying new regulations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that would rein in an industry that soaks desperate borrowers. As President Obama said, "While payday loans might seem like easy money, folks often end up trapped in a cycle of debt."
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In fact, according to an article by Bethany McLean in the May issue of The Atlantic, "After studying millions of payday loans, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that 67 percent went to borrowers with seven or more transactions a year, and the majority of borrowers paid more in fees than the amount of their initial loan."
A recent editorial in the Orlando Sentinel notes that 7 percent of Florida's population "must resort to this predatory form of small-dollar credit - nearly the highest rate in the nation..." What's more, "Based on a 14-day loan term, the typical payday loan... had an annual percentage rate of 278 percent. Many lenders advertise rates of more than 300 percent." Let us repeat that slowly... 300 percent!
So why has Wasserman Schultz been so opposed to the CFPB's proposed rules? She has said, "Payday lending is unfortunately a necessary component of how people get access to capital, [people] that are the working poor." But maybe it has something more to do with the $2.5 million or so the payday loan industry has donated to Florida politicians from both parties since 2009. That's according to a new report by the liberal group Allied Progress. More than $50,000 of that cash has gone to Rep. Wasserman Schultz.
But we digress. It's the skullduggery going on within the Democratic Party establishment that's our current concern and as we wrote in March, Rep. Wasserman Schultz "has played games with the party's voter database, been accused of restricting the number of Democratic candidate debates and scheduling them at odd days and times to favor Hillary Clinton, and recently told CNN's Jake Tapper that superdelegates -- strongly establishment and pro-Clinton -- are necessary at the party's convention so deserving incumbent officials and party leaders don't have to run for delegate slots 'against grassroots activists.' Let that sink in, but hold your nose against the aroma of entitlement."
Now Wasserman Schultz has waded into the controversy over what happened or didn't happen last weekend when Sanders supporters loudly and vehemently objected to the rules at the Nevada State Democratic Convention. In truth, some behaved badly at the event and others made trollish, violent and obscene threats to Democratic state chair Roberta Lange via phone, email and social media. There's no excuse for such aggressive, creepy conduct, and Sanders was quick and direct in apologizing for the behavior of the rowdies and bullies.
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But there is a double standard at play here. Why, pray tell, shouldn't the peaceful majority of Sanders people be angry at the slow-motion, largely invisible rigging of the political process by Wasserman Schultz and the Clinton machine -- all for the benefit of Secretary Clinton?
Wasserman Schultz claims the party rules over which she has presided (and manipulated) are "eminently fair." She told CNN on Wednesday morning, "It is critical that we as candidates, we as Democratic Party leaders, everyone involved needs to make sure that we can take all the steps that we need to, to ensure that the process is not only run smoothly but that the response from the supporters of both candidates is appropriate and civil."
In response to the DNC chair's remarks, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver talked to CNN, too, and said Wasserman Schultz had been "throwing shade on the Sanders campaign since the very beginning... Debbie Wasserman Schultz has really been a divider and not really provided the kind of leadership that the Democratic Party needs."
The Nation's Joan Walsh, a Clinton supporter critical of the Sanders campaign, concurs: "Once again, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz escalated a conflict that she should have worked to defuse," she writes. "... Wasserman Schultz is not helping her friend Hillary Clinton with her attacks on Sanders. Just the appearance of fairness can go a long way in assuaging worries about fairness. Wasserman Schultz's defiant rebuke to the Sanders camp has made it worse."
So, too, has her abolition of the restraints that had been placed on corporate lobbyists and big money -- now they can write checks bankrolling what doubtless will be swank and profligate parties during this summer's Democratic National Convention. At The Intercept, Lee Fang and Zaid Jilani report that a number of the members of the Philadelphia host committee "are actively working to undermine progressive policies achieved by President Barack Obama, including health care reform and net neutrality. Some... are hardly even Democratic Party stalwarts, given that many have donated and raised thousands of dollars for Republican presidential and congressional candidates this cycle."
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This is a slap in the face to progressives calling for a halt to big money and allowing lobbyists to buy our elected officials. And it's contrary to what Hillary Clinton herself has said about money and politics on the campaign trail. The Sanders movement has shown that lots of cash can be raised from everyday people making small donations. His supporters and all of us should be outraged that Debbie Wasserman Schultz and convention officials have kowtowed not only to the corporate wing of their own party but also to those high rollers who back the opposition and ideas antithetical to a democracy.
Rep. Wasserman Schultz is facing a primary challenge for the first time this year, her opponent a law professor, activist and progressive Sanders supporter named Tim Canova. But the primary's not until late August, long after the Democratic National Convention. Unless she steps down now or Hillary Clinton has her removed, Philadelphia will be dominated by someone who represents everything that has gone wrong with the Democratic Party and Washington. At the convention's opening session, Debbie Wasserman Schultz will be bringing the gavel down squarely on progressive hopes of returning the party to its legacy as champion of working people and the dispossessed.
Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump poses for a photo after an interview with Reuters in his office in Trump Tower, in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., May 17, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
This column was written from bottom to top today. The reason we started with the end and worked our way back up is that we were inspired to go off on a rant (rather than our usual talking points for Democrats). This was due to unusually high levels of panic in the media this week (actually it's not that rare that mainstream media panic causes us to go off on a rant, just in general). But because we started with this extended rant, we're going to have to summarize the week in lightning fashion here in this intro, because we are way behind schedule now. So without much extraneous commentary, here are the stories we noticed during the week.
The uninsured rate has now fallen to single digits, as the second year of final stats for Obamacare are in. This means seven million more people with healthcare, in 2015 alone. The uninsured rate stands at 9.1 percent, down 2.4 points last year alone. Oh, and the sky hasn't fallen yet, either.
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One town in Mississippi's schools have finally been desegregated -- hey, what's 50 years of waiting, right?
Speaking of long waits, President Obama has finalized new federal overtime rules (we wrote about this effort in detail last January, when the process was getting underway). By doubling the threshold for being considered a "salaried" worker, Obama's new rule is going to boost the pay of millions of workers. Companies that put "managers" on pathetically low salaries and then work them 70 or 80 hours a week will not be able to do so any longer. They've either got to pay the employees time-and-a-half for any work over 40 hours, or they've got to hire enough people that nobody has to work 80 hours a week. Pretty simple idea. Pay people what they're worth. Obama didn't raise the cutoff limit as high as some Union groups wanted, but he did more than double it -- from $23,660 a year to $47,476 a year. Importantly, the new law has a provision in it to adjust the level every three years, so that workers won't have to wait decades for another change. The new rule goes into effect in December, so either a bigger paycheck or a lot of time off (for the same salary) will be Obama's parting gift to millions of American workers.
Let's see, what else happened? Joe Biden wrote a note to himself that was downright endearing.
There was a fracas at a political meeting last week, although not the one you think I'm talking about. Things got rather shouty on the floor of the House of Representatives, as Republicans had to hold a vote on gay rights open long enough for seven Republicans to change their vote to denying rights (after already voting for the bill). Cries of "Shame! Shame! Shame!" and "Regular order!" and booing can all be heard.
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There was a lot of marijuana news, some of which we're saving for the awards section. A new study came out showing how much revenue states ($20.5 billion) and the federal government ($8 billion) are missing out on through refusing to legalize (and tax) marijuana.
One marijuana provider is fighting back against government interference in court, which they should have every right to do.
And finally, in the "what have they been smoking" department, we have the editors of USA Today (which bills itself as "America's Newspaper," we might mention), who created a scary map showing (gasp!) weed is moving out of Colorado to other states. Except that they couldn't find Colorado on the map -- which showed Wyoming instead. Whoops!
For all the state-level progress on marijuana legal reform, the bigger battle has always been with the federal government's outdated laws. While many large goals are still out of reach (descheduling marijuana, or outright federal legalization), smaller goals continue to be achieved.
This week, the House passed a bill that will open up the Veterans Affairs system to medical marijuana. Or at least force them to stop actively fighting against it. This is a step in the right direction. As Tom Angell, Chairman of Marijuana Majority put it:
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It's looking like this could finally be the year the federal government stops making veterans jump through costly, time-consuming hoops just to get legal access to medical marijuana. Cannabis has shown great promise in helping veterans deal with PTSD and treat chronic pain, and it's an increasingly attractive alternative to opioids. There's absolutely no reason the V.A. should be preventing its doctors from helping veterans who served our country find relief with medical marijuana.
The bill was introduced by a regular champion of marijuana reform in the House, Representative Earl Blumenauer. Federal law is not going to change all at once -- it's going to require a lot of patient steps like the one that just passed the House. For taking the time and effort to legislate such steps, and for getting bipartisan support for his measure, Blumenauer is easily our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week.
[Congratulate Representative Earl Blumenauer on his House contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]
Ed Rendell, former governor of Pennsylvania, really stepped in it this week. When asked if Donald Trump could possibly siphon off Democratic voters given his crude comments about women, Rendell responded:
For every one [voter Trump gains] he'll lose one-and-a-half, two Republican women. Trump's comments like, 'You can't be a 10 if you're flat-chested,' that'll come back to haunt him. There are probably more ugly women in America than attractive women. People take that stuff personally. He demeans women. He demeans Mexican Americans, I think women are rightfully irritated by how he talks. Plus, you don't know where he stands. One day he's for Planned Parenthood, the next day he's against it.
Rendell personally wins not only a (Dis-)Honorable Mention award, but also the prize for "not recognizing irony when it comes out of your own mouth," since he apparently didn't link his own "ugly women" comment to his scolding Trump for demeaning women. Next time, engage brain before opening mouth!
But our Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award goes to any supporter of Bernie Sanders who actually did engage in violence during last week's state party convention. We've got a lot more to say about this, below, I should mention.
Sure, the media hyped the fight. First-hand reports didn't sound anywhere near as bad as what happened was portrayed, in fact. But while speaking up is allowable (no matter how loud) in politics, violence is not. Chair-throwing is violence, whether it hits anyone or not. Death threats are violence. There is a bright line which has been crossed, to state the obvious.
So anyone who participated in any violence in Nevada, and certainly anyone who made threats either during or after the fracas is hereby awarded our Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week. Violence in politics is always wrong. Always. And everyone should loudly condemn it no matter who does it or for what perceived reason. Period.
Volume 392 (5/20/16)
Every once in a while, instead of writing talking points, I feel the need to unleash a rant. Today is one of those times.
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The past week has seen an explosion of panic in the media over Bernie Sanders and his campaign. We can probably expect a lot more of this, right up until the final primary contests early next month, in fact. So I felt it was time to offer up a countering opinion. To anyone else out there who is getting frustrated with the increasing levels of angst out there, I offer up the following advice:
Don't Panic!
Can we all just take a deep breath? I'm speaking to many Democratic voters as well as the bulk of the mainstream media, here, just to clarify. Because far too many seem to currently be going off the deep end -- due mostly to selective amnesia, one assumes. But from where I sit, this is an overreaction to a very short-term situation. So please, let's just take a deep breath and try to relax a little bit. Or, as Douglas Adams would say: "Don't panic!"
Last week there was a bit of a fracas at the Nevada Democratic state convention. Rules were bent or ignored, tempers ran high, and the outcome in question was over a grand total of two delegates to the national convention. Two. That's it. Obviously, the entire episode was way out of proportion from the start.
Then the media jumped in, and blew things stratospherically out of proportion. Goaded by this panic-mode reaction, some prominent Democrats began saying things they really shouldn't have. My own senator, Dianne Feinstein, wondered on camera whether the 2016 convention would resemble the riots in Chicago in 1968. Really, DiFi? You really think that's what will happen? Because I don't, nor should any sane person who knows a little history.
The history I'm talking about doesn't reach back to the days of the Vietnam War, either. I'm talking about the previous contested Democratic nomination race, in fact, which happened only eight years ago. I'm beginning to get the feeling I'm one of the few who does remember what happened then, because everyone else seems to be having too much fun freaking out right now. Well, not everyone, to be fair. There are a few other sane voices crying in the wilderness, such as MSNBC's Steve Kornacki, who recently tweeted:
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Talking about the final days of the '08 primary season with some Dems now, I'm struck by how tame it all seems. "Oh, that was nothing compared to what Sanders is doing now!" I'll hear. But again, go back and find the commentary from Dems back then. There was a lot of panic that [Hillary Clinton] was undermining the party and doing all sorts of dark, devious things. I believe Dems now remember it as being tame because things all worked out for them. She dropped out in June, endorsed Obama and they won, then she joined the admin -- no harm done. So people now remember late May '08 very differently than they experienced it at the time. That happens a lot in life, and I think it's very possible the same will happen with Dems when it comes to this current moment.
He is exactly right. Memories are selective because we now know the outcome -- which we didn't, at the time. Exactly eight years ago, the Democratic Party was split down the middle, and feelings ran a lot higher than anything we've seen this year. Don't believe me? Do some research, if your own memories of the time has faded.
Back in 2008, the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was tighter than this year's race. Because of this, the Clinton camp was arguing very strenuously for the delegates from Michigan and Florida to be counted at the convention. But, by the rules, these delegates were disallowed. Forty-eight states followed the rules laid down by the party for the primary schedule. Two states ignored the rules, which plainly stated that any state not following the rules would not have its delegates seated at the convention. All the Democratic candidates -- in deference to the party rules -- refused to campaign in the two states. One candidate ignored this, however. Hillary Clinton encouraged these two states' rulebreaking by actively campaigning (and, unsurprisingly, winning) in Florida and Michigan. With the overall race so close, these votes might have mattered, so Clinton pushed very hard for the party rules to be changed -- after the fact.
Remember all that? Kind of puts Nevada squabbling over two delegates in some context, doesn't it? As for the contentiousness and politeness of the race (now versus then), nothing that's happened this year even comes close to how hard Barack and Hillary went after each other.
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Almost to the day, exactly eight years ago Hillary Clinton made the most jaw-dropping casual reference I've ever heard any politician utter. Here's the story, in case you've forgotten:
Smart candidates don't invoke the possibility of their opponents being killed. This seems so obvious it shouldn't need to be said, but apparently, it needs to be said. "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California," Hillary Clinton said yesterday, referencing the fact that past nomination contests have stretched into June to explain why she hasn't heeded calls to exit the Democratic race. She was in an editorial board meeting with a South Dakota newspaper, and she didn't even seem to notice she'd just uttered the unutterable. The nation's political science students, our future strategists and campaign managers, would do well to pay attention to this moment. There are taboos in presidential politics, and this is one of the biggest. To raise the specter of a rival's assassination, even unintentionally, is to make a truly terrible thing real. It sounds like one might be waiting for a terrible thing to happen, even if one isn't. It sounds almost like wishful thinking.
That was on May 23, 2008. Clinton was also speaking out about the Michigan and Florida fight, comparing it to fraudulent elections in Zimbabwe, the recount of the 2000 election, and even "the abolition of slavery." Hillary Clinton campaigned to the very end -- and even beyond. When the votes were counted in the final primary, Clinton gave a speech and refused to concede the race to Barack Obama. From that speech:
Now, the question is: Where do we go from here? And given how far we've come and where we need to go as a party, it's a question I don't take lightly. This has been a long campaign, and I will be making no decisions tonight.
She then went on to invite her supporters to "share their thoughts" at her campaign website, and to state that she would be in consultations "to determine how to move forward." This was after the last vote had been counted, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that she had lost the race. But she still had a plan for convincing a bunch of superdelegates to switch their support to her.
In fact, it took four days -- and a face-to-face meeting with Obama arranged by Dianne Feinstein -- before Clinton would concede she had lost.
That's where we all were, eight years ago.
Clinton supporters were even more fervent back then than the so-called "Bernie Bros" of today. Salon helpfully points this out (with links for all their points):
Back in 2008, we had Hillary Clinton supporters musing openly about Obama being a drug dealer, and her chief strategist went on TV and deliberately said "cocaine" as many times as he could in relation to Obama (who wrote in his memoir about blowing coke as a college student). Clinton herself aimed barbed personal attacks at Obama, calling him a vacant naif who couldn't do anything beyond give a good speech. There were racially fraught swipes, scornful dismissals, and utterly bizarre insinuations that the race could be upended by anything, including an assassination. After Clinton conceded defeat, we had to tolerate the PUMAs -- remember those assholes? -- who made "Party Unity My Ass" their mantra and got a lot of media attention (primarily from Fox News) for employing incoherent racism as their chief weapon in a deluded quest to keep alive the Hillary-Obama division and make John McCain president.
Remember all that? I do. Which is why I'm not panicking now. Things worked out back then, and they are very likely going to work out now. For all the frenzied calls for Bernie Sanders to get out of the race, stop campaigning so hard, stop hitting Hillary, stop fighting for delegates, and to condemn the violence in Nevada for the umpteenth time, what is most likely is that the period from now until the final primary will not even be remembered by anyone this November. The party is not about to engage in civil war. Don't listen to the idiots in the media who are predicting this (or 1968 happening again, for that matter). They're going to be wrong.
Just reading the headlines in the Washington Post of late, you'd think Bernie Sanders was singlehandedly destroying the Democratic Party. After Nevada, Bernie put out a public statement which clearly showed his feelings towards what had happened (emphasis added, because apparently some people didn't read this part):
Within the last few days there have been a number of criticisms made against my campaign organization. Party leaders in Nevada, for example, claim that the Sanders campaign has a "penchant for violence." That is nonsense. Our campaign has held giant rallies all across this country, including in high-crime areas, and there have been zero reports of violence. Our campaign of course believes in non-violent change and it goes without saying that I condemn any and all forms of violence, including the personal harassment of individuals. But, when we speak of violence, I should add here that months ago, during the Nevada campaign, shots were fired into my campaign office in Nevada and apartment housing complex my campaign staff lived in was broken into and ransacked.
The Post ran this under the apocalyptic headline: "This Bernie Sanders Statement On The Nevada Convention Reads Like An Open Threat To The Democratic Establishment." There were zero threats in Bernie's statement. Zero. He didn't even mention the national convention, and yet soon most in the media were spinning it as: "Bernie's threatening violence in Philadelphia." Poppycock. Read the whole statement yourself, and see if anything in it even remotely constitutes any such "threat."
Bernie's statement wasn't enough for many in the media and in the Democratic Party. He was told he had to denounce the violence stronger and more unequivocally. He then began doing so, any time a television camera was on him. That's really the sum total of the story -- "Bernie denounces supporters' violence" -- but you wouldn't have known that from the panicky coverage all week long.
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The Washington Post has, for months, pretty obviously been in the tank for Hillary Clinton. Back in early March, it was even pointed out that they ran 16 negative stories about Bernie Sanders in the space of 16 hours. But occasionally, you do hear some actual facts from someone at the Post, as in today's story comparing 2008 to 2016. Facts and figures plainly show that the Democratic Party is a lot more unified now than it was back then. The most striking data point comes from a comparison over the polled question: "Does a long primary race help or hurt the Democratic nominee?" In 2008, only 38 percent thought a tough race "helps the nominee," while a whopping 54 percent said it "hurts the nominee." And now? The numbers are reversed. Only 34 percent think a long race hurts the nominee, while 59 percent say it helps.
That really puts things in perspective. No matter what the media mavens think, Democratic voters are just fine with Bernie staying in the race until the end. Just like Hillary Clinton did back in 2008. Doing so will toughen Clinton up and put her in fighting form to face off against Donald Trump -- just like it sharpened Barack Obama up in 2008.
Bernie Sanders is going to lose the nomination race. I say this while fully intending to proudly cast my own primary vote for Sanders in a few weeks, I should point out. But he has certainly earned the right to stay in until California and New Jersey get a chance to vote. He is not some gadfly who won a single state or maybe two. He has run a campaign that has surprised everyone -- including him. He got farther than anyone expected, and tapped into an astonishing amount of discontent with the status quo. He deserves to have a lot of input in writing the party's platform this year, and hopefully his movement won't fizzle out after Clinton locks the nomination up. But he's far from being Ralph Nader or anything. Voting for John McCain seemed semi-reasonable for Clinton supporters angry with Barack Obama in 2008, but my guess is that voting for Donald Trump is just not going to be a conceivable option for the vast majority of Sanders supporters.
So my advice to Democrats is to just flat-out ignore the pearl-clutching frenzy in the media for the next few weeks. Primary season is almost over, and all of this will soon be forgotten. It will likely make not a dime's worth of difference if Bernie quit the race tomorrow versus staying in until the final votes are counted. The end result is going to be the same. My guess is that Bernie will accept defeat more graciously than Clinton did back in 2008, in fact. I bet he'll concede long before she did, back then. And I bet he won't demand a face-to-face meeting before he does so, too.
The Democratic Party is going to unite. Oh, sure, some disenchanted Bernie voters will either refuse to vote in November or vote for the Green Party (or maybe even write in Bernie's name). The majority of Bernie voters, however, will go through a period of disappointment and then realize that "President Trump" is so horrifying a concept that they'll vote for Hillary anyway (while holding their nose or not). Feelings always run high at the end of a close race. Tempers flare. But it's 2016, not a re-run of 1968 (sorry, DiFi). Heck, it's not even a re-run of 2008.
It'll all be over soon. Until then, keep calm. Don't panic.
Chris Weigant blogs at:
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com
The success of Donald Trump and the rise of right-wing nationalism in the United States should come as no great surprise, considering the strength of right-wing movements in many other developed nations. Globalization and rapid technological change have meant the loss of millions of jobs throughout the industrialized world and will certainly mean millions more lost in the future. Societies with large middle class populations have been especially hard hit as their jobs are replaced either by machines or by workers in developing nations.
This has happened before - during the nineteenth-century Industrial Age and again in the 1930's with the Great Depression. But the scope and pace of economic and technological change in the twenty-first century is even more rapid and disruptive. And while the political and social impact may not be as sudden or cataclysmic as, say the Depression, it is likely to be equally as devastating. Although nations can mitigate some of the impact of this rapid change, there is nothing they can do to stop it.
As in the past, when economic and social crises have occurred, people look for scapegoats. Whether it is immigrants or bankers, governments or corporations, political ideologies or economic theories, people want to someone to blame. And they want simple solutions. In their frustration, or even desperation, they seize on a charismatic leader or an easy slogan, whether from the right or left. In Europe and the United States, many blame immigrants, the government or the political system for their problems. On both the right and the left, the search for scapegoats or villains can eclipse the need for real solutions.
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While roughly a third of the populations in Europe and the U.S. may be supportive or sympathetic to right-wing nationalist movements, another third are opposed - often strongly - and the rest are essentially bewildered and passive. In the competition between the right-wing nationalists and the left-wing social democrats in Europe, for example, the right-wing has both a practical and historical advantage. By and large, right-wing nationalist movements are less concerned with the trappings of democracy and favor strong, authoritarian leaders.
The rise of European fascism in the 1930's is, of course, an extreme example, but it does illustrate how left-wing movements, who are often dedicated to democratic practices, are at a real disadvantage in their struggle against right-wing nationalist movements. While both the left and right can be co-opted by charismatic demagogues, the right has shown a greater proclivity to line up behind a powerful authority figure, who is dismissive of the democratic process.
Both Donald Trump himself and his supporters have shown many of the characteristics of past right-wing nationalist movements. Trump's own personality is in line with narcissistic leaders who have risen to power within nationalist movements. More importantly, the willingness of both Trump and his followers to challenge, or even discard, the processes of democracy is typical of these kind of movements. The constant drumbeat that the system is "rigged" or "corrupt," may have a ring of truth, but it is fundamentally an attack on the democratic system of government, however flawed it may be.
Both the left-wing and centrist movements in Europe and the U.S. have struggled against the rising tide of right-wing nationalism, without much success. This week, Austria may elect a far-right nationalist as president, the first in Europe. In the latest U.S. election, socialist Bernie Sanders has appealed to younger, educated voters, but has made few inroads with older, white, male and working-class voters who are the core of the right-wing nationalist movement. And while centrist Hillary Clinton maintains strong support from older women and minorities, her support among the same demographic is weak.
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The fundamental problem is that neither the left or centrist parties in Europe or the U.S. are addressing the struggles of the middle-class and working-class voters who are the core of right-wing movements. Breaking up the big banks or addressing income equality may sound like a good idea, but it does little to speak to the citizens who believe that immigrants, foreign nations and their own governments are the source of their troubles.
Apparently, Apple believes the answer to its slumping sales is a makeover of its 244 retail stores. According to Buzzfeed "the future of the Apple Store looks like a normal Apple Store, but with a bunch of trees." While that is probably an over simplification, it seems odd that Apple is focusing on a store redesign when what it really needs is to get back on the innovation track, improve falling software quality, and provide better service to existing customers at its genius bars. Calling them genius groves is not going to make customers that face increasing waits for service any happier.
Forgetting the lifetime value of a customer
Paying Angela Ahrendts $73 million to leave Burberry and run the Apple stores does not impress customers that get nickel and dimed when they paid a lot for Apple Care but had their product break just after the warranty expires. Being an owner of 9 Macs, two iPhones, two iPods, and two iPads apparently does not qualify you as a good customer that deserves a break, but being on Angela's celebrity list will get you a $17,000 Apple Watch for free. How well has that strategy worked for Apple? Many in the know say the product, the first collaboration of Tim Cook and Ms. Ahrents in the post Steve Jobs era, is a bona fide failure. Maybe those that got the watch for free can sell it some day for its historical value.
From creative disrupter to incremental improver
Apple's turnaround from a company on the verge of going out of business to the most valuable company in the world is a phenomenal accomplishment in so many ways. Yet the concern about Apple's ability to innovate and lead in the wake of Steve Jobs death has not been overcome by the company's actions over the past few years. No doubt Tim Cook is an excellent executive. The problem is that the company recently announced its worst quarter in over a decade. It is clear to those that watch Apple closely is that it has become more like Toyota - innovating by incremental improvement - than the Apple of five years ago.
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Changing the stores to destinations
On a blistery cold day in December, I sat in a corner office on one end of a beautiful, large oak desk fidgeting in my interview suit. The man stationed at the opposing end leaned back in his leather recliner and scoffed at my previous statement.
"You want to do surgery in developing countries? Surgery has no place in global health," he said. "Leave that to the medical doctors."
My heart sank. The sad truth is that he is not alone in his sentiment. Most people today think about global health in a restricted and one-dimensional perspective that focuses only on communicable diseases and basic health needs. It is true there are horrible diseases plaguing the world, both insect and water-borne. However, attention to these alone creates an inaccurate representation of the global health care landscape--a misperception that permeates not just in popular media but amongst health care professionals as well.
In the past few years, a growing body of evidence has emerged bringing to light a significant disparity that exists in the delivery of health care to foreign countries: There are 5 billion people worldwide who do not have access to much-needed safe and affordable surgical and anesthesia services. Further, 18.6 million people die every year due to lack of surgical care, a number that is over three times the combined number of deaths caused by HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. In 2015, the United States spent over 60% of its global health fund on these three diseases, despite the fact that their death and infection rates have plummeted globally.
In a recent article in BMJ Global Health, a team of medical providers and experts from leading institutions around the world summarized current data on global surgery and provided consensus recommendations for high-income countries. They report that there needs to be at least 1.27 million new surgeons, anesthesiologists, and obstetricians worldwide by 2030 to reach conservative health-needs benchmarks.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty, Pool)
For weeks now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been engaged in public negotiations designed to bring Isaac Herzog, Chair of the "centrist" Zionist Union bloc, into his coalition government. And then, out of the blue, Netanyahu did a complete reversal, dropping Herzog and instead bringing the far right Avigdor Lieberman into his government.
The move caught Israelis and much of the rest of the world by surprise. Just one day before Netanyahu's announcement, liberal commentators were salivating over the prospects of a Netanyahu-Herzog coalition, basing their assessments more on wishful thinking than sound political analysis. Some speculated that national unity might moderate the government easing international pressure on Israel. A few days ago, when Egypt's President al Sissi offered to help facilitate Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and both Herzog and Netanyahu in rapid succession issued statements supporting the Egyptian proposal, commentators were positively gleeful. Many even speculated that al Sissi's move had been orchestrated with Netanyahu and Herzog to help spur the Israeli unity effort.
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Still others saw the entry of the Zionist Union into the hard-line Netayahu government as an insurance policy guaranteeing that the Obama Administration would not take or support any untoward actions against Israel at the United Nations for fear of disrupting the new fragile Israeli unity government. One respected Israeli writer called it a "stroke of genius"--a classic Netanyahu move: a feint to the left providing his government with a fig leaf to mask its continuing aggressive settlement policy in the occupied territories.
As much as Netanyahu and Herzog, each for their own reasons, wanted this unity charade to succeed, it was not to be. The Prime Minister had become increasingly annoyed by his out-spoken Minister of Defense Moshe Ya'alon who had recently taken to defend the right of the military to speak out against excessive use of force. Netanyahu wanted to replace him. Herzog appeared willing to accept the role but wanted other key cabinet posts for his bloc, as well. This would have required that Netanyahu displace other coalition partners, a move that would fractured his right-wing alliance.
And so, still needing to remove his troublesome Defense Minister and to expand his one vote majority coalition government, Netanyahu abruptly turned to the right and invited the controversial Lieberman (who once called for "beheading" Israeli Arab "traitors") to join the government, offering him the Defense portfolio.
With all these, Netanyahu has revealed key aspects of his governing philosophy.
He is a master maneuverer, but despite his occasional feints to the left, he is, at his core, a right-wing hardliner. He has no interest in ending the occupation or providing justice for the Palestinians. Even if Herzog had joined the coalition, it would only have been as a fig leaf to shield Netanyahu from Western critics--not a serious move toward peace. Equally important to note is that far from being a strong leader, Netanyahu is weak and constantly fearful of others, both inside and outside of his government, who may challenge his authority. Alongside his core belief in maintaining Jewish control over Eretz Israel stands his concern with maintaining his personal power.
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These two goals define the man and explain his bullying and his maneuvers. His behavior has been shameful, but so too is the extent to which Israelis, Americans and others continue to enable his malevolent rule. As one Israeli military leader noted last week, Israeli society is on a slippery slope--becoming increasingly tolerant of racist violence. Even though some of the most disturbingly bigoted personalities are in the Netanyahu government, the leader of the "centrist" opposition was desperate to join this coalition to protect it from Western critics. The Europeans continue to threaten sanctions in the face of ever expanding settlement construction in occupied lands. On this issue, Netanyahu has been especially defiant. During his tenure in office, the settler population has increased by over 100,000. Despite this behavior, the Europeans have allowed themselves to be silenced and bullied by Netanyahu into inaction. As for the Americans, they have repeatedly expressed displeasure over Netanyahu's settlement policies and his blatant interference in US internal politics. Nevertheless the administration is now debating whether to reward his government with a 10 year aid package valued at $35 Billion--while Netanyahu, supported by allies in Congress, is brazenly holding out for $45 to $50 Billion.
A sign which reads 'Stop the Bomb' is seen as protesters gather outside the hotel where the Iran nuclear talks meetings are being held in Vienna, Austria, July 1, 2015. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano will be in Tehran on Thursday to discuss monitoring sensitive nuclear sites with senior officials as major powers and Iran seek a breakthrough in forging a lasting nuclear agreement. Iran and world powers gave themselves an extra week on Tuesday to reach an accord curbing Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief, but U.S. President Barack Obama warned there would be no deal if all pathways to an Iranian nuclear weapon were not cut off. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Neoconservatives are furious that their efforts to trick the country into another unnecessary war in the Middle East failed.
They spent tens of millions of dollars in an orchestrated campaign to kill diplomacy with Iran. They lost. The nuclear agreement with Iran is in place and working. It has prevented an Iranian bomb and prevented a new war.
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They can't stand it. Over the past few weeks they have launched a wave of attacks on those they hold responsible for thwarting their plans: the Obama Administration, independent experts and advocates, and the hated "liberal media."
It is logical for opponents of the nuclear agreement with Iran to want to see their failure as the result of evil spin masters. Many of them supported the invasion of Iraq. Many were part of the campaign to generate support for that war. Opponents of the Iran agreement may assume that the Obama Administration copied the Bush playbook. Or the "White Propaganda" operations used by the Reagan administration's Office of Public Diplomacy to sell support for the wars in Central America in the 1980's.
Over the past two weeks, The New York Times Magazine published two lengthy pieces by David Samuels claiming that President Obama "actively misled" the American people on the Iran Deal. The House Government Oversight Committee staged a hearing with only opponents of the deal to denounce Obama, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes and -- among other targets -- the foundation I head, Ploughshares Fund.
On Friday, Bradley Klapper wrote an Associated Press story published in dozens of newspapers around the country claiming that Ploughshares Fund was a "key surrogate in selling the Iran nuclear deal" and that our support for independent media coverage of nuclear issues - including a $100,000 grant to NPR - was "tremendously troubling," according to a quoted source. It was strikingly similar to an attack on NPR and us four years ago by the conservative Free Beacon that claimed "Ploughshares Fund gives millions to slant coverage on Iran."
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Over the past few days, I have personally been the target of harassing hate tweets slandering me, reporters who have interviewed me, and Ploughshares Fund. The goal is clear: intimidate us into backing down; intimidate journalists from talking to us; smear the administration and major media as liars and paid tools.
Setting the Record Straight
Nothing could be further from the truth.
It is common practice for foundations to fund media coverage of under-reported stories and perspectives. For some, this might be global health, poverty or the impact of conflict on civilians. For Ploughshares Fund, this means bringing much-needed attention to the dangers of nuclear weapons.
Our support of independent media such as NPR and PRI does not influence the editorial content of their coverage in any way, nor would we want it to.
NPR has assets of almost $350 million. Last year, it received almost $95 million in support from a wide-range of corporations and foundations, including major defense contractors and conservative foundations, and, of course, "listeners like you." The idea that a $100,000 grant could slant their news coverage is ludicrous.
So is the idea that we are somehow hiding our support for NPR. I guess having it announced every week on the radio is not enough. We also publish a full listing of our grants every year. And we detailed the key role played by civil society in securing the Iran Deal -- the most significant national security victory in a generation -- on our special web page, "How We Won."
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Ploughshares Fund has been making the world safer since the height of the Cold War. The core of our mission was and is to peacefully reduce and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons threats. The media is essential to informing and educating Americans of the risks that nuclear weapons -- and dangerous nuclear weapon policies -- pose to humanity.
Mr. Klapper's piece also insinuates that there is something underhanded about funding security experts, peace advocates, and when relevant, regional experts. No matter what the opponents of the Iran deal say, our work is not about politics. It's about the future safety and security of our country, and of the world.
Klapper's article was no doubt influenced by Samuels' grossly skewed version of reality. Samuels spun the facts and quotes to feed his own fictional narrative. Many have refuted all his major claims, including Jeffrey Goldberg, Fred Kaplan, Matthew Yglesias, Eric Levitz and Rep. Jan Schakowsky.
Preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb has been a key goal of Ploughshares Fund and many other security experts for decades. To suggest otherwise -- as Samuels did -- is absurd. Our expertise in this field is nationally recognized. We and other experts were promoting negotiations long before this administration took office, as I detailed in a widely shared and cited Politico article.
Ploughshares Fund is firmly nonpartisan. Our support of the Iran deal was based on policy, not politics.
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We back the administration when they're right, we oppose them when they're wrong. We supported the administration's New START Treaty with Russia and the historic Iran agreement because they make America safer. We oppose the administration's $1 trillion plan to build new nuclear weapons because it makes the world more dangerous. We always act independently based on our own mission to reduce nuclear threats.
We will continue to do so - no matter who is in the Oval Office.
The DC Council just voted on the District's budget for next year.
The language the Council and the Mayor used to describe their FY17 budget choices shows a shared vision of making the District a city in which everyone can prosper. In her State of the District address, Mayor Bowser described her proposed budget as "creating pathways to the middle class." The DC Council described the budget as "enhanc[ing] critical programs that improve the health, well-being, and economic opportunities of all District residents."
In small, but important ways, this budget does some of this.
Investments were made in early intervention, public schools, job training, prevention of teen pregnancy and domestic violence. I'm also encouraged by the positive steps forward on family homelessness. There now is a concrete commitment to replace the decaying and dangerous DC General Shelter with new, smaller family shelters. It's a critical step forward that, when complete, will provide safer and more dignified living spaces for our homeless children and their parents.
But there's one area where next year's District budget falls short: the TANF program. The good news is the Mayor and Council have pledged to fix the TANF program by next year.
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TANF (which stands for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) is a lifeline for vulnerable children and their parents. It provides modest cash income, transportation assistance and child-care subsidies for families especially down on their luck. Study after study shows TANF can be the difference between a child going hungry, failing in school, ending up in foster care or becoming homeless.
It's a vital program in a city like ours where 1 in 4 kids live in poverty. This number rises to 1 in 2 in Wards 7 and 8. And it's hard to believe, but there are many kids in the District today who live in families with virtually no cash income. This is why the TANF program is so critical.
A few years ago, the District began cutting TANF benefits for low-income families, so that today about 13,000 DC children live in families with only about $150 a month of cash assistance. Worse, these children are at risk of being cut off from the program altogether because their parents haven't found steady jobs during the program's rigid 60-month time limit.
If families don't have their most basic needs met, how can we expect children to learn in school, parents to focus on learning new job skills or our families to leave homeless shelters?
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That's why Children's Law Center has joined a large network of other advocates to urge the DC government to fix the program so it can be a true safety net for our most vulnerable residents. This includes a call to extend the program's current 60-month time limit for parents and their children when they face a severe disability, domestic violence, homelessness or other barriers to employment. It's a proven approach adopted by 44 other states and is a best practice we should bring to DC.
It's time to stop pretending children can succeed when their parents don't. It's a lesson learned by schools, which invest in home visits to engage parents. And in healthcare, where the recent push to expand Medicaid for poor parents is a reflection of how much better children do when their parents are healthy, too.
As our elected officials work out their plan for the TANF program, I urge them to remember children cannot succeed without a stable family.
Children's Law Center stands ready to work with the Mayor and the Council to fix the TANF program once and for all. There have been too many stop gap solutions for TANF over the years. We hope by this time next year, when the Council votes on the next budget, their vote includes a strengthened TANF program that works for families we risk leaving behind despite DC's recent prosperity.
I loved watching the latest Pedro Almodovar film, Julieta, based on three short stories by Alice Munro. It's not that the story is particularly strong. It's not. A fresh young beautiful girl (Adriana Ugarte), free and open to life, falls for a man she meets on a train, marries him, gives birth and then--when tragedy hits--goes into a deep depression. She becomes a new Julieta (played by the older actress Emma Suarez), one with regrets, and a deep sense of loss, which compounds when yet another tragedy hits, with her daughter.
Adriana Ugarte
What made this movie such a rewarding experience is that I felt in the hands of a sage older director, who cares about the wisdom he is sharing with us. In a nutshell: forgive the people in your life, because later it will be too late, and it will weigh on you.
"The past will show up for you to deal with," Suarez told me. "In this film, the past shows up for Julieta. When it does, she has a choice. To either go to Portugal with her new companion, or deal with the past. She deals with it. In doing so, she gains dignity."
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The film is also about guilt, which Julieta suffers an inordinate amount of even before any personal tragedy hits. In an early scene on a train, an older grim man wishes to chat the pretty girl up, and Julieta quickly takes off--and hence meets the man of her life in the dining car. The older man in the meantime commits suicide.
The girl thinks it is her fault.
Could this be an over-abundance of Catholic guilt?
"Yes in Spain we have a strong sense of guilt," the younger "Julieta" (Ugarte) told me earnestly. "In a certain way, I am like Julieta. Julieta feels guilty in a very deep way, in a violent way. Pedro once told me: 'you feel guilty all day.' I am always worried about the result and success in a scene. He said: don't worry, you are a very good girl."
"We humans all have a sense of guilt," said the older Julieta. "I try to free myself of those feelings. I prefer to think about responsibility."
The film has a lush, patient feel. Each scene has a rich sense of time, whether it's Julieta's fresh arrival to the sea-side house of her future husband, waiting for him in a sunny parlour, to the sad scenes of Julieta mourning for her daughter in her spartan Madrid apartment. While the story under-awes and key issues remain undeveloped, the passage of time bears weight.
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Doctor helping old patient with Alzheimer's disease.
When a loved one has Alzheimer's there are five situations that may occur that are especially difficult to come to terms with. These include 1) when it's time to move the person to a facility, 2) if the person finds a new love interest, 3) when the person no longer talks, 4) when the person no longer recognizes you, and 5) when it's time to engage hospice care services. This article will look at that last item.
The need to involve hospice can be extremely difficult and even depressing. It's common to dwell on dark thoughts of impending death. Some families delay ordering hospice care because it would force them to acknowledge that the end is near and they just can't deal with that.
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The very word 'hospice' can be frightening. This truly does signify that the end is near. One is about to lose his or her loved one, as difficult or wonderful as the relationship may be.
Some caregivers experience what is called 'anticipatory grief.' That is, they begin grieving over the person's death even before the individual dies. Caregivers might want to consider getting counseling to help them cope. Most hospice organizations offer counseling programs for family members or friends.
Caregivers should keep in mind that their loved ones may not be aware that death is approaching. Conversely, people with Alzheimer's may, at some level, perceive that the end is near. Either way, the caregiver's suffering is real. But there is still the opportunity to have a relationship and to enjoy life with the loved one until the end. This will require an intentional acceptance, as well as gratitude for being given a life shared with the person.
Here's my personal experience with finding a way to accept hospice care. At first I was in denial. Even though my life partner's medical team told me it was likely that Ed would pass away within six months, I continued believing and behaving as though he would live another year or two, or even more.
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I eventually overcame my denial and decided to at least consider obtaining hospice care for Ed. However, I felt as though this would be tantamount to signing his death warrant. I knew that was ridiculous, but that's how I felt.
I delayed the call to hospice for weeks, telling myself Ed didn't need it quite yet. The truth was that I wasn't able to deal with it quite yet. Seeing how weak and frail Ed was, I finally felt compelled to take action. I consulted Dr. Doug Smucker, a family physician colleague at the University of Cincinnati who specialized in end-of-life care.
After answering all of my questions, Doug looked at me kindly and said, "You know, Marie, the real question for the caregiver is 'how can I help the person have the highest possible quality of life in the time that is remaining?'"
That completely changed my thinking about the situation. It gave me a new and positive goal: to bring Ed as much happiness as possible. There was something I could do. It led me to think about all the special things I could do for Ed: visiting him more often, taking my little Shih Tzu to see him, having a classical violinist come and play a concert just for Ed in his room, reading to him from The New York Times, and buying Ed even more of the little stuffed animals he loved so much.
After that talk with Doug, I spent many pleasant hours thinking up special ways to bring Ed pleasure. Once I got my mind off his looming death, we were able to have a beautiful, pleasurable, months-long conclusion to our long life together.
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A loving, comfortable end-of-life experience is certainly the main reason to place a loved one in hospice care. However, there are financial benefits as well. Medicare and other insurers often will pay for services and medical supplies that are not otherwise covered.
Americans are some of the most generous people in the world. We not only donate our money, but we donate our time to help those in need here in the US and throughout the world. Giving happens all over our great country every day; Charity Navigator reported that "without charities and non-profits, America would simply not be able to operate." American Red Cross is celebrating 135 years today and Thursday, May 26, is the second annual Red Nose day. Giving is a win-win and even a win-win-win situation: you help others, feel good doing it, and if you know the rules, you can even reap some tax benefits. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind when it comes to tax-deductible charitable donations that will help you keep more of your money.
First, only contributions made to qualified non-profit organizations can be deducted. To verify the status of the organization you can easily search qualified charities on the IRS Website. A charitable organization has gone through many requirements to be qualified as such to receive tax deductible donations. Make sure you know exactly who you are giving to; failure to do so could bite you later.
Next, keep receipts and records of your donations. Cash donations, to be deductible, require a cancelled check or a receipt from the charity with their name and donation amount - regardless of the amount. One way to track the change you tend to donate throughout the year is to drop the change in a bucket at home. Then write a check to the charity for the amount of change you have in the bucket annually, or more often if you like. This allows you to continue to give your spare change, but still have a record of your contributions.
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Also, when it comes to charity events or purchases from a charity, deducting the appropriate amount can be tricky. IRS rules only allow a deduction for the amount of the donation over any benefit you receive; they do not allow a deduction for the cost or fair-market-value (FMV) of the item or ticket you purchase. For example, paying $100 for a gift basket valued at $75 will only entitle you to take a $25 deduction. However, if you purchase the tickets or item and donate back to the organization or another qualified organization you can deduct the full cost. The same concept holds true when donating the items from your spring cleaning. This area is especially easy to overlook, so pay special attention this year as you clean out your home. Another commonly missed area is when kids leave college for the summer and you donate many of your items rather than pay to ship it all back home. The donation amount is based on the FMV of items like clothing, appliances, toys, and furniture, which must be in good condition. You can use eBay or Craigslist or check consignment shops to determine the FMV of most items. I recommend writing the amount on the back of your donation receipt so when tax time comes around you won't have to scramble to figure out the value of your donations.
Finally, if you are one of the millions of volunteers in this country, you may be missing a deduction. The tax law doesn't allow you to claim the value of your time or expertise when you volunteer but it does allow you to claim mileage and all unreimbursed expenses. So keep track of all the miles you drive each year for your volunteer commitments and keep those receipts when you buy items you are not reimbursed for during your volunteer work.
Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a campaign rally Tuesday, May 3, 2016, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
The Democratic establishment and liberal commentariat lathered itself into a fine hysteria last week. What began as a Clinton surrogate meme -(Bernie has done his job, but now he's hurting Clinton and should get out of the race) - became a maddened chorus. The predictably angry reaction of Sanders delegates --and truly deplorable behavior by some --to preemptory rulings by a pro-Clinton Nevada party chair was blown into a mythical scene of chair-throwing violence, based largely on a report by a biased reporter who wasn't even there. The divisive DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz did her best to escalate rather than defuse the situation. Zealous Clinton advocates like Barney Frank and Paul Krugman slurred Sanders character because he wouldn't drop out of the race. Pundits like Eugene Robinson ("behaving like a two year old") and Jonathan Chait ("maddeningly narcissistic") piled on. Sanders voters were scorned as befuddled innocents who can't do addition, or, as Hillary Clinton earlier suggested, dupes that are being misled by Sanders misinformation. The New York Times and the Washington Post fanned the fames with alarmist headlines.
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Slurs and insults are an odd way to build party unity. What is this fit of hysteria about? What has Sanders done to trigger this circular firing squad? What does Bernie want?
What Bernie Wants
Sanders' intentions are not a secret. He has stated them clearly from the beginning of his remarkable presidential run. He hopes to win the nomination. And he intends to build a "political revolution" to change the direction of the party and the country, to challenge the corrupted politics and rigged rules that work only for the few and not the vast majority.
As movement builder, he has every reason to stay in the race. He's still drawing stunning crowds. He's still energizing a new generation. He has a responsibility to take his message across the country, to educate and proselytize.
As a candidate, he stays in the race because voters keep him in. He still has a shot - however small - at the nomination. He keeps gaining momentum. He's won 5 of the last six primary contests, and basically tied the sixth (Kentucky). He won the closed primary in Oregon even after the mainstream media press declared that the race was over. He's now got a chance to win California, in a primary marked by the diversity of its voters. His campaign raised more from its small donors than the Clinton campaign for the fourth month in a row in April.
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As things stand now, Clinton seems certain to finish the primary season with more elected delegates than Sanders and with more total votes. If elected delegates chose the nominee, she would win. But they don't. Clinton will not have won the required majority of the delegates to the Democratic Convention, because the rules of the party say that the 712 superdelegates who are appointed, not elected, get to vote for whomever they think is the stronger candidate. These are party officials, politicians, and leaders of DNC accredited institutions. They constitute 15% of the convention voters and will determine who is the nominee.
Playing by those rules, Sanders says he will appeal to those delegates to choose him when they cast their vote at the convention. He has a strong argument to make, particularly if he wins California. He's the only candidate left standing whom Americans view favorably. Clinton suffers historic levels of disfavor, exceeded only by that of Donald Trump. Coming from nowhere, Sanders has grown stronger as his message has spread. Sanders runs better against Trump than Clinton in both national and most swing state polls. He fares far better among independents. He is more likely to inspire and turn out vital millennial voters. His message - and his integrity - will be a stark contrast to the bombast and duplicity of Trump. Surely he has a case to make.
So Sanders continues his critique of Hillary Clinton on issues and on the big money fueling her campaign. He continues to call on the Democratic Party to "open its doors and let the people in," not remain a party "dependent on big money campaign contributions and... a party of limited energy." [DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz's tone deaf response to that was to repeal Obama's ban on lobbyist contributions to the Democratic Convention).
Sanders has already made it clear that if he doesn't win the nomination, he will endorse and stump for the winner. The most notable addition to his stump speech recently has been an extended attack on Donald Trump, featuring the riff: "I come from the working class of this country, and I will be damned if we will allow the Republican Party...to win the votes of working class Americans."
Democratic voters seem at ease with Sanders' course. A recent CBS/NY Times poll showed that by 59-34% Democratic voters say that the "long race for the nomination" will help the Democrats in November rather than hurt it. (And the number is a sharp contrast with 2008, when by a virtual reverse margin (38-54%) Democrats thought the long race hurt the party in November.) By 50 to 48, Democrats describe the party as united rather than divided, again a stark contrast with 2008 when by 56 to 42% Democrats thought the party divided. By 83-14%, Democratic voters already say they'll support Clinton if she becomes the nominee. The hand wringing about Sanders dividing the party seems overwrought at best.
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House leader Nancy Pelosi, one of the few Democratic leaders not to lose her head in the past days, has it right. She praised Sanders "as a positive force in the Democratic Party," saying "he's has awakened in some people an interest in the political process that wasn't there...And I think that's positive."
So why the hysteria?
The Clinton Problem
The problem, of course, isn't the Sanders' obstinacy; it is Clinton's weakness. The Democratic establishment essentially cleared the field for her. She started with all of the money, all of the endorsements, universal name recognition, a forbidding lead in the polls, and her pick of the best campaign operatives. She's battle-tested. She's intelligent, with remarkable energy and unmatched experience. But somehow she can't lock up a convention majority from elected delegates against a septuagenarian democratic Socialist who is funding his campaign with small donations.
Turns out the being the establishment candidate grates against the growing number of voters who realize the establishment has failed them. The big money backing Clinton had its costs when voters think our politics are corrupted. Her experience has liabilities, as she moved to disavow the policies her husband and she championed from trade deals like NAFTA and the TPP, to harsh and biased criminal sentencing measures, to banking deregulation and more. She is burdened by scandals, old and new, some self-inflicted, even if inflated by right-wing hit squads.
Worse, she chose to run as the candidate of continuity when voters are looking for change. She made herself the champion of incremental reforms when voters - particularly young voters -- yearn for much more. She purposefully presented herself as more hawkish than Obama-- an "interventionist" Joe Biden called her - at a time when voters are weary of endless wars without victory.
The result is she's almost as unpopular as Trump is -- and recent polls show him closing the margins between them.
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That's the cause of the hysteria. Clinton understandably doesn't want to risk the embarrassment of losing to Sanders in California. The superdelegates are aghast that they might face pressure from Sanders supporters to vote for him. Their votes are supposed to be locked up in backroom deals. They aren't accustomed to being held accountable for them, or to facing public pressure - phone calls, letters, demonstrations, and aggravations - on how they vote. But they set the rules. They could have gone to the convention as observers, but they wanted a vote. Putting themselves in the kitchen, they now complain about the heat.
The Democrats' Dilemma
Donald Trump is utterly unfit to be president. He is a classic American bounder, a version of Melville's confidence man, peddling scams, preying on hate and division, posturing with bluster and bunk, insult and idiocy. He's utterly incapable of carrying a policy argument, adopting and shedding positions at will.
He's blown apart the Republican Party, repelling its neo-conservative hawks, its establishment bankrollers, its suburbanite moderates, and its social conservative zealots. His sexism repulses women; his peddling of hate and racial division will mobilize people of color against him. His social conservatism and climate denial alienate millennials. His candidacy could well set the stage for a sea-change election, with sweeping Democratic victories up and down the ticket.
But Trump clearly has a genius for playing our media, particularly the increasingly abject cable news channels. He understands "branding," and has brutally labeled each of his opponents. He's wily as a fox in the supposed irresponsibility of his insults.
And unless the party's establishment responds to Sanders, Democrats are likely to end up a candidate particularly vulnerable to Trump's assault. For all of the Clinton campaign complaints, Sanders has been the courtliest of opponents. Trump has already shown he'll have no such compunctions. And sadly, the Clintons provide numerous targets of opportunity, old and new. Along with raking through the scandals, Trump will paint Clinton as Obama's third term, while indicting her interventionist foreign policy, her support of corporate trade deals, and her funding ties with Wall Street.
Americans are not likely to elect Donald Trump president of the United States, but the Democrats are about to present the nomination to one of the few candidates that could make the race close. For this, Sanders is not to blame. And if Clinton is the nominee, she'll have more than enough time to frame her argument against Trump and to organize the broadest coalition against him.
Democratic Unity
To win a convincing victory and gain a mandate for change, Clinton would benefit greatly from the energy and passion of Sanders and his supporters. The campaign clearly believes it might gather in moderate, suburban Republicans, the professional class repulsed by Trump's hate mongering and by his transparent lack of temperament or qualification to be president. The campaign may well decide that Trump will organize the Sanders voters for her. That would be a mistake. Young voters and Democratic leaning independents aren't going to vote for Donald Trump, but they could easily stay home in large numbers.
No one likes a sore loser. But one of the hardest challenges in politics is to be a generous winner. If Clinton believes as she says that she will be the nominee, she should run hard to win California, while curbing the attack dogs, shutting down the attacks on Sanders' character or his supporters' intelligence. She should warn the superdelegates they'll have to take the heat, even as she seeks to consolidate their support. She should begin paving the way for unity. Sensible first steps would be getting the poisonous Debbie Wasserman Schultz out of the way, and opening up the platform and rules committees to Sanders nominees. After California, she should reach out to Sanders directly.
Photo credit: United Nations
The ability to make and receive payments electronically has emerged, in recent years, as a technology hero during natural disasters and health pandemics. At a time when more people than ever are affected by conflict and crisis, there is good news.
In many cases, payments through smart cards, mobile phones and even iris scans have enabled faster and more transparent emergency response work, transferring funds rapidly and safely in a way that cash and in-kind donations could not. As the first United Nations World Humanitarian Summit convenes in Istanbul next week, the theme of innovation in humanitarian emergencies will be front and center. Governments, aid organizations and the private sector should pay close attention to the power of digital payments. Here are five ways going digital has already come to the rescue.
1. Mobile Phone Wallets: Saving Money, Saving Lives in Sierra Leone
The Ebola virus outbreak that began two years ago in West Africa claimed over 11,000 lives. In Sierra Leone, the government turned to an unexpected tool to help battle the virus: mobile wallets. A new UN report published today reveals that mobile payments to emergency workers dramatically shortened payment times and minimized fraud during the outbreak. By shifting from cash to digital, faster and more reliable payments prevented strikes which were seeing 800 working days lost from the Ebola Response Workforce each month. Preventing these strikes enabled health services to reach more families, ultimately saving more lives.
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Mobile wallets also stopped double payments and streamlined payments, saving the country more than US$10 million. That's enough to fund the country's healthcare program that serves 1.4 million children and 250,000 pregnant women each year. The experience of Sierra Leone and other members of the Better Than Cash Alliance - a UN-hosted partnership of governments, companies, and international organizations that accelerates the transition from cash to digital payments - offers a lesson for other governments: Invest in a solid mobile payment infrastructure before the next crisis strikes.
2. Iris Scans: Easing the Burden on Syrian Refugees
More than 4.7 million Syrians refugees are on the move. Neighboring countries such as Jordan now house more than 640,000 refugees. Jordan was the first country in the world to use iris scan technology to enable refugees to access monthly cash assistance provided by The UN Refugee Agency. This year, the World Food Programme started using the same technology to allow Syrian refugees living in camps to purchase food items from local shops and plans to expand the project into new camps, including the largest camp, Za'atari.
3. E-vouchers: Modernizing Food Aid in Afghanistan
Following decades of emergencies and conflicts in Afghanistan, the World Food Programme made the transition to electronic vouchers in 2014, instead of paper vouchers, to make food aid distribution more efficient and secure. This pilot e-voucher program was designed for people with low levels of literacy, including many women in Afghanistan. More than 70,000 beneficiaries are now receiving their stipends via e-voucher through mobile phones. The program has achieved impressive results and helped further financial inclusion among poor communities. One hundred percent of participants surveyed reported a seamless customer experience redeeming their e-vouchers at local stores, according to a new UN report. In addition, the government of Afghanistan is now expanding mobile money payments for salaries.
Photo credit: United Nations
4. Crowdfunding platform: Responding to Natural Disasters in Bangladesh
Cash, checks and in-kind donations can be a logistical challenge when an unexpected natural disaster hits. Dhaka-based development organization BRAC has invested in an online platform to make it easier for people all over the world to make donations. The digital platform allows more people to seamlessly make contributions from their mobile phone, generating more donations and making a bigger impact.
For a country like Bangladesh that is prone to natural disasters, and has a large diaspora, these funds can play in critical role in helping families rebuild their lives. Floods and cyclones pose the greatest threat to Bangladesh, while earthquakes, droughts, and landslides frequently strike highly populated areas. Pooling funds and making it easier for people to become donors will ultimately make a difference to people facing disasters.
5. Debit cards: Rebuilding Chile after the Earthquake
In 2010, the world's fifth largest earthquake on record hit Chile, killing 720 people and destroying buildings and infrastructure. In response, the Chilean government and humanitarian agencies turned to digital payments to get their citizens and cities back on their feet. The Chilean Red Cross launched 'Tarjeta RED' - a debit card program to help families pay for basic needs or to repair their homes. Tarjeta RED debit cards created a more effective recovery process while also saving time and empowering recipients.
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La Bretagne.
Brittany is the extreme west part of France, and is not to be confused with Britain, which stands for Great Britain, aka England -- but you knew that.
The funny shaped region juts out to sea in the form of a massive cross. The rugged province is tough and primal in many ways: the terrain, the rocky shores, the massive high tides and monstrous waves, the deep forests where elves and fairies to this day live.
My grandparents spoke Breton, a local dialect of Brittany. They were on both sides of my family from the department of Finistere, on the southern shore. They also spoke French but never wanted to admit it, so they taught me and my brothers Breton over the summers we spent with them, while my parents continued working in Paris.
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The guttural language is still alive in Brittany, and furthermore, one can do all of its studies and pass all exams in Breton, if this is their choice -- a nice way to preserve the rare tongue for future generations.
The summers were filled with trips to the chilly and flat beaches around, in the Citroen 2CV of my aunt Paule. We took sticky toasts of jam and warm juice so we could spend the day at the shore. My brothers would fetch tiny crabs and release them soon after.
On my father's side, generations of sardines fishermen made a difficult living depending on weather, migrations, diseases, and other fluctuant factors. Life was hard and rewarded only by returning home to make yet another child. At my grandparents' house, we ate sardines and crepes for dinner -- on most days.
My grandma was one of the last remaining Bigouden people wearing the traditional tall headgear, made of starched white lace that really looked like a pipe on top of the skull -- it was infinitely weird, but to me it was just Grandmere. She was buried with it in an especially long wooden coffin made by my grandpa.
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Locronan.
Brittany has a vast number of incredible and magnificent historical villages and points of interest. For example, the tiny village of Locronan, some 10 miles from Quimper, the regional capital, is made of granite, its narrow cobbled streets impossible to navigate by modern cars, so the entire village is pedestrian.
Door frames of the Renaissance houses and pubs here are rather low, as the Vikings and native Bretons were of rather small heights (around 5' to 5'4 for men). The little town is named one of the 10 most beautiful villages of France.
Considered a sacred place by the Celts, Locronan's history goes back more than 2,000 years. In the middle ages, it became a prosperous manufacturing site for hemp sails and ship rigging canvas. Even though it's 25 miles away from the sea, the Viking ship builders used to come to Locronan for sail-cloth.
The 15th century Saint Ronan church is a beautiful flamboyant Gothic art structure. Saint Ronan was an Irish hermit who came to Locronan in the 9th century and taught the local inhabitants the art of weaving.
Beg Meil.
One of the most incredible beach of Brittany is Beg Meil. It has everything you can possibly want from a wild Atlantic beach: fine white sand, large rocks jetting out to sea, protected coves where the wind won't land any sand in your jelly sandwich, vast maritime pine forest lining the shore, creating shaded areas if needed, and a clear emerald sea with small enough surf to keep it safe and ideal for kids.
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Some coves are really shallow and some can reach 12 feet deep, so the swimming is ideal for everyone. No sharks have ever been reported here and jelly fish don't like the labyrinth of rocks protecting the beach. The flat terrain of the main beach area creates very flat hard sand at low tide, which sometimes retreats several hundred yards away.
My brothers learned to swim there at the Mickey Beach Club of Beg Meil, a big draw for little ones at the time. At the end of the beach, a lighthouse helps boats to navigate the rocky straights around. This is where Marcel Proust found the inspiration for his book "A la recherche du temps perdu."
Further down the coast, towards Mousterlin, a long sliver of pure white sand offers quiet and emptiness to all, with the Kerler beach, a deserted bank jetting out and following the coastline.
Mont Saint-Michel.
On a special note, I want to confirm that the majestic island of the Mont Saint Michel is NOT located in Brittany, like many think -- but in Normandy, the neighbor province to the north shore.
The confusion might have been born because, in the year 867, a treaty gave the rock and its surrounding regions to the then king of Bretagne, Salomon. It's only when Guillaume I of Normandy claimed and took back that very same region, including the Mont, in 933, that the fate of the famous island-dome was finally decided and returned to Normandy -- where it still lays today.
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By Jennifer Rigg, Executive Director, Global Campaign for Education - US
As a parent of two active children, I see the amazing skills and knowledge they're gaining at school every day. Yet the vital right to education is just a dream for 75 million children impacted by emergencies and crises. Across our global community, we cannot wait any longer and must act today to reach all children with quality education.
Education Cannot Wait: a fund for education in emergencies will officially launch at the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit on May 23, 2016. We urge world leaders to commit new funds, above existing aid commitments, to jumpstart the Education Cannot Wait fund and meet the education in emergencies funding gap of $8.5 billion - which is just $113/child per year.
Why now?
This fund is timely as the world is in the midst of the largest refugee crisis since World War II. The impact is long lasting across entire generations: the average displacement due to refugee situations is 17 years, meaning that entire generations are uneducated and unprepared to contribute to recovery and stability.
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Last year alone, 60 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes due to disasters or conflicts and half were children under the age of 18. For many of these children, education - and the future it opens to them - is a lasting casualty. According to a new policy paper jointly released by the Global Education Monitoring Report and UNHCR, refugee children are five times more likely to be out of school than other children.
Yet less than 2 percent of all humanitarian funding has been allowed to support education, leaving millions of children and young people out of school and vulnerable to trafficking, child labor, early marriage and extremism.
What Can We Do?
The Education Cannot Wait fund is our opportunity to change this situation. It is critical for international donors to step up and put forward the finances necessary to make this initiative a success.
In the United States, the U.S. government and non-governmental organizations have played key roles in driving forward the right of all children to quality education. USAID's education strategy includes a focus on reaching youth in crisis and conflict-affected contexts. Now is the time for the U.S. and all world leaders to lead with bold support and ambitious funding for Education Cannot Wait.
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More than 10 million people have signed a petition urging world leaders to ensure all children can go to school, without danger or discrimination. The recent Call to Action shows the support of over 60 leading organizations for the Education Cannot Wait fund. We must bring new and immediate financing to deliver education alongside protection and other essential humanitarian and development aid. The Call to Action urges the Education Cannot Wait fund to:
be financed with multi-year donor commitments,
be supported by new funding and resources that are ambitious enough to address the scale of the crisis in education and emergencies,
be supported by resources that are additional, and not at the expense of other critical education and poverty-fighting interventions, and
build on existing financing mechanisms so as to ensure smooth transition from crisis response to longer term development of education systems.
It is vital that this funding is new - not simply reallocated from existing spending. We need everyone's help to make quality education a reality, no matter where a child or family lives.
In the United States, please join our Global Campaign for Education - US Coalition Chair on Education in Emergencies, Jesuit Refugee Service/USA, and contact your policymakers urging them to dedicate new resources to the Education Cannot Wait fund.
We must step up and deliver new funding for education in all settings. Education is a life-saving intervention and universal right that simply cannot wait.
Amitabh Bachchan/Blog
MUMBAI -- Megastar Amitabh Bachchan made a cancer patient's dream come true by celebrating her birthday.
The 73-year-old Wazir star met young girl Hardika, who wished to cut her birthday cake in presence of her favourite actor.
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Bachchan posted pictures of Hardika's birthday celebration on his blog and shared the details of his meeting with her.
"Hardika a young girl suffers from cancer and has a wish to meet me. I comply and we meet. She is pretty and gentle and moves with an oxygen container. It is most difficult to confront the innocence of pain and lost hope.
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"But a brave front, a desire fulfilled a wish completed and a smile for a special day in her life - her birthday makes that moment eternal. I wish her speedy recovery," the actor wrote.
Bachchan also gifted the girl a bouquet of flowers.
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Hindustan Times via Getty Images NEW DELHI, INDIA - MAY 19: BJP activists celebrating after winning Assam Assembly election 2016 as the election results of five States - Assam, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Karela, and Pondicherry come out, at BJP HQ, on May 19, 2016 in New Delhi, India. Talking about win in Assam, Amit Shah said, 'The BJP's performance in assembly polls is in a way people's stamp on performance of Modi govt in the last two years.' The BJP is two steps closer to its aim of creating a Congress-mukt Bharat, party Chief Amit Shah said on Thursday with assembly election trends showing the opposition party booted out of government in Kerala and Assam. Sarbananda Sonowal will be the new Chief Minister of Assam with the BJP winning Assam. (Photo by Sonu Mehta/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
Its ironic, but true. The biggest beneficiary of the BJP/NDAs rise in Kerala in the just concluded assembly election are the Left parties and most importantly, the CPM. It has not only won a massive majority, but has also seen the Congress/UDF crumbling.
The CPM has always wanted to see a weaker Congress, and today, the BJP and its acolytes are helping the party achieve its vision and probably sustain it. In fact, the party that has more reasons to rejoice about the change of what been a stubbornly bipolar contest to a tri-polar contest is the CPM, because its easy to fight two weaklings than a single big fellow.
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Yes, the Congress, probably because of its own opportunistic machinations, has become a weakling with the rise of the BJP.
The numbers in many key constituencies show that its the BJP-front that has made all the difference. In most places where the star candidates of the Congress and its United Democratic Front (UDF) failed, the BJP's vote-share has risen substantially. In some cases, the margins of victory of the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate is eerily almost the same as the number of votes polled by the BJP. In constituencies such as Haripad, where the CPM accused the victorious Congress candidate (Ramesh Chennithala, the former Home Minister) of compromising with the BJP, the partys performance was poor compared to other places.
In some cases, the margins of victory of the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate is eerily almost the same as the number of votes polled by the BJP
The CPM can certainly argue that they have won on its merit because its vote-share has increased compared to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. It certainly did - from 21.59 per cent to 26.5 per cent - and could indeed change its electoral prospects. But whats more dramatic is the fall of vote-share of the Congress, which is not commensurate with the rise of the CPM votes. Its vote-share fell rather steeply - from 31.1 per cent to 23.7 per cent.
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Obviously, all the votes the Congress lost didnt go to the CPM, but somebody else.
That somebody else is the BJP. But, when one looks at its vote-share, it hasnt changed at all. In 2014, it was 10.33 per cent and now its 10.5 per cent. But, the BJP wasnt alone. It had an ally called BDJS, an Ezhava party concocted as its caste-based vote-booster just ahead of the elections, and it polled 3.9 per cent of the votes.
Obviously, all the votes the Congress lost didnt go to the CPM, but somebody else. That somebody else is the BJP.
Although the popular idea of electoral arithmetic of adding up vote-shares do not always work in reality, the BJP and BDJS votes do add up because the latters caste-presence is quite uniform across the state. So, together they polled 14.23 per cent of the votes. In other words, the effective vote-share of the BJP rose by about four per cent.
Now, the debit and credit columns match - bulk of the votes of the Congress/UDF went to the BJP/BDJS combine and in the process, the CPM got a free top-up.
In some places where the Congress/UDF have been swept away, the BJP/BDJSs gain has been phenomenal. For example, in Thiruvananthapuram, where they have won their maiden seat, the front polled about 20 per cent of the votes.
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The BDJS was obviously a product of the polarisation lab that has been tested elsewhere in the country. It was meant to wean away the Ezhava votes from the CPM. Ezhavas, who form the majority of Hindus in the state, are the mainstay of the CPM. The apparent calculation was that the BDJS, with logistical and casteist support of the SNDP, the organisation that represents Ezhava interest, would be able to polarise the caste votes that traditionally support the CPM.
What apparently has made matters worse for the Congress also was the allure of the BJP appealing to its upper caste Hindu votes.
Thanks to the strong cadre-base of the CPM and its unequivocal strategy of taking on the BDJS, it didn't happen. Instead, it appeared to have eaten into the Congress votes. What apparently has made matters worse for the Congress also was the allure of the BJP appealing to its upper caste Hindu votes. Nothing else can explain the steep fall in the Congresss vote-share.
As some analysts noted, Oomen Chandy and the Congress too shared the optimism of the BJP and BDJS and thought that they would be the incidental beneficiary. Probably, he did covertly encourage this devious strategy, while the CPM took the bull by its horns. Its star campaigner VS Achuthanandan spared no occasion to target BDJS and its leader to ensure that his tricks didnt work.
Unless the CPM/Left parties mess up big time ruling the state over the next five years, this is a hard-to-reverse trend because both the BJP and the BDJS wouldnt mind playing the divisive politics and have considerable resources to sustain their strategy.
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The bottomline is that till it eats up almost all of the the Congress, the CPM and the LDF can sit pretty because even without a big contest, the BJP will do it for them.
So, the bottomline is that till it eats up almost all of the the Congress, the CPM and the LDF can sit pretty because even without a big contest, the BJP will do it for them. It's happy days for the CPM now because in the long run, the Muslim League, which actually protects the core strength of the UDF, wouldn't stick with a weak Congress when its faced with a rising BJP.
On the other hand, the Kerala Congress of the Syrian Christians wouldn't have any ideological problem in joining hands with the BJP as the latter gets closer to a possible tipping point. If both the Muslim League and the Kerala Congress desert the Congress, it will end up as a weak provincial party. Its inherent factionalism will further wreck it further.
Although it sounds good for the CPM and the Left, in the long run it will only aid the BJP, whose rise will not be good for the state.
Therefore, to fight the BJP, Kerala has to retain its bipolarity. That's the only protection that the state has against the communal forces. Oomen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala have certainly compromised with them and have paid the price, but the Congress is the only secular, socialist, democratic alternative the state has. Putting pressure on the Congress should be to cleanse it and not to liquidate it. Otherwise, it will be terribly bad for Kerala's politics.
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JOSEPH EID via Getty Images Syrian soldier sets fire on April 4, 2016 to an Islamic State (IS) group flag after Syrian troops regained control the previous day of al-Qaryatain, a town in the province of Homs in central Syria.IS jihadists withdrew from the town a week after the Russian-backed army and allied militia scored a major victory in the ancient city of Palmyra, which is also located in the vast province of Homs. The recapture of al-Qaryatain allows the army to secure its grip over Palmyra, where jihadists destroyed ancient temples during their 10-month rule and executed 280 people. / AFP / JOSEPH EID (Photo credit should read JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images)
The Islamic State has threatened to strike India in yet another video, reportedly released by the terror group. The video, which features purported IS jihadists from India, is in the form of interviews with five alleged IS operatives who joined the group from here. The Indian Express reports that the only recognisable face in the video is believed to be of Fahad Tanvir Sheikh, an engineering student who went to Syria with three others from Thane, Mumbai.
Sheikh is heard saying in the video, "We will return, but with a sword in hand, to avenge the Babri Masjid, and the killings of Muslims in Kashmir, in Gujarat, and in Muzaffarnagar. He now goes by the name of Abu Amr' al-Hindi.
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The IE report adds that the other operatives in the video couldn't be identified. However, it is being suspected that they may be former Indian Mujaheedin terrorists who have now joined the Islamic State, following their split with their Pakistan counterpart.
One of the militants also threatens, "To those in the Indian state who wish to understand our actions, I say you have only three options: to accept Islam, to pay jizya, or to prepare to be slaughtered."
IE reports: "The video assails mainstream Muslim politicians and clerics for compromising with what the narrator describes as a tyrannical system responsible for massacring Muslims. Images of the Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen leader Assaduddin Owaisi and All India United Democratic Front politician Badruddin Ajmal are juxtaposed with dead bodies of victims of communal riots. Indian Muslim politicians are attacked for associating with non-Muslim leaders: one image shows the Congresss Mani Shankar Aiyer embracing a Hindu priest and Muslim cleric."
The terrorists also deride the Muslim clerics in India for colluding with Hindus and preaching about peace. One jihadist says, "Islam was never a religion of peace for even one day. Islam is a religion of war. The Prophet commanded us to remain at war until the day the rule of Allah is established."
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Another seeks to remind Indian Hindus of train bombings and other terror attacks and calls them 'cow-worshippers'.
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Mint via Getty Images NEW DELHI, INDIA JANUARY 25: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Barack Obama gathers, before a meeting at Hyderabad House on January 25, 2015 in New Delhi, India. (Photo by Pradeep Gaur/Mint via Getty Images)
NEW DELHI -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi will undertake a two-day visit to the US from 7 June during which he will address a Joint Meeting of the US Congress and hold talks with President Barack Obama to review the progress made in key areas of defence, security and energy.
Modi, who is leaving for Iran on Sunday, will also pay a two-day visit to Qatar from 4 June.
At the invitation of the US President Barack Obama, the Prime Minister will visit Washington DC on 7-8 June, 2016, the External Affairs Ministry announced yesterday.
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"The main objective of the forthcoming visit of the Prime Minister would be to consolidate the progress made in diverse areas such as economy, energy, environment, defence and security, and to intensify cooperation for the future," it said.
The Prime Minister has also been invited by the Speaker of the US House of Representative, Paul Ryan, to address a Joint Meeting of the US Congress which he has accepted, it added.
Modi, who was invited by Obama for a bilateral visit when Modi travelled to the US for the nuclear summit in March, will be the fifth prime minister of India to address a joint meeting of Congress.
Earlier, Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh (19 July, 2005), Atal Bihari Vajpayee (14 September, 2000), P V Narasimha Rao (18 May, 1994) and Rajiv Gandhi (13 July, 1985) addressed the joint meeting of the US Congress.
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The US Congress has been a source of strength for the India-US strategic partnership and the India Congressional Caucus is the largest such group in the US Congress, the MEA said.
During the visit, Modi will have interaction with CEOs of major US companies.
Realization of the full potential of Indo-US economic partnership has been a key priority for both the countries and the progress achieved in this regard is reflected in the increased investment flows, the ministry said.
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Imperial Valley News Center
Officials from the United States, Canada and Mexico Participate in 2016 Trilateral Meeting in Toronto to Discuss Antitrust Enforcement
Toronto, Canada - The heads of the antitrust agencies of the United States, Canada and Mexico met today in Toronto, Canada, to discuss their ongoing work to ensure effective antitrust enforcement cooperation in our increasingly interconnected markets. The meetings were held among Chairwoman Edith Ramirez of the Federal Trade Commission, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Renata Hesse of the Department of Justices Antitrust Division, Canadian Commissioner of Competition John Pecman and President Alejandra Palacios Prieto of the Mexican Federal Economic Competition Commission.
The discussions covered a wide range of topics, including recent developments, effective agency litigation, disruptive innovation, cooperation between agencies, and technical assistance.
The antitrust relationship among the United States, Canada, and Mexico is one of the most advanced in the world, said Chairwoman Ramirez. We work together on cross-border cases to ensure effective and compatible enforcement and on policy matters to promote convergence toward best practices. Our meeting enables us to strengthen our cooperation to enhance competition and benefit our consumers.
We are very fortunate to have such strong relationships with our partners in Canada and Mexico, said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Hesse. In this increasingly globalized economy, close cooperation with our North American colleagues is important to protecting the competitiveness of our markets. These meetings are a useful part of our on-going enforcement collaboration, and they provide a great opportunity to discuss our shared competition policy challenges.
The meetings build on the foundations laid by the 1995 antitrust cooperation agreement between the United States and Canada, the 1999 agreement between the United States and Mexico, and the 2001 agreement between Canada and Mexico. The agreements commit the antitrust agencies to cooperate and coordinate with each other to make their antitrust policies and enforcement as consistent and effective as possible.
The four agency heads also spoke at an enforcers roundtable at the spring conference of the Canadian Bar Associations Competition Law Section, which included exchanges among the four agency heads on international cooperation, disruptive innovation, and merger remedies.
Energy Department Announces Climate Action Champion, City of San Francisco, Embracing Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies
San Francisco, California - Today, the Energy Department's (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) announced the city of San Francisco has been selected as the first Climate Action Champion to pursue hydrogen and fuel cell technologies for local transportation, in addition to new analysis projects by Strategic Analysis, Inc.
The nearly $4.75 million in funding for both efforts will go towards the development of education and outreach programs to increase the deployment of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and hydrogen infrastructure, as well as provide detailed cost analyses for hydrogen fuel cell systems, hydrogen storage, and hydrogen production and delivery technologies.
Today's selections were announced by Deputy Assistant Secretary Reuben Sarkar during a meeting in Berkeley, California of the International Partnership for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells in the Economy, a government partnership of 17 countries and the European Commission coordinating activities in hydrogen and fuel cells.
With today's funding, the San Francisco Department of the Environment will conduct comprehensive training and educational activities for hydrogen and fuel cell stakeholders throughout the Bay Area. A key goal of this project is to harmonize local regulations and building codes to ease the siting and construction of hydrogen fueling stations while reducing the cost and complexity of FCEVs for the community through regional education and outreach.
In addition, Strategic Analysis, Inc., based in Arlington, Virginia, has been selected to analyze the cost competitiveness for a range of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, including those used in hydrogen infrastructure relevant to San Francisco and other projects. These cost analyses and evaluations are critical components to move the industry of hydrogen and fuel cell technology development towards widespread commercial deployment.
Project partners include the San Francisco Clean Cities Coalition, the California Fuel Cell Partnership, the Business Council on Climate Change, and the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at U.C. Berkeley.
In December of 2014, the White House launched the Climate Action Champions Initiative and announced 16 communities from around the country, including the City of San Francisco, as the first class of Climate Action Champions. These communities were recognized for their strong commitment to lowering greenhouse gas emissions and the fight against climate change.
C.A.S.T. for Kids Fishing Event at Shasta Lake on May 21 Cancelled
Lake Shasta, California - Due to a weather forecast calling for a 90-percent chance of rain, thunderstorms and lightning, the Bureau of Reclamations Northern California Area Office has cancelled the C.A.S.T. (Catch a Special Thrill) for Kids event which had been scheduled for Saturday, May 21, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Packers Bay Boat Marina on Shasta Lake.
Although Reclamation looks forward to this event every year, safety must be the first priority. Reclamation thanks everyone who had volunteered to help with the event, including the boat captains, fishing mentors, Shasta County Sheriffs Boat Patrol, Elks Lodge, Shasta Lake Lions Club and Reclamation staff members.
This C.A.S.T. event will not be rescheduled. The next C.A.S.T. event at Shasta Lake will be held in 2017.
For questions, please contact Sheri Harral at 530-276-2030 (TTY 800-877-8339) or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . For more information on the C.A.S.T. for Kids Foundation, please visit http://www.castforkids.org.
United States Files Lawsuit Alleging That Guild Mortgage Improperly Originated and Underwrote FHA-Insured Mortgage Loans
San Diego, California - The United States has filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against Guild Mortgage Company (Guild) under the False Claims Act for improperly originating and underwriting mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the Justice Department announced Thursday. Guild is a mortgage lender headquartered in San Diego, California.
This case is another example of the Justice Departments continued efforts to ensure that lenders that participate in the FHA mortgage insurance program act in good faith and conduct appropriate due diligence when committing the United States to insure home loans, said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer, head of the Justice Departments Civil Division. To protect the housing market and the FHA fund, we will continue to hold responsible lenders that knowingly violate the rules.
Guild participated in the FHA insurance program as a direct endorsement (DE) lender. As a DE lender, Guild had the authority to originate, underwrite and certify mortgages for FHA insurance. If a DE lender such as Guild approves a mortgage loan for FHA insurance and the loan later defaults, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), FHAs parent agency, is responsible for the losses resulting from the defaulted loan. Under the DE lender program, neither the FHA nor HUD reviews the underwriting of a loan before it is endorsed for FHA insurance. HUD therefore relies on DE lenders to follow program rules designed to ensure that they are properly underwriting and certifying mortgages for FHA insurance and DE lenders must certify that every loan endorsed for FHA insurance is underwritten according to the applicable FHA standards.
The governments complaint alleges that, from January 2006 through December 2011, Guild knowingly submitted, or caused the submission of, claims for hundreds of improperly underwritten FHA-insured loans. The complaint further alleges that Guild grew its FHA lending business by ignoring FHA rules and falsely certifying compliance with underwriting requirements in order to reap the profits from FHA-insured mortgages. For example, Guild allegedly allowed underwriters to waive compliance with FHA requirements when underwriting a loan. Additionally, Guild used unqualified junior-underwriters who did not have a DE certification to waive mandatory conditions on higher risk loans where HUD required underwriting only by highly trained DE underwriters.
The governments complaint further alleges that Guilds senior management focused on growth and profits and ignored quality. From 2006 to 2012, Guild conducted at least 125 branch audits in which almost 40 percent resulted in either a qualified rating or unsatisfactory rating. A qualified rating was defined as having a significant number of findings, and/or findings noted that have more serious impact or risk to Guild, or Knowledge of procedures and controls; however, they appear to be inefficient. An unsatisfactory rating was defined as one where serious concerns were noted: lack of knowledge, procedures, and/or controls in branch. The complaint alleges that, through Guilds quality control reviews, significant defects were found in over 20 percent of the FHA loans reviewed between 2006 and 2011 and over half the loans had either significant or moderate defects. Significant defects included fraud, misrepresentation and other serious findings while moderate defects included not following guidelines. However, Guild did not calculate or distribute any error rate during the relevant time period, thus management was not presented with these findings. Additionally, for many of the quarters from 2006 through 2009, Guild did not even distribute any of the quality control findings to management. As a result, Guild management often did not review or remediate findings from quality control audits during these years. In the quarters where Guild management actually did review quality control findings, it did so almost a year after the loans closed and failed to timely remediate any identified problems. In 2013, when Guild finally began addressing the quality of its FHA underwriting, Guilds head of quality control pointed out the ineffectiveness of its past efforts at addressing loan quality: Im not optimistic about training reminders and individual follow-ups being all that effective.
The governments complaint alleges that as a result of Guilds knowingly deficient mortgage underwriting practices, HUD has already paid tens of millions of dollars of insurance claims on loans improperly underwritten by Guild, and that there are many additional loans improperly underwritten by Guild that are currently in default and could result in further insurance claims on HUD. For example, the governments complaint identifies a mortgage loan that was improperly underwritten in violation of HUD requirements, causing the borrower to default and HUD to pay the loss on the loan. Specifically, Guild failed to verify the borrowers prior rental payments, overstated the borrowers income, failed to develop a credit history for the borrower who had no credit score, exceeded FHAs qualifying debt to income ratio without determining whether certain compensating factors were present, and failed to identify the source of a large deposit made to the borrowers account. The underwriter at Guild improperly waived multiple conditions and allowed an unauthorized junior underwriter to do the same for other conditions. In sworn testimony, the Guild underwriter admitted the loan failed to comply with FHA underwriting requirements.
The Federal Housing Administrations insurance program is meant to encourage lenders to expand opportunity for homeownership by providing financing to prospective buyers who otherwise might not be able to enter the housing market, said U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips for the District of Columbia. To ensure that prospective homebuyers realize the dream of long term homeownership, the program has strict rules and is not a license for lenders to carelessly subject federal dollars to risk. This lawsuit is designed to help the FHA and American taxpayers -- recoup tens of millions of dollars in losses attributable to a lender accused of improperly underwriting FHA-insured mortgages and committing the governments guarantee to mortgages that failed to comply with program rules.
The decision to intervene in this matter should serve as a reminder of the priority given to pursuing lenders that violate HUD program rules in order to hold them accountable and the value of private citizen participation, including whistleblowers, in pursuing lenders that violate the rules, said HUD Inspector General David A. Montoya.
FHA relies on the honesty and integrity of those lenders participating in our program, said HUDs General Counsel Helen R. Kanovsky. The action we take today should send a clear message that we will not tolerate the abuse of our programs or of the families who should benefit from them.
The lawsuit was brought under the qui tam, or whistleblower, provisions of the False Claims Act by a former employee of Guild. Under the act, a private party may bring suit on behalf of the United States and share in any recovery. The government may intervene in the case, as it has done here. The False Claims Act allows the government to recover treble damages and penalties from those who violate it.
The investigation of this matter was a coordinated effort among HUD, its Office of Inspector General, and the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia and the Civil Divisions Commercial Litigation Branch.
The action is captioned United States ex rel. Dougherty v. Guild Mortgage Company (D.D.C.). The claims asserted in the complaint are allegations only and there has been no determination of liability.
El Centro native David Salazar New Area Port Director for Calexico
Calexico, California - U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced today that David Salazar, a career federal law enforcement officer with more than 20 years experience involving international travelers and trade along the California-Mexico border, has been formally selected as the Area Port Director for the Calexico ports of entry.
Salazar, 47, succeeds long time Port Director Billy Whitford, who retired in January after more than 40 years of federal service.
David Salazar, a career federal law enforcement officer with more than 20 years experience involving international travelers and trade along the California-Mexico border, has been formally selected as the Area Port Director for the Calexico ports of entry.
"I'm pleased to announce the selection of David Salazar to the position of Area Port Director for the Calexico ports of entry," said Pete Flores, Director of Field Operations for San Diego and Imperial Counties. "David has taken on several challenges throughout his career and has risen through the ranks, so I am confident he will provide outstanding leadership in this critical position."
As the Area Port Director for the Calexico ports of entry, Salazar will provide directorial oversight for all passenger, air, rail and cargo inspectional operations at one of the busiest border crossings in the United States.
While mindful of the agency's critical border security mission, Salazar said he will continue to stay focused on operations that have proven successful for CBP, such as interdicting narcotic threats, apprehending criminals, intercepting pests, plant and animal diseases harmful to domestic agriculture, and enforcing import and export trade laws, while striking a balance between enforcement and the facilitation of legitimate trade and travelers.
I am truly humbled by this immense and important responsibility and look forward to the challenge of overseeing CBP operations at the Calexico ports of entry, Salazar said. Having served at this port of entry for 11 years, I understand the importance of what our agency does in terms of protecting our borders, the potential impact our operations have on local communities, and I recognize there is a careful balance that we must keep to ensure our primary mission remains our highest priority.
The two Calexico passenger ports are responsible for processing an average of more than 22,000 vehicles, 13,000 pedestrians, over 6,000 SENTRI participants and successfully interdict narcotics, illegal entries, prohibited agriculture products and wanted felons each day. The Calexico commercial port of entry facilitates the processing of about 1,000 cargo containers and $26 million worth of imported merchandise on an average day.
David Salazar entered on duty with the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1995 as an Immigration Inspector at the San Ysidro port of entry. He became a supervisor in 1999 before progressing to upper-management in 2004.
In 2005, he accepted the position of Assistant Port Director with U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the Calexico ports of entry, where he initially managed passenger processing operations, and later transitioned to the role of Assistant Port Director, Tactical Operations, a position he held for 11 years.
Salazar was raised in El Centro and served in the U.S. Air Force before beginning his career in federal law enforcement. He obtained his associates degree at Imperial Valley College and two bachelors degrees at San Diego State University. His graduate studies include the completion of a USDA Graduate Program, the Executive Leadership Program for Mid-Level Employees in Washington, DC, and completion of a Leadership Development Program at the University of Connecticuts Center for Continuing Studies.
He currently resides in El Centro with his wife and two sons, with a third son enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.
President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts
Washington, DC - Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to key Administration posts:
Katharine G. Abraham Member and Chairperson, Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking
Rand Beers Member, National Infrastructure Advisory Council
Diana Bolt Perreiah Member, National Infrastructure Advisory Council
W. Carl Lineberger Member, National Science Board
Anneila I. Sargent Member, National Science Board
President Obama said, I am confident that these experienced and hardworking individuals will help us tackle the important challenges facing America, and I am grateful for their service. I look forward to working with them.
President Obama announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to key Administration posts:
Dr. Katharine G. Abraham, Appointee for Member and Chairperson, Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking
Dr. Katharine G. Abraham is a professor at the Department of Economics and at the Joint Program in Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland, positions she has held since 2013 and 2002, respectively. Dr. Abraham joined the University of Maryland faculty in 1987 after holding prior positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Sloan School of Management from 1980 to 1985 and the Brookings Institution from 1985 to 1987. From 2011 to 2013, Dr. Abraham served as a Member of the Council of Economic Advisers and from 1993 to 2001, she served as Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Dr. Abraham is a Fellow of the Society of Labor Economists and of the American Statistical Association and has served as a Vice President of the American Economic Association. From 2002 to 2004, she chaired a National Academy of Sciences panel on accounting for nonmarket activity. Dr. Abraham received a B.S. from Iowa State University and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Rand Beers, Appointee for Member, National Infrastructure Advisory Council
Rand Beers most recently served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Homeland Security Advisor from 2014 to 2015. As a Senior Advisor at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Mr. Beers was Acting Secretary of Homeland Security from September to December 2013 and Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security from May to September 2013. From 2009 to 2013, he was Under Secretary for National Protection Programs at DHS. Mr. Beers founded the National Security Network in 2006 and served as its President until 2008. Mr. Beers previously served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Combating Terrorism on the National Security Council staff from 2002 to 2003 and as Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs at the Department of State from 1998 to 2002. He served as a Foreign Service officer from 1971 until joining the civil service in 1983. Mr. Beers began his career as a Marine Corps officer in 1964. Mr. Beers received a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.A. from the University of Michigan.
Diana Bolt Perreiah, Appointee for Member, National Infrastructure Advisory Council
Diana Bolt Perreiah is President of Alcoa Building and Construction Systems (BCS), a position she has held since 2015. She served as Vice President and General Manager of Alcoa BCS North America from 2010 to 2015. Ms. Perreiah joined Alcoa in 1986 and has held several leadership positions, including General Manager and Plant Manager from 2005 to 2010. She has held corporate roles with Alcoa's Global Information Services and Alcoa Operations Management Consulting. Ms. Perreiah received a B.A. from Hollins University.
Dr. W. Carl Lineberger, Appointee for Member, National Science Board
Dr. W. Carl Lineberger is the E.U. Condon Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and a Fellow of JILA, a joint institute of the University of Colorado at Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and currently serves on the National Research Councils Committee on Responsible Science and Laboratory Assessments Board, as well as the Ethics Advisory Committee of the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Lineberger has chaired or co-chaired the National Science Foundation Advisory Committees on Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and Science and Technology Centers, the Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee, and the National Research Council Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Applications. He recently received the 2015 National Academy of Sciences Award in Chemical Sciences. Dr. Lineberger earned a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Dr. Anneila I. Sargent, Appointee for Member, National Science Board
Dr. Anneila I. Sargent is the Ira S. Bowen Professor of Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology. From 2007 to 2015, she served as Vice President for Student Affairs at Caltech. Dr. Sargent is an astronomer and has served as President of the American Astronomical Society, Chair of NASAs Space Science Advisory Committee, and Chair of the National Research Councils Board on Physics and Astronomy. Dr. Sargent led two research operations as Director of the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy and the Owens Valley Radio Observatory. She was awarded the NASA Public Service Medal in 1998 and is a Fellow of the American Academy for Arts and Sciences. Dr. Sargent received a B.Sc. from the University of Edinburgh and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Caltech.
U.S. Education Department Awards $13.4 Million in Grants to Improve Services, Outcomes for Children with Disabilities
Washington, DC - The U.S. Department of Education announced more than $13.4 million in grants to higher education institutions to fund quality personnel preparation programs to help improve services and results for students with disabilities.
We are committed to promoting equity and excellence at every level of the education system, said Sue Swenson, acting assistant secretary for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. These grants will give special education teachers and leaders the skills to help Americas students with disabilities achieve their academic potential.
Of the $13.4 million, more than $4.1 million is being awarded under the Personnel Development to Improve Services and Results for Children with Disabilities Leadership Personnel program. The funds will go to higher education institutions to prepare doctoral students for faculty and administrator positions in special education, early intervention and related services.
The remaining $9.3 million in support is being provided under the Combined Priority for Personnel Development to help address state-identified needs for highly qualified personnel in special education, early intervention and regular education programs that serve children with disabilities. The funds will help train teachers and direct service providers in such areas as early childhood, low-incidence disabilities, related services and transition services.
The Office of Special Education Programs is a primary source of federal funding for training in special education, early intervention and related services. Below are the grant recipients.
Personnel Development to Improve Services and Results for Children with Disabilities - Preparation of Leadership Personnel
State City Recipient Amount AZ Tucson Arizona Board of Regents, University of Arizona $185,227 FL Gainesville University of Florida Board of Trustees $250,000 FL Orlando University of Central Florida $250,000 HI Honolulu University of Hawaii $249,308 IL Chicago The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois $230,423 KS Lawrence University of Kansas Center for Research Inc. $248,510 MA Amherst University of Massachusetts Amherst $249,704 MI Ann Arbor Regents of the University of Michigan $246,806 MN Minneapolis Regents of the University of Minnesota $245,847 MO Columbia The Curators of the University of Missouri $249,965 NC Chapel Hill University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill $250,000 OH Cincinnati University of Cincinnati $250,000 OR Eugene University of Oregon $250,000 OR Corvallis Oregon State University $248,849 UT Salt Lake City University of Utah $239,735 UT Logan Utah State University $247,892 WA Seattle University of Washington $250,000 Total $4,142,266
Personnel Development to Improve Services and Results for Children with Disabilities - Combined Priority for Personnel Development
Focus Area - Early Childhood
State City Recipient Amount FL Coral Gables University of Miami $247,460 KS Lawrence University of Kansas Center for Research, Inc. $249,936 MN Mankato Minnesota State University, Mankato $176,336 MO Columbia The Curators of the University of Missouri $250,000 NC Chapel Hill University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill $249,380 WI Milwaukee Board of Regents of UW System for UWMilwaukee $246,756 Total $1,419,868
Focus Area - Low Incidence
State City Recipient Amount AR Little Rock University of Arkansas at Little Rock $249,746 CA Sacramento University Enterprises, Inc., on behalf of CSU Sacramento $249,266 DC Washington The George Washington University $249,997 IL Chicago The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, University of Illinois at Chicago $241,865 IL DeKalb Northern Illinois University $250,000 KS Lawrence University of Kansas Center for Research, Inc. $249,997 MA Boston University of Massachusetts Boston $250,000 MN St. Paul University of St. Thomas $232,998 MO St. Louis Fontbonne University $249,926 NE Lincoln Board of Regents, University of Nebraska, University of Nebraska - Lincoln $242,265 NY Hempstead Hofstra University $249,963 NY Rochester Nazareth College of Rochester $235,833 OR Portland Portland State University $249,494 SC Columbia University of South Carolina $199,057 TX Beaumont Lamar University $222,017 Total $3,622,424
Focus Area - Related Services
State City Recipient Amount AZ Tempe AZ Board of Regents on behalf of Arizona State University $244,292 IN Bloomington Trustees of Indiana University $181,188 KY Lexington University of Kentucky Research Foundation $233,631 MT Missoula University of Montana $244,968 NE Lincoln Board of Regents, University of Nebraska, University of Nebraska-Lincoln $214,338 VA Richmond Virginia Commonwealth University $249,997 WA Seattle University of Washington $250,000 WI La Crosse University of WisconsinLa Crosse $249,990 Total $1,868,404
Focus Area - Minority Institutions
State City Recipient Amount CA Carson California State University Dominguez Hills $248,573 CA Northridge California State University Northridge $241,512 CA Seaside California State University Monterey Bay $249,998 FL Miami Florida International University $250,000 Marshall Islands Majuro College of the Marshall Islands $249,998 MD Bowie Bowie State University $248,025 MS Jackson Jackson State University $250,000 NC Greensboro North Carolina A&T $174,299 NY Brooklyn Medgar Evers College/CUNY $250,000 NY Flushing Queens College/CUNY $250,000 Total $2,412,405
FY 2016 Grand Total - $13,465,367
Three MS-13 Members Convicted in RICO Conspiracy
Baltimore, Maryland - A federal jury convicted three defendants today of multiple charges related to a racketeering enterprise known as La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13.
Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Departments Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein of the District of Maryland, Special Agent in Charge Andre R. Watson of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Baltimore Field Office, Chief Hank Stawinski of the Prince Georges County, Maryland, Police Department, Chief J. Thomas Manger of the Montgomery County, Maryland, Police Department and Prince Georges County States Attorney Angela D. Alsobrooks made the announcement.
Jorge Enrique Moreno-Aguilar, aka Flaco and Castigato, 22, of District Heights, Maryland; Juan Alberto Ortiz-Orellana, aka Chele and Furia, 27, also of District Heights; and Minor Perez-Chach, aka Minor Chach-Perez, Little Bad and Bryant Sacarias, 25, of Hyattsville, Maryland, were convicted by a federal jury sitting in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. All three defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise and murder in aid of racketeering. Additionally, Moreno-Aguilar and Ortiz-Orellana were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering, and Ortiz-Orellana and Chach-Perez were also convicted on various related firearms charges.
MS-13 is a national and transnational gang composed primarily of immigrants or descendants from El Salvador. Branches or cliques of MS-13, one of the largest street gangs in the United States, operate throughout Prince Georges County, Montgomery County and Frederick County, Maryland. MS-13 members are required to commit acts of violence to maintain membership and discipline within the gang. One of the principal rules of MS-13 is that its members must attack and kill rivals, known as chavalas, whenever possible.
According to evidence presented at trial, from at least 2009 through October 2014, MS-13 members planned and committed murders, attempted murders, assaults and robberies in Prince Georges, Montgomery and Frederick Counties. Gang members also extorted brothel operators and owners of other illegal businesses and tampered with and retaliated against witnesses, among other crimes. Trial evidence demonstrated that Moreno-Aguilar and Ortiz-Orellana were members and associates of the MS-13 Sailors Locotes Salvatrucha Westside Clique and Perez-Chach was a member of the MS-13 Langley Park Salvatrucha Clique.
Trial evidence demonstrated that on January 2013, Moreno-Aguilar and Ortiz-Orellana targeted an individual associated with the rival 18th Street gang, obtained photographs of the victim and conspired to murder him with other members of MS-13. On March 12, 2013, Moreno-Aguilar and Ortiz-Orellana went to Capitol Heights, Maryland and shot the victim multiple times outside his home, killing him.
According to the trial evidence, in the early morning hours of Feb. 23, 2013, Perez-Chach met a man whom he believed to be a member of MS-13 who had testified against MS-13 members in federal trials. In fact, the victim was not the witness from the previous MS-13 trials, according to trial evidence. Perez-Chach followed the victim to his home in Hyattsville, where he stabbed the victim to death while another member of MS-13 attacked the victim with a machete, trial evidence demonstrated. Evidence presented at trial showed that during his arrest on May 20, 2013, Perez-Chach was found to be in illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.
In addition to these convictions, 8 of the other 13 defendants charged in this investigation have pleaded guilty to their roles in the racketeering conspiracy.
HSI Baltimore, Prince Georges County Police Department, Montgomery County Police Department, Prince Georges County States Attorneys Office and Montgomery County States Attorneys Office investigated the case. Trial Attorneys Kevin Rosenberg and Catherine K. Dick of the Criminal Divisions Organized Crime and Gang Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys William D. Moomau and Lindsay Eyler Kaplan are prosecuting the case.
Acting Assistant Secretary Garber Travels to Switzerland and Kenya
Washington, DC - Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Judith Garber will travel to Geneva, Switzerland, May 2223, and Nairobi, Kenya, May 2427.
In Geneva, she will be the lead State Department representative in the U.S. delegation to the World Health Organizations (WHO) annual World Health Assembly. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell will lead the delegation, which will discuss with other WHO Members solutions to the globes most pressing health challenges. In Nairobi, Acting Assistant Secretary Garber will lead the U.S. delegation to the second session of the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA-2). In addition to attending UNEA-2 sessions, she will conduct bilateral meetings with counterparts from a range of countries to advance U.S. objectives related to wildlife trafficking, ocean conservation, and other urgent issues.
International Call for Dialogue in Venezuela
Washington, DC - The United States welcomes the announcement by former prime minister of Spain Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, along with former presidents Torrijos of Panama and Fernandez of the Dominican Republic, calling for a national dialogue in Venezuela, and offering to use their good offices to facilitate the process. After meeting with both President Maduro and opposition leaders, Zapatero said that all parties had expressed willingness to launch a national dialogue to resolve the serious challenges facing the country.
The United States continues to join with countries in the region and around the world to call for a productive dialogue among all branches of Venezuela's Government. We support this dialogue as a way of guaranteeing respect for the will of the Venezuelan people, the rule of law, the separation of powers, and the democratic process.
United States Concern Over Delays in Somalia's Electoral Process
Washington, DC - The United States is increasingly concerned about delays in the 2016 Somali electoral process. The Federal Government of Somalia, Somali parliament, and regional leaders have repeatedly voiced their commitment to hold an electoral process on schedule, in accordance with the Somali constitution and resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.
The continuing legitimacy of Somali federal institutions depends on Somalia's leaders following through with a transparent political transition prior to the expiration of the current governments mandate. We call on the federal parliament to act swiftly to enact and implement the National Leaders Forum-endorsed electoral model. The United States stands ready to assist the Somali people and government in this step on their path towards stable democratic governance.
Vice President Joe Bidens Calls with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan
Washington, DC - Vice President Biden spoke today with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan.
The Vice President welcomed the agreements reached between Armenia and Azerbaijan during the discussions led by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries in Vienna on May 16, and the leaders agreed on the importance of quickly following through on the pledge to expand the existing OSCE mission and to finalize an OSCE investigative mechanism. The Vice President urged continued respect for the cease-fire and emphasized the importance of the planned June discussions to resuming negotiations on a comprehensive settlement.
FIFA Gamer Invites Three Online Friends to His Wedding Who He Had Never Met Before
Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the
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Despite receiving its debut at last year's London Film Festival, Louis Theroux's hotly anticipated big-screen documentary My Scientology Movie has no official release date attached.
Excitingly, however, it was revealed earlier this month that the film - directed by John Dower - had finally acquired UK distribution following its international premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April.
While Altitude Films announced plans to "celebrate Louiss big screen debut with a number of unmissable events in U.K. cinemas in the lead up to the release later in 2016," there was still no specific word on when the film would drop.
Theroux himself has revealed - bizarrely to Ellie Goulding and this very article's writer - a ballpark date via his Twitter account.
Since the film's festival premiere, a clip - showing the documentarian locking heads with a disruptive member of the church - was released online.
Speaking about the film, Theroux said: More than 10 years ago, I approached the church to see if they might let me in to make a documentary.
I thought I might be able to bring a sense of nuance and perspective to peoples understanding of a faith that has been much ridiculed. Just as I have done with other non-mainstream stories, I hoped to see it from the inside and make a human connection with its clerics and congregants. But I was repeatedly turned down.
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Theroux's documentary about alcohol addiction, Drinking to Oblivion, recently aired on BBC2 while another focused on Jimmy Savile - his second - will air later this year.
My Scientology Movie will be released in cinemas this Autumn.
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Peoples pensions are being eaten away by dozens of hidden charges that can reduce the value of funds by more than a third, new research has claimed.
A year-long study by the Transparency Task Force (TTF) uncovered more than 100 charges being levied on pensions.
The news comes just days after the Bank of Englands chief economist complained that the way pensions were administered had become so confusing that not even he could understand them.
Andy Agathangelou, the TTF's chairman, said: The shocking news is that we have uncovered more than 100 types of costs and charges being routinely applied to pensions and investments, many of which are being hidden from the consumer, which is just plain wrong.
The findings the result of co-operation between pension industry professionals, academics and legal analysts who started investigating after encountering an alleged lack of transparency from asset managers will be presented to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) next month.
Recommended Read more The secret life of your pension money will make you angry
Earlier studies had already suggested that undisclosed costs could combine with the annual management charges declared on pension statements to consume a third of the value of a pension fund over its lifetime.
But the TTF research has now suggested the losses could be even higher, because it has allegedly discovered yet more hidden charges.
On Wednesday, Andy Haldane, the Bank of Englands chief economist, told the New City Agenda annual dinner: I consider myself moderately financially literate yet I confess to not being able to make the remotest sense of pensions.
Conversations with countless experts and independent financial advisers have confirmed for me only one thing that they have no clue either. That is a desperately poor basis for sound financial planning.
David Cameron has also criticised fund managers apparent lack of openness and promised to work with the FCA to improve fee transparency.
He told the House of Commons in April: One of the things that saps peoples enthusiasm for investing in savings products is just a sense they dont understand the fees and charges and dont know what they will get out of them.
If you're going to live to 100 check your pension plan Show all 2 1 /2 If you're going to live to 100 check your pension plan If you're going to live to 100 check your pension plan 531271.bin Getty Images Europe If you're going to live to 100 check your pension plan 531268.bin CHRISTOPHER FURLONG / GETTY IMAGES
The Prime Minister had been responding to a question from the Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, who raised the issue after he received an annual report that didnt list transaction fees and was then told it would be very difficult to say what the fund was charging.
He claimed that the details he eventually received after threatening to submit a Freedom of Information request were "staggering ... more than three times the advertised charge was going in other fees, all taken from the fund directly and not listed in an annual report".
He added: Im a Conservative. I believe in free markets and competition. But what were seeing in the investment industry isnt a free market. Hidden fees make proper comparison, and therefore competition, impossible.
Mr Agathangelou said Mr Tugendhats conclusion was borne out by the TTF research.
He told the Financial Times: Our findings prove that David Cameron and others have been absolutely right to suspect that hidden pension schemes costs are a barrier to the consumer getting the value for money that they deserve.
Chris Sier, an academic involved in the research, added: There are so many costs that the consumer or trustee is not told about.
Why have they never found a way of telling us? This is a significant problem which policymakers have to confront as charges can severely impact retirement income.
Asset management sources claimed the hidden charges allegedly uncovered by the TTF often went to insurers, consultants and intermediaries, not asset managers.
The Association of British Insurers said pension providers were strongly in favour of making costs transparent and explaining them in a meaningful and comparable way".
Much work is already in train in the industry and with government and regulators to achieve this," it said.
The Investment Association, representing UK investment managers, issued a statement saying: "We recently announced a commitment to revamping our Disclosure Codes to ensure we present fuller information to our client-facing partners and to comply with forthcoming European regulations.
It should be noted that, when it comes to the costs that come with investing on the markets, asset managers play a major role in reducing these for investors by pooling their savings together and achieving significant efficiency savings that they would not be able to enjoy if they simply traded in markets independently.
Click here to download a free guide on "easy to avoid pension mistakes", from Independent Partner, Hargreaves Lansdown.
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At midnight on 10 May 2016, the UK hit an energy milestone. For the first time in over 100 years, the amount of coal being used by the national grid to power Britains kettles, computer and televisions fell to zero. And then it stayed at zero for four hours.
Two days later, this time for five hours, coal usage fell to zero again. Nuclear, wind, hydro and solar energy powered the national grid in coals place. By 13 May, the needle had hit zero four times, for a total of around 25 hours.
This historic turning point came on the eve of a Government consultation on phasing out coal energy completely by 2025.
As part of our plans for a cleaner energy future, we are one of the first countries to announce our intention to consult on ending unabated coal by 2025, a spokesperson for the Department for Energy and Climate Change told The Independent. We will issue this consultation shortly.
Though it was celebrated by green campaigners, zero coal happened entirely by chance. Some coal plants happened to be out for maintenance, so the national grid replaced coal with other sorts of energy. We are generation neutral and cannot be seen to favour one type of generation over another, a National Grid spokesperson said, therefore this wasnt planned by us and is merely a coincidence.
The UK was the birthplace of the coal-fired industrial revolution. It built the world's first public, centralised coal-fired power station. From 1882 until 10 May this year, coal has powered the nation. Could the UK now be one of the first countries to end coal power altogether even without the help of the Government?
Dr Simon Evans, policy editor of Carbon Brief, thinks so.
Even last year, before the phase-out was announced, Government projections were expecting coal power to be very close to zero in 2025. Given recent coal plant closures, the UK might get there even sooner, he said.
In 2015, the UK got slightly more electricity from renewables than it did from coal. Both supplied about 25 per cent of demand, marking a big drop for coal which has supplied 40 per cent of the UKs electricity as recently as 2012.
Coal plants will only run if they can sell electricity for a profit. The gaps in coal usage over the last two weeks have happened because coal plants are working on very thin or negative margins thanks to the cheapness of natural gas.
Wind farms and solar panels also generate electricity for near-zero cost once they have been built. All of these sources pay less carbon tax than coal, which is considered a dirty fuel. The odds are stacked against coal plants, many of which have little reason to stay open at all.
The more European countries add renewable energy to their mix, the more well see coal become unusable as its too expensive, said Juliet Davenport, chief executive of renewable electricity supplier Good Energy.
Theres still a long way to go, with many countries in Europe still dependent on coal, but were moving in the right direction, she added.
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Poland is one of those European countries reliant on coal, which makes up more than 80 per cent of its energy. Germany, also on the reliant end of the spectrum, got 42 per cent of its electricity from coal last year.
At the other end, France spent money on nuclear power stations in the seventies and eighties and now uses very little coal, while Sweden only uses 1 per cent coal because of its hydro resources.
The UK is among a handful of places, including the Netherlands, New York State, Quebec and Oregon, looking to phase out coal altogether. It could set the example for other nations as they try to reach zero coal, according to Dr Doug Parr, Greenpeace policy director.
As the world gets to grips with tackling climate change after the Paris Agreement, this is an economic opportunity as many counties in the world could look to UKs skills as they head down this route, Dr Parr said.
He called for the UK Government to support a shift to zero coal through policy to make sure this happens properly.
There should be no problem with keeping the lights on if Government supports reliable and cheap renewables, grid flexibility and storage and energy efficiency, Dr Parr said.
New energy suppliers coming to the market are going one step further by not only scrapping coal, but offering customers 100 per cent renewable energy. Theyre going head to head with the big six energy firms SSE, Iberdrolas Scottish Power, British Gas-owner Centrica, RWE npower, E.ON and EDF Energy at a time when these companies are being scrutised for the way they organise their tariffs and charge customers. The UK competition watchdog has called for a price cap on tariffs and a database for customers to make switching energy provider easier.
Bulb was founded by two ex-energy industry employees, Hayden Wood and Amit Gudka. Hayden spent 10 years as a management consultant for energy companies, while Amit spent 8 years trading European gas and electricity for Barclays. (Bulb)
Bulb, a start-up energy provider that launched in May, cuts across the confusing tariff system of the big companies by offering one tariff, 100 per cent renewable energy and prices on average 20 per cent cheaper than the big six.
Renewables are the future, Amit Gudka, co-founder of Bulb, told The Independent.
Countries like Norway, Costa Rica and most recently Portugal are proving that this isnt just a blip but that as coal is retired over the coming years, whole countries truly can be powered solely by renewables.
But experts are wary that market conditions could change and that coal could become profitable again, making the recent zero coal stretches more of a blip.
On the frontline of climate change Show all 3 1 /3 On the frontline of climate change On the frontline of climate change 435043.bin GETTY IMAGES On the frontline of climate change 435044.bin GETTY IMAGES On the frontline of climate change 435042.bin
One way to ensure that doesnt happen is for the Government to implement new standards to usher coal power to its demise. Dr Evans from Carbon Brief said the Government could extend its emissions performance standard. At the moment, this standard sets a limit on the about of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of electricity.
A limit of this kind already applies to new power stations, which means the UK cant build new coal-fired power stations. Extending it would force all the old coal plants to close.
Until the Government launches its consultation which it has promised in the near future we wont know how it plans to proceed. But experts are clear on the need.
If the Government wants to guarantee zero coal by 2025, it needs some sort of policy to make sure it happens, Dr Evans said. Otherwise one of its flagship climate pledges would be left to chance.
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Jennifer Lawrence says she was briefly detained in a tiny jail for five hours at a London airport after lying to customs about her visa.
Appearing on The Graham Norton Show, the actress explained how she had arrived in London to audition for the first X-Men film when it became apparent her passport would expire in six months.
She was due to meet with director Matthew Vaughn and producers when she was stopped by customs.
Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes Show all 20 1 /20 Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes I was at the Oscars, waiting to hear if my name was called, and I kept thinking, cakewalk, cakewalk, cakewalk.I thought, 'Why is 'cakewalk' stuck in my head?'" - On why she fell at the Oscars 2013 Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes "I finally get to make out with Christian Bale and he's a really fat guy. He's Fatman, not Batman." - American Hustle director David O Russell lets slip J-Law's on-set words to US Magazine Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes "I cant even... Its like past mad, its this weird other emotion I feel like my heart just fell out." - To presenter Shaun Robinson after she spoiled the Homeland Season 3 finale Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes He was at a party, and I turned into a perverted guy. I was like following him into rooms and staring at his assHe asked me if I was on mushrooms and I said, No. Im dead sober. This is just me. - on stalking John Stamos at a party Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes "I think any time a girl has to show her thighs, it's never going to be her favorite look. I love the dress...if someone else wore it." - To Good Morning America Getty Images Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes Im a horrible dancer! Im like a dad at prom. I look like Gumby getting electrocuted. - On whether you'll see her twerking any time soon Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes PA Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes I wrap myself up to look like Lord Voldemort so that they cant see anything because the thought of giving them a picture that will make them money absolutely infuriates me. - Entertainment Weekly Getty Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes If I dont have anything to do all day, I might not even put my pants on. - Glamour Magazine Getty Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes I think people are fascinated with breasts that bounce. They are so used to seeing [fake ones]. People are confused [that mine bounce]! My breasts have a life of their own. - The Sun Getty Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes You guys are just standing up because you feel bad that I fell and thats really embarrassing, but thank you. - 2013 Oscars acceptance speech Getty Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes I really would not call myself a fashion icon. I would call myself somebody who gets dressed by professionals. [It's like], 'Dance, monkey, dance' right on the red carpet.' I would call me more of a monkey. - To E! Getty Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes If anybody even tries to whisper the word 'diet,' I'm like, 'You can go f yourself. - To Harper's Bizarre Getty Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes "I was surprised at how little camel toe problem there was. I was expecting a lot more." - To E! on her Hunger Games jumpsuit Getty Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes "If I were just your average 23-year-old girl and I called the police to say that there were strange men sleeping on my lawn and following me to Starbucks, they would leap into action." - To Vogue on the paparazzi Getty Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes Im the fastest pee-er ever. Im famous for it. - Rolling Stone Getty Images Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes I can see the McDonalds right there. Wait, hold on, I didnt say fries! Im seeing you talk and all Im seeing is me being pissed I didnt get fries. And you have to remind them about ketchup because they never include ketchup, you have to ask for it. Cheapskates. - Being interviewed on the Oscars red carpet Getty Images Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes I want to play a character Ive never been before-a crazy serial killer like Charlize Theron in Monster. Id love to have to shave my head. Getty Images Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes This isnt like an auction, right? You guys arent going to take it away? - Backstage at the Oscars Getty Images Jennifer Lawrence's best quotes This isnt like an auction, right? You guys arent going to take it away? - Backstage at the Oscars Reuters
They were like, 'Whatever you do, don't tell them that you're here for work, because they'll ask for a work visa; say you're here for pleasure.' And I'm like, 'Oh, my. Good God - I have to lie to a customs officer.
I get there and he's like, 'Business or pleasure?' 'Pleasure.' 'What are you doing for pleasure?' 'My brother's getting married.' 'Where's your brother getting married?' 'Wimbledon.' 'Is he American?' Yes,' 'Do you have an invitation?' No.' 'Are you telling the truth?'
Jennifer Lawrence on Donald Trump
At this point, Lawrence says she cracked. 'No! No! I'm here for work and I don't have a work visa and my passport expires and I'm not even supposed to be here!'
I had to sit in a tiny little jail for like five hours while they called my employer; I felt tiny.
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A 99-year-old man from England is thought to be the oldest person in the world to ever beat cancer.
Victor Marston, from Dorset, was rushed to hospital earlier this month with excruciating stomach pains.
After being admitted to casualty, Mr Marston underwent a CT scan to try and find the problem.
Dr Sanjaya Wijeyekoon said: I was notified by our registrar team that a gentleman his late 90s had presented to casualty with features suggestive of a blockage in the bowel.
But when doctors investigated further, they discovered a cancerous tumour blocking his bowels.
Dr Wijeyekoon, consultant surgeon, confirmed the diagnosis to the nonagenarian, who then outlined his options.
The pensioner said: They gave me three options, the first one was have a go at that blockage but theres some dangers involved with that, and the last one was you can just pass on.
I didnt fancy that I thought I dont see why I cant go on a bit longer.
They decided to operate that same evening, just a few hours after he was admitted.
Victor Marston - world's oldest cancer survivor at 99 years old
The surgery was a resounding success, and after Mr Marstons clean bill of health medics think he may be the oldest cancer survivor in the world.
Dr Sanjaya Wijeyekoon called his recovery an inspiration after the operation on May 8.
He said: [The] operation was very successful. Mr Marston has made a remarkable recovery thereafter.
I think Mr Marston is unique because of his age and how rapidly hes managed to get through.
Mr Marstons story is certainly providing inspiration currently for a lot of other patients, there are many individuals in their 70s and 80s who often believe their too old or perhaps too frail to undergo an operation.
With his new lease on life, Mr Marston praised the staff at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital.
He said: Now I know thats gone, I think, well how much longer can I have a go at all this.
I like my life.
He added he still keeps active with the help of his mobility scooter, and enjoys riding around the town.
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Britain is providing military training and support to the majority of the countries named on its own human rights abusers watchlist, The Independent can reveal.
The Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) designated 30 nations as human rights priority countries last year, warning of their conduct on a range of issues from internal repression to the use of sexual violence in armed conflict.
But information released by ministers shows that British armed forces trained either security or armed forces personnel in 16 of the listed countries since 2014.
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According to the Ministry of Defence, British soldiers have trained the armed forces of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Burma, Burundi, China, Colombia, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and Zimbabwe despite the human rights records of those countries.
The revelation comes days after the Government announced it would step up the level of military training it provided for the armed forces of Oman. Though Oman is not among those nations named on the FCOs watchlist, human rights observers working for Amnesty International say they have identified widespread use of torture and detention in the country.
Methods in use in Oman include mock execution, beating, hooding, solitary confinement, subjection to extremes of temperature and to constant noise, abuse and humiliation, the organisation said in its 2014 report. These practices are allowed to flourish within a culture of arbitrary arrest and detention in secret institutions.
Human rights attacks around the world Show all 10 1 /10 Human rights attacks around the world Human rights attacks around the world China Escalating crackdown against human rights activists including mass arrests of lawyers and a series of sweeping laws in the name of national security. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Egypt The arrest of thousands, including peaceful critics, in a ruthless crackdown in the name of national security, the prolonged detention of hundreds without charge or trial and the sentencing of hundreds of others to death. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Gambia Torture, enforced disappearances and the criminalisation of LGBTI people; and utter refusal to co-operate with the UN and regional human rights mechanisms on issues including freedom of expression, enforced disappearance and the death penalty. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Hungary Sealing off its borders to thousands of refugees in dire need; and obstructing collective regional attempts to help them. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Israel Maintaining its military blockade of Gaza and therefore collective punishment of the 1.8 million inhabitants there, as well as failing, like Palestine, to comply with a UN call to conduct credible investigations into war crimes committed during the 2014 Gaza conflict. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Kenya Extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and discrimination against refugees in its counter-terrorism operations; and attempts to undermine the International Criminal Court and its ability to pursue justice. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Pakistan The severe human rights failings of its response to the horrific Peshawar school massacre including its relentless use of the death penalty; and its policy on international NGOs giving authorities the power to monitor them and close them down if they are considered to be against the interests of the country. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Russia Repressive use of vague national security and anti-extremism legislation and its concerted attempts to silence civil society in the country; its shameful refusal to acknowledge civilian killings in Syria and its callous moves to block Security Council action on Syria. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Saudi Arabia Brutally cracking down on those who dared to advocate reform or criticise the authorities; and committing war crimes in the bombing campaign it has led in Yemen (pictured) while obstructing the establishment of a UN-led inquiry into violations by all sides in the conflict. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Syria Killing thousands of civilians in direct and indiscriminate attacks with barrel bombs and other weaponry and through acts of torture in detention; and enforcing lengthy sieges of civilian areas, blocking international aid from reaching starving civilians. Getty Images
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon stated that Oman is our friend and that the UK was working more closely than ever with them across military, counter-terrorism and intelligence fields to tackle shared threats to stability.
The UK could also build a permanent military training facility in the country, Mr Fallon added.
In March, The Independent reported that British commandos are training Bahraini soldiers in using sniper rifles despite the alleged use of such specialist troops to target protesters during a pro-democracy uprising in 2011.
Soldiers from the Gulf monarchy were again hosted at the Infantry Battle School in Wales last week, according to Ministry of Defence publicity.
Mass killer wins case against Norway over human rights
They visited alongside troops from Nigeria, whose top military generals Amnesty say should be on trial for war crimes. The human rights group produced a 133-page dossier alleging Nigerian forces caused the deaths of 8,000 people through murder, starvation, suffocation and torture during security operations against Islamist militants Boko Haram.
A senior military official told Amnesty that Nigerian solders respond to Boko Haram attacks by going to the nearest place and kill[ing] all the youths whether they were armed or not.
Andrew Smith, of Campaign Against Arms Trade, said Britain should not be colluding with countries it was well aware were led by authoritarian regimes. The UK army has provided training to some of the most authoritarian states in the world, he said.
The fact that many of them are included on the government's own 'human rights priority' list is a sign of how oppressive they are. The UK military should not be colluding with or legitimising human rights abusers.
The Government has faced criticism from campaigners in recent months for continuing to rubber stamp arms sales to repressive regimes, including Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has been accused of committing war crimes during its military campaign in Yemen, something the country denies. The aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontiers states that Saudi war-planes have bombed multiple hospitals in which it operates in the area. Other reports include the bombing of schools and weddings.
The British government has however ignored calls for an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia from both the European Parliament and the House of Commons International Development Committee.
Defence minister Philip Dunne confirmed last month that British liaison officers had trained Saudi Arabian troops in using weapons systems supplied by Britain and that they were present in the countrys operations centre.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said all training was delivered in line with the UK Government's Overseas Security and Justice Assistance Guidance, "in order to mitigate the risk of contributing to human rights violations".
The fundamental right of all humans to fair treatment is intrinsic to all British Military training activity," he said.
"If there is credible evidence that our support is being misused, we will take immediate action.
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Buckingham Palace sources have strongly denied claims that Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, acted as a fixer in a Kazakhstan business deal from which he allegedly stood to make nearly 4m in commission.
Palace lawyers are understood to be looking at the Daily Mail story which claimed that the Duke helped a Greek and Swiss consortium in its efforts to secure a 385m contract to build water and sewerage networks in two of Kazakhstans largest cities.
A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: Claims that the Duke of York acted as a so-called fixer for an international consortium and stood to benefit from a potential contract in Kazakhstan are untrue, defamatory and a breach of the editors code of conduct.
The Mail has alleged that in April 2011 the Duke was asked to help the Greek water firm EYDAP and Andrea Bubb, a financier from the Swiss firm Aras Capital, win the water and sewerage contract for Almaty and for Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.
The newspaper claimed Prince Andrew emailed the Kazakh oligarch Kenges Rakishev, who in 2007 had allegedly brokered sale of his Berkshire mansion Sunninghill Park for 3m over the asking price to Timur Kulibayev, the son-in-law of Kazakhstans president Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The Mail said that Mr Rakishev, the son-in-law of the then mayor of Astana, arranged meetings in Kazakhstan for the consortium.
The Dukes alleged help was supposedly given when he was still a UK trade envoy, a role he vacated in July 2011 following controversy over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier given an 18-month jail sentence in 2008 for soliciting a minor for prostitution.
The deal allegedly fell apart after Kazakh police shot dead 14 striking oil workers in the city of Zhanaozen, prompting EYDAP to pull out amid fears of being caught up in political turmoil.
Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew Prince Andrew, Duke of York arrives at the Royal Albert Hall on 8 November 2014 in London Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew Prince Andrew, the Duke of York (L) speaks to Queen Elizabeth II on the Queens stand during Derby day at the Epsom Derby Festival, in Surrey on 1 June 2013 Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew Prince Andrew with his daughters Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice on the Balcony at Buckingham Palace, 2013 Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew Princess Beatrice (C) poses for photograph with her parents, Britain's Prince Andrew, the Duke York (L) and Sarah Ferguson following her graduation ceremony at Goldsmiths College, in London, 2011 Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew Prince Andrews pointless plunge down the Shard was the moment to take stock of his usefulness Getty Images Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew Prince Andrew is the first royal to take and tweet a selfie Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew Prince Andrew with Bahrains Crown Prince Salman bin Al-Khalifa at Royal Ascot in 2010 Getty Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew Prince Andrew with Ilham Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan in 2009 Rex Features Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew Prince Andrew with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on the first day of his state visit to London Getty Images Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew Duke of York in his uniform REX FEATURES Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew Britain's Prince Andrew speaks to the press during a meeting with Turkish Businessmen at Ciragan Palace in Istanbul on 26 May 2004 Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew Wearing a traditional Guatemalan ceremonial jacket, Britains Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, turns on the tap innaugurating an irrigation system sponsored by the European community on 7 March 2002 in Nevaj, Guatemala Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew The newly wed Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and his wife Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, wave to crowds on 23 July 1986 from the balcony of Buckingham Palace in London while Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Mother look on Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew Prince Andrew and Prince Edward with their governess, Lavinia Keppel, at the Children's Book Show in Westminster, London on 7 November 1969 Prince Andrew: Life in pictures Prince Andrew Prince Andrew (bottom left) with his parents Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip and siblings, Prince Charles, Princess Anne, and little Prince Edward at Windsor Castle, 1965 Getty Images
The Mail, however, claimed that had the deal gone ahead, there were plans to give Prince Andrew a commission fee of one per cent.
It quoted what it described as a senior EYDAP source as saying: The Prince had put us in touch with people who mattered in Kazakhstan, which was completely invaluable.
"At moments when the deal looked like flagging, he was a huge help. Our feeling was that if it [the deal] went ahead, a fair commission for the Prince would be one per cent, or around five million euros.
The Mail reported that a Greek company source said: EYDAP didn't have a contract with Prince Andrew. We frankly couldn't sign that sort of a deal anyway, for reasons of compliance.
"So any payment would have been discretionary and would have been made via Aras Capital. Cash would have been offered after a deal was signed.
The Mail also quoted from what it said was an email written by Prince Andrew in which he purportedly told Mr Rakishev: We would like to discuss the potential of supporting (by providing technical/environmental solutions applying immediate measures as well as capacity building initiatives) the Water Company and/or Water Authority in their efforts to improve the present level of services in water and sewerage.
Amanda in my office has put Andrea Bubb, with whom I am connecting you, in touch with [the] Deputy Head of the PM's office. I will put Andrea in touch with you by email now that I have sent you this background email.
When contacted by The Independent, however, Buckingham Palace officials declined to comment on whether they believed the email to be authentic.
The Daily Mail said an EYDAP spokesman refused to comment and said all those who might have been involved had since left the company.
Andrea Bubb told the Daily Mail she had left Aras Capital in 2013 and refused to discuss any possible dealings with the Duke of York.
Peter Zurcher, the current president of Aras Capital, said the company had been under new ownership for two years and he had absolutely no knowledge about its activities before then.
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The Church of Scotland has voted to allow ministers to continue serving if they are in a gay marriage.
After years of deliberation on the issue within the Church, the Assembly voted in favour of allowing individual congregations to appoint ministers or deacons who are in same-sex marriages.
Commissioners decided by 339 votes to 215 to update Church law to stay in tune with the civil law in Scotland.
However, the decision does not overturn the Kirks traditional view of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Instead it allows individual congregations to opt out if they wish to appoint a minister or a deacon who is in a gay marriage.
Neither does it mean church ministers will be able to register same-sex civil partnerships or solemnise same-sex marriages themselves.
Following the vote, the Very Rev John Chalmers, principal clerk to the General Assembly, said: Todays decision means it will be possible for kirk sessions and congregations to depart from the traditional understanding of marriage to call not only potentially a minister in a civil partnership but one who is in a same-sex marriage.
In some ways we crossed the Rubicon last year when it was agreed that kirk sessions could call someone in a civil partnership and for many people what today was about was simply tidying up and making the law of the church consistent with Scots law."
Mr Chalmers said a report on the Christian understanding of marriage would be presented to the General Assembly next year.
But he made clear it was not inevitable that commissioners would endorse same-sex marriage ceremonies being held in churches, saying each General Assembly was unique and had a mind of its own.
After the vote, Mr Chalmers added: I hope we have now put this issue to one side and we can now get on with what I believe are important issues developing our vision for the church, increasing membership and developing our work around mission.
Since 2008, 25 ministers have left because of discussions about ministers in same-sex relationships.
A report into whether gay marriage ceremonies should be allowed in the church has also been commissioned.
The Assembly, which opened in Edinburgh on Saturday, was attended by more than 850 commissioners from across Scotland, the rest of the UK, Africa, Asia, North America, Europe, the Middle East and the Caribbean.
UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 New Conservative Party leader and incoming prime minister Rishi Sunak waves as he leaves from Conservative Party Headquarters in central London having been announced as the winner of the Conservative Party leadership contest AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 14 September 2022 The first members of the public pay their respects as the vigil begins around the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2022 Crowds cheer as King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort arrive for a visit to Hillsborough Castle Getty UK news in pictures 12 September 2022 Crowds line the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, as King Charles III joins a procession from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles Cathedral following the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS UK news in pictures 11 September 2022 Members of the Public pay their respects as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 10 September 2022 Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales, Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, wave at well-wishers on the Long walk at Windsor Castle AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 9 September 2022 King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort wave after viewing floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Buckingham Palace Getty UK news in pictures 8 September 2022 A screen commemorating Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in Piccadilly Circus, London Britain EPA UK news in pictures 7 September 2022 Police officers stand guard after Animal Rebellion activists threw paint on the walls and road outside the Houses of Parliament in protest, in London, Britain Reuters UK news in pictures 6 September 2022 Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2022 Visitors at the PoliNations garden in Victoria Square, Birmingham, which is made up of five 40ft high tree installations and over 6,000 plants. The PoliNations programme aims to explore how migration and cross-pollination have shaped the UKs gardens and culture PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2022 Undergraduates at the University of St Andrews take part in the traditional Pier Walk along the harbour walls of St Andrews before the start of the new academic year PA
It began with a formal ceremony attended by Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. A letter from the Queen was also read during the event.
At a time of such upheaval and unrest across the world, it is reassuring to hear that the Church of Scotland has made a particular priority of working to develop a co-ordinated response to the issues affecting refugees and asylum seekers," she said.
This international crisis requires a compassionate and generous response and we are pleased that in keeping with your priority to serve the poorest and most vulnerable, you are making such a valuable contribution.
In the letter the Queen also acknowledged the Church's contribution to the United Nations climate change conference in Paris last year.
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A man accused of stabbing four women in a Sainsbury's car park has been charged with attempted murder.
Ethem Aydin Orhon, 66, was due to appear at Wimbledon Magistrates' Court on Saturday, a day after the attack in Hampton, south west London.
He remains in custody following the incident, where four women were injured. They are currently in a stable condition in hospital.
HAMPTON GVS
Orhon of Deacons Walk, Hampton, has been charged with four counts of attempted murder and one count of possession of an offensive weapon.
Police previously said they did not believe the incident to be terror-related.
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Ministers must increase taxes to raise new cash for the NHS, a former chief executive of the health service in England has said, warning that no developed country would be able to cope with the spending squeeze inflicted on the health since the financial crisis of 2008.
Sir David Nicholson, who served as head of NHS England until 2014, said that last weeks record NHS hospital deficit figures were a symptom of the serious problem of NHS under-funding. His call for a boost for NHS spending via the taxation system was echoed by a senior NHS official, who said the only alternative to increasing taxes or national insurance contributions would be deeply unpopular new charges for NHS care.
NHS hospitals, ambulance, community and mental health services in England reported a total overspend of 2.5bn in 2015/16 the biggest ever recorded for the sector. In the past, deficits have been blamed on hospitals poor financial management, but a growing chorus of voices are now blaming systemic under-funding of the health service, with nine in 10 hospitals overspending their budgets to cope with rising patient demand.
Sir David said that the new situation was a result of a fundamentally changed approach to NHS funding by the Coalition and Conservative Governments
Right up to 2008/09, on average the NHS got about 4.5 per cent growth every year from 1948 [when the health service was founded], Sir David told BBC Radio 4s Today programme. Since 2008/09, with the financial crash and austerity, the NHS has essentially got little or no growth during that period. There isnt a healthcare system , I dont think, in the developed world that can cope in the long-term with little or no growth.
In pictures: Junior doctors first all-out strike Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Junior doctors first all-out strike In pictures: Junior doctors first all-out strike Doctor in acute medicine, Melissa Haskins, holds up a 'I ain't afraid of no Hunt' sign whilst striking with other junior doctors outside her hospital, St Thomas' Hospital in London Getty Images In pictures: Junior doctors first all-out strike Accident and emergency junior doctor, Jennifer Hulse, holds a homemade placard outside St Thomas' Hospital as she strikes with colleagues in London Getty Images In pictures: Junior doctors first all-out strike Demonstrators and Junior doctors hold placards as they protest outside the Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital, in Basingstoke during a strike by junior doctors Getty Images In pictures: Junior doctors first all-out strike Demonstrators and Junior doctors hold placards as they protest outside the Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital, in Basingstoke during a strike by junior doctors Getty Images In pictures: Junior doctors first all-out strike A supporter displays a slogan on her bag during a junior doctors' strike outside St Thomas' Hospital in London Reuters In pictures: Junior doctors first all-out strike The picket line outside King's College Hospital in London PA In pictures: Junior doctors first all-out strike The picket line outside King's College Hospital in London, as thousands of junior doctors begun the first all-out strike in the history of the NHS after the Health Secretary said the Government would not be "blackmailed" into dropping its manifesto pledge for a seven-day health service PA In pictures: Junior doctors first all-out strike Junior doctors and supporters take part in a strike outside the Royal United Hospital in Bath Getty Images In pictures: Junior doctors first all-out strike Doctor in acute medicine, Melissa Haskins, holds up a 'I ain't afraid of no Hunt' sign whilst striking with other junior doctors outside her hospital, St Thomas' Hospital in London Getty Images In pictures: Junior doctors first all-out strike Dave Prentis, UNISON general secretary visits a British Medical Association picket line at Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, to show support for striking junior doctors on the second day of the union's annual health conference PA
He said health spending increases pledged by the Government to 2020, which amount to 10bn, were around half of what was needed to get back to historic increases, and that without more cash pressure on staff would become ever greater, while hospitals would be forced to let waiting times extend.
Were going to have to spend more money on healthcare through the taxation system, he added. Its either a choice of priorities for a government or its increased taxes. When you look around the world at what people are doing in other countries its the only option available.
With a potential settlement now reached with the British Medical Association over the junior doctors contract dispute, the new deficit figures have thrust the parlous state of NHS finances to the top of the Governments NHS in-tray.
Sir David, who led the NHS in England for eight years, was also critical of ministers approach to the dispute, alleging that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and the Government had failed to initially listen to junior doctors concerns and instead behaved as if somehow we needed to put junior doctors in their place.
He also joined calls for hospitals to centralise key services including A&E departments at fewer sites.
NHS leaders are said to be considering the future of up to 50 A&E departments, with plans to close many smaller units and reallocate their staff to neighbouring hospitals. Such reforms have been discussed for years, but never wholeheartedly embraced by ministers because of the political difficulty of forcing through closures that prove unpopular with local patients.
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, the trade association for NHS trusts, said that difficult questions would have to be asked about the allocation of health services. Writing for The Times he called for either an increase in income tax, national insurance contributions or the introduction of a dedicated NHS tax, warning that the alternative could be new charges for healthcare which nearly all of us in the NHS would strongly oppose.
A Department of Health spokesperson said: "We believe in the NHS and its values we're investing 10 billion in its future and the public can be absolutely assured that under this Government the NHS will remain free at the point of use."
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A Labour Government under Jeremy Corbyn would bring in even more radical reforms than post-war Prime Minister Clement Attlee, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has pledged.
In a bold statement of intent, Mr McDonnell vowed that Labours goal would be to transform capitalism, with consequences more far-reaching even than the Attlee Governments establishment of the welfare state and the NHS.
Speaking at the partys economics conference in London, the Shadow Chancellor proposed a dramatic expansion of the role of local councils, saying they should lend to young people to support first-time buyer mortgages, and would be given powers to impose rent regulations to crack down on skyrocketing prices.
He said that the aims of a Corbyn government would be to in the life of one Parliament lay the foundations of a new society that is radically fairer, more equal and more democratic.
Too many governments in the past, and not just this one, thought government should only intervene when something goes wrong, he said. We think government intervention should be there to make sure things go right.
"When we return to government, we must aspire to be another great reforming administration. I want us to surpass even the Attlee Government for radical reform.
"The situation demands nothing less. Simply undoing the damage inflicted by David Cameron and George Osborne will be a huge task. But we should aim higher than this."
Pointing to councils in Manchester, Warrington and Sandwell that are already offering cheap local authority-backed mortgages, Mr McDonnell said that Labour would support the public sector in by-passing banks to lend to those struggling to get onto the housing ladder.
Many, particularly young people, who are unable to get onto the housing ladder are then at the mercy of an unforgiving, unrestrained housing market, he said.
Other urban areas are suffering from skyrocketing rents. Well look to give local authorities the powers to impose rent regulation to secure fair rents where these are needed as Labour committed itself to at the last election.
He also set out plans for a huge increase in the number of employee-owned companies, saying that the model of centralized ownership and control for the economy established by the post-war Labour government had always had problems, and pledged to double the size of the cooperative sector in the UK economy.
However, he said Labours mission went beyond a few appealing policy tweaks here and there.
Fundamentally, we have to reshape the narrative on the economy, he said. Its been dominated for too long not only by the ludicrous claims of the austerity-mongers. Going back further, its been dominated by a particular belief that free markets are fundamentally always right, and that free market outcomes are always the best. We have to break with that.
52 Weeks: Artists highlight Britain's housing crisis Show all 12 1 /12 52 Weeks: Artists highlight Britain's housing crisis 52 Weeks: Artists highlight Britain's housing crisis 52 Weeks: Artists highlight Britain's housing crisis 52 Weeks: Artists highlight Britain's housing crisis 52 Weeks: Artists highlight Britain's housing crisis 52 Weeks: Artists highlight Britain's housing crisis 52 Weeks: Artists highlight Britain's housing crisis 52 Weeks: Artists highlight Britain's housing crisis 52 Weeks: Artists highlight Britain's housing crisis 52 Weeks: Artists highlight Britain's housing crisis 52 Weeks: Artists highlight Britain's housing crisis 52 Weeks: Artists highlight Britain's housing crisis Afrancis ware 2010 52 Weeks: Artists highlight Britain's housing crisis
Mr McDonnell also announced reviews of the roles of the Treasury, Her Majestys Revenue and Customs and the Bank of Englands Monetary Policy Committee.
In his own speech to the conference, Mr Corbyn re-stated Labours plan for a National Investment Bank to fund infrastructure, transport, housing and the technologies of the future. Mr McDonnell has committed Labour to eliminating the Governments deficit on day-to-day spending over five years, while also permitting borrowing to fund capital investments, stimulating economic growth.
Responding to Labours new housing proposals, a Department for Communities and Local Government spokeswoman said the government was creating a bigger and better private rented sector.
She added: The vast majority of tenants across the country are seeing their rents remain stable, and are happy with the service they receive from landlords.
These proposals for excessive state regulation would destroy investment in new housing, push up prices and make it far harder for people to find a flat or house to rent.
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Members of the public who helped a woman crushed by a lorry while trying to save a little girl have been praised by emergency services.
Tragic scenes unfolded in Stratford-Upon-Avon during the morning rush hour on Friday, after a woman was killed by a HGV.
The car transporter is thought to have been reversing around a corner, on Western Road, when it hit the pedestrian.
Witnesses claim the little girl lost control of her scooter, and the woman, thought to be her mother, rushed to push her out of harms way.
She died trying to save the girl, who received serious pelvic injuries.
Witnesses claim the woman dragged under the wheels of the 7.5-tonne vehicle, and despite the best efforts of paramedics, she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Recommended Read more Dashcam video shows distracted HGV driver crash into stationary cars
The youngster was airlifted to Birmingham Childrens Hospital with pelvic injuries, where she is said to be in a stable condition.
A second girl, thought to be the womans other daughter, was assessed at the scene for shock but was uninjured.
The West Midlands Ambulance Service, which was called at 8.45am, said: Sadly, nothing could be done to save a woman who had been involved in a collision with the vehicle and she was confirmed dead on scene.
A young girl had also been involved in the collision and upon further assessment by ambulance staff and medics they found she had sustained multiple serious injuries.
The little girl was given trauma care in the ambulance to help stabilise her condition before she was airlifted to Birmingham Childrens Hospital with a doctor on board.
A second girl was assessed by paramedics but was uninjured and didnt require hospital treatment.
The male lorry driver was also uninjured.
It transpired that staff at a local Audi dealership rushed to help the woman after the horrific accident happened outside their premises.
A witness to the crash, from the dealership, told the Stratford Observer: "We have been told that one of the girls ran into the road and her mum threw herself in front of the oncoming lorry.
"It looks like the mum sacrificed herself for her little girl.
Police have told us that one of the girls has been taken to hospital and the other child is being looked after in a nearby garage.
There are dozens of police and paramedics here. Its an absolute horrible tragedy.
Their heroism was not unnoticed, with the ambulance spokesman adding: Ambulance staff would like to praise the bystanders and, in particular, the staff from a nearby car dealership for their help and assistance at the scene.
Warwick Police are appealing for anyone with information to get in touch on 101.
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Relatives of the victims on board EgpytAir flight MS804 have held an emotional memorial service after being told their loved ones were dead.
Hundreds of people gathered at the Abu Bakr El Seddik Mosque in Cairo to mourn the 66 passengers and crew killed in the disaster.
With no bodies to bury and desperate for answers, they said prayers for the dead on Friday.
Families and friends of the victims of the EgyptAir flight MS804 crash hold an absentee funeral prayer (EPA)
Some people were overcome during the service, while others broke down outside the mosque, with pictures showing families hugging each other and attempting to offer comfort.
Ayman Ishak Michael Dawood, who lost his older brother Wifqi in the crash, cried as he described his loss.
I lost my brother, he is married, he has a boy and a girl, he told the BBC.
He lives in France and he was still young. He was the backbone of our family, he was loved by everyone.
Like several other families, he felt frustrated at the lack of information on the crash.
Relatives and friends of passengers of the EgyptAir plane that crashed in the Mediterranean, pray on May 20, 2016 at Abu Bakr El Seddik mosque in Cairo. (AFP/Getty Images)
We have asked them for more information but there isnt enough information, he added. We need to find the bodies so they can get them to us. We need to know whats going on.
Among the victims was Richard Osman, a father-of-two from Wales, and a Frenchman who almost missed the fated flight after losing his passport.
Recommended Read more This man lost his passport a week before the EgyptAir flight
EgyptAir said 30 Egyptians, 15 French passengers, two Iraqis, and one passenger from Britain, Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria, Canada, Belgium, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were on board.
Memorial services have been held around the world for the victims, including in Saskatoon for Canadian passenger Marwa Hamdy and in Amiens, France, for Egyptian man Ahmed Helal.
The French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, joined EgyptAir officials, airport representatives and the Egyptian ambassador in a meeting with around 100 family members in Paris on Saturday.
Relatives and friends of those who died on the EgyptAir A320 comfort each other yesterday during prayers at Abu Bakr El Seddik mosque in Cairo (AFP)
He said they expressed profound compassion over the crash, adding: All hypotheses are being examined none are being favoured.
French air accident investigators are in Cairo along with experts from plane manufacturers Airbus and other officials as attempts to find the cause of the crash continue.
The first debris was found on Friday as military planes, helicopters and ships continued to scour the area between the Greek island of Crete and the Egypt coast, where the plane disappeared from radar.
Human remains, seats, luggage and seats were spotted floating around 180 miles north of Alexandria and are being analysed to provide clues to the cause of the disaster.
Photos of the wreckage published by the Egyptian military showed mangled parts of the fuselage, life jackets and passengers' belongings.
In pictures: Wreckage from EgyptAir flight 804 Show all 5 1 /5 In pictures: Wreckage from EgyptAir flight 804 In pictures: Wreckage from EgyptAir flight 804 EgyptAir wreckage The Egyptian army published photos showing wreckage and debris from EgyptAir flight 804 on 21 May Egyptian army In pictures: Wreckage from EgyptAir flight 804 EgyptAir wreckage The Egyptian army published photos showing wreckage and debris from EgyptAir flight 804 on 21 May Egyptian army In pictures: Wreckage from EgyptAir flight 804 EgyptAir wreckage The Egyptian army published photos showing wreckage and debris from EgyptAir flight 804 on 21 May Egyptian army In pictures: Wreckage from EgyptAir flight 804 EgyptAir wreckage The Egyptian army published photos showing wreckage and debris from EgyptAir flight 804 on 21 May In pictures: Wreckage from EgyptAir flight 804 EgyptAir wreckage The Egyptian army published photos showing wreckage and debris from EgyptAir flight 804 on 21 May
One picture appeared to show part of the Airbus A320s metal body, while another showed foam from passengers seats and an uninflated life jacket.
Phil Giles, a former air safety investigator who worked on the Lockerbie Bombing case, told The Independent that the wreckage images added to mounting indications the plane broke up mid-air.
All the evidence so far, including the pictures, indicates that the aircraft broke up at altitude rather than when it impacted the sea, he said.
Modern aircraft such as the A320 don't have a habit of suffering major structural failure unless there is some external factor like a BUK missile as in the case of MH17, or an internal device.
Investigators are hoping for the swift discovery of the planes flight recorders, known as black boxes, which hold detailed data on its last moments.
Debris found from lost plane
Smoke was detected in multiple parts of the aircraft moments before it plummeted into the sea, analysis of automatic messages has shown, but the cause of the crash remains unclear.
The search continues, with a French navy patrol boat equipped with sonar on its way from the port of Toulon.
The scheduled flight left Charles de Gaulle at 11.09pm on Wednesday (10.09 BST) and radar shows it continued on its normal path over Italy and Greece before starting to cross the Mediterranean.
The last signal was picked up by Greek air traffic control at 2.27am (1.27am BST) and the countrys civil aviation ministry said the previously jocund pilot did not respond to contact attempts as the plane headed towards Egyptian airspace.
Egyptian authorities lost contact with the flight at around 2.30am (1.30am BST), 45 minutes before it was due to land at Cairo International Airport.
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Chelsea Manning, the former US Army private imprisoned for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has filed an appeal for her 35-year prison sentence three years after her conviction.
Manning, 28, was convicted on six counts of espionage in 2013 for leaking roughly 700,000 documents to the whistleblowing site WikiLeaks. The files included reports on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that the government intended on keeping secret, revealing a higher death count than what was publicy reported, as well as torture and other abuses by coalition forces.
This week her attorneys requested that the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals reduce her sentence to 10 years.
World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Show all 15 1 /15 World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Petro Poroshenko President of Ukraine World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Ayad Allawi Allawi Iraqs Vice-President between 2014 and 2015, and the countrys interim prime minister from 2004 to 2005 World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud King of Saudi Arabia World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan President of the United Arab Emirates, Emir of Abu Dhabi World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Sigmundur Davi Gunnlaugsson Prime Minister of Iceland World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Sergey Roldugin Close friend of Vladimir Putin World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani Emir of Qatar 1995-2013 World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Li Xiaolin Daughter of Li Peng, the former Premier of China (The current vice-president of state-owned power company China Datang Gorporation and former CEO of China Power International Development, she has been nicknamed Chinas Power Queen World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Rami Makhlouf Cousin of Bashar Assad, the President of Syria World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Hafez Makhlouf Cousin of Bashar Assad, the President of Syria World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Clive Khulubuse Zuma Nephew of Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Maryam Nawaz Sharif Safdar Daughter of Nawaz Sharif, prime minister of Pakistan World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Hasan Nawaz Sharif Son of Nawaz Sharif, prime minister of Pakistan World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Hussain Nawaz Sharif Son of Nawaz Sharif, prime minister of Pakistan World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Alaa Mubarak The eldest son of ousted former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Read more here
Manning disclosed the materials because under the circumstances she thought it was the right thing to do, the appeal reads. She believed the public had a right to know about the toll of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the loss of life, and the extent to which the government sought to hide embarrassing information of its wrongdoing.
Manning is currently serving her sentence at a military detention center in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. On Friday, she detailed her legal teams strategy on Medium. I have asked the judges to dismiss all charges or give me a shorter sentence, she writes. All in all, rather than this being the end, this is only beginning.
Mannings lead attorney Nancy Hollander argued that American's need whistleblowers to hold the government accountable for its actions.
A war against whistleblowers is being waged in this country and this case represents how this country treats anyone who reveals even a single page of classified information, Hollander said in a statement. We need brave individuals to hold the government accountable for its actions at home and abroad and we call upon this court to overturn the dangerous precedent of Chelsea Mannings excessive sentencing.
Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Open Society Justice Initiative have all filed amicus briefs on Mannings behalf. The ACLU has argued that charging Manning under the Espionage Act is unconstitutionally vague because it prevents the court from evaluating the public interest of the information she disclosed.
The OSJI brief outlines 30 countries that recommend lesser charges to similar crimes. It also quotes Secretary of State John Kerry, then chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, responding to the information leaked by Manning.
However illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of Americas policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan, Kerry said in a statement back in 2010. Those policies are at a critical stage and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent.
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A number of man-eating crocodiles have been discovered in the swamps of Florida, with US scientists keen to establish how they got there.
The aggressive Nile crocodile can grow up to six metres (20ft) long, and around 200 people a year fall victim to the giant reptile in its native Africa.
Until recently, the crocodile, which will stalk humans in order to kill and eat them, had not been found in the US, but a hatchling was discovered in Miami in 2009 and two of the beasts have since been caught in Florida.
However, the number of Nile crocodiles which have also been known to attack other large animals including livestock in Florida is unknown, with experts suggesting there could be more at large.
DNA testing on the three animals, who were captured in 2009, 2011 and 2014, has only recently revealed the species as Nile crocodiles, and now scientists want to know how the animals arrived in Florida.
They didn't swim from Africa, Florida University herpetologist Kenneth Krysko told the Associated Press, speculating the animals could had come from unlicensed collectors who shipped them in to the US illegally, then either dumped them after they became too big or accidentally let them escape.
One of the crocodiles was found in a canal, while more worryingly another was discovered on the porch of a Miami home.
It is unlikely the animals escaped from a zoo or wildlife park as none of the animal programmes in the state are believed to have the Nile species of crocodile in their enclosures.
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A number of boys have reportedly been filmed having sex with a 15-year-old schoolgirl in the bathrooms of a Florida high school.
Some 25 boys were seen going in and out of the toilets at South Fort Myers High School in Florida at the time, although the number who allegedly had sex with the girl was unclear.
The age of consent in Floria is 18, although since 2007 the law has made provisions for 16 and 17-year-olds to consent to have sex with someone aged 16 to 23. However no one is believed to have been arrested or to be pressing charges over the incident.
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Footage of what happened was allegedly filmed by students who are believed to have used the app Snapchat, which can take up to 10 seconds of video. The film, which automatically deletes after it is seen, was then passed around among the students.
Student Petislin Cadeau told Fox4News: Like, how did it happen? Like, where was everybody at?
I heard a video was around but I never really saw it or anything. It just like circulated around.
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 school did not comment on which students had been involved, although it did confirm disciplinary action had been taken.
One parent told Fox4News that he was saddened by what had happened.
Eric Struble, the father of two 15-year-old girls, said: Shock. Disbelief. Concern. Sad. It's our job to protect our children and to teach them right from wrong.
Somebody should have been notified or been aware of what was going on, I believe.
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A lesbian couple who claimed a policeman wrongfully arrested them for them kissing have been awarded $80,000 (55,100) in damages.
The settlement was announced in a local court, and will be considered at a city council meeting on 6 July, Honolulu Deputy Corporation Counsel Nicolette Winter told the Associated Press.
Courtney Wilson, 25, and Taylor Guerrero, 21, were on holiday in Honolulu, Hawaii from Los Angeles when they said Officer Bobby Harrison harassed and arrested them for public displays of affection in a Foodland store on Oahu.
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While walking inside the grocery store last March, the couple held hands and at one point kissed, and, according to the lawsuit, Officer Harrison loudly ordered them to stop and take it somewhere else. After complying, Harrison again witnessed them being affectionate and said he would have them kicked out of the store.
The couple alleged that Officer Harrison grabbed Wilson by the wrist, and as they attempted to dial 911, a struggle ensued between the three parties. The women were charged with a felony assault of a police officer and ended up spending three days in jail, the AP reports, and all charges were eventually dismissed.
By the end of last year, Officer Harrison retired from the Honolulu Police Department.
Donna Leong, of the citys corporation counsel, said that the tentative settlement is in the best interests of the city.
Wilson and Guerrero are no longer seeing each other but remain friends and plan on splitting the settlement amount. "I'm glad it's over, Wilson told the news agency, but at the same time we wanted the officer to suffer some sort of repercussion.
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A woman whose daughter was killed on 9/11 has announced she is planning to sue Saudi Arabia under highly controversial, proposed legislation.
Donna Marsh OConner is among those who would be given the right under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which was passed by the Senate on 17 May, to sue the Saudi Arabian government for its alleged role in 9/11, in which nearly 3,000 people died.
This lawsuit would give back funds to the victims families fiscal autonomy. I want that for my sons, Mrs Marsh OConner wrote in an article for The Guardian.
I want them never to worry about their student loans, never to worry that they might want to study something, to do some good in the world.
The bill, proposed by Democratic senator Chuck Schumer and Republican John Cornyn and introduced in September 2015, must still be passed by the House of Representatives and approved by the Obama administration.
10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Show all 10 1 /10 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In October 2014, three lawyers, Dr Abdulrahman al-Subaihi, Bander al-Nogaithan and Abdulrahman al-Rumaih , were sentenced to up to eight years in prison for using Twitter to criticize the Ministry of Justice. AFP/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2015, Yemens Sunni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was forced into exile after a Shia-led insurgency. A Saudi Arabia-led coalition has responded with air strikes in order to reinstate Mr Hadi. It has since been accused of committing war crimes in the country. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Women who supported the Women2Drive campaign, launched in 2011 to challenge the ban on women driving vehicles, faced harassment and intimidation by the authorities. The government warned that women drivers would face arrest. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Members of the Kingdoms Shia minority, most of whom live in the oil-rich Eastern Province, continue to face discrimination that limits their access to government services and employment. Activists have received death sentences or long prison terms for their alleged participation in protests in 2011 and 2012. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses All public gatherings are prohibited under an order issued by the Interior Ministry in 2011. Those defy the ban face arrest, prosecution and imprisonment on charges such as inciting people against the authorities. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2014, the Interior Ministry stated that authorities had deported over 370,000 foreign migrants and that 18,000 others were in detention. Thousands of workers were returned to Somalia and other states where they were at risk of human rights abuses, with large numbers also returned to Yemen, in order to open more jobs to Saudi Arabians. Many migrants reported that prior to their deportation they had been packed into overcrowded makeshift detention facilities where they received little food and water and were abused by guards. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses The Saudi Arabian authorities continue to deny access to independent human rights organisations like Amnesty International, and they have been known to take punitive action, including through the courts, against activists and family members of victims who contact Amnesty. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Raif Badawi was sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison for using his liberal blog to criticise Saudi Arabias clerics. He has already received 50 lashes, which have reportedly left him in poor health. Carsten Koall/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Dawood al-Marhoon was arrested aged 17 for participating in an anti-government protest. After refusing to spy on his fellow protestors, he was tortured and forced to sign a blank document that would later contain his confession. At Dawoods trial, the prosecution requested death by crucifixion while refusing him a lawyer. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 aged either 16 or 17 for participating in protests during the Arab spring. His sentence includes beheading and crucifixion. The international community has spoken out against the punishment and has called on Saudi Arabia to stop. He is the nephew of a prominent government dissident. Getty
It has ramped up tensions with Saudi Arabia, which issued a stark warning over potential economic fallout between the two nations if the bill becomes law.
There has been speculation that Barack Obama could refuse to sign the legislation amid warnings from the White House that such a law could cause legal problems for US citizens overseas.
Introduction of the bill has also increased pressure on President Obama to release the 28 pages of a report into 9/11 that contain details about the role of foreign government officials, which have never been made available to the public.
I believe there will always be money for terrorism when there is a motive. I am under no illusions that this suit would bankrupt anything. But there should be justice meted out in courts, and those culpable for the manipulation of lives and deaths ought to pay, in every and any way possible, Ms Marsh OConner added.
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The role of international air travel in spreading disease has been highlighted by the spread from South America to Africa of the strain of Zika virus responsible for birth defects, causing fears for travellers as the summer holiday season begins.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) deems Zika a public health emergency of international concern. It has been confirmed that the strain is being locally transmitted in the Cape Verde Islands off the west coast of the African mainland.
Carriers of the disease who flew to the former Portuguese territory have been bitten by mosquitos, which have then gone on to infect others.
Only about one in five people who are infected with Zika develop symptoms, which include a fever, a rash and aching joints. But for a small proportion who contract the virus, it poses very serious problems. Health officials believe that when the virus is caught by pregnant women, it may cause microcephaly: babies born with an unusually small head, a disability that causes life-long difficulties.
There are also links between Zika and Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), a disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system. When severe, the person is almost totally paralyzed," says the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders. "In these cases the disorder is life threatening.
The Zika virus - in pictures Show all 5 1 /5 The Zika virus - in pictures The Zika virus - in pictures A three-month-old, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil. A rise in microcephaly cases is thought to have been caused by the spread of the Zika virus in affected countries Getty Images The Zika virus - in pictures A mother holds her baby who has microcephaly Getty Images The Zika virus - in pictures A five-month-old baby, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil Getty Images The Zika virus - in pictures A pediatric infectologist examines a two-month-old baby, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil Getty Images The Zika virus - in pictures A baby affected with microcephaly
British holidaymakers booked to Cape Verde who can produce a doctors note advising them not to travel can generally switch to another destination without penalty. The same applies broadly to travellers booked to one of the many countries in Latin America where local transmission of Zika has been identified.
Zika is spread primarily by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is present in very few locations in Europe. One of those is the island of Madeira. The WHO advised this week that it is highly likely the virus will spread to the Portuguese island.
The virus can also be spread by the Aedes albopictus mosquito, which has a wider range of habitats. The WHO believes there is moderate risk of local transmission through these insects in many European countries as summer approaches, France, Italy and Greece are among the most likely to experience it.
A number of concerned holidaymakers have contacted the travel desk of The Independent to ask about their rights. One is a pregnant woman with a holiday booked to travel to Madeira next month. Because the Foreign Office and the National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC) have not recommended against travel to Madeira, here is no automatic right to switch destination.
Britains biggest holiday company, Thomson, told The Independent: At present, the European Centre for Disease Protection and Control (ECDC) says there is no active Zika virus transmission within Europe.
Should this change we will of course update affected customers.
However, the firm said: We will consider the case of anyone due to travel with us to a destination not listed above, providing they have a doctor's note in line with the relevant medical advice, on an individual basis.
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Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour has been targeted and 'likely killed' in an air strike, US officials have said.
The US military carried out an air strike on Saturday in a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, according to officials.
It was likely that the leader of the extremist Islamist group had been killed in the drone strike, an anonymous security source told CNN.
The strike happened on the Pakistani side of the border, the source told the broadcaster, adding that a second man was also killed in the attack.
However, the identity of the people targeted was not confirmed.
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
"We are still assessing the results of the strike and will provide more information as it becomes available," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement.
He continued: "Mansour has been the leader of the Taliban and actively involved with planning attacks against facilities in Kabul and across Afghanistan, presenting a threat to Afghan civilians and security forces, our personnel, and coalition partners.
"Mansour has been an obstacle to peace and reconciliation between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, prohibiting Taliban leaders from participating in peace talks with the Afghan government that could lead to an end to the conflict."
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An elderly British-Bangladeshi journalist has been hospitalised after being held in solitary confinement and denied medical care in prison, his family have claimed.
Shafik Rehman, 81, is a prominent journalist with dual British and Bangladeshi citizenship. He has supported pro-opposition groups in the country and was arrested on 16 April on accusations of plotting to kidnap and kill the Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas son Sajeeb Wazed.
He denies the charges, which his family have denounced as completely farcical. He is the third pro-opposition editor to be detained in Bangladesh since 2013.
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Rehmans son Shumit said his father has been rushed to hospital in Dhaka with severe chest pains and diarrhoea.
My father is being held in solitary confinement in a maximum security cell, pending investigation. That is not how the law works at any level, certainly not at his age. No charges have been made," he said.
For the last month, he has been made to sleep on the floor, without a fan, locked up for 23 hours a day. He has a stent in his artery and is diabetic, he needs his medicine every day. No one is providing this.
Mr Rehman is now in a stable condition and has been moved from hospital to a Dhaka jail with medical facilities, but his family say they are increasingly concerned for his health. Shumit Rehman has called on British authorities to intervene in the case.
Amnesty International has said the conditions in which Mr Rehman is being held are a contravention of Bangladeshs obligations under international law to detain people without cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".
Champa Patel, director of the human rights groups South Asia division, said: The Bangladeshi authorities must end the prolonged solitary confinement of Shafik Rehman and ensure his well-being.
"It is absolutely shocking that an 81-year-old diabetic man with a history of heart problems is being denied the medical care he needs.
Acid attacks: Bangladesh's hidden victims Show all 5 1 /5 Acid attacks: Bangladesh's hidden victims Acid attacks: Bangladesh's hidden victims 621029.bin Department for International Development Acid attacks: Bangladesh's hidden victims 621030.bin Department for International Development Acid attacks: Bangladesh's hidden victims 621031.bin Department for International Development Acid attacks: Bangladesh's hidden victims 621034.bin Department for International Development Acid attacks: Bangladesh's hidden victims 621035.bin Department for International Development
Mr Rehman is a well-known journalist in Bangladesh and has previously worked as a speechwriter for the leader of the Bangladesh opposition party as well as chairing a pro-opposition think-tank.
He is credited with introducing Valentine's Day as a holiday to Bangladesh. He has previously worked for the BBC in London and is a chartered accountant in England. He resides in the UK for about six months a year.
His son Shumits MP, Matthew Offord, told The Independent that he was aware of the situation and had made representations to the Foreign Office and Secretary of State on the familys behalf.
All appropriate action has been taken in a difficult and sensitive situation," he said.
The British High Commission in Bangladesh did not respond when approached by The Independent for comment on the case.
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A doctor has been hacked to death with a machete and his friend gravely wounded in Bangladesh in an attack by Isis.
Village homeopath Mir Sanaur Rahman was travelling via motorbike to a village where he operates a weekly free clinic.
The 55-year-old was with a friend, named only as university teacher Saifuzzaman, when they were ambushed by their attackers, also on motorbikes.
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District police chief Mohammad Sahabuddin Chowdhury said the pair were set upon in the western district of Kushtia, when their path was blocked by their assailants.
Police confirmed Mr Rahman was killed on the spot, and officers recovered a bloody machete from the scene.
His 45-year-old companion also suffered serious wounds, and was reportedly rushed to the capital, Dhaka, as his injuries were too severe for the local hospital to treat.
Officials added both men sustained injuries to their head and neck from the blade.
The recent killing follows a spate of attacks on gay activists, atheist bloggers, academics, those of a religious minority and foreign aid workers in the Muslim-majority nation.
Inside Isis secret tunnels Show all 7 1 /7 Inside Isis secret tunnels Inside Isis secret tunnels Network of underground tunnels was discovered by Kurdish forces after they regained the town of Sinjar in Iraq Inside Isis secret tunnels A member of the Peshmerga forces inspects a tunnel used by Isis militants in the town of Sinjar, Iraq Reuters Inside Isis secret tunnels An entrance to the tunnel used by Islamic State militants is seen in the town of Sinjar, Iraq Inside Isis secret tunnels The secret tunnels allowed militants to freely move underground Inside Isis secret tunnels The tunnels appear to be wired with electricity Inside Isis secret tunnels Some of the tunnels are 30 feet deep Inside Isis secret tunnels Concerns remain that parts of the tunnels are rigged with explosives
Police chief Chowdhury added: "We suspect Islamist militants are behind the attack."
The Islamic State (Isis), otherwise known as Daesh, have since claimed responsibility for Fridays attack.
Their news agency, Amaq, reported the group had killed Mr Rahman because he promoted Christianity.
Friends of the wounded tutor added he too was known for his progressive stance.
The country has seen a surge in attacks, with Isis also claiming responsibility for the killing of two foreigners last year.
But the government denied that Isis have a presence in the country, instead blaming home-grown Islamists for the violence.
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A court in Switzerland has stopped the marriage of a 71-year-old woman to her 21-year-old lover, after the pair met online and bonded over their love of rap music.
The great-grandmother, who has not made her name public, said the young Tunisian man first contacted her on Facebook when he was just 18.
We both like rap and countryside walks. We have the same ideas, the Swiss pensioner told national newspaper 20 Minutes.
But a civil registry office in Vaud, west Switzerland, has refused the application, judging it emotional fraud intended to gain a visa for the young man.
The retired secretary said she quickly fell in love with her younger beau, and visited him in Tunisia for five days last August.
We recognised each other straight away. [...] He took me to his house around 250 kilometres from Tunis, where we shared a room. His family sell goats and sheep, she said.
He didnt want me to leave. I didnt want to come back to Switzerland, either. He calls me my life. I cant live without him. I want to marry him.
The world's most expensive wedding singers Show all 12 1 /12 The world's most expensive wedding singers The world's most expensive wedding singers 236441.bin Getty The world's most expensive wedding singers 236448.bin The world's most expensive wedding singers 236445.bin 2009 Getty Images The world's most expensive wedding singers 236450.bin 2008 AFP The world's most expensive wedding singers 236447.bin 2007 AFP The world's most expensive wedding singers 236452.bin 2006 Getty Images The world's most expensive wedding singers 236443.bin 2009 Getty Images The world's most expensive wedding singers 236444.bin 2008 Getty Images The world's most expensive wedding singers 236446.bin 2009 Getty Images The world's most expensive wedding singers 236451.bin 2009 Getty Images The world's most expensive wedding singers 236442.bin 2009 AFP The world's most expensive wedding singers 236449.bin 2008 Getty Images
The couple, undeterred by their 50-year age gap, lodged a marriage request with the Swiss ambassador in Tunisia at the end of her visit.
The age difference is no problem, said the young man, who works in a shop.
I introduced her to my family, but not to my friends. My sister gave her a copy of the Quran, he said. I dont want to have children I love her, and I want to live with her.
However, the court ruled that the mans feelings for his fiance were not genuine.
Swiss law states it is forbidden to marry in order to circumvent laws on the admission and residence of foreign nationals.
This is not the first time the pensioner has fallen for a younger man.
I have been married before, in 1988 with a man from Cameroon who was 13 years my junior, she said.
But that union ended in divorce.
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Russian president Vlamir Putin is reportedly being sued for a total of 165m by the families of passengers from Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which was shot down over Ukraine.
A compensation claim has been filed against Mr Putin and the Russian Federation by Australian law firm LHD Lawyers, which is seeking about 5 million per passenger in compensation for families of 33 of the victims, according to Australia's News.com.au.
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The plane crashed on 17 July 2014, when it was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine, which was at the time the setting for fighting between pro-Moscow and pro-Kiev groups.
Neither side has admitted responsibility for the attack, which downed the plane and killed all 298 people on board. An investigation later concluded that the aircraft was shot down by a Russian-made Buk missile.
The aviation lawyer who has taken on the case, Jerry Skinner, who also represented the families of the Lockerbie bombing, said Russia had not co-operated with the investigation into the incident.
Its very hard from the families to live with, this is a crime, Mr Skinner told News.com.
The Russians dont have any facts for blaming Ukraine, We have facts, photographs, memorandums, tonnes of stuff.
He explained the families were waiting to hear whether or not the case had been accepted by the European Court of Human Rights, adding they all had their fingers crossed.
We didnt go to Russia and file suit in Moscow because its absolute nonsense to think we could have a realistic chance of success, he said.
We plead futility, we plead danger and we plead their lack of co-operation.
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Employees are more productive and have better health if they work a six-hour day, an experiment in Sweden has found.
Staff at the Svartedalens nursing home in Gothenburg took part in a controlled trial of a 30-hour working week, with an audit published on the experiment in April finding staff were more productive and energetic with patients at the home reporting an improvement in their care.
The shorter working day has been backed by several politicians in Gothenburg, who would like to see the idea rolled out city or even country wide.
Daniel Bernmar, leader of the Left party on Gothenburgs City Council, responsible for the trial, told the New York Times: Weve had 40 years of a 40-hour workweek, and now were looking at a society with higher sick leaves and early retirement.
We want a new discussion in Sweden about how work life should be to maintain a good welfare state for the next 40 years.
Following the nursing home trial, which began in Febriuary 2015, more companies in Sweden are holding their own shorter working day trials, adding increased flexibility in a market that already offers flexible working hours and substantial parental leave in an attempt to create a good working environment for employees.
However, despite the positive benefits on the care home staff and their patients reported by the study, critics say a 30-hour week would put a strain on the economy, force companies to take on extra staff they may not be able to afford, and eventually cost the taxpayer more money.
The deputy mayor of the city, Maria Ryden, a member of the opposition Moderates party, objected to the shorter working day to the extent that she is now leading a campaign to prevent companies from adopting the model, telling the paper: We cant pay people not to work."
Larger companies in Sweden seem to agree with Ms Ryden, with few seizing on the idea as enthusiastically as their smaller counterparts, putting a slight dampener on the hope it will be rolled out nationwide.
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At the start we didn't enter any homes. Isis usually booby trap them with IEDS, Jason Troy, a Canadian fighter with the Kurdish Peshmerga says, pushing open the gate to a bombed out building in Sinjar, Iraqi Kurdistan.
Smell anything? he asks as he clambers over the rubble to point out the remnants of a rocket fired by Isis a few weeks ago. An overpowering smell of garlic hits us as the 38-year-old Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) from Alberta talks with frenzied energy.
Thats mustard gas, he claims before asking if we want to join him later to meet his unit.
Troy is part of a large network of foreign volunteers fighting with Kurdish armed groups in both Syria and Iraq. He left Canada last year to join the Peshmerga soldiers on the frontline with Isis in Sinjar, the town he helped liberate last November.
He remembers the fighting vividly. We were so close to them, you could hear them talking. We were just meters apart at that stage. Im lucky I got to see so much action but I proved myself. A lot of foreign volunteers come here and just sit around. Not their fault, its just the way it is here.
Troy is one of a handful of foreign volunteers on the Sinjar frontline. The others are former US military, highly skilled and experienced combatants. Unlike his friends Troy had no military training and moved to the Middle East initially for humanitarian reasons.
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
Two of my friends came here to fight Isis. It interested me, especially with my medical training. I made contact with a Kurdish group in Calgary who were an incredible help, then in October last year I arrived here with a Swedish veteran. We were part of the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan's) Peshmerga unit for the liberation of Sinjar,
The operation to retake Mosul and its surrounding villages from Isis prompted Troy to return to Iraq this year but the bid to wrangle the city from the jihadist group is moving forward at a snail's pace. For more than two months Troy has been waiting on the frontline for orders to advance, a slow moving life far removed from the heroic endeavours typically presented by foreign fighters on YouTube.
Troy admits life as a foreign fighter can be dull with long periods of boredom. Theres a lot of waiting. You know a lot of the foreign guys dont see much action. I was lucky to get to Sinjar, for many guys its just a lot of hanging around. Its no reflection on them its just how it goes. They do a lot of civilian work,
On the other side of Iraqi Kurdistan near the Iranian border, more foreign volunteers wait for instructions from Kurdish fighters from the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian offshoot of the PKK who have also recruited westerners to join their fight against Isis. The YPGs socialist ideology has been a magnet for disenfranchised youth from the west, some who travel thousands of miles to fight with the group.
In a cramped hotel lobby in the city of Sulaimaniya which feels eerily like a youth hostel, would-be-fighters wait for clearance to join Syrian Kurdish fighters across the Iraqi border in a region known as Rojava, a name that has become synonymous with socialist revolution.
Cameron's ISIS Brexit warning
At 19-years-of age, Otto from Germany is the youngest member of the hotel fighters. The chatty philosophy student abandoned his studies in Vienna to join the revolution.
I found people on social media and asked them if I could come. They wrote back saying yes, we need you here. I thought about it for over a year before I made the final decision and booked a ticket, he said over the din of foreign voices and traditional Kurdish music.
Ottos new colleagues in arms Brandon and Jack, spend their time drinking tea and waiting for calls from their individual contacts who they hope will smuggle them into Syria via Iraqs desert roads unhindered by Peshmerga or interior security. Brandon, a 27-year-old electrician from Pittsburgh in a beanie hat and turtleneck shirt shakes his head when asked if hes heard from Rojava.
These would-be-guerrillas face an uncertain future as the complex networks that used to recruit and assist foreign fighters seems to have hit a stumbling block.
One of the major networks for foreign fighters, the Lions of Rojava, announced they will no longer be in a position to help foreign fighters who want to fight in Syria. A blow to those who had intended on travelling, and while some more clandestine networks remain open, contact is often patchy sometimes for weeks on end.
For over a week we heard nothing, Otto said. Turns out someone had bombed their comms tower. Mobile numbers are passed around as the young volunteers try to find links to speed up their entry as the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) clamp down on illegal crossings of its porous border with Syria. For the foreign volunteers who rely on smugglers to sneak them in news of arrests and fragmenting smuggler links strike a blow to their upbeat spirits.
I was told this week that we couldnt get in. I travelled from the states to get here, I spent nearly $3,000 (2,000), quit my job, left my house. For me its Rojava or bust, Jack an ecologist from Oklahoma lamented.
Each day, with each rejection, dreams of the revolution fade for those waiting in their hotel rooms in light of the news that the de facto government of Rojava, would be unable to afford to keep up paying for their stay, some volunteers are now being told to go home.
As we are chatting about the young fighters options, I get a message from an English friend inside Qamishli the capital of Rojava. Tell them to go home he writes. When I ask him what changed he sends me a picture, a sombre image of two young foreign fighters killed in Syria, now martyrs on a wall thousands of miles from home. Troy is less cynical, his friend John Gallagher was killed in Syria last year fighting Isis. He says young fighter should be seen as heroes and not villains by their own government. When John came home they gave him the same reception they would give an Afghan veteran. I think it's important to remember what we're fighting for and against when we come out here.
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This might be the perpetual question of British foreign policy after the Cold War: how best to promote human rights in the world. As ever, it is a question of getting the balance right between engagement and isolation.
Our report today, that the UK trains the armed forces in 16 of the 30 countries on the Foreign Offices list of those about which it has human rights concerns, suggests that David Cameron has got the balance wrong.
No doubt the Governments defence is that each case must be considered on its merits. Indeed, in some cases, a British role in training and advising the military, even in states with poor human rights records, might be justified. In Afghanistan, for example, this country has a responsibility as part of the alliance that intervened against the Taliban 15 years ago to try to maintain stability. However, questions should always be asked about whether the British presence there is making the problems of corruption and humanrights abuses better or worse.
In other cases, The Independent would argue that the balance of the argument is clearly tilted against British involvement in military training. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are two cases in which we have called for a reassessment of British engagement.
In March, for example, we reported that British commandos are training Bahraini soldiers in the use of sniper rifles despite fears that they had been used against protesters during the pro-democracy uprising in 2011.
The UKs relationship with Saudi Arabia is a rather larger subject, going wider than mere military training to the sale of arms and the exchange of intelligence. Even if it had not been for the Saudis involvement in a civil war in Yemen, in which human rights have been abused on both sides, the Saudi domestic record of political executions and the denial of womens rights should have prompted a rethink of British relations with this supposed ally.
We recognise that these questions are not necessarily simple. British foreign policy should not be dictated by the desire to wash our hands of any difficult situation abroad. It may not be obvious whether engaging with totalitarian regimes is more or less likely to improve the lives of their citizens than embargoes, boycotts and condemnation.
Nor is it always clear what the consequences of sanctions against a repressive regime might be. It may seem cynical, but the UK Government ought to take into account what the likely alternative to the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, for example, might be.
That said, we feel that the balance has in recent years been struck in the wrong place. As Prime Minister, Mr Cameron is bound to weigh the perspectives of the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development. We believe that he should tilt that balance towards a more censorious view of human rights abuses.
Britain should take a prouder stance on liberty around the world, and our armed forces should be more reluctant to lend our name to repressive regimes.
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When Barack Obama made his pro-EU plea to UK voters last month, he appealed to our internationalist tendencies. If the UK was to remain open and outward-looking, he said, the choice to remain in the EU was unquestionable. Its a narrative which has defined much of the referendum debate. We have been offered what appears a very straightforward choice: align with a group of nationalistic, little-Englanders demanding Brexit, or side with the progressive internationalists promising a future of co-operation.
But the EU has a shameful record on international justice. EU practices are harming developing countries. Take for example, the EUs agriculture policy on which it spends more than 40 per cent of its annual budget. In attempts to support European farming, the EU issues billions of pounds of subsidies to farmers across the continent. While this benefits European landowners, it artificially lowers global crop prices, cutting profits for farmers in developing countries and leaving them disadvantaged by a common market which systemically favours European producers.
Oxfam has drawn attention to this inequity. Subsidies destroy opportunities in developing countries and hamper global efforts to reduce poverty, a recent report by the charity concluded. The Fairtrade Foundation has voiced similar concerns, while the all-party parliamentary group Trade Out of Poverty criticised the EU for exclusively promoting [its own] direct commercial interests and failing to stimulate economic growth in the developing world.
21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Show all 21 1 /21 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Portugal drinks more wine than France Tindo - Fotolia 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Young Italians, by some distance, are the most likely to live at home with their parents 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Britain is on course to overtake Germany as Europes most populated country 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Greek workers work the longest hours in the EU 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Estonia has, per capita, more drug-related deaths than anyone else 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe The fastest download speeds are to be found in Romania 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Slovenia, Malta and Poland have the smallest gender pay gaps 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe France hates its leader more than other European countries 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Eastern and Western Europe are very divided on the issue of gay marriage 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Germany has the most millionaires 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Everyone likes Christmas, apart from France 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Germany accepts by far the most asylum applications 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe The UK and France have some of the most positive views of Muslim people 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Europe's largest Muslim population is in Germany 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Danes are the most trusting Europeans, and Cypriots the least 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Finland has the worst economy in the EU 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Italy has cut back its military spending more than any other major European Nato member 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Everyone is sad about the refugee crisis 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe People in Spain are also the most likely to live in flats (Brits are most likely to live in houses) 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Spain is the most likely to feel neighbourly 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Luxembourg is home to the highest proportion of foreign nationals
Forthcoming European legislation suggests this injustice will only worsen. The upcoming Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) an agreement between the EU and the United States promises a similarly bleak outlook for international development. Analysis by the German non-profit organisation Bertelsmann Stiftung predicts that TTIP will harm the economies of most other countries in the world as a result of trade diversion.
Some of the worlds most deprived countries, including Niger, Botswana and Guatemala, are among those expected to suffer most from the agreement.
EU vote: Boris vs Cameron
These effects would perhaps be forgivable had they resulted from poorly-planned policy, but the reality is that the EU aspires to such outcomes in its founding principles. Like all economic unions, the EU is designed to strengthen the economies of its member states. Implicitly, this excludes the nations lying outside of the union, whose trade is routinely disincentivised and met with tariffs.
In the case of the EU of which 26 of its 28 member states are ranked as very high on the Human Development Index, according to the United Nations the union amounts to a syndicate of wealthy states preserving their global privilege at the expense of international equality.
This amalgamation of economic interests also grants the EU disturbing levels of political influence. Only last year, in Kenya, the EU implemented heavy import taxes to bully the national government into signing an Economic Partnership Agreement. Developing countries have a gun pointed at their chest, summarised Ska Keller, a German member of the European Parliament, at the time. Less than three months later, the Kenyan government was forced to concede a worrying reminder of the neo-imperialist mentality at the heart of the union.
It's not just about economics. The EUs founding principles endorse a latent and pernicious xenophobia. Masked behind the justification of a united Europe is the uncomfortable fact that the EU is comprised exclusively of predominantly white, Christian nations.
No surprise then, that one of the biggest controversies facing the EU in recent times has been Turkeys repeated calls to become a member state all of which have been rejected. The EUs cherished principles of free trade, free movement and cultural diversity have been rapidly overlooked when the majority Muslim population has appealed to join the union.
The EU boasts a legacy of double standards. Any self-declared internationalist defending its work must explain how an abstract shared European identity justifies the inequity of offering unlimited migration to millions of white Europeans, while the continent largely turns its back on the thousands of refugees queueing at its borders and drowning in its seas. They should explain why our wealthy neighbours are more deserving of our trade than some of the most deprived countries on earth, and why it is acceptable to use shared European wealth to coerce developing countries into signing political agreements. Yet while these questions go unanswered, Europhiles continue to hurl accusations of xenophobia at anyone who argues that the UKs future should lie outside of the EU.
Remain campaigners are confident their strategy will prove successful. Guilt by association is enough for many to find voting alongside Farage and other Eurosceptics too repugnant to stomach. The narrative of an ideological battle between progressives and reactionaries has sculpted the referendum into a disingenuous dichotomy, in which the Remain campaign has monopolised the internationalist brand.
Come 23 June, however, it will not be a choice between nationalism and internationalism that voters will be making at the polling booth. The real question will be whether calling oneself an internationalist is more important to the UK electorate than acting as one.
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On the list of the top ten nations which export to the economic giant, India, not one is a member of the EU.
Non-EU Switzerland, however, sits comfortably in fourth slot! The world is our oyster the EU is our tapeworm.
Les Arnott
Sheffield
George Osborne has inadvertedly boosted the Leave campaign
Hasnt George Osborne just counter-productively boosted the Leave cause by discussing house prices falling, encouraging a whole generation of thwarted would-be homebuyers to vote for Brexit?
Mike Brayshaw
Worthing
Use your democratic right to vote
I am not a politician or a member of any political party: I am just a normal tax paying citizen.
This is a plea from the heart to all the men and women of Great Britain: as we all know on the 23rd June 2016, we will have a vote on whether to remain in the E.U or leave.
I know many people who are sick and tired of hearing about it and reading about it, and because of this many of the population become disenchanted with the system and decide they cant be bothered or whats the point. Well the thing is with this vote is, its a once in a lifetime chance to vote on this matter: we have had to wait over 40 years for this opportunity, so please do not let the opportunity or your vote go to waste on this historic occasion.
This vote will not only affect you, your children, your grandchildren but even children that have not even been born yet, so please use your vote.
Please remember women died during the suffragette movement to secure the vote for women in this country and our men died during 2 world wars so that we could remain as a democracy for us to be able to cast our vote.
Remember this will probably be the only opportunity in our lifetime to vote on this, dont be a non voter
Polls are suggesting the turn out will be less than 60 per cent, let us prove them wrong and show the world we do care about our future in this great country of ours.
Rob Wilkes
Thornton
The public must be kept in mind when carrying out private negotiations
Most of the discussion about TTIP has been about the risk it poses to the NHS. Of equal concern, but less often mentioned, is the threat posed by the Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism, whereby big businesses can sue governments if legislation passed in the public interest is deemed to threaten their profits. There have been several such challenges, such as the action by the tobacco company Philip Morris against the Australian government when it sought to bring in plain packaging for cigarettes. These cases are heard by special tribunals which sit in private rather than in a normal court.
We need to ensure that our negotiators, who also conduct their business in private, protect us against an agreement that might cause our government to weigh the expense and trouble of litigation against the benefit to the public when considering legislation.
Richard Warrell
Yealmpton
Russia is no threat
General Sir Richard Shirreff seems to think it is almost a foregone conclusion that Russia will attack one of the Baltic States next year. The quotations he produces from Vladimir Putin to support that argument are selective.
Putin did say that the loss of the old Soviet Union was something to be mourned by Russians. He also said words to the effect that no one in their right mind would try to restore it. He has said that the idea of Russia attacking a Nato country was madness. The portrayal of Russia as a terrible threat to the West is dishonest, irresponsible and dangerous.
If, God forbid, Russia did actually attack a Baltic State the Nato response would be led by America. There would be no question of a lack of military power or of reluctance to go to war.
Brendan OBrien
London
Solving the NHS deficit
Annual NHS deficit = 2.4billion.
Annual cost of useless Trident weapons of mass destruction = 2.4billion
Solution = somewhat obvious.
Philip Gilligan
Littleborough
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Bernie Sanders holds the result of the US presidential election in his hands. You wouldnt have believed that three months ago just as you wouldnt have believed Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee; or that Trump would have wrapped up the nomination before Hillary Clinton, the same Hillary Clinton whose victory, everyone thought, would be an instant Democratic coronation.
And who could have imagined that if theres to be a chaotic convention in 2016, its now far more likely to happen when the Democrats assemble in Philadelphia in late July, rather than when Trump completes his hostile takeover of the Republican party, a week earlier in Cleveland. But a lot of very worried Democrats who support Hillary Clinton are imagining precisely that. And all because of a cantankerous 74-year old proclaimed socialist who, formally, is not considered a Democrat at all.
Now no-one would deny Bernie Sanders positive impact on campaign 2016. Hes raised questions that desperately need asking: should the US have a single payer health system, should Wall Street be placed under tighter control, is the US political system a sham, controlled by big money and the highest bidder? Just as Trump with Republicans, hes brought legions of new Democratic voters, especially younger voters, into the political process.
Bernie Sanders draws thousands to rally in New Jersey
The fact is however that he has lost, despite a recent string of primary and caucus victories. In the 43 state contests held so far, Clinton has won 3 million more votes. To overtake her in pledged delegates, Sanders must pull off colossal victories in the two important primaries that remain, California and New Jersey. It isn't going to happen. And thats not to mention the superdelegates, roughly a seventh of the total in Philadelphia, who overwhelmingly support Clinton.
But Sanders wont concede defeat and allow the party to close ranks for the general election battle against Trump. Theres nothing wrong with that per se. In 2008, Hillary soldiered on against Barack Obama until June. But, given that hes much further behind than she was at a similar stage eight years ago, Sanders might at least be expected to tone down the rhetoric, so that the liberal insurgents and the party establishment can more quickly make peace.
People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Show all 8 1 /8 People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Miley Cyrus 'God he thinks he is the f***ing chosen one or some shit! Honestly f*** this sh*t I am moving if this is my president! I dont say things I dont mean!' Jemal Countess/Getty Images People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Whoopi Goldberg 'I dont think thats America. I dont want it to be America. Maybe its time for me to move you know' People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Samuel L. Jackson 'If that mother**er becomes president, Im moving my black ass to South Africa' People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Raven Symone 'My confession for this election is, if any Republican gets nominated, Im gonna move to Canada with my entire family. Is that bad? I already have my ticket. I literally bought my ticket, I swear' People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Cher 'If he were to be elected, I'm moving to Jupiter' People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Neve Campbell 'Im terrified. Its really scary. My biggest fear is that Trump will triumph. I cannot believe that he is still in the game ... [I'll] move back to Canada' People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Jon Stewart 'I would consider getting in a rocket and going to another planet, because clearly this planets gone bonkers' People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Randy Blythe 'He could just be a clown. If he is the president, though, I am leaving America 'till he's gone'
Not a bit of it, however. His language against Clinton, and even more the Democratic National Committee is growing fiercer. The DNC has rigged the system, Sanders claims, while she is the creature of a rotten status quo. His most passionate followers even urge him to run as a third party candidate if he loses, which would hand the election to Trump. As Democrats found out with Ralph Nader and the Green Party in 2000, uncompromising idealists can be even more dangerous than incompetent rascals.
Until this week, Hillary has mostly turned the other cheek. But on Thursday her frustration boiled over. Her lead, Clinton pointed out, was insurmountable. Just as Sanders now, she had reeled off a string of late primary wins in 2008 that didnt matter. The message was clear. Yes, defeat is really tough after such a long campaign Ive been there and I know. But for the good of the party, get over it.
Odds are they will still make up. Both agree the enemy that matters is Trump. Eight years ago, even more Clinton supporters vowed they would never vote for Obama than the Sanders followers now who say they will not vote for her in November. But that fury quickly subsided. And already the Clinton camp is offering Sanders greater representation on key convention committees.
Almost certainly, hell be granted a big say in the official party platform (platforms, incidentally, count for little in US presidential elections certainly far less than party manifestos in British general elections). Organisers surely believe it's better to have an agreed platform that may be to the left of what Clinton would prefer, than a public brawl over the platform on the convention floor.
But after the fracas at last weekends convention in Nevada, to apportion the states delegates for Philadelphia, you have to wonder. The disputed procedural points are too arcane to go into here. What mattered was the physical near-fight that ensued. So menacing were the Sanderites protests that the whole event had been rigged, that police had to clear the premises. One US Senator present, the Clinton-supporting Barbara Boxer of California, said afterwards she had been scared for her own safety.
Pressed by party elders to disavow what happened, Sanders issued a mealy-mouthed condemnation, but spent more time accusing Nevadas Democrats of preventing a fair and transparent process", which is a bit rich, given that until he declared his candidacy last year, Sanders wasnt even a Democrat at all.
More understandable is his argument that polls show him beating Donald Trump by an even larger margin than Clinton. But people vote for the candidate they want, not the one they logically should want. By that token, Republicans ought to be clamouring for John Kasich, their primary candidate who polled best against the former First Lady, to be the partys standardbearer in November. But theyre not.
Should Sanders persist in his obduracy, he will provoke a showdown in Philadelphia live on national TV. Conventions in this age are designed as four-day party infomercials. A divisive or shambolic one virtually guarantees defeat in the general election as in Chicago 1968, or the chaos in Miami four years later, which saw nominee George McGovern give his acceptance speech at three in the morning.
Much the same happened to Republicans in the Barry Goldwater debacle of 1964, and to a lesser extent in 1976, when Ronald Reagan carried his campaign against the incumbent Gerald Ford to the convention itself. You have to feel for Hillary Clinton. Its never easy for a cautious pragmatist and incrementalist like her to shine against a rival promising noble revolution. For the next few weeks at least, she will be fighting a two front war against Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. And if the latters words mean anything, it could get worse still.
Tributes have been paid to economist Professor Brendan Walsh, whose death was announced yesterday.
Professor Walsh died suddenly at his home in Dublin, on Thursday.
Professor Walsh had been chairperson of the Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority (IAASA), set up to support and enhance public confidence in the accountancy profession.
He had also been Professor Emeritus in the School of Economics at University College Dublin and was the author of several studies of the Irish economy.
Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Minister Mary Mitchell OConnor offered her condolences to Prof Walshs family.
"Although I did not have the opportunity to work with Professor Walsh directly, I understand that throughout his term of office he brought his vast knowledge and wealth of experience to the role and that his leadership will be greatly missed both in IAASA and in my Department. I would like to offer his family and friends my sincere condolences, Ms Mitchell OConnor said.
Prof Walsh had served as a consultant on numerous public bodies in Ireland and had worked for the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the World Bank and the Harvard Institute of International Development.
He was appointed Chairperson of IAASA in January 2013.
Peter Clinch, chair of the National Competitiveness Council, described Prof Walsh as a fantastic mentor, colleague and friend".
Mr Clinch co authored a book with Prof Walsh in 2002 entitled After the Celtic Tiger, Challenges Ahead.
He was unique in the breadth of issues in which he had expertise, Mr Clinch said.
It is a regular occurrence for many of us economists that, when we search for information on a topic, we tend to find that Brendan had written a journal article about it. He was unquestionably the leading authority on applied economics in Ireland for several decades, inspired thousands of students and made many valuable policy contributions.
However, he was also the most modest of academics. His co-authored book, After the Celtic Tiger, published in 2002, was prescient and should have had more attention paid to it yet he never claimed to have predicted anything, His expertise, warmth and humour will be greatly missed.
SIPTU is resisting attempts by Viagra producer Pfizer to shut down its gilt-edged Defined Benefit (DB) Pension Scheme for 1,000 employees here.
The drug producer has made the move after describing its DB scheme as "unsustainable" and "not fit for purpose".
The firm told the Labour Court that over the last five years it fully paid for the pension levy for DB members, representing a total additional cost of 10m to the firm.
Pfizer employs 3,200 people in Ireland with 2,200 already on its DB schemes.
The US firm is now seeking to move its remaining 1,000 employees based at its Ringaskiddy and Little Island operations in Cork along with those employed in the firm's Global Financial Services and Sales and Commercial divisions to the Defined Contribution Scheme.
The dispute between Siptu and Pfizer has reached the Labour Court after the two sides could not resolve the dispute at local level.
A spokeswoman for Pfizer confirmed yesterday that it is proposing to close its employee non-contributory defined benefit pension schemes from 2018.
She said that "this change is part of a global initiative as the environment for DB plans has become very challenging due to the increasing cost and volatility of these types of pension plans".
She added: "In Ireland, the cost to the company of funding these non-contributory schemes has tripled between 2012 and 2014 and these increases are not sustainable."
The spokeswoman stressed that the proposal does not affect deferred members or pensioners.
However, Siptu has outlined its opposition to the move and before the Labour Court stated that the DB scheme "is in a healthy position and it is not in deficit". Siptu also told the court that the DB scheme is a fundamental part of the workers' terms and conditions and is contained in the union management collective agreements.
The union argued that the rationale for changing the DB scheme has nothing to do with its current funding status.
However, in reply, Pfizer stated that it views its DB plans "as unsustainable, not fit for purpose and a historical anachronism which places unreasonable costs and the sole risk burden on the employer."
Siptu organiser Paul Depuis said yesterday that "there is no stomach from the members to move from the Defined Benefit Scheme to the Defined Contribution Scheme at this current time".
He added: "The DB scheme is fully funded and it is just part of the corporate wish list to seek to move from a DB scheme to a DC scheme."
Mr Depuis said that a move to a DC scheme shifts the risk from the employer to the employee.
In its recommendation, the Labour Court stated that Pfizer "formally set out to the unions the precise policy and financial reasons for the proposed changes to the structure of the current pensions schemes".
The court said that "the unions should engage with the management with a view to agreeing a new pension schemes that meet the twin objectives of aligning the company's needs and the benefits in the current scheme".
The Labour Court said that "the talks process should address the position of both current and future employees and should make provision for staff transitioning from the current to the new scheme".
Small family-owned businesses are the backbone of our economy and society as without them we would not have the local pub, restaurant, coffee shop, activity centre, petrol station, landscaper, farmer and so on.
We depend on these businesses to provide much needed products and services to enhance our lives and to provide employment.
Sometimes things go wrong. In 2009 I was a director of a company that ceased trading. I want to explain the facts of how that came about. The name of that company was Enhanced Solutions and we bought and sold surplus IT components.
Downturn
Due to a variety of factors 2009 was a very hard year for the company; a downturn in business, the discontinuation of high value stock holding, debts owed to us and probably my refusal to accept it earlier. We, like many other small family-run businesses, suffered as a result.
I couldn't afford to liquidate the company then, as we were existing week to week. When I was elected to Dail Eireann in 2011 I was in the fortunate position of being able to liquidate the company in an orderly fashion and in accordance with company law.
There was an outstanding directors' loan of 37,000 which was repaid to the company before the liquidation. A receiver was appointed and he proceeded to hold creditors' meetings and liquidate the company.
Creditors were offered whatever stock was available to be returned to them to settle outstanding debts, other companies took the route of claiming on their insurance policies.
There were a number of debtors, a complete list of which is publicly available from the liquidators' report, one of which was AIB for 50,000 and the other to Revenue for 59,000.
We took out a loan to repay AIB, which will take many years to clear but I am fortunate enough to be able to do this.
The company VAT liability to Revenue was partially written off against VAT owed to the company and the remainder as part of the liquidation process.
I have received a tax-clearance certificate from the Revenue Commissioner after I was elected in 2011 and every year since.
I have been a director of many companies over the years and I can safely say I learned more from the failure of one than the success of all of the others combined.
I am happy to clarify the facts as some people have unfortunately sought to misrepresent them, particularly since I was appointed Chief Whip.
I believe, for what it's worth, that this experience allows me to understand the difficulties which tens of thousands of families in Ireland have and are going through. Especially at that critical point where your professional and personal lives connect.
In closing I have to say that I am very grateful to my family and friends who supported us then and now.
I am a stronger person for it.
Shortly after 7pm on January 12, 2015, a message from a secure computer terminal at Banco del Austro (BDA) in Ecuador instructed San Francisco-based Wells Fargo to transfer money to bank accounts in Hong Kong.
Wells Fargo complied. Over 10 days, Wells approved a total of at least 12 transfers of BDA funds requested over the secure SWIFT system.
The SWIFT network - which allows banks to process billions of dollars in transfers each day - is considered the backbone of international banking. In all, Wells Fargo transferred $12m of BDA's money to accounts across the globe.
Both banks now believe those funds were stolen by hackers, according to documents in a BDA lawsuit filed against Wells Fargo in New York this year. The two banks declined to comment.
BDA is suing Wells Fargo on the basis that the US bank should have flagged the transactions as suspicious. Wells Fargo has countered that security lapses in BDA's own operations caused the Ecuadorean bank's losses. Hackers had secured a BDA employee's SWIFT logon credentials, Wells Fargo said in a court filing.
SWIFT - the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication - is not a party to the lawsuit. Neither bank reported the theft to SWIFT, which said it first learned about the cyber-attack from a Reuters inquiry. "We were not aware," SWIFT said. "We need to be informed by customers of such frauds if they relate to our products and services, so that we can inform and support the wider community. We have been in touch with the bank concerned to get more information, and are reminding customers of their obligations to share such information with us."
SWIFT says it requires customer to notify it of problems that can affect the "confidentiality, integrity, or availability of SWIFT service".
But SWIFT has no rule specifically requiring client banks to report hacking thefts. Banks often do not report such attacks out of concern they make the institution appear vulnerable, former SWIFT employees and cyber security experts said.
The Ecuador case illuminates a central problem with preventing such fraudulent transfers: Neither SWIFT nor its client banks have a full picture of the frequency or the details of cyber-thefts made through the network, according to over a dozen former SWIFT executives, users and cyber security experts interviewed by Reuters.
The case - details of which have not been previously reported - raises new questions about the oversight of the SWIFT network and its communications with member banks about cyber-thefts and risks. The network has faced intense scrutiny since cyber-thieves stole $81m in February from a Bangladesh central bank account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
It's unclear what SWIFT tells its member banks when it does find out about cyber-thefts, which are typically first discovered by the bank that has been defrauded. SWIFT spokeswoman Natasha de Teran said the organisation "was transparent with its users" but declined to elaborate.
Reuters was unable to determine the number of cyber-attacks involving the SWIFT system, or how often the banks report them to SWIFT officials. Lack of disclosure may foster overconfidence in SWIFT network security by banks, which routinely approve transfer requests made through the messaging network without additional verification, experts said.
The criminals behind such heists are exploiting banks' willingness to approve SWIFT requests at face value, rather than making additional checks, said John Doyle, who held a variety of senior roles at SWIFT between 1980 and 2005. "SWIFT doesn't replace prudent banking practice," he said, noting that banks should verify the authenticity of withdrawal or transfer requests, as they would for transfers outside the SWIFT system.
SWIFT commits to checking the codes on messages sent into its system, to ensure the message has originated from a client's terminal, and to send it to the intended recipient quickly and securely, former SWIFT executives and experts said. But once cyber-thieves obtain legitimate codes and credentials, they said, SWIFT has no way of knowing they are not the true account holders.
The Bank for International Settlements, a trade body for central banks, said in a report that increased information sharing on cyber-attacks is crucial to helping institutions manage the risk.
"The more they share the better," said Leo Taddeo, a former special agent in charge with the FBI's cyber crime division in New York.
SWIFT, a cooperative owned and governed by representatives of the banks it serves, was founded in 1973 and operates a secure messaging network that has been considered reliable for four decades. But recent attacks involving the Belgium-based cooperative have underscored how its central role in global finance also presents systemic risk. SWIFT is not regulated, but a group of ten central banks from developed nations, led by the National Bank of Belgium, oversee it. Among its stated guidelines is a requirement to provide clients with enough information to enable them "to manage adequately the risks related to their use of SWIFT".
However, some former SWIFT employees said the cooperative struggles to keep banks informed on risks of cyber-fraud because of a lack of cooperation from the banks themselves. SWIFT's 25-member board of directors is filled with representatives of larger banks. "The banks are not going to tell us too much," said Doyle, the former SWIFT executive. "They wouldn't like to destabilise confidence in their institution."
Banks also fear notifying SWIFT or law enforcement of breaches because that could lead to regulatory investigations that highlight failures of risk management or compliance that could embarrass top managers, said Hugh Cumberland, a former SWIFT executive who is now a senior associate with cyber-security firm Post-Quantum.
Theoretically, SWIFT could require its customers, mainly banks, to inform it of any attacks - given that no bank could risk the threat of exclusion from the network, said Lieven Lambrecht, the head of human resources at SWIFT for a year-and-a-half through May 2015. But such a rule would require the agreement of its board, which is mainly made up of senior executives from the back office divisions of the largest western banks.
This week, Vietnam's Tien Phong Bank said its SWIFT account was used in an attempted hack last year. That effort failed, but it is another sign that cyber-criminals are targeting the network.
In the Ecuadorean case, Wells Fargo denies any liability and said in court records that it did not verify the authenticity of the BDA transfer requests because they came through SWIFT, which Wells called "among the most widely used and secure" systems for money transfers.
BDA is seeking recovery of the money, plus interest. Wells Fargo is attempting to have the case thrown out. New York-based Citibank also transferred $1.8m in response to fraudulent requests made through BDA's SWIFT terminal, according to the BDA lawsuit against Wells Fargo.
Citibank repaid the $1.8m to BDA, according to a BDA court filing in April. Citibank did not respond to a request for comment.
Wells Fargo refunded to BDA $958,700 out of the $1,486,230 it transferred to an account in the name of a Jose Mariano Castillo at Wells Fargo in LA, according to the lawsuit. "This image of the SWIFT network and the surrounding ecosystem being secure and impenetrable has encouraged complacency," Hugh Cumberland said. (Reuters)
Original Beastie Boys member and guitarist John Berry has died aged 52.
Berry's father, John Berry III, and stepmother confirmed the news, saying their son had been suffering from frontal lobe dementia.
The musician, who is cited as the person who came up with the name for the band, died at a hospice in Danvers, Massachusetts.
The American rap rock band's many hits include (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!), which was from their 1986 debut studio album, Licensed to Ill.
Berry was one of the founding members of the first incarnation of the band, called The Young Aborigines, formed in 1978.
Two years later the band changed its name to the Beastie Boys.
Vocalist Michael Diamond and Berry attended the Walden School in New York together, leading to a lifelong friendship rooted in music.
The pair were joined in the band by Adam Yauch and Kate Schellenbach.
The band's first EP, Polly Wog Stew, was released in 1982 and Berry left the band shortly after its release.
Schellenbach exited a year later and the new line-up came into being with Yauch and Diamond joined by Adam Horovitz on vocals and guitar.
Yauch died in 2012 following a battle with cancer, at the age of 47.
Fans paid tribute to Berry on Twitter, crediting their contribution to the music world, with one writing: "RIP to John Berry of the Beastie Boys. Those dudes started something bigger than music. Rap, rock and musicianship all in one. A new genre."
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Schellenbach went on to become the drummer for rock band Luscious Jackson.
A message on the Luscious Jackson Facebook page said the band was "heartbroken hearing the news" of Berry's death.
It said: "He was a good friend and rabble rouser and if it wasn't for him, there'd be no Beasties, no Luscious Jackson, no Grand Royal and god knows what else. John brought us all together in his crazy wooden house on the UWS ... Rest In Piece friend ..."
There are birthday bumps of a different kind in Harold Pinter's searing 1957 play. The titular anniversary is that of one Stanley (Gareth Bennett-Ryan), who has been living for over a year as the only guest in a crumbling seaside boarding house run by a similarly crumbling couple Meg and her husband Petey.
Stanley is a middle-aged man who has reverted to almost childhood, Meg and Petey having become his default parents. He gets truculent when the cornflakes don't taste right, announcing that the milk is sour. He is a man who never gets fully dressed, wearing his dishevelled pyjama top even to his own birthday party.
This is his living nightmare and it is a torment that goes from bad to worse with the arrival of his special surprise guests, two men Petey met during his day job as a deckchair attendant and who insisted they wanted to stay at this particular boarding house.
Goldberg and McCann are strangers to this seaside town and indeed each other. They have been hired for a job, with domineering Goldberg clearly the authority figure. The job itself is never properly explained, but they are here to collect Stanley - though not without intimidating and destroying him first.
Presented by London Classic Theatre, this touring production never fully manages to tap into Pinter's unsettling mindset. Directed by Michael Cabot, this is a superficial interpretation, almost a literal reading of the script.
Pinter's text is imbued with intimidation, to strip it of this is to strip it of its essence. And this production somehow manages to render Pinter's classic enigma as safely anodyne and bland, Pinter should never be unthreatening.
Declan Rodgers stands out as Goldberg's hired Belfast brawn McCann, Pinter's hat tip to oppressive Irish Catholicism.
But the cast overall are too stagey, too jaunty, the darkness unmined. And the unquestionable star performer of this production is the script. There are no happy ever afters with Pinter.
Yes voters celebrate after the result last May. Photo: PA
When I was told I would be spending all of May 23, 2015, in Panti Bar, I was delighted.
And not just because it meant I could drink G&T from noon and discuss that night's Eurovision with abandon.
I felt there was no better place in Ireland to watch the Marriage Referendum results pour in.
Before I arrived at the bar that Saturday, it was already clear we were on course to making history.
A nervous energy was running through the city. In Dublin Castle there were cheers as people slowly began to realise how the votes were falling: couples hugged tightly, children ran about with painted faces, and Miriam O'Callaghan strode across the cobbles to the stage.
"This is going to be a fantastic episode of 'Reeling in the Years' some day," I thought. "Perhaps RTE will turn it into a special."
By the time I reached Panti Bar I knew I was watching a defining moment in modern Ireland. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves," one very sensible Bear warned the bar.
"Nothing's definite yet".
As regional talking heads informed us of vote tallies, there were cheers, boos and hisses.
"Scarleh for Roscommon," one man shouted as we were confronted with the only No vote in the entire country.
It may have been the perfect place to witness the results trickle in, but perhaps Panti Bar was a distraction from what was happening throughout Ireland (except Roscommon).
The sense of cultural change could be felt in nearly every home in every county.
After decades of religious and cultural sexual repression, we were at the forefront of liberation. We were at the forefront of change.
It seemed that other countries around the world were now looking to us for guidance and answers. How on earth did that come about?
When I was born, homosexuality was still a criminal offence in Ireland and contraception had been legal for just five years - and only with a doctor's prescription - so this was a pretty big turnaround.
The sense of importance was compounded by the fact that this seismic social and cultural shift wasn't the result of a vote in Dail Eireann - it was made happen by a vibrant, dynamic, patriotic and passionate population. After years of bad news - where young people were advised to leave the country if they wanted to get ahead in life - a sense of national pride had engulfed the nation.
Gay or straight - as a country and a people, we really needed this.
Back in Panti Bar, it's hard to convey the elation that erupted when we heard that a total of 1.2 million of us had voted Yes.
Jurors took just over seven hours to return the guilty verdicts on the 64-year-old man. Stock Picture
A jury has convicted a father of raping his son from the age of six, but acquitted the mother of having sex with the boy.
Jurors took just over seven hours to return the guilty verdicts on the 64-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect his son's identity. They also convicted him of one count of child cruelty relating to an incident where he locked his son in a box for six hours.
The jury acquitted him of charges that he raped the child with a hot fire poker.
The mother was found not guilty of having sex or simulating sex with the boy at the behest of the father.
Jurors are still deliberating on a single count of child cruelty against the mother relating to the box incident. They will return on Monday.
Prosecuting counsel Pauline Walley SC asked Mr Justice Robert Eagar to remove the father's bail. The judge remanded the father in custody until Monday and declared him a sex offender.
He faced nine counts of raping the boy, nine counts of raping the boy with a poker and one count of cruelty. The mother faced two counts of sexual assault relating to allegations that she had sex with the boy and one count of cruelty.
The child was taken into care just before his eighth birthday, after telling his teacher that his father had been beating him and he "couldn't take it any more".
He was sent to a foster home where widespread sexual abuse occurred. The boy was sexually abused by another boy while in foster care. A third child is awaiting sentence for sexual abuse he carried out in the house.
The boy was sent to another foster home after about a year. He trusted his new foster parents and felt safe enough there to begin disclosing the abuse he had suffered. While in the second foster home, the boy began displaying highly disturbing and sexualised behaviour.
His foster mother told the trial she loved the boy dearly but couldn't handle his behaviour.
The HSE was forced to send him to the UK for specialised residential treatment as no such treatment was available in Ireland. The last thing he said to his foster mother before leaving was: "I feel like a dog that nobody wants."
Both parents pleaded not guilty to the allegations, which were alleged to have occurred between 2009 and 2011 in their Waterford home.
The parents had originally faced a total of 82 charges but 60 of these were withdrawn this week following legal argument.
The seven-week trial heard often harrowing evidence, including allegations that the child's father filmed the child having sex with the mother and showed the footage to people who visited the house.
Other allegations heard by the jury included that the father defecated on the boy and threatened to kill him while holding a gun to his head.
Her teenage daughter, Amy, has been missing for eight years. Her son, Dean, was stabbed to death by the man she later married. So much tragedy would strain the strongest of relationships. But yesterday Audrey Fitzpatrick continued to stand by her man.
Shortly before 10am yesterday, Audrey arrived at Cloverhill prison in a car driven by her father-in-law to visit Dave Mahon on his first day behind bars.
Convicted of his stepson's manslaughter on Friday, he will wait several more weeks before he is sentenced. Audrey, who stood by him throughout his trial, emerged two hours later, her face impassive.
Their unity as a couple has been unshakeable ever since they first entered the limelight when Audrey's daughter, Amy, disappeared, and they went public for help in finding her.
Audrey had left her first husband, Christopher, and their home in Artane, to move to Spain to be with Dave Mahon, who was then a well-off estate agent on the Costa del Sol. Audrey and Christopher's children, Amy and Dean, moved with their mother.
They had what Dave Mahon later described as "a great life in Spain, with eight or nine houses and bars".
All that changed in 2008. Amy (15) left a friend's house at 10pm on New Year's Eve to walk home, but somewhere along the route she vanished without a trace.
In the aftermath of her disappearance, Amy's lifestyle in Spain - the late hours she kept, her school attendance - came under scrutiny.
Meanwhile, the divisions between her already estranged parents worsened - it was several days before her father was told about his daughter's disappearance.
Since then, Dave and Audrey claimed to have spent 500,000 looking for Amy, and the media has followed the case relentlessly.
There has been a book and an appearance by the couple on the Late Late Show.
Amy's father, Christopher, and her aunt, Christine, launched their own appeal to fund a private detective called Liam Brady, who embarked on an investigation.
But nothing more was heard of Amy.
Gardai in Dublin interviewed some of Amy's old friends in Clare Hall to find out whether they had any contact from her. None had.
A year after Amy disappeared, Dean returned to Dublin.
After his death three years ago, his aunt Christine told the Sunday Independent that he and Amy had been close as children.
Dean was out with friends at the time his sister disappeared, and after he moved back to Dublin he found it difficult to talk about her.
Then he met Sarah O'Rourke, started a relationship and had a baby with her. He seemed to be more settled.
His father, Christopher, told a Spanish website that in the weeks before Dean died he had "loosened up".
Liam Brady, the private detective, this weekend said he had got a call from Dean's aunt to tell him that Dean had started to open up and that he might talk about his sister Amy.
But Dean died not long afterwards in a confrontation over a bike.
Mahon suspected him of messing with his bike and got Dean to come over to his apartment.
He claimed Dean pulled a knife on him. Mahon then took a knife out of his pocket and was holding it when Dean "walked into it".
Mahon was found guilty of Dean's manslaughter on Friday and is in Cloverhill Prison awaiting sentencing.
Before he is sentenced, the judge may hear victim impact statements from members of Dean's family.
Those victims include his father Christopher, his aunt Christine, and Audrey, who as Dean's mother is a victim of this crime but also remains supportive of the man who committed it.
The search for Amy Fitzpatrick goes on.
The investigation into her disappearance remains live. Her case has been taken over by the Garda missing persons bureau.
In recent years, detectives from Dublin have travelled to Spain to liaise with detectives there. Any developments in the case are shared with both of Amy's parents.
So far, there have been many theories but few leads, and none has followed through into evidence of any crime.
Dave Mahon said he was informed by criminal sources that a convicted gangster and killer had boasted that he had killed Amy.
Mahon believed that the information meant that they were finally close to solving the mystery of Amy's disappearance.
It prompted extensive police inquiries in Ireland and in Spain.
Ultimately however, the lead came to nothing - the gangster was not on the Costa Del Sol at the time Amy disappeared.
Liam Brady said he hoped that the publicity would shake out new information about Amy's disappearance.
"When you take a case like that, you can never give up on it," he said.
A senior associate of the Hutch gang has survived a second murder bid after shots were fired through a window in the early hours of this morning.
Keith Murtagh (32) suffered a grazed arm when a gunman opened fire on a house in Cherry Orchard Court, Ballyfermot in West Dublin.
A woman, who was in the house at the time, also suffered minor injuries in the attack.
Gardai believe that Murtagh was the intended target when a hitman shot dead innocent drug addict Martin ORourke last April.
Detectives are now investigating if this latest attack is linked to the ongoing Kinahan/Hutch feud which has already claimed six lives in just eight months.
It is believed that Murtagh, a convicted armed robber, was targeted because of his association with members of the Hutch gang.
Murtagh initially fled to the UK following the shooting of Martin ORourke on Sheriff St on April 15.
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He has been warned by gardai that his life is under threat.
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It is believed that a 100,000 sum has been offered for the killing of Murtagh, which was ordered by a close associate of Regency Hotel murder victim David Byrne (33).
Murtagh was part of an armed gang which included Derek Hutch that conspired to rob a large sum of money from a cash in transit van in Lucan, Co Dublin, seven years ago.
Gardai had intelligence about the plan and they moved in as the crime was underway.
Murtagh was wounded and one of his accomplices, Garrett Molloy (27), was shot dead when gardai opened fire.
Murtagh later pleaded guilty to attempted robbery and possession of a weapon with intent to endanger life at Foxboro Road, Lucan, on May 15, 2009.
Garda sources in Dublin say there is no end in sight to the feud which was sparked by the Kinahan gang's murder of Gary Hutch (34) in southern Spain last September. This was followed by an attempt to murder Derek Hutch in prison. He was stabbed repeatedly with a home-made knife and only saved by the intervention of prison staff in Mountjoy Prison.
Keith Murtagh has been one of the top targets of the Kinahan gang since the Regency Hotel attack on February 5 in which David Byrne (32), a senior Kinahan gang member, was shot dead.
There is no suggestion that Murtagh was in any way involved in the attack, but it is believed he is being targeted because of his close links to Derek Hutch and other members of the northside gang.
According to Garda sources, the Kinahan gang's representatives, based mainly in the southside of inner city Dublin, are determined to destroy the Hutch gang and its associates.
So far, the Kinahan gang have killed five people in the feud, including Gerry Hutch's brother, Eddie (59), a taxi driver who was not involved in organised crime.
Warnings will cover 65pc of the surface of cigarette packets. Photo: PA
Cigarette packets must feature bigger and more graphic health warnings, as new EU rules come into force.
Smokers will be told that lighting up exposes them to 70 substances that are known to cause cancer.
The EU directive, signed into law by Health Minister Simon Harris, will see cigarette packs with health warnings covering 65pc of their surface.
It means an end to packs of 10 cigarettes or super-slim packs, and soon menthol cigarettes will be banned.
Cigarettes and tobacco products may no longer have flavours such as menthol, vanilla or candy that mask the taste and smell of tobacco.
The Minister said: "These measures will further complement the tobacco control initiatives already in place and will help to drive down consumption of tobacco and protect public health." He welcomed the UK Government's court victory on plain packaging of cigarettes and intends to progress Ireland's own legislation, which allows for the same measure here.
A nearly complete freeze on the recruitment of doctors and nurses to hospitals will lead to more hardship for public patients and could "cost lives", the new Health Minister has been warned.
It presents a grim start to the tenure of Health Minister Simon Harris, who was also told that home help and homecare packages are being slashed.
The HSE, which is severely in the red and facing a 500m overrun, confirmed that, with a few exceptions, all hospitals have been ordered to stop hiring staff until they have submitted a workforce plan, which then needs to be approved.
The move is a major setback as hospitals had been desperately trying to encourage specialists to apply for jobs here. They are struggling to cope with vacancies for around 300 doctors, with knock-on effects on patient treatments and safety.
The extent of the crisis facing the HSE is also revealed in an internal briefing document for Mr Harris, signalling cuts in services for the elderly and people with a disability.
It warns that home help hours and homecare packages must be chopped. These are vital to keep older people and those with a disability out of institutional care. However, Mr Harris was told starkly that, because of the 7.5pc rise in patients attending hospitals since January, it has been necessary to scale back these homecare supports or otherwise face an overrun in this area of 14.5m at the end of 2016.
Responding to the recruitment ban, Dave Hughes of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation said it was an irresponsible act that would "cost lives", leaving hospitals unable to deliver safe care.
Dr John Duddy, president of the Irish Medical Organisation, warned: "Inevitably patients will continue to suffer in our emergency departments, face longer waiting lists and see their planned surgeries cancelled."
The HSE was unable to say how many posts will have to be put on hold. A spokesman said there would be specific exemptions for areas where funding was agreed in areas of critical care and emergency services.
"Staffing levels [at] the end of April 2016 are 3,616 greater than 2015 levels and have grown in-year by over 800."
The minister's briefing material contains no fresh thinking on how to reduce hospital waiting lists - and neglects to spell out that more than 500,000 are now in the queue for an outpatient clinic or surgery.
It details how the payout for the nursing home repayment scheme, due to a legislative error, has amounted to 452m paid to 20,300 people.
High Court compensation cases brought on behalf of children who developed narcolepsy after getting the swine flu vaccine are also on the horizon.
Narcolepsy is an incurable condition which causes people to fall asleep without warning.
The first court cases are due to come up on June 11.
Some 42 claims have been made and the Department has so far received 81 reports of children developing narcolepsy after getting the vaccine.
It is also facing a potential payout running into hundreds of millions of euro to hospital consultants who are taking action for recovery of a pay increase of about 25,000 a year they were denied from 2009.
There is no timetable in the document for the roll-out of universal health insurance.
Luas drivers are "angry" at the treatment they're receiving from operators Transdev and have not ruled out all-out strike action.
Siptu members have told their shop stewards they will support an escalation in industrial action if the shop stewards feel it is necessary.
However, Siptu's Owen Reidy has dismissed talk that they have already decided to ballot members, insisting no decision has been made yet.
There was some confusion earlier after shop steward Richard McCarthy claimed drivers had already decided to put an all-out strike to ballot, following a meeting at Dublin's Green Isle Hotel last night.
Mr McCarthy said drivers had to respond after Transdev said it was cancelling the sick day scheme and docking drivers' pay. He also cited the ongoing ban on annual leave.
"The members have taken enough of that and are looking at retaliating with a ballot for an all-out," he said.
However, Mr Reidy later clarified that the Labour Court had requested to meet the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) and representatives from Transdev separately next week to decide if an intervention is possible.
"If the Labour Court wants to talk to us through ICTU next week, why would we escalate the ballot? That meeting could have the potential to be positive, but it's premature to predict," Mr Reidy said.
A spokesperson for Transdev said the company would await official correspondence before commenting further.
Rejected
However she rejected any allegation that the company's move on sick pay was unlawful.
Yesterday was the 12th day that Luas drivers have been on strike.
It emerged that some people are spending up to 30 a day on taxis just to get to and from work. Researcher Lisa Reid said her travel time from Heuston to Mayor Square had doubled.
She often struggles to find a taxi at peak times.
"Every time that there's a strike on, I have to get a taxi in. The buses are so busy so that's not really an option. Everyone else is doing the same thing so it costs 15 when it usually would cost about 10 and it adds up.
"It's an additional financial cost you don't need," she said. As she works on Saturdays as well, she has been hit by almost every strike, and has spent close to 200 on taxis since the industrial action began.
As well as those going to work, holidays have been turned upside down by stoppages.
Guests at the Gibson Hotel in the Point Village have made several complaints to staff about the inconvenience of the strikes.
"With our guests, it's become an issue from a leisure perspective. Guests are coming here for a break, they like to park their cars downstairs or come in from the airport and know they can jump on a Luas to get into the city or to the attractions along the line," said Nicky Logue, general manager at the hotel.
Further strike action has been planned for May 26, May 27, June 2, June 3, June 7, June 8, June 9 and June 10.
A mother has started a fundraiser for a woman who jumped into the River Lee to save her son.
Adriana Watters is hoping to show her gratitude to hero Maria Foley who carried out the incredible rescue near Brian Boru Bridge in Cork City on Friday afternoon.
Caleb Watters (3) was going through the city with his au pair Anna and young sister Lucia when he suddenly ran close to the water's edge and fell in.
Speaking to Independent.ie Ms Watters said she believes Caleb would be dead if it wasnt for Maria.
She said My son cant swim, he dropped five metres. She saved his life. I cant believe how lucky we are.
There must have been 1,000 angels looking over him, that Maria was there to save him.
Ms Watters explained that she and her husband Alan were in work when two plain-clothes garda officers called to tell them there had been an accident.
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They immediately reassured the concerned parents that her son was safe.
Even though they told me everything is fine, So many things were going through my head. I was crying.
It was something you never would think it would happen to you.
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Adriana and Alan were just two minutes from where the incident happened and they quickly arrived on the scene.
They met Maria there and were overwhelmed with how modest she was.
I am so impressed by her. From all the people who were there they told me that from the second it happened she ran and just straight jumped in.
Shes a mother so I guess she had that sixth sense.
Its fantastic that we have people like that around. She is a true hero.
Ms Watters said Caleb spent a night in hospital but is now back in their Cork city home.
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There is not a scratch on him, she laughed. He said mammy I fell in the water and there was a woman in the water with me. He remembers that she was holding him the whole time.
Adriana has now set up an online fund for Maria and she has already raised over 680.
I just decided I needed to do something for her straight away. Its not enough, you cant repay a life but its all I can think of doing.
She continued: Every little penny will go to her. If she doesnt want it, it will go to the emergency services.
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Spanish police investigating the disappearance of Irish teenager Amy Fitzpatrick say she may have left "of her own accord".
Amy disappeared as she walked back from a friend's house to her home which she shared with her mother Audrey Fitzpatrick, brother Dean and stepfather Dave Mahon in the Costa Del Sol on January 1, 2008.
The teenager, who was originally from Coolock in Dublin, was just 15 at the time.
A lead Civil Guard investigator involved in the case since the start, speaking on condition of anonymity because of his sensitive work in a Malaga-based specialist unit probing homicides as well as disappearances including Amy's, said: "The investigation is still open.
"We're not ruling out the possibility it was an involuntary disappearance but we've got nothing at the moment to indicate it was."
The detectives say they have received "wide-ranging testimony" suggesting Amy was not happy living in Spain.
"As police officers, we've got to stick to the facts and not what we think or imagine could have happened because generally we'll be wrong.
"The current indicators we have in this case point to Amy disappearing of her own accord."
They insisted Dean's tragic death and Dave Mahon's subsequent manslaughter conviction had no bearing on their investigation.
Earlier this month, Dave Mahon (45) was found guilty of killing Dean Fitzpatrick on May 26, 2013.
The 23-year-old received a single stab wound to the stomach outside the apartment his mother Audrey shared with Mahon at Burnell Square, Northern Cross in Malahide.
Mahon and Dean's mother Audrey Fitzpatrick were married last year, two years after his death.
Spanish police admitted they had never quizzed gangland assassin Eric 'Lucky' Wilson - linked by Audrey and Dave to Amy's disappearance - but said they had satisfied themselves he was not in Spain under his own name or any of his known aliases when the teenager went missing.
The investigator revealed they had also drawn a blank after checking out supposed sightings of Amy as far afield as Igualada near Barcelona, and a bus station in Zaragoza, northern Spain.
"I hope that one day we'll be able to say what's happened to Amy but at the moment her disappearance remains a mystery."
Minister of State Sean Canney has said that the future of the Western Rail Corridor needs 'vision' and suggested that it could be used by the Orient Express. Stock Image
Minister of State Sean Canney has said that the future of the Western Rail Corridor (WRC) needs "vision" and suggested that it could be used by the Orient Express.
The Galway East TD said he was "not fazed" by a report by transport officials saying there was "no exchequer funding" for reopening rail lines such as the WRC.
Independent Alliance member Mr Canney secured a commitment during government negotiations that the opening of the Athenry to Claremorris section would undergo an independent costing and review.
As well as its tourism potential, he says it would be used by commuters and as an important freight link to the Port of Foynes.
However, briefing papers prepared for his Independent Alliance colleague, Transport Minister Shane Ross, show officials warning that there is no funding for such projects.
The document also states that the first phase of the WRC - from Ennis to Atheny - is underused, quoting figures from 2014 showing just 50,000 passengers, far short of the 200,000 expected to use the service after five years.
The officials say they understand that the route "operates at a considerable loss to Iarnrod Eireann" and that if funds later become available, they must be prioritised to areas with "a clear need".
Funding
Mr Canney last night pointed out that passenger numbers between Ennis and Athenry had increased significantly to 102,000 in 2015 and said this figure should have been included in the transport briefing.
He said he had "no problem" with officials saying any future funding should go to areas that had the most need. But he said many public transport routes nationwide in urban and rural areas were not profitable but that it was important to balance development around the country.
He mentioned the potential for freight services from Mayo to Foynes as well as tourism opportunities, saying: "We have a beautiful train station in Ballyglunin where 'The Quiet Man' film was made."
He pointed out that the famous Orient Express tour company was planning services in Ireland and suggested it could use the WRC.
"Look at Knock Airport, which is taking a million passengers this year. When Monsignor Horan started building that, he would have been told he was daft. But you have to have a bit of vision and see what you can do," Mr Canney added.
A government split over the O'Higgins Report controversy is deepening as another Independent Alliance Minister has failed to express confidence in Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan. Finian McGrath joined his Independent colleague and fellow minister John Halligan in declining to back the Garda chief.
He said that the fallout from the O'Higgins report into garda malpractice was "overshadowing" the work of the gardai and that there are "serious questions to be answered". Ms O'Sullivan "needs to clarify the situation as soon as possible," he added.
The Commissioner is under mounting pressure to clarify the instructions given to her legal team at the O'Higgins investigation.
Mr McGrath's and Mr Halligan's failure to back Ms O'Sullivan puts them at odds with their Fine Gael colleagues in Government who have said that the Commissioner has their support.
Meanwhile, Ms O'Sullivan once again declined last night to offer any further statement on the instructions given to her legal team to question the credibility of the whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe.
A Fine Gael ministerial source said the Government just wanted the storm over the issue "to go away", adding: "The last thing we need is another scandal surrounding justice. We want this to go away. It's a political hot potato."
The Irish Independent last night asked a series of ministers if they had confidence in Ms O'Sullivan and if they wanted to see her make a further statement on the O'Higgins report.
Unlike the Fine Gael ministers who replied, Mr McGrath fell short of expressing confidence, saying: "The facts have not yet been clearly established and it would be premature of me to draw any final conclusion.
"I think there are serious questions to be answered in relation to the O'Higgins report and the Garda Commissioner needs to clarify the situation as soon as possible."
Mr McGrath said that his experience of working with Ms O'Sullivan at the Oireachtas justice committee was "always constructive and positive".
However, he continued: "I believe the ongoing controversy is overshadowing the work of An Garda Siochana, particularly in relation to gangland crime and intimidation in some communities."
He said he had the "utmost confidence" in Sgt McCabe, whose allegations of garda malpractice led to the investigation by Judge Kevin O'Higgins.
The remarks by Mr McGrath follow those of Mr Halligan, who also failed to express confidence in Ms O'Sullivan pending further clarification from her.
Another Independent Alliance TD, Transport Minister Shane Ross, did not respond to the Irish Independent's survey of ministers.
However, Fine Gael's Simon Coveney, Richard Bruton, Leo Varadkar, Michael Creed, Heather Humphreys and Independent Katherine Zappone all released statements insisting that Ms O'Sullivan had the confidence of the Government.
One of the statements, from Mr Bruton, said the Commissioner had "shown real leadership in leading the force" amid "the challenges it must face day in, day out to keep our communities safe".
On the question of Ms O'Sullivan further clarifying her instructions, Mr Bruton's spokesperson said that "there are very real and difficult legal issues involved" in commenting on evidence heard.
Tanaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald is in ongoing contact with Ms O'Sullivan "with a view to seeing if it is feasible to put any more information into the public domain".
Ms Fitzgerald will "fully inform" the Dail of the outcome of those contacts in a debate next week, the statements added.
A spokeswoman for Independent minister Denis Naughten said: "Of course, the Garda Commissioner has the confidence of the Government."
Asked if Ms O'Sullivan would be commenting, a garda spokeswoman referred to a statement from Monday, where Ms O'Sullivan said she accepted the O'Higgins report and "never regarded Sgt McCabe as malicious".
Pope Francis blesses a child as he arrives to lead the weekly audience in St Peters Square in the Vatican. Photo: Reuters
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has revealed his close relationship with Pope Francis, as hopes rise that the Pontiff will visit Ireland as soon as 2018.
The Archbishop of Dublin revealed that the Pope calls him "Martin", although he in turn has to address him as "Pope".
He said that the Pontiff was different to his predecessors, although he had good relationships with both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict.
Pope Francis's strongest characteristic is that he's not "judgmental", stating that the first thing he said in an interview was that he was a sinner.
"If a church leader begins with the idea that 'I'm a sinner', then he won't be arrogant with other sinners," he said.
"He won't feel that I really have all the answers, I'm better than anybody else".
In an interview with the Irish Independent for the Paul Williams podcast, he confirmed he had spoken to the Pope about an Irish visit and that "he has said he will come".
The Archbishop told Paul Williams that he has a good relationship with the Argentinian Pope.
"He has said 'I will come' and he said 'if I don't come, my successor will come'," Dr Martin said.
While the Dublin Archdiocese has dampened expectation of any imminent visit, there is mounting speculation it will come in 2018 at the World Meeting of Families.
The meetings are held every three years and are sponsored by the Vatican's Pontifical Council.
Popes have presided over six of the eight meetings that have been held since its inauguration in 1994.
The most recent meeting took place in Philadelphia in September 2015, which was part of the Pope's visit to the United States.
At the closing of the event, Pope Francis, along with Archbishop Martin, announced that the next host city would be Dublin, prompting initial speculation that a second Papal visit to Ireland would be announced.
However, a spokesperson for the Dublin diocese told RTE that 2017 would be the earliest possibility of an announcement of a Papal visit and that there has been no confirmation to date.
The spokesperson also said there were no decisions on where the Pope would visit, although there is continued speculation that he will pay a visit to Northern Ireland.
A trip to the North was on the initial itinerary of Pope St John Paul II when he came to Ireland in 1979 - but tensions at the time meant it was unsafe for him to do so and he only travelled as far as Louth.
Speaking to Paul Williams, Dr Martin insisted that the current Pope was no pushover and was very clear with his orders.
"The first thing I'd say about him, and quite a few people would be surprised, is he's as tough as nails.
"It's important in the Vatican. If you weren't tough, it's very hard to change any institution," Dr Martin said.
He added: "He calls me Martin, he'll say, Martin do this. I have to call him Pope.
"He has a very clear pattern every day. He knows exactly what he does, he knows his health problems, but he's happy in his job."
The full interview with Dr Martin, in which he also discusses the declining influence of the Catholic Church in 21st Century Ireland, is available to listen to online at independent.ie.
Tesco is preparing to phase out their 22c single-use plastic bags in all of their Irish stores.
The supermarket chain, which has 149 branches across the country, is hoping to become more sustainable by encouraging customers to re-use bags when they shop.
We are in the process of gradually phasing out our 22c bags, a spokesperson for Tesco Ireland told Independent.ie.
The popularity of these bags has been in decline in recent years with many customers opting to re-use bags instead.
The plastic bag levy was introduced by the Department of the Environment in 2002 at the rate of 15c per bag, which was raised to 22c in 2007.
The fee resulted in an immediate decrease of over 90pc in the number of plastic bags in circulation.
Usage fell from an estimated 328 bags per inhabitant per year when the levy was introduced to just 21 bags per capita within a single year.
In 2014, that number dropped even further to an estimated 14 bags per capita.
We made this decision following feedback from customers and requests from local councillors to help reduce environmental pollution, the spokesperson said.
This move will further support less bags to landfill and complete the journey that was started many years ago with the introduction of the bag tax levy.
'Class divide' and 'physical inequality' could contribute strongly to passenger misbehaviour, according to a new report.
Incidents of air rage from passengers are four times more likely if the plane has premium seating rather than just a single economy class cabin.
This is according to new research into disruptive behaviour in the skies that suggests the awareness of inequality on board is comparable to the effects of a nine-and-a-half-hour delay when it comes to angering fliers.
Katy DeCelles, an associate professor of organisational behaviour at the University of Toronto, studied data related to on-board incidents shared by an unnamed major airline and found a strong correlation between class divide and passenger misbehaviour.
The presence of a second class of cabin was known as physical inequality.
DeCelles, along with her co-author, Michael Norton of the Harvard Business School, compared flights that had separate first and economy class with those that did not, as well as planes that boarded from the front so that economy passengers have to walk through what they are missing out on with those that boarded from the back or centre.
She also looked at other possible triggers, including leg room, seat width, delays, flight length and cabin space.
The report, published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the existence of a first class cabin made an incident four times more likely, while loading from the front doubled the odds of air rage over boarding from the middle. This is equivalent to the effect observed from a delay of six hours and was referred to as situational equality.
Bizarrely, the effect was even more pronounced among first class passengers who, when having economy class passengers walk through their section, were 12 times more likely to indulge in air rage.
The report said that first class passengers were more likely to behave in a disruptive manner as being reminded of their superiority prompts negative emotions and triggers entitled behaviour.
DeCelles said that the type of behaviour also differs according to which section of the plane the passenger is sat.
In first class you have passengers getting upset relating to issues of alcohol and anger, said Decelles. In economy, its more common to have people who have emotional outbursts like panic attacks or fear.
It is worth noting that long-haul flights are more likely to have a first class cabin, whereas many short-haul flights will not, so the correlation between the class divide may also be linked to the length of flight as well, with passengers more likely to behave poorly when spending hours in a cabin.
Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
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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.
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What will it take to unite Ireland? Opinions are divided
There are those for whom Northern Ireland is a geographical fragment of the UK holding true to empire on its western flanks, and those for whom partition is a century-old wrong that must be overturned. Somewhere in the middle are the persuadables people willing to accept either unity or union, so long as the justification is logical. One way or another, the unity conversation is in the air.
Although the last few years have brought electoral turbulence for Fianna Fail, the party has been the dominant force in Irish politics for much of the 20th century. This week marks the 90th year since the party emerged from the fracturing of the Sinn Fein movement at the Civil War and was established by Eamon de Valera in 1926 following a further split in the ranks of anti-Treaty Sinn Fein. It contested the election in 1927 and entered government for the first time in 1932.
Political scientists have been studying parties for decades, and they group them according to their origins, operation and policy positions as a mechanism for understanding them. But the Soldiers of Destiny are something of an anomaly - and don't fit neatly into any of the family groups.
From 1932 until 2011, the party won more votes at elections than all of its rivals. It had the largest numbers of seats in the Dail and it enjoyed long, uninterrupted periods in government. The overall vote for Fianna Fail showed signs of decline from the 1970s, but its adaptability kept the party to the fore in Irish politics. This hegemony led to Ireland being categorised as having a dominant party system. Fianna Fail sat at the centre of party politics, and other parties either competed against it or, as the decades passed, coalesced with it.
The strength of Fianna Fail came from its broad-based support. It transcended class and other social divisions and it secured votes across the country.
From an early stage it also built a strong organisational network across the country. Fianna Fail cumainn were established in every constituency and provided a vital base of supporters from which candidates and campaigners readily sprang at elections. Like many other large parties across Europe, Fianna Fail has experienced some decline in its organisational structures. Little is known about the precise demographics of the members of many Irish parties, but from exit polls we know a lot about party voters - and it is clear that Fianna Fail is very strong among older, rural and more conservative voters. We can have some expectation that this profile is replicated among its members.
The party has sought to engage more with its members, and reforms have given members a greater role in selecting candidates and the party leader and in deciding to enter government.
Policy flexibility was an essential component of the party's success. Fianna Fail is a catch-all party, which means it attempts to attract voters with diverse political views. Catch-all parties tend not to adopt fixed ideological positions, they adapt to events and public opinion. Across Europe, catch-all parties have dominated government since 1945. There are strengths and weaknesses to this disposition - and these will resonate among observers of Fianna Fail.
The great strength of being a catch-all party is flexibility - the party can move left or right as its supporters or circumstances demand. This malleability let Fianna Fail form coalitions with the centre-left Labour Party from 1992 to 1994 and then to go into government with the centre-right PDs from 1997. But one of the major challenges facing catch-all parties is that, for many voters, the parties have come to stand for nothing. They are effective at governing, but in challenging times, voters are unsure what their core values are.
Fianna Fail has also enacted populist economic policies. Its long-standing rival, Fine Gael, was defined from an early point as being conservative on fiscal matters while Fianna Fail tended to take a more expansionist view. Major house-building programmes in the 1930s are an important part of that legacy, along with free second-level education in the 1960s, which has been identified as a crucial step in putting Ireland on a trajectory to greater prosperity. Equally though, the abolition of domestic rates and the car tax in the 1970s and more recent carelessness in managing the public finances in the later stages of the Celtic Tiger are seen as acts of economic sabotage - and the party now mediates a path between these various episodes from its past.
Fianna Fail had distinguished political leaders who defined politics in their time - such as de Valera and Sean Lemass - and the party has a notable legacy in relation to Northern Ireland, ensuring a place in history for Albert Reynolds and Bertie Ahern. Its legacy is mixed, though. In common with dominant political parties in other systems, it has been bedevilled by corruption scandals, while senior party figures have exited under a cloud of suspicion.
During its last term in government at the height of the crash, at times it struggled to separate the party from the State and was roundly punished for its economic policy and management mistakes.
After the catastrophic election in 2011, many observers consigned the party to history. But one of the interesting insights from political science research is that parties with deep political roots such as Fianna Fail are rarely 'killed off' in one election. They retain an embedded base of support and a capacity to recover - as the most recent elections demonstrate.
One thing the 2011 election may have done is turned Fianna Fail into just another political party. Its dominance and mystique have most likely been ended permanently but this does not mean it cannot win elections and return to government.
Dr Theresa Reidy is a political scientist at UCC
Unfortunately, Jane O'Faherty hits the nail on the head when she describes people in their 20s as 'generation boring' (Irish Independent, People, May 19). At social events I recently attended, the only ones not chatting, laughing or dancing were mostly younger people. Instead of having a laugh, they spent their time sitting silently and glumly with their faces glued to their phones.
Worse still, if you are stuck at a dinner table with young adults, they've generally lived such sheltered lives, they have little to offer in terms of interesting conversation. How can you when you have spent your formative years staring at a small screen?
The youngsters of 'generation boring' are not helped by the fact that they are less well read and less knowledgeable than previous generations. The lack of joy that young people experience in life was brought home to me at a New Year's Eve party - when the clock struck midnight, older people were up shaking hands, hugging and singing 'Auld Lang Syne', while the gloomy younger people used their phones to video our celebrations.
Mobile communications are destroying young people's social lives. Life is for living, not recording.
John Devlin
Dublin 2
Attack of the anti-smoking Taliban
As a non smoker, I feel competent to comment on the recent attacks on Junior Health Minister Finian McGrath. The new minister has been taught a sharp lesson in what it is to hold a senior role in national politics. He has been attacked and excoriated by commentators and health professionals for his remarks on the lack of smoking areas for the 30pc of the adult population who smoke. Were he to have proposed compulsory euthanasia for the over-70s, the attacks could hardly have been more virulent.
Of course, it is incontrovertible that smoking is bad for you and is likely to shorten your life. For all that, many adults (including health professionals) choose to smoke even having taken the risks on board. If one were to believe the anti-smoking Taliban, non-smokers suffer no disease and are likely to live to be as old as Methuselah. If only that were true!
The reality is that many smokers will live a shorter-than-average life and may suffer more debilitating illness. However, being adults, they are entitled to make that choice and should be facilitated with smoking and recreational areas where they can socialise with others of the same inclination without the danger of catching double pneumonia or being shunned as pariahs.
Dickie Power
Kilmallock, Co Limerick
A poor society without maths
Having sat the Leaving Certificate in 2004, I indulge myself in the fantasy that I am not yet separated from the youth of today by an entire generation. As such, Dr Kevin McCarthy claims that I belong to a generation "wholly unsuited" for mathematics.
As such, I "unknowingly subjecting myself to a lifetime of stress, resentment and unfulfilled potential". Unknowingly indeed! I am employed as a professional mathematician, and derive great satisfaction from teaching and research.
Am I a part of the conspiracy to deprive society of "lateral thinkers who can deconstruct complex cultural challenges"? Perhaps I am indeed a threat to "the inclusive and fair society that we all surely aspire to live in". But can a society which excludes mathematicians be inclusive and fair?
Dr Padraig O Cathain
Address with Editor
People count for very little in EU
The Brexit debate, as historic as it may be for Britain, promises to be a cat amongst the pigeons, as it has opened a can of worms in Europe at large.
The prime argument that has fuelled the British debate is the question of sovereignty and independence of the national parliament. This is arguably true for Britain, as well as for other European countries, with the difference being that Britain is holding a referendum and the other EU countries are not. For the moment, at least.
All this is happening against the backdrop of increasing discontent by an ever larger number of 'European citizens' who are getting ever more disenchanted with what the EU is revealing itself to be. Behind the concept of a united Europe, with its liberalisation of trade and free movement of people, real unity as such is still a utopia, such is the diversity of its member states.
If the EU has perhaps created a platform for avoidance of war among its nations, it has also become a grinding, bureaucratic machine, which in line with the worst kind of sick capitalism and in the name of democracy, has helped widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
It has lost every sense of humanity towards its citizens, ruthlessly dictating rules which seem to be geared to those countries who are financially more comfortable, rather than all the rest of them.
Money, bonds, banks and funds are the gods of the EU Olympus. People count for very little. And if this trend persists, it will probably will be the rock on which the dream of a united Europe will perish.
Concetto La Malfa
Dublin 4
We must reform claims law
Charlie Weston's opinion piece on the inordinately high payouts for claims in this country is spot on.
The role of judges and barristers in this regard must be reviewed in an effort to curb the costs. Reform is needed now to stop bogus claims and disproportionate payouts before the cost of doing business in this country spirals out of control.
Clodagh Myers
Pembroke Street, Dublin
Ireland's trade ties to Poland
I found it fascinating to read in David McWilliams's excellent article (Irish Independent, May 18) that Ireland is America's fourth-largest creditor, and I hope that he is right that some of the investment into the UK may be diverted into Ireland, should Britain leave the EU (I don't believe it will). By the way, while we discuss Ireland as an Atlantic nation, I guess very few people realise that Ireland exports more to Poland than it does to Australia or to Canada (and half of what it exports to China).
Grzegorz Kolodziej
Bray, Co Wicklow
Appeal to UK Irish over Brexit
I have lived for nearly 30 years in the UK but stay in regular contact with home. I also read a copy of each Saturday's Irish Independent courtesy of my mum, who posts it to me. I have read some recent articles about the effects of Brexit on Ireland. Every Irish person here in the UK and many Irish descendants will have a vote in the referendum. Hundreds of thousands of votes by minorities can significantly swing or influence outcomes in elections and referenda.
So why not start to appeal to the Irish community in the UK to remember Ireland through editorials, government messages and considered articles?
This type of communication with Irish people in the UK might just benefit Ireland.
Gerard O'Neill
Berkshire, England
Dundalk-born poet, Conor O'Callaghan, has written his first fiction novel and it's a stunning, haunting, thrilling and unsettling story, set against the Celtic Tiger, with a narrative that will stay with you long after the back cover closes.
O'Callaghan, who currently lives in England and teaches in the English Department of Sheffield Hallam University, is back in Ireland ahead of the launch of 'Nothing on Earth', which takes place in Dublin next week.
In an interview with the Argus, the award-winning poet who was born on the Carrick Road, said the book, which focuses on the events at a ghost estate during an unrelentingly hot summer, has been in the pipeline of his mind for more than five years.
Conor said: 'It's a Gothic novel really, there is an inexplicable element to it. Perhaps it happens as you get older, you believe there are things around you that you can't explain. Initially, I had it in my head to write a ghost story. I didn't want to write a thriller, I didn't want it to be that kind of book'.
What O'Callaghan has achieved in 'Nothing on Earth' is the creation of a real world we can all identify with, but he constantly tugs at the corners of the reality, revealing an unsettling electric current that fizzes around the edges of the story, occasionally exploding into the plot.
One of the beauties of this novel is the writing. As can be expected from a man who is the recipient of the Patrick Kavanagh Award for his first collection of poetry, the Rooney Prize Special Award, and the Times Educational Fellowship, the prose is beautiful, seamlessly weaving reality into a world that always lies just beyond our grasp.
When a 12-year-old girl bangs on the front door of a neighbour's house saying her parents have 'disappeared' the neighbour becomes the narrator and the family's story, about living on an unfinished estate and the unexplained things that happen to them, becomes his story. 'Stick to a story long enough, and the story sticks to you', says O'Callaghan's narrator.
The Dundalk writer took himself off to Tuscan hilltop village on his own for months on end to write the book, which is published by Doubleday Ireland. There are elements of his own life in the book - he lived on an unfinished estate when he was younger and a detective in 'Nothing on Earth' is based on his own grandfather, Detective Sergeant James McCabe.
The result is a remarkable piece of writing, that allows the reader to bring their own life experience to reading it, in an effort to solve a mystery that feels is constantly on the brink of being explained.
'Nothing on Earth' is available in shops from tomorrow (Thursday) and everyone is welcome to attend the launch which takes place on Thursday May 26 at 6pm in the Books Upstairs store, 17 D'Olier Street, Dublin 2.
Anam Cara, the organisation which supports bereaved parents will hold its next group meeting for those living in Louth and along the border on Wednesday next, May 25th.
Anam Cara support groups are situated throughout Ireland and provide parents with a safe, comfortable environment where they have the opportunity to connect with other bereaved parents.
'Anam Cara is an inclusive organisation where parents do not identify themselves by their children's age, how they died, or if their death was recent or many years ago,' said a spokeswoman.
'What Anam Cara provides is a safe place for bereaved parents to connect with others who understand the intensity of the grief and loss.'
Although Anam Cara does not offer counselling, each group has a lending library and information on the other services available to parents and families in the local community.
Anam Cara is holding its monthly 'parent evening' on Wednesday next May 25th from 7.30pm to 9pm in the Armagh City Hotel, 2 Friary Road, Armagh, BT60 4FR.
Anam Cara Services are available free of charge to all bereaved parents, and the monthly meetings are open to all from the Louth area in particular.
For further information please see their website at www.anamcara.ie or alternatively email them at info@anamcara.ie or call 04895213120.
This school year, September 2015 to June 2016, marks the centenary of the De La Salle Boys National School in Philip Street.
One hundred years ago, in 1915, the Brothers of the De La Salle order opened a school to educate the boys of Castletown, Dundalk.
Throughout the school year the pupils, from the various classes, have been studying the history of their school, and learning many fascinating events about the last century in the school.
In addition, the teaching and non-teaching staff, with guidance and support from the Board of Management, have organised a series of events for the present and past pupils, families and friends alike.
The majority of the events will take place next week.
On Tuesday next, May 24th there will be a 'giant birthday party' fun day for the current pupils.
The celebrations will include bouncing castles, party games and a birthday cake with 100 candles for the pupils to blow out.
On Thursday May 26th, there will be an outdoor mass for current pupils and their families.
There will be and a walk down memory lane from 4 to 7pm whereby past pupils and friends can come and visit their old classrooms.
On Friday 27th May a balloon release has been organised where each pupil will release a balloon in celebration of the school's centenary year.
Details will be attached to the balloon in the event that someone finds it, and in the hope they will email the school to let them know where it landed and who found it.
A community mass will be held at 6.30 p.m in St. Nicholas' Church for the community, in commemoration of the school's one hundred years of education.
An appeal has gone out to Louth's 4,000 British-born citizens from the European Movement of Ireland to vote in the upcoming 'Brexit' referendum.
The European Movement confirmed it was 'reaching out' to the thousands of Louth residents who were born in the UK to appeal to them to have their say in the June vote.
'We hope that those living in Louth will check their eligibility and register to vote if they have that option,' said Noelle O Connell, Executive Director of European Movement Ireland.
This reminder is part of European Movement Ireland's #PhoneAFriend campaign, which aims to get both British citizens living in Ireland and Irish people in Britain to register to vote in the UK's EU referendum.
Irish people based in the UK have until June 7th to register.
'It is worth noting that an estimated 230,000 English, Scottish and Welsh people live here in Ireland and that many of them are eligible to vote in the upcoming referendum', added Ms O Connell,
'We are urging the 4,096 British people who live in Louth to take part in this important vote.'
'Everyone will of course accept the final decision of the UK electorate but we hope that all of those who are eligible to vote will do so.'
It's vital that they have their say on the day about a decision which affects so many people now and in the future,' concluded Ms O Connell.
This latest appeal comes in the wake of concerns raised by EU Commissioner Phil Hogan in the last week that Dundalk was in danger of 'becoming the new Calais' if Britain votes to leave Europe.
The former Minister for Environment highlighted concerns about border controls once again appearing between Dundalk and Newry, saying that it 'would not be business as usual on the frontier' if Brexit proceeded.
'The fear is that our border towns would become a backdoor into the UK,' said Commissioner Hogan.
'In that instance what sort of fortress would the Northern Ireland border (with Louth) have to become to close that back door.'
The eviction of travellers from a private site in Dundalk Retail Park last Tuesday
The chief executive of Louth county council says the traveller inter-agency group has a role to play in order to deal with all issues affecting the travelling community.
At the May meeting of the local authority, Joan Martin said she has a good relationship with the travellers' representatives from the time she chaired that group.
She explained the HSE and education boards all sat around the table to deliver on an action plan, following input from travellers on their priorities.
The chief executive added an action plan is close to being implemented.
Her comments came as members discussed the burning issue of the moment, namely traveller accommodation.
Director of service, Joe McGuinness pointed out when an assessment was carried out in May, 2013, only one family in Louth wanted a halting site.
What's more, of the three families in seven caravans moved from a site near KFC in Dundalk last week, none are even housing applicants.
'If people don't come forward to register themselves, I cannot produce halting sites or group housing schemes,' Mr McGuinness added.
Cllr John McGahon wanted to know how do you explain that to people who have been on the housing list for seven or eight years, 'that others can come along and rock up on the side of the road and say they are homeless.'
He believed the issue is politically-motivated.
Cllr Edel Corrigan noted some 'disturbing' comments', and she claimed some members of society don't know that they need to be on a housing list.
'We have families with nowhere to go.'
However, Cllr Liam Reilly, chairman of the travellers' consultative committee, said he has a difficulty with the term 'nowhere to go'.
'Many are ineligible for housing in this county. We need to assess these people and find out where they were assessed in May, 2013; and determine their needs then.'
Cllr Mark Dearey took issue with some of Cllr McGahon's comments, and said there is no political gain in speaking up for travellers.
He said relationships with the travelling community have deteriorated.
Mr McGuinness remarked Louth, and Dundalk town council in particular, has one of the longest histories in the country in providing traveller accommodation.
'Our obligation is to the full travelling community in Louth, not just Woodland Park in Dundalk.'
He said a full costing was carried out over last weekend, in relation to the upgrade of Woodland Park - four permanent and 10 transient bays.
'It's a refurbishment of a site that was refurbished twice before,' the director of service added.
Residents at the Ath Leathan apartments on the Racecourse Road in Dundalk will be allowed to stay in their homes while fire safety works are being carried out.
Earlier this month, Louth County Council's Chief Fire Officer, Eamonn Woulfe, wrote to residents at 72 apartments advising them that remedial works would have to be carried out in order to being the complex up to the requires safety standards. A report carried out by a fire safety firm for the management company at Ath Leathan highlighted serious concerns about the level of fire safety in one of the apartment blocks.
Last week, residents attended an emergency meeting of the management company at the Ballymascanlon Hotel where Oriel Property Management's Alan Grehan presented them with the fire safety report.
Mr Grehan told LMFM last week that a representative from the company who built Ath Leathan in 2005, McGreevy Enterprises, attended and revealed that 'they agreed that mistakes had been made in the development including by the company itself, the design team and subcontractors and categorically stated they would put it right'.
Mr Grehan said he was informed the property developers would present 'a comprehensive plan' about how the problems, which include fire walls and floors that were inadequately fire-stopped and issues with the fire doors and alarms would be rectified. He said the meeting was positive and it was 'an unusual situation where the developer is returning to make good the difficulties'.
Cllr. Conor Keelan, Helen Litton, Great Niece of Thomas Clarke, Cllr. Peter Savage, Cllr. Oliver Tully, Anthony Monaghan, Station Manager and Gerry Adams TD at the re-dedication of Clarke Station to mark the 1916 Centenary. Photo: Ken Finegan
Iarnrod Eireann held a special event at Clarke Station, Dundalk, to remember Thomas Clarke on Saturday morning. The station was renamed after Thomas Clarke in 1966, following a decision of Dr. Todd Andrews, Chairman of CIE at the time.
Anthony Monaghan, Station Manager, Clarke Railway Station welcomed everyone to the event.
He said it was an honour it was for him to be remembering Thomas Clarke at this special event. Historian and author, Helen Litton who is also a grandniece of Thomas Clarke gave everyone a great insight into her strong family connection with both the Clarke and Daly families.
Helen explained the life of Thomas Clarke and also the events that led up to the 1916 Rising.
Cathaoirleach of Louth County Council, Cllr. Peter Savage spoke at the event and complimented the initiative, saying how important it is for us as a country to remember the executed Leaders.
Ms Litton also laid a wreath in memory of Clarke to conclude the event.
A large number of local representatives attend on the day. They were joined by a strong contingent from the local historical society and many other people from the town making this a very enjoyable and memorable event.
Iarnrod Eireann will be hosting similar events at stations right across the country that were renamed in 1966. For more details, go to www.irishrail.ie.
Gerry Adams TD was one of those who attended the station event. He said: 'I want to commend Iarnrod Eireann and the Royal Irish Academy and all of those who organised the special ceremony.
'Thomas Clarke was the first signatory of the Proclamation and a key figure in the planning of the Rising. Clarke spent 15 years in English prisoners in the 1880s enduring the most horrendous treatment. I especially want to thank Helen Litton whose father James O Sullivan took part in the Rising and she is the great niece of Tom Clarke and Edward Daly who were both executed for their parts in the Rising'.
Last Saturday, the day of the Big Lad's First Holy Communion, was a day of firsts - it was the first 'holy' event in our house, the first time the priest, as he declared himself, conducted a First Communion, the first family event the brother in law's new girlfriend had attended with us. And while all these firsts added frissons of excitement to the day, it was not, unfortunately, the first time the Wee Lad decided that he hated not being the centre of attention, nor was it the first time that he decided to embarrass us in public. It will not, I fear, be the last.
If you have ever watched the wonderfully funny Little Britain, you will be familiar with the character of Andy Pipkin, played by Matt Lucas. He's a wheelchair user who is cared for by the hapless Lou Todd (David Walliams) and the perennial joke is that Andy doesn't need to use a wheelchair and just pretends to when Lou's watching.
The other constant in the Andy-Lou sketches is the fact that Lou often goes to great trouble to get his charge something that he seemingly really wants, to take him somewhere that he likes, only for Andy to baulk and says he doesn't want it.
And it's Andy's catchphrases that the Wee Lad employs, unknown to himself that he's emulating one of British comedy's great characters. 'I don't like it'; 'I want that one' and 'Yeah, I know' are often all employed to great effect by the Wee Lad.
Except it wasn't so funny on Saturday when the stress levels were going through the roof ahead of the Communion. Well, mine were anyway. The Husband was getting stressed about me getting stressed, but not getting stressed himself, if you see what I mean. Getting myself ready, which seems to take longer and longer, followed by trying to blow-dry down the Wee Lad's unruly hair, followed by trying to get them to brush their teeth meant that by the time they had to get their clothes on, I was ready for a funeral, (mine) not Communion.
The Big Lad had to wear his school uniform and a blazer. There was no problem there. I had envisaged, the previous night, of the Wee Lad baulking at his outfit, a once-worn black shirt that was once much-admired by him when his big brother had it.
So, the night before, I brought the Wee Lad specially up to his room to ensure that he was aware of the sartorial choice made on his behalf. 'Well', I said, 'there's your outfit for tomorrow. It's nice, isn't it? Will you wear it?' Oh yes, he loved it, the Wee Lad assured me. 'You have to wear it for your brother's Communion', I reminded him. 'Yeah, I know', he said, a-la-Andy.
I was surprised, though looking back I shouldn't have been, the following day to hear the Wee Lad say: 'I don't like it' when I went to put the shirt on. 'I want that one', he says, pointing to a cowboy-style check one hanging alongside.
Here's me: 'You're not getting that. You said you wanted this one. You said it was the height of sophistication and elegant style and you would be delighted to get it on your back'.
But no. The Wee Lad howled and folded his arms, rendering my attempts to get it on him completely useless. He wasn't for budging, until his father came up and told him: 'You have three seconds to get that shirt on. Two'. Reluctantly, and with much pulling and dragging, the Wee Lad finally put it on him. He looked great. I never worked out what would have happened after the three seconds had elapsed.
The Wee Lad may have looked the part, but he didn't act it. He refused to smile in photos, refused to smile hardly at all, and while he behaved himself in the chapel, under the ever-watchful glare, sorry, stare, of my Ma, he hardly covered himself in glory when it came to demanding a non-existent burger in the restaurant. They made one for him, much to everyone's delight. Still, the Big Lad had a great time, even if he has Andy Pipkin for a brother. That's a first.
A Wicklow civil engineering company was fined 30,000 last Thursday for health and safety failures which resulted in an employee being fatally struck by a manhole cover.
Polish father and Enniskerry resident Grzegorz Burczak (31) was working on a manhole when he was fatally impacted by the cover after it was struck by a traffic cone with had been knocked over by a passing car almost four years ago.
RSJ Civil Ltd of South Winds, South Quay, Arklow, had a plea of guilty entered on its behalf at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to failing to provide systems of work ensuring the safety, health and welfare of its employees in relation to carrying out works to manhole covers at Kill Avenue Dun Laoghaire on June 12, 2012.
The investigation found the company had failed to provide advanced warning signs or a safety exclusion zone and had insufficient traffic cones in place around the works.
Sinead McMullen BL, prosecuting, outlined a victim impact statement from Mr Burczak's widow. She said they had been a normal, happy family with dreams and plans prior to the incident and had planned to return to Poland with their now 13-year-old son. She said her son was now scared he would lose her as well.
Ronan Kennedy BL, defending said 'human error' played a large part in the incident and John Kenny, a director of RSJ, had not considered that it was a 'live road' rather than a site. He had provided himself and Mr Burczak with hard hats, high viz jackets as well as putting up the cones.
Counsel said RSJ Civil Ltd had been formed in 2009 when the directors decided to go out on their own after being made redundant. He said it was small and close-knit company which had no previous convictions and had had no further health and safety issues.
Following the tragedy the company completed a full review of health and safety and engaged a consultant to make sure the systems were of the highest standard.
He said he was instructed to convey the company's 'deep and profound regret' for the incident.
Mr Kennedy said they had been simply trying to help out which made it all the more tragic.
He handed in an auditor's report and said the company was well run and took its responsibilities seriously.
Judge Melanie Greally accepted that the accident was 'largely attributable to human error' but noted there was also a lapse in providing the appropriate training.
She also acknowledged that Mr Kenny had exposed himself to the same risk as Mr Burczak as he was working on the same site at the time.
Judge Greally noted from the victim impact report the 'enduring effects' Mr Burczak's widow faced from the loss of her husband and her son's father and said the case represented 'an unavoidable and unnecessary loss of human life'.
The judge accepted that the company had always been responsible about the safety of their employees and had undertaken a substantial number of projects without incident. She also accepted that they co-operated fully with the investigation and had expressed genuine upset and regret about Mr Burczak's death.
Fianna Fail TD for Cork North West Michael Moynihan has hit out at a decision to base an Immediate Care Vehicle, which has been allocated to the Mallow area, to now base it in Cork city.
It follows confirmation from the National Ambulance Service that the service will be deployed from Cork.
Deputy Moynihan said that the Immediate care vehicle is "vitally important" in the rollout of acute hospital services available at Mallow General Hospital.
"Not only does it assist in the transfer of patients between Mallow General and hospitals in Cork city, but it is also used as a back-up for the Mallow area when there is no paramedic ambulance service available."
He said the decision to base this essential life-saving service in Cork city makes absolutely no sense.
"It merely adds on an extra journey for the crew and could cause delays in response times in emergency situations," he said.
"In the last six months the Immediate Care Vehicle has been called on to attend a number of life-threatening incidents including cardiac arrests and road crashes, when an ambulance was unavailable. The fact that the car was in the Mallow area allowed it to respond immediately to these call-outs. If it has to come from Cork, the outcomes for such cases could be seriously threatened.
He is calling on the new Health Minister, Simon Harris to reconsider the decision and to ensure it is returned to the Mallow region.
Boyne Brewhouse in Drogheda, have collaborated with award winning Eastern Seaboard restaurant, to host a special Midsummer's Candlelit Solstice Supper in the unique surrounds of the state-of-the-art brewery.
Located just off the M1 on the outskirts of Drogheda town, guests will enjoy a candlelit solstice soiree in the heart of the Boyne Valley as the sun sets on the longest day of 2016.
Expect long tables, flaming torches, burning braziers, craft brews & select cocktails. Enjoy a 5 course tasting menu inspired by the ancient traditions of solstice in Ireland featuring locally sourced, artisan produce along with foraged delights and organic elements in what is sure to be a memorable food story. Part of the Boyne Valley Food Series 2016, this unique event will highlight & reflect 'place on a plate' a taste of the Boyne Valley & beyond.
Guests will also have an opportunity to learn a little about the art of brewing craft beer and enjoy a whistle-stop tour of the Brewhouse and Boann Distillery.
Currently in production is a considered range of craft beer for both domestic and export markets, with whiskey and gin to follow.
The event is on Tuesday June 21 at 8pm. Tickets 75 from www.eventbrite.ie
A group of young people, 15-17 years, from St Peter's Parish Youth Leadership Programme are taking part in a very special initiative this week called 'Gifts of Hope'.
The project aims to collect essential non-perishable items for babies, such as nappies, toiletries, baby foods, etc and hand them out to those in need in the community.
It got underway last Sunday and already the response has been great.
Collection boxes will be at the back of all masses next Sunday, May 22.
But items can also be left in to the sacristy in St Peter's and also in the Lourdes Church and at the St Mary's parish centre.
Any assistance is very welcome and further details on collections can be had from Deacon John Taaffe on 0868611531.
All items collected by the group will go to various centres, such as the Connect Family Centre in Moneymore, the St Vincent de Paul in Drogheda and also the Women's and Children's Refuge.
The Youth Leadership Programme helps develop a new awareness of community and the world as a whole amongst young people in the town.
Many are involved in TY this year.
I've written before how greyhounds can make excellent house pets. They are gentle, peace-loving, creatures, fitting in well to many Irish homes. They only need a short walk every day, despite their reputations as fast athletes. They're sprinters, not long-distance runners, so compared to energy-filled dogs like Dalmatians and Spaniels, they are couch potatoes. They love people, and some of them can even get on well with cats.
I've known many greyhounds as patients, and I've learned to like them a lot as individual characters. They are sensitive, trusting animals. That's why so I find it particularly upsetting to hear about the latest incident in the saga of Irish greyhounds being exported overseas. The animal welfare charity, Dogs Trust, reported last week that a further 24 greyhounds were on the way to China. The dogs were not going to some unknown Chinese destination which might have the potential to be some short of utopian Shangri-La for dogs. Instead they were going to a place that was more like a form of canine hell.
The plan was for them to go to China's only legal Greyhound track, the Yat Yuen Canidrome in the former Portuguese colony of Macau. This track has a deplorable animal welfare record, with rumours that one dog a day is killed because it does not perform adequately. A 2011 investigation by the South China Morning Post revealed the Canidrome killed 383 under-performing dogs in 2010, instead of making efforts to rehome them. After pressure from animal welfare activists at the time, the government forced the Canidrome to set up an adoption programme instead of euthanising animals, but locals are sceptical about its effectiveness, seeing at as lip service to rules rather than a genuine effort to help the unwanted greyhounds.
The future did not look good for the greyhounds that were heading out to China this month, but there is hope that the Canidrome may not stay in action for much longer. It's struggling to survive financially and almost closed at the end of its lease last October.
The venue opened in 1931, at a time when greyhound racing was a popular part of a vibrant social scene. Right up until the 1980's, the Canidrome had a buzz about it, with excitement and a touch of glamour. Locals now say that times have changed, attendance at races is scanty, and there's more of a gloomy silence than anything else, with hundreds of empty seats and just a scattering of gamblers.
Reports say that it's struggling to make money in a part of China where gambling is almost guaranteed to be a successful enterprise. To put this into context, the money turned over by the Canidrome in the whole of 2014 could have been made by a neighbouring casino in just four hours. The financial challenge for the enterprise is made worse by the fact that animal activists globally continue to campaign against what they view as serious animal welfare abuses. It's difficult to see how the Canidrome will be able to stay open for much longer.
Which takes us to the Irish greyhounds. Ireland produces too many greyhounds for our local industry to use, so if reasonable sums of money are offered from overseas for racing animals, it's tempting for greyhound breeders to export them. This is why leadership is needed from government and industry bodies here in Ireland. We need to have standards for animal welfare, not just for animals located here, but also for animals that start from here and head off somewhere else. We should accept an enduring responsibility for their care, avoiding putting them into situations where we know that it's likely that they'll suffer. It isn't good enough to take the money and run.
If we care about animal welfare enough that we agree to look after them on our own shores, where is the logic that suggests that once we leave this country, it doesn't matter what happens to them?
Three of the major animal welfare groups in Ireland, Dogs Trust, the Irish SPCA and The Irish Blue Cross, have been pushing for improved regulation of the greyhound industry here in Ireland, with better welfare provision for all dogs, before they get to the track, when they are racing and when they are retired. Whatever about in this country, it will be impossible to take achieve anything similar for dogs that go to China. That's why calls are being made to government, asking that steps are taken to prevent the export of these animals.
Back in 2011, Bord na gCon (the Irish Greyhound Board) decided to exclude the export of Irish greyhounds to China from their racing industry development proposal following discussions with the government of the day. Furthermore, a statement was released at the time that any proposal involving Bord na gCon and the racing industry in China would have to give due consideration to animal welfare matters. Five years later, what has changed?
The good news is that the protests by animal welfare groups about the greyhounds headed for China had the desired impact. Their journey was interrupted in transit, and after reaching the UK, they turned back to Ireland. These greyhounds will now be fine, and hopefully, the lesson has now been learned. Enough is enough. Let's send no more greyhounds to China.
I know there was great sadness and shock in many places and homes when the news broke recently of the sudden death of Noeline Gradwell.
Her funeral was to St Mary's church and it was packed out the door.
Noeline was deeply associated with another church, the Dominican, where she was fondly called 'Mrs Brasso'.
She loved cleaning the brass in the church and keeping the place immaculate and I spoke with her in the days after the report that the Dominican was to close. She was part of the fight from that moment on to keep the doors open.
She was always parked outside the church on a Friday morning and had a great, powerful voice, obviously involved with the choir there when needed.
Her assocation with the Dominican stretched back 36 years but she recalled attending services there with her mother in decades gone by.
Her dedication knew no bounds.
Noeline was from Crufty and was involved in many aspects of town life as are her family.
The woman who killed Drogheda pensioner Eva Berrill in an apparent random arson attack in 2014 came from a 'catastrophically dysfunctional' family and a series of bad choices in her adult life, including drink, illegal drugs and bad boyfriends.
Nicola Kavanagh's life started badly, Dundalk Circuit Court heard last week, as she was born into a household where her mother was an alcoholic who left the home a number of years after she was born, leaving her to take care of her siblings, including a one year old.
Kavanagh's father also left the home and she left school in fifth year, without any formal qualifications. She developed a drug and drink problem at an early age. Barrister Rod O'Hanlon said Kavanagh was 'attracted to the wrong sort of boyfriends' and revealed that the father of her only child is serving a life sentence for murder.
At the time she set fire to 94 Chord Road, she was with another man who was 'also known to the Gardai'. She had previously been the victim of domestic violence and has suffered a broken eye socket and bruising at the hands of a man., spending time in a refuge afterwards.
In the days before the arson attack, her then two year old daughter had been taken into the care of the HSE which caused Kavanagh 'a lot of distress'. Her life was, Mr O'Hanlon said, 'completely out of control' and despite being offered some help, she was 'unable to avail of it'.
But since this incident, for which she has offered apologies to the Berrill family, she has 'used her time in custody well' and is working in the kitchen of the women's prison. She is off drink and drugs and now sees a path to being a better person, parent and citizen.
In a letter given to Judge O'Shea ahead of sentencing, Kavanagh said she was 'ashamed of herself' and she felt she had 'no reason to live' after her daughter was taken into care. She said she didn't set out to hurt anyone, except herself and added she is 'extremely remorseful' for what happened.
Kavanagh wrote that she will 'live with the guilt and regret for the rest of her life and hopes that the Berrill family will forgive her in future and that maybe she will be able to forgive herself at some stage in the future.
'In the meantime, she will continue to improve herself'.
A 26 year-old man subjected a woman to what a judge has described as a 'humiliating and degrading ordeal', when he attacked her as she was out jogging.
Jason Corr pleaded guilty to a sexual assault which occurred early in the morning of 20 November, 2014.
The homeless man was fought off by his victim, but they both ended up going over a low wall and into the River Boyne, where the assault took place in shallow water. Corr has been in custody since 8 May, 2015, and Judge Michael O'Shea imposed a two-and-half year sentence from that date.
The defendant is automatically placed on the sex offenders' list, and the judge said he must be supervised by the probation service for two years after his release from prison. Garda Amy O'Sullivan investigated the incident, and told the circuit criminal court in Dundalk that on the morning in question it was foggy as the woman jogged at The Ramparts, Drogheda, adjacent to the river.
She was wearing a hi-vis vest, and was back-tracking, having missed her usual route, when she glanced over her left shoulder and saw a man, running 15 to twenty metres behind her.
She became concerned as he didn't look like a jogger, and wasn't wearing the appropriate gear. The lady decided to turn around, and run past him, saying 'hello' as she went by.
He didn't respond, and when she glanced around again, she saw that she was being followed. The man had his two hands straight out in front of him.
He pointed at her right arm, where she had her ipod and watch, and kept coming towards her.
She asked did he want the ipod and watch and handed them to him, but he shook his head from side-to-side. Gda O'Sullivan continued that the woman grabbed the man with both hands, hoping to push him into the water. She pushed him over a wall. He held onto her, and they both fell into the water.
They were in a kneeling position. Corr grabbed her from behind. He had his hand at the top of her tracksuit bottoms, which he pulled down.
She was screaming and shouting, 'no, no, this isn't happening', as he held her trousers down with one hand only.
The victim feared matters would go further, when, suddenly, the attack stopped. She saw him go over the wall.
She got out of the water, climbed the wall and went in the opposite direction, getting her ipod and watch along the way. The woman gave gardai a description of her assailant, and handed over her clothes.
She had sustained injuries to her knees, left foot, wrist and back. She also had bruising over an eye. Garda O'Sullivan said the victim, a keen runner, hasn't taken that route since. The scene of the attack is a comparatively lonely area.
By chance, she saw Jason Corr on the street subsequently, and it distressed her.
A victim impact statement was read to the court.
The woman, who did not wish to attend court, said that since the attack, every time she sees a man in a hoodie, she crosses the road and balls her hands into fists. It was a relief when Corr admitted the offence, and slowly she began to recover.
'It would have been horrific if it (the assault) had been successful. He was fighting with me, and trying to get my clothes off.' She added she will never go anywhere lonely or quiet again, and always carries a personal alarm.
Judge Smith heard Jason Corr has eight previous convictions, including three for possession of a knife. At the time, he was homeless and living in a hostel in Drogheda.
He had been up most of the night before taking unprescribed tablets.
In one interview with investigators he said, 'We were dragging out of each other. I just fell off my bike and into the water.' He subsequently admitted pulling down her pants.
Defence counsel Aaron Sherear said his client wished to repeat an earlier apology.
Corr had a difficult upbringing, having abused alcohol and cannabis since the age of eleven. He was taken into care at 16, and is in the mild intellectual disability range.
Judge O'Shea said the lady was subjected to an absolutely terrifying and horrendous ordeal. By pleading guilty, the accused had saved her the stress and trauma of having to give evidence.
He handed down a sentence as outlined.
The Little Theatre in Skerries has played host to a home-grown play written by local historian Sean O'Gorman based on the memoirs of a nurse stationed in the GPO during the 1916 Rising.
Nurse Elizabeth O'Farrell was stationed in the GPO during Easter 1916.
In fact if you look very carefully at the iconic photo of Patrick Pearse surrendering to General Lowe, you may just about make out that there is someone standing behind him.
That was Elizabeth O'Farrell, and in some versions of the photo she has been airbrushed out.
Many years later she put pen to paper and wrote down her first-hand memoirs. And it's based on those very memoirs that the wonderful play 'Nurse' play has been based.
Sean succeeded in roping in 17 actors in total from all over Dublin to play the 36 demanding roles in this play, as well as Skerries' Kevin O'Malley as director and Anne Halpin as stage manager. They called themselves Centenary Players.
The play had its world premiere in Skerries Harps in March and then transferred to Rua Red Theatre in Tallaght where it played to packed houses for four performances.
It then returned to the Fingal town last month as part of the Skerries Remembers 1916 for a four-night run.
An App designed to give Fingal County Council customers up to date in relation to issues affecting them has won an award.
The local authority's 'Unfolding News Story' App scooped a prestigious competition held by ESRI Ireland.
The App, available on Google Play and the AppStore, is all about keeping its customers update to date with all of the latest news in relation to water disruptions, road closures, severe weather, floods, planning applications and community events.
This service is accessible to customers on the council website and on mobile devices. It is also presented in the interactive digital Atrium of County Hall in Swords on large multiple touchscreens. At any time, the content is relevant for the current week.
The team in Fingal worked with PinPoint Alerts to create an application using ESRI cloud technology, ArcGIS Online, StoryMaps and AppStudio for ArcGIS.
Paul Reid, Chief Executive, Fingal County Council said: 'This is a tremendous achievement by our Project Management Team and one we are very proud of because it is an excellent example of how we at Fingal County Council are utilising technology for the benefit of the citizens of Fingal.'
David O'Connor, Mayor of Fingal said: 'I would like to congratulate the Project Management Team on behalf of all the Council members on their success.
'It is well deserved because we have seen at first-hand how useful this App is and how it can help the people of Fingal.'
Claire McIntyre of the Project Management Team said: 'This was team effort from myself, Hazel Farley and Brendan Cunningham of Pinpoint Alerts and we are delighted to have won this prestigious competition. The App is one of several we have developed and all have been devised to make things easier for people to interact with Fingal County Council.'
The rare honour of a civic reception at County Hall in Swords has been bestowed by Fingal County Council on a man from Donabate who has risen to the top job in Irish scouting and has spent a lifetime committed to the movement.
Christy McCann from Donabate is Ireland's Chief Scout and was honoured with a civic reception by the Fingal Mayor, Cllr David O'Connor this month.
Still basking in the glow of the warm tributes paid to him and the scouting movement at that reception, Mr McCann sat down with the Fingal Independent to reflect on his career in scouting and talk about the values of the organisation and where it sits in the modern world.
Talking about his recent honour at Fingal County Council, the modest Chief Scout said: 'It was a bit surreal because you don't know what it involves and because everything in scouting is such a team effort - to be singling people out is a bit embarrassing. My role is to be a representative for scouting and while it is a great honour to be Chief Scout and get that mandate, I still kind of think that I'm representing from the bottom up rather than the top down. It was a tremendous honour, no doubt about that.'
Christy was particularly pleased to get the honour from Fingal County Council, an organisation which he believes has been hugely supportive of Fingal scouting.
He explained: 'The connection between scouting, the community and the local county council was a nice fit. One of the things I said in response to the Mayor at the reception is that scouting and the councils have a kind of dual mission and that is about creating better communities.
'While we are approaching it from different angles, the resources and support from the council and the volunteerism of scouting at the other end is all for the greater good.
'So, it's a nice partnership and a nice collaboration to have. We are a 32-county organisation but without our local councils we could be working in isolation.
'We have felt and I've said so publicly, that Fingal County Council has stepped up to the plate many times in support of scouting in providing resources and access to Ardgillan and Newbrige parks and places like that, plus coming to our functions and making it known that we are respected in this community.'
The job of Chief Scout is a voluntary one and Christy has to fit in running an organisation of some 50,000 members in between running his own business.
Explaining the role of Chief Scout, he said: 'It's hard to quantify because everybody brings their own stamp to it but I suppose, officially, I would be the president of the organisation which means I have oversight and responsibility for the business side of scouting which includes employees, the financial, legal and property side of the organisation and then I'm Chief Scout of the volunteers and members, and all this is on a voluntary basis.
'I suppose too, I would be the moral guardian of the organisation and try to lead it in a direction where we are making a positive contribution and try to steer the business, the training and the direction of every group in the country in a way that ensures we are all staying on mission.'
So, what is that mission? Ireland's chief scout said: 'Ultimately, we want to develop good citizens so young people can survive in this world that we are in and they are up-skilled enough, build their confidence enough and are responsible enough to be able to create a better life for themselves.
'In everything we do, we try to make a positive difference. There are many challenges out there both financial, in terms of resources and the time people have available but however little we can do, we try to make sure it makes a difference in a young person's life at some stage in their life.
'It might not be felt today or tomorrow but everyone who joins the scouts will get something from it. They might not realise it until later in life when they realise they got a job because of something they learned in scouting or they met a life partner because they came out of themselves or they went out and explored the world because of the small adventures they had in scouting. You hope to put them on a path to somewhere.
'We have a code of conduct, a long promise that every young person signs up to. This is their opportunity in their own language and for their own age range, to make a commitment to do their best, look after everybody, respect the environment and the community and this code of conduct seems to resonate with young people.
'We find that they wear their uniform with pride and they want to be seen to do the right thing and they look after each other through all their challenges. It's a good movement with good ideals and will do no young person any harm.'
The organisation is strong in Fingal, which is Irish scouting's largest local authority area in terms of the number of groups who are based here. And nationally, the picture is just as strong with Christy saying that there are waiting lists to join most of the scout groups around the country.
So how does the back to basics message manage to drag this tech generation away from their laptops, televisions and mobile phones? The Chief Scout explained: 'There are a lot of forces working against us but we would say to our young people that very few of them will ever remember their first day watching television but they will all remember their first scout activity.
'I think that's the magic of it. If you can pull them away from some of the trappings of modern life and get them outdoors with their friends working in small groups and given tasks to do,
'I think they go home and think that was different, that was unusual and they want more of it. Once they get out there and try it, they realise doing something tough and challenging isn't beyond them and that connects with them.'
In fact, Christy believes that in a way, young people are surrounded by so much technology that learning the old way of doing things is something novel in itself and the old becomes the new to a curious young scout.
He explained: 'When they go camping, they still prefer light the fire and climb the trees and walk around in the dark carrying a torch, so I think a lot of that stuff, while it might be old-fashioned, is still the greater novelty for them and is part of the attraction.'
Christy said that the modern organisation is fighting against the old image of 'helping old ladies across the road and dib-dib-dib' and is now one where scouts roll their sleeves up and get involved in their community in all kinds of ways.
He said: 'What I'm finding more is that they are taking more pride in being identified as a scout. They are doing more than just doing crafts, they are doing things in the community and when crisis hits like there was with the flooding during the year, scout groups got stuck in with their communities and joined rescue teams and gave their halls over for people to use.'
So what would the Chief Scout say to parents considering taking their children to the local scout group? Christy said: 'I believe and of course, this is probably very biased, but I think it develops young people so that they can make a positive contribution to society and it does that in a very fun way. It's an adventure, it's a challenge and it's fun and I would say to parents to give it some consideration and then let their children try it and then decide for themselves. They can go on to our website and find the nearest group to them and then just drop down and talk to the leaders and maybe they themselves might get involved. The young people going through the organisation are the leaders of the future and we have produced some very fine young people who are not behind the door in saying they were in the scouts. The best endorsement for us if when somebody can look back on their life and say that scouts made a positive difference in their lives - I don't think we can do any better than that.'
At Christy's civic reception, the Fingal Mayor said that the Donabate man had risen to be the most senior officer in an organisation that 'has evolved over time and has outlived its traditional image to become a modern organisation creating tomorrow's citizens'.
Mum of three Olivia Kirwan who is living with Multiple Sclerosis with her children Katie, 6, Ryan, 8 and Luke, 6, announce World MS Day May 25th 2016 and the fundraiser '9,000 steps for MS'. Please visit www.ms-society.ie to get involved
A Balbriggan mum who is living with Multiple Sclerosis is encouraging everyone in Fingal to take 9,000 steps in support of people living with MS in our community.
World MS Day 2016 will take place on Wednesday, May 25 and Balbriggan mum, Olivia Kirwan is asking people in Fingal to walk, run, dance or move 9,000 steps for MS (that's 6.5k) and raise funds for vital services.
Mum of three Olivia Kirwan (36) was diagnosed with Relapsing Remitting MS at the age of 29 and is representing the MS community this World MS Day 2016.
MS Ireland, the national organisation providing vital services, information and support to people with MS is encouraging all to get involved through its website www.ms-society.ie and to please text STEPS to 50300 to donate 4.
the specific number of steps were chosen because more than 9,000 people in Ireland are living with Multiple Sclerosis with thousands more affected as family members.
World MS Day events will take place across Ireland on and around Wednesday, May 25.
In Dublin on World MS Day May 25th, MS Ireland will run a 9,000 Steps for MS treadmill challenge at Basecamp Outdoor Store, Middle Abbey St from 8am until 8pm. Lorraine Ho, Bootcamp Ireland will host 9,000 steps bootcamp style at the store at 1pm. Individuals or groups may sign up on www.ms-society.ie or contact Sam, samanthal@ms-society.ie
Funds raised will directly help in services provision locally, in particular, physiotherapy, counselling, the MS Nurse resource and respite at the national MS Care Centre.
Ava Battles, Chief Executive, MS Ireland said: 'When World MS Day comes around each May it's a great opportunity to raise awareness of Multiple Sclerosis and support people with MS locally. We're delighted to launch the fundraising campaign '9,000 Steps for MS' to mark World MS Day. We know that exercise has great benefits, for people with MS it helps manage symptoms and of course exercise helps all of us.'
Dublin Airport has been shortlisted for Airport Council International (ACI) Europe's prestigious 'Best Airport Award', in the airports with over 25 million passengers per annum category.
The acknowledgement comes after a record breaking year for Dublin Airport, with over 25 million passengers and the No.1 in Europe for passenger service achievement.
Other airports shortlisted in the category include Heathrow Airport, Frankfurt Airport, Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas Airport and Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.
The ACI awards recognise excellence and achievement across a whole range of disciplines including retail, security, operations, facilities, community relations, environmental awareness and customer service.
Dublin Airport Managing Director, Vincent Harrison said "I am immensely proud to see Dublin Airport shortlisted for such an esteemed award. It is a testament to hard work, dedication and commitment of the airport's employees.
"We constantly strive to improve the passenger experience; and to make Dublin Airport one of the best airports in the world," he added
The winners will be announced next month at the ACI General Assembly, in Athens.
Dublin Airport has welcomed 5.5 million passengers in the first three months of the year, a 17% increase over the same quarter last year or an extra 817,000 passengers so far this year.
Dublin Airport has direct flights to over 180 destinations in 40 countries on four continents.
A man who killed a young mother and seriously injured her 15 week old child when he hit them with his car while in 'a micro-sleep' has been jailed for two years.
Gardai believe Anthony Handley (64) drifted off momentarily before his off-road jeep veered from the road and hit the two victims near Balbriggan. He had no alcohol or drugs in his system.
Judge Patrick McCartan refused a defence plea for a suspended sentence. He said Handley was a good man with a blameless record but that he should have been alert to the fact that he was becoming tired behind the wheel.
He said he was imposing the two year sentence 'to send out the clear message to the community that fatigue must be a phenomenon in the minds of all drivers'. He also banned Handley from driving for ten years.
The judge said the offence was 'in no way in the same bracket as someone who had taken alcohol and drugs' but that Handley's tiredness was an aggravating factor.
He said society was only now starting to realise the dangers of driving while tired and noted the recent Road Safety campaign to that effect.
'I want to extend my deepest sympathies and condolences to Ciaran Dunne (the deceased's husband) and his extended family,' Judge McCartan said. 'It is a monumental the loss suffered by his and her family. Nothing that this court can do today will even begin to address or put right this enormous tragedy.'
Handley of Whitethorn Grove, Artane, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to dangerous driving causing the death of Olivia Dunne and serious bodily harm to Eabha Dunne in Balbriggan on January 17, 2014.
Olivia Dunne (31) was killed instantly by the impact. Eabha Dunne was thrown from her pram and landed underneath the jeep in her cot. The pram was completely destroyed.
She had multiple broken bones and would have died if she did not receive medical attention, the court heard. She was in a coma afterwards and continues to suffer the effects of her injuries.
A victim impact report was read into court on behalf of Ms Dunne's family which described them as 'living with a nightmare'. Ms Dunne's husband of 18 months, Ciaran, said he was only alive today because Eabha survived. 'If there had been two coffins that day it is guaranteed there would have been three,' the statement read.
Ms Dunne's sister, Caroline Clinton, said Eabha had to be resuscitated by doctors and now walks with a limp. She has had several operations and will require further surgery on her leg.
'She was expected not to survive, she beat the odds, she's our little miracle,' Ms Clinton wrote.
She said Ciaran could not come to court because he never wanted to see the man who took away his wife.'
The anger and pain will always remain,' Ms Clinton said. 'We will never come to terms with or forgive the devastating offence of Friday the 17th of January.'
Sergeant Brian Kavanagh told Dominic McGinn SC, prosecuting, that Handley said he got four hour's sleep the night before which was not unusual for him. He had taken some anti-inflammatories for his arthritis but appeared alert and orientated after the crash, the garda said.
A motorist who was behind him said he saw Handley's jeep take off to the right 'like a rocket' with no warning. He did not see any brake lights.
The jeep went into the ongoing traffic where another driver had to swerve to avoid it. It then hit the mother and daughter who were on the footpath before crashing into a fence.
Parents and children were coming out of a near-by creche at the time. One man found Eabha in her cot under the jeep. He moved her away when he noticed smoke coming from the vehicle.
Handley was dazed and in shock but uninjured. A witness said he asked one of them 'how was the chap I hit'. He later said all he remembered was travelling along 'then a flash and bang and then the fence'.
Investigators found no brake marks from the jeep at the scene. They concluded that Handley hadn't been distracted and didn't suffer from a medical condition which could have led to the crash. They said he must have entered a short sleep state before the crash. Handley accepted this was possible.
He wrote a letter of remorse shortly afterwards but the family did not want to receive it. He said he wished it was him who was killed that day instead of Ms Dunne.
Handley initially took a trial date while awaiting medical reports. He entered a guilty plea on the morning of his trial. Judge McCartan said this late plea meant the vicims' family had to come to court many times before they knew there would be no trial
Work has begun in earnest on the creation of a Swords Cultural Quarter with a completely revamped Swords Castle at its heart as the council revealed last Thursday that many important phases of the project will be completed within three years.
The building works needed for Swords Castle to become a major tourist attraction for the Fingal capital as well as the creation of a civic plaza between the castle and County Hall and the creation of a new ancillary building for castle activities following the demolition of the hated derelict buildings shielding the castle on North Street, are all now slated to be realised over the next three years.
Only the creation of a Civic and Cultural Centre on the same street lies outside this three-year window but the council is already sizing up a possible site for that building, where the current council car park off North Street now sits.
This was a day in the council chamber that local councillors as well as the citizens of the County Capital could have been forgiven for doubting they would ever see.
When the ambitious plans to create a Swords Cultural Quarter around Swords Castle were unveiled some time ago, the people of Swords could have been forgiven for being sceptical because they had seen plans come and go for the long-neglected area but now real funds are committed and real work has started on the ground.
The one with the happy task of revealing all of this good news was the county architect, Fionnuala May who updated local councillors on the Swords Area Committee on the progress of the council's masterplan for the Swords Cultural Quarter.
Ms May said that arising out of the 'seminal' Conservation Plan for Swords Castle and the subsequent Masterplan for the Swords Cultural Quarter, the council had put Swords Castle 'at the centre of the future development of Swords'.
The masterplan had given the council 'a road map' for the future of the town, she said and presented 'aspirational and visionary images showing what might be possible for the future of Swords'.
But Ms May said that now, 'real projects' were emerging on site. Thee had been improvements to the public spaces around the castle and the castle had opened to the public again and taken centre stage at a number of important cultural and community events.
Now some of the hard building work on this ambitious plan can begin and work has already started on the first project which is to carry out sensitive construction works on the castle itself that will increase its use as a tourist attraction.
When those works are complete, even the castle walls will be open once again for the public to walk on and take in views of the surrounding town that have been hidden for a very long time.
A contractor is on site and that work is underway and the council has committed to keeping the castle open to the public throughout the process.
The second project which is quickly advancing is the demolition of long-abandoned derelict buildings, next to the castle on North Street. They will come down in the next few weeks and be replaced with a brand new building that will take up the entire footprint of the demolished buildings.
That new building will compliment everything that goes on in the council and will include in it ticketing facilities, a green room for artists performing at the castle, public toilets and storage facilities and a new office for the Swords Historical Society and Fingal Genealogy Service.
Next on this three-year programme of works is to crate a civic plaza or forecourt in front of the castle, that will link it with County Hall across the road and provide a public space that can be shared by traffic and pedestrians and provide a new focal point for the town.
The final project in the creation of the Cultural Quarter has no specific timeline for delivery as yet. It is the proposed Civic and Cultural Centre providing a performance and exhibition space for the town and possibly, a library.
At the centrepiece of the town's commemoration of the events of 1916, Balbriggan has unveiled a commemorative plaque to one of its most famous daughters who grew up to marry Eamon De Valera.
Cllr Grainne Maguire (NP), speaking on behalf of the Balbriggan Liaison Commemorative Committee said the committee was 'delighted to welcome members of the De Valera, Ni Fhlannagain and White Family to Balbriggan to celebrate this occasion in remembering and commemorating the life of Sinead Ni Fhlannagain De Valera.
'The committee would also like to express its thanks to Fr Eugene, the 34th Balbriggan Scouts, the 89th Bremore Scouts and Girl Guides and Brigins.'
She said: 'It was a great day to celebrate our heritage and the participation of St Patrick's Brass and Reed band and the Old Fingal IRA Commemorative committee certainly added to the success of the event. We would also like to recognise the great work done by Patrick Hickey of Mc Nally Monumental for the work and design of the plaque. It was certainly a day to celebrate in Balbriggan and a commemorative wreath was also placed on the bridge to remember Gibbons and Lawless.'
Leading up to the event, Balbriggan Historical Society had delivered a talk on the life of Sinead Ni Fhlannagain. Micheal MacMathuna. Micheal has done comprehensive research on her life, her devotion to the Irish Language, and her writings but in this talk he concentrated on what her life was like when her husband was fighting or when he was in jail or in America.
A busy weekend of events in the town had at its core, the 1916 Commemorative Mass, Procession and unveiling of the plaque to Sinead Ni Fhlannagain deValera in Quay Street on Sunday.
Committee members of the Historical Society Jim Walsh, Anne Collins, Bernie Kelly and May McKeon were delighted to be part of the Balbriggan Liaison Commemorative Committee along with Cllrs Malachy Quinn and Grainne Maguire, who were involved with planning this and other events during the week.
The society would also like to thank Micheal MacMathuna for his assistance with the wording of the Plaque and Patrick Hickey for it's design. Cllr Grainne Maguire read the Proclamation, and speakers included Mayor of Fingal Cllr David O'Connor, Micheal MacMahuna, and Eamon O Cuiv TD, grandson of Sinead. The Plaque was unveiled by Nora Ni Chuiv, Sinead's granddaughter.
Upgrading the Rush sewerage system and ending the flow of untreated sewage off the shore of the coastal town remains a priority for Irish Water and for Fingal County Council, a senior council official has said.
Director of Water Services in the council, Gilbert Power moved to reassure councillors concerned that the uncertainty over the future of Irish Water might delay the long-awaited and important project.
The councillor who expressed that particular concern was Cllr Duncan Smith (Lab) who asked what impact the 'uncertainty' over Irish Water's future might have on important water projects in Fingal, including that high priority project in Rush.
Mr Power said the project 'remains a priority' for both the council and Irish Water and if that changes, the councillors would be the first to know. But, he added that in his opinion, that situation will not change.
On the current status of the project, which is undergoing a process of land acquisition at the moment, Cllr Brian Dennehy asked when that process might be complete.
Mr Power said that was a question for Irish Water who is currently negotiating with landowners about ceding land for the project and in some cases, pursing the Compulsory Purchase Order route to acquire that land.
The council official said that once the Compulsory Purchase Orders are put in place, that process can go along side by side with the project and shouldn't 'hold up the works' on the badly-needed upgrade.
Cllr Barry Martin (Ind) once again emphasised the importance of the project and said that while he welcomed the progress made so far, he wanted to see it delivered.
He said that Rush had to be connected to the Portrane wastewater plant and Loughshinny needed to be connected to the plant at Barnageeragh.
A proposal for NAMA to sell off a huge portfolio of loans to so-called 'vulture funds' should be suspended to allow an investigation into how many properties that those loans are attached to, could instead be used for social housing.
That was the view expressed by a strong majority of councillors when a motion to that effect put forward by Cllr Paul Donnelly (SF) was passed by councillors by a margin of 30 votes to four, with three abstentions.
Cllr Donnelly's motion stated: 'This Council calls on the caretaker government to immediately suspend the sale by NAMA of up to 5bn of residential properties to vultures until a full review is made to ascertain how many could be utilised for social and affordable housing.'
Cllr Donnelly said he found it 'absolutely incredible that this is even being contemplated in the context of the housing crisis'.
He added: 'On the one hand we have everyone acknowledging we have a massive shortage of social housing and on the other hand we have a State-owned and controlled organisation called Nama, proposing to sell off thousands of housing units.'
He said that so-called 'vulture funds' were 'ruthless in the pursuit of profit' and that the to them, homes are 'just numbers on an Excel sheet'.
Cllr Tania Doyle (AAA) said that NAMA was failing to honour its own mission statement and act in the best interests of society. She said the organisation was a 'failed entity'.
Cllr Darragh Butler (FF) said the organisation had become 'obsessed with money and a figure on a balance sheet' but was 'missing the point'. He said: 'There has to be some social dividend in this for members of the public.'
He suggested that dividend might involve making land available to local authorities for social housing or community facilities and said a value should be attached to measures like that so that could be reflected in the NAMA's balance sheet.
But Cllr Keith Redmond said NAMA's job was to 'get back the money that the taxpayer was forced to pay to bail out banks and developers' and it was doing that and denying it the opportunity to get 5 billion would have a cost. Cllr Kieran Dennison said the motion was misleading and that the majority of the 5 billion in loans referred to commercial properties and not housing.
A Swords woman has been sent forward to Dublin Circuit Court to face trial on more than 30 charges of harassing another woman for three months.
Ashling McCann (33) is alleged to have ordered taxis to collect the woman and ordered food online and had it delivered to the woman's home when the woman allegedly never placed orders, Swords District Court heard.
McCann, Oaklands Park in Swords is also alleged to have made anonymous silent phone calls from a blocked number to the victim's phone.
She is charged with 31 charges of harassment on dates between September and November last year.
The 33-year-old has been sent forward to the Dublin Circuit Court to face trial on May 27th after a judge refused jurisdiction to hear the case at District Court level having heard an outline of the evidence.
The Book of Evidence was served on the accused who has been returned for trial to the current sitting of Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Judge Dermot Dempsey gave McCann the alibi caution warning her she has 14 days to provide to the State details of anyone she proposes calling as witnesses in her defence.
He granted McCann free legal aid and as part of her bail conditions, she has been ordered to have no contact, either directly or indirectly, with the alleged injured party.
The tiered planters on Gorey's Main Street will be rejuvenated in the coming weeks once the risk of frost is gone.
District Manager Amanda Byrne said that last year's herbaceous planting scheme garnered very positive feedback from Tidy Towns judges, but met with 'somewhat mixed opinions' from business owners and visitors. 'Some people really loved the vibrant mix of colours shapes and textures whilst others hankered for something more manicured,' she said. 'To take account of differing opinions, this year a more traditional scheme will be used.'
The very final moments of Wexford Sinfonia's May Day performance of 'Heroes of The Helen Blake' in the National Concert Hall - both in its great musical achievement and emotional execution - went 'beyond words'.
Composer and Conductor Liam Bates, pictured, maintained a long pause of absolute silence at the end of the final movement, and then the audience rose to a standing ovation.
Lots of tears and full hearts among the audience in the final two movements, especially as the names and memories of the lost Fethard rescuers appeared on screen.
The Norwegian ambassador, Roald Naess, attended the performance and was so impressed that he has suggested that Liam Bates bring 'Heroes', along with the newly-formed National Choir of Men, to perform in Oslo.
Art lovers will delight in the news that IT Tralee will once again showcase the incredible creative talents of its students at a special exhibition being hosted by students of the MA in Creative Media.
The talented class will host a reception and preview of the Aspect 2016 Post Graduate Exhibition in the Siamsa Tire Theatre on Thursday, May 19.
The event will display the work of the IT students from all over Ireland until next Monday, May 23.
The exhibition will be open from 10am until 6pm with students and staff available to discuss all things media and explain the projects on display.
This year's creative cohort have generated a range of complex and enlightening media productions including games, books and films and will give an insight into the worlds of the current Creative Media Masters students.
For more information on the exhibition visit www.siamsatire.com.
Eight Kerry secondary school students are gearing up for what promises to be a memorable trip to the seat of the European Parliament in Strassbourg this weekend at the invitation of Kerry MEP, Sean Kelly.
The students from Tralee, Castleisland and Cahersiveen are members of Kerry Comhairle na nOg - an organisation that aims to give children and young people the opportunity to be involved in the development of local services and policies and supported by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.
This year, the Kerry Comhairle na nOg was invited by Sean Kelly MEP to attend the European Youth Event (EYE) which will take place in the Strasbourg from 20-21 May 2016. It is a unique opportunity for thousands of young Europeans to make their voices heard.
During the event, they will exchange ideas and perspectives on youth-related issues, develop innovative solutions to crucial questions for the future and meet with European decision-makers and speakers with a wide range of professional experience.
At the same time the EYE will provide an opportunity to experience the rich cultural diversity within the European Union through the staging of various artistic performances and spectacles.
As follow-up, a report with the ideas discussed during the event will be made available to all Members of the European Parliament, while former EYE participants will have the opportunity to present the most concrete ideas produced by young people to a number of parliamentary committees and receive feedbacks from Members.
Those travelling this weekend are Barry Sugrue and Eoghan O'Donnell (Gaelcholaiste Chiarrai); Eimear Horgan (Presentation Castleisland); Collette O'Shea (Colaiste na Sceilge) and Mercy Mounthawk students Atlanta Kennedy, Erin Fitzgibbon, Aisha Lawal and Sinead Leen.
Traders, residents and taxi drivers have come together in a bid to fight off Kerry County Council's plan to radically overhaul the town's traffic system.
The council's plan - which includes restoring two way traffic on Denny St at the cost of 66 parking spaces - has met with widespread opposition from business owners throughout the town centre.
On Monday evening a group of 60 town centre traders - many who have expressed frustration with Tralee Chamber Alliance's position on the plan - gathered at The Grand Hotel to formalise a strategy to stop the planned changes.
The key issues for the traders are the loss of parking spaces, the timing of the works in the summer months and potential public order issues on the new Denny Street taxi ranks.
The 'Save Tralee' traders' group - led by shop-owner Heather O'Sullivan and hotelier Dick Boyle - have taken legal advice on the options open to them.
They will now seek to convince three quarters of Kerry County Council's 33 councillors to vote for a Material Contravention to block the changes.
If they don't win the backing of enough councillors and TDs a protest campaign will be launched.
Potential protest actions mooted by traders include a symbolic shut down of most Tralee businesses and a blockade of the council's staff car park.
Save Tralee members have stressed that any protests will be legal and responsible.
A second Save Tralee public meeting -to which all local politicians will be invited - will take place at The Grand Hotel next Monday evening at 6.15pm.
Kerry County Council insist they are moving forward with the plan which they say is aimed at rejuvenating the town centre and making it safer for all.
KCC have added they will take steps to limit any disruption during work.
The friends and family of a Ballyheigue man who lost his life in a motor bike accident at the weekend have said he always made the most of life and was blessed to have more life experiences than anyone his age.
Aiden Kennelly was killed when his motorcycle struck the footpath and a roadside pillar in his village at approximately 6.45pm on Sunday evening.
As the close-knit village tries to come to terms with the death of the popular, bubbly young man, his close friends and family are this week remembering a great personality, a loving family man and an extremely hard worker whose loss will be deeply felt.
Fondly recalling how almost every conversation with Aiden began with the words 'I swear to God I was minding my own business,' his heartbroken friends insisted that he made the best of his short life.
"Although he only lived for 35 years, he lived every day as if it was his last, with life experiences most wouldn't have in a lifetime," they told The Kerryman this week.
They described him as 'a man of high fashion who seemed to get younger as they got older' but said one of his most endearing qualities was the love he had for his family, not least his mother, Norrie. "No matter where in the world he was, he always found time to ring his mom, who he idolised," they said
Aiden's passion for life was only matched by his passion for work, they said, describing how having started with TLI 14 years ago he quickly worked his way up to crew leader on transmission power lines. It was a job he loved and one that saw him spend three months in Canada, from which he had just recently returned.
Aiden is survived by his loving parents Michael and Norrie, his sister Irene and brother Declan, aunts Mary and Vera, uncles Sonny and Eugene, nephew Connor and his many friends.
Aiden's remains will repose at Hartnett's Funeral Home, Ballyheigue on this Wednesday evening, May 18, from 5-8pm. Requiem Mass will take place on Thursday at 12 noon in St Marys Church Ballyheigue with burial afterwards in St Marys Cemetery, Ballyheigue.
Meanwhile, investigating Gardai are appealing for witnesses to contact them at Tralee Garda Station on 066 7102300 or the Confidential Line on 1800 666111.
A new MRI scanner at University Hospital Kerry is due to be fully functional in the next couple of weeks.
It was thought that staffing issues had delayed the commissioning of the new scanner, but responding to a query from Deputy Brendan Griffin, hospital management said the delay had been caused by 'the planning process and the logistical arrangements around the housing of the MRI Unit' and not staffing shortages.
These are now in place and the unit will be commissioned over the next couple of weeks.
A "moment of madness" on the foothills of Carrauntoohil saw a farmer take an already loaded double-barrel shotgun from an open shed discharging it at his daughter's then partner, injuring him.
Whiskey had been produced during a New Year's Eve party, and "old wounds" were re-opened in an act that was out of character for Martin Clifford, a married father of three, the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee was told last Wednesday at the sentencing of 51-year-old Martin Clifford of Glencuttane, Kilgobnet, Beaufort.
Judge John Hannan slammed the "loose control" of the licensed weapon as "outrageous" and said he wanted to send "a strong message" to farmers and others "privileged" to have access to guns.
Mr Clifford had pleaded guilty to one count of Endangerment under the Non Fatal Offences Against the Person Act, and one count of reckless discharge of a firearm at Glencuttane, on January 1, 2014.
John Foley (now aged 33), of Boheshill, Glencar, had to spend three days in hospital having gunshot pellets removed from his right side, the court was told.
However, Mr Foley regarded what happened as "a moment of madness", linked to intoxication, he still saluted Mr Clifford, bore him "no animosity", and did not want him jailed, he said in a victim impact statement read by Sgt Leo Randles.
"There was drink involved and it was a moment of madness... there was no lasting damage," Mr Foley said.
It was New Year's Eve and Mr Clifford had earlier gone to Killorglin and had two pints. Later whiskey was produced at a party, Sgt Leo Randles agreed with Tom Rice, prosecuting.
The relationship between Mr Foley and Nicola Clifford, had been "volatile and tumultuous" and the Clifford family were concerned about their daughter, Sgt Randles also said.
"Old wounds were opened up due to intoxication," Sgt Randles replied to Brian McInerney, defence counsel.
Mr Clifford went out to the shed and took the already loaded double barrel shot gun and discharged one barrel from 15 yards away at Mr Foley who was also in the small yard .
Farmers "not uncommonly" kept a shotgun loaded so that they could get at it quickly, particularly at night, defence counsel Brian McInerney said - after Judge Hannan intervened to ask if it would be normal for farmers in Kerry to have weapons with cartridges in the breech sitting in the shed.
The judge said he viewed such "loose control" and contravention of the basic rules for handling a weapon as "outrageous".
Mr Clifford had never come to Garda attention previously and was a respected figure in his local community, the court heard also. Judge John Hannan accepted the incident was out of character for Mr Clifford. But the fact that he a licensed gun holder, had kept his gun in an open area, ready for use, was reckless.
Ireland's strict control of guns was something we should all be proud of, the judge said. The farming community were "privileged" in terms of having access to weapons and they must take their responsibilities very seriously, he said.
"Mr McInerney says it is common practice to for farmers to have a gun loaded. That does not make it right," Judge Hannan continued. There was a raft of legislation governing licensing, sale and storage of weapons, he added.
If a weapon were locked away it gave pause for thought - otherwise it was too easy for children; people with suicidal ideation; persons with excess alcohol and where tempers flared , to access a weapon.
The message had to go out that it was unacceptable for any person legitimately in possession of a weapon to "flaunt" the laws, the judge said.
He convicted Mr Clifford on both counts, sentencing him to two years on each and suspending the sentence for three years, binding him to the peace.. He also fined Mr Clifford 8,000.
After the court, Padraig O'Connell solicitor for Mr Clifford said his client truly regretted the incident which was indeed "a moment of madness".
If even half the contents of the vaunted programme for government unveiled by Enda Kenny last week actually come to pass, the people of Ireland will soon be living in a utopia.
Fine Gael and their new Independent partners expect voters to believe that in a few short years Ireland will have almost full employment and we'll see an end to homelessness.
We are also promised a fully functioning health service, an end to crime and a glorious return to idyllic rural Irish life.
Can we expect much of this to actually come to pass? Probably not if events in Leinster House last week were anything to go by.
The Programme for Partnership Government sets out an ambition for a new type of politics and a new way of doing business in the Oireachtas. Sadly, it seems, the old ways of doing business are still, very much, to the fore.
In a development that will have taken even the most cynical observers of Irish politics by surprise, it took less than 12 hours for the first row to erupt over the programme for government.
The first government climb down was even quicker.
This dispute didn't centre on one of the programme's big ticket items - like water charges or the highly ambitious aim to get some sort of a handle on the homelessness crisis within 100 days - rather it focused on the seemingly innocuous proposal to link child benefit payments to school attendance.
This idea - one which many education experts said was a positive move that would help children avail of a good schooling and escape the poverty trap - was suggested many times in recent years by Independent TD and newly installed Minister for Communications Denis Naughten.
One presumes that it was included in the programme for government directly at his urging. The assumption that it wasn't a Fine Gael policy is given weight by just how quickly Enda Kenny's party moved to abandon it.
Within hours of the programme's publication, Fianna Fail, seen by many voters as Fine Gael's coalition partners in all but name, rushed to oppose it. Willie O'Dea warned Fianna Fail would vote down the proposal and various children's charities called for the government to give a clear undertaking that child benefits would never be linked to school attendance.
Fine Gael immediately caved in.
Paschal Donohoe - who as Public Expenditure Minister is responsible for defending the public coffers from abuse - was the first to bolt for the door, followed soon after by several other senior Fine Gael ministers.
It is a truly farcical situation that the programme for government, one expressly aimed at fostering the, so called, 'New Politics', can't survive 12 hours without a major U-turn.
If a relatively minor proposal - one designed to save money, combat fraud and improve children's lives all at less cost to the taxpayer - can't last half a day, what hope is there that real progress can be made on health, housing, crime, jobs and water.
Minister Naughten must also be wondering how many more of the pledges he negotiated will be abandoned by the Taoiseach and his party comrades at the first sign of political trouble.
A RED C poll on Friday said almost half of voters think the government will collapse in less than a year. Given last week's shambolic it's difficult to argue with them and that's hardly a recipe for a stable government.
A Piercestown man is waiting to hear from a genealogist about the possible return to the family of a World War One medal awarded to Taghmon man James (Jimmy) Murphy.
The medal was found in Germany in the 1960s and the person restoring it has contacted the Irish Genealogy website in a bid to trace the descendant of Taghmon couple Fanny and Thomas Murphy, believed to the mother and father of the James Murphy awarded the medal.
Liam Byrne, from Piercestown, says he is a great nephew of Fanny and Thomas and recalls Jimmy 'disappearing' from Taghmon and then coming back to the village in 1955, the last time he visited the county. 'He had a brother Ned,' said 66-year-old Liam, adding that there could be a hundred descendants of Fanny and Thomas, who owned a quarry and a house in Taghmon.
'My grandmother (Elizabeth Furlong) was Jimmy's sister.. she always used to ask us children to pray for him,' said Liam, 'when he was here we never talked about the war,' he said.
A group of Labour supporters gathered on Mary Street in New Ross on Thursday to commemorate his execution 100 years to the day.
Labour party member Ingrid O'Brien said: 'We are gathered here this evening to remember our comrade and founder of the Labour Party, James Connolly, on the 100th anniversary of his execution in Kilmainham Jail. While we mourn his passing and the method of his passing, we must not forget the greatness of his legacy to us.'
She said Connolly was more than a man who fought hard for the trade union movement in Ireland. 'He was more than a Republican hero who gave his life for his Socialist beliefs. He was a visionary and an educationalist who wrote many works so that we can still read and study his words and their relevance to us today.'
She quoted the Wexford People, from Saturday, February 10, 1912, recalling a speech he made two days previously. Connolly visited New Ross in 1912 to encourage workers to join the Irish Transport and General Workers Union and Labour supporters have already celebrated this event by the plaque over this building.
'It would be a fitting tribute to Connolly if each and every one of us was to pledge to get our fellow workers to join their Trade Union, his Labour Party and to study the cause for which he gave his life, Socialism.'
After the speech Michael Fottrell played The Last Post and Ms O'Brien laid flowers at the plaque to Connolly.
The TY1 class in Our Lady of Lourdes secondary school in New Ross are celebrating having won a national award for their 'Unconscious' project highlighting the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning in the Citywest Hotel, Dublin.
The students won in the 'Making Our World Safer' category in the Young Social Innovators competition. Out of the numerous finalists, they were among only three nominated for a new award of 'Best Use of Social Media'.
The pupils had two minutes to present what their project entailed. Aoife Honan and Louise Becker described the campaign and highlighted how they set about raising awareness of carbon monoxide, while the rest of the class used props to illustrate their project, some aspects of which were light-hearted. Amy Hogan and Megan Kinsella faced the challenging questions from the judges, performing brilliantly.
The TY1 class were lobbying and were in contact with the Law Reform Commission to make changes to the law. They hope to make it compulsory to have a carbon monoxide alarm in older buildings as well as new builds.
Their teacher Aifric Murray said: 'This is often neglected by landlords. They created an innovative lesson plan and their ideas were praised by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. They hope to have carbon monoxide to feature significantly in the new Junior Cert curriculum.'
Approximately 44 people die needlessly each year and babies and older people are most vulnerable.
The class researched carbon monoxide poisoning and raised awareness nationally and internationally with their use of social media. An awareness day was held at the school in early May where the class released 44 white balloons to represent the 44 lives lost annually. The class presented carbon monoxide alarms to Andrew Walsh of the New Ross Fire Service to distribute to those in need.
The winning class are: Chloe Banville, Louise Becker, Abby Boland, Eva Boland, Katelin Corcoran, Niamh Cusack, Alison Foskin, Laura Hackett, Amy Hogan, Beau Hoffman, Robin Kielthy, Aoife Honan, Mairead Kehoe, Megan Kinsella, Justine Malone, Hannah Moran, Neasa O'Donoghue, Yasmin O'Neill, Claire O'Shea, Clodagh Quirke, Aoife O'Connor, Emily Keenan, Lizzie Rafter, Amber Roche, Laela Redmond, Bella Teague and Orla Tully.
Yeats' Nobel Prize medal which was handed over to the National Museum in Dublin last month may yet return to Sligo.
It's emerged that the Model Arts Centre could reapply to the Government to be allowed house the national treasure.
Under 1995 legislation, only certain cultural institutions can hold national treasures and a tax credit equal to the value of the heritage item is allowed to the donor, which can then be offset against tax liabilities incurred by the donor.
This scheme for tax relief for the donation of heritage objects has resulted in many outstanding artefacts and collections being donated to the various national cultural institutions. For example, the Brian Friel archive was donated to the National Library of Ireland.
It emerged at this week's Sligo Municipal District Meeting that The Model applied for such status ten years ago but was declined.
County Librarian Donal Tinney told the meeting that "times have moved on now. It may be timely to review that and get the status in the North West."
Cathaoirleach of the County Council Cllr Rosaleen O'Grady said: "I would humbly ask that we should reapply for this status at the Model."
Cllr Seamus Kilgannon seconded her motion.
"We're here in the West of Ireland, we're a long way from Cork or Dublin."
Cllr Declan Bree agreed with Cllr Kilgannon and paid tribute to Donal Tinney but added that his concern "is that the CEO should have written to the family ."
Cllr Bree raised the issue of the medal on the agenda by seeking all correspondence, documentation, copies of minutes etc relating to the transfer of the Yeats Nobel Prize.
He told the meeting: "I have been contacted by numerous people over the past week, some who have expressed their concern, others disappointment and others who have expressed anger because W.B. Yeats Nobel Prize Medal has been moved from Sligo to the National Library in Dublin.
"I certainly was taken aback and deeply disappointed when I read in the national press that the Nobel Prize medal and citation which had been on public display in Sligo for decades had been transferred to Dublin. The fact that the Council Executive did not inform councillors of this significant matter and that we learned of it in the newspapers is also a matter of concern.
"W. B. Yeats was the first Irish person to receive a Nobel Prize.
"Thanks to the wonderful efforts of the late Nora Niland the Nobel Prize Medal was presented on indefinite loan to this Council and in the decades since it was placed on public display it attracted thousands of visitors to Sligo to see it.
"Now this unique and important connection with W.B. Yeats is no longer in Sligo and I am led to believe it will remain permanently in Dublin.
"Nora Niland described the Medal as the "showpiece" of Sligo's Yeats collection.
"Despite the enormous importance of the Medal to Sligo it appears to me that the Executive made little effort to have the medal retained here.
"In this context I am asking "That all correspondence, documentation, copies of minutes etc relating to the transfer of the Yeats Nobel Prize Medal be made available for inspection by councillors."
In response Council Chief Executive Ciaran Hayes said that the permission to release all correspondence regarding the medal would have to be sought from the Yeats family. He said he wrote to them last week and has not received a response yet.
Cllr Bree said: "There's a view out there that the Executive didn't act in time or at all and allowed this to slip through their fingers. The correspondence will tell the tale."
Mr Hayes said "there are certain tax incentives and the Model is not on the list of Institutions that can offer them."
Mr Hayes said there at first that he didn't meet with the family directly but then said he discussed Yeats' medal with his granddaughter during the Royal Visit last year.
"A three minute discussion in someone's ear at a civic reception - you've failed in your duty to look after the interests of the people of Sligo," said Cllr Bree.
"This is the failed rhetoric of the past. Your accusations are unfounded. It did not need to have a formal meeting in Dublin, " said Mr Hayes. "The truth obviously hurts Mr CEO. You weren't serious about it at all. It's because of your inactivity we may have lost the medal," said Cllr Bree.
"I attended the Royal visit, which you didn't attend, an international event which portrayed Sligo in a positive light. The statements that have been made are factually wrong," said Mr Hayes.
Cllr Hubert Keaney said: "I agree with the Executive on this. I have every confidence that every effort was made to keep it. The Yeats family have been very generous, we should keep that relationship."
A grant of 9,000 has been allocated to Sligo Jail to preserve its windows
A grant of 9,000 has been allocated to Sligo Jail to preserve its windows. The group set up to campaign for the former jail's restoration, The Friends of Sligo Gaol say they are delighted with the grant.
The group, who applied for funding under the Heritage Management Grant Scheme 2016, were recently notified by CEO Michael Starrett that their application had been successful.
Mr Starrett said the Heritage Council appreciated the effort FOSG had put into developing their project and that the Heritage Council has agreed to offer the sum of 9,000 towards it.
FOSG were very fortunate to receive the funding, as while the Heritage Council had received 377 applications for funding, due to limited resources it is only in a position to support less than half of these projects.
Cllr Seamus Kilgannon, Chair of Sligo Heritage Forum welcomed the announcement saying: "Sligo Heritage Forum congratulates the Friends of Sligo Gaol on securing funding from the Heritage Council to undertake conservation works at Sligo Gaol, it is a great achievement."
He added:"One of the key themes of the new Sligo Heritage Plan is to promote community participation in heritage projects and this is a wonderful example of what can be achieved when we work in partnership to care for Sligo's heritage."
Chairperson of Friends of Sligo Gaol Tamlyn McHugh said the funding would be an enormous boost towards the group's efforts in weatherproofing the jail.
"The funding will allow us to conserve 11 of the original timber windows on the top floor of the three storey cell block of Sligo Gaol.
"This is wonderful news for the ongoing conservation of the building and will mean that this area of the jail will be fully weatherproof, and so protecting and preserving it for the future."
The prison has about 240 windows, of which 40 have already been restored by local man Nick Taylor conservation joiner with Heritage Sash and Joinery.
He is a member of the Craft Council of Ireland. The project has been ongoing over the past three years.
The windows are being conserved to their original specification without modernisation. Restoration of the top floor windows will be complete by the end of the year.
Friends of Sligo Gaol are a non-profit community group of volunteers with a keen interest in Sligo Gaol and its place in the history and heritage of County Sligo.
The aim of the group is to provide community support for the conservation of Sligo Gaol and to promote greater understanding and public awareness of its history and heritage.
It also aims to work towards the eventual opening of the Gaol to the public.
The parents of three year old Rory Gallagher, Shauna and Sean say they are about to put their home in Cliffoney up for sale so they can fund ongoing treatment for their son who has cerebral palsy.
Rory underwent pioneering surgery in the US last summer thanks to a major public fundraising drive but Shauna says further surgery is needed and has made a public appeal once more.
She recalled how when her son was diagnosed at 8 months that he wouldn't be able to walk but he has made tremendous strides since his US surgery.
"His walk is not perfect - Rory needs to return to the US for further surgeries which will allow him further improve.
"He also requires a follow-up eye operation. I am exhausted to be honest, it's been a very tough few months.
"It's great to see Rory this far but I can't get him the rest of the way without help. I need support for myself also, both emotional and spiritual I was so full of hope 2 years ago , but the health system & the constant battles have me broken. I don't want my hope to die.
"I am begging for help, cerebral palsy is devastating, it's a heartbreaking disability. You watch this child you yearned for and dreamt of, struggling everyday to do the basic things like brush their teeth. Your highs are the simple things like a smile or when they finally learn to clap their hands after three years of teaching them. I had to give up my job to care for Rory.
"Back in 2012 I was so delighted to be expecting my third child, Rory arrived eight weeks early.
"It was a very scary time for us as it was day to day. When he was eight months old one day out of the blue in the hospital the physio told me she thought Rory had brain damage. I had been saying to them for months that Rory wasn't right. He had feeding issues and eye sight problems. I left in floods of tears."
An MRI revealed cerebral palsy and the Gallaghers were told Rory would never talk or walk and that he would be in a wheelchair by the age of three. I
"I have had the most terrible time with our health service since that day. There is no support for any parent in my shoes. There is no helpline, no leaflet. I never gave up on my Rory and I got him to talk - but no one said wow, well done."
Shauna says she spent months researching and found out about SDR surgery in the US. We took Rory to the USA for surgery and he took his first steps over there eight days later.
"I have been wanting to do conductive education with Rory since he was diagnosed but no one is supportive of it. My heart is totally broken. I want him to learn to walk. I want him to learn to stand independently, long sit, walk and so much more. I have curtain-poles in my house to get Rory doing sit - to- stand.
"I want him in a basic chair. Instead, they want him in a special chair. They want to take away his independence. I am his mum and his advocate - the love I have for him is greater than anyone will ever know.
"My life changed the day we received his diagnosis. We are all effected from the news we received, both myself and my husband Gerry along with Rory's siblings Kyle and Lily. That day they took away so much in a few short seconds. Love and hope are the two things that has kept us going.
"Eighteen months ago I was so full of hope for Rory and his future. Rory is now half way there with his walking but his needs are more than walking alone and everything is just so uncertain. It's like I'm at a crossroads with him and I don't know which road to take him down. I am still hopeful but I am also worn down by the system.
"I've been battling away all year for Rory - with meetings, reviews, hospital appointments, emails and then emails about emails. It's been constant.
"We don't have a conductive education school in the south of the country - but there is in the North and I am desperate to get Rory into this school as it means we wont need to travel to Budapest.
The only fundraiser currently is Hell & Back in Sligo on the 8th October when Team Rory will be lead out by world champion boxer Michael Conlan. Donations can be made @www.gofundme.com/roryswishtowalk
Donations can be accepted by Bank Transfers/Deposit
Bank: Permanent TSB 16 O'Connell street Sligo Account Name:Rory Gallagher's Wish To Walk Trust Fund Acc No: 9906-28-23749246 Sort code: 990628 IBAN:IE08IPBS99062823749246 BIC: IPBSIE2D
Ireland West Airport recorded a 9% increase in passenger numbers in the first quarter of 2016 with over 123,000 passengers using the airport in the first three months of the year.
The airport is on track to record the busiest year in the airports 30 year history with passenger numbers set to soar to close to 750,000 this year.
Passenger numbers using the airports 9 UK services increased by 7% with particularly strong growth of 24% on Ryanairs East Midlands service and 13% on Flybes service to Manchester.
In addition services to the three London airports of Luton, Gatwick and Stansted grew by 13%, contributing to a strong three months of growth at the airport.
All of the airports main airline partners, Flybe, Aer LIngus & Ryanair showed an increase in passenger numbers and more importantly strong increases in load factor during the first three months of the year.
In addition new services which have recently commenced to Birmingham and Edinburgh with Flybe, will deliver an additional 60,000 seats at the airport this year. Numbers will be further boosted following the recent addition by Ryanair of 11,500 new seats on their services to Bristol, East Midlands and London Stansted for summer 2016.
Commenting on passenger figures for the first quarter, Joe Gilmore, Managing Director Ireland West Airport, said: "The first three months have proven to be a strong performing period for the airport. The growth in numbers using our UK services is most welcome and augurs well for the summer season ahead. This year sees the airport reach a significant milestone as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the official opening of the airport in May and from a passenger number perspective its shaping up to be our busiest year on record."
A man who begged to be sent to prison and spent two weeks in custody told Judge Kevin Kilrane on his release last Thursday that he was "an absolute gentleman."
"That's something that maybe in dispute," quipped the Judge when replying to Stephen Bennett with an address at Beulah Terrace who was charged with offences under the Public Order Act at Rockwood Parade and Sligo University Hospital on January 25th and at the Clarion Hotel on April 27th.
He was also charged with possession of a knife at Rockwood Parade and a knife at the Garda Station, also on January 25th. Bennett, who represented himself, stated at a previous sitting of the court that he had been drinking copious amounts of vodka and had asked to go to prison in order to get treatment.
He had been off alcohol for two years and before that there had also been a period of five years "on the dry." The native of England said he was 24 years in Ireland and had been in steady employment before including in security work at a bus terminus.
He was remanded in custody and reappeared at Sligo District Court last Thursday where the Judge asked him how did he find prsion. Bennett described Castlerea prison as an "absolute dump" with the guards only interested in locking people up but he said but a nurse there had been very good to him and put him on the required medication.
In the recent past he had bereavements in his close family. He stated that he never did a violent act in his life and had brought the knife with him in order to cut a50 worth of cannabis in two. He had bought the cannabis as he was trying to calm down.
Judge Kilrane told the defendant that he struck him as a decent individual,intelligent and articulate who had clearly been through a rough time with bereavements. He was able to go to prison to sort himself out and he now appeared to have stabilised. The Judge applied the Probation Act on all charges.
"You're an absolute gentleman your honour," said the defendant as he left the witness box.
Sligo Sinn Fein Councillor Sean MacManus was the keynote speaker at a number of recent 1916 Centenary Commemorative events in the US organised by various Irish and Irish American organisations.
Speaking in New York and Philadelphia on the 100th Anniversary of the Easter Rising Councillor MacManus paid tribute to the role played by exiled Irish emigrants in organising and financing the Easter Rising and called for the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.
"For centuries the Irish have found a home in America and throughout that time, Irish America has played a truly invaluable role in the struggle for Irish freedom.
"The United Irishmen of 1798 took their lead from the American Revolution and the republican ideas of democracy, liberty and equality.
"Irish republicans in the US such as Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, Joe McGarrity and John Devoy, amongst many others, were of central importance to the 1916 Rising.
"This evening I wish pay tribute to the men and women who struck for Irish freedom in 1916 and to all of those who, in every decade since, have stood by Ireland and stood by the Republic.
"This centenary year is an historic opportunity to look realistically at how we end partition, sectarianism and division in Ireland.
"An opportunity to see how we can make the United, Independent Ireland envisaged in 1916 a reality.
"These should be the goals of all progressive political forces in Ireland and all friends of Ireland abroad.
"A united Ireland means the unity of all the people of Ireland, including those who see themselves as British.
"That is why the Irish government must pursue every avenue to promote all-Ireland co-operation and to build relationships between all our people."
"This must include genuine efforts to outreach to the unionists on the basis of equality.
"However, many aspects of the Good Friday and subsequent Agreements remain to be implemented.
"There is an urgent need for the Irish Government to face up to the British Government's refusal to fulfil its obligations."
Wicklow town musicians Sean Olohan and Noel Dunbar wowed the Swiss recently with their music.
Sean, who has a very successful CD 'A Love for the Music', and Noel were in Switzerland for a brief visit to the Alps taking in towns such as Bern and Zurich performing in McArthus pub chain. The audiences were enthralled by their blend of Irish music and the duo also performed on Bern International Radio, which went out live at the gigantic Bern Expo which attracts 12,000 visitors each day of the event.
As a member of Wicklow Lions Sean also promoted the Darkness into Light project and the Swiss people thought it was a wonderful idea.
Since their return to Wicklow Sean has been busy putting pen to paper and is currently in the middle of recording an exciting new song.
Henry Cairns is a familiar sight in Bray, where he sits every day at the counter of his 'Town Hall' book shop on Florence Road.
Last week, he launched his 16th book, an investigation of Wicklow's part in revolt and revolution.
Henry is part of a wider community of historians across the county, many of whom contributed to 'Wicklow in Revolt, A History of Wicklow 1913 - 1923'.
The book is beautifully presented and gives a fascinating insight into life in Wicklow throughout those seminal years in Irish history.
Passionate about history and particularly Wicklow's place therein, Henry has dedicated years to producing this valuable book.
He edited the book, which includes an introduction by Ruan O'Donnell of the University of Limerick.
Contributors include behemoths of historical research, including O'Donnell himself, as well as Jim Ress, Eva O'Cathaoir, John Finlay, James Scannell and Robert Butler.
'Wicklow in Revolt' explores subjects such as 'Wicklow Town through the troubles', 'The landing of rifles in Kilcoole', 'The Rising and Wicklow', and 'The Civil War'.
To get a copy of the book, go to the Town Hall book shop, Easons in Arklow, Deveney's in Bray and other book shops.
The launch was very well attended, with guests including historians, contributors, and members of local historical societies.
There were also public representatives including Deputy John Brady, Chairman of Bray Municipal District Brendan Thornhill, and a number of councillors, officials and representatives of bodies such as the National Archives.
Biodiversity Week is now well under way across the country and will be marked in Wicklow with an event at Glen of the Downs this Saturday.
The Irish Wildlife Trust will be hosting 'Squirrel Dreys or Motorways' this Saturday, May 21, at 2 p.m., when they will be exploring the biodiversity of the native broadleaf woodland at the Glen of the Downs.
Once fiercely protected by environmentalists, this particular piece of woodland has been altered by invasive species and contested road development, but still stands in all its glory. During Saturday's event, walkers will explore this home of Irish woodland biodiversity and discover the site's rich history and wildlife.
The event is free and open to all ages but will involve walking uphill on uneven paths. The meeting place is the car park at the Glen of the Downs and children must be accompanied by an adult.
Siobhan Donnelly, co-ordinator of the Rotary Young Chef Award, with Conor Windsor, Avondale Community College, Rathdrum region winner and all-Ireland finalist, and Ronan Rose Roberts, President, Rotary Club of Wicklow
The hard work of some County Wicklow teenagers were rewarded in the Grand Hotel last week as Wicklow Rotary Club presented its Young Chef and Youth Leadership Awards to worthy recipients.
At the gala event on Monday, May 9, Ronan Rose Roberts, President of the Rotary Club of Wicklow praised the students and teachers involved, adding that they were an inspiration to the communities. He urged the young people to continue to 'challenge yourselves in your pursuit of excellence'.
Avondale Community College student Conor Windsor was presented with the Young Chef Award after, not only winning the county competition, but securing a spot in the all-Ireland final, having competed against school winners from Munster and Leinster at the region final in Cork, where he successfully prepared and presented a three-course meal for two with a budget of just 20.
The programme, which is co-ordinated by Siobhan Donnelly, is to encourage young people to cook healthy, nutritious and innovative meals in a highly charged environment, something which Conor has clearly excelled at.
Murray Kennedy, a student of East Glendalough School, was presented with the top prize in the Youth Leadership Competition, having expertly displayed the leadership and communication skills required by the judges. Theo Phelan, the competition's co-ordinator, also announced that merit awards were on their way to the Dominican College, East Glendalough, Avondale Community College and Colaiste Chill Mhantain.
The motto of the worldwide Rotary association is 'service about self' and the Wicklow group has as one of its aims the encouragement of youth development. Club members also use their professional skills and expertise to help in the local community through a range of activities and events.
One of its main events in Wicklow each Christmas is the Remembrance Tree , which supports voluntary initiatives and school programmes as well as raising funds for local charities.
Aramark plans to internationalise the Avoca brand, which has eleven Irish outlets, including one at Powerscourt (above)
US catering giant Aramark paid 51 million ($57.9m) for Irish retailer Avoca - much less than the more than 60m that was speculated at the time of the sale last year.
Aramark revealed the purchase price in its quarterly financial report issued last week, and confirmed that it paid for Avoca in cash.
Avoca has eleven outlets in Ireland and employs close to 900 people. It will open its 12th store this autumn.
The business was owned by the Pratt family, but had been put up for sale as long as a year before the acquisition. Managing director Simon Pratt said in a 2014 interview that he didn't envisage the business being passed on to the next generation, as the ownership and operating structure could become too complicated and fraught.
'It would be almost inevitable that there would be conflict, and the idea that my kids could end up not speaking to my sister's kids is just appalling,' he said.
Avoca started off life in 1974 as a textiles business after Simon Pratt's father, Donald, acquired Avoca Handweavers in Wicklow as it faced being closed. He and his wife Hilary then started selling Avoca fabrics from the back of their car. They later opened a purpose-built showroom in Kilmacanogue.
The business flourished. In the 12 months to the end of January 2015, it generated 58.8m in revenue, and a pre-tax profit of 2.6m. Avoca eventually entered into exclusive negotiations with Aramark last year, and the US company acquired the business in November.
Aramark plans to 'internationalise' the Avoca brand, helping it to penetrate new markets, including the United States.
Simon Pratt has remained as managing director with Avoca, and also joined the board of Aramark's Irish arm.
'Aramark provides us with the corporate structures, the global reach and the resources to reach our fullest potential and to continue to grow both in Ireland and internationally,' he said at the time of the sale.
Aramark said that Avoca's retail operation would provide the group with consumer insights that would enable it to identify future trends.
The US company said in its second-quarter results this week that it has given the Avoca trade name a 'preliminary value' of approximately $14.5m (12.8m). Earlier this year, Donald and Hilary Pratt resigned as directors of Avoca, as did their children Vanessa, Amanda and Ivan.
Meanwhile, Ivan Pratt has bought back Avoca's wholesale fashion and homeware business. He was head of sales at Avoca before it was sold, and established a new company called Mill Mount Weavers to buy out Avoca Handweavers Designs.
'This is my playroom,' declares Geoffrey Healy as he bids the reporter from the 'People' welcome. 'And I am having the best fun that I can.'
Due to celebrate his 65th birthday this summer, he is far away from being a child, but he retains a youthful twinkle in his eye and a passion for his chosen craft.
He has been turning out pottery in Rocky Valley, just up the hill from Kilmacanogue for decades and he continues to look forward to coming to work.
'I don't feel that I have anything to prove,' he muses among the beautiful objects that he creates here. 'I am more interested in enjoying life.' At the moment, much of that enjoyment comes from making large round pieces called moon jars which are inspired by his fellow craftsmen in the Far East, for an exhibition at the Nag Gallery in Dublin's Francis Street.
They require precise technique, as they must be made in two hemispheres which are then invisibly jointed together to make one large moon or globe.
Or he may decide to spend some time making cartoon-like elephants which need no turning on the wheel at all, just the mischievous release of his inner child.
A gracious host, he offers to make his visitor a drink of tea, but first the guest must pick a mug from which to enjoy the cuppa - and there is an extensively wacky selection to choose from. The potter has made small mugs, larger mugs, round mugs, straight sided mugs, in myriad variations on the mug theme.
We settle on a couple of mugs which have no handles. They resemble Breton cider cups, with a pair of little lugs which stimulate the naughty boy in the master potter: 'There's a couple of nipples for you to play with!' he laughs.
His craft abounds with body parts, with pottery having examples of lips, shoulders, lugs, bellies and, yes, nipples.
He confides one of his most prestigious early commissions to provide vessels for the visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland in 1979. The priests who walked to the outdoor altar in the Phoenix Park may not have noticed but the shape of the pots they carried were modelled on female breasts, though reverently disguised of course.
Such notions help to give an aura of sensuousness to his pieces, which are made with a hard and brittle material to deliver often homely results.
'There's a hell of a difference drinking out of a polystyrene cup and a favourite mug - you get more than function out of vessel,' he insists
Geoffrey was brought up not too far away from Kilmacanogue on the Killarney Road in Bray, one of five children in the family Roland and Nora Healy. His siblings are sisters Elizabeth, a nun and head of the Dominican order worldwide, and archivist Susan, brothers John who works in the business school at Trinity College, Dublin, and Geoffrey's twin Michael, a Baptist minister in Glasgow.
In the pursuit of a good education, the choice of St Gerard's on the doorstep and then Glenstal in Limerick did not at all accord with the free spirit of young Geoffrey.
The situation was complicated further by the fact that his father died when he was aged just eight, which must have made the boarding school experience all the more wretched.
'The most expensive school in Ireland but it was a terrible place,' is his verdict on the Glenstal of the sixties while memories of the terrible food served there still provokes a shudder.
Nora, by the way, was well known in the Bray area as founder member of the local old folks organisation and the meals-on-wheels service.
After the drudgery of his schooldays, Geoffrey took a job on the staff of Doyle's now long gone pub in Sunnybank, where his education was rounded off with an introduction to a life far from his own privileged background.
'The best way of learning is serving people,' he muses on his brief spell in the bar trade. 'It's a good education pulling pints.'
The customers in Doyle's were like members of a club, specialising in giving lessons in common humanity along with practical sessions on the perils of gambling.
After a year in such company, it was time to hit the road, following a suggestion that he might make a textile designer.
He headed to England and the art college at Yeovil in Somerset where the students were encouraged to try a range of different media.
Thus it was that he discovered he enjoyed the feel of the wet clay in his hands much more than messing about with fabrics.
'It was so nice, love at first sight. I knew what I wanted to do': and he has been doing it ever since with mastery that has kept him at the forefront of his chosen discipline.
From Yeovil he ventured to Derby to hone his trade, building kilns and making his own potter's wheel.
He even strayed as far as Japan, on a scholarship which allowed him immerse himself in the culture of the Land of the Rising Sun.
He came home the slow way, along the hippie trail through Kathmandu but settled down to begin potting in earnest.
He first worked with an established potter in Dun Laoghaire but then set up on his own account at Drumcairn Terrace in his native Bray.
It was 1978 and the mood of the times bred what seemed to be an inexhaustible demand for handmade pottery.
Geoffrey lived upstairs and worked downstairs at his new enterprise, exporting much of what he made as far away as North America, Australia and Japan.
He remembers that, at one stage, he was flown out to the United States to make a guest appearance at the famous Bloomingdale's department store.
'It was all unreal but good experience,' he recalls. An experience of an altogether different sort was offered by the Department of Foreign Affairs.
He was selected to spend time in the Africa during the mid-eighties, giving rural communities in Lesotho a leg-up out of poverty by learning how to make practical, commercial clay cooking pots.
The move to Rocky Valley came in 1989, when the department's cash payment for the Lesotho adventure provided the down payment on what became the Healy pottery home, where he was able to sell as well as manufacture.
The pottery has proven to be a good reflector of the state of the economy, at one stage employing half a dozen people at the height of the Celtic Tiger boom.
Geoffrey gives the strong impression that he is more content now that he is back being a sole trader, without the hassle of having to manage other creative personnel and tangle with all the extra book-keeping.
He welcomes the passing trade, those who seek him out to buy wedding presents or items which will make their own homes prettier as well as the impulse customers out for a drive in the Wicklow countryside.
'My business is about keeping people happy,' is his motto.
He has a few select business customers too, running off some bespoke items for the nearby Avoca Handweavers down the road and the J&A cafe in London with whom he has a long standing association.
The man who loathed being at school has discovered that he has natural flair as a teacher, called in by the Crafts Council of Ireland to assist at the pottery school in Thomastown, County Kilkenny.
The role takes up 40 to 50 days of his year and prompts him to speak with real enthusiasm of those new craftspeople who are following in his footsteps.
He also runs Thursday night pottery classes at Rocky Valley attracting all sorts of devotees who come for all sorts of reasons.
They meet a man who, 46 years on has not lost his desire to spend hours sitting at the wheel or messing about with glazes.
He is still on tenterhooks every time he cranks his kiln up to 1270 degrees Celsius and waits to see what will emerge from the heat.
'It is an absolutely ludicrous way of making your living but I love it and I do not see retirement as something that interests me.'
There will be open auditions for the hit television series Vikings in Wicklow this month.
The Wicklow audition is one of three open casting days for extras taking place during May with the other two taking place in Dublin.
On Wednesday, May 25, aspiring actors are invited to head to the Grand Hotel in Wicklow town between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. for the open casting.
The casting is open to adults of all ethnic backgrounds and on arrival hopefuls will be asked to fill out an application form. Photos of each person will also be taken on the day and the whole process should take about 20 minutes in total.
Those applying must be a full time resident of Ireland and have a working visa and PPS number. Filming of Vikings will take place mainly in Dublin and Wicklow. Filming will begin in June of this year and will continue until May 2017.
While all ethnic backgrounds are wanted, the organisers are particularly interested in meeting with fishermen, carpenters, craftspeople, farmworkers, axe men/women, skilled swords people, archers, bowmen and women, rowers, sailors, ship hands and deckhands, calligraphers, Latin speakers, Arab speakers, musicians, midwives, nurses, animal handlers, hunters, blacksmiths, lumber jacks, tree surgeons, whittlers, males with long hair and beards, all sporty types, martial artists, boxers, women with naturally coloured hair, all men prepared to grow hair and beards, men and women with punk style haircuts.
Those applying should not have any visible tattoos.
If anyone has any further queries, they can call 0404 78748 or 0404 78758 or have a look at the Facebook page www.facebook.com/pages/Vikings-Extras/338071826263234.
A senior claims manager who defrauded her employer of 220,000 over six years so she could pay off a spiralling drug debt has received a two-and-a-half year suspended sentence.
Naila Zaffer (38), who is originally from Halifax in Yorkshire but is now living in Tulfarris Village, Blessington, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to ten sample charges including forgery, using a false instrument and theft from IPB Insurance on dates between April 2007 and August 2012.
She stole a total of 221,685 over 18 transactions. She has no previous convictions.
Judge Terence O'Sullivan said Zaffer's position enabled her to engineer the frauds and accepted that the crime was 'motivated by a form of physical compulsion'. He acknowledged that she pleaded guilty and assisted the garda investigation.
The judge said he was 'willing to take a chance on her' as he said he didn't believe society would benefit from jailing her.
He suspended the sentence in full on condition that she attend for residential treatment and remain under the supervision of the Probation Service for the two-and-a-half years.
'I hope she will come out as a useful member of society who is unlikely to re-offend,' Judge O'Sullivan said.
Garda Shane Behan told Garett McCormack BL, prosecuting that the fraud was discovered when a colleague, who was covering for Zaffer as she was out sick, noticed some 'anomalies'. This triggered an internal investigation and Zaffer was suspended. She was ultimately fired in February 2014.
He said Irish Public Body Insurance were the underwriters for the County Council. Zaffer was in charge of processing claims and issuing cheques in relation to those claims.
Over the course of the fraud she would add a fourth a person to a claim and forge various documentation to support the bogus claim. She would then get a cheque issued in the name of the fictitious claimant and would lodge it to a bank account which she had access to.
Zaffer would use one of five names on each fake claim.
The names she used were relations of Zaffer's and she would ask their permission to lodge the cheque into their bank account. She claimed her own was overdrawn and said the cheques were bonuses from work.
Zaffer is still out of work and is on social welfare. She has never paid back her employer and Gda Behan said he doesn't believe she is in a position to do so.
He agreed with James Dwyer BL, defending, that Zaffer denied that she was 'taking the rap for other people' and told gardai she was taking responsibility for her own actions.
She said a recreational cocaine habit had escalated and she had been spending 250 per day on the drug at the time of her arrest.
Zaffer said she had initially been buying the drugs on credit and the bills escalated.
Gda Behan said the bank transactions were consistent with her admissions. She would withdraw large sums of cash from the ATM on a daily basis.
Mr Dwyer said his client had a degree in genetics and grew up in a strict Muslim family. She cut her ties with her family when she moved to Ireland and had never re-established contact with them.
Zaffer started working in the insurance industry as soon as she came to Ireland. She progressed well and had a position of responsibility at the time of her arrest.
Counsel said both Zaffer and her partner had a cocaine habit but neither of them used the drugs anymore. They were living with his sister in a rural part of Wicklow.
Sri Lankan flood victims ask for bottles of drinking water in the flooded area of Wellampitiya on the outskirts of Colombo (AP)
Sri Lanka's government has raised the death toll from landslides and heavy flooding to 73, as soldiers continue searching for scores of people missing since deadly landslides struck several days ago.
In the capital Colombo and its suburbs, thousands of homes remain inundated, though there are signs that the waters are receding.
About 243,000 people are currently in temporary shelters nationwide.
Soldiers are searching for bodies in the thick mud deposits in the central district of Kegalle, where landslides swallowed up three villages on Tuesday.
Major General Sudantha Ranasinghe, who is coordinating the search, said one body and parts of another were found on Saturday.
Twenty-one people have been confirmed dead from the landslides in the three villages and 123 others are missing.
Mexico has approved the extradition of notorious drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman to the US to face federal drug trafficking charges, almost five months since he was recaptured following an elaborate escape from a Mexican maximum-security prison.
Guzmans lawyers have 30 days to appeal the extradition ruling, which means the Sinaloa cartel boss may not be transported across the border for several months. The Mexican Foreign Relations Department received a guarantee from the US that Guzman would not face capital punishment, the Associated Press reported. Mexico no longer has the death penalty.
Guzman, who is thought to be around 60 years old, escaped from Altiplano prison near Mexico City in July 2015, reportedly via a tunnel that led directly from beneath the shower in his cell to a building one mile beyond the walls. He was recaptured by Mexican marines in January at a hideout in Los Mochis, a city on the Pacific coast of Sinaloa, his home state.
At least 20 prison officials were arrested last year in connection with his escape, including the former head of the Mexican federal prison system and the former director of the Altiplano prison itself.
The incident was a major embarrassment for the Mexican government and called into question whether the countrys prison system could guarantee his long-term detention. Earlier this month, Guzman was transferred by the Mexican authorities to a prison close to the US border in preparation for extradition.
El Chapo whose nickname translates as Shorty, a reference to his 56 stature is the feared boss of the powerful and ruthless Sinaloa cartel. He has now been imprisoned three times since his first arrest in 1993, and escaped twice: first in 2001, when he broke out of the maximum-security Puente Grande prison in Jalisco state.
It was reported that he had escaped with the help of guards who hid him in a laundry cart, though that version of events is disputed. He was on the run between 2001 and 2014, when he was again arrested.
In 2013, Chicago designated Guzman its Public Enemy Number One, with federal agents saying his organisation supplied most of the drugs sold on the citys streets, more than 2,000 miles from Sinaloa. Drug trafficking is widely blamed as the underlying cause of Chicagos epidemic of street violence.
Earlier this week it was announced that Netflix and the Spanish-language TV network Univision are to co-produce a drama about the drug lords life, entitled El Chapo.
Donald Trump yesterday slammed Hillary Clinton as "heartless" for backing restrictions on gun ownership that he said would leave Americans in high-crime areas unable to protect themselves.
He also challenged Ms Clinton to follow his lead and release a list of potential Supreme Court nominees.
Mr Trump's remarks came at the National Rifle Association (NRA) convention in Louisville, Kentucky. The gun rights organisation endorsed the presumptive Republican nominee ahead of his remarks, despite Mr Trump's previous support for measures such as an assault weapons ban that the NRA vigorously opposes.
The businessman has taken a far less restrictive stance on guns during the Republican presidential primary. His call for ending "gun-free zones" across the country was welcomed by the NRA crowd.
Mr Trump centred his remarks on Ms Clinton, claiming she would seek to "abolish" the Second Amendment through the Supreme Court and release violent criminals if elected president. He also called her "Heartless Hillary" - a new nickname from the branding expert for the likely Democratic nominee - for backing restrictions aimed at reducing gun deaths, saying her proposals would instead leave law-abiding citizens exposed to criminals.
"She's putting the most vulnerable Americans in jeopardy," Mr Trump said. He added that women in particular would be at risk, a nod to what he has said will be a security-focused appeal to women in the general election.
Expand Close Donald Trump addresses members of the National Rifle Association. Photo: Reuters / Facebook
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Mr Trump heads into the campaign with stunningly high disapproval ratings with women and he appeared to acknowledge that weakness, saying that while his poll numbers with men are strong, "I like women more than men".
"Come on women, come on," he said.
Mr Trump touted the list of potential Supreme Court nominees he released this week as a sign of his commitment to upholding the Second Amendment.
"I'd like to call for Hillary Clinton to put together a list also," said Mr Trump, predicting her potential justices would be "day and night" to his nominees.
Firearms
Ms Clinton has said she supported the Second Amendment, but that safety measures were needed to keep firearms out of the wrong hands and to reduce the nation's 33,000 annual gun deaths.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump is closing in on Ms Clinton's narrow lead in a general election match-up, a new national poll revealed. The NBC News/SurveyMonkey online tracking poll found Ms Clinton holds a three percentage point lead over the presumptive GOP presidential nominee. Last week, the same poll had Ms Clinton ahead by five points.
The Democratic frontrunner holds an overwhelming lead among black and Hispanic voters, while Mr Trump is up among white voters by 14 points. She also leads him among female voters by 15 points, while Mr Trump defeats her by 11 points among men.
Recent surveys have signalled a tight race between Ms Clinton and Mr Trump as the primary season winds down.
Dounreay is one of Europe's largest nuclear clean-up and demolition projects
A team tasked with decommissioning a nuclear reactor came up with a simple, sticky solution when they needed to take samples from its core - Blu Tack
Workers at Dounreay needed to take samples of metal from holes drilled into the base of the Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR).
They opted for a simple solution - attaching some Blu Tack to the end of a long flexible rod, and inserting it nearly 10 metres into the reactor core - saving the cost of developing a specialist tool for the job.
Samples of the metal stuck to the Blu Tack and were collected for analysis.
Dounreay near Thurso in Caithness, is one of Europe's largest nuclear clean-up and demolition projects.
Calder Bain, a member of the PFR design team told the Dounreay newsletter: "We are 60 years on from the decision to build the Prototype Fast Reactor and innovation has been the key to its success.
"There is a continual requirement for inventive methods to dismantle a complex nuclear reactor."
WWF Scotland director Lang Banks said: "The ingenuity of those involved in cleaning up Dounreay's radioactive legacy certainly has to be praised.
"However, not all the challenges faced in dealing with the thousands of tonnes of waste the nuclear industry has left in its wake right across the country will be so easy to solve.
"It's just another reason why Scotland is right to be choosing an energy future based on clean renewables instead of hazardous and expensive new nuclear power."
Smoke was detected in multiple places in EgyptAir Flight 804 before it crashed in the Mediterranean, the French air accident investigation agency said.
Spokesman Sebastien Barthe told The Associated Press that the plane's automatic detection system sent messages indicating smoke a few minutes before it disappeared from radar.
The messages, he said, "generally mean the start of a fire".
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But he added: "We are drawing no conclusions from this. Everything else is pure conjecture."
The industry publication Aviation Herald reported on Friday that sensors detected smoke in the plane's toilet, suggesting a fire onboard.
Meanwhile search crews were continuing to scour for further wreckage of the plane - including for the black boxes, which could provide vital clues to why the jetliner crashed killing all 66 on board.
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Planes and vessels from Egypt and five other countries are searching a wide area of the Mediterranean, a day after the Egyptian army found debris from the Airbus 320 in the sea 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Alexandria.
No hard evidence has emerged as to why the plane dropped off radar, swerved wildly and plummeted early on Thursday morning.
Investigators are considering the possibility of a terror attack, though no militant group claims to have brought down the plane.
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Looking for clues to whether terrorists brought down Flight 804, investigators pored over the passenger list and questioned ground crew members at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, where the plane took off for Cairo.
The Airbus had been cruising normally in clear skies on the night-time flight when it suddenly lurched left, then right, spun all the way around and plummeted 38,000 feet into the sea, never issuing a distress signal.
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In Egypt, home to 30 of the victims, grieving families and friends wondered if their loved ones would ever be recovered. Many gathered in mosques for Salat al-Ghaib, or "prayers for the absent", held for the dead whose bodies have not been found.
Egyptian authorities believe terrorism is a more likely explanation than equipment failure and some aviation experts have said the erratic flight suggests a bomb blast or a struggle in the cockpit. But so far no hard evidence has emerged.
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Amid fears that a security lapse in Paris may have led to the tragedy, France's junior minister for transport, Alain Vidalies, defended security at De Gaulle Airport, saying staff badges are revoked if there is the slightest doubt.
Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault asserted on French television that there was "absolutely no indication" of what caused the crash.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said he and other officials - including representatives of Paris Aeroport, the French prosecutor, EgyptAir, and the Egyptian ambassador to Paris - had met with about 100 family members to express "our profound compassion" over the crash.
Following the meeting, he said: "All the hypotheses are being examined - none are being favoured."
French air accident investigators are already in Cairo, he said.
A Syrian refugee woman holds her 40-days old son as a girl stands with them at a makeshift camp for refugees and migrants at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni, Greece. Photo: Reuters
They are known are the Erasmus Generation, a reference to the EU programme that allows higher education students to study in another EU member state.
Some say the Erasmus programme, which started in 1987, has been one of the most successful initiatives when it comes to fostering a sense of European identity.
Thousands of Irish students have lived and studied in other member states through the programme, forging professional connections and friendships across borders.
Now, as Sandro Gozi, Italy's Secretary of State for European Affairs, outlines in his new book, the Erasmus Generation has not only come of age, it is "already in power" at a moment when Europe finds itself pummelled by multiple crises.
The Erasmus Generation, he says, is "[one] that has benefited to the full from the opportunities the EU has offered it: freedom of movement, a single currency and increased exchanges between European universities; a generation of young people who saw the Berlin Wall come down and who believe in freedom and solidarity throughout our continent; a generation committed to furthering these successes and preparing the best possible future for our children."
Coming up behind the Erasmus Generation, who are now in their thirties and forties, are Europe's millennials, those born after 1986 and whose adult lives have been shaped by the economic crisis that struck in 2008.
Millennials accounted for 24pc of the adult population in the 28-member EU in 2013. A Pew survey published last year showed that Europe's millennials, despite grappling with high youth unemployment and horizons shrunk by the continent's financial crisis, are surprisingly upbeat. When asked where they would place themselves on a ladder, where 10 represents the best possible life and zero represents the worst possible life, a median of 56pc say they currently stand somewhere between the seventh and 10th step. Young Germans were the most satisfied; and young Greeks the least happy. Interestingly, the Pew study found that Europeans born after 1980 were also more likely to be satisfied with their situation in life than people born before 1965.
Over the past week, I have attended two events focusing on Europe's Erasmus Generation and the millennials that come after them.
The first, billed a European Millennials Lab, brought together several dozen Europeans aged under 30 to the University of Siena in Italy to discuss the continent's future and their place in it. The second was a gathering of the European Young Leaders network in Marseille to examine challenges faced by the continent, including migration and violent extremism, but also to explore how Europe can develop its relationship with its southern and eastern Mediterranean neighbours.
These days Europe can often feel like a continent knocked sideways. The effects of the economic crisis continue to be felt. The flow of refugees from war-torn Syria and other countries has triggered anxieties that are in turn exploited by far-right parties which are becoming more popular. Terrorist attacks, like those in Paris last year, have made people fearful and again fuel an increasingly shrill and reactionary politics, allowing populist voices to rise.
With their continent pulled in several different directions, Europe's youth also find themselves pulled in different directions. In several cases, the far right is finding support among frustrated young Europeans. When the National Front made historical gains in the first round of France's regional elections last year, it was striking that the largest demographic voting for the party was those aged between 18 and 30.
Youthful disaffection can manifest itself in other ways - thousands of Europeans have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq, many of them joining Isil. Attitudes to the European Union can vary among those who have known nothing but an integrated Europe in their lifetime.
The youth voting for the National Front in France may sympathise with its Eurosceptic message. In the UK, however, polls have shown that a majority of those under 25 are opposed to a Brexit and want the UK to remain in the EU.
A little-explored facet of Ireland's first referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in 2008 - the treaty was rejected, and then passed in a second ballot - was the fact that the biggest age cohort voting 'No' was those under 35.
Not that this necessarily indicated growing Euroscepticism among the generation born after Ireland joined the EU.
Many I spoke to who voted 'No' described themselves as committed Europeans; they simply had reservations about some of the directions the EU was going in.
The conversations in Siena and Marseille this week involved young Europeans who are passionate about the idea of the European Union and care deeply about its future.
They are aware of the responsibilities of their generation as the rapidly ageing continent they call home struggles with economic woes and security threats in a context where the decades-old debate about what it means to be European has taken on a new urgency.
The Erasmus Generation and its millennial siblings are to be tested like never before.
Elites in some countries have "robbed their own people", arms controls have "not been successful" and the response of the public to international disasters including civil wars should not be a "substitute" for government action, President Michael D Higgins has said.
In a hard-hitting interview in advance of the World Humanitarian Summit, which opens in Istanbul on Monday, the President said the world would have to admit that it is "failing" to meet the needs of the most vulnerable and needs to fundamentally change how it tackles international crises caused by war and natural disasters.
Speaking to the Irish Independent, he also said that tax agreements struck between developing countries and multinational corporations were depriving the world's poorest of the opportunity to develop a sustainable tax base to help pull themselves out of poverty and grow their economies.
Diplomatic efforts to end conflict were not working, he said, and the world was now at a point not seen since the Second World War due to issues of global poverty, displaced people and large-scale conflict all occurring at the same time.
"We have to re-look at how we are responding to the humanitarian crisis," he said.
"A short-term response is not going to be work any more. We are facing a massive population increase (in the coming years) to more than nine billion people (by 2050). If we fail in the development model, we add to the other crises."
The World Humanitarian Summit was called by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and aims to set out a long-term agenda to address humanitarian challenges.
But it has been criticised by the international medical organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) for being a "fig-leaf" of good intentions.
President Higgins will be joined by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and leaders from the Central African Republic, Kuwait, Lebanon, Netherlands and Niger, among others, for the two-day conference.
He will address a high-level leaders' round-table meeting on improving the international response on Monday, as well as other events covering gender equality, securing concrete commitments and action to deliver aid and guaranteeing resources to preserve life and dignity for those affected.
In a document produced by Mr Ban for the summit, 'One Humanity: Shared Responsibility', the outgoing secretary-general said the lives of 125 million people had been devastated by violence and natural disasters and they were in "desperate need" of protection.
There are 11 major civil wars today, compared with four in 2007, meaning that the international community is "in a state of constant crisis management" and is "struggling" to find political and security solutions to end them.
Urban areas are being used as battlegrounds, women are being raped and schools, hospitals and places of worship are "being bombed with alarming frequency and at alarming levels".
The "utter lack of respect" for fundamental rules of law "threatens to unravel 150 years of achievements and cause a regression to an era of war without limits", it adds.
President Higgins said: "When I read the document, my first response was that this is a real declaration from an outgoing secretary-general who is saying we have failed in terms of diplomacy.
"He says the true measure of the success of the UN is not how much we promise, but how much we deliver. He is admitting, and this is tragic in a way, that 75pc of people are fleeing from conflict in five countries where we have had no diplomatic resolution.
"Look at the number of displaced persons, the highest level since the Second World War, at 60 million. There are people displaced by natural disasters and as a result of conflict. You can see that diplomatic failure is not resolving conflict. It's a cry from the heart."
Mr Higgins also said that "short cuts" could not be taken in relation to providing humanitarian assistance or development aid, particularly in light of pressure from international corporations.
"We cannot take short cuts under pressure from multinationals that do not support us either in terms of sustainable development or in terms of climate change," he said.
"Some development taking place has been confined to elites. There are elites who have robbed their own people, going back over the long history of Africa. It has been exacerbated by participation in tax agreements which deprive countries of a tax base.
"You will find there is a taxation agreement between the multinational corporations and the governments, which pays little tax in the country from which resources are being extracted.
"The question then arises, if you were to rely on that source only, what does it do to the development model? Is there a development model left?"
The President said there was a 15bn funding gap between what was pledged by countries, and what was needed. It would, he said, be "disastrous" to use development aid, which is aimed at building economies from the ground up, to tackle humanitarian disasters.
He also alluded to a hypocrisy among some arms-producing members of the UN.
"I think there is a contradiction between arms production and distribution and striking a high moral tone in relation to world hunger.
"This was often brought home to me in previous visits to Africa. Africa doesn't produce armaments. The weapons are coming from countries which have signed up to international peace agreements. I don't think arms control has been successful."
President Higgins also said there was a need to concentrate on the future, particularly in light of the fact that to sustain nine billion people there would need to be a 40pc increase in food production, and that developing countries had to be given the tools to flourish.
"If there has been a massive humanitarian need, there has been an enormous response (from the public). That shouldn't be a substitute for government action," President Higgins said.
He hoped the summit would accept and admit the enormous problems which existed.
"I think it wouldn't be a bad thing if the state of the crisis was recognised. The shortfall in resources is very serious in relation to responding to the humanitarian crisis.
"At the end of November 2015, the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) said the fund for displaced people was at 13pc of the level needed.
"Food vouchers have been cut. You could also see an identification of the failures, where countries have not delivered on their pledges.
"We're going to have hard questions about how to implement the sustainable goals and climate agreement.
"Instead of getting a new moment for humanity, you could get a far more complicated version of what is failing. We need a maturity in the discourse that I sometimes think is missing. If we don't do it that way, we're medievalists insulting each other."
A passenger and her daughter sit in a bus after their EgyptAir flight arrived from Cairo to Luxor International Airport, Egypt May 19, 2016
A relative of a passenger on an EgyptAir flight that crashed early Thursday puts her hand on the window from inside a bus at Cairo International Airport, Egypt, Thursday, May 19, 2016
An Egyptian military search boat takes part in a search operation for the EgyptAir plane that disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea in this still image taken from video May 19, 2016
The crashed EgyptAir plane, an Airbus A320 registration SU-GCC, is seen here taking off from Vienna in August 2015
One man is certain about what caused the loss of EgyptAir flight MS804 and the deaths of the 66 people on board.
Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, said: "If anyone thinks it wasn't blown out of the sky, you are 100pc wrong." But no terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the loss of the jet flying from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Cairo. Investigators are considering a wide range of possible causes besides a terrorist bomb.
The French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault said: "We're looking at all possibilities, but none is being favoured over the others because we have absolutely no indication on the causes."
Even though the Airbus A320 has an excellent safety history, a catastrophic mechanical failure cannot be ruled out. Investigators will be checking the plane's maintenance record.
Human intervention on the flight deck is another possibility; Greek military sources have suggested that the jet made a series of violent swerves as it lost altitude. Captain Mike Vivian, former head of flight operations for the Civil Aviation Authority, told BBC Radio 4's 'Today' programme there could have been a struggle on the flight deck.
"One's inclined to go towards the theory that there had been some interference on the aircraft, and on the flight deck, with the control of the aircraft," he said.
Expand Close An Egyptian military search boat takes part in a search operation for the EgyptAir plane that disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea in this still image taken from video May 19, 2016 / Facebook
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Whatsapp An Egyptian military search boat takes part in a search operation for the EgyptAir plane that disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea in this still image taken from video May 19, 2016
In 1999, an EgyptAir flight from New York to Cairo crashed in the Atlantic. A US investigation concluded that one of the pilots had deliberately downed the Boeing 767, though Egypt insists the cause was a mechanical problem. Last year, the first officer of a Germanwings Airbus A320 killed himself and 149 others on board a Barcelona-Dusseldorf flight by crashing into a mountainside.
If terrorism was involved, the modus operandi could take many possible forms. It is believed that the Metrojet flight from Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg airport was downed by a bomb placed on board at the airport in the Egyptian resort. If the same method was used to destroy MS804, a device could have been loaded at Paris, Cairo or one of the other locations the jet had recently visited, including Tunis and Asmara.
Investigators will look carefully at the passenger manifest, because of the possibility of a suicide attack. They will also study CCTV images of the security search area, to see if any weapon or explosives could have been smuggled through.
After the shooting down of MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, the possible use of a ground-to-air missile will be considered.
The only factor which is unlikely to feature prominently in the investigation is weather, which was fine. Jamie Bowden, a former British Airways executive, was on a flight on a very similar track to the EgyptAir jet at the same time. He said: "Flying conditions over the Med were perfect." ( Independent News Service)
Heather Campbell
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By Mike Ellis, ellism@independentmail.com
Pieces of skull, blood and hair were found on the windshield of a car used by a woman accused of running down a man who slashed her tire, according to court testimony Friday from an Anderson County Sheriff's Office investigator.
Sarah Campbell, 22, of Anderson is charged with attempted murder in a May 5 incident that started at the Stop-A-Minit convenience store on Pearman Dairy Road in Anderson County.
She appeared at a preliminary hearing Friday in Anderson with no attorney.
Campbell did not give any statement and spoke only to answer procedural questions.
Investigator Kirstie Erskine said the man who was injured, Brian Wilbanks, had slashed Campbell's car tire after asking for a cigarette and was charged with assaulting another person at the convenience store.
In a 911 call, Campbell can be heard in the background saying that authorities had better hurry or she would run him over, Erskine said.
Wilbanks, an Anderson resident, was struck near West Whitner Street.
Campbell is accused of driving the car that struck him, Erskine said.
An abandoned car, which was connected to Campbell, was found soon after on Michelin Boulevard with blood, pieces of skill and hair stuck in the cracked windshield, Erskine said.
Heather Campbell, 35, who shares an address with Sarah Campbell, was charged in the case with being an accessory after the fact to a felony.
She appeared at the hearing alongside Sarah Campbell, also without an attorney.
Judge Mary Frances Cole said there was enough evidence to send the charges against both Campbells to a grand jury.
She said she strongly recommended the women obtain an attorney, even though one was not necessary for the preliminary hearing.
Both the Campbells were released from custody May 6 on bond, according to the Sheriff's Office website.
Wilbanks is charged with malicious injury to property and third-degree assault and battery. The judge did not address those charges Friday.
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By Michael Eads, michael.eads@independentmail.com
A bill to prevent some pipeline operators from using eminent domain to gain access to private land has been sent to the full South Carolina House of Representatives for consideration.
The House Judiciary Committee approved S.B. 868 on Thursday, and the proposal is now up for consideration by the entire House. The bill would keep Kinder Morgan and other pipeline operators who aren't regulated by the state from using local courts to impose eminent domain on private landowners to run their pipelines through those properties.
No floor vote had been scheduled for S.B. 868 as of Friday afternoon.
A similar measure was approved the Georgia Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Nathan Deal earlier this month, leading Kinder Morgan to scrap its plans for the $1 billion Palmetto Pipeline, a 300-mile line that would have run from the company's tank farm near Belton, across southeastern Georgia and on to Jacksonville, Florida.
Another environment-related bill, S.B. 229, is also awaiting action from the full South Carolina House. That measure would keep private individuals or groups, such as the Southern Environmental Law Center, from suing when they think state regulators have failed to properly police polluters.
Frank Holleman, SELC senior attorney, has said the Pollution Control Act, as currently written, was a valuable tool when his and other environmental groups negotiated a cleanup agreement with Duke Energy regarding unlined coal ash ponds at the W.S. Lee generating station near Williamston and at other sites.
The bill was approved earlier this month by the House Judiciary Committee, but it has not gotten a floor vote. Several legislators have asked House Speaker Jay Lucas for a floor debate, but he had not scheduled one as of Friday afternoon.
Time is running out in this year's session. The bill about use of eminent domain has so far only had one minor revision in the House, which means it could probably be easily reconciled in the House/Senate conference next month when the session ends. But the other bill was more extensively amended by House Judiciary and could require more effort to reconcile.
Each bill would be required to go back through the House and Senate after reconciliation before it could be sent to Gov. Nikki Haley.
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By Kirk Brown of the Independent Mail
Two Republicans running for the South Carolina House of Representatives District 7 seat in Anderson County have dealt with foreclosure suits in the past several years.
One year before he was elected to the Belton City Council in 2012, Jay West and his wife lost their four-bedroom, 2,900 square-foot home in Greenwood. Dennis Ted Grindstaff avoided a foreclosure sale of his home south of Iva in 2014 when a judgment in the case was vacated.
Both candidates say their financial problems during the Great Recession have given them a better understanding of the economic difficulties facing many voters in House District 7. The district covers a mostly rural area in southern Anderson County that includes Belton, Honea Path and Iva.
"If I get knocked down, I know how to get back up," said West, who is the co-owner of a property appraisal company in Anderson.
Grindstaff, who works as a technician with Milliken & Co., is running for elected office for the first time.
"I am not a politician," he said. "I am a blue-collar worker who has struggled."
Dan Harvell, chairman of the Anderson County Republican Party, said candidates can learn valuable lessons from personal hardships.
"We never know what is coming around the corner," Harvell said. Harvell also said West and Grindstaff could benefit from their experiences and "pay more attention to improvements that might be made in the system."
Matt Moore, chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, said the troubles that West and Grindstaff endured are not unique.
"Many Americans have struggled during the Obama presidency," Moore said in an email.
"Foreclosure doesn't seem to be an issue that makes or breaks many campaigns," he added.
Blake Parker, a Honea Path resident who is competing against West and Grindstaff in the June 14 Republican primary, said voters in House District 7 will have to decide if the financial pasts of his opponents are relevant.
"It could be an issue for some," Parker said.
The winner of the June 14 primary is not expected to face any opposition in the November general election for the seat that Mike Gambrell has held since 2007. Gambrell, a Republican from Honea Path, gave up the post to run for the state Senate District 4 seat.
Clemson University political science professor David Woodard said voters deserve to know whether candidates have had troubles with their personal finances. He also said this information can cause voters to "often raise their eyebrows."
"When you run for public office, everything gets out of the closet," Woodard said.
Motorcycle wreck had consequences
West, and his wife, Jennifer, financed the $375,000 purchase of a home in Greenwood's upscale Lodge Grounds neighborhood in July 2007.
At the time, West was starting work for the Greenwood Partnership Alliance, an economic development organization. He had spent the previous 14 years at Erskine College in Due West as a chaplain and vice president for institutional relations.
Two years later, the couple bought another home on Brown Avenue in Belton for $125,000. Their next-door neighbor was West's boyhood mentor who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
While renovating the Belton home in the summer of 2009, West crashed a friend's motorcycle when he swerved to avoid a deer. He suffered broken ribs, a broken leg and his left foot was crushed.
"I had real difficulty even walking for three years," he said.
West was unable to work outside the home and bills soon began mounting.
The crash of the real estate market caused the value of the home in Greenwood to plunge. Two lenders on the Greenwood home, Branch Banking and Trust Company and County Bank, filed suits against West and his wife in late 2010.
Branch Banking won a foreclosure judgment and sold the couple's home on Turnberry Court in 2011 for $325,000. Its fair-market value is listed at $255,000, land records show.
County Bank received a $53,539 judgment that West said he is still paying off.
Real estate records show that ownership of the home on Brown Avenue changed numerous times between 2009 and 2013. West's mother, Susan Poore Lacy, now is listed as its owner.
West said the ownership changes resulted from his unsuccessful efforts to secure financing for the home. He said his mother eventually took out a mortgage on his behalf.
The motorcycle accident wasn't the first health issue that had major economic consequences for West and his wife. In 1992, their 7-month-old son, Jack, received third-degree burns over 35 percent of his body when a slow-cooker tipped over on him. Although the couple eventually received free assistance from a Shriner's hospital, it took them 12 years to pay off $100,000 in medical bills that weren't covered by insurance, West said.
Their son made a full recovery and is getting married next month.
West said he and his wife have paid their debts.
"We didn't file bankruptcy. We didn't run away from it," said West, 51. "Do I know what is like to struggle? Yes."
'A 2 1/2-year nightmare'
Grindstaff said the economic downturn hurt his small business that installed home theater systems in new houses. When home construction in the area tanked, so did his income.
A former Army military police officer, Grindstaff eventually was hired as a corporal at the Anderson County Detention Center. But he still was having a hard time making payments for the home on Liberty Road that he had bought for $88,000 in 2004.
Grindstaff said representatives of his lender, Bank of America, told him to stop making payments on the house until his mortgage could be restructured. But because of a mix-up in communication, he said, the bank's legal staff started foreclosure proceedings in 2012.
Complicating the issue, Grindstaff said, his mortgage was then sold to another lender.
According to Anderson County court records, a foreclosure judgment and order of sale was entered in March of 2014. The order was vacated several weeks later when Grindstaff received help from a state mortgage-assistance program.
"It was a 2 1/2 year nightmare," he said.
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By Janie Shipley, Seneca
Primary elections may be more important than the general election for many citizens of South Carolina. Winners of the primary may have no opposition in the general election, in effect guaranteeing that the results of the primary will also be the results of the general election. Citizens will be voting for president in the general election, but the winners of many local races will already have been determined.
We urge citizens to learn as much as possible about the candidates for the primary and to enter the primary date, June 14, into their calendars with the importance it deserves. The League of Women Voters of the Clemson Area has scheduled seven candidate forums, three of which have already taken place. We encourage citizens to attend candidate forums to learn the background, attitudes and intentions of the various candidates.
1) Monday, Pickens County Council District 5, 7 p.m., Hampton Memorial Library, Easley.
2) Thursday, S.C. Senate District 3, 7 p.m., Cox Hall at the Clemson Little Theatre, Pendleton.
3) May 31, Oconee County Council, 6 p.m. Gignilliat Community Center, Seneca.
4) June 2, Solicitor, 10th Judicial Circuit, 6 p.m., Pendleton Library, Pendleton.
The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization open to both men and women, encourages informed and active participation of citizens in government. More information about our forums and our organization can be found at http://clemsonarea.sc.lwvnet.org
How has your business model evolved over the years? How are you embracing the digital era?
What are your expansion plans in India?
Throw some light on your global delivery centre in Pune.
Are you mulling tie-ups in India for HPC?
Tell us about your cloud practices in India and the opportunities and challenges you see in India.
Can you give a short gist about your tie up with Microsoft.
How do you plan to contribute to the Make in India and Skill India initiative?
Are you working with the government to provide cloud services to government departments?
What is the scope Internet of Things in India?
Throw some light on your HPC solutions.
What are the upcoming trends in the IT sector?
What is the size of HPC market in India and abroad?
What role does CEMEA&I region (Continental Europe, Middle East, Africa & India) play in Fujitsu's growth?
What upcoming trends do you see emerging globally with regard to hardware? Do you see desktop PCs heading toward obsolescence?
was appointed to lead Fujitsus EMEIA Product Business and as Chairman of Fujitsu UK & Ireland in July 2015. Michael is one of the primary regional spokespersons and he also represents Fujitsu at the CBI, techUK (Deputy President), Tech Partnership, The Princes Trust, and Business in the Community. Prior to taking up these joint roles, Michael was CEO of Fujitsu UK and Irelands ICT business.has been Head of Middle East & India and Managing Director for India at Fujitsu Limited since September 2014 and is based out of Bangalore. Stevenson served as the Chief Executive Officer of Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe Limited. Stevenson serves as the Executive Director of Hosting & Network Services Group at Fujitsu Services Holdings PLC (Fujitsu UK & Ireland).is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company, offering a full range of technology products, solutions, and services. Approximately 159,000 employees enable Fujitsu to cater to its customers in more than 100 countries. Fujitsu Limited reported consolidated revenues of 4.8 trillion yen (US$40 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015.In an interview withof, EMEIA Product Business Head of Fujitsu said, When I look at business in EMEIA region, India stands out in terms of growth prospects.Previously, we went to the market with a country-based model and integrate all our capabilities around the world into a global model that can be leveraged in different countries. This makes us much more efficient and consistent in terms of our capabilities in the marketplace. Even in India, we have seen spectacular growth. In the past two years, we have seen significant growth and are now excited about the micro-economic work in the Indian market. We are a single-digit market share player in India in the IT sector. However, we have got a good team and are expanding and are confident of fortifying our position in the market.The whole of the IT landscape has been transformed by digitization. We are investing and acquiring companies and capabilities in the digital space. An IoT provider in the US has given us a cutting-edge technology. With the mobile working and people and goods moving around, we need to keep a track and these are the technologies that will shape the future.We are predominantly into sales and have a presence in key business areas such as Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi; last year, we established eight other regional sales offices. Our next plan is to expand our presence organically in the 100 fastest growing cities in India. As an IT service provider, our intimacy with the customer is important; our customers connect to Fujitsu people and understand how we do our business.One of the big focus areas is growth in areas where we have been really successful; we see further growth in high performance computing (HPC), where we have invested millions of dollars (setting up of HPC competency centre in Bengaluru) and have plans to make invest further for expanding capabilities in the Bengaluru centre for HPC. This would make India a centre of expertise and competence from our perspective. We want India to undertake 150 HPC projects; so, we still have a long way to go.Pune operations have been there for five years and are gradually increasing. We have 3,700 people in global delivery centres in Pune, Noida, Hyderabad, and Bangalore. Our intention is to have employee strength of 15,000 in the next three to five years and invest significantly in growing these centres across the country. Pune is more focused on infrastructure services, whereas our operations in Bangalore is into applications and management services.Not specifically at this point in time. However, we are eyeing good acquisitions, but there isnt any specific plan at the moment. In India, the whole startup culture is accelerating and it is a very exciting time to invest in the country. We have a huge talent pool to tap in India.Fujitsu has a clear strategy on cloud. In India, we look to forge tactical partnerships. We do not have data centre assets in India and have no intention to build them; instead, we seek strong collaborations with entities that have data centre assets.We have a partnership with Microsoft in for Azure. Its a global partnership. We can collaborate with them in many aspects in India as well.We are not manufacturing in India but as we spoke of the HPC centre in India, we are looking for expertise in India, which will produce more jobs and equip people with more skills and research and development capabilities in India. We hope to benchmark capabilities and thus provide more and more computing skills-sets in India. This is where we can add value to the Make in India program. We are helping the Make in India program by creating expertise and helping people to make the products by expanding their capabilities.Yes, with MoS (Ministry of Science) being a very important client, we see the relationship between Japanese Meteorological Agency and MoS shaping the future scheme of things. Japan has advanced technology with warning systems that detect Tsunami, whereas India has a highly sophisticated model, but the distribution of this information to farmers or local areas still needs to improve. What we are actually doing is sharing such technologies. We are building a connection between the two governments to facilitate the sharing of technologies.India is one of the most fascinating markets for Internet of Things capabilities. We have been involved in the Smart City projects and thus have a collaboration with Fuji Electric Holdings Co Ltd to bring Smart City technology to the market. We will make sure we partner with right IT firms whether it is Mahindra or TCS or some other players who are already active in this place. We have our micro-economic products and think Fujitsus technology can actually facilitate them. India is an important market for us and the governments generous support is helping us grow.Fujitsu has a linear edge technology in terms of both Intel-based and Sparc-based technology. Three years ago, Fujitsu held the number one position in the super computers globally based on a project called K-computer in Japan, which was developed for the Ministry of Japan. Fujitsu has strong system architecture capabilities around HPC. The technology is very much commoditized these days. What differentiates us from the rest of the players is that we work with people developing applications in HPC in order to optimize the way computers are built.We have been particularly successful in India because there are various departmental HPC projects on the go, which are not very high-end, but mid-to-low scale HPC. Fujitsus capabilities in the area are second to none in the market. We can probably be market leaders in India, where we see discussions in commercial fields gathering pace; banking and financial services and manufacturing areas are eyeing massive investments to develop capabilities around HPC.Its a growing area as we look at big IT trends in the market place and Big Data trends. We believe HPC capability and Super computer capability really underpin big IT trends, including Big Data. Globally, we see exactly the same trend as India. HPC was earlier into research education; but, it has established beyond a shadow of doubt that big data trends and HPC can be implemented successfully.Digital disruption is the biggest trend in IT sector. The whole industry has seen a sea of change and has transformed by technology-based software. Fujitsu believes in helping its customers in the private and public sector through digital disruption. If you have a startup and are designing for the new world and disrupt the existing business model and have got it right like Netflix and others, it will definitely lead you to success. We absolutely recognise the value that small and medium startups bring in through new capabilities and thus reshape new value chains; customers want to access those capabilities.Medium and big companies that represent the digital world face a big challenge because they grow on a legacy of IT investments in their existing systems but they need to digitalize themselves. Thats why in Fujitsu we are already trying to develop hybrid IT, which is a big trend particularly from the medium to top end of the IT market. IT market is around hybrid IT. Most businesses that pre-exist, want to change but they cannot afford or not able to manage this new digital world. Fujitsu sees itself as a powerful player in the hybrid IT world that will help manage digital disruption for its client.Our approach to the market is unique because we have a collaborative approach with customers to help them with the journey and bring the technology platforms to their core businesses and help them transform their businesses.Global market for HPC is about $5 billion. We are investigating the possibility of participating in about 60-70 projects globally. The Indian market for HPC is experiencing fast growth in India and the global market is flat in terms of total scale in HPC.We believe this is a key growth driver. Thats where we are expanding and are trying to be more of a local partner in India. A big increase in our developmental staff and centres and our capabilities have doubled our business in India compared with last year and we continue to grow strongly. You will see Fujitsu making investments in India for more competencies in its key platforms like HPC. We will see more global capabilities being cited in India. When I look at the business in this region, I see India as the number one prospect in terms of growth.The devices world is in the midst of a major change. If you look at long-term trends, you are right. The desktop market or the desktop phones has been there for many years. It is still a big market for us and even today many corporations want to use desktops. In the desktop market, in some parts, we are seeing growth. Workstations need very powerful desktops to access high graphic capabilities. We are seeing good growth at the top-end of the desktop market, but there could be a possibility that desktop computers role in the market would decline. Where is all this going to end? We have seen the tablet market grow in the past five years. We now have combined 2 in 1 tablets with a clip-on keyboard that acts as a tablet as well as a smart phone.
Today at SAPPHIRE NOW and ASUG Annual Conference , Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced new technology innovations across its portfolio of products and services to help customers transform to a hybrid infrastructure.
To thrive in the idea economy, organizations need an extensible enterprise application platform that can quickly adapt to business opportunities and threats. As a market leader in infrastructure and solutions for SAP HANA, the innovative solutions and services we are announcing today will help customers transform their IT departments using SAP HANA.
Customers today need to respond quickly to critical demands in this rapidly evolving business environment, said Vikram K, Director, Servers, Hewlett Packard Enterprise India. The latest products and solutions from HPE and SAP will provide customers access to tightly integrated, full-stack solutions that will give them real-time business analytics and applications, managed in a secure, scalable, cost-effective cloud environment.
The new innovations from HPE for SAP HANA include:
Complete testing and monitoring of SAP Flori apps and SAP HANA: HPE today announced the availability of an extended software toolkit that helps customers build, manage, monitor, and continuously improve SAP Fiori apps leveraging the SAP HANA platform. The latest test automation solutions support the creation of high-quality apps that deliver a superior user experience.
New security solution combining SAP Fortify software by HPE and SAPs NetWeaver Application Server, add-on for code vulnerability analysis: HPE is announcing immediate availability of a new integration between HPEs award-winning Fortify application security solutions (resold by SAP as SAP Fortify) and SAPs add-on for code vulnerability analysis for ABAP applications. This integration will allow end-to-end security testing for a companys SAP software landscape leaving no room for cyber attacks. The new integration of SAP Fortify and the add-on for code vulnerability analysis are available from SAP.
Pushing SAP HANA scale-up beyond 12TB:HPE is the only SAP partner in the market certified for >12TB deployment and has more than 2X the market share, compared to the competition, for customers with SAP HANA. Currently, HPE is helping a large number of consumer goods manufacturers and Fortune 100 Corporations implement 16TB and 24TB solutions.
SAP certification of HPE Integrity MC990 X Compute Server for SAP: HPE is announcing SAP certification of the HPE Integrity MC990 X Server for SAP HANA tailored datacenter integration (TDI). The HPE Integrity MC990 X is a new 8-socket x86 server targeted for large business processing and decision support Linux workloads. MC990 X Compute Blocks for TDI will complement the leading HPE portfolio of solutions for SAP HANA, including those based on HPE ProLiant Server and Integrity Superdome X Servers. HPE also now offers Datacenter Care for SAP HANA Tailored Datacenter Integration (TDI) on the HPE Integrity MC990 X Server for SAP HANA compute server to provide customers the support needed to deploy, operate, and evolve their TDI infrastructure.
In addition to the product innovations, HPE is also announcing key services to support every stage of the SAP HANAjourney. These include:
HPE Transformational Services (HPE SHAPE): HPE is extending its Digital Transformational Service for SAP S/4HANA to the Europe and Asia-Pacific regions. These solutions include tailored advisory roadmap developments, transformational integration & migration services to SAP S/4HANA, as well as extensibility into the cloud via HPE Hybrid IT. This extension, deployed exclusively on HPEs resilient Hybrid IT platform helps clients deploy and integrate more applications and releases faster; lower their cost of IT operations; and unlock business value across their critical business processes.
HPE Converged System for SAP HANA Proactive services: To address specific deployment, configuration, high-availability, migration, upgrade, and ongoing support needs for SAP HANA clients, HPE provides remote technical assessments, firmware and software updates, as well as SUSE and Red Hat OS security patching services.
Rapid Advisory Service for SAP HANA: The Rapid Advisory Service is a collaborative two day workshop to help customers identify potential risks and opportunities prior to hardware deployment for faster time to value.
Platform Protection and Compliance Service: The Platform Protection and Compliance Service is a combination of processes and tools developed by HPE leveraging different security standards (CIS, NIST, ISO, and DISA) to assess and lock down the security-related settings of different platforms to comply with regulations (such as PCI, SOX, and HIPAA) and to strengthen the security posture of an organizations IT infrastructure.
Lastly, HPE is announcing a streamlined submission process for companies to simply and conveniently partner with SAP and HPE. This process will enable companies to leverage leading HPE infrastructure solutions, services, software, cloud and financing capabilities to deliver faster and more holistic solutions for clients complex hybrid infrastructure requirements.
Todays announcements underscore a long-standing partnership between HPE and SAP and highlight HPEs commitment to helping customers gain faster and better insights into their business.
SAPPHIRE NOW focuses on how companies can enable their digital business strategy and get more from their technology investments. SAPPHIRE NOW and the ASUG Annual Conference are the worlds premier business technology event and largest SAP customer-run conference, offering attendees the opportunity to learn and network with customers, SAP executives, partners and experts across the entire SAP ecosystem.
Maruti Suzuki said that it will inspect suspected fault in 20,427 S-Cross vehicle, as per reports. The automobile firm will suspect fault and replace brake part in 20,427 units of S-Cross. Read more The XE began what is turning out to be a major sales revival for Jaguar. Its been a long while coming not just for a drive to me, but also to India. Launched globally in early 2015, it was only at the 2016 Auto Expo that I first saw the Jaguar XE or the Baby Jag the smallest sedan ever made by the leaping cat in flesh and blood. Read more This is the third launch in the sub-4-metre segment in quick succession from the stables of Mahindra and with this they also seem to have gotten over their O fixation to end a model name. They had an earlier such attempt with the axed version of the Verito the Verito Vibe. Here too, in the name NuvoSport, the O at the end of Nuvo seems to be an attempt to carry on the O legacy. Read more Maruti Suzuki India is not feeling the pressure faced by Suzuki Motor Corp in the issue of using improper fuel economy and emission tests in Japan. Read more Tata Motors Ltd has informed BSE that the company is planning of issuing the second series of its Rated, Listed, Unsecured, Redeemable, NCDs aggregating to Rs. 300 crores and in this regard is holding a meeting of its duly constituted Committee of the Board on May 25, 2016. Read more Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) is aiming for double-digit growth this year, spurred by new capacity coming on stream, reports a business daily. Read more Maruti Suzuki launched Alto 800 with more attractive front design, fresh interiors, vibrant colours, higher fuel efficiency and new features. The new Alto 800 is a lot more fuel efficient. Alto 800 now delivers a superior fuel efficiency of 24.7 Km/l of petrol, around 9 per cent improvement over the earlier version. In CNG mode the Alto 800 offers a mileage of 33.44 Km/Kg an improvement of around 10 per cent. Read more Hyundai Motor India Ltd., the countrys largest exporter and the second largest car manufacturer today introduced special edition of Xcent, commemorating 20 years of Foundation in India. Read more Bajaj Auto Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj has reportedly criticized NCAP's stand on the safety rating for the Bajaj Qute, India's only quadricycle, reports a business daily. Read more Mahindra & Mahindra stated "All Mahindra Automotive products are developed and manufactured to meet or exceed the safety standards set in India for a safe driving experience. In fact, many models exceed the expected regulations of 2019. Read more Volkswagen, Europes leading car manufacturer, introduces mobile application for the made in India and made for India Ameo. The mobile application will enable customers to explore the features of the Ameo through a 360 degree visualizer. Read more Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL), the countrys second largest car manufacturer and largest passenger car exporter celebrating 20 years of Foundation in India announced Mega Experience Hyundai Program to be held on May 22, 2016 at 567 locations in 324 cities across India. The program will let Hyundai customers experience the services, products and brand. Read more Harley-Davidson riders returned to the Land of the Thunder Dragon- Bhutan for the 3rd International H.O.G. Ride to fulfill their quest for riding in one of the worlds most sought after riding destinations. The exciting week long ride from May 4-10, 2016 was organized by the Bengal Chapter and this time they were accompanied by passionate riders from the Harley-Davidson Bhutan brotherhood. Read more Through a first-of-its-kind MoU between a public utility space and an online mobility platform, Ola, Indias most popular mobile app for transportation, will extend its range of mobility solutions to travelers through a designated Ola Zone at the Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru (KIAB). Read more TVS Motor Company, Indias leading two wheeler maker, today launched the new Chocolate Gold Edition of the 2016 TVS StaR City+ motorcycle. Read more
To sustain growth of the mining industry in the Country, the Union Minister of State for Steel & Mines Mr Vishnu Deo Sai has emphasised the need for a comprehensive approach so that the potential benefits of the sector are realised.
Inaugurating the ASSOCHAM Conference on Mining in Odisha here today, Sai said minerals are indispensable in the modern society and mining activities enable access to the much needed minerals. Mining industry is one of the core sectors and is a barometer of overall health of the economy and industrial output. A vibrant mining industry is a bedrock of any industrial nation particularly when it is endowed with huge mineral potential as in the case of India. The rationale extends to Odisha which is one of the major states in India, both in terms of mining output and industrial production.
However, mining in India is beset with uneconomical scale and limited mechanization / automation. While we have come a long way in terms of technology upgradation and modernization, there is still lot of potential left for improvement. It is apparent in terms of the average size of mines in India, safety standards and overall viability of mines. The number of mines which reported mineral production (excluding minor minerals, petroleum (crude), natural gas and atomic minerals) in India was 3318 in FY2015 as against 3722 in the previous financial year. Of the 3318 reporting mines, 173 mines were located in Odisha. The average size of the mines in Odisha is equally small as in the other states in India. While it is understood that this assessment is dependent on the mineral (eg. gold vs coal) and the underlying geology, the fact cannot be done away with that India needs to take decisive steps towards modernization of its mining industry.
Mr Prafulla Kumar Malik, Minister of State (I/C) for Steel and Mines said, Odisha is also the first State in the country to issue rules for the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) a body created to bring far reaching changes in Indias mining regulations, MMDR Act. The new rules however, raised some concerns as they have failed to define any role for the mining companies who are among the major stakeholders and will be significantly impacted by the operations of the new regulations. While declined in mineral production has been the general trend in the country, faster decline in the state warrants a closer look at the state specific issues affecting mineral production in the country.
As per the recent amendment of MMDR Act, 2015 the transfer of mineral concessions shall be allowed only for concessions which are granted through auction. However, there is no provision for transfer of mining lease and prospecting licenses (captive mines) which were allocated earlier on first come first serve basis.
The National Mineral Policy well recognizes that extraction of mineral closely impacts other natural resources like land, water, air and forest. The areas in which minerals occur often have other resources, presenting a choice of utilization of the resources. Some such areas are ecologically fragile and some are biologically rich. It is necessary to take a comprehensive view to facilitate the choice or order of land use keeping in view the needs of development as well as needs of protecting the forests, environment and ecology.
Prevention and mitigation of adverse environmental effects due to mining of minerals and repairing and re-vegetation of the affected forest area and land covered by trees in accordance with the latest internationally acceptable norms and modern afforestation practices needs to form an integral part of mine development strategy in every instance.
Mr T.K. Chand, Chairman ASSOCHAM National Council on Mines and Mineral & CMD Nalco said, mining in India has tremendous potential to grow manyfold. For actualization of this potitential mining has to be done scientifically conforming to sustainability parameters to unleash benefits to the people.
Mr R.K. Sharma, Principal Secretary, department of Steel and Mines, government of Odisha said, there is need to upscale the exploration activities with an am to upgrade the mineral deposit within reginable time frame. Private exploration companies should come and setup office for exploration activities. Environment and forest clearance should be take care by equal participation from industry and government.
Mr Abhijit Pati , CEO-Aluminium Business , Vedanta Ltd in his address stressed on the fact that Odisha has immense potential if it can leverage its mineral resources effectively and with urgency. He said that the need of the hour is to have a better mining governance by attracting the best in mining with state of the art technology, knowledge and skill set. He urged the state for developing a world class Mining Research Centre at Odisha so that a coordinated effort can be initiated by the centre to work in the direction of a vibrant and responsible mining drive for the state. He mentioned that we have to negate the notion of Prosperity underneath and poverty above in context of Odisha.
Other Speakers who also spoke during the conference were Mr H.S. Chhatwal, Senior Managing Committee Member and Mr D.S. Rawat, Secretary General, ASSOCHAM.
The domestic air passenger traffic market grew by 21% in April from a year earlier on the back of lower fares, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data.IndiGo carried 38.7% of the 79.3 lakh passengers who flew in April, followed by the Jet Airways group (Jet Airways and JetLi te), which had an 18.9% share.SpiceJet had an occupancy rate of 93.2% followed by GoAir at 87.8% and IndiGo at 85.8%.For the first time, the DGCA shared data on the percentage of tickets sold in the highest fare bracket by private airlines in 20 sectors.The percentage of seats sold by airlines in the highest fare bucket on select routes did not exceed 2% last month, according to the DGCA data.The highest percentage of seats sold by Jet Airways in the top fare bracket was 1.08% on the Kolkata-Chennai sector. For IndiGo, too, that was the route with the most tickets sold at the highest fare (0.17%).GoAir sold 1.29% of the seats in the highest fare bracket on the Delhi-Patna sector, while for SpiceJet, this was on the Chennai-Port Blair sector (0.07%).For Vistara, it was 0.09% on the Delhi-Hyderabad and Mumbai-Delhi sectors.
Union Minister for Roads, Transport & Shipping Nitin Gadkari wants to set up a financing corporation for the road and shipping sectors, and push the bureaucracy to take quick decisions on the funding of these projects, reports a business daily.A proposal for setting up the financing corporation for the two sectors will be placed before the Union Cabinet for its approval, says the financial newspaper."It will give a sense of security to banks to deal with projects from these sectors," Gadkari told the daily.According to him, these will be the fulcrum of his plans to revive investments in the infrastructure sector, which has decelerated badly in the past few years.The proposed financing corporation will be in addition to the role of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), which too raises finance for the road sector projects.Gadkari told the paper that he needs a financing company, as the funding for road projects had dried up, especially from the banking sector."Because of the projects that have overshot their completion date, I hardly see any additional financing by the banks to this sector," he said.Gadkari said the proposed financing company would be able to tap into both domestic as well as foreign funds for the funding of the projects.He had recently met the banks and multilateral institutions and they were supportive of the plan, Gadkari told the paper.
Names of 14 more new cities would be announced soon under the flagship Smart City Mission which will receive the first tranche of funding, Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said on Thursday."Already 20 cities have been selected. Another 13 or 14 cities are going to be announced in a day or two and these will be included in the first set of cities, which will receive the first tranche of funding," Naidu told a gathering at the CII Smart City Investors Meet in the national capital.There are huge opportunities for private players as the first 20 cities would require investments to the tune of US$7 billion, according to Naidu.Emphasising on the role of the private sector in the development of smart cities, Naidu said that there was an urgent need to involve it and bring in their expertise and technology to meet the aspirations of the citizens in these cities.The minister also stated that there was a move towards stability in the states as well, which will augur well for the developmental initiatives.Later on the sidelines of the event, Naidu said that the ground work for the first round of smart city projects have been completed and construction was expected to be begin in these cities by 25th June."Happy that smart city mission is becoming a reality, ground work is completed, detailed project reports (DPRs) are approved, money being released for the first installment and by 25th June I would like to see smart city construciton work start in different cities," he said.
World Bank's investment arm International Finance Corporation (IFC) is looking to invest US$68 million (about INR 460 crore) in Apollo Health & Lifestyle.Apollo Health runs the Apollo Hospital's small format centres.The proposed investment is part of the overall capital of US$135 million (INR 900 crore) raised by the unit."IFC is considering an equity investment of approximately US$68 million, including approximately US$34 million for its own account and approximately US$34 million for IFC's Asset Management Company," IFC said on its website.IFC has earlier invested in Apollo Health's parent firm, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise.Apollo Health & Lifestyle operates in the primary care space, and has 7 formats - Apollo Clinics, Apollo Sugar (diabetes), Apollo Diagnostics, Apollo White (dental care), Apollo Dialysis, Apollo Cradle (maternity) and Apollo Spectra Hospitals (day care surgery).
In an interview to Economic Times, R Vasudevan, MD at Vascon Engineers, revealed the companys plans to set up an additional facility in Mumbai to help expansion.Vasudevan briefed about the turnaround efforts, stating that the company has shifted to quality projects over the past three years after encountering several headwinds on the EPC front. He told ET that the ETC segment was hit badly due to slowdown in the real estate sector. The company decided to exit from stalled and delayed projects eventually. As a result, the company is getting better in shape, and it intends to continue this consolidation process going ahead.Vasudevan stated that they derive revenues from three segments, which are real estate, EPC contract, and Clean Room Partitions along with BMS sections. He added that real estate contribution is smallest in the portfolio while EPC is responsible for the largest chunk of revenues.Clean Room Partitions and BMS sections together are dedicated to Clean Room in the pharmaceutical sector and other industries on turnkey basis. He said that Clean Room and BMS has done fairly well this year as far as bottom-line is concerned. He credited various efforts undertaken last year for a better performance this year. Improved results led the company to set up an additional facility in Mumbai, noted Vasudevan. Thus, the segment should grow at least 20% alone this year while a matching growth is also expected in the bottom-line, according to Vasudevan.In the EPC segment, the company has order book from third parties, outside their own real estate projects. Vasudevan said that the EPC order book stands at Rs.780 crore and will be executed over the next two years. Apart from this, the company is involved in final negotiations for a handful of other potential orders, concluded Vasudevan.Vascon Engineers Ltd ended at Rs. 28.3, down by Rs. 0.8 or 2.75% from its previous closing of Rs. 29.1 on the BSE.The scrip opened at Rs. 29.15 and touched a high and low of Rs. 29.35 and Rs. 28.1 respectively. A total of 389970(NSE+BSE) shares were traded on the counter. The current market cap of the company is Rs. 469.4 crore.The BSE group 'B' stock of face value Rs. 10 touched a 52 week high of Rs. 41.25 on 02-Dec-2015 and a 52 week low of Rs. 14.6 on 23-Jun-2015. Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs. 32.45 and Rs. 28.9 respectively.The promoters holding in the company stood at 46.78 % while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 5 % and 48.22 % respectively.The stock traded above its 200 DMA.
SpiceJet hopes to place an order for more than 100 narrow-body aircraft in the next 2-3 months, Chairman & MD Ajay Singh has been quoted as saying by a business daily."Since deliveries are unlikely to begin before 2018, the airline will dry lease aircraft to operate its flights," Singh told the financial newspaper.The airline has already received offers from leading aircraft manufacturers, including Boeing and Airbus, and it is currently evaluating them, airline's officials have been quoted as saying.Singh also hinted at ordering few smaller jets to capitalise on the Centres push to enhance regional air connectivity.The airline also confirmed its plans of listing on the NSE."We are talking to them. But we definitely want to list on the NSE this fiscal year," Singh told the paper.SpiceJet currently operates a fleet of 26 Boeing 737 narrow-body jets and 14 smaller turbo-prop Bombardier Q-400 aircraft.In addition, the budget carrier has three Airbus A-320 and A-319 aircraft to operate between large cities.In April, domestic airlines reported close to 21 per cent increase in passengers flown compared to the same period of last year, according to the latest DGCA data.SpiceJet reported a passenger load factor of 93.2 per cent, the highest among all domestic airlines in April.
Counting a number of milestones achieved by the NDA in the telecom sector on completion of two years of the Narendra Modi Government, IT and Communication Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad today said at an ASSOCHAM meeting he would show firmness on the issue of quality of telecom service as he is answerable to the consumers and Parliament.
Addressing the ASSOCHAM Telecom Summit in New Delhi, Prasad said now that the government has done its bit to address several concerns of the industry with regard to spectrum availability and making available government buildings for signal towers, the industry is duty-bound to reinforce its network.
I have done my duty; you need to do your duty as well, the minister told top industry leaders. In response to an industrys commitment to do self-regulation. Mr Prasad was categorical in reiterating that he was committed to monitor the work in this regard. He said in his effort to take the sector to a new level, the government has achieved a 'modest' success.
Selfregulation, I do not understand, I will show firmness, will continue to monitor, the progress of the network expansion and reinforcement by the telecom industry. Mr Prasad said he would be fair to all the stakeholders. I shall be biased in favour of none; I shall be prejudiced against none.
The minister emphasized that one of the major achievements of the NDA Government has been to correct the image of the 'Sanchar Bhawan' which had remained earlier in the news for the wrong reasons.
He said entry of middlemen in Sanchar Bhawan has been banned but 'whatever doable will be done, whatever is not doable will not be done. I am clear about that.'
Enumerating various measures with regard to spectrum allocation in sufficient quantity and in a transparent manner, the minister said in the next two-three months, the government would go in for the largest auction of 2,000 MHz and after which there would not be any grievance on spectrum.
On the ambitious programme to take the fibre optic network under the Bharat Net programme to 2.5 lakh village panchayats by 2018, he said the government is making every effort to meet the deadline under his personal strict supervision.
Besides, guidelines would soon be issued on the Virtual Mobile Network under which an entity can operate without spectrum in partnership with the existing players.
On modernisation of post offices, he said over 21 664 branches have been connected with the core banking solution and the figure would reach 25,000 by next month making the India Post the largest core banking player, surpassing even the State Bank of India.
By March next, Postal payments banks would be made operational as the postal network is getting digital with facilities like ATM dispensers. Top domestic and global financial services firms including Deutsche Bank and Citibank have shown interest in partnering with the initiative.
Speed Post has been the biggest partner in the fast expanding e-commerce 'explosion' that is reaching even the hinterland, Mr Prasad said. Similar response has been forthcoming in the initiative to open call centres in small towns with an offer of 48,000 seat capacity, for which tender process is underway.
Welcoming investments and the interest shown by Apple CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting India, Mr Prasad said where else the global firms would get this kind of expansion opportunity. India would be soon moving towards the 50 crore smart phone mark from the present 27 crore, which is more than the population of several European countries.
The Minister was presented with the days deliberations of the ASSOCHAM Telecom Summit which was also addressed by Chairman of the TRAI, Mr R.S. Sharma in the morning.
The Union Power Ministry would soon approach the Union Cabinet to incorporate private power distribution companies (discoms) in Ujwal Discoms Assurance Yojana (UDAY), reports a business daily."The Government is looking at bringing in some amendments in the UDAY scheme to accommodate those states which have privatised discoms," said Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State for Coal, Power & Renewable Energy.Goyal was responding to a question on power distribution in the states where privatisation did not yield desired results, according to the daily.The minister cited the example of Odisha, which has approached the Centre to join UDAY."I am going back to the Cabinet to see how we can support states like Odisha which privatised (discoms) but are going through problems," the minister said.Odisha was a pioneer in privatisation of discoms, but possibly did not handle the process well and because of which it failed, Goyal said.When asked about the ambit of the UDAY, he said, It will be a policy decision. Any state which wants to join for operational benefits would be able to join.Goyal clarified that the private discoms that join the UDAY scheme would only benefit in terms of operational efficiency and there will not be any financial bailout.So far, 10 states have joined UDAY and 8 have issued bonds worth INR 1.11 lakh crore during FY16.
The other day, I received one of the strangest requests ever. Someone wants to be my personal spokesperson! Well, full disclosure, the request was not extended to only me, but to all Black women, from none other than social media maven Misee Harris. If you immediately said, Who? allow me to bring you up to speed. Three years ago, Harris was offered a role on ABCs hit show The Bachelor. She turned the show down, because she did not want to be the token Black girl who gets booted in episode two, or the ratchet ethnic character that gets drunk and pulls another girls hair out on TV. Right. Harris instead challenged ABC to give her her own show and make her the first Black bachelorette. That, of course, did not pan out, but she parlayed the Black Bachelorette moment into other ventures.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Ms. Harris two years ago when she accused her former employer of some discriminatory practices. Harris, who at the time worked as a pediatric dentist in Tennessee, was secretly being monitored on social media by her colleagues. Following a post on her personal Facebook page featuring a cartoon depiction of slain Ferguson teenager Michael Brown with the headline Open Season on Black Folks, Harris was given an ultimatum: Either tone down the controversial content online or leave. Harris chose the latter and took her former employer to court. She then moved to Los Angeles to continue practicing medicine and building her brand as a YouTube beauty vlogger, model, actress, writer and entrepreneur.
Ill admit, when I first spoke with Misee two years ago, I was very impressed. She was 29 years old, beautiful, intelligent, community-conscious and a boss! She was what some people would refer to as #goals.
In the message I received earlier this week, Harris states, Black American women need a voice. With Oprahs show gone, Michelle Obama exiting the White House and the generations shifting, we dont have that at the moment. I mean, who is going to speak for us? Al Sharpton? Gloria Allred? Blac Chyna? Its not a good look.
After I laughed (heartily), I felt myself growing increasingly agitated. Heres the issue: I mean no shade by this at all, but regardless of all that Harris has accomplished and what she represents, I am not interested in having her be my spokeswoman. Why? Well, I dont think I need one. Black women do not need an ambassador or a mascot. We are fully capable of speaking for ourselves individually. I would like to think she has good intentions, but this smells like nothing more than a weak publicity stunt, and Lord knows Black women have been exploited enough.
Harris went on to say she wishes to launch her public campaign to be National Spokeswoman for all African American women on The Steve Harvey Show. Seriously? I wish I were making this stuff up. Steve Harvey? The guy who made his post-comedy fortune telling Black women that in order to get a man they have to begin thinking like one? Lets first start with unpacking the respectability politics wrapped up in this whole thing. Too often, women are told by people like Harvey, other know-it-alls and, in this case, by one of their own, that the only way they can be seen as valuable or worthy is to follow a list of very ambiguous social guidelines. This is amplified when race comes into play. Be sexy, but not too sexy or youll be deemed a whore. Be sophisticated, yet relatable, or youll be deemed bourgeois. Be outspoken, but not too direct, or youll be called a (insert expletive here). It is exhausting. Every day, I get on social media and see memes plastered all over the place shaming Black women for some of the most mundane things. We are critiqued from the tops of our weaved-up or natural heads to the soles of our spa pedicures or severely overworked feet. We are constantly reminded of how good we arent and not celebrated enough for how excellent we are. Those tides are thankfully beginning to change. All over the globe, Black women of all walks of life are building legacies, overcoming obstacles and embracing their beauty like never before. Statistics from the National Center of Education Statistics revealed that Black women are the most educated group of people in the United States, and a study commissioned by American Express Open showed Black women as the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the country. If you need another example, Google #BlackGirlMagic or visit the sites of three of my favorite women Januarie York, (theiisneversilent.com), Tina Jackson (thetinajackson.com) or Elle Roberts (shehive.org). You will not be disappointed.
Yes, some of us have come a long way, but we cannot exclude those who, due to systemic oppression, may never have the alphabet behind their name, a phat savings account or a closet full of brand-new designer threads. We all deserve to be honored and celebrated.
I love Black women and I am proud of us, period. Despite my issues with her, I am proud of Misee Harris, but I do not need her (or anyone else) to be my spokesperson.
Early November last year, we told you about the Baid family that drove down from Bengaluru to Paris spending 111 days on the journey of epic proportions. Well, that story inspired couple Louis and Janet D'Souza so much that they started planning their own trip across borders.
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A journey of a lifetime
As of Friday, Louis, 62, and Janet, 56, have kickstarted their journey of a lifetime starting off from Mumbai going all the way to London in their BMW X5, covering as many as 40 countries on the way. The inspiring couple will be travelling via Myanmar, China, Mongolia into Russia to Europe crossing Lithuania, Norway, Belgium and a host of other nations before eventually arriving in the United Kingdom. What's even more incredible is the fact that the D'Souzas plan to drive all the way back as well, covering a mammoth 50,000 km and 40 beautiful countries.
The couple who run a logistics company have driven down to south India from Mumbai a few times but an international trip is a whole different ball game. But they seem to be stocked with all sorts of gear, from satellite trackers to camping tents, making sure they are prepared for practically everything. Janet has even learnt how to take a car out of a ditch or fixing flat tyres from tutorials on YouTube.
cntraveller.in
It's finally time to travel
The couple, who have been together for 34 long years, spoke to cntraveller.in, and admitted that they didn't get much time to travel in their youth as it was more about making ends meet and taking care of the children. "We're tired," she said. While their daughter was supportive from the start, their son was worried about his father's health as Louis has been a diabetic. But Janet said that wouldn't have stopped them as they had planned for far too long to have second thoughts.
We wish this awesome couple an unforgettable journey.
LinkedIn said on Wednesday that hackers were attempting to sell what they claimed were 117 million email addresses and passwords of its users, suggesting that a data breach in 2012 was magnitudes bigger than initially thought."We are taking immediate steps to invalidate the passwords of the accounts impacted, and we will contact those members to reset their passwords," LinkedIn said.
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"We have no indication that this is as a result of a new security breach."
LinkedIn is investigating the authenticity of the data, the company said. But a security researcher, Troy Hunt, said on Twitter that he had verified a portion of the breach and that it was "highly likely this is legit."
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Data available for purchase at Rs 1.48 lakhs?
The hacker is trying to sell the data on an illegal marketplace for five bitcoin, or about $2,200, according to Motherboard. In 2012, the account information of 6.5 million users was posted to a Russian hacker site. LinkedIn settled a class-action lawsuit in 2015, agreeing to compensate 800,000 people who had paid for its premium services.
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Since the attack, the company has stepped up its security procedures.
Read Also: WhatsApp Just Introduced A Feature To Secure The Data Of 1 Billion Users From Hackers
The women and child development department (WCD) is going all out to stop child marriages in Karnataka's Mysuru district. Besides the bride and bridegroom's families, even those attending such marriages and facilitating it by letting out choultry will be booked under the Child Marriage Prohibition Act. The attendees will face Rs 1 lakh fine and two years jail.
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And there's also the possibility of being booked under Pocso Act and facing minimum of seven years of imprisonment.
"If it's found that the minor was pushed to have sex or if she becomes pregnant, those who attended and facilitated the marriage will be booked under the Pocso Act," K Radha, deputy director, WCD department, Mysuru district, said.
In the past two years, the department stopped 216 child marriages in the district. However, no stringent action was taken against the violators. Now, the department will be going tough against such violators.
Read Also: Rajasthani Tent Dealers Are Refusing To Provide Tents For Child Marriage Weddings!
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Child marriages are common in poor and rural communities. They only perpetuate the cycle of poverty. More often than not, child brides are pulled out of school, depriving them of education and meaningful work. They suffer health risks associated with early sexual activity and child-bearing, leading to high rates of maternal and child mortality.
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"With the help of voluntary organisations we will try to create more awareness including by visiting schools and villages about the consequences of child marriage. In days to come, the punishment will be stringent and no one can escape from law," Radha said.
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"In 2012-13 and 2013-14, 35 and 21 child marriages were stopped respectively. The number increased in 2014-15 and 2015-16 as we managed to stop 111 and 105 child marriages across the district. More child marriages are found taking placer in Hunsur, KR Nagar and HD Kote taluks. Not only the bride and bride groom's families but also the priests, the attendees and those let out choultry for the marriage will be booked under the Child Marriage Prohibition Act."
Dr Radhamani, superintendent, Cheluvamba Hospital, said: "Every month, around 1,200 deliveries happen in the hospital. About 5% are related to teenage pregnancy that is below 18 years of age. Abortion chances are high among teenage pregnancy. Besides, there are chances of preterm delivery, high BP and sugar and anaemia. Also there are chances of more health complication during delivery."
Read Also: Child Marriages Are Not Automatically Void, Require Divorce To Terminate
1. Coming To Avenge Babri, Kashmir, Gujarat, Muzaffarnagar, Warns ISIS In A New Video
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has released a 22-minute long propaganda video. The new video is one of the first times when the dreaded outfit has focused on South Asia and India specifically.
The video shows groups of militants aboard small boats brandishing Kalashnikov with an ISIS black flag in the background. It shows the bearded faces of most of the militants. The video in Arabic also features Fahad Sheikh, a resident from Thane who left India in 2013 to fight for IS in Syria.
2. Delhi Girl Sukriti Gupta Tops CBSE Class XII Exams, As Girls Outshine Boys In Results
With a pass percentage of 88.58 per cent, girls once again outperformed boys in the CBSE Class XII Board examination, the results of which were declared on Saturday.
Boys recorded a pass percentage of 78.85 per cent. Sukriti Gupta of Montfort School in Delhi has topped the exams, scoring 497 marks out of 500. Girls have secured the first top three positions. "I relied on self study and followed NCERT books while preparing for exams," Sukriti Gupta said.
3. Tim Cook Meets Narendra Modi, Discusses Apple's Make In India Plans
Showing interest in making Apple products in India, the global technology giant's chief Tim Cook today discussed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi the "possibilities of manufacturing" and tapping the young talent pool in the country.
"Cook shared Apple Inc's future plans for India. He spoke of the possibilities of manufacturing and retailing in India. He appreciated the breadth of young talent in India and said the youth have significant skills which Apple would like to tap," an official statement said.
4. 23-Year-Old Congolese Man Beaten To Death In South Delhi's Vasant Kunj
In a shocking incident of what seems to be an apparent hate crime, a Congolese national was beaten to death by a group of men in south Delhi's Vasant Kunj area.
The incident happened late on Friday night, when 23-year-old Oliva was on his way back home. According to reports, the attack happened after he reportedly got into an argument with some of the locals.
5, A Rare Red Carpet Welcome Awaits Narendra Modi At His US Visit Next Month
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits the US next month, a rare red carpet welcome awaits him at the Capitol on June 8 when he will address a joint meeting of the US Congress, the first by a foreign leader this year.
This includes a rarest of rare lunch hosted by Speaker Paul Ryan at the Capitol, meeting with the top Congressional leadership and a unique reception thrown in his honour jointly by House and Senate foreign relations committees in association with the two India caucuses.
Ajay Kumar was born without arms but his indomitable spirit to excel in life has seen him achieve what many just strive for. He cannot write like his peers but with sheer hard work and the will to succeed, he trained himself to use his feet for what others use their hands for and managed to ace the X Class UP board exam by scoring 71.8% marks.
TOI
Ajay (16), who hails from Bhogaon village, Mainpuri District of UP, holds a pencil between his toes and writes like any other normal person. In fact he uses his feet, just like hands, to perform all the daily tasks and his disability has so far not prevented him from pursuing his dream of becoming an engineer.
Ajay appeared for the exams from SR Inter College and secured 431 marks out of 600. He is elated by his performance but swears that he would even work harder to cross the 80% score in his future exams.
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Admitting that many for his peers find it funny when they see him writing with his feet, Ajay says most of them have been very encouraging and admire him for his grit. However, there are a few who laugh and make jokes about his disability behind his back but that hasn't ever really bothered Ajay.
"I know who I am and what I have. I'll make the best from it and never give up", said the gutsy boy while talking to TOI on phone. "I'm even holding the phone in my feet and talking to you he says", while adding that he uses his feet to even brush and eat his meals. "I think, if I had arms I could have done better but nevertheless now my feet are my arms", he says.
Read Also: Deemed 95% Disabled, This JNU Scholar Fought Unbelievable Odds To Get A PhD In 'Brain Computer Interface'
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Extremely proud of their son's performance, Ajay's father, Dayaram, and mother, Meera Devi, said, "When he was born we were very worried how he would lead a normal life without arms but over the years he has proved that his disability cannot stop him from achieving what he wants". Dayaram said his other two sons were never interested in studies and dropped out after class VIII. Unlike them, Ajay always wanted to go to school and his mother encouraged him, he said.
"When he was a kid, we gave him thin wooden sticks to hold in his toes and he used to draw lines with them on the sand", she said, adding that gradually Ajay mastered the skill and started writing words and numbers.
Read Also: Delhi University Finally Becomes Disabled-Friendly. 70% More Differently-Abled Kids To Join This Year
News / Africa
by Cletus Mushanawani
PRESIDENT Mugabe says his stay in power is influenced by the desire to prevent regime change in the country being fronted by the United States of America and her Western allies.Addressing delegates at Fort Hare University's centenary celebrations in Alice, South Africa, yesterday, where he received a standing ovation upon his grand entrance into the main hall as well as when he was invited to address, President Mugabe said the West continued to meddle in African affairs through NGOs funded by France, Britain and the USA."It has been a long struggle to prove that we are also equal people and that we are also human beings. Besides all our efforts, the West still continues to try to run our affairs in Africa. Francophone and Anglophone (countries) are continuing trying to undermine our systems. Thousands of NGOs supported by France, Britain and America are there, with America openly saying they can change regimes."In Zimbabwe, they said they will have regime change, and I said never. I am stuck there because I want to prevent regime change," said President Mugabe to wild applause from the delegates.He said African universities like Fort Hare should churn out products that truly represent what the elders sought: to make the continent totally free."We want universities to produce students who become leaders who are courageous to ensure equality for everyone. Equality for all is not political, but economic equality. Equality is not when you have land and myself I have nothing, you have big businesses and myself being viewed as a labourer and worker looking for employment. This is not equality and should go."I know that young people are becoming impatient and will make this go," he said. President Mugabe said Fort Hare University was a cradle of anti-colonial ideology as well as a source of African intellectualism. "I was academically born here. It is here where I was transformed. It is here where I truly discovered my African identity," he said.Zimbabwe has maintained strong ties with Fort Hare University through the Presidential Scholarship Programme established in 1995 to help students from less privileged backgrounds to have university education.A total of 3 010 students have completed their studies at the university, with the majority of them contributing significantly to Zimbabwe's economic growth. President Mugabe said it was his desire to see the programme continue despite the dwindling numbers as more students enrol at local universities."Although we have reduced the number of students being enrolled here, we will maintain the scholarship fund as a tribute to what Fort Hare has done to Africa. It has special education that motivates students. It has true Africanism history and that is the history that we want and that we have become part of it," he said.President Mugabe called for the acceleration of gender equality on the continent, with education of the girl child. President Mugabe is one of the surviving alumni of the university which was at one time home to the late national heroes, Advocate Herbert Chitepo, Dr Samuel Parirenyatwa and George Si- lundika.The colourful anniversary celebrations were marred by student protests. The students who had promised to disrupt President Jacob Zuma's address picketed outside the hall singing. Police maintained a heavy presence and ensured that the programme proceeded without any chal- lenges.Speaking at the occasion, President Zuma hailed Fort Hare's legacy of producing great leaders, not only for South Africa, but Africa as a whole. "Fort Hare has produced some of the greatest leaders in the country and beyond our borders and it is this success that we are celebrating today. It was an instrument of liberation. This institution has produced five Heads of State, a remarkable achievement," he said.The event was also graced by the chairperson of African Union, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who said Agenda 2063 puts Africa and its people first. She said there was need to revolutionalise agriculture to eliminate hunger on the con- tinent.President Mugabe was accompanied by Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Dr Chris Mushohwe, who is also the director of the Presidential Scholarship Fund, and other senior Government officials.
Ubong Assam, the wife of the traditional ruler of Esit Eket in Akwa Ibom, was delivered of a baby girl on Friday, while in custody of her kidnappers.
A family source, who pleaded anonymity, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Esit Eket, Esit Eket Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom, on Saturday, that the monarchs wife gave birth to the baby in an unknown hideout of her abductors.
The kidnappers abducted the traditional rulers wife and her four children in the Akpautong neighbourhood of Esit Eket on April 29.
The source said the kidnappers quickly released the woman and her four children due to the birth of the baby.
Reacting to the development, the Police Public Relations Officer in Akwa Ibom, Cordelia Nwawe, said that the command expressed appreciation to God for the safe delivery of the monarchs wife.
She, nonetheless, said that the command had yet to receive any information about the release of the kidnapped woman and her four children.
NAN, however, reports that the traditional rulers wife and her four children were released on May 14.
Source:NAN
President Muhammadu Buhari will on Monday, May 23, 2016 begin a two-day working visit to Lagos State, his first official visit to the state since he assumed office about a year ago.
In a statement by the State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Steve Ayorinde, the state said this will be the first time in about 15 years that a sitting President will be visiting the State on a working visit, describing it as a testimony to the achievements of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode.
Ayorinde said President Buhari during the visit, would formally commission the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) Rescue Unit in Cappa Oshodi, the newly constructed Ago Palace Way in Okota, Isolo, after which he will pay homage to the Oba of Lagos, His Royal Majesty, Oba Babatunde Rilwanu Aremu Akiolu at the Iga Iduganran, Lagos Island.
The Commissioner further said that the President would later in the day be hosted to a reception rally by the State Government at the Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) Lagos where he will also commission and hand over security equipment and vehicles contributed by the Governor Akinwunmi Ambode-led administration to securities agencies to beef up security in the state.
Bujaris visit will end with a State Banquet in his honour at the Eko Hotels and Suites, Victoria Island.
He will on Tuesday participate as the Special Guest of Honour at a breakfast session with Corporate Lagos to be hosted by Governor Ambode at the Lagos State House, Marina, after which he will have a short session with the public service at the State House, Alausa-Ikeja.
The Lagos State Government on Saturday said it would formally welcome President Muhammadu Buhari on a two-day working visit to the state on Monday.
This is contained in a statement issued by the states Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Steve Ayorinde, which was obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
Mr. Ayorinde said this would be President Buharis first official visit to the state since he assumed office about a year ago.
Mr. Ayorinde said the president, during the visit, would formally commission the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) Rescue Unit, at Cappa, near Oshodi, in the state.
He said the Rescue Unit was built by the state government to ensure prompt and swift response to emergency situations.
Mr. Ayorinde said the president would thereafter commission the newly-constructed Ago Palace Way in Okota, Isolo, after which he would pay homage to Oba Rilwan Akiolu of Lagos.
The Commissioner also said that President Buhari would later in the day be hosted to a reception at the Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos.
He said Mr Buhari would also commission and hand over security equipment and vehicles contributed by the state government to the security agencies, to strengthen security in the state.
The commissioner said that activities for the first day of the presidents visit would be rounded up with a state banquet in his honour at the Eko Hotels and Suites, Lagos.
He said that the president will on Tuesday participate as a special guest of honour at a breakfast session with Corporate Lagos, to be hosted by Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode, at the Lagos State House, Marina.
Mr. Ayorinde said after the breakfast session, President Buhari would have a short session with the public service at the State House, Ikeja.
He urged residents to bear with law enforcement agents and traffic control authorities who would effect road diversions in some of the routes that the presidents motorcade would pass through during the visit.
Mr. Ayorinde added that the governor was joyous over the landmark presidential visit to the state that contributed so much to his emergence as president.
Source:NAN
Nadia Buari made an appearance at the 2016 Vodafone Ghana Music Awards.
Her dress has drawn some debate with many saying she exposed way too much of her breasts but honestly, we think she nailed it.
The dress was designed by StuninDenzel
The dress
Nadia Buari on the stage
Source:OMG Voice
The flamboyant lifestyle of 37-year-old Chinedu Anedu has landed him in trouble. Anedu, who was recently deported from South Africa, confessed that he went into crime to keep up with his flamboyant lifestyle.
According to police source, Chinedu Anaedu and his gang member, Onyeka Nnamani, were arrested by the operatives of the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT), for allegedly defrauding an Abuja-based businessman.
The suspects, who were alleged to be members of a notorious syndicate, based in Lagos, were alleged to have deceived their latest victim, one Chief Obiekwe, with a fake business transaction, worth N12million. The victim was alleged to have parted with N200,000 before he realised that he had fallen into the trap of fraudsters.
The source revealed that before the two suspects were arrested, the victim had told the police that a driver he hired from Lagos called severally, demanding for money to settle security personnel who impounded his vehicle.
He said he was made to believe that the driver was sending a fridge packed with money from his business partner for a transaction in Abuja. But surprisingly, hours later, he received a distress call from the driver alleging that Custom officials had impounded his car and would only release the car if a certain amount of money was paid. He complied and allegedly sent N200,000 to the driver to settle the matter.
However, the victim was said to have suspected a foul play when the driver called him again to bring more money to settle NDLEA officials, who he said had confiscated the fridge containing the sum of N12million meant for a business transaction.
In a petition to the Inspector General of Police, Chief Obiekwe narrated his suspicion and IGP directed IRT operatives to investigate the matter.
In the course of investigation, it was revealed that all the calls, said to be from Lokoja, Kogi State, actually emanated from Ejigbo in Lagos State. The police later tracked down and arrested the two suspects at their hideout in Lagos.
Sounding repentant, Chinedu, who pretended to be a driver, claimed that his duty was to call their targets, pretending that he was arrested. He said: I was based in South Africa before they arrested me for selling hard drugs. I spent seven years in prison and was finally deported in 2014. With the little money that I have saved, I got married and decided to turn a new leaf.
It was not easy because of the flamboyant lifestyle while I was in South Africa. I had no choice, but to find a way to survive. I went to Alaba International market, and started to hustle. It was not easy at all and I needed to survive at all cost. While in South Africa, I also learnt one or two things about internet fraud, but at Alaba market, their style is completely different. We were doing low key fraud and our targets were greedy people. We would sell an idea that is fraudulent and our target who is also greedy will buy into it.
Speaking on the incident that landed him in trouble, Chinedu claimed that it was Okechukwu, an apprentice at Alaba market, that brought the job. Chief normally comes to the market to buy goods. So, it was easy to get his number. What we did was to call him and convinced him that one of the apprentices in Alaba wanted to buy land in Abuja. He was told that the apprentice had wrecked his masters business and was looking for where to invest his money.
Okechukwu, who made the call, sold the idea to Chief that if the money, which is about N12million, gets to him, he should look for land that could cost about N1million and buy for him. He agreed with Okechukwu that the N11million would be split between them. He was convinced that the apprentice was a fool and does not know the cost of land in Abuja.
It was Onyeka who played the role of the apprentice. He called Chief and acted as if he does not know anything about it. He was the one who suggested that he would love to send cash to Chief ,who is based in Abuja. To further confuse Chief, he told him that he would want to pay cash so that no one can trace the money, which he had been saving at home, to him. If he is not greedy he would not jump at it. He had already accepted to defraud the apprentice. So, it was very easy to convince him to part with some money.
Continuing, he said: We agreed that I should pack the money inside a new fridge and send it to him. I posed as the driver and called to inform him that I was on my way to Abuja. He kept calling to find out my location. Five hours later, I called and told him that Customs stopped me at Lokoja and were threatening to take the car to their office. He requested to speak with the Custom officer and I gave the phone to one of our members. He told him that he will confiscate the car until I produce custom documents. He offered to pay N200, 000 to release the car, which he paid that very day.
I assured him that I am free and on my way to Abuja. After about an hour, I called him again that NDLEA officials had arrested me and they were insisting that they will open the fridge. At this point, Okechukwu also called him pretending to be panicking over my supposed arrest. He was told to bring N300, 000 so that NDLEA will not open the fridge. Initially, he agreed, but when he was wasting time, we knew that something had gone wrong and switched off all the phones that we used to contact him. All these calls were made from our location at Ejigbo.
Begging for mercy, Chinedu promised to refund his own share from the loot, which he said was N20, 000. My only share was N20, 000. I was shocked when police traced and arrested me. I am sorry. But the truth is that Chief was preparing himself to steal N11million from the apprentice if the money had arrived as he thought.
Source:TheNation
Senior Special Assistant (SSA) on Security to Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom, Mr. Denen Igbana, was yesterday killed by gunmen.
Igbana was said to have been killed along Tionsha settlement, a suburb of Makurdi, while on his way from an official assignment.
According to eyewitnesses, Igbana jumped down from the vehicle, after he was ambushed, and tried to escape, but was overpowered by the gunmen who shot him multiple times.
He was rushed to the Benue State University Teaching Hospital in Makurdi but later died, The Naiton quoted one of the eyewitnesses to have said.
One of the community leaders in the area, Thomas Ayakpam, also narrated how the incident happened.
The assailants waylaid the late security aide on his way back home in the night and sprayed bullets on his Nissan Hilux, he said. They shot him severally, giving him no chance to survive.
We could not come out to rescue him because we were scared, as they seem to be many and the shots they fired shook the whole community to its foundation, he said.
Following the murder, Governor Ortom has directed security operatives to carry out full investigation into the incident and fish out the assailants.
A widow, Mrs. Omolabake Clementine Abayomi who was attacked in her residence in Ile-Ife, Osun State by unknown gunmen suspected to be assassins has landed in hospital where she recounted her ordeal.
Narrating her harrowing experience in the hands of the criminals, Mrs. Abayomi who spoke to newsmen in an undisclosed hospital where she is still receiving treatment said the attack remains a shocker to her.
The soft spoken woman said the gunmen dragged her from her bedroom to the living room and asked her to sit on the floor.
They said I need to cooperate with them otherwise they will kill me. They said they are aware that my son Barrister Adekanmi Abayomi is back in the country because he granted an interview to a national newspaper few months ago and that they are reliably informed that my son is hiding in my house. They searched everywhere in the house looking for my son. When they couldnt see any trace of him, they started beating me and I did not know when I fainted. They left me hoping that I had died. But the timely intervention of the vigilante saved my life, she narrated.
To prove they may not the regular armed robbers, Mrs Abayomi said the suspected assassins did not steal anything valuables from her as they only went away with her sons clients files and some other documents kept in the house.
As at press time, the Police is yet to make any public statement on the incident which has already created fear in the hearts of residents in the ancient city.
Source:TheSun
Google's Project Ara modular smartphone is coming to developers soon, but it's lost a key part of its customization vision along the way.
Developers will be able to get their hands on an early release version of Ara by the end of this year, to begin building custom hardware modules for the device, Google announced at its I/O conference today. The modules will allow users to customize their phones with hardware like cameras, speakers, and even a rear-facing display.
[ Android is now ready for real usage in the enterprise. Read InfoWorld's in-depth guide on how to make Android a serious part of your business. | Get the best office apps for your Android device. ]
Ara's initial philosophy was to serve as a wholly modular smartphone, which would allow users to customize all of the phone's components, including its processor, battery, network connectivity, and screen. Now, many of those components will be integrated into the Ara "frame," which will still retain space for some customization.
This means that users won't be able to buy one frame that acts solely as a network hub between modules and then continually upgrade it with new processors, network chips, and more.
But the process of setting up and maintaining an Ara phone will likely be easier for everyday users who won't have to worry about accidentally leaving their cellular data connection at home by removing a network module.
Last year, Google announced that its Project Ara smartphone pilot in Puerto Rico had ended as the company was re-evaluating what it wanted to do with the initiative. This revamped frame appears to be the result. It still stays true to the idea of Ara as a heavily customizable phone -- the frame has room for up to six custom modules -- but simplifies the product.
Consolidating all of the phone components of an Ara device into the frame reduces its customizability, but provides several benefits, like giving users a slim, integrated phone experience with room for them to add specific functionality they can't get from general-purpose consumer phones.
Developers can apply to be part of the Project Ara beta here. Google asks that all applicants describe what they want to do with one of the test units, meaning people who just want to take one of the devices for a spin will likely be turned away.
Looking forward, Google plans to release other Ara frames, and those won't necessarily resemble smartphones. We might even see an Ara tablet on the horizon.
Ara isn't the only Android phone banking on customization. LG's new G5 lets users swap out the bottom of the phone to get different functionality, but it doesn't have nearly as many slots for enhancement as Ara does.
EU energy ministers seek way forward for more energy unity AP - 1 hour ago BRUSSELS (AP) European Union energy ministers on Tuesday started seeking some common ground to that their leaders could find last week to soften the blow of an energy crisis for their citizens while... $SPX : 3,797.34 (+1.19%) $DOWI : 31,499.62 (+1.34%) $IUXX : 11,430.26 (+1.06%)
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 : 76.40 (+0.35%) CTH23 : 76.20 (+0.61%) CTK23 : 75.81 (+0.34%)
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 : 831-6 (-0.83%) ZWH23 : 851-4 (-0.79%) ZWPAES.CM : 7.7336 (-1.52%) KEZ22 : 929-2 (-0.93%) KEPAWS.CM : 8.9620 (-1.06%) MWZ22 : 948-4 (-0.97%)
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%)
News / Local
by Staff Reporter
Bulawayo's ugliest will this year get a chance to walk away with the Zimbabwe Mr Ugly title, with the popular pageant set to hold its provincial finals in the City of Kings at the beginning of next month.Last year Bulawayo was sidelined as the contest's organisers mainly concentrated on the capital and its surrounding areas.However, after the event became a sensation that went viral on social media and managed to make headlines in international media, it is now set to come to the country's second largest city.Last week the contest held its preliminary rounds for Harare province with two-time champion, William Masvinu, shrugging off competition from five other contestants to win a place in the Mr Ugly Harare competitions also set to be held next month."We are definitely coming to Bulawayo next month and we have already set up a team that are handling the logistics of the pageant that side. We could not bring the contest to Bulawayo last year unfortunately but this year we have the backing that we need to make the contest a reality," said pageant organiser David "Apama" Machowa.Machowa said they were looking to find the winner of the contest in the City of Kings over three rounds."Right now we are looking at finding the winner after three contests with two preliminary rounds followed by a final contest. However, that will depend on how many contestants we receive over the next month. If we fail to get the necessary numbers then we will just hold one contest," he said.Machowa said that after the contest had become a worldwide phenomenon, they were now building towards the Mr Ugly Africa contest later on in the year. Countries that have so far committed to taking part in the continental contest include South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda, Mozambique, Botswana, Uganda and Tanzania.
Its a given that a CIO knows a lot about investments. But Kathleen Gallagher, CIO of benefit plans at Ford Motor Co. since 2007, has in-depth knowledge of the automotive industry and the challenges that have plagued it for decades. Thats because she has held executive positions like global risk management director in finance for Ford Australia and controller for North American engine operations. That knowledge has been critical as she has helped transform the Detroit-based car companys pension plan.
Gallagher, who joined Ford in 1985 after graduating with an MBA from Harvard Business School, oversees $65 billion in global defined benefit assets, including the $41 billion U.S. pension fund. She also has investment oversight for Fords $14 billion in U.S. defined contribution assets.
As the strategist behind Fords pioneering effort to reduce the risk its pension plan poses to its core business, Gallagher is a closely watched leader in the defined benefit world. The role, obviously, is to develop and implement investment strategy, and manage the assets, she says.
Gallaghers job since 2007 has been to figure out how to safeguard assets for participants; this has evolved into a strategy of asset-liability management. Its more of a risk management job, she says. Every dollar in the portfolio has a job to do. In 2012, Ford offered lump sums to 90,000 retirees and moved about $18 billion in liabilities off its balance sheet. Now the goal is to be fully funded and stay there. We measure our success by our funded status volatility, Gallagher says.
Return to the 2016 U.S. Money Masters.
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News / Local
by Stephen Jakes
A Richmond man in Bulawayo has been fined $300 for knocking down a 5 year old child to death with a vehicle he was driving.Clement Moyo (41) pleaded guilty to the culpable homicide when he appeared in court.The magistrate fined him to $300 with an option of 30 days in jail.On December 11 2015 at 4pm at corner Chelmsterd and Esigodini Road Moyo was driving a Toyata land cruiser when he knocked down a pedestrian Chiedza Chemisa a juvenile aged 5 years who was not attempting to cross the road. She died on the spot as a result of injuries. The vehicle was a write off and the child was taken to UBH and Moyo was arrested.
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.
Frontier markets include countries that are in the earliest stages of political and economic development. They exist in contrast to emerging market economies, which are further along in implementing economic reform programs that can lead to higher rates of growth. While frontier markets present significant risk, the potential rewards are faster rates of economic growth in dynamic economies that are characterized by vibrant, youthful populations.
There are two exchange traded funds (ETFs) that focus on the most attractive frontier markets around the world. Here we look at the iShares MSCI Frontier 100 ETF (FM), managed by BlackRock Fund Advisors, and the Global X Next Emerging & Frontier ETF (EMFM).
Key Takeaways Frontier markets are characterized by youthful populations and high rates of growth and stand in contrast to emerging markets, which are further along in their economic development.
The iShares MSCI Frontier 100 ETF has invested in frontier markets such as Kuwait, Vietnam, Morocco, Kenya, Romania and Nigeria.
Top geographic allocations for the Global X Next Emerging & Frontier ETF are Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Mexico.
iShares MSCI Frontier 100 ETF
The iShares MSCI Frontier 100 ETF (FM) aims to match the performance of the MSCI Frontier Markets 100 Index, which consists of securities from 13 countries: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Romania, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.
The fund has returned 3.03% annually since inception in 2012, compared with 4.47% for its benchmark. As of June 2020, the fund held $351.1 million in assets spread across 106 investments. Top holdings include:
National Bank of Kuwait: 11.18%
Kuwait Finance House: 5.32%
AHLI United Bank: 5.09%
Itissalat Al Maghrib (Maroc Telecom): 4.45%
Safaricom: 4.14%
In terms of geographical exposure, more than half of the fund's assets are allocated to just three countries: Kuwait at 26.93%, Vietnam at 12.67% and Morocco at 11.46%. The ETF tilts heavily toward financial services stocks, which account for 49.74% of assets. Communications stocks held a 14.95% allocation, followed by consumer staples at 8.09% and real estate at 6.23%.
The Invesco Frontier Markets ETF shuttered in February 2020, leaving the iShares MSCI Frontier 100 ETF as the largest and most liquid frontier market ETF available. The fund has an expense ratio of 0.79%.
Global X MSCI Next Emerging & Frontier ETF
The Global X Next Emerging & Frontier ETF (EMFM) aims to match the MSCI Select Emerging and Frontier Markets Access Index. The fund seeks to improve upon emerging market investing by excluding the BRIC, South Korea and Taiwan economies, which it believes are slower growing. In the first quarter of 2020, the fund had allocated 11.74% of assets to Saudi Arabia, 9.87% to Thailand, 8.8% to Indonesia, 8.07% to Malaysia and 6.55% to Mexico.
As of June 2020, the fund held $14.32 million in assets and charged a 0.66% total expense ratio. Top holdings included National Bank of Kuwait, Telekomunikasi, Bank Central Asia, Naspers and Walmart de Mexico. The fund has lost 4.4% annually since its inception in November 2013, compared with a negative return of 3.75% for its benchmark index.
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There are moments, as I live here, that I witness crass insensitivity and gross hypocrisy that is so off the scale I actually cringe, grinding my teeth which with my aging body generates jaw pain.
Its been happening today, and over the past few days as I read and listen to some reaction regarding the invitation extended to Martin McGuinness MLA, and Deputy First Minister of this State who is invited to attend the 100 year commemorations of the Battle of the Somme.
The self-righteous drivel being spewed by some of the self-appointed guardians of The Somme over the last few days is jaw breaking (for me) and so I jot a few notes which, I hope, are beyond propaganda and myth, rising above the political tribalism others wish to wallow in. I thank Danny for the platform.
The Battle of the Somme was fought by the British & French Empires against the German Empire from July to November 1916, and resulted in the death of around 731, 000 British & French soldiers and around 236, 238 German soldiers. Allowing for other casualties, it is fairly safe to state, over 1 million were slaughtered on an industrial scale in five harrowing months: over 1 million!
Citizens from across Ireland, participated in the Battle, largely through their service with the 16th, 36th and 10th Divisions, which recruited across the 32 counties in droves. Amongst those recruited where individuals whod put their hand up as Irish and Ulster Volunteers, at the time following directions from the respective political leaders of their Movements, to enlist.
It is estimated by leading academics that 25% of the then Ulster Volunteers enlisted; while 31% of the then Irish Volunteers enlisted to the ranks of the British Imperial Army. The Ulster Volunteers supplemented the 36th, while the Irish National Volunteers largely the 10th & 16th though as with any Army individuals and small units cross-transferred or came under the operational control of others.
An estimated 16,000, that is around 2% of the British and French Empire dead killed at the Somme, where Irish from mainly the 36th and 16th divisions. It is a matter of record that the 36th whose courageous but foolhardy charge on the 1st July morn saw almost 5,500, alone, from the Division killed during the opening three days of the Battle (1-3 July 1916), amongst them my great maternal grandfather, and other relatives who were also West Belfast Ulster Volunteers. Its also a matter of record, that many of the 36th had advanced so far into enemy lines that they became detached from the wider front of the British advance, and were killed, by their own artillery.
Its a matter of record that the 16th courageously took the villages of Guillemont and Ginchy. In doing so the Division lost almost 4,500 men, and gained a reputation as first class shock troops. A reputation that would inflict further heavy casualties on the Division in later battles as they were sent in first.
There is no doubt that both Divisions wore unregulated sentimental clothing and symbols going into battle. The Germans reported members of the 36th yelling a war cry of No Surrender as they swept through the first German lines, shooting and bayoneting their enemy, many in Orange sashes.
The Germans in Ginchy also reported members of the 16th (having captured their objective) continue to chase after fleeing enemy troops yelling No Kaiser, For Ireland, many wearing green ribbons.
Nine Victoria Crosses were won for bravery during the Somme and of these four were to members of the 36th (during the Great War 1914-18 there were a total of 32 Irish VC recipients from all 3 Irish Divisions).
Today, the dead of the Somme, lie side by side, irrespective of their Unit, religion, political ideology or allegiance. All died following their orders, some in their service to the then deceit that small Nations might be free while others to their notion of camaraderie, friendship or brethren.
None of us, living today, regardless of our own recent violent experience, can actually know the horror of Trench Warfare or the carnage of the Somme.
While many of us today can claim ancestry or heritage to those that fought, it is pathetically sad that some individuals or body of people, now in 2016, attempt to claim they absolutely represent all the dead of the Somme or propose the suggestion that some dead are more credible than others.
In 2016, it is befitting that all Citizens, born on this Island, from either present jurisdiction and regardless of political aspirations for the future of this place should pause to remember and/or commemorate the Irish contribution to the Imperial Army, because it was huge.
Thus my tuppence worth: as an Irishman hailing from the proud province of Ulster who once also carried a rifle in service to the Crown, it is right, that an invite was sent to the DFM Martin McGuinness MLA to attend the commemoration at the Somme, France, this July 2016. It is correct that political representatives commemorating from any nation reflect the diversity of the dead of that awful battle. Now, in 2016, it is legitimate and perfect sense that all the Irish dead of the Imperial Army are commemorated.
H/T: Danny Morrison, for more visit www.dannymorrison.com.
The Easter Rising of 1916 is often known as the Poets Revolution because three of the signatories of the Proclamation were published poets: Padraic Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, and Joseph Mary Plunkett.
Michael Collins called by Tim Pat Coogan The Man Who Made Ireland took a rather cynical view of the poets of 1916. Though he participated in the Rising, he was skeptical of it. I do not think the Rising week was an appropriate time for the issue of memoranda couched in poetic phrases, nor of actions worked out in a similar fashion, he wrote while being incarcerated at the Frongoch prison camp in Wales.
The vision of Collins today is that of an elite revolutionary with a revolver in one hand and the Treaty in the other. But there is another side to the Big Fellowthe debonair ladies man with the roving eye as he bounced between Dublin and London in the fall of 1921 trying to hammer out a treaty for Ireland with British heavyweights like David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill.
In Dublin he was engaged to Kitty Kiernan, a Longford girl he had won over when Harry Boland had absconded to America with Eamon de Valera in 1919. When Collins was sent to London by de Valera to negotiate the Treaty he became, as Tom Wolfe might have said, radical chic. Collins quickly went from coldblooded terrorist to celebrity in the drawing rooms of Londons upper-classes. His guide to these drawing rooms was a woman by the name of Hazel Lavery, the American-born wife of famed painter Sir John Lavery.
Lady Lavery used her social contacts to help Collins advance Irelands cause in London. She often chauffeured him around to his appointments, which was duly noted by the London press and these tales were not ignored in Dublin by a somewhat distressed Kitty Kiernan. According to "In Great Haste: The Letters of Michael Collins and Kitty Kiernan" edited by Leon O Broin, Kiernan wrote to Collins: I hope I have the pleasure of gazing on you (among all the beauties).
I never said any such thing, Collins replied to Kitty in indignation at the romantic insinuations. Newspapermen are inventions of the devil.
Kitty was clearly hurt when she told Collins: Im very sensitive, will always be looking for a pin hole to reproach you if I noticed anything, and theres where the trouble lies.
Was it all innuendo?
According to writer Sinead McCoolewho has written brilliantly about women in the Irish political movementin her book "Hazel: A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935" maybe, maybe not.
We will never know definitely if Collins and Lady Laveryten years older than Collinswere bedmates, but there are indications that they may very well have been. According to McCoole, Collins wrote to Lavery that I know I shall never again meet anyone so beautiful, so gay, and so sad as you. McCoole also quotes George Bernard Shawwho dined with Collins the weekend before his deathas remarkably opining: I had no right to assumethough I knewthat Michael was what I call your Sunday husband
If being a Sunday husband is not enough evidence, how about some poems from the man who thought poetry should not be used in a revolutionary movement? Commandant-General Collins obviously saved his for the boudoir. And there is no doubt who this poem was written for:
Oh! Hazel, Hazel Lavery:
What is your charm Oh! Say?
Like subtle Scottish Mary
You take my heart away.
Not by your wit and beauty
Nor your delicate sad grace
Nor the golden eyes of wonder
In the flower that is your face.
Another example is even more passionate:
Cucugan I call thee,
Cucugan the dove,
Because of thine eyes and the voice that I love.
Cucugan I call thee.
Hast thou no fear, little bird, little love,
I am an eagle and thou art a dove
Hast thou no fear of me?
Wild is my nest in the mountain above,
Wilt thou fly there with me lovely white dove,
Shall my wings carry thee.
What is interesting here is that Collins is comparing Lady Lavery to a dove, the bird of peace, and he is comparing himself to the war-like eagle, one of the skys most dangerous predators.
Of course, these may have been the jottings of a lonely man, out on a limb, trying to rescue his country from the British for the first time in 700 years. His love, his feelings, may have been unrequited. But after his deaththere was somewhat of a scandal in Dublin at Collins funeral when Lavery showed up dressed in black, as if she was as much of a pseudo-widow as Kitty KiernanHazel wrote a poem titled To a Dead Lover:
I will forgive you both,
Wild Michael,
Forgive her living,
Forgive you dead.
Your passion and beauty
are clayCold Michael,
And lie alone in your
Deep dark bed.
There has been all kinds of speculation over Collins love life. Some say he had illegitimate children from his time in London in the early part of the century. Others say he was gay. Some even say he died a virgin. We will never know for sure, but its obvious that Michael Collins reserved the same passion for the women in his life as he did in his revolutionary endeavors. He was highly successful as a revolutionarythere is nothing to indicate that he was any less successful as a lover.
*Originally published in May 2016.
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Dermot McEvoy is the author of the "The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising and Irish Miscellany" (Skyhorse Publishing). He may be reached at dermotmcevoy50@gmail.com. Follow him at www.dermotmcevoy.com. Follow The 13th Apostle on Facebook.
Update 10am: Smoke was detected in multiple places in EgyptAir Flight 804 before it crashed in the Mediterranean, the French air accident investigation agency said.
Spokesman Sebastien Barthe told The Associated Press that the plane's automatic detection system sent messages indicating smoke a few minutes before it disappeared from radar.
The messages, he said, "generally mean the start of a fire".
But he added: "We are drawing no conclusions from this. Everything else is pure conjecture."
Earlier: Smoke was detected in a toilet near the cockpit of the doomed EgyptAir jet, an aviation industry publication has claimed.
The Aviation Herald website said sensors detected smoke in the lavatory, suggesting a possible fire on board before the aircraft went down in the Mediterranean Sea early on Thursday.
The publication cited information transmitted through the plane's Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, which transmits data from the plane to the ground in the form of a series of messages.
Those messages showed that smoke was detected in the plane's lavatory near the cockpit, according to the report.
Search teams found floating human remains, luggage and seats from the Airbus A320 on Friday, but face a potentially more complex task in locating bigger pieces of wreckage and the black boxes vital to determining why the plane went down.
Looking for clues to whether terrorists brought down EgyptAir Flight 804 and the 66 people aboard, investigators pored over the passenger list and questioned ground crew members at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, where the plane took off for Cairo.
The Airbus had been cruising normally in clear skies on the night-time flight when it suddenly lurched left, then right, spun all the way around and plummeted 38,000 feet into the sea, never issuing a distress signal.
In Egypt, home to 30 of the victims, grieving families and friends wondered if their loved ones would ever be recovered. Many gathered in mosques for Salat al-Ghaib, or "prayers for the absent", held for the dead whose bodies have not been found.
"This is what is ripping our hearts apart, when we think about it. When someone you love so much dies, at least you have a body to bury. But we have no body until now," said Sherif al-Metanawi, a childhood friend of the pilot, Mohammed Shoukair.
Egyptian authorities believe terrorism is a more likely explanation than equipment failure and some aviation experts have said the erratic flight suggests a bomb blast or a struggle in the cockpit. But so far no hard evidence has emerged.
No militant group has claimed to have brought down the aircraft, in contrast to the downing of a Russian jet in October over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula that killed 224 people.
In that case, the Islamic State group's branch in Sinai issued a claim of responsibility within hours.
On Friday, IS issued a statement on clashes with the Egyptian military in Sinai, but nothing about the plane.
Three European security officials said the passenger manifest for Flight 804 contained no names on terrorism watch lists. The manifest was leaked online and has not been verified by the airline.
Further checks are being conducted on relatives of the passengers.
French aviation investigators have begun to check and question all baggage handlers, maintenance workers, gate agents and other ground crew members at Charles de Gaulle Airport who had a direct or indirect link to the plane before it took off, according to a French judicial official.
Experts said answers would come only with an examination of the wreckage and the plane's cockpit voice and flight data recorders, commonly known as black boxes.
A French navy patrol boat left the port of Toulon on Friday with sonar that can pick up the underwater "pings" emitted by the recorders. But it will take the vessel two or three days to reach the search zone.
Ships and planes from Egypt, Greece, Britain, France, the United States and Cyprus have taken part in the search for what is left of Flight 804, scouring the waters roughly halfway between the Greek island of Crete and the Egyptian coast.
The waters in the area are 8,000 to 10,000 feet deep and the pings can be detected up to a depth of 20,000 feet.
"Its batteries allow it to transmit for 30 days," Athanassios Binis, head of Greece's aviation accident investigation agency, said. Once a vessel detects the recorders, "the next step would be to pinpoint it and go down with special equipment to recover it".
Egyptian searchers found the first debris from the crash around 180 miles north of the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria. Civil aviation minister Sherif Fathi informed relatives there were no survivors, the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper said.
The crash is a demoralising blow to Egypt. The economy has been gutted by years of turmoil since the 2011 overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak and the Russian plane crash caused a new plunge in tourism, one of the country's main money makers.
Amid fears that a security lapse in Paris may have led to the tragedy, France's junior minister for transport, Alain Vidalies, defended security at De Gaulle Airport, saying staff badges are revoked if there is the slightest doubt.
Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault asserted on French television that there was "absolutely no indication" of what caused the crash.
Pilot Mr Shoukair was experienced, with 6,275 flying hours, and co-pilot Ahmed Assem had clocked 2,101, officials said.
A terror analyst who is in contact with members of IS and other jihadist groups said there had been "no credible or even semi-credible" claims of responsibility for the tragedy.
Shiraz Maher, of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation think-tank in London, said IS issued a 20-minute video on Thursday about its plans to conquer India.
"If they had been involved in the crash," he said, "it would be very odd for them to have sent that video rather than boasting of the crash".
A solar-powered plane that landed in Oklahoma last week is headed to Ohio on the latest leg of its around-the-world journey.
The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 took off from Tulsa International Airport before 5am on Saturday with a destination of Dayton International Airport in Ohio. The flight was expected to take about 18 hours.
The aircraft took off from Phoenix Goodyear Airport in Arizona at about 3am on May 13 and landed in Tulsa about 20 hours later.
It departed from northern California in the early hours of May 2 and landed at the airport southwest of Phoenix 16 hours later. Last month, it flew from Hawaii to California.
The globe-circling voyage began in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan.
The plane was expected to make at least one more stop in the United States before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe or northern Africa, according to the website documenting the journey.
The Solar Impulse 2's wings, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.
Ideal flight speed is about 28mph, although that can double during the day when the sun's rays are strongest.
The plane had a five-day trip from Japan to Hawaii and three-day trip from Hawaii to California's Silicon Valley.
The crew was forced to stay in Oahu, Hawaii, for nine months after the plane's battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan.
Project officials say the layovers give the two Swiss pilots - Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg - a chance to swap places and engage with local communities along the way so they can explain the project, which began in 2002 to highlight the importance of renewable energy and the spirit of innovation.
The company is the latest small oil and gas explorer and producer to face a nightmare following the collapse in global oil prices, a leading analyst said.
Five years ago, the EU imposed a freeze on a 17% stake in Circle Oil held by Libya Oil Holdings, which was then controlled by former leader Colonel Gaddafi.
That shareholding has remained frozen ever since following the overthrow and killing of Gaddafi and the countrys unresolved civil wars.
Shares tumbled 66% yesterday, to 68 pence, in London, more than halving its stock market value to 3.25m (4.23m) as the company warned negotiations over a $77.5m (69m) debt pile will mean it is likely there will be little or no value attributed to Circle Oil plc equity holders.
Some $20m of the debt is held by way of a convertible loan by KGL Investment Company and $57.5m by International Finance Corporation part of the World Bank which promotes investments in developing countries.
As was previously announced, the scope of the options being considered under the strategic review include, but are not limited to, a debt restructuring, a sale of one or more of the companys existing assets, a corporate transaction such as a merger with a third party, the sale of the entire issued, and to be issued, share capital of the company and the raising of capital in the form of a subscription for new ordinary shares in the company by one or more third parties, Circle said.
The woes facing Circle Oil are the latest to strike shareholders in energy explorers and producers (E&P) this year, as crude oil prices have slid.
Irish shareholders lost out last month after Worldview International gained control of Petroceltics assets when a long-running dispute led to the company being forced into examinership.
Shares in Providence Resources have been suspended since April after the Barryroe oil and gas explorer led by Tony OReilly jnr unexpectedly lost a multi-million euro legal dispute in London with an international drilling company over delays in the Celtic Sea.
Ahead of the suspension, the shares had traded at 18 cent, valuing the company then at 25.2m.
There has been no update on talks with its debt holders.
It has been a nightmare for small-cap energy companies, said Darren McKinley, analyst at Merrion Capital.
The problem for some small (energy) companies is that they have speculative assets and large debts. And with oil prices having fallen from as high as $150 to an average $45 in the first quarter, liquidity is an issue for all of them, he said.
The outlook, however, has improved as global oil prices have risen in recent weeks, the analyst said.
Davy Stockbrokers analyst Job Langbroek said the outlook for Circle Oil shareholders appeared grim.
Circle Oil has warned the outcome of its strategic review is likely to lead to little or no residual value for shareholders.
As the current oil and gas cycle works out, it looks like debt may be the undoing of equity value in another E&P group.
Despite cash-generating assets in Egypt and Morocco, Circles quantum of the debt will make it difficult to achieve an outcome favourable for shareholders, he Langbroek said.
News / Local
by Staff Reporter
Dr Amadeous Shamu who has been the acting Masvingo Provincial Medical Director for the last few months is now substantive after his appointment by the Ministry of Health and Child Care.His appointment is with effect from May 11, 2016.Masvingo Mirror reported that Shamu confirmed the appointment.Dr Shamu graduated with a Doctor of Medicine Degree from Rostov State Medical Institute in Russia in June 1994. He got a Masters in Public Health Degree from Belgium in 2008.Doctor Shamu has many other medical qualifications from both short courses and programmes he did over the years.He was born in Gutu District in 1967 and has worked in various positions before his recent promotion.He did his housemanship at Mpilo General Hospital between 1994 and 1997 and did private consultancy work for various NGOs including Bhaso between then and 2001.He was appointed Government Medical Officer based at Masvingo General Hospital in 1997 and became acting medical superintendent for Masvingo General Hospital between 2004 and 2007.In 2008, he became Government medical officer for Ndanga District Hospital working under the European Union funded retention scheme. He was Provincial Epidemiology and Disease Control Officer for Masvingo Province from 2009 up to the time of his current appointment.
I filed my PFD, which I am proud to say is the largest in the history of the FEC, Trump said on Tuesday.
I have built an incredible company and have accumulated one of the greatest portfolios of real estate assets, many of which are considered to be among the finest and most iconic properties in the world. This is the kind of thinking the country needs, he said.
While Mr Trumps iconic, but relatively modest, real estate portfolio hasnt actually allowed him to claim membership in the top tier of major New York real estate developers for decades now the new personal finance disclosure did give him the opportunity to put more public clothing on his finances.
What were the incredible numbers the presumptive Republican presidential nominee disclosed in the new filing?
More than $557m (497m) in income, up from $362m he disclosed last July.
Hold on, though. In a press release, the Trump team also described that $557m as revenue.
As he did in his July release, Mr Trump appears to be conflating income and revenue in his public disclosures.
These figures also look a little odd when paired with reporting from Crains Aaron Elstein, which showed that Mr Trump received a New York State tax break reserved for households with annual incomes of $500,000 or less.
Mr Trump received the breaks automatically because he was on a list of eligible recipients.
Could a reason be that his income in certain years was actually under the $500,000 threshold? Mr Elstein asked.
No one who knows will say, he said.
Mr Trumps representatives and state officials agree that taking the break was a mistake.
Mr Trump also noted in the press release this week that his net worth had recently ballooned to an unspecified figure in excess of $10bn.
That has soared handsomely from the $8.7bn he said he was worth when he announced his presidential run last June, and the $10bn he said he was worth only a month after that.
Theres a method to all of this for Mr Trump.
Despite a long history of major business failures, he has used claims of outsized wealth as proof that hes a business titan and savvy deal-maker skills he claims will accompany him to the White House.
Timothy L O'Brien, author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald.
(Disclosure: I wrote a Trump biography, TrumpNation, for which he sued me in 2006 because, among other things, it questioned the size of his fortune. The suit was later dismissed.)
Mr Trump has courted inclusion in the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans ever since the tally was first launched in 1982.
In 2004, while I was trying to assess Trumps wealth, he told me that he was worth $4bn to $5bn before lowering the figure later that day to $1.7bn.
My sources were individuals who worked with Mr Trump and had a good sense of his finances. They thought he was worth $150m to $250m.
Mr Trump sued me for publishing that figure as part of a range of assessments of his wealth, saying it had damaged his reputation and business.
Among the documents discussed during the litigation was a Deutsche Bank assessment from 2005 that put Trumps net worth at about $788m; at the time, Forbes had pegged Trump at $2.7bn, he was telling bankers and regulators that he was worth $3.6bn, and he was telling me he was worth $5bn to $6bn a billion or two more than what he had told me the year before.
By any measure, Mr Trump is a really rich dude.
However, his fixation on ceaselessly tossing out sky-high figures displays a routine neediness thats cause for concern in a candidate for the presidency.
It also is something you dont see in wealthy business people such as Rockefeller and Buffett to Gates and Zuckerberg all of whom chose to do other things than brag about their riches.
* This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg
The countrys sole refinery has been on the market since November 2015 when its current owners Phillips 66 (P66) took the decision to again seek a buyer after earlier attempts to offload it in 2014 failed.
It is understood a preferred bidder has been identified by Texas-based P66 from a shortlist of interested companies which included private equity firm ArcLight Capital, Irving Oil, UK-based PTFPlusOne and Valero Energy.
An announcement is likely to follow in the coming weeks but the future of the refinerys staff is unclear.
Approximately 155 staff, both full-time workers and contractors, are employed at the refinery.
Phillips 66 is obliged to operate the refinery until July 2016 as part of a deal it has with the Government.
Canadian family-owned Irving Oil are understood to be the frontrunners in the sales process.
Irving is a gas and oil processing, transporting and marketing company headquartered in Saint John with additional operations in the US state of New Hampshire.
The Canadian firm was one of the companies touted as a potential buyer for Whitegate in 2007.
Irving Oil also has close ties to Topazs new owners, Alimentation Couche-Tard.
Irving leases some of its Canadian stores to Couche-Tard which then operates them under its Circle K brand. It also owns Irving Oil Refinery Canadas largest refinery. Whitegate last year reported losses of more than $280m (263m) in 2014.
The losses represented a fivefold increase on the $58m loss it made the previous year.
Phillips 66 reduced the value of the plant and equipment resulting in an impairment cost of $127.6m in addition to its $146m operating loss.
A number of politicians have called for Whitegates future to be prioritised since it was put back on the market late last year.
Fianna Fail Cork South Central TD Michael McGrath mooted the suggestion of a joint venture between government and private operators as a means of securing its future.
Last month, Fine Gael MEP Sean Kelly underlined what he referred to as the key strategic importance of the refinery and highlighted its crucial role in Irelands fuel security which he said could be made more precarious in the event of the UK voting to leave the EU.
With Whitegate up for sale and our dependence on the UK what it is, I feel there is a real cause for concern given there are now question marks surrounding the reliability of nearly all of our petrol, gasoil and diesel supply, Mr Kelly said.
The drug producer has made the move after describing its pension scheme as unsustainable and not fit for purpose.
It told the Labour Court that over the last five years its DB members had cost it an additional 10m.
Pfizer employs 3,200 people in Ireland, and with 2,200 already having been moved to defined contribution pensions, it wants to move the remaining 1,000 employees at its Ringaskiddy and Little Island operations in Cork, as well as its global financial and sales divisions, from the DB schemes.
A Pfizer spokeswoman said it proposed to close its employee non-contributory defined-benefit pension schemes from 2018.
This change is part of a global initiative as the environment for DB plans has become very challenging due to the increasing cost and volatility of these types of pension plans, she said.
In Ireland, the cost to the company of funding these non-contributory schemes has tripled between 2012 and 2014 and these increases are not sustainable, she said, adding that the proposals do not affect pensioners.
Siptu told the Labour Court the DB scheme is in a healthy position and it is not in deficit.
The court said the unions should engage with management to agree new pension schemes that meet the twin objectives of aligning the companys needs and the benefits contained in the current scheme.
The billionaire Dell founder held an all-hands meeting at EMCs Centre of Excellence in Ovens, Co Cork where he spoke to employees.
Staff from Dells offices in Mahon also travelled to the EMC base to meet the Texan business magnate, as did VMware staff.
EMC information infrastructure chief executive David Goulden was also in town to meet staff.
Mr Dell later tweeted his satisfaction with the staff and facilities in Cork after meeting with senior management of the companies Irish operations.
Really enjoyed my visit to @daly_eric @EMCcorp and @VMware Cork today. Very impressive team and capabilities! Michael Dell (@MichaelDell) May 20, 2016
The US businessman sealed the biggest technology deal in history in October 2015 when he announced Dell was to acquire EMC in a 55bn deal.
Between Dell, EMC and the cloud storage companys subsidiary, VMWare the companies employ more than 6,000 staff in Ireland.
EMC and VMWares Irish operations are based out of Cork where they employ 3,700 workers while Dell has bases in Limerick and Dublin as well as Cork.
The new company will be known as Dell Technologies once the merger is finalised.
The combined entitys PC business will continue to be known as Dell while its enterprise business will go by the name of Dell EMC.
Mr Dell has spoken of the deal positioning the company at the centre of the next quantum leap in human progress with the internet of things.
Our vision is for a strategically aligned family of businesses that brings together the entire infrastructure from hardware to software to services from the edge to the data center to the cloud. Dell Technologies becomes the leader in the traditional technology of today and cloud-native infrastructure of tomorrow, Mr Dell wrote in a post on LinkedIn earlier this month.
Earlier this week, further details of the huge debt offering Dell is to offer to finance the mega-acquisition emerged. Dell said it had increased the amount of debt it will raise after the computer maker received $80bn (70.7bn) of orders from investors.
The company now plans to sell $20bn of notes, up from an initial target of about $16bn, to help pay for its acquisition of EMC.
Home values in West Ealing, where the commute time to London-Liverpool Street will fall by half when a Crossrail train station opens in 2019, rose 29% in the year to February, according to an analysis of preliminary Land Registry data. That compares with a 12% rise for London as a whole.
West Ealing was a no-brainer for us, said Rosie Nesbitt, group director of sales and marketing at Fabrica, a London-based developer that is building 770 homes within a six-minute walk of the neighbourhoods new Crossrail station.
Were selling incredibly quickly and its all about the transport, she said.
Property prices in Londons best districts have risen almost 30% in the past five years, according to broker Savills, forcing buyers away from the costlier central neighbourhoods such as Islington and Fulham.
That has boosted demand in cheaper districts further out that will be served by the 14.8bn (19.3bn) Crossrail project.
In Palmers Green, where the commute to Moorgate station in the City of London financial district can take just 20 minutes, values rose more than 33% in the period.
Average house prices in the area now stand at 1.47m, according to broker Foxtonsc, compared with 2.35m in Highgate, an area about 3km closer to the City with the same travel time.
Crossrail, approved in 2008 to cut journey times across London, is Europes largest construction project.
Though its not due to start operating until late 2018, homebuyers are flocking to areas that will be served by its stations and the trend is set to continue.
In 2013, Fabrica sold private homes in its Jigsaw development, which features tree-lined boulevards, period architecture and parks, for an average 480 a square foot, according to Ms Nesbitt.
Since October the developer has pre-sold 70% of the projects second phase for an average of 700 a square foot.
Buyers are typically savvy young professionals squeezed out of other more central areas and looking for a quick commute to the City, Ms Nesbitt said.
The future 21 minute-journey to Liverpool Street compares with a 27-minute trip from Ladbroke Grove in west London, which is about five miles closer. n Bloomberg
Of those who are missing, 23 disappeared in 2011.
According to the figures, 2015 was one of the worst years for disappearances. There were 9,969 people reported missing of whom 46 have still not been found.
Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald was asked by her party colleague Bernard Durkan whether adequate resources were available to a dedicated section within the gardai to search for missing persons.
The minister pointed out that it was up to the Garda commissioner to decide on the deployment of personnel and resources within the force.
However, she added that all incidents where people have been reported missing remain under investigation until such time as the person is located.
I am informed that the Garda authorities are satisfied that adequate resources are in place in relation to the management of missing persons cases.
District officers in the area where a person has gone missing take direct responsibility for all investigations/searches carried out, she said.
She said local investigation teams are appointed by the district officer and all means necessary, including the services of specialist units, are deployed to assist in these investigations, when considered appropriate.
The Missing Persons Bureau, which was established in 1982, is responsible for all data relating to missing persons.
Staffed by a sergeant, a garda and a civilian, its main function is to maintain accurate and up-to-date records on missing persons within the jurisdiction.
It also assists district officers in their investigations of missing person incidents and with the identification of bodies.
In the course of its work, the bureau liaises with international police forces as well as Interpol.
He succeeds Joan Burton, who resigned following the partys disastrous general election result.
Mr Howlin denied that he is a reluctant leader but said he is committed to rebuilding the party.
The press conference at which his election was declared was overshadowed by the absence of Tipperary TD Alan Kelly, who was unsuccessful in his bid to become party leader.
It is an extraordinary privilege and honour to be elected Leader of the Labour Party-Brendan Howlin pic.twitter.com/cZ2d1UFJ3e The Labour Party (@labour) May 20, 2016
Mr Howlins name was the only name to go forward after Mr Kelly failed to secure a seconder among the six other Labour TDs.
For several days, Mr Kelly, nicknamed AK-47, sought the support of at least one of his colleagues to second his nomination but they resisted his advances, plumping for Mr Howlin instead.
Mr Kelly is popular among the party grassroots but his parliamentary party colleagues were openly hostile to his bid to become leader.
Newly-elected Labour Party leader Brendan Howlin pays tribute to Joan Burtonhttps://t.co/nL7kA8piJo RTE News (@rtenews) May 20, 2016
Mr Kelly said the wishes and entitlement of Labour party members were denied by the lack of a contest, but said he wished Mr Howlin well.
I wish Brendan Howlin well as leader of the Labour Party and congratulate him on what is a proud day for him, his family, friends, and supporters, he said.
The rest of the parliamentary party took a different view to what I believe is the members wish and entitlement. I want to thank the huge volume of members who have confirmed that view to me, Mr Kelly said.
Despite disagreements, we all need to support the revival of our great party. Warm congrats to Brendan and all his team in Wexford @labour Alan Kelly TD (@alankellylabour) May 20, 2016
Former party leaders Eamon Gilmore and Pat Rabbitte congratulated Mr Howlin on his election.
While not indicating his intentions as to whether he would remain in the party, sources close to Mr Kelly said he was unlikely to walk away.
For his part, Mr Howlin paid tribute to outgoing leader Joan Burton, saying history will remember her contribution kindly. He also said Mr Kellys absence at the press event was a huge disappointment.
Mr Howlin said: We have just come from a parliamentary party meeting and Alan wasnt in attendance. I texted him very early this morning. I know Alan to be a friend and a colleague, a man of great passion and ability, and I hope he will be a very integral part of advancing the Labour party.
Would I like every Labour party member, activist, to be part of the revival? Yes, and I hope Alan will be.
He added that he had not received a reply from Mr Kelly but when the conference ended Mr Howlin said he had received a text from the Tipperary TD which read: Best of luck Brendan, its a special day for you and your family.
Mr Howlin paid tribute to former Labour leader Brendan Corish and his father John, who he said were instrumental in developing his links to the Labour Party.
New Labour Party leader Brendan Howlin said the party did a lot of 'soul searching' after the general election https://t.co/jhYWAwyZ7o RTE News (@rtenews) May 20, 2016
Former party leader Ms Burton said a huge number of party members had indicated that they did not want a leadership contest.
Mr Howlin, 60 and unmarried, has served as a TD for the Wexford constituency since 1987 and was a member of the Seanad before that.
DNG Michael Galvin auctioneers of Bandon, Co Cork, came to the attention of a local authority environment officer over the poster advertising the firm and its services, last October.
In the case, heard at a sitting of Bandon District Court, the company DNG Michael Galvin claimed the notice of a fine, and later a court summons, was unfair as other posters had been and are clearly on display in the same manner.
Francis ODwyer, an environmental officer for Cork County Council, said he spotted the poster at Ballykealey on the N71 main West Cork road on August 21 last.
He said the signage displayed at the roadside was unauthorised and against the Litter Pollution Act.
A fine was issued to the auctioneers firm but was not paid. A reminder letter was sent and advice to pay the fine or face court proceedings with the possibility of a fine of up to 3,000 plus costs. The council did not receive any correspondence and no appeal was received.
Solicitor for the auctioneer, Mary OLeary said there were a lot of signs on the N71 for which litter fines were not issued, but Mr ODwyer said posters in double figures were found not to be in compliance with the litter pollution act that day.
Ms OLeary claimed the law was not enforced generally and pictures taken on two days this week at the same spot on the N71 showed lots of posters on display.
This is a common practice, she said.
Her client, Michael Galvin gave evidence he had been working as an auctioneer for 34 years and had never received a summons regarding a sign.
The accused said he understood, when the law was introduced in 1997, the local authority came to an arrangement with auctioneers regarding the display of small signs. He also said another auctioneer told him he had a sign displayed in the same location on the same day but had not received a summons. Solicitor for Cork County Council Patricia Murphy, however, said a fine had been paid in relation to that matter.
Mr Galvin said the sign measured 14 by 18 inches.
Ms Murphy said there was never an agreement between the local authority and auctioneers regarding the display of signs. The court heard, in addition to the 150 unpaid fine, the council accrued costs of 123.
Judge John King said: Its not for me to say how the county council should enforce the legislation. My role and purpose is to decide whether someone is guilty of an offence.
He said this had be proven and he had no alternative but to convict, to which Mr Galvin said: I feel anything I pay will be unfair. Drive to West Cork any day of the week and they are at every crossroads.
The judge said it might be a matter for the representative body for auctioneers and said if the initial fine and the 123 was paid on or before July 15, he would strike out the matter. You can send it to charity if it is a matter of principle, he said.
Kestutis Bagdonas and Mindaugus Ginderens, had been held on remand in Cork Prison since February 21 last after gardai tracked them to an apartment in Skibbereen in West Cork, where they also recovered a quantity of stolen property.
The case was recently heard before a sitting of Skibbereen District Court in which some details of how the burglaries were outlined.
The court heard gardai believe the two had arrived in Co Cork in early February and within days had begun committing burglaries in the Skibbereen area.
Both were charged with three separate burglary charges and pleaded guilty, as well as pleading guilty to possession of stolen goods. The court heard that the men may have been involved in up to six burglaries.
Much of the property taken in the burglaries was not recovered and the value of the items taken as well as those recovered at the apartment amounted to an estimated 10,000.
The court heard that when the two men arrived they sub-let an apartment in the West Cork town that had previously been let to other Lithuanians. They were also driving in a car not registered to them. Lawn mowers, jewellery and alcohol were stolen. Some itemswere recovered.
The court heard that a huge amount of assistance was provided by the local community to gardai which eventually led to the two men being tracked down to the apartment. A search recovered some stolen property.
The men pleaded guilty and had been held on remand in Cork Prison. When the case was heard earlier this month both men were convicted and in effect ordered to leave the country, meaning they had to produce the one-way ticket to the governor of Cork Prison so they could be released.
Gardai understand both men have already left the country.
Paddy Mullally, 57, a father of one from Wainsfort Park, Terenure, Dublin 6, sustained a fatal head injury after he reportedly saw a man harassing a woman and told him to leave her alone.
An inquest into his death opened at Dublin Coroners Court, where the mans wife, Joan Shields was told he died due to subdural hemorrhage with brain trauma due to blunt force trauma to the head.
The incident happened in the early hours of March 5, 2016, the inquest heard. Mr Mullally was rushed to St Jamess Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 9.14am, the next day.
Detective Inspector George McGeary said a file is being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions and he applied for a three-month adjournment.
If a decision is made in the meantime, we will bring the matter forward, Coroner Dr Brian Farrell told Ms Shields.
She gave evidence of the formal identification of her husband to Garda Lorna OConnor of Rathmines Garda Station. Gda OConnor identified Mr Mullally to State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy for postmortem.
I am aware of some of the circumstances of your husbands death but I cant comment this morning as the matter is going to the DPP, the Coroner told Ms Shields.
Mr Mullally had been on a night out with family and friends, celebrating his retirement from Guinness. The group socialised in the city centre before returning to a pub in Harolds Cross, where the incident took place outside an apartment block between 3am and 4am.
Extending his sympathies to the family, Dr Farrell adjourned the inquest for further mention until August 19. I am very sorry indeed to hear of your husbands death. May we extend our very deepest sympathies and condolences to you and your daughter, Dr Farrell said.
News / National
by Staff Reporter
Government has hired a German firm to print the $200 million worth of bond notes, a Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe official has said.RBZ director for exchange control Mr Morris Mpofu told delegates to the Chamber of Mines meeting in Victoria Falls yesterday that Government had engaged the same company that was used by the South African Reserve Bank to print rands."The same Germans who printed the South African rands which were recently impounded at Harare International Airport and later released are the ones who are printing the notes," he said.Mr Mpofu said the introduction of bond notes, which are backed by a $200 million facility provided by the African Export-Import Bank, was not supposed to be a cause for concern since the facility was not permanent but had a limited lifespan."The incentive will come and go, we hope that by the time it expires it would have brought in $4 billion," he said. He said it was critical to note that the bond notes were a minute percentage of the deposits that the country was holding. "If you look at this facility it's very little to warrant the return of the Zimdollar," he said.He said it was critical for people to understand how the facility would work."If, for instance, you export goods worth $10 000, when the money is paid into a nostro (foreign) account and your bank credits that money to your account, the RBZ will credit your 5 percent export incentive (worth $500) in bond notes into your account so that your balance will be $10 500. There is no separate account for bond notes and US dollars," said Mr Mpofu."If you then go to the bank and get bond notes, you can easily exchange them at any Homelink offices. So there is no need for alarm," he said.
Jurors took just over seven hours to return the guilty verdicts on the 64-year-old, who cannot be named to protect his sons identity. They also convicted him of one count of child cruelty relating to an incident when he locked his son in a box for six hours.
The jury acquitted him of charges that he raped the child with a hot poker. The boys mother was found not guilty of having sex or simulating sex with the boy at the behest of the father.
Jurors are still deliberating on a single count of child cruelty against the mother relating to the box incident. They will return on Monday.
Prosecuting counsel Pauline Walley SC asked Mr Justice Robert Eagar to remove the fathers bail. The judge remanded him in custody until Monday and declared him a sex offender.
The boys father faced nine counts of raping the boy; nine counts of raping the boy with a poker; and one count of cruelty. The mother faced two counts of sexual assault relating to allegations she had sex with the boy; and one count of cruelty.
Both parents pleaded not guilty to the crimes, which are alleged to have occurred between 2009 and 2011 in their Waterford home. The parents originally faced a total of 82 charges but 60 were withdrawn this week following legal argument.
The seven-week trial heard harrowing evidence including allegations that the father filmed the child having sex with the mother and showed the footage to visitors. Other allegations included that the father defecated on the child and threatened to kill him while holding a gun to his head.
The boy was taken into care just before his eighth birthday after telling his teacher his father had been beating him and he couldnt take it anymore. He was sent to a foster home, where widespread sexual abuse occurred.
The boy was sent to another foster home after about a year. He trusted his new foster parents and said he felt safe enough there to begin disclosing the abuse. His foster mother recorded the claims in detailed logs which she gave to gardai.
While in the second foster home, the boy began displaying highly disturbing and sexualised behaviour.
His foster mother told the trial she loved the boy dearly but could not handle his behaviour. The HSE was forced to send him to Britain for specialised residential treatment as no such treatment was available in Ireland. The last thing he said to his foster mother before leaving was I feel like a dog that nobody wants. The now 12-year-old remains in the care unit. He gave evidence via video-link from a room in the Old Bailey in London.
Gardai found no fire poker or videos of sexual abuse during two searches of the home. They did find a video of the parents engaging in consensual sexual activity with another woman.
A medical examination of the child found no signs of abuse but the examining doctor pointed out that most sexual abuse does not leave lasting injuries and the examination was conducted three months after the child was taken out of the family home.
Both parents denied the abuse. The father said the boy was a difficult child and social workers had brainwashed the boy into making the allegations.
Intense high-level talks continued yesterday but it is not clear when Noirin OSullivan will issue a response. Transparency International Ireland has called for an inquiry by the Garda Inspectorate into the treatment of Garda whistle-blowers, including Sergeant Maurice McCabe.
A spokeswoman for the inspectorate said there were no immediate plans to conduct such an investigation.
There was speculation on Thursday that a statement from the commissioner could be forthcoming later that day. It was confirmed that a meeting did take place between the Tanaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald and the Garda chief in the afternoon but no statement emerged.
The expectation of a response from the Garda commissioner was created by both Taoiseach Enda Kenny and the Tanaiste on Wednesday, when they said they expected clarification, within the legal constraints, from the Garda boss on her instructions to her legal counsel about Sgt McCabe at the OHiggins inquiry.
Transcripts from the inquiry in May 2015, published in the Irish Examiner, showed that this included challenging the motivation, credibility and integrity of Sgt McCabe in relation to the corruption and malpractice allegations.
In a November meeting, her counsel, Colm Murphy, said he erred in stating integrity, but confirmed they were challenging his credibility and motivation.
In 2014, the commissioner publicly backed Sgt McCabe and appointed him to the Garda Standards Unit.
.@Mickcliff: Garda Commissioner needs to step up or step down https://t.co/ZeffriNNoN (GM) pic.twitter.com/MnwTyl3h69 Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer) May 19, 2016
The delay in the commissioners statement is thought to be due to legal concerns around the waiving of legal privilege regarding client-lawyer confidentiality and the legal prohibition against revealing evidence at commissions of investigation.
Because of these issues, the decision on the statement is said to be ultimately one for the Tanaiste, advised by her senior officials, and the Taoiseach, advised by his officials and the attorney general.
Sources described the matter as now being a political one.
There are concerns within the authorities at the legal ramifications for future interactions between gardai, and the State with inquiries by lifting, even in a limited way, client-lawyer privilege, as well as ripple effects for other state bodies.
Discussions among senior officials continued yesterday, but Ms Fitzgerald was out of the country on EU business in Brussels.
A statement could emerge over the weekend, with an eagerness, particularly within Garda circles to have it out, at the very latest, before the Dail debates the OHiggins report next Tuesday or Wednesday.
Ms OSullivans statement is likely to be limited in what it says.
It is also conceivable no statement will be issued and that the commissioner will only provide information to the Policing Authority at a private meeting next Thursday.
Unless chairwoman Josephine Feehily gives an interview after that, the public will not know anything about what was said, at least until the minutes are published the month after.
There is also the prospect of the Oireachtas Justice Committee calling her in as early as next week.
Garda headquarters last night said it was boosting welfare resources for whistleblowers and was seeking external advice in the area.
The newly appointed minister of state at the Department of Education also reiterated his view that water charges should not be paid, adding that he would be a hypocrite to change this position.
Mr Halligan of the Independent Alliance said he has never agreed with the controversial JobBridge internship programme and would be using his power in government to have it axed.
I will do everything in my power under this government to change it. I think it probably should be gotten rid of, I think it is being abused, he said.
I have never agreed with JobBridge. I have said that quite openly and just because I am supporting a government, or am a minister in government, I am not going to change my view.
There are many people who value JobBridge but more and more people that I have contacted have found that the JobBridge scheme has been abused, he told RTEs Morning Ireland.
Mr Halligan pointed to his own constituency in which Waterford University had advertised jobs for highly qualified positions under the scheme.
Thats outrageously unfair for anyone who has gone to university and studied and then is asked to work for perhaps the minimum wage, he said.
Sinn Feins John Brady has welcomed Mr Halligans comments and said: He has stated what we know to be true that JobBridge is a failure and that it has been abused.
While technically JobBridge falls under the remit of Minister for Social Protection, Leo Varadkar, it is encouraging to know that Deputy Halligan will be putting pressure on him to scrap this scheme.
On the issue of water charges, which Mr Halligan campaigned against in the previous Dail, the junior minister with responsibility for training and skills said: I would be a hypocrite if I went against the line that I had been taking for the last five years in the Dail.
He said he had consulted a legal team and was told it was a civil issue between the individual company and the individual regardless of what position they hold.
I havent been billed. I am not in ownership of the house I live in. The person who owns the house is not paying either because she doesnt agree with paying Irish Water, but thats her choice not mine.
If it did come to be at a later stage if my name is on that property and I am asked to pay I wont pay it, said Mr Halligan.
But the accused, William Hutchinson, of 186 Kilnap Place, Cork,
told Judge Olann Kelleher he would not be willing to do community service.
Judge Kelleher said he was left with no option but to sentence Hutchinson to jail.
He sentenced the accused to six months in prison on a charge of assault, causing harm, and a concurrent four months for a common assault count.
Hutchinson had pleaded guilty at Cork District Court earlier in the week to a charge of assault, causing harm to Martin Healy, 43, and to a charge of assaulting Luke Hurley, also 43.
The background to the case was Hutchinson, aged 37, was at home at Glenfield Avenue, Ballyvolane, when three men with the wrong directions called to his house looking for a house party.
His solicitor, Graham Hyde, said while Hutchinson completely over-reacted to the men looking for a party, he did have reason to feel under threat from others at that time.
A viable explosive device had previously been found under his car and, on another occasion, a device was posted through his letterbox.
Detective Sergeant Kieran OSullivan had explained that, on February 15 last year, the two injured parties and a third man were at a social event and got a taxi to Glenfields Avenue to go to a house where they had been told a party was taking place.
Unfortunately, they went to the wrong address. That was the home of William Hutchinson, said the garda witness. Mr Hutchinson came out and, without saying anything, he struck Mr Healy over the head with a hurley causing him to fall to the ground.
His friend, Mr Hurley, went to his assistance and Mr Hutchinson attempted to strike him also, Det Sgt OSullivan said.
The three men, the two injured parties, and their friend, left the house where the party was taking place, and gardai were notified.
Later, Mr Healy received four staples for his head wound.
Hutchinson had a security camera at his front door and footage from that was examined. While it did show the various parties, it did not capture the assaults.
Mr Hyde, meanwhile, referred to two previous attempts on Hutchinsons life, but he did not outline the background to the incidents except to say Hutchinson had liaised with the gardai.
The solicitor said the accused was so concerned about his safety he varied his daily routines.
Judge Kelleher said he considered all of the facts of the incident and mitigating factors put forward by Mr Hyde before asking Hutchinson if he would be willing to perform community service to avoid a prison sentence.
But the accused declined.
Inspector Bill Duane said Glen Kearney was refused service at The Thomond on Marlboro St, Cork, and he reacted by picking up a stool and striking a window three times with it until the window broke.
Gardai were called and staff at the premises followed Kearney, of 10 Mount St Josephs Avenue, Bakers Road, Gurranabraher, Cork, so that the culprit could be located for gardai.
The issue of consent in cases of sexual violence is a major grey area in Irish law as there is no statutory definition for it.
Introducing a statutory definition of consent is a matter which is under review in the department, a spokeswoman from the Department of Justice told the Irish Examiner.
This news follows the publication of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill 2015, which referred to consent but failed to define it. As it stands, there is only a reference to consent in Irish law.
The department spokeswoman said: Section 9 of the Criminal Law (Rape) (Amendment) Act 1990 confirms that the failure to offer resistance does not amount to consent. Otherwise, the issue of what is or is not consent has been developed through case law. The courts have confirmed that consent requires voluntary agreement by a person at the age of consent and with the necessary mental capacity.
The Rape Crisis Network of Ireland (RCNI) has long lobbied for a statutory definition for consent. Head of RCNI, Cliona Saidlear, said we need to look to England and Wales for a definition.
RCNI recommend a definition similar to that adopted in England and Wales in their 2003 Sexual Offences Act, at section 74, namely: A person consents if he agrees by choice, and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice, she said.
The most recent figures from RCNI indicate just how crucial a clear definition for consent is.
In 2014, just 1% of sexual violence against children under the age of 13, was committed by a stranger. For people between the ages of 13 and 17 inclusive, only 6% of crimes were carried out by strangers and for people over the age of 18, approximately 14% of their offenders were unknown to them.
The typical conversation is: Well it wasnt in an alleyway, I dont know if I should ring you. The message we need to get through here is that having someone give in to your advances is not consent. If someone chooses a lesser sexual act as a way of avoiding a bigger sexual ask, that is not consent, said Ms Saidlear.
The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) said the move was a hammer blow to efforts to tackle serious staffing shortages in hospitals.
IMO president John Duddy said there were 300 vacant consultant posts and newly qualified doctors were emigrating rather than opting to work in the Irish health service.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said they were already dealing with a shortfall of over 3,600 nurses and midwives and the embargo would make an intolerable situation utterly impossible.
David Hughes, INMO deputy general secretary, said it was simply not possible to deliver safe care with such an embargo in place
Mr Duddy, meanwhile, said there was already unprecedented difficulty in encouraging doctors to work in our public health service.
In these circumstances it is ironic that the message from the HSE is dont bother to apply, he said.
Mr Hughes said the INMO was calling on Health Minister Simon Harris to immediately intervene and reverse the ban.
Last night, the minister said the HSE had put interim recruitment measures in place which require that pay budgets are complied with.
These measures do not impact on a hospitals ability to recruit where funding exists to facilitate that recruitment, for example in the case of replacement posts or where funding has been allocated for particular roles under the HSE service plan or in areas of critical care, he said.
The IMO said Ireland already operated well below the OECD average for number of physicians per head of population with 2.82 physicians per 1,000 population. The OECD average is 3.3. The Irish ratio is the lowest in Western Europe.
The HSE say the pause on recruitment is pending agreement and approval of a workforce plan for each of the hospital groups before any further additions to payroll, according to the HSE.
HSE figures for February show acute hospitals were already running 48m over budget. In its January/February performance report the HSE said it had escalated pay control in acute hospitals to level 4 which means beyond critical and the director general can intervene.
A total of 412 same-sex couples have married in the first year since the passing of the marriage referendum.
Ireland became the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote on May 22 last year.
Since then, there have been 966 same-sex marriage notifications, with 412 marriages registered.
Dublin has recorded over half of all same-sex marriages, with 213 registered followed by Cork (43), Limerick (25) and Galway (14).
Clare is the only county in Ireland not to have registered a same-sex union. The lowest number of registered same-sex marriages took place in Carlow, Leitrim and Monaghan, each of which only recorded one marriage.
Kieran Rose, co-chair of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network, said the referendum marked a sea change in the treatment of LGBT people in Ireland.
The referendum result has had a profound and positive impact all across Ireland, and has rippled across the world, he said. Many LGBT people have a new confidence in their status amongst their families and friends, and in their status in Irish society. 412 couples have married, thousands of LGBT people are planning to marry, and hundreds more couples have had their foreign marriages automatically recognised.
Richard Dowling, who married Cormac Gollogly in Irelands first same-sex marriage, said attitudes towards the gay community had changed since the vote.
Theres a real confidence in the gay community and thats great to see, he said.
I think attitudes have really changed and the majority of people are behind us now.
The plan for community groups and private providers to bid for access to school facilities for after-school childcare is set out in the programme for government. However, teachers warn that the proposal needs major clarification and want answers to questions around who would upgrade the buildings and whether older schools might lose out on promised funding rises.
While Education Minister Richard Bruton has committed to honour plans in the programme for government to increase funding for rising running costs, there is no certainty yet by how much, or over what period.
Since 2011, the rate at which capitation grants are paid to primary and second-level schools each year for essential costs, as well as for use on classroom materials, has been cut by 11%.
Mr Bruton said this week that the Government will not allow a situation to develop where schools have to close.
He was responding to Department of Education advice that some schools risk being forced to shut where running costs could not be met the exact same warning given when Jan OSullivan became education minister in July 2014.
The programme for government says extra capitation would be linked to provision of buildings for after-school care, where demand exists.
Community groups and private providers will be invited to tender to use school facilities, outside school hours, it says.
However, the primary teachers union said the issue raises questions over the possibility of schools with inadequate facilities or poor transport losing out on additional funding to keep classes lit and heated. The Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) said many school premises are unsuitable for the task and would need significant upgrading and development.
Schools should certainly be open to the local community to the greatest possible extent, but a programme of capital funding would be required to develop after-school care facilities in schools, including provision for meals, said INTO assistant general secretary Peter Mullan.
The proposal lacks clarity, so comprehensive and detailed proposals would need to be developed by the department in which parents could have confidence.
The Department of Education said the detail of the new programme is being examined.
The commitments in relation to the provision of school facilities for after-school care will involve engagement with the relevant stakeholders, a spokesperson said. The Government has indicated that one of the key priorities for the first 100 days is engagement between Government and education partners on new after-school care arrangements.
The department added that commitments to increase capitation funding for schools will be considered in the context of the budgetary process. The programme for government promises annual increases in primary and second-level capitation rates, which are paid on the basis of a set amount for every registered student.
However, because of growing school populations, the 11% cut from 2011 to 2015 has not resulted in any savings. Between 2013 and 2015 alone, the amount paid to primary schools rose from 186m to 190m.
Former Labour minister and now senator Kevin Humphreys lashed out at Mr Kennys failure to appoint his nominees, which means the Upper House cannot sit.
As a result, elected senators have been paid since their election without the house convening. Based on available figures, in excess of 260,000 in salaries have been paid to the 49 elected Seanad members.
Kevin Humphreys
Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Mr Humphreys urged Mr Kenny to act with haste and appoint the 11 nominees and allow the Seanad get on with its work.
It has unduly delayed the appointment of the 11 Taoiseachs nominees, which in turn has delayed the Seanad from sitting. It is important that both houses should be getting down to work, scrutinising legislation and moving forward, he said.
He claimed the delays have been caused by pressure being put on Mr Kenny from within his own party, from Fianna Fail and the Independents as to how many seats they will be given. What has been happening, there has been pressure from independents, from within Fine Gael and from Fianna Fail in relation to how many appointments each are getting. The Taoiseach has moved far too slowly, and too indecisive and we need to get on with the work. It looks, unfortunately, like it is jobs for the boys.
Among the names being linked with the Seanad are former ministers James Reilly and Paudie Coffey.
Enda Kenny
As Fine Gaels deputy leader, it has been suggested Dr Reilly could be named Fine Gael leader in the Seanad. Michelle Mulherin, Mr Kennys former constituency colleague who lost her seat, is tipped to take a seat as is Ann Marie Dermody, a Dublin city councillor. Defeated Trinity senator and respected economist, Sean Barrett, has also been linked with one of the 11 places, despite being an independent.
Ryanair boss Micheal OLeary is said to have lobbied Finance Minister Michael Noonan and Mr Kenny to try and have Dr Barrett appointed.
Ex-Fianna Fail senator Averil Power has also been linked to a seat as part of Katherine Zappones deal to support the Government.
News / National
by Stephen Jakes
Minister of Environment and Climate Change Oppah Muchinguri has said the government is still examining the quill birds to establish if people may not contract diseases from them."We have wild fruits in the forest like mazhanje but I have never seen anyone taking that wild fruit to plant it at his own home. We also have buffaloes and other animals that live in the forest but we have not heard anyone who took them home to tame them," he said. "These wild birds have to be examined first by the department of wild life. So people should understand that because they can get diseases from them. That is why we stopped them because we still have to examine them to see if there are any diseases or not. Those who are keeping them in their backyards here in the locations, I said they are free to continue - but people hear what they want to hear."MP Murisi Zwizwai had said the problem is that still it is not clear how people should go about their business, especially those who are keeping quail birds all over the country in Chikombedzi, Binga and some other places."There are eggs that can be found in the bush and those from tamed birds. What should they do with their eggs because we have not heard of anyone who has been arrested or that a docket that has been opened? What should we do then? What I would like to hear from the Minister is whether those who are keeping their quail birds in their backyards continue selling quail birds or not?" he said.
More than 8m of that total was spent on rent, with the premises in Brussels alone costing more than 1m to lease each year.
By far the most costly Irish embassy is in London. It cost the State more than 6.3m in 2015, 680,000 of which was spent on rent. Other high-cost locations include Paris (3m), Washington (2.2m), and Tokyo (1.8m). Last years 1.9m cost of the embassy in Maputo, capital of Mozambique, excludes rent as the Irish State owns the building, which has a value of 2.8m.
Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said the cost of each embassy includes staff costs, building rental and/or maintenance and other overheads.
The work of our embassies around the world continues to be important in Irelands economic recovery and the restoration of our international reputation. He said that work included:
Promoting Ireland as a source of high-quality exports, a destination for investment, research, study, and tourism to targeted audiences and contacts.
Supporting trade missions and other trade-focussed high-level visits; directly assisting Irish companies with advice, introductions, and working to resolve regulatory or market-access issues, in partnership with Enterprise Ireland.
Providing frontline consular and passport services to Irish citizens overseas.
Of 62 Irish embassy buildings around the world, all but 11 are rented.
The embassies the State owns are worth a total of 87.5m, including a property on Avenue Foch in Paris which accounts for more than half the total, at 45m. The embassy building in Rome is valued at 18.5m.
Mr Flanagan said the 11 places where properties had been acquired were locations where the Government considered the State should be represented and where there is a clear advantage to owning, rather than renting accommodation.
The others are in Saudi Arabia (3m), Australia (4m), Zambia (476,000), Tanzania 1.4m), Ethiopia (2.4m), Washington (2.8m), Netherlands (6.15m), and Denmark (932,000).
Sinn Fein TD Sean Crowe asked Mr Flanagan if he was aware staff working abroad in embassies and consulates were being discriminated against in terms of mortgage interest relief, special savings incentive accounts, and third-level education for their children, as a result of their service for the State abroad. He said they were considered as resident in Ireland for tax and voting purposes but not when it came to many of the basic entitlements.
The minister said, in 2014, it was confirmed that the dependent children of officials serving the State abroad, and residing with the official, would be considered resident in Ireland for the purposes of university tuition fees.
In a number of other areas, I am aware that officials have encountered various difficulties on account of periods spent outside the State; for example, the issue of health insurance and lifetime community rating. My department is currently engaging with staff representatives on these issues with a view to finding a satisfactory way forward, the minister said.
TIME plays little tricks at Ashford Studios in Wicklow.
Not least on Emmy-winning costume designer Joan Bergin who is on the set of Vikings for the last time.
Its not so much the fact shes standing in a 9th-century wood-and-wattle village though that is deeply evocative but the realisation that she is finally packing up after a dizzying run that has taken her through four seasons of Vikings, four seasons of The Tudors in the nearby Ardmore Studios, one Riverdance, and Camelot.
I started here one Monday and Ive barely stopped in ten years, she says.
Bergin is stepping down from Vikings after the fourth season this is my last Viking raid and is looking forward to some downtime after her next project, an MGM pilot called Dawn on Homo sapiens and the Neanderthals.
Costume designer Joan Bergin on the set of Vikings.
The years just come galloping in, says Bergin.
Im looking forward to easing down and doing 101 things, including extending my kitchen in Ranelagh. I need to clear out my life.
Speaking of clearouts, rows and rows of costumes glorious fur capes, leather-trimmed tunics, unexpectedly heavy chainmail, and beautiful gowns are being packed away into boxes along with a spectacular array of beads, buttons, and pins that were fashioned into Viking jewellery during the highly successful series written by Michael Hirst.
A fifth season has just been given the green light.
After four seasons, its hard to pick out the highlights, but Bergin has a go anyway: Five Viking ships sailed around the curve of Lough Dan [Wicklow] one beautiful spring morning and I burst into tears. It was so magnificent.
"The work, from stunts to boat builders, has been the most astonishing collaboration of Irish arts, crafts, and skills.
Mention the incredible costumes that have brought a forgotten era to life and Bergin graciously mentions her colleagues the brightest and the best who helped her.
I like the team spirit in costume design, she says.
The other day, we had the great heathen army attack the King of Wessex and we had 300 extras. Imagine dressing them. People were in from 4.30am doing hair and make-up.
Then theres those exquisite one-offs like the wedding gown worn by Princess Gisla for her marriage to Rollo.
It took three-and-a-half weeks to make and was honoured on-screen with one magnificent shot from the front, another from the back, and then it was gone.
It was an astonishing dress, says Bergin.
It was my Viking homage to Chanel... the wedding dress at the end of the 2014 show. I bought fabric in India for Camelot that hadnt been used and we handpainted a pattern in gold on it. [The few seconds on screen] were nearly worth it for that.
Another of Bergins highlights was the fight-to-the-death scene between her old friend Gabriel Byrne (Earl Haraldson) and Travis Fimmel (Ragnar).
I played opposite Gabriel Byrne once, which he never let me forget when he was in Vikings.
Gabriel Byrne in Vikings
In fact, Byrnes character fell in love with Bergin when she played Natalya in Turgenevs A Month in the Country at Dublins Focus Theatre in 1976.
She laughs at that now and recalls working with the likes of Tom Hickey, Olwen Fouere, and her long-time friend Sabina Coyne who would go on to become Sabina Higgins, the Irish first lady.
In fact, Bergin had her road to Damascus moment during that Turgenev season, deciding against an acting career: I realised that I would never be a great actress. I have a light speaking voice and Im interested in too many other things. It was very liberating.
She still collaborates with Sabina Higgins, though these days on wardrobe: During the historic State visit to the UK in 2014, Sabina wore a dress designed from an idea of Joans echoing the shamrock dress worn by Queen Elizabeth in Dublin in 2011.
Bergin still gets the odd yen to act though its a very hard life but she is completely at home behind the camera where she has made a huge contribution to several films, including My Left Foot, Veronica Guerin, In the Name of the Father, and The Prestige.
Daniel Day Lewis, In The Name of The Father
The Christopher Nolan-directed The Prestige stands out because Bergin had one of those rare amazing moments during the shoot.
I flew from LA to New York to meet David Bowie. He walked in looking like an out-of-work dancer from somewhere like the New York ballet.
"He was shy and quite nervous because the part was a big acting part. What I thought so extraordinary about him was the moment he came on set.
"If you want to know the real meaning of charisma, he had it. Everyone went quiet. He was a real star.
And heres the very special memory that will be with Bergin for ever: David Bowie alighted from his carriage on top of a mountain outside of LA, grabbed the lapels of my coat, and said, I love my costume. My knees started to shake. I was starstruck.
Working on The Tudors was another highlight. It was great to dress Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) from young pup to ageing king.
He was really terrific to work with and, of course, hes an absolute clotheshorse. Over the series, we made about 1,500 costumes. All those clothes were made in Dublin.
"People assumed we had them made in London or in a big Paris house.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry and Sam Neill as Wolsey in The Tudors
At least for The Tudors, history was kind enough to leave behind a vast portraiture to flesh out what was worn at Henrys court. Not so with the Vikings.
Joan Bergin started season one, quite literally, with a blank canvas.
Yet she felt something of an affinity towards those Nordic people who have been caricatured as wild, plundering barbarians.
I think with my colouring and a name like Bergin that I have always had at the back of my mind that maybe we are descended from the Vikings. That was my race of choice.
She did extensive research, visiting museums in Stockholm and Norway and talking to Viking scholars.
She visited Dublin Museum, which has a number of artefacts from the famous Viking site at Woodquay, Dublin.
In fact, in 1979, Bergin marched with thousands of other protesters in a vain attempt to stop Dublin Corporation building the civic offices on an archaeological site of European importance: It was the only march Ive ever been on.
What emerged from her research was a picture of a complex, democratic society that took great pride in their health and appearance.
The single most interesting moment was when I came in with the research and showed the crew the designs, artefacts, and jewellery I had gathered.
"It was hands-on-hip time: What are you talking about? Thats Celtic, they said. I said, Sorry dears, thats where we got it.
In fairness to us and we werent told this at school Dublin was a great slave capital so everything came through here: Slaves, fabric, furs, and jewellery.
To make sure the costumes in Vikings were as authentic as possible they cant be Game of Thrones Vikings the team enlisted the help of a Swedish dye expert who showed them how to make natural dyes from Scandinavian berries.
The Vikings were skilled weavers. They were the first to introduce the idea of the shaded panel in clothes.
"You might have blue-grey with a coral band in it. Its very Scandinavian to this day.
They were also far from unkempt barbarians.
They would travel in the boats with a change of clothes.
They had vanity sets with items that did everything from trim the hair from your nose to shape your eyebrows.
They were, in fact, so clean what when they came to Ireland the women used to rave at how gorgeous the men smelled.
Bergin is now moving on to dispel another common myth the false notion that the Neanderthals were backward and ugly.
They were quite beautiful, she says, showing an image of the Venus of Brassempouy, a tiny ivory figurine wearing a detailed beaded headdress that is said to be 24,000 years old.
I was at a party and I saw this woman with great features. I thought to myself, you would make the most stunning Neanderthal but you cant say that because of the belief that they were ugly.
Joan Bergin will display some of her wardrobe at the 8th Fastnet Film Festival which takes place in Schull, Co Cork, from May 25-29.
She will be showing two costumes from The Tudors, two from Vikings, the famous Daniel Day-Lewis/Gerry Conlon coat from In the Name of the Father, and the outfit Meryl Streep she has more warmth in her little finger than many a person Ive worked with wore when going to meet Michael Gambon in Dancing at Lughnasa.
After all the months of plotting and planning and the frenzy of excitement todays the day.
Hope you are all heading to Shanagarry in east Cork for the fourth Ballymaloe Literary Festival of Food and Wine a two-day celebration of food and drinks and food writing.
Check out www.litfest.ie
If youre not already on your way youll have missed Jeremy Lee of Quo Vadis in London and Eric Werner, Mya Henry from Hartwood in Mexico and Yotam Ottolenghi and Ramael Scully but theres still time to catch the riveting Food Symposium in the Grainstore.
This year this venue will be transformed into an auditorium staging short talks and presentations, giving us news of whats happening in the world of food and drinks.
Its still not too late to try for tickets for some of tomorrows events.
Check out Elisabeth Luard, an iconic food writer from London.
How about Ari Weinzweig all the way from Zingermans in Michigan, a totally inspirational speaker his topic A lapsed anarchists approach to building a great business and a happy workforce.
If you miss Natalie Wheen explaining What makes a virgin an extra virgin at 12pm today in the Grainstore, you have a second chance to attend the tutored olive oil tasting and discussion on Sunday at 2pm in the Carrigaun Room at the Grainstore.
Natalie was an arts commentator on BBC Radio 4 but now focuses on her organic olive farm in Greece AVLAKI.
On Sunday morning Katie Sanderson of the Dillisk Project in Galway will give her eagerly anticipated demo at the BCS and Louise Bannon will join a panel discussion Irish Women in Food this evening at 5pm in The Carrigaun Room at the Grainstore.
Catch Kamal Mouzawak from the Lebanon talking about his Favourite Middle Eastern Ingredients and Food from a War Zone on Sunday at 3.30pm in the Cookery School.
The Big Shed will be buzzing again this year with delicious food and drinks from some of our favourite Irish artisan producers.
The free Fringe programme is overflowing with activities and events for #Litfest16 and promises to be a fun filled weekend for all ages.
The Family Corner in The Big Shed will be run and creatively curated by our crafty fun friend, Camilla Houston, swing by the Kerrygold Corner where there will be baking, face painting and of course butter making.
Pregnant mums shouldnt miss Kathy Whyte Change for Health on Saturday at 11.30am.
Professor Ted Dinan from UCC will discuss the relationship between our gut and our psychological wellbeing.
Dr Alessandro Demaio is another huge highlight, The Crossroads, Where Next? together with Danielle Nierenberg, Founder of Food Tank and Dr William Burke, Agricultural Economist at Stanford University.
If you didnt bag a ticket for Frances Mallmann theres another opportunity to hear him discuss The Joy of Fire at 3pm in the Grain Store on Sunday.
There are over 100 events in the jam packed programme.
It kicked off last night in the Grain Store with a welcome party.
Dont miss what Conde Naste Traveller has described as one of the top 10 Best Festivals in the World.
NOPIs Pearl Barley Risotto with Watercress, Asparagus and Pecorino
Serves 4
300g pearl barley
2.4 litres vegetable stock
100g baby spinach
200g watercress
90ml olive oil
120g unsalted butter (80g cut into 1 cm dice, 40g left whole)
1 medium shallot, finely diced (70g)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 thyme sprigs
1 bayleaf
4 portobello mushrooms, stalk and cap thinly sliced (250g)
1 medium leek, green and white parts thinly sliced (180g)
2 tbsp lemon juice
Coarse sea salt and black pepper
Asparagus and Pecorino Salad
250g asparagus, woody stems trimmed
60g pecorino
tsp olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
Place the barley in a medium-size saucepan and pour over 1.8 litres of stock.
Bring to the boil on a high heat, then reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 30-35 minutes, uncovered, until cooked but still retaining a bite.
Strain and set aside.
Wash out the saucepan and refill it with water. Bring to the boil, add the spinach and blanch for 30 seconds, then use a slotted spoon to transfer the leaves to a colander.
Rinse well under cold water this will prevent colour discolouration then squeeze out the excess moisture and set aside.
Keeping the pan of water on the boil, add the watercress and blanch for 30 seconds.
Transfer to a colander, rinse under cold water and squeeze out the moisture. Add to the spinach leaves, roughly chop and set aside.
Wipe out the saucepan and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, along with the 40g of undiced butter.
Place on a medium heat, add the shallots and garlic and cook for 6-7 minutes, stirring often, until soft but taking on no colour.
Add the thyme and bay leaf, pour over the 400ml of stock and bring to the boil on a high heat.
Cook for 10 minutes, for the stock to reduce down to a quarter, so that you have about 100ml left in the pan.
Add the spinach and watercress leaves and cook for a final 2 minutes.
Remove from the heat, lift out and discard the bay leaf and thyme, then, while still hot, carefully transfer to a blender with teaspoon of salt and a few cracks of black pepper.
Turn on the blender to blitz adding the diced butter a few cubes at a time, waiting until one batch has been incorporated before adding the next. Set aside.
Put 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large saute pan and place on a high heat. Add the mushrooms and cook for 3 minutes, until softened but not coloured.
Remove the mushrooms, along with any liquid in the pan and set aside.
Return the large saute pan to a medium-high heat with the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil.
Add the leek and cook for 3 minutes, until softened but having taken on no colour.
Leave in the pan and set aside.
To make the salad, run a vegetable peeler from the base to the tip of each asparagus stem to make long thin ribbons.
Place them in a mixing bowl, and then do the same with the cheese, running the vegetable peeler along it to create thin ribbons.
Add these to the asparagus, along with the olive oil, lemon juice, a pinch of salt and a crack of black pepper.
Use your hands to gently mix and set aside. Dont make this salad too far in advance before serving; it wont improve for sitting around.
When ready to serve, add the barley and mushrooms to the pan of leeks and pour over the remaining 200 ml of stock.
Mix well, then place on a medium high heat and cook for 3-4 minutes.
Add the watercress and spinach puree and stir through for a final minute or two, to warm through.
Add the lemon juice, 1 teaspoon salt and a grind of black pepper.
Mix through and serve at once, with the asparagus and pecorino salad on top.
NOPI, Yotam Ottolenghi and Ramael Scully
NOPIs Chilli Jam
Makes 1 medium jar
500 ml sunflower oil
30 (200g) Thai shallots, thinly sliced
24 (80g) garlic cloves, thinly sliced
20g galangal, peeled and thinly sliced
10g long red dried chillies, de-seeded
50g dried shrimp, rinsed and patted dry
100g palm sugar, coarsely grated if starting with a block
1 tbsp fish sauce
80ml tamarind pulp water
Put the sunflower oil into a large saucepan and place on a medium high heat.
Add the shallots and fry gently for 6-7 minutes, until golden brown.
Use a slotted spoon to remove the shallots and transfer them to a kitchen paper-lined plate while you continue frying.
Add the garlic and fry for 2 minutes, until golden brown.
Transfer to a paper lined plate and add the galangal and chillies to the pan.
Fry for one minute, then remove.
Finish with the shrimps: these will need just 30 seconds in the oil before being removed.
Set everything aside to cool, then transfer to a food processor.
Add 90ml of the frying oil and blitz well until a smooth paste is formed.
Return the paste to a medium saucepan along with the sugar, fish sauce and tamarind water.
Place on a low heat and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring from time to time, until a jam-like consistency is formed.
Cool before storing in a jar in the fridge, where it will keep for up to 3 months.
NOPI, Yotam Ottolenghi and Ramael Scully
Courgette and Manouri Fritters
Makes 12 fritters, to serve 4, or 24 smaller fritters, to serve 8 as a snack
3 medium courgettes, trimmed and coarsely grated (580g)
2 small shallots, finely chopped (50g)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
finely grated zest of 2 limes
60g self-raising flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cardamom
150g manouri (or halloumi or feta), roughly broken into 12cm chunks
about 150ml sunflower oil, for frying
coarse sea salt and black pepper
Lime and cardamom soured cream
200ml soured cream
5g coriander, roughly chopped
teaspoon ground cardamom
finely grated zest and juice of 1 lime
Mix together all the ingredients for the soured cream sauce in a small bowl, along with a quarter teaspoon of salt and a grind of black pepper.
Set aside in the fridge until ready to serve.
Place the grated courgettes in a colander and sprinkle over 1 teaspoon of salt.
Set aside for 10 minutes, then squeeze them to remove most of the liquid: you want the courgettes to keep a little bit of moisture, so dont squeeze them completely dry.
Transfer to a large bowl and add the shallots, garlic, lime zest, flour, eggs, ground coriander, cardamom and a grind of black pepper.
Mix well to form a uniform batter, then fold in the manouri cheese gently so it doesnt break up much.
Pour enough oil into a large frying pan so it rises 2mm to 3mm up the sides and place on a medium heat.
Once hot, add 4 separate heaped dessertspoons of mixture to the pan, spacing them well apart and flattening each fritter slightly with the flat side of a slotted spoon as they cook.
Cook for 6 minutes turning once halfway through, until golden and crisp on both sides.
Transfer to a kitchen paper-lined plate and keep somewhere warm while you continue with the remaining two batches.
Place 3 fritters on each plate and serve at once, with the sauce alongside or in a bowl on the side.
NOPI, Yotam Ottolenghi and Ramael Scully
HOT TIPS
Irish Food Festival in Kells: Dont miss Sheridans Cheesemongers Irish Food Festival.
It is unquestionably one of the very best showcases for Irish food and great craic.
Childrens workshops, foraging, walks and talks, Boyne Valley Food Marquee, lots of music, traditional games and lots more.
May 29 from 10am-6pm, Kells, Co Meath. www.sheridans.ie
Sugar Campaign: Sweets Out for School campaign is attracting lots of attention at present. Parents from a Kerry school are calling on the Minister for Education to remove vending sweet machines from secondary schools and call on teachers not to give sweets as rewards to primary school pupils.
I am 100% behind them, others please follow check out the Facebook campaign www.facebook.com/Sweets-Out-For-School-173793252996456/
Fermenters Alert: Nicolaus Balla and Cortney Burns from Bar Tartine in San Francisco are the reigning king and queen of funky fermentation.
Dont miss the one and only opportunity in Ireland to see them in action.
Just a few places still available for their cookery demo tomorrow at 2pm. www.litfest.ie for more info.
With the Trump Thatch on one side of the Atlantic and the Boris Barnet on the other, all talk of heads of State is likely to mean something else entirely.
It would, of course, be comedy gold. A dystopian hell, mind, but anyone with a penchant for a bad pun (is there any other kind?) would be in seventh heaven: Boris wins by a hair; Trump is hair apparent; Is this the final hairdown? Pause here for groans.
Its not as if hair isnt important. Theres been a lot more talk of it than you might imagine in the US presidential campaign, though thats not entirely a good thing.
Democrat candidate Bernie Sanders registered his disgust when a reporter asked him if he thought Hillarys hair was getting more scrutiny than his.
Sanders replied: I dont mean to be rude here. I am running for president of the United States on serious issues, OK? Do you have serious questions?
And top of Sanders list of serious issues is the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality in the US, where the top 0.1% owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%.
If the media want to talk about hair, he said, then we have a real problem. And hes right, we do have a real problem because serious questions are out of fashion.
Its not that people are unwilling to ask them but when, for example, Trumps hair stays put in a blast of wind, its his previously quoted explanation that makes the news, or at least the Twitter feed, which seems to be the same thing these days: I do not wear a rug. My hair is 100% mine. No animals have been harmed in the creation of my hairstyle.
That is far more digestible than any discussion of, say, wealth inequality, though Trump has had the decency to explain that he was a self-made businessman who started his business empire with a small loan from dad small in this case was a piffling $40m.
In some ways, it makes perfect sense to focus on the wondrous hair of our two blond(ish) protagonists because what is going on underneath the weave is far more difficult to untangle.
And, of course, hair in itself is a sort of language, according to the social historians, who argue that hairstyle can communicate many things gender, class, even political ideals.
It might be pushing it a little to suggest that Trumps impressive comb-over reveals his propensity to cover over the truth, but only a little.
Certainly his coiffure, held together with aerosol and artifice, is a good parallel for the tricks he plays with the truth.
He doesnt have too much respect for veracity, as the chilling results of a fact-checking exercise carried out by the Washington Post show only too clearly. When the Post vetted the truth of the presumptive Republican nominees statements, over 70% of them were awarded, if thats the right word, the papers maximum dishonesty rating of four Pinocchios.
In case you wondered, the other 30% got a rating of just three Pinocchios. How can this man have got so far? The Post might well be asking the same question as one its columnists, Dana Milbank, said he would eat his own words if Trump was named presumptive nominee.
Last week, Milbank was served up some Mexican-themed dishes, including grilled newspaper guacamole, in a little culinary acknowledgment of Trumps plan to build a wall between the US and Mexico.
Things arent much better under Boriss barnet. In his campaign to get the UK out of Europe, hes been throwing around a host of inflammatory words, comparing the European project to Napoleon and Hitlers expansionary campaigns.
When UK prime minister David Cameron made noises about the security threat of a possible Brexit, Johnson retorted that all the talk of bubonic plague and World War Three were wildly exaggerated.
And hes just the man to tell us about exaggeration. In a recent article, he reminded us that he spent many years in Brussels I rather love the old place and how, as a former Brussels correspondent for the Telegraph, he informed readers about euro- condoms and the great war against the British prawn cocktail flavour crisp.
Boriss vision of Europe is of a bonkers bureaucracy with straight bananas and, for years now, he has been peddling the kind of distorting scaremongering that makes every decent citizen want to batten down the hatches against the invading hordes.
Sometimes it hard to tell the difference between his real statements and the ones on the Twitter account written by Boriss hair, though Im not suggesting he writes the latter.
I am some very important protein filament, reads his hairs profile. A sample post runs: I wish Boris would stop scratching me. Its making me look like a fool.
But then Boris plays on his image of the blustery, idiosyncratic, dare we say, buffoon. His air of cultivated chaos, quick banter and often impenetrable puff is the perfect match for that shock of unruly hair.
Though, he did seem shocked when, in 2012, US chatshow host David Letterman asked him if he cut his own hair and if he thought it might be holding him back.
Johnson replied: Until you mentioned it tonight, Id never regarded it as a drawback.
When Letterman asked if there was a chance he could become prime minister, he delivered this gem: I have about as much chance as being reincarnated as an olive.
Lets hope that , for once, hes getting close to the truth this time. Even within a hairs breadth.
I am with my friends Caroline and Roisin and we are standing at the magazine rack, flicking through copies of Heat and Now that we have no intention of buying.
Roisin points at a photo of a celebrity and says that she wants to get her hair cut in a similar style.
Isnt she gorgeous? she asks me and I shake my head.
Shes disgusting, I reply.
I would kill myself if I ever got that fat.
An argument follows.
Roisin is, rightly, incensed, insisting sharply that the celebrity is not fat and even if she was, that was an appalling thing to say. But I am adamant, repeating over and over again, I would kill myself.
In the following months, I put that theory to the test, watching in satisfaction as the number decreases on the weighing scales, my fingers splaying over knife-edge ribs cutting through paper thin flesh.
They tell me I might die, that my body is under too much pressure, that I am at risk of a heart attack.
There are signs they are right.
I am dizzy every time I stand up, my hair is falling out in clumps in the shower, I am constantly shivering.
I cannot sit on our kitchen stools (which we have had since I was four years old) anymore because the edges hurt too much.
The strap of my favourite handbag leaves my shoulder bruised and bleeding because there is no flesh to protect it.
My father and I go for a walk and I have to lean on him after two minutes, breathless and unsteady on my feet, unable to go any further.
Shes going to die, he tells my mother later that night, his head in his hands.
Shes 21 and we are going to have to watch her die.
And I can tell you now, with all honesty, that I didnt care if I did. I would rather have died than get fat.
And Im not alone.
Jes Baker, the American body-positive activist, outlined in her 2014 TED talk how 81% of ten-year-old girls are afraid of getting fat; more afraid of gaining weight than they are of the cancer, losing their parents, or nuclear war.
A 2011 survey found that one in six women would prefer to be blind than obese, with others saying they would rather have alcoholism or depression than to be overweight.
There will be some people reading this article who will roll their eyes at this, seeing it as yet more evidence of female superficiality.
It may seem absurd that people would choose to have an often incurable affliction rather than gain a few pounds but one has to consider the difference in the social cost.
People who have cancer are not judged in the way that fat people are, they are not deemed as disgusting or weak willed.
In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies novel, Americanah, the protagonist describes her education around the word fat when she leaves Nigeria to live in the US, saying ... one of the first things her friend Ginika told her was that fat in America was a bad word, heaving with moral judgment like stupid or bastard, and not a mere description like short or tall.
Two books I read recently really highlighted to me how prevalent and widely acceptable the phenomenon of fat-shaming has become.
The first was Fat Chance, Louise McSharrys autobiography (out in June) and the other was a collection of essays by one of my personal heroes, Lindy West, called Shrill.
The manner in which both books explore what it means to be a fat woman in a world that is inherently inhospitable to them is both incredibly vivid and disturbing.
The street harassment, the comments about their bodies freely given, the constant judgment I felt exhausted just reading about it.
Maybe people are just trying to help, thinking that by doing so they could encourage fat women to lose weight.
And something has to be done because being fat is dangerously unhealthy and is a huge strain on our health services, right? Not necessarily.
A new study in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine found that underweight people have a higher death rate than obese people, with only people who are termed severely obese being at a higher mortality risk.
Someones weight is an unreliable gauge for how much exercise they take or the quality of the food they eat.
We cant tell how healthy someone is or is not just by looking at them. And even if we could, its none of our business anyway.
If were so concerned with the health of our peers, why doesnt it extend to other behaviour that might be considered damaging?
Are we going to start hanging around smoking areas to inform smokers they are damaging their lungs?
Scream at men and women who are clearly making a walk of shame the morning after the night before that casual sex is the work of the devil?
Tut at someone with a hangover because theyre risking liver damage? Of course not.
We dont attempt to fat-shame people because we truly care about their health.
We do it because we are taught, from a very young age, that to be fat is somehow repulsive.
This is especially true for women, whose value is so often directly correlated to their physical appearance.
The jokes and the snide comments about fat women are not only cruel and dehumanising, but they are contributing to a culture where the female body is public property and free to be objectified; a culture where the margins of what an acceptable body looks like are becoming more and more restrictive.
There are young girls listening, as I did, who internalise the message that to be fat is to be unlovable, to be wrong in some way, and who will go to drastic, damaging measures to ensure that they avoid such a fate.
As JK Rowling said, Fat is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her. I mean, is fat really the worst thing a human being can be? Is fat worse than vindictive, jealous, shallow, vain, boring or cruel? Not to me.
Its not to me, either. Not anymore.
Louise will be in conversation with Lindy West on May 30 at the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel in Dublin.
Tickets are available online.
IN November 1985 the monthly current affairs magazine Magill ran a stark headline: We Say The Judge Got It Wrong. The story it referenced was what was known as the Kerry Babies Tribunal, which examined how four members of the Hayes family from Abbeydorney could have, while in garda custody, admitted to a murder they couldnt have committed.
The tribunal chaired by Judge Kevin Lynch exonerated, to a large extent, the gardai of any wrongdoing. His main criticisms were of a slipshod investigation, following the discovery of a babys body near Cahirciveen.
Magills reporter, the peerless Gene Kerrigan, sat through 82 days of evidence and found the judges relatively tame conclusions at variance with the evidence. Kerrigans report forensically went through the evidence and showed where the judges conclusions were inexplicable.
Ireland was a different country in the 1980s. Authority wasnt really challenged, which rendered the Magill position quite explosive. What would have been really explosive would have been a tribunal report that drew some far-reaching conclusions about the culture within the gardai, as evidenced by the whole affair. But that would have required a mindset that was obviously beyond the late Judge Lynch.
Roll it on nine years and the publication of the Beef Tribunal report into export credit insurance. The tribunal, chaired by Judge Liam Hamilton, sat for more than three years. During its hearings, a government fell when two of the witnesses, Albert Reynolds and Dessie OMalley, clashed in their evidence.
The tribunal report was relatively tame, more or less exonerating Reynolds, who had been a central figure in the affair when he had been Minister for Industry. Most observers suggested that Judge Hamilton had simply avoided apportioning commensurate blame to culpable individuals.
When the report was published in 1994, Reynolds was Taoiseach, and Hamilton president of the High Court. Any serious criticism of Reynolds might have seen the president of the High Court responsible for the ejection from office of the Taoiseach. A few months after Hamilton delivered his report he was promoted to chief justice by the Government.
Fast forward to last year. The Fennelly report, chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Niall Fennelly was examining the departure from office in April 2014 of the garda commissioner Martin Callinan. The main issue was whether he was pushed by the Taoiseach, a scenario that would have made Kennys continuance in office untenable.
The matter centred on Mr Kenny dispatching the secretary general of the Department of Justice to Mr Callinans house to inform him of Kennys concern over various Garda controversies.
Fennelly reported: The commission accepts the Taoiseachs assurances that he did not, by sending Mr Purcell to visit the commissioner, intend to put pressure on the commissioner to retire. But he also stated that the way things were done, such an outcome was likely to be interpreted as doing just that by Mr Callinan. In other words, he had reason to believe he was getting the heave-ho, but the judge believed Mr Kenny when he said it wasnt meant like that.
Some might regard Judge Fennellys interpretation of events as Jesuitical. After all, a retired Supreme Court judge, schooled through a long career in the separation of powers, would be highly sensitive about responsibility for the probable resignation of a serving Taoiseach.
Now leap to the recent publication of the OHiggins report into alleged garda malpractice. Eight days ago this newspaper published a story detailing events behind the closed doors of the commission. At the outset of the commissions hearings, counsel for Garda Commissioner Noirin OSullivan indicated that his instructions were to attack the integrity and motivation of Sergeant Maurice McCabe, who blew the whistle on malpractice in the force.
.@Mickcliff: Garda Commissioner needs to step up or step down https://t.co/ZeffriNNoN (GM) pic.twitter.com/MnwTyl3h69 Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer) May 19, 2016
The evidence against McCabes character, the commission was told, would be presented by two gardai to whom McCabe allegedly revealed that he was motivated in bringing his claims by a grudge against a senior officer.
Then, hey presto, McCabe produces a recording of the meeting in question.
There was no mention of a grudge.
It would have involved at least two garda officers misleading a statutory inquiry, including the possible commission of perjury. And it would have involved the character assassination of another officer, whom the commissioner had lauded publicly. All of this would have been done on the instructions of the garda commissioner, albeit presumably on the basis that she was misinformed about the event in question. If that whole affair effectively an aborted attempt to bury McCabe made it into the final report, it may well have precipitated a political crisis.
Judge OHiggins would not be a popular figure around Government Buildings.
For the second time in two years, a government may have been forced to move against a garda commissioner. What would such an appalling vista say? That the wrong candidate was given the job of reforming the force? That the force was unreformable? That the Taoiseachs judgement was up for grabs?
Judge OHiggins may have a valid reason for not including in his report an incident that appears to be a shocking reflection of the culture in the force. But such a reason is far from obvious.
There is a certain pattern to be discerned in some judicial inquiries. The standard of work done is usually high and fairness towards individuals tends to be observed without fear or favour.
But when it comes to pointing the finger in a manner that may have major political repercussions, robust, unequivocal conclusions do not appear to feature.
This may well be down to an instinctive reluctance to stray across the separation of powers. Judges guard their independence from government fiercely, and such an instinct may well inform an overly cautious approach when they find themselves sitting in judgement of the executive with the prospect of major political repercussions. Of course there may also be a judicial reluctance to point the finger at anybody who would suffer the most grievous consequences. An inquiry, after all, is not a court of law.
The country has moved on in 30 years. Would a Kerry Babies-type tribunal come up with a result similar to the original inquiry today? Perhaps not.
These days there would be precious few judges who would instinctively protect An Garda Siochana from scrutiny. Whether or not the same open, robust approach would inform big decisions that would have major repercussions for the executive is a matter of conjecture.
The Polish pontiff could not have contemplated the idea of same-sex marriages yet there have been 412 since 62% of the electorate voted, a year ago tomorrow, to endorse the amendment to the Constitution that facilitated such an advance.
It is unlikely too that John Paul could have anticipated the loss of credibility the Irish Catholic Church inflicted on itself because of its reluctance to face the truth about the sexual abuse of children by clerics moved from posting to posting to protect the reputation of that church.
Trump and other top Republicans spoke at the National Rifle Association convention last night in Louisville, where organisers are trying to unite gun-rights voters by painting Clinton as a foe of their causes who must be stopped.
Clinton will appear today in Florida with the mother of Trayvon Martin and other parents who have lost children to gun violence.
Shes become a forceful advocate for restrictions meant to reduce the nations 33,000 annual gun deaths.
The dual appearances highlight the opposing positions the candidates have staked out on gun rights and safety, the prominent role the issue might play in the campaign and the national policy implications for the next president.
If you cherish Second Amendment rights, the stakes have never been higher than they are in this election, NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said.
The NRA which Clinton listed as an enemy in a debate last year is warning its 5m members that Clinton would appoint anti-Second Amendment justices and implement a radical gun-control agenda, Baker said.
Clinton has said she supports the Second Amendment but that common sense safety measures are needed to keep firearms out of the wrong hands.
She has called for expanding background checks to sales at gun shows and online purchases, and for reinstating a ban on assault weapons.
She has often campaigned with families of gun violence victims and will rejoin many today as the keynote speaker at an event sponsored by the Trayvon Martin Foundation.
The fatal shooting of the unarmed black teenager in 2012 continues to be a flashpoint in the debate.
Trump, who often notes that he has a concealed-carry permit, has called for making it easier for law-abiding citizens to carry guns for self-protection, saying they could help prevent terrorist attacks and mass shootings.
He argues the existing background check system should be fixed, not expanded, and that assault-weapons bans do not work.
The latter view marks a change from 2000, when Trump wrote in a book that he supported the ban on assault weapons as well as a slightly longer waiting period for gun purchases.
Supporters of gun control have been energised by Clintons campaign and fear a Trump presidency would maintain a national policy that favours easy gun access.
Gun sales have boomed during Barack Obamas presidency despite, and perhaps in part because of, several mass shootings and persistent gun violence in cities.
With no bodies to bury, relatives and friends of some of the 66 people on board held special prayers for the lost.
But the mystery remained over why the Airbus A320 which had been cruising normally in clear skies on a night flight from Paris to Cairo early on Thursday suddenly lurched left and then right and plummeted into the sea, never issuing a distress signal.
Egyptian authorities said they believe it may have been an act of terrorism, as have Russian officials and some aviation experts, but so far no hard evidence has emerged.
No militant group has claimed to have brought down the aircraft.
That is a contrast to the downing of a Russian jet in October over Egypts Sinai Peninsula.
In that incident, which killed 224 people, the Islamic States branch in Sinai issued a claim of responsibility within hours.
Three European security officials said the passenger manifest for EgyptAir Flight 804 contained no names on terrorism watch lists.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to discuss the investigation. The list was leaked online and has not been verified by EgyptAir.
Still, the tragedy has fuelled suspicions of terrorism, especially in light of the bombing of the Russian plane and the recent extremist attacks in Paris and Brussels.
Some aviation experts have said the circumstances suggest a bomb blast.
Experts said answers will come only with examination of the wreckage and the planes black box recorders.
But retrieving them may take time.
The water is 8,000 to 10,000 feet deep in the area where the jetliner is thought to have gone down, roughly halfway between Egypts coastal city of Alexandria and the Greek island of Crete.
The Egyptian army said it had found debris around 290km north of Alexandria, and that it was searching for more.
EgyptAir said luggage and seats were found, as well as body parts.
France, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, and Britain have joined the search, which encompasses a wide area south of Crete.
Investigators from Egypt, France, and Britain, as well as from Airbus, will examine everything found in the search, Egyptian officials said.
In Egypt home to 30 of those on the flight civil aviation minister Sherif Fathi informed relatives there were no survivors, the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper said.
In several mosques around the Egyptian capital, families and friends of the victims held what is known as Salat al-Ghaib, Arabic for prayers for the absent.
These are held for the dead when there is no body.
At the al-Thawra Mosque in Cairos Heliopolis district, mourners wept as they prayed for a family of four who were killed Salah Abu Laban, his wife Sahar Qouidar, their son Ghassan Abu Laban, and daughter-in-law Reem al-Sebaei.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissis office issued a statement expressing its condolences to relatives and its deep regret and sadness for the victims. It added: God give great mercy and host them in his heaven.
The statement marked the first official recognition by Egypts government that the missing plane had crashed.
The crash has struck a demoralising blow to Egypt.
The economy has been gutted by years of turmoil since the 2011 overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak, and the Russian plane crash caused a new plunge in tourism, one of the countrys main money-makers.
Egyptian security officials said they were running background checks on the passengers to see if any had links to extremists.
French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on France-2 television there is absolutely no indication of what caused the crash.
Frances junior minister for transport, Alain Vidalies, defended security at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.
News / National
by Stephen Jakes
A Political analyst Obert Mundevere Ncube has said instead of doing a one million march for President Robert Mugabe's boot-licking purposes, the protestors must be doing that for the sack of raising concerns over 200 Zimbabweans in the death raw in China."Why not doing a Million Man March for this and others in Kuwait than what these Zanu troubled souls are trying to tell us?" he asked.He was referring to the remarks by an MP in parliament who expressed concerns over the said women."We've about 200 Zimbabweans and the majority of the 200 are women, who are on the death row in China because they've been used by the so-called Nigerians who are coming here, marrying them through an Act that we enacted in this House. They marry them and then ask them to go to China to buy their wedding gowns," said MP Beauty Nyamupinga."As they go to China to buy their wedding gowns, they're given a bag, which has a false bottom and in that false bottom, drugs are secretly packed. They're told when you get to China my friend is going to receive you and will show you the shops where you can buy your gown.' She gets to China and the immigration and customs of China know that and these girls are intercepted and convicted."Nyamupinga also said thousands of other women are stranded in other countries after being promised lucrative jobs.
The stepfather, Timothy Ciboro, 53, a former Toledo firefighter, and the girls stepbrother, Esten Ciboro, 27, were each charged with kidnapping and endangering children, said Toledo police spokesman Lieutenant Joseph Heffernan.
Lt Heffernan said the girl told authorities she had been shackled by the ankle to a support beam in their basement for a year and fed spoiled and old scraps of food.
The girl managed to unshackle herself and escape by using a spare key she had found and kept hidden until she could make her move one night while her stepfather and stepbrother were out of the house, he said.
Lt Heffernan said police found handcuffs chained to a beam and an ammonia-filled bucket that the girl said she used as a toilet.
Robin Reese, executive director of Lucas County Children Services, said aside from the 13-year-old, two other children, aged eight and 10, were in the house. All three were put into foster care.
The children have the same mother, Lt Heffernan said, adding that Timothy Ciboro is the biological father of Esten Ciboro and the eight- and 10-year-olds.
The Toledo Blade quoted the girl as telling a neighbour who found her in the streets after her escape that she had been taken in by her stepfather after her mother left her and her siblings to go to Las Vegas.
She said her stepfather kept her chained in the basement because she wet her bed, the paper reported.
Police said the kidnapping charges came from the girl being held captive against her will. Police are investigating whether the other two children were also held against their will.
Holly Kelland, 18, and 17-year-old Codie Farrar, tried to dupe parents into giving away their contact details over the social networking site and tricked one mother into handing out her home address.
Murder mystery actress Farrar then visited the woman at her home, posing as a social worker, in September 2015, and asked to take the baby away for a half-hour medical assessment.
However, the mother became suspicious when she saw the would-be kidnapper holding the babys head incorrectly, and raised the alarm.
Both schoolfriends had already admitted conspiracy to kidnap three babies, identified only as U, S and W, and were at Derby Youth Court yesterday to be sentenced.
District Judge Jonathan Taaffe was told Kelland had been the architect of what was described as a detailed scheme by the girls own solicitor, and had then recruited her misguided fellow plotter.
Kelland had been faking a pregnancy and suffering from undiagnosed mental health issues during the time of the offences, according to her solicitor Elaine Stapleton.
She lied to her own mother about carrying a child, and had a fully-equipped nursery with a cot at her home, the court was told.
In a series of text message exchanges, discovered on devices seized by police after both girls arrest, Kelland had told her co-conspirator: Dont feel like baby chasing today.
Later, she said: Did you bin the SIM (card)?
Sentencing, Judge Taaffe told them: By its very nature this is a case of extreme seriousness. A plan was hatched to kidnap a baby and not followed through, and fortunately it was only the alertness of the mother (of U) that prevented the actual kidnap taking place.
The judge added he had reservations about Kellands motive being down to a mental health issue.
He concluded: Id be failing in my public duty if a custodial sentence was not imposed.
Which? has called on the US company to clean up its act and treat customers fairly as the result of an undercover investigation into its handling of the modification of millions of dryers.
Manufacturers Hotpoint, Indesit, and Creda are in the process of fixing dryers across the UK after parent company Whirlpool notified customers of a widespread safety defect last October.
Faulty tumble dryers, in which excess fluff can catch the heating element and cause a fire, have been linked to a number of blazes in British homes.
Customers in Ireland are also affected.
Which? said it discovered delays, confusion, and the withholding of information following undercover calls to Whirlpool, a survey of 800 affected customers and analysis of 40 case studies.
Which? said Whirlpool staff consistently claimed it would take eight to 12 weeks to obtain a customer ID before anything could happen something the consumer group believed could be achieved at the push of a button while 32% of those who opted for a repair were told they would have to wait six months or more.
Mystery shoppers posing with a nine-month-old dryer were repeatedly told to take up a claim for a replacement with the retailer, however many of Whichs case studies tried this route and were told to go back to Whirlpool.
Which? has published the details of affected models on its website, something Whirlpool had still not done in favour of asking consumers to use a model checker on its own website.
A survey by the consumer group found 62% of affected customers were concerned about using the dryer while waiting for a repair, but numerous call handlers said there was nothing to worry about as long as safety instructions were followed.
One in five customers (20%) said they felt they had no choice but to pay for a new machine and 33% said that, given the option, they would rather pay for a replacement than wait so long for a repair.
More than half (54%) of those surveyed felt dissatisfied with the way Whirlpool had handled this situation, increasing to 80% of those who had to wait six months or more for a repair.
Which? is calling on Whirlpool to clearly list all 127 affected model numbers on the front page of its website with details of how customers can get help, speed up the customer ID number process, and stop staff directing customers back to retailers.
Which? director of policy and campaigns Alex Neill said: Whirlpool customers rightly feel dissatisfied with how theyve been treated, being faced with delays, confusion, and a lack of information.
Burma This Week in Parliament (May 16-20)
The Irrawaddy keeps you up-to-date on the parliamentary proceedings of the week that was.
May 16 (Monday)
Khin San Hlaing, a National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker from Pale Township constituency, submitted a proposal to the Lower House that called for repairs to dams in Magwe and Sagaing divisions. The Lower House put the proposal on record, and will wait for further site visits to assess damages.
In a question and answer session, lawmakers asked about coal production in Shan States Mongyal Township and Sagaing Divisions Pinlebu Township, as well as land confiscation disputes in Sagaing Divisions Khin-U Township.
Meanwhile, the Upper House turned heads when its members engaged in debate over a penis-shaped soap controversy. Earlier this year, the Happy Zone amusement park in Rangoon gave out phallic bars of soap as prizes. After photos of the scandalous soap spread on social media, the issue drew the attention of the deputy minister of home affairs, Maj-Gen Aung Soe. The deputy minister said the owner and manager were made to sign letters stating they would no longer distribute the genitalia-shaped prizes.
May 17 (Tuesday)
The Union Parliament approved the appointment of Kyaw Tint Swe as the minister of the State Counselors Office. It also approved the appointment of Kyaw Myo as deputy minister of transportation and communications, and Win Myint as the deputy attorney general.
Parliament also ratified the Protocol of 1992 to amend the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage, 1969, which ensures adequate compensation for people who suffer damages caused by oil-carrying ships and places liability on the ship owners.
May 18 (Wednesday)
The Union Parliament approved seeking US$200 million in loans from the World Bank for the ministries of Construction; Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation; and Planning and Finance. If the loans are acquired, $115 million would go to Construction; $70 million to Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation; and $15 million to Planning and Finance.
The Lower House approved the replacement of lawmakers Khin Maung Win from Lanmadaw constituency and Nay Myo Htun of Htantabin constituency, both with the NLD, on the Lower House Bill Committee.
May 19 (Thursday)
The Lower House approved the formation of the Judicial and Legal Affairs Committee, which will consist of 15 members.
May 20 (Friday)
In the Lower House, lawmakers discussed a proposal from Khin Saw Wai, a lawmaker with the Arakan National Party (ANP) who represents Arakan States Rathedaung Township, that urges the government to address citizenship problems across the country in line with the 1982 Citizenship Law. The minister for labor, immigration and population responded by saying that it would be a priority in his ministrys 100-day plan. Lawmakers ultimately voted to keep Khin Saw Wais proposal on the record.
The Upper House approved a draft law to revoke a law that protected the state against the dangers of subversive acts. The Lower House had approved the draft law earlier.
Parliament also approved a draft law to revoke Burmas Fresh Water Fishery Business Law.
Business The Irrawaddy Business Roundup (May 21, 2016)
Hydropower redirect advised; tourism boom to strain infrastructure; local ride-hailing app likely to get cash injection; palm oil moratorium urged; and Burmese coffee heads abroad.
Government Urged to Take a Wider Look at Hydropower Plans
Burmas new government should take a by design approach to developing the countrys massive potential hydropower resources, scholars and leading environmental organizations suggests in a new report funded by the United Kingdoms aid agency.
The report, Improving Hydropower Outcomes Through System-Scale Planning: An Example from Myanmar, looks at how countries like Burma can deliver the broadest range of benefits to their people while tapping their water resources for energy, according to its executive summary. It was produced by the Nature Conservancy, based in the US state of Virginia, alongside the World Wildlife Fund and the University of Manchester in England.
It comes as the newly minted National League for Democracy (NLD) has yet to signal what its approach to hydropower will be. Most controversially, the Myitsone project in Kachin State is still hanging in the balance, with its Chinese backers pushing for a restart after former President Thein Sein suspended work on the dam five years ago.
Twenty-five hydroelectric dams of varying sizes are currently in operation, but some 45 are under construction, in the planning stage or proposed by developers, the report said.
The previous governments approach to hydropower development was to attract the maximum possible amount of hydropower investment, the report said. As a result, essentially all interested developers were encouraged to go forward with their proposed projects.
However most of the proposed projects have made little progress, many delayed by conflict or local opposition to their environmental and social impacts. The authors see this as evidence that what they describe as a non-selective, single-project approach has not worked. They suggest that the new government should instead adopt a system-scale approach that can identify the best portfolios of projects.
The report says the government should, in the short-run, only approve less controversial, smaller projects and those within existing cascades. In the long-run, it advocates a comprehensive look at what dams in individual river systems can be built that will balance energy needs and the effects on people and the environment. The Nature Conservancy calls this approach Hydropower by Design and hopes it could provide a model for other countries.
To demonstrate how this approach would work, the report looks closely at the Myitnge, also known as the Dokhtawaddywhich runs down from the Shan Hills and becomes a tributary of the Irrawaddy near Mandalayusing spatial analysis and simulations of how dam building would affect water resources.
Our results clearly showed that energy development produces tradeoffs with other resources and values, wrote Jeff Opperman, the director and lead scientist for the Nature Conservancys Great Rivers Program, in a blog about the study for the World Banks website.
However, there are many different options to increase energy generation and these options [vary] widely in terms of their impacts. A system-scale approach can identify win-win or close to win-close to win optionsthese are options that meet energy objectives but minimize negative impacts or have synergistic benefits for other sectors.
Further Tourism Growth Expected to Weigh on Infrastructure
Burmas tourism industry has not yet finished its growth spurt, analysts said this week, but the influx will put even more strain on infrastructure in years to come.
The UK-based Oxford Business Group published an update on the tourism industry, which has already grown rapidly during the countrys period of political transition from a closed dictatorship.
From only about 1 million foreign visitors in 2012, the country almost hit the 5 million mark last year, and the government has targeted 6 million visitors for 2016. The Asian Development Bank said spending by tourists in the country rose by 19 percent year on year to $2.1 billion in 2015.
The update figures cited from the World Travel and Tourism Council predicting that over the next decade Burma will have the worlds second-fastest growing tourism industry.
The sector is set to grow by 5.9 percent this year and by 7.8 percent per year up to 2026, when it will employ about 2.1 million Burmese, the council predicts.
But both hotels and airports have already been put under strain by the rising number of tourists. The recently opened new terminal at Rangoons airport raises annual capacity to 6 million passengers, but is only a medium-term solution, Oxford Business Group said.
It is not just Yangon International Airport that is working to find space to expand, it said. Tourism has to compete with the residential, commercial and industrial sectors for land resources, which has pushed prices up, while zoning laws have also limited access to blocks for development in some areas.
IFC Considering Oway Cash Injection
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Banks investment arm, is looking at investing up to $3 million in Oway Group, a local travel booking website that runs an Uber-like ride hailing service in Rangoon.
According to a summary of the proposed investment on the IFCs website, Oway is looking to raise $10 million to fund an expansion, including the growth of Oway Ride. The service, which connects travelers with drivers via a smartphone app, launched in the former capital in January but hopes to expand to Mandalay and Naypyidaw.
The IFC, which invests commercially in developing markets in the hope of building capacity for economic growth, said it hoped the investment would fuel job creation. Oway currently employs more than 500 people and Oway Ride has signed up 400 driversa figure that is expected to reach 1,500 by the end of this year, it said.
The investment would also help provide stability for service providers in the tourism industry, increase the supply of decent transport options and support for innovation and technology-enabled investments in Burma, the IFC said.
Myanmar does not yet have a strong Venture Capital ecosystem, and lacks local and later-stage funding options, it said. IFCs investment in Oway provides access to capital to a promising early-stage technology company in Myanmar.
Environmental Group Calls for Palm Oil Halt
The global environmental group Fauna & Flora International (FFI) has issued a call for the new Aung San Suu Kyi-led government to put a stop to agricultural development that is threatening to destroy the remaining forests of southern Burma.
Large-scale concessions have been granted for palm oil plantations in the deep south since a government initiative to develop the crop began in 1999. As in other regional countriesnamely Malaysia and Indonesiathat have embraced the crop for rural development and export revenue, the policy has spurred the destruction of formerly untouched forests.
But Tenasserim Division, also known as Tanintharyi Region, remains home to the last large Sundaic rainforest in peninsula Southeast Asia, although the forest is under increasing threat, according to FFI.
A recent study into oil palm plantations in Tenasserimcommissioned by FFI and funded by donors including the European Unionfound that poor policies and practices in the sector are fueling unsustainable development of this highly biodiverse landscape, a post on FFIs website said.
Currently most plantations are clearing high conservation value forests, and many companies are even clearing land outside their concession boundary, FFIs Burma program director Frank Momberg said in the post.
That is why we are calling on the new government of Myanmar to declare a complete moratorium on oil palm developmentthat means no new forest clearing and no new licenses issueduntil we can be sure that these plantations are sustainable.
Burmese Coffee Headed to Western Markets
The first container of coffee grown in Burmas Shan Hills was shipped to Switzerland in April, and beans could soon be on sale in the United States, according to state media.
The Global New Light of Myanmar said exporters were earning between $3,800 and $4,000 per ton, citing information from a trade association.
It said coffee was already exported to Japan and South Korea, but suggested efforts by US nonprofit Winrock International to bring Burmese coffee up to export standards meant that the American market may be next.
We aimed to export the two container loads of coffee, the report cited Myanmar Coffee Association Chairman Ye Myint as saying, without specifying whether there were firm plans in place to send coffee to America.
The price offered depends on the quality and the market. The price offered to the coffee growers and the production costs have to be transparent to build trust with the buyers. Only then, our market lasts longer. The higher the quality of the coffee is, the more we earn.
A coffee trade magazine last month said buyers in the United States were searching for new sourcing countries for coffee, and were looking closely at Burma.
The Global New Light of Myanmar said coffee had the potential to replace opium for some impoverished farmers, and said Burmas uplands were especially well-suited to growing coffee.
Shan State and Pyin Oo Lwin, in Mandalay Division, are the main centers of coffee production at present, but little is produced for export.
Dateline Irrawaddy: How Can Women Play a Greater Role in Burma?
Two Burmese gender equality leaders take on the tough question of how women can carve out a greater role in the new government and society at large.
Kyaw Zwa Moe: Welcome to Dateline Irrawaddy! This week, well compare the roles of women under the previous quasi-civilian government and current elected government, and discuss their potential role in decision-making on important issues such as the shaping of political, economic and social policies. Ma Khin Ma Ma Myo, a director with the Myanmar Institute of Gender Studies, and Ma May Sabe Phyu, a director with the Gender Equality Network, will join me for a discussion. Im The Irrawaddys English editor Kyaw Zwa Moe.
How do you compare the roles of women in the time of the U Thein Sein government and under the new government, the government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, in terms of policy-making and decision-making? Do you see greater potential for the role of women now compared to the past, or if not, do you think it will get better in the future?
Khin Ma Ma Myo: In terms of womens participation, there were a few female ministers in the previous government. However, in the new government, there is only one woman who is a minister.
KZM: Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the foreign affairs minister.
KMMM: Yes, thats right. But then, we cant jump to the conclusion that the role of women is very limited just because of the proportion of representation. It is due to the fact that the new government has merged or reduced the number of ministries. And not every ministry has yet appointed deputy ministers. Though womens participation in the cabinet is low, we cant conclude that their role is small. If the proportion of women at the rank of director and above in each department is counted, and if a gender policy is put in place, then women will have a greater role to play.
KZM: Ma May Sabe Phyu, you are from the Gender Equality Network. Besides the quantity factor, what other factors should be taken into account in assessing gender equality?
May Sabe Phyu: In assessing [gender] equality, we focus on both quantity and quality. By quality I mean outcomes. We care more about outcomes than quantity. As Ma Khin Ma Ma Myo has said, Auntie Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is the lone woman in the Union government. But then, at the division and state level, there are two women who are chief ministers. And overall, the number of female lawmakers in the Parliament has doubled now compared to the time of the previous government.
KZM: Previously, it was?
MSP: It has increased from 4.6 percent to 10.3 percent now. So it has doubled. It is fair to say that it is a sign of progress. But then we also need to consider the point of quality. We need to see to what extent the voices of those women in the Parliament and central, division and state governments are heard and reflected in legislation and government policies.
KZM: Ma Khin Ma Ma Myo, everyone believes that the new elected government, compared to previous military governments and the quasi-civilian government, has a genuine desire to establish democracy. Can we say the new government is making reforms from a gender perspective? Can we say it has a gender policy?
KMMM: In my view, [the new government] has just started developing policies. For example, the Social Welfare Ministry has started to design a national youth policy in cooperation with UNFPA [United Nations Population Fund]. Therefore, we expect a national gender policy will be developed soon. That is likely because youth and gender are cross-cutting issues. So the two tend to come one after another.
KZM: Some organizations engaging in womens issues or gender equality have criticized Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her government for not favoring women despite the fact that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi herself is a woman. As far as I understand, she cares more about qualifications. She has called for giving more opportunities to women, if they are equally qualified with men. But qualifications seem to be the most important to her. Why have those organizations made such criticisms? Do you see the criticisms as valid?
MSP: When it comes to gender equality, the common assumption is that everyone, either man or woman, can be a leader or hold decision-making positions if they have same qualifications. But from the point of view of womens rights and gender equality, the assumption that everyone can be a leader if he/she has the right qualities is a conventional assumption that does not consider gender sensitivities.
In society, men and women have traditionally had different roles and there is both explicit discrimination and subtle discrimination on the grounds of gender. To be frank, our country is a striking example. Is every capable woman accepted by the people as a leader in society? It is a question worth asking. Here, we need to change the conventional assumption of gender equality that both man and woman will be able to take the leading role if they have same qualifications. Taking the glass ceiling and social and cultural prejudices against women into consideration, [the new government] should adopt laws and policies that can create an environment that allows greater participation of women. Only then, those policies can be said to have been formulated with gender in mind.
KZM: Another thing is about very controversial legislation: The U Thein Sein government and Parliament adopted race and religion protection laws because of ultra-nationalist and religious groups. They justified this by saying those laws were intended for the protection of Burmese [Buddhist] women. But most women believe that these laws violate the fundamental and natural rights of women. Ma Khin Ma Ma Myo, how should the new government and lawmakers should handle these laws now?
KMMM: The reason issues become controversial largely depends on how those issues are approached. In taking an approach, some adopt a protection strategythat is, to protect an individual or a group of people. And others take an empowerment approachthat is, to educate an individual or a group and allow them to make choices on their own. The race and religion protection law was adopted in protection style. It seems that [some people] might have some concerns and therefore took the protection approach. In international societies, there are also protection approaches in practice, for example the phrase ladies first and the protection of women and children in times of war. Rather than trying to protect certain groups, I think empowerment is much better for women.
KZM: Ma May Sabe Phyu, what is your view of these laws?
MSP: There may be controversial, sensitive issues in every country. But as a voter, my view is as simple as can be: Because people have voted [for a party] with expectations that the government would fully respect and realize democratic values and human rights, [the government] should align its laws and policies to be in accordance with those values.
KZM: There are around 51 million people in our country and women make up more than half of the national population. So women represent a huge force in the reform and democratization process of our country. How can the mentality of men and women be changed so that women can play a greater part and more leading role in the decision-making process of social, economic and political issues?
KMMM: The first thing women should do is have self-confidence. They need to boost their confidence so that they can lead and make decisions and address national issues the way men do. The second thing is to find effective ways to demand a greater role. Women should now think about how to do advocacy to gain support from men. Then, they should take a sensible, strategic approach, convincing the men to support them. Then, we women will be able to shape the country together with men like other countries in the world, I hope.
KZM: Ma Khin Ma Ma Myo, you have talked about what is needed for women. Here I think institutions and government are important. What collaborative measures do you think should be taken to realize those goals in a short time?
MSP: We already have powerful womens campaigns, networks and organizations that could make sure there is greater gender equality in our country. To make sure there are laws and policies that can guarantee gender equality, the government should cooperate with womens rights activists.
KZM: Ma Khin Ma Ma Myo, Ma May Sabe Phyu, thank you for your contribution.
News / National
by Stephen Jakes
Environment, water and climate Minister Oppah Muchinguri has said the government is still mobilising funds for the drilling of boreholes in needy areas such as Hwange West.Speaking in parliament Muchingura said the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate administers a Water Fund which is financed by levies from raw water users."The Fund is taking time to accumulate substantial resources owing to reduced agricultural water use and refusal to pay by some farmers," he said. " However, when adequate funds become available in the Water Fund, needy areas in the country requiring boreholes such as the Hwange West Constituency will be considered for allocation of funds to drill boreholes by the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate."The minister said the MP may also recall that Government through a Belarus facility negotiated by Government will purchase several rigs which will sink boreholes throughout the country.'In addition, the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate will continue submitting PSIP bids for funding of rural water supply projects including for Hwange West Constituency," said the minister."On the drying up of dams, mainly small dams that are dotted across the country due to siltation, this is an issue which the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate is seized with. The Ministry through ZINWA is looking into the feasibility of de-silting these dams which have silted up. Each of the seven catchments has been tasked to do a mapping exercise of silted dams to be de-silted in the catchment this year."She said it is important to note that financial resources are required to execute such a programme and at the moment the Ministry is mobilising the required resources."However, Hon. Members are also encouraged to mobilise communities and development partners in their respective areas to also complement Government efforts in de-silting the dams," she said."A Committee has been set by Government in ZINWA to address drought mitigation issues. The Committee shall attend to emergency issues if funds are available under the anticipated US$1.5 billion drought mitigation fund. This Committee will look into the drying up of dams and come up with the appropriate action to mitigate on the silting of dams."She said the Ministry together with other relevant departments like EMA, AREX and local authorities, is carrying out awareness campaigns to educate communities on the need to protect our dams from siltation through, good agricultural practices which, among other things include avoidance of stream bank cultivation." At this juncture, I wish to thank Government for putting in place an inter-ministerial committee to come up with a master plan which addresses the issue of proper land-use. Rampant deforestation especially in the dam basins andSettlements on wetlands," she said.
This week, the acquisition of Time Warner Cable by Charter Communications closed and the new owner said that it is going to do away with the old firms name.
The closing of the $55.1 billion deal occurred about a year after it was first announced. The Time Warner Cable name, which is described as toxic in some quarters, will be phased out over time, according to Bloomberg.
It is not as if Charter is intensely popular in its own right. The story refers to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which gave TWC 51 out of 100 points. Charter, however, has its own woes: Its pay television service only scored a 63 and it trailed TWC 57 to 58 as a broadband service provider.
AT&T Discusses 5G
AT&T has filled in some of the blanks on its 5G testing plans, according to Light Reading.
Speaking earlier this month at the Jefferies 2016 Technology Conference, Senior Vice President of Technology Planning and Engineering Scott Mair reiterated that the operator plans to test 15GHZ fixed wireless this summer and 28GHz fixed by the end of the year.
Mair said that the company will use pre-standard equipment to test 5G mobile by late next year. Fixed testing will be run with Ericsson AB and Intel and the scope of testing will evolve over time.
IPv6 Still Not a Done Deal
It seems odd that we are still talking about the importance of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). But we are. The very short version of why IPv6 is vital: The old scheme for the Internet is not nearly big enough to support the trillions of addresses that will be needed in this brave new age. IPv6 offers a virtually endless supply.
The problem is that implementing IPv6 is a long, ongoing task. Charles Sun, the technology co-chair of the U.S. Federal IPv6 Task Force, described at Network World why IPv6 is a must have if the Internet of Things (IoT) is to succeed.
He offers five reasons: That the IoT simply requires more addresses than IPv4 has to offer; that the growth of the cloud further straps that supply; that IPv6 offers significant security benefits; that IPv4 was never meant to carry this load (which seems to be more or less a restatement of the first point); and finally, that adopting IPv6 is a matter of leadership, vision and [a] competitive edge.
The Case for BC Grows Stronger
Perhaps the main challenge business continuity (BC) faces is that it doesnt generate revenue. Most people understand that it is a good thing to have. However, business continuity is easily bumped off the to-do list by things that actually open the cash register.
Matt Kingswood, the head of managed services IT Specialists, a company in the UK, suggests that companies that bypass BC are making big mistakes for two reasons. One is that the kind of disasters that BC is geared to deal with are coming more frequently. He also points out that the process of putting a BC plan in place has benefits independent of its value in an emergency:
The planning process, which begins with a business impact analysis (BIA), forces a business to assess and prioritise critical processes, employee roles and technology. By taking a closer look at the organizations inner workings, management are likely to discover new opportunities for cost savings or even revenue generation. These opportunities are nearly guaranteed to surface if the organization works with a consultant who can provide an objective business continuity assessment.
Nokia Back in Device Mode
Nokias absence from the device market didnt last long. WirelessWeek reports that the company has signed a deal for Nokia-branded phones to be manufactured by HMD.
The 10-year deal covers intellectual property rights in addition to branding. HMD will pay royalties to Nokia Technologies for sale of the phones. Nokia will not produce the phones but will get a seat on HMDs board and set brand and specification requirements.
Carl Weinschenk covers telecom for IT Business Edge. He writes about wireless technology, disaster recovery/business continuity, cellular services, the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications and other emerging technologies and platforms. He also covers net neutrality and related regulatory issues. Weinschenk has written about the phone companies, cable operators and related companies for decades and is senior editor of Broadband Technology Report. He can be reached at [email protected] and via twitter at @DailyMusicBrk.
The Google I/O 2016 just concluded and one of the very exciting things Google announced is the Daydream VR headset. Let us look back really quickly at its predecessor: Google Cardboard. When this little cardboard box was unveiled, it was deemed a novelty and an introduction to the world of VR.
However, the Daydream VR is an evolution of Google's VR efforts by miles. The Verge noted that Clay Bavor, head of Google virtual reality, described the Cardboard as a Trojan horse. He said, We knew that Cardboard would only go so far. Because there's only so much you can do in terms of immersiveness and interactivity withlet's be seriousa piece of cardboard, and a phone that was really only meant to be a phone.
Daydream VR is different. It wants its users to get sold to the idea of VR. And it plans on doing this certifying certain phones for use with Daydream. Engadget reported that Google is already deep in talks with smartphone manufacturers like Samsung, LG, Xiaomi, Alcatel and others to make sure their devices will work flawlessly with the Daydream VR.
The whole idea of Daydream VR sounds a lot like the Samsung-powered Gear VR. However, there are key differences. The Gear VR is limited to only a handful of Samsung phones so not many people really get access to it.
Another reason why the Daydream VR is expected to be better is because Samsung's own OS is built on Android. Basically, it seems Google wants to show the world how VR is done.
Reportedly, a new VR Mode found in Android N already includes VR-ready apps including Play Store and Youtube. The VR Play Store will feature worldshots, 360-degree freeze frames that users can be immersed in. VR Youtube lets users use the remote, which is pebble-shaped, to pan around while using head-tracking for finer motion.
See the keynote during Google I/O 2016 on YouTube.
The hacking incident that happened 4 years ago at the popular professional networking site, Linkedin, thought to have over 6.5 million passwords have been stolen. However, now the site revealed it feared that 117 million users' passwords have been put on sale online was true.
According to CNN Money, the business-oriented social networking website said on Wednesday that it believed hackers have sold a vast number of 117 million of emails and passwords on illegal market. Linkedin originally said that 6.5 million passwords were reset in 2012. Users are in danger of identity theft as well as bank frauds, as many of them are using their login information all over again.
The company is also advising people with Linkedin accounts to change their log in credentials with two-factor authentication. Users will receive a message when they are logging in on a different computer. It was reported that the hackers are selling the private data on a dark website known as "The Real Deal."
Chief Information security officer, Corry Scott, said that they are taking the matter seriously especially when it comes to the safety and security of the members.
Linkedin also faces criticism regarding its security policy. In 2012, Linkedin has not set an essential part of security. That is why, the disordered content was easily decrypted by hackers. Now, the company is trying to prevent them from selling the stolen data on the dark web.
The passwords are being sold online worth 5 bitcoins, which is estimated to be $2,200 by one hacker, known only as "Peace," News4Jax reported. The company, which is headquartered in Mountain View, California, is still trying to figure out the number of login credentials still in use and who are still resetting it.
According to cybersecurity experts, the incident will be a warning to Internet users to make a frequent change on their passwords, and they are recommending passwords should have words that will not be easily guessed or deciphered by the hackers. Currently, the site has 400 million members in 200 different countries.
Microsoft acquired the mobile phone division of the Finnish tech firm Nokia in 2014, now the Redmond tech titan is selling the division, as the sales of its handsets have been dismal. This time fans of Nokia can again avail Nokia-branded devices running on Android.
Since it acquired Nokia's mobile phone division, Microsoft has been manufacturing only low-end devices, which failed to entice customers. Now, the company is set to sell the loss-making division to a Finland-based tech firm named HMD Global for $350 million. While HMD Global may seem to be an unfamiliar name, it is actually owned by the Redmond tech firm's longtime partner Foxconn, Tech Times reported.
HMD Global will be reviving the Nokia handsets that will run on Google's Android operating system, instead of the original Symbian OS of Nokia. In addition, HMD Global will also absorb the entire 4,500 former employees of Microsoft's mobile phone division. On the other hand, Microsoft will merge its Lumia division with its Surface team.
However, Nokia Technologies itself will not be making these Android-powered devices. In fact, the Finnish company just licensed HMD sole use of the Nokia brand on phones as well as tablets worldwide for the next 10 years, a post by Nokia stated. Therefore, though the new devices will bear the "Nokia" brand, and be powered by Android, they will not be made by the Nokia itself.
Meanwhile, HMD Global aims to use the advantage of Nokia brand's global reach and popularity to make as well as market the beautifully designed, premium devices worldwide. HMD Global has already spent several millions in its preparation to make the upcoming Nokia phones and now it plans to invest over $500 million in the next 3 years with a view to market the new breed of Nokia phones and tablets globally.
In a statement, Nokia Technologies President Ramzi Haidamus said that the deal between Microsoft and HMD Global and the subsequent agreement between Nokia and the Foxconn-owned company mark the beginning of an exciting new chapter for the Nokia brand in an industry where Nokia remains a truly iconic name.
Watch "Nokia back to market with Android powered phones" below:
With a view to boost its viewership among the Latino audience, Netflix has joined hands with Univision to jointly produce a number of new shows for 2017. An announcement in this regard was made at the Univision's Upfronts of 2016 in New York recently.
According to the deal, both Netflix and Univision will run the coproduced series, on Netflix's platform, together with Univision as well as its UniMas network, which only caters to hip younger Latino audiences, Latin Post reported.
Initially, Netflix will produce a second season of its hit series "Narcos," which narrates the story of infamous drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, for next year. At the same time, the first season of "Narcos" will air on Univision in the period before the streaming platform releases the second season of "Narcos."
In fact, Netflix is expecting to continue a binge fest similar to that of "Narcos" by co-producing a new drama on drug cartel, jointly with Univision. The upcoming series, titled "El Chapo," will be based on the life and activities of the notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman. This drug lord was taken into custody again earlier this year after he escaped prison in 2015 by digging a tunnel under his cell.
While the new drama will air on UniMas in 2017 in the U.S., and also premiere in other markets of Netflix's, it will finally be released on Netflix in the U.S. next year. In addition, Netflix will also share "Club de Cuervos," a Spanish-language series, with Univision's UniMas audience.
Meanwhile, another report states that Netflix shares have witnessed a sharp decline in 2016 giving rise to concerns among investors. The streaming giant was the best performer in the S&P 500 in 2015, as its shares surged nearly 130 percent, but they are down more than 20 percent so far this year, CNN reported.
There is a raging debate on whether Netflix really having problems in attracting new customers. While Netflix has created plenty of buzz as well as critical acclaim for shows like "House of Cards," "Daredevil" and "Orange Is the New Black," investors are really about the company's valuation.
Watch the official trailer of Netflix drug drama "Narcos" below:
British automaker Aston Martin has just announced the details of its latest supercar, the Vanquish Zagato Concept.
Already hailed by Bloomberg as "the most beautiful car of the year", the Vanquish Zagato Concept is a joint effort between the carmaker giant and Italian design house Zagato, which has been in close collaboration for over five decades, their first being the DB4 GT Zagato in 1960. This will be their first supercar out since V12 Vantage Zagato in 2013. The supercar is designed by the Aston Martin design team, led by Aston Martin Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer Marek Reichman and Zagato CEO Andrea Zagato, and is developed and engineered at the Aston Martin headquarters in Gaydon, England.
Cardekho describes the Vanquish Zagato Concept's aesthetics as "unmistakably Aston Martin", The new bodywork is said to be made entirely from carbon fiber. The interior is also decked out with herringbone-patterned carbon fiber blended with anodized bronze and aniline leather, with the unique "Z" quilt stitched on the headrests and center console.
Bloomberg said that the new Aston Martin combines all the best features of the other Aston Martin models. The lights and round tail reflectors are a staple Zagato design, but with a modern twist with the addition of "bladed" LED Lights, which debuted on the Aston Martin Vulcan. Other Zagato trademarks present on this year's supercar are the twin-bubble roof, reminiscent of the 1950 Zagato models, and the wraparound windshield profile, similar to the V12 Zagato, and the grille and headlamps stay true to the Aston Martin design. The mirrors resemble the winglike mirrors of the One-77 Aston.
Performance wise, The Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato will not disappoint diehard auto enthusiasts, with the V12 engine, described by Cardekho as "an old-school beast", uprated to produce an amazing 600PS.
"Over the years, we have developed and refined our own design language and we have always gone that little bit further with our special series cars like CC-100, One-77 and Aston Martin Vulcan," Reichman said in an official press release. "The Vanquish Zagato Concept shows how our two companies can come together and push the definition of Aston Martin design."
"We pride ourselves on our strong partnership and the creation of the Vanquish Zagato Concept was a true shared experience," Zagato added, "it represents the essence of an important design relationship that dates back over fifty years."
The Vanquish Zagato Concept will be making its debut at the highly distinguished Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este, to be held at Lake Como in Italy from 21-22 of May.
While FBI dropped its case against Apple related to San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, in Congress continues a broader debate about national security vs. privacy.
According to the publication AFR Weekend, James Comey, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) gave a speech in mid-October 2014 at the Brookings Institution warning of the dangers coming from the fact that tech companies are increasingly encrypting their products. He said that, even with legal authority, the law enforcement agencies are not always able to access the evidence. He also added that the use of encryption is "going dark."
Comey singled out Apple in that speech. All of the data stored on Apple mobile devices are automatically encrypted by the newly introduced security features to iPhone operating system. Comey told the group that location, contacts, videos, pictures, text and e-mails are now out of reach without a password.
Users of iPhones still store much of their data in "the cloud" and, with lawful authority, FBI can still access that data. But a potential issue for law enforcement consists in the fact that uploading to the cloud does not include all of the data stored on a suspect's phone. If a suspect is opting out of uploading to the cloud or not backing up his phone routinely, the data can be only found on the encrypted device itself.
According to Comey, encryption is not just a technical feature but rather it is a marketing pitch. And it can have serious consequences for national security and law enforcement agencies at all levels. Criminals might evade detection by using these sophisticated means.
Just 13 months after that Brookings speech, a county health inspector named Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik opened fire in the first days of December 2015, in a holiday gathering of Farook's colleagues in San Bernardino, California. They have killed 14 and wounded 22, claiming allegiance to the Islamic State.
Among the items found by the federal investigators at the terrorists' home was Farook's employer-issued iPhone. But the feds could not unlock it, because the phone has its password protected by Apple's new, encrypted operating system.
Such situations can multiply in the near future. According to The News&Observer, a Duke professor said that resistance from big tech firms may attract more hackers. Mary-Rose Papandrea is an attorney and professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law and specializes in national security, civil procedure, civil liberties and constitutional law.
These are all areas linked by the debate over government access to personal encrypted data on electronic devices. Even if the FBI dropped earlier this year its high-profile case against iPhone-maker Apple, Papandrea said that the broader debate about encryption will continue.
The recent annual developer conference by Google has just announced more exciting and worth anticipating projects and gadgets in the long run. The once anticipated and waited features from the company's brilliant technological work have come to reality, and by that, people clamor for more and want these gadgets into their hands.
According to a web post via CNet, Android is the most popular Operating System in the world today. Android N will not only integrate Google's interactive assistant service but also better battery efficiency. Google revealed Android N's top seven features, which are most anticipated by the enthusiasts.
First, the new assistant software, the "Google Assistant," will let users engage in more natural back and forth dialogue with the Android device in order to make things done. Users can easily make a reservation through "OpenTable" or research in a restaurant.
Second, the users can access the Instant Apps. Access this and the user can pay with Android Pay instead of downloading it.
Third, the "Multiwindow" will now come to many Android devices, not only to some Samsung and LG phones. This means that the user can play videos and at the same time search the net all in the same screen.
Fourth, Google now will let users reply to text messages from the notification shade. When messages come in, alerts will pop up at the top of the screen and he/she can type the reply there.
Fifth, the developers will be able to group together the notifications from the app. The users will just tap the bundle of notifications to expand it and carry on with seeing the individual functions.
Sixth, though Android Marshmallow already has the "Doze" feature, the rest will have this as well. It has a battery saving settings that stop the background computing that kicks in when the phone is idle.
Last, the "Night Mode" will be of use so that it will reduce the eye strain from viewing a bright screen especially at night.
According to TechTimes, there will also be a VR mode named "Daydream." It will give access to contents from partner media companies like HBO, CNN, Netflix and NBA.
News / National
by Stephen Jakes
MDC-T senator Teresa Makone have said the marginalisation instigated hostilities in Matabeleland regions can only be resolved by the implementation of devolution."The issue about devolution should not be underestimated as a minor issue. In some parts of Zimbabwe, it really is a very serious issue. Those Members of the House who travelled in my group when we went to Matabeleland on the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission Bill will bear with me that the hostility that we encountered there can only be resolved by devolution," said Makone."There is no way out. I felt Mr. President like a stranger in my own country. I had no idea of the depth of feeling and the resentment that is felt in that part of our country. Money as an excuse does not even begin to touch sides when you see the people of Matabeleland. We can say what we like in this House. We can joke and make funny comments about parties."Makone said there are members from Matabeleland North in Zanu PF and there are members in this House from Matabeleland North in MDC-T."This is the one thing that they agree on, even though they will say it. What made me say that? When the members of the public were raving and ranting, not one member of the Senate from either party stood up to say that is enough," she said. "So they were complicit they were in agreement with their population and I do not blame them. I agree with them totally. If we can mess around with $15 billion that disappeared quietly, we can find money for Matabeleland. There, we have got unity of purpose in this House Mr. President. Let us not even talk of parties like the previous speaker did. It has got nothing to do with parties. This is the one thing that unites them, devolution."The senator said the minute you go past the Shangani River they change."I am telling you. I felt that if we do not do something, we are showing insensitivity of the highest order. We are showing lack of care and we look as if we want to under develop Matabeleland. We are looking as if we want to take their resources and develop them here in Mashonaland. We look like we are just taking jobs from there and moving industry and these are things," she said.
SpaceX has made a historic landing on May 6 with its Falcon 9 rocket on a ship deck in the Atlantic Ocean. Although it has suffered some major damage, this does not stop plans on future launching.
According to SpaceNews, a spokeswoman for the intelligence agency said on May 18, Wednesday, that SpaceX is already scheduled to launch a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) payload in March 2017 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in the state of Florida. However, SpaceX did not announce this said launch.
NRO builds and operates the American spy satellites. For this reason, few details of the launch missions are made public. The agency has previously mentioned regarding the contract with SpaceX in public but only for once, which was during a congressional hearing three years ago, in 2013.
The March 2017 mission is known as NROL-76. Further details were not immediately available about the cost of the launch, which rocket SpaceX would use to lift the satellite, or whether the mission was competitively bid, according to a NRO spokeswoman.
During a question-and-answer session at the GEOINT 2016 conference, Betty Sapp, the director of the NRO, said her agency had purchased launches from SpaceX. Sapp praised the Hawthorne, California-based company for innovations that advance rocket building technologies.
SpaceX previous launches have included NRO payloads only one time. As part of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Demonstration Flight 1, an NRO cubesat flew as a secondary payload aboard a Falcon 9 in December 2010.
According to the website pddnet.com, SpaceX's mission that will carry a payload into orbit for the NRO is scheduled in March 2017, from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. This would mark the second known collaboration between the intelligence agency and the private space company.
The NRO mission is not currently listed on SpaceX's launch manifest and it is unknown whether the private space company will use the Falcon Heavy or the Falcon 9 to list the NRO satellite into the orbit.
NRO has confirmed that SpaceX will conduct the mission NRPOL-76 but the private company itself is referring questions back to the intelligence government agency. Loretta DeSio, a NRO spokesperson, declared that the agency is anticipating the possibility of SpaceX part participating in additional missions.
Verizons annual Data Breach Investigations Report is held in high esteem as an independent report - there are few that match its integrity, depth, and scientific rigor. It is then used by enterprise and security companies alike to implement current best practice.
iTWires coverage of the 2016 report is here.
One vendor that uses the report is Tenable Network Security. A global leader transforming security technology, it has produced a new set of analytics to help customers act on key findings of the report to enhance organisational security posture.
Cris Thomas, strategist, Tenable Network Security said, Every year the Verizon DBIR contains insights and information that can help organisations strengthen their security postures, but most struggle to put this information into action because the required data is difficult to manually extract and incorporate into the security program. Tenables new DBIR dashboards and remediation reports help customers build a comprehensive security program that incorporates key findings and recommendations from the report and makes them actionable.
The release of new Tenable DBIR dashboards and assurance report cards (ARCs) removes the burden of compiling and analysing the data, accelerating adoption of DBIR recommendations and best practices. The new and updated dashboards provide organisations with the critical context and actionable intelligence needed to strengthen and protect themselves against cyber threats, while the ARCs enable CISOs to measure, analyse and visualise the security posture of their IT enterprise as it relates to the common threats and vulnerabilities identified in the report.
In addition to updating the five existing Tenable DBIR dashboards (account weakness, browser vulnerabilities, incident pattern monitoring, network and host security; formerly called Indicators of Compromise in 2015, and vulnerabilities and malware collection), new dashboards and ARCs include:
most interesting things dashboard: Identifies specific common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) that Verizon identified as being frequently exploited by attackers.
account weakness and compliance ARC: Allows organisations to improve access control measures by developing and enforcing user management policies, including effective passwords, account transition and least privilege policies.
incidence patten monitoring ARC: Helps security teams protect against intrusions by comprehensively monitoring for remote access, potential policy violations, anti-virus updates, data leakage, vulnerabilities, detected changes and suspicious activity.
Other ARCs and dashboards include ARCs for network and host security, vulnerabilities and malware, vulnerabilities by common vendor, and web application and browser security.
Tenable has produced a whitepaper titled Assess Yourself Against Key Verizon 2016 DBIR Findings to help organisations make Verizon DBIR findings actionable, read the whitepaper.
It has also scheduled a free webinar, Assess Yourself Against Key Verizon 2016 DBIR Findings Tips and Trick from Tenable Experts at 1:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, June 7, 2016 (unfortunately that is 3 am AEST Wednesday, June 8 in Australia).
Three days of sporadic outages now extended to four in voice and data on NBN, data on ADSL, Telstra Internet Direct, its prepaid and recharge services down, MyAccount, and Telstra Wi-Fi off the air meant that May was not a very merry month this year.
Yesterday (Friday) iTWire reported on the three days of outages. It ended by saying, "What is clear is that good old fashioned voice PSTN is still working as Telstra call centres are flooded with complaints. It's ironic that its digital Omni channel policy is preventing more users from venting their spleen."
While the current service status for Sydney indicates all these are "restoration completed" there are a lot of "planned maintenance" items scheduled for the next few days 2, 3, 4G services, data storage, broadband cable, DDN (digital data network), and BDSL (business DSL).
Aussieoutages, however, show all was not well. It showed that the majority of NBN and ADSL services were working by around 4am on Saturday morning (when we should have all been asleep, anyway), and issues started ramping up again at 7am the live outages map showed a little less "red" than previously. At 2100 (9 pm) on Saturday evening, Telstra was still experiencing widespread issues.
Tweets many lacking location data indicate that services are still not working everywhere, with many indicating they have not had ADSL or NBN in particular since last Wednesday. Perhaps these sum up the mood.
Albion QLD has not had any internet since Friday 6 am to Saturday afternoon (1.30pm) and made numerous calls to Telstra. Waiting to speak to someone is at least 50+ mins. If I hear the recording one more time from Telstra "Go onto our website" I think I will scream. Telstra we DONT have the internet you Idiots...
Still no internet here in Cronulla NSW 2230.... but according to Telstra website it has been fixed. I am paying for a service which you are not providing. What about looking after your customers?
The key messages are that it is not fixed, and people expect compensation. The underlying message is that four outages on a supposedly premium network in as many months is not acceptable, and people will look at alternatives if they can get them!
The irony of this is that this happened just as Telstras chief executive Andy Penn (speech here) praised his network before an esteemed business group "Telstra has the best networks in Australia. When a telecommunications company focuses itself on quality, it is a long-term play, and there is a handful of those networks around the world. Telstra is one of those".
He went on to say it would improve its network by spending $25 million upgrading monitoring tools and another $25 million speeding up recovery time. While no network operator in the world can guarantee that disruptions wont occur from time to time, what we can do is reduce the likelihood and the impact.
Perhaps Penn was praising Telstras marketing network, not its technical expertise.
Telstra PR usually astute needs to improve and let people know of the cause and expected resolution. From what I can see, this has not been the case for the past four outages. It even blamed human error for the clusterf* a few months ago. Business and consumer confidence in this so called premium network well premium price anyway has been decimated.
It issued a statement (summarised) on Friday evening, 20 May at 2020.
"Following disruption to some NBN voice and data services and ADSL services today, all services were restored just before 7 pm EST this evening. The issue is extremely complex, but in simple terms, there was a fault with the device that manages the interaction between our network and all of the different types of customer modems. We understand this has been frustrating for affected customers, and we will be providing them with some additional data."
News Corp Australia reported that a leaked internal Telstra memo showed the outage affected up to 350,000 NBN voice and data customers in NSW, South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia and 25,000 ADSL customers in South Australia and NSW.
Update: 21 May, 2130: The following has appeared on the Telstra Services web site sometime duiring Saturday. It is not good enough!
Telstra NBN and ADSL service interruption
Most NBN and ADSL services were restored yesterday evening. However we are aware that a small number of customers are still experiencing difficulties connecting to the network. These are residual issues preventing re-connection to the network that we're working to resolve as quickly as possible.
"During this time we ask customers to keep their modem connected and powered-on and not reset it as this can cause further complications.
"We will continue to provide updates as progress is made and thank all those customers still impacted for their patience and apologise for the inconvenience."
Update: Sunday 22 May 1600:
Aussieoutages still show issues.
What does the mess that the National Broadband Network has become have to do with national security? The short answer is nothing.
Then why is Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull the same man who is responsible for the mess to a large extent trying to use the fig leaf of a coward to defend the raids carried out by the Australian Federal Police on Labor Party functionaries?
And we are being asked to believe that the government was unaware that the raids were planned! Please!
The background to the story is simple: internal NBN documents were leaked to various media organisations and it emerged that not everything was as hunky-dory with the building of the network as Turnbull and his pals would have us believe.
From a fibre-to-the-premises network that would cost something in the region of $49 billion, the NBN has now become the equivalent of what Indians call sambar a curry into which one casts every kind of vegetable imaginable. The so-called multi-technology mix is a dog's breakfast and will have to be upgraded soon after its completion.
The cost estimate for this mongrel has now grown to $56 billion and it is so far behind schedule that many of us at iTWire will be in our graves before it arrives in the suburbs in which we live.
The NBN is a government company. It filed a complaint with the AFP over the leaks of the documents that were fed to media organisations. So how did the AFP know where to carry out raids? Doubtless, they would have examined the metadata of journalists to find their sources.
The Labor Party foolishly gave the government support to pass the metadata retention laws. Now it is coming back to bite them.
Who will be raided next the ABC, Fairfax Media and News Corporation, the media organs that ran the stories which proved that for all his bluster and talk of innovation and agility, Turnbull had made a pretty big mess of the NBN? He was the minister responsible until he stabbed Tony Abbott in the back and took his job in September last year.
The AFP chief Andrew Colvin was out there on Friday denying that the government was behind the raids. But how can he be given any credence when his own staff allowed an employee of the nbn to accompany them on the raid and photograph documents that were seized? This is beginning to look like the police force of some Latin American dictatorship where the golden rule prevails: the people with the gold make the rules.
Is this Turnbull's way of trying to shift the political debate to national security? Looks like that, given the way in which Immigration Minister Peter Dutton started the dog whistling a few days back by making false claims about refugees.
The NBN has got nothing to do with national security. It is a network that should have been built at least a decade ago if Australia wanted to be competitive internationally. It would have helped in the transition of the economy. Instead, given the bungling that we have seen, we have a mutt that leaves us staring at a whirling ball as we wait for audio and video to sync on a streaming video.
The silent update capability of Chrome OS is one of the operating systems smartest features, as it does the behind-the-scenes work at grabbing the latest software update. One day youll just fire up your laptop, youre suddenly running the latest version.
But it turns out that such magic requires dual partitions, which is quite a technical feat to implement on the current generation of smartphones. In the case of the latest Nexus devices, representatives told the crowd at the Android teams office hours event at I/O that the background update feature wont be available for current-generation Nexus devices.
That means its likely that all currently-available Android phones tablets wont get the feature. ed, its technically possible to implement, but according to the Android team it would require hooking up a phone to a computer partitioning drives. Someone with the technical knowledge out there may make this happen, but thats above the paygrade of most smartphone users.
y this matters: This throws some cold water on one of the much-ballyhooed features announced at I/O. On the one h, if youre the type to keep tabs on the latest versions of Android this wont be a major deal breaker, but this new updates scheme is an important tool against fragmentation as it would nudge more phones tablets onto the latest Android builds.
Global services juggernaut Accenture is partnering with IT and business process automation specialist IPsoft to build a new Accenture practice dedicated to bringing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to global enterprises.
Earlier this week, the partners announced the creation of an Accenture Amelia practice built around IPsofts Amelia cognitive agent, an AI that emulates human intelligence and can communicate with natural language. IPsoft has positioned Amelia as your first digital employee one that can take on a wide range of service desk roles.
This cutting-edge new practice is going to give our clients more artificial intelligence firepower by accelerating their ability to apply AI to significantly improve their operations and create new growth opportunities for their business, says Paul Daugherty, CTO, Accenture. One of the ways Accenture is going to do this is by using IPsofts Amelia Platform to develop artificial intelligence strategies, solutions and consulting services for our clients in the banking, insurance and travel industries.
Taking AI to the market
Accenture plans to use the Amelia platform to develop go-to-market strategies, solutions and consulting service offerings around deployments of virtual agent technology. The company says the banking, insurance and travel industries will be the initial focus.
[ Related: What does the future hold for artificial intelligence? ]
Artificial intelligence is maturing rapidly and offers great potential to reshape the way that organizations conduct business and interact with their customers and employees, Daugherty said in a statement. At the same time, executives are overwhelmed by the plethora of technologies and many products that are advertising AI or cognitive capabilities. We are taking an important step forward in advancing the business potential of artificial intelligence to help clients transform their business and operations.
The survey says: Invest in AI
Accenture is making this move based on research in its Technology Vision 2016 report (a survey of 3,100 business and IT executives from 11 countries and 12 industries), which found that 70 percent of corporate executives are making significantly more investments in AI-related technologies than two years ago 55 percent said they plan on using machine learning and embedded artificial intelligence.
According to research firm IDC, the worldwide content analytics, discovery and cognitive systems software market will grow from $4.5 billion in 2014 to $9.2 billion in 2019.
[ Related: Accenture invests in artificial intelligence R&D ]
As digitization goes mainstream, the global enterprises are under considerable pressure to reinvent themselves, says Chetan Dube, president and CEO, IPsoft. The challenge is how to achieve such a transformation. Accenture brings in deep industrial knowledge, an ability to scale to assist in such a transformation.
We are at a turning point in seeing CEOs take the decision to adopt true digital labor as their differentiation strategy, he added in a statement. By equipping Amelia with Accentures deep industry knowledge, technology skills and ability to scale, we can together help enterprises realize the full potential of artificial intelligence technology as it reaches maturity.
IPsoft already has industry wins under its belt. Enterprises already integrating Amelia into their businesses include the following:
A global oil and gas company that has trained Amelia to answer invoice queries from its suppliers
A European bank that has deployed Amelia within its IT function; IPsoft notes that successfully deploying the cognitive agent took only 45 days from project start
A large U.S.-based media services organization that taught Amelia how to support first line agents in customer service
A global bank that has successfully tested Amelias ability to support its network of mortgage brokers by providing guidance on policy details
The creation of an Accenture Amelia practice will have a significant impact on the emerging market for AI, Phil Fersht, CEO of HfS Research, said in a statement. Accentures services capabilities and focus on AI, combined with IPsofts strong positioning across HfS Intelligent Automation Continuum, spanning both Autonomics Platforms and Cognitive Computing, promises a new threshold of value for customers.
News / National
by Thobekile Zhou
President Robert Mugabe left the country this morning to Singapore.State run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) said Mugabe (92) is on a private visit."President Robert Mugabe left for Singapore this Saturday morning on a private visit" it said.He left hours after returning from South Africa Friday evening. However, Mugabe travels to Singapore for health check ups.
News / National
by Walter Muchinguri
The $200 million worth of bond notes that will be used to incentivise exporters will be printed in Germany, a Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe official has said.RBZ director for exchange control Mr Morris Mpofu told delegates to the Chamber of Mines meeting in Victoria Falls yesterday that Government had engaged the same company that was used by the South African Reserve Bank to print rands."The same Germans who printed the South African rands which were recently impounded at Harare International Airport and later released are the ones who are printing the notes," he said.Mr Mpofu said the introduction of bond notes, which are backed by a $200 million facility provided by the African Export-Import Bank, was not supposed to be a cause for concern since the facility was not permanent but had a limited lifespan."The incentive will come and go, we hope that by the time it expires it would have brought in $4 billion," he said. He said it was critical to note that the bond notes were a minute percentage of the deposits that the country was holding. "If you look at this facility it's very little to warrant the return of the Zimdollar," he said.He said it was critical for people to understand how the facility would work."If, for instance, you export goods worth $10 000, when the money is paid into a nostro (foreign) account and your bank credits that money to your account, the RBZ will credit your 5 percent export incentive (worth $500) in bond notes into your account so that your balance will be $10 500. There is no separate account for bond notes and US dollars," said Mr Mpofu."If you then go to the bank and get bond notes, you can easily exchange them at any Homelink offices. So there is no need for alarm," he said.Meanwhile, Mr Mpofu said the new measures introduced by the central bank, including limiting of daily cash withdrawals to $1 000 per day or R20 000 for individuals and drawing up of an import priority list, were justified in view of the externalisation of millions of dollars by both locals and foreigners."We know of three foreign nationals that camped at a five- star hotel in Harare, withdrawing $3 000 per day for 30 days," he said. "They then slipped out of the country with about $500 000 after bribing people at the border," he said."We have been too generous on withdrawal limits because apart from businesses and some business people, very few Zimbabweans earn $3 000 per month," he said. He said there was also the issue of about 280 Zimbabweans named in the Panama Papers accused of externalising millions of dollars."We are not saying all of them are guilty because we had relaxed foreign exchange controls but we are surfing through that list," he said. He admitted that the introduction of the multi-currency regime in 2009, which is credited for stabilising the economy, had brought with it challenges like opening up the financial system to international criminals."The challenges that we face are that when we liberalised the economy, we opened up and became a safe haven for international criminals as well, with Zimbabweans also becoming ill disciplined. Zimbabwe has become a fishing pond of currency," he said.The RBZ's head of financial markets division, Mr Azvinandaa Saburi, said the bank was expediting the use of plastic money by encouraging business to increase the number of point of sale machines. He said they were also engaging banks on reducing charges for POS transactions.
So you're thinking about moving to another city? Are you planning to relocate and start a new life with a new job but don't know where to start?
It is not common for fresh graduates to get out of their comfort zone and make a living in the big city. Cities like San Jose and San Francisco, California are two of the best cities that job seekers can go to. In a new study conducted by online recruiting and jobs site Glassdoor, there are four factors that determined the best cities that job seekers can work in. First is the hiring opportunity available. Second is the cost of living because some cities have a higher lifestyle compared to the rest. Third is work-life balance, when it comes to personal life and wellness, this is also a priority even for those who haven't started working yet. Lastly, job satisfaction is necessary in the workplace. These four factors, according to Business News Daily, were data gathered from the 50 most populated cities in the United States.
Top of the list is San Jose, California. The city boasts of over 60,000 job openings and the median base salary is $112,000. Employees in the area scored the job satisfaction and work-life balance rating a 3.5 each.
Second on the list is San Francisco, California. It has twice the number of job openings than San Jose but has a median base salary of $88,000. It also scored the same job satisfaction and work-life balance rating.
The three other cities that new job seekers can consider are Seattle Washington, Boston, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. These three cities have over 103,000 job openings available and has a median base salary of $85,000, $67,500 and $70,000 respectively. However, their job satisfaction and work-life balance scores are .01 lower than San Francisco and San Jose.
The PlayStation 4.5 release date may have been accidentally leaked by a French distributor. The announcement seemed to confirm that the console will be available later this year.
VideoGamer.com initially reported that the PlayStation 4.5 release date may have been revealed by French video games distributor Innelec Multimedia. Apparently, the console could arrive before October.
The PlayStation 4.5 release date was believed to have been accidentally leaked in a press release for the company's FY16 earnings report. It was stated that an "evolution" of Sony's PS4 console, deemed as "Neo 4K," is set to arrive during the first half of Innelec's current financial year.
The video games distributor's financial year runs from Apr. 2016 to Mar. 2017. This seems to confirm that the PlayStation 4.5 release date will happen between today and the end of September this year.
This fueled speculations that the console will be available this year. It was previously reported that the PlayStation 4.5 will be unveiled at the Tokyo Game Show (TGS) 2016 this September along with the Nintendo NX.
According to Game Rant, Sony will be appearing at E3 2016 next month to discuss its PlayStation VR headset. The publication noted that TGS 2016 would be "a great time to unveil the rumored new hardware."
It is also possible that the PlayStation 4.5 would be revealed at Gamescom 2016. The event is scheduled for Aug. 17 to 21 in Germany.
VideoGamer.com added that Innelec has issued a statement regarding the PlayStation 4.5 release date. The statement was released on afjv.com.
"Innelec denies any official information about the launch of a PS4K Neo," the company said. "It is possible that during the 2016/2017 fiscal developments exist on the current PS4 [but] for the moment we have no information about the nature of them."
PlayStation 4.5 is believed to run on better hardware with a CPU of 8 Jaguar Cores at 2.1 GHz. Its GPU is also said to have an improved AMD GCN, with 36 CUs at 911 MHz. Its 8 GB GDDR5 memory reportedly has a speed of 218 GB/s.
Jaden Smith's career has been cemented on gender fluidity. Now, the son of the power couple Will and Jada Pinket-Smith is being called a model for a new generation.
Danielle Moodie-Millks identified Jaden Smith's behavior as indicators of "a growing black liberalism that challenges white American status quo." In an article from The Root, she explains that Jaden and his sister Willow Smith gives off an aura that they are free to do whatever they please. Jada Pinkett-Smith told US Magazine that she's not a conventional mother. Her children, however, are free to express themselves through their clothes, hair and music to a certain degree.
Which is why Jaden Smith loves to experiments with dresses and skirts. His take on gender fluidity has already earned him a career in fashion. Back in January, he was highlighted as the face of Louis Vuitton and he can be seen wearing the brand's skirt in several magazines.
JobsNHire previously wrote about Jaden Smith's choice of career. Why did he choose this type of career? The Bet has it that Jaden Smith's 2016 career is about rejecting traditional gender roles. And he's not being burned down by the industry because of his choices at all. Jaden Smith is one of the most exciting rising stars in the business.
He was known for being the son of a high profile couple. But now he's making it in the world with his own expression and tastes. Not everyone has the liberty or courage to do that.
While his fashion career is soaring, he's also getting back into acting in a new 1970's series called "The Get Down." Jaden plays a graffiti writer named Dizzee in the Vogue feature 13-episode series. The world continues to witness Jaden Smith's 2016 career unfold.
Born January 29, 1954. She was a daughter to a single mother in rural Mississippi living in poverty, wearing dresses made out of potato sacks. She was molested as a child and teenager and was pregnant at 14. She'd lost her son in infancy and was sent off to live with a barber in Tennessee. A man she calls her father.
At 19, Oprah landed a job in radio while in high school and co-anchored the local evening news. At the age of 22, she was fired from her job as a television reporter on the 6 o'clock weekday news on Baltimore's WJZ-TV after the show received poor ratings and had been labeled "unfit for TV". She recalls it as her "first and worst failure of her TV career."
Her fortune took a turn for the better when, with her emotional adlib delivery, she had joined daytime talk show. After having successfully boosted a local third rated Chicago talk show to first, she launched her production company and became internationally syndicated.
The Oprah Winfrey Show, nationally aired from 1986 to 2011, was the highest rated program of its kind in history. With the show came huge success. Now labeled as the "Queen of All Media", several assessed her to be the most influential woman in the world. Receiving honorary doctorate degrees from Duke and Harvard, she was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2013.
The talk show host, producer and media proprietor was ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century being North America's first and only multi-billionaire black person as well as the greatest black philanthropist in American history.
News / National
by Felex Share
Britain yesterday expressed satisfaction with Zimbabwe's re-engagement efforts with multilateral financial institutions saying discussions between the respective parties were progressing well.Speaking after meeting Acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa at his Munhumutapa offices in Harare, British Ambassador to Zimbabwe Ms Catriona Laing said the efforts would pay off."We have just had a candid, constructive and respectful discussion where we covered a range of issues starting with the current liquidity crisis and the measures Government has put in place," Ms Laing said."Along that I emphasised the need for people to have confidence when the measures are effected. We then moved to the process of re-engagement with the international financial institutions which is broadly going well. But I emphasised the importance of the times being right. We are looking forward to seeing these economic reforms, we had a good discussion on that."Zimbabwe owes the African Development Bank about $600 million, the World Bank over $1 billion and the International Monetary Fund about $120 million and intends to clear the arrears this year.Its debt clearance strategy has been well received by creditors.Ms Laing said they discussed human rights issues as well as 2018 election preparations."I raised cases which are concerning us at the moment," she said."Whilst we recognise good progress on preparing, for example the land audit and bankable leases, unfortunately there are still live land grab cases going on, many which concern the ministers in the United Kingdom. We talked about these cases and the need for them to be resolved peacefully through the courts."She added: "We talked about the preparations for the elections and the importance of putting in place reforms recommended by Sadc and the African Union such that the opposition will feel confident to participate in free and fair elections. Lastly, we talked about our bilateral dialogue. We now have a formal dialogue with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where we talk about issues of concern to the two countries and that is progressing well."Acting President Mnangagwa also met outgoing Botswana Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mr Kenny Kapinga who said their deliberations covered a variety of issues. "We discussed the state of relations between Zimbabwe and Botswana and I was happy to hear him expressing happiness over that," he said."We also talked over broad, variety of issues and one thing I want to bring out is that we have committed our countries to working closely together on wildlife conservation. Botswana and Zimbabwe host the largest population of elephants and the two are spending resources to protect their wildlife. Therefore, we need to work closely to ensure our interests at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) are protected so that this wildlife does not become a burden on our people but a benefit."Mr Kapinga added: "We also spoke on the level of cooperation, trust and confidence between our security agencies. He expressed gratitude that they have flexible arrangements and one can pick up a phone and call his counterpart, which is important for the security of both countries."We spoke on economic issues, mining being one of them and the need for us to work together to share experiences and expertise. The major issue was the energy deficit in the region and initiatives being undertaken to address that deficit."
News / National
by Walter Muchinguri
The $200 million worth of bond notes that will be used to incentivise exporters will be printed in Germany, a Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe official has said.RBZ director for Exchange Control Morris Mpofu told delegates to the Chamber of Mines meeting in Victoria Falls yesterday that government had engaged the same company that was used by the South African Reserve bank to print the rand."The same Germans who printed the South African rand which were recently impounded at Harare International Airport and later released are the ones who are printing the notes," he said.Mpofu said the introduction of bond notes, which are backed by a $200 million facility by the African Export-Import Bank, was not supposed to be a cause for concern since the facility was not permanent but had a limited lifespan. "The incentive will come and go, we hope that by the time it expires it would have brought in $4 billion," he said.He said it was critical to note that the bond notes were a minute percentage of the deposits that the country was holding. "If you look at this facility it's very little to warrant the return of the Zimdollar," he said. He said it was critical for people to understand how the facility would work."If, for instance, you export goods worth $10,000, when the money is paid into a nostro (foreign) account and your bank credits that money to your account, the RBZ will credit five percent export incentive (worth $500) in bond notes to your account so that your balance will be $10,500. There's no separate account for bond notes and US dollars," said Mpofu."If you then go to the bank and get bond notes, you can easily exchange them at any Homelink offices. So there's no need for alarm," he said.Meanwhile, Mpofu said the new measures introduced by the central bank, including limiting of daily cash withdrawals of $1, 000 per day or R20, 000 for individuals and drawing up of an import priority list, were justified in view of the externalisation of millions of dollars by both locals and foreigners."We know of three foreign nationals that camped at a five star hotel in Harare, withdrawing $3, 000 per day for 30 days," he said."They then slipped out of the country with about $500, 000 after bribing people at the border," he said."We've been too generous on withdrawal limits because apart from businesses and some business people, very few Zimbabweans earn $3,000 per month," he said.Mpofu said there was also the issue of about 280 Zimbabweans named in Panama Papers accused of externalising millions of dollars."We're not saying all of them are guilty because we had relaxed foreign exchange controls but we're surfing through that list," he said.Mpofu admitted that the introduction of the multicurrency regime in 2009, which is credited for stabilising the economy, had brought with it challenges like opening up the financial system to international criminals."The challenges that we face are that when we liberalised the economy, we opened up and became a safe haven for international criminals as well, with Zimbabweans also becoming ill disciplined. Zimbabwe has become a fishing pond of currency," he said.The RBZ's head of financial markets division Azvinandaa Saburi said the bank was expediting the use of plastic money by encouraging business to increase the number of point of sale machines. He said they were also engaging banks on charges for POS transactions.
Hartland fire incident found to be shooting, murder-suicide
The two adults and four children were all found to have gunshot wounds.
CEO David Davis got Securant Bank & Trust back on solid footing after the Great Recession left it close to folding. Credit: Michael McLoone
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During the Great Recession and its aftermath, almost 500 of the nation's banks failed.
It sure looked like Securant Bank & Trust would be among them.
The community bank, headquartered in Menomonee Falls and known since 1914 as a lender to local businesses, found itself on death's doorstep as its 100th anniversary approached.
After losing money in four of the five previous years as loans made during better times went sour in the battered economy, Securant, in mid-2013, received from regulators a document that often cues the funeral music for a bank that has run into financial trouble a prompt corrective action directive, or PCA.
The directive, usually the last straw in a progression of orders in which regulators demand a bank take serious steps to improve its financial position, typically instructs a bank to quickly raise capital or sell out to another financial institution. Capital is a measure of a bank's financial strength and a cushion against loans that go bad.
However, Securant Chief Executive David A. Davis and his team of about 40 employees resolved that even amid skepticism by regulators Securant would not join the list of failed banks.
"Nobody was going to beat us. They just weren't going to beat us," Davis said. "That wasn't going to happen."
The survival to-do list was daunting: pay cuts for top management, no raises for employees, the sale of a branch, the sale of a settlement trust unit, shaking off bad-mouthing by competitors, absorbing millions in loan losses.
But finally, last year, regulators terminated the prompt corrective action directive. This month, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported that Securant just completed its 10th consecutive profitable quarter.
The FDIC won't comment on individual banks and doesn't always disclose which or how many banks are facing PCA orders, so the percentage of banks that have survived them as independent that is, not merged into a stronger bank or first shut down by regulators and then folded into another bank can't be ascertained.
However, it's very rare, said Karen Dorway, president and research director for Bauer Financial Inc., a Baltimore firm that rates the financial strength of American banks.
"The PCAs don't happen very often to begin with, and when they do, to emerge from it without a merger is even more unusual," Dorway said.
Dorway's firm ranks the financial condition of all banks in the United States with a star rating ranging from zero to five stars. Five stars is tops. During the worst of its woes, Securant repeatedly was rated zero stars by Bauer Financial. Today it has two stars, with historical data coming into play in the ratings. But Dorway said Securant is "looking absolutely very positive, going in the right direction."
Davis never imagined how much work was ahead for Securant when the Great Recession first was occurring in late 2007 and 2008. A banker for four decades, he had seen recessions before.
"We were seeing it was hitting the larger banks. We were reading the stories about the mortgage debacle and saying, 'We don't have anything of that,'" Davis said. "I tell people it was like standing on a milk crate on the shoreline in New Orleans and looking at Katrina coming ashore and saying, 'We should be fine. It should just blow over us.'"
Davis said Securant for many years known as Milwaukee Western Bank early in the recession "saw some problems bubbling up, but nothing we couldn't manage."
However, bank regulators, with economists in Washington, D.C., and Chicago, knew what was coming. They knew the real estate market was collapsing. Millions of people would be losing jobs, mortgages would default, businesses wouldn't be able to pay back their loans and banks would fail.
Davis was on a family vacation in Boca Raton, Fla., in 2009 when he received an alarming phone call from business colleague Mike Peters. The FDIC had just downgraded Securant's recent examination marks by Wisconsin regulators, presumably because the FDIC knew loans backed by real estate were about to get walloped in the weak economy. Davis flew home as fast as he could.
"You were finding out that you didn't know what you didn't know, and what was going to occur and what was going to happen," said Davis, who became Securant's CEO in 2007.
In the Great Recession downturn, real estate was at the heart of the problem for many banks. When borrowers take out a loan, it often is backed up by real estate, such as a factory or house or land the bank could take over if the loan isn't repaid. As the real estate market unraveled, that property that collateral wasn't worth what it had been when the loan first was written.
For example, Davis said, Securant had financed a small luxury home development in Brookfield. The lots had been selling for $200,000 to $225,000 until the market fell apart.
"When the market collapsed, we had people wander in and say, 'We'll give you $60,000 for a lot,'" Davis said.
Securant's biggest single-year loss was in 2011, when it lost $6.7 million, and was followed in 2012 with a loss of $4.8 million.
Trying to handle what Davis called "a nightmarish maze of regulatory requirements" and staring into the abyss that 2013 might bring, Davis and his executive team concluded the bank absolutely had to post a profit that year.
Securant already had been paring costs, including a wage freeze and no contributions to retirement plans, but it had to go deeper.
"We cut back paper plates, we cut back janitorial service we were cleaning our own buildings," Davis said.
The top executives took 15% pay cuts. The bank sold off a branch in Elm Grove and dealt its settlement trust group. Davis said the most difficult thing he had to do was ask his longtime business partner, Peters, to retire, as a way to save money.
"We took out everything we could," Davis said. "We said we've got to make money in '13 or this dance is over."
In the middle of 2013 the prompt corrective action directive was issued, heightening pressure on Securant and giving competitors some ammunition to try to hijack good business loan accounts. Showing no sympathy, other financial institutions used the information that Securant was in trouble to their advantage.
Securant's parent company, Capital Commerce Bancorp Inc., was among those that had accepted Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, capital $5.1 million worth in 2009 from the U.S. Treasury. While TARP drew a lot of public criticism as a bank bailout, it helped keep Securant in business as it fought to recover.
Each quarter, Davis called an all-employees meeting to let them know where the bank stood. There was doubt among employees whether Securant would survive, but the regular communication kept them engaged in the turnaround effort.
"It was important," Steve Fleishmann, a Securant vice president and credit manager, said of the meetings. "He laid it out."
Davis, now 67, said he never felt that Securant would fail. But that doesn't mean he didn't have some sleepless nights or didn't pray.
"My standard line was, 'Just continue to give me another day of strength to get to the other side, because I'll get there. Just let it happen,'" Davis said.
All the thrift and the one-day-at-a-time approach paid off. In 2013, Securant posted a profit of $404,000 a sign it could turn the corner.
By that time, the economy slowly was improving and Securant's books had been cleansed of most shaky loans.
That made it a candidate for a capital raise enough to bolster its financial strength and convince regulators it truly had been revived. Last October, Securant's leadership raised $11.25million from investors, allowing it to retire its TARP loan, pay other investors and recapitalize the bank and its parent company. It raised the money by selling stock for $2 per share.
Securant now smaller but stronger, with assets of about $184 million had a profit of $1.7 million in 2014. Last year, it netted $2.6 million.
From 2009 through 2013, Wisconsin saw eight of its banks fail. All received a prompt corrective action directive from regulators before they were shut down.
That Securant overcame a PCA and then was recapitalized as an independent community bank is remarkable, said Bauer Financial's Dorway.
"That's absolutely a success story to be able to do that," she said.
Milwaukee-based investment banker Robert Edelman of Edelman & Co. Ltd. said, "Dave Davis is a great guy and a fine banker, and deserves a lot of credit for tenacity, perseverance and effectiveness in dealing with issues of historical dimension."
In Davis' mind, there was no other way.
"We were just not going to quit," he said.
The cover of the Feb. 12, 1876, Harper's Weekly featured a cartoon in which a wealthy family strolls heedlessly past poverty-stricken Americans huddled around a fire for warmth. Known as "Hearth-stone of the Poor," the cartoon neatly depicted the vast economic inequality that characterized America's first Gilded Age.
By 1890, roughly 40 years into the industrial revolution on this side of the Atlantic, the wealthiest 1% of the U.S. population had owned 51% of the nation's wealth.
Some 40 years into America's second Gilded Age this one underwritten by technology the current number is only slightly below that of 1890.
Any similarity is not entirely coincidental.
Though two data sets are hardly conclusive, it is reasonable to theorize that profound economic upheavals like the industrialization of the late 19th century and the info-tech revolution of the late 20th century generate outsized rewards for a handful of innovators and their followers.
By itself, there is nothing wrong or unjust about that outcome. An economic system based on markets will never distribute financial gains equally, nor should it.
But when the rewards of innovation are combined with efforts to buy political influence by other wealthy elites, a destabilizing plutocracy is the result.
Just like the America of today, and like the America of the late 19th century.
In 1879, the author and economic theorist Henry George observed that "it is as though an immense wedge were being forced, not underneath society, but through society. Those who are above the point of separation are elevated, but those who are below are crushed down."
George's book, "Progress and Poverty," sold millions of copies and sparked a political movement that took on Big Business. The new Progressive Party succeeded in enacting the first meaningful expansion of government power by reining in corporate monopolies, establishing bargaining rights for workers and eventually implementing a progressive income tax.
For about 30 years during the mid-20th century a period also characterized by fewer industrial breakthroughs wealth was more evenly distributed among U.S. households.
Between 1950 and 1980, the percentage of household wealth held by the richest 0.1% of Americans held steady at around 10%, down from 25% in the 1920s. By the late 1970s, that number had fallen to 7%.
Today, the richest 100,000 American households control almost as much wealth as the bottom 105 million.
The concentration of material wealth that began in the 1980s is a global phenomenon.
According to a 2015 report by Credit Suisse, the richest 1% of the world's population now owns half its wealth. That would tend to minimize government policies as a primary cause of inequality.
But while acknowledging that structural factors have economic inequality on an upward path, the report speculated that its steep rise since the Great Recession is attributable to a rally in global stock markets. Equities are held disproportionately by wealthier individuals and generally receive favorable tax treatment relative to earned income.
As technological innovation wanes and stock valuations revert to the long-run average, wealth inequality in the U.S. is likely to moderate. But a full return to the shared economic rewards of the immediate postwar period is far from guaranteed.
"We conclude that the concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable, and is periodically alleviated by violent or peaceable partial redistribution," wrote historians Will and Ariel Durant. "In this view, all economic history is the slow heartbeat of the social organism, a vast systole and diastole of concentrating wealth and compulsive recirculation."
It's not just capitalism that has suffered such convulsions. Faced with economic turmoil in Athens during the 6th century B.C., Solon enacted reforms that infuriated the rich but that ultimately avoided bloodshed. Not so in the Rome of Tiberius Gracchus four centuries later.
This summer's political conventions have the potential to reprise the ugliness of 1968.
But to the extent that voters blame politicians for exacerbating the normal ebb and flow of wealth distribution, they might also ask themselves who hired those politicians in the first place. Perhaps the human resources department of the American democracy could do a better job as well.
Tom Saler is an author and freelance financial journalist in Madison. He can be reached at tomsaler.com.
Neenah mayor Dean Kaufert speaks during at a May 6 press conference about the Eagle Nation Cycles officer-involved death. Credit: USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
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Neenah With the community divided over the December fatal police shooting at Eagle Nation Cycles, Mayor Dean Kaufert wants to ensure that residents have "complete confidence" in the Police Department.
"It really does run a mix of emotions, and so I'm hearing them all and trying to determine the best course of action because I do understand we need to make sure that the public and our citizens have complete confidence in our Police Department," Kaufert said.
Kaufert is gathering those opinions to figure out the city's next steps and pledged, "If there's things we need to improve on, we're going to."
The Wisconsin Department of Justice, which investigated the hostage situation and shooting at the downtown motorcycle shop, determined that Neenah Police Officers Craig Hoffer and Robert Ross will not be criminally charged for killing hostage Michael L. Funk after he escaped out a back door into an alley during the Dec. 5 standoff. Funk was carrying a handgun.
The Neenah Police Department is focused on helping its members recover in the wake of the shooting, Police Chief Kevin Wilkinson said.
"Five of our sworn officers ... have recently been the victim of attempted murder, and that impacts people," he said, referencing the five officers who were shot at while entering the shop in an attempt to rescue three hostages. "And so we have our own healing to do."
Funk's widow, Theresa Mason-Funk, has filed a $3.5 million claim against the city, Hoffer and Ross, and Officer Jonathan Kuffel, who fired six shots inside Eagle Nation Cycles.
Kaufert said the situation unfolded quickly and officers made split-second decisions. It led to a "tragic outcome" and "we have empathy for the victim, who clearly was a hostage," he said.
"We just want the community to know that we did a lot of things right that day and if there's things that procedures, policies that we can improve on, that those items will be addressed and a determination will be made that if we need to make changes, we will," Kaufert said.
Brian Flatoff, 46, of Stevens Point faces 11 felony charges, including felony murder on accusations of causing Funk's death. He also faces five felony charges for a disturbance at a Neenah woman's home that preceded the standoff. His case is scheduled for a jury trial starting Aug. 22.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel held its first JS Talks event May 5, on the subject of the new Bucks arena. JS Talks is a series of events meant to connect the community with important local issues. Credit: Rick Wood
By of the
Virtually every night, one of my daughters will ask, "Did you edit any interesting stories today?"
It's a simple question, but a telling one.
From an early age, our interest in stories is part of what makes us human. Psychologists say that hearing and sharing stories help us understand others, and instill a sense of place.
This past week, the Journal Sentinel received special recognition that speaks not only to our mission as a news organization, but to the important role we play in building that sense of community and place. It should also reassure those who may be concerned about how we navigate the challenging media landscape under new ownership.
The Associated Press Media Editors honored us with the Freedom of Information Award for large news organizations and then added the Tom Curley Sweepstakes Award for best overall work in protecting and advancing First Amendment principles. Our coverage of the shameful attempt by Wisconsin lawmakers to diminish public access laws last Fourth of July weekend combined real-time watchdog reporting with stirring columns and helpful resources. It included an editorial on the front of our digital and print pages, a rarity in journalism.
APME also named us one of three finalists for the Innovator of the Year Award, in honor of our Precious Lives series. The award is unique in journalism; each finalist will make a presentation at a national convention of editors this September, with a winner selected by those in attendance. Precious Lives involves groundbreaking teamwork with several local media outlets, and has presented poignant stories on the causes and consequences of gun violence involving young victims, their families and our community. It also includes a first-of-its-kind online app to connect people who want to help with those in need.
Both bodies of work demanded tenacious newsgathering, compelling storytelling and innovative presentation. Both called on you, our readers, for action. Both started with a basic question: Shouldn't we be better than this?
That kind of community connection is at the heart of a strong, locally run news organization. It's especially true here, because the Journal Sentinel has the highest market penetration among the top 50 cities in the country. It's also precisely the kind of relationship our new colleagues at Gannett and the USA TODAY NETWORK seek to amplify.
Already, we are using new tools to better track what stories resonate with you. We're developing innovative ways to advance the community conversation about important local issues. We're making connections with other Gannett operations in our state and around the country to see how we can complement and learn from each other. And we are getting a taste of our new reach.
Last month, Washington bureau chief Craig Gilbert headed to Connecticut and Pennsylvania to report on how Donald Trump was roaring back to life after his drubbing in the Wisconsin primary. Not only did it go out to the more than 100 local news organizations in the USA TODAY NETWORK, it went global in the USA TODAY international edition.
The same has happened on other beats. Whether it's politics, government, education, the courts or the environment, we're tapping new audiences through the 10 other Gannett news operations in Wisconsin and the broader network.
What hasn't changed is our commitment to local news that serves you best. Patrick Marley and Jason Stein will still break the latest developments at our capital; Ashley Luthern will put a human face on our grim violence statistics; Mary Spicuzza will cover our politicians at their best and worst; Jim Stingl will make us laugh, and touch our hearts.
As someone who is passionate about this community, I know our relationship with you depends on the ability to continue creating those interesting, local stories my daughters ask about.
One other thing: The Tom Curley Award we just won is named after a renowned champion of freedom of the press, not to mention a longtime leader at USA TODAY and Gannett. "There's a number of things we need to do," Curley once said, "but the most important thing is to connect to the people."
Amen to that.
Thomas Koetting is Deputy Managing Editor/News and Enterprise for the Journal Sentinel.
The Department of Natural Resources issued violation notices in 2014 against the operators of a Dane County manure digester linked to significant manure spills. Fines assessed by the state for such offenses are down drastically. Credit: Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Teddy Roosevelt is famous for the aphorism, "Speak softly and carry a big stick you will go far." State authorities seem to be living up to half of that statement when it comes to dealing with polluters: They're talking with potential polluters but the stick they're carrying is pretty small. We recommend picking up a bigger cudgel.
The Journal Sentinel reported last week that data released by a conservation organization show forfeitures paid by individuals and companies for violating state law totaled $306,834 last year, down 78% from nearly $1.4 million paid out in 2014. That's also the lowest amount paid out for violations dating back to at least 2006, according to data.
That comes on top of a Journal Sentinel report earlier this year that found drops in enforcement activity at the state Department of Natural Resources in 2015 in several categories. We think these drops have come too fast and are too precipitous.
In an interview Friday, DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp offered a vigorous defense of the department's enforcement activity, saying the DNR remained committed to a strong defense of the state's natural resources but was working with potential polluters earlier in the process to solve problems before a long and expensive enforcement procedure kicks in.
"The goal of every regulator should be zero violations," she said, adding that a policy of education, enforcement and problem-solving was reducing pollution in Wisconsin without heavy handed legal procedures brought by the Department of Justice. She also noted that DNR had no authority over the forfeitures leveled by DOJ and that DNR citations for violations were up from 149 in 2011 to 204 in 2015.
Stepp said it was unfair to judge her department on simply how many referrals it has made to the Department of Justice or on the fines levied in those cases. "There's a lot more going on, on the ground," she said. "Judge us by what's going on in the air and water. Are they cleaner?"
We get that. And it is the right approach, as former DNR Secretary George Meyer acknowledged Friday. But it's hardly a new approach, he noted: The department's stepped enforcement policy with the idea of working with polluters before taking them to court has been in place for more than 30 years. (Meyer now heads up the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, which released the data on fines.)
The problem Meyer sees is that where once referrals to DOJ averaged 68 a year (from 2007 to 2010), under the Walker administration, they've averaged 32. Gov. Scott Walker has said, "My goal is to have no citations, because when an agency issues a citation, that means something went wrong."
Great, but 68 to 32? And a 78% drop in fines?
As Meyer put it, "Things did not get that much better overnight." Meyer believes something is wrong with the enforcement system at the DNR, and he may be right.
We urge Stepp to review the department's policies and make sure the system is working as it should to protect citizens and the environment. And we urge her to start wielding a bigger stick.
In its application for a Lake Michigan water supply, the City of Waukesha has proposed returning water to the lake by discharging treated wastewater to the Root River at S. 60th St. in Franklin. Credit: Don Behm
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It didn't look like an unprecedented experiment in democratic governance, but that's what it was.
About a dozen representatives from the United States and Canada gathered around plastic tables in a charmless room at the University of Illinois, Chicago late in April. The goal was to hash out the final details of Waukesha's proposal to divert 10 million gallons of water per day from Lake Michigan. The plan requires unanimous approval by the eight states and two provinces bordering the Great Lakes. Waukesha's will be the first significant diversion to be considered since 2008, when the Great Lakes compact put severe restrictions on removing water from the Great Lakes Basin.
Waukesha's plan has been vocally opposed by many outside the city, including environmental advocacy groups, mayors, a former governor and a substantial portion of the public. They are right to be worried. The Great Lakes are a very valuable resource about 20% of the world's available surface freshwater. They are also vulnerable to depletion, pollution, environmental degradation, invasive species and the effects of climate change. Diverting water outside the basin is a threat, not just because it consumes a common resource, but because it can permanently change the region's hydrology and ecology.
Yet even if the Waukesha diversion is approved over all these objections, we should regard it as a demonstration that the compact works. The compact's function is not ultimately to ban diversions but to build a robust institution of transboundary governance protecting a common resource. It is meant to make the Great Lakes a regional responsibility and to require public justification for activities impacting the watershed. The long-term ability of the compact to put a high barrier in front of diversions is no longer in question, even if in its first test it permits a diversion that (nearly) no one seems to want.
The most persistent worry about approval for Waukesha has been that it will set a bad precedent: a cascade of other communities applying for their own diversions. It would turn the basin into exactly the sort of sieve the compact was meant to prevent. But this is unlikely. The application process has already cost Waukesha millions of dollars and more than a decade of public bureaucratic negotiation. The infrastructure and maintenance will be hundreds of millions more. Other cities observing this process would be crazy to view it as an easy path.
This is as it should be. A function of the compact, whether it was intended this way or not, is to make diversions expensive, complicated exercises in public justification. The public, bureaucratic and legal scrutiny are part of the process. Waukesha's experience is a demonstration that this crucial element of the compact's machinery works.
Waukesha has a real drinking water problem. It depends on a badly depleted source of groundwater contaminated with radium. It is under an Environmental Protection Agency order to find a safe alternative by 2018. And yet the city's proposal included more water than the city needs, committed to places it's not currently serving, and without the dramatic conservation standards one would expect. Whether it is unreasonable for cities to leverage a diversion for growth raises tough philosophical questions about what environmental protection means in a heavily developed watershed.
Given this, how can we count it as a success if Waukesha is granted a diversion over so much public opposition? We can because the process of evaluating this case is the process of developing a stronger institutional protection of the Great Lakes. It has raised issues no one anticipated, and struggling with them makes the compact stronger over the long-term. Most important, the process has forced a city that, pre-compact, might simply have diverted the water without opposition and without returning it to the basin to significantly change its plans at great expense and under intense public scrutiny. This is what environmentalism looks like in a bureaucratic democracy. It is adaptive and it takes the long view.
There are more challenges on the horizon for the compact. States have shown differential enthusiasm about advancing legislation in the spirit of the agreement. There have yet to be any serious challenges to restrictions on large water uses within the basin. We must remember, however, that 10 years ago there were few protections at all. The compact is imperfect, but it is real. We know that now, regardless of whether Waukesha gets its way.
Michael Tiboris is Global Water Fellow and ACLS Public Fellow at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
Regent President Regina Millner speaks during a Board of Regents meeting at Gordon Dining Events Center on the UW campus in March. Credit: Wisconsin State Journal
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Tens of thousands of graduates are crossing commencement stages at campuses throughout the University of Wisconsin System this month. It is a grand achievement, and worthy of all the celebrations that are taking place. We have had the privilege of participating in a number of them.
While students and their families are celebrating, there are also serious questions being raised about our system, the Board of Regents, and the direction of our institutions. We are glad to have an opportunity to respond to those concerns.
Many of our faculty, for example, have raised questions about the new tenure policies adopted by the Board of Regents. Our policies were drafted in close consultation with faculty and staff from throughout the state, and the result is a tenure system that is comparable and competitive with our peers. We are proud that our new policies on tenure will both protect academic freedom and honor The Wisconsin Idea.
Questions also have been raised about the level of advocacy efforts by the Board of Regents and UW System leadership during the last budget. Instead of issuing angry press releases or making pointed comments in the press, we worked to rebuild damaged relationships and engage with our legislators one by one.
As a result, a proposed cut was reduced by more than $100 million, an almost unprecedented adjustment in the current political landscape, and we achieved an important first step toward increased flexibilities. Obviously, we wish we could have reduced the cuts further. Still, we are committed to reversing the decade-long trend of declining state support in the coming budget. We will continue to be strong advocates for our students, our faculty and our institutions.
While these questions are serious and merit thoughtful response, the heated rhetoric around them has become a distraction. There is far more to celebrate about our system and our institutions than there is to attack.
We are producing graduates who are critical thinkers, ready to adapt to ongoing changes in the workplace, and who will help grow our economy. The most recent data from UW-Stout and UW-Green Bay shows 97% of students are employed or continuing their education within six months of leaving campus. At UW-Oshkosh, a recent survey showed that of the 2,011 graduates in 2013-'14 who responded, average salary was $40,012.
Certainly, there are things we need to do better such as addressing the cost of college. College debt is a big issue facing graduates, the state and our nation.
Despite the fact that the UW System is among the most affordable quality public higher education systems in the nation, about 74% of UW System undergraduate students graduate with debt. We are tackling this issue in many ways, including helping to reduce the time to degree because we know that completing a degree a semester or even a year ahead of schedule is more cost-effective than a tuition freeze.
We also want to make sure that our students are connected to a career when they graduate. To that end, we are pursuing an initiative led by President Ray Cross that would help every college junior and senior secure an internship or other structured experience with a business or organization before graduation. Data shows that internships dramatically increase chances of landing a job. Fostering that experience in Wisconsin, with Wisconsin companies and entities, is a win for the state, too, because it increases the odds of retaining UW System talent in Wisconsin. It is a key to our economic growth.
No question, taking on these new initiatives as UW institutions manage budget reductions is a challenge, and we must take every action to ensure our institutions have the resources they need to succeed. We look forward to engaging the public, the Legislature and the governor in the coming months to accomplish that.
As we move forward, the regents will continue to be strong advocates for the students, faculty and staff who make our UW System the world-class institution it is. We welcome constructive dialogue and questions from our partners, including faculty and elected officials, but we cannot allow ourselves to be diverted from the work at hand. Our students, our state and our future deserve our full attention.
Regina M. Millner is president of the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents.
News / National
by Fungai Lupande
Zanu-PF Bikita West legislator Munyaradzi Kereke's wife broke down in court yesterday while defending her husband who is accused of raping her 11-year-old niece.Instead she accused the young girl of giving herself to drunkards because she was a "party animal." Patience Muswapadare Taruvinga said this as she continued testifying in Kereke's defence case.Private prosecutor Charles Warara asked Taruvinga what it means when a doctor says the hymen of an 11-year-old child is broken.She said it means that she lost her virginity."As I know her, it might not have been rape. She was naughty and the abuse happened elsewhere," she said.Warara asked if it was fair to say that about an 11-year-old child."I don't know. All I know is that they were naughty. They sneaked out and mingled with drunkards. One day I followed up when they failed to show up at my house," said Taruvinga.Warara asked when she followed up on her nieces and Taruvinga said she didn't remember."Did you see the girls being naughty?" asked Warara."No, I didn't," she replied and Warara asked who saw them being naughty.Again Taruvinga said she didn't know."Sooner or later we will call you Mrs I don't Know. At least you should know something. At the end of the day we don't know anything and haven't heard anything," said Warara.Taruvinga sobbed in court as she narrated how former Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono allegedly sent emissaries to her late father to persuade her to testify against her husband.Asked by the private prosecutor why she was crying, Taruvinga said she wished her father was still alive.Warara asked why there was need to persuade her to testify against her husband, Kereke."It means you had information that you were not willing to disclose", he said.Taruvinga replied that "people" were sent to her father."You find it convenient to lie about your father now. There must be something curious about the people," said Warara.To this Taruvinga said she didn't know.Warara asked again how she knew that the person who sent those people was Gono."My father told me," she said."He saw Dr Gono?" asked Warara and Taruvinga said she didn't know."Who're these people?" asked Warara and again she said she didn't know."How then do we know that your father was telling the truth?" asked Warara."I don't know. I'm sorry my father is dead, you could have asked him," she replied.Kereke is accused of raping his 11-year-old niece at gun point in 2010 after indecently assaulting her sister who was 15 years at the time. The trial continues on Tuesday.
Sen. Ron Johnson's Democratic challenger, former Sen. Russ Feingold, rushed to his iPhone last week to tweet his outrage over a statement of Johnsons. Credit: Associated Press
In a speech to the Republican Party of Wisconsin convention in Green Bay last week, Sen. Ron Johnson was holding court on the importance of democracy. Johnson noted that on Sept. 11, 2001, the heroic passengers on United Flight 93 took a vote before taking action against the terrorists who had hijacked the plane. Johnson described the last minute act of democracy as "quintessentially American."
Later, Johnson stressed the importance of his own election, saying the future of America may be at stake. "Now, it may not be life and death like the vote the passengers on United Flight 93 took, but boy, is it consequential," Johnson said.
This sent Johnson's Democratic challenger, former Sen. Russ Feingold, rushing to his iPhone to tweet his outrage. "Beyond bad taste: Sen. Johnson actually compared the horrific tragedies on 9/11 to his own partisan re-election," Feingold tweeted.
Nobody would ever accuse Johnson of being the most dexterous interlocutor, but this is nonsense. Johnson didn't "compare" his election to 9/11; he used an analogy to emphasize how ingrained democracy is in America. In fact, he explicitly said they were different. (And are we to believe Feingold's public dash to his fainting couch has nothing to do with his partisan election?)
This episode is the latest example of perhaps the most odious trick in the new media content production machine: the false comparison.
The professionally outraged try to stitch together a bogus comparison on an almost daily basis. Think back to when then-presidential candidate Scott Walker answered a question about the terrorist group ISIS by saying, "If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world."
Clearly, Walker was saying "in this instance I showed toughness, therefore I could show toughness in this other instance." But his critics immediately pounced. "Governor Walker's statement comparing workers and terrorists is revolting," said Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO.
Saying Johnson was "comparing" his re-election to Flight 93 or that Walker was "comparing" union members to terrorists is a willful misreading of what they actually said. Basically, they are guilty of inaptly referencing two events of unequal stakes too close to one another. But by doing so, they are giving their opponents the opportunity to spin it in an unfavorable light.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't also condemn those who contort politicians' words to make it appear they said something no rational human would actually say. In the marketplace for eyeballs, inverting context is the surest way to stoke outrage, and thus draw readers.
For example, last August, right-wing billionaire Charles Koch gave a speech urging like-minded conservatives to join his fight for liberty. Koch told the group to find inspiration in the Founding Fathers, abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
"To defy the tremendous odds stacked against them, they all had not just the Founding Fathers to commit their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, often at great personal sacrifice," Koch said. "So that's the challenge before us."
The headline accompanying the account of the speech on Bloomberg Politics read "Charles Koch Compares His Conservative Mission to the Fight to End Slavery." He did no such thing he merely said he found leaders within many seminal American movements to be inspirational.
Even Hillary Clinton has gotten the bogus comparison treatment. Last August, Clinton offered up two scoops of hyperbole when she said, "Extreme views about women we expect that from some of the terrorist groups. We expect that from people who don't want to live in the modern world. But it's a little hard to take coming from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States."
Naturally, the "Clinton compares Republicans to terrorists" headlines immediately began hitting computer screens. She is dead wrong on the substance many of the "extreme" views about women she references are held by a majority of Americans but on the comparison front, she is hereby adjudicated innocent. Clinton merely did what politicians do she took a thread from one context and dropped it into another. And she did it no less clumsily than Walker or Johnson.
So when you see a headline alleging a politician said something too bad to be true, it probably isn't. Read the context and train your eye to reject these manufactured comparisons if you do, it will make you exactly as smart as Albert Einstein in every conceivable way.
Christian Schneider is a Journal Sentinel columnist and blogger. Email cschneider@jrn.com. Twitter: @Schneider_CM
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |
What do Israels Arab neighbors think about the political earthquake that struck PM Binyamin Netanyahus cabinet on Thursday and Friday? Netanyahu invited into his government the far right Yisrael Beitenu ultra-nationalist party and offered the minister of defense position to extremist Avigdor Lieberman. He appears to have attempted to mollify the old defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, by offering him the foreign ministry. Yaalon angrily declined and announced his resignation from the government.
Al-Watan (The Nation, Cairo) reported these events, then noted that former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak decried he seeds of fascism he sees infesting Netanyahus current government and Israeli society.
The changes matter to Egypt because the officer corps, led by former field marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is also the president, has to deal with the Israeli ministry of defense quite a lot, over issues of mutual concern in Gaza and Sinai, for instance. Making the Egyptians deal with Lieberman is a slap in the face to Cairo, given that he once suggested destroying the Aswan Dam and sweeping the Egyptians into the sea. Knowing that the erratic and extremist Lieberman has his finger on the nuclear button must also be nervous-making for the al-Sisi government. The pan-Arab leftwing London daily, al-Quds al-`Arabi, reported that circles around al-Sisi were shocked at the prospect of having to work with Lieberman, and that they consider his appointment a red line after he threatened them with genocide.
On the other hand, the anti-al-Sisi organ, Aljazeera, accused al-Sisi of admiring Netanyahu and of talking to him warmly every week. (Aljazeera favors the Muslim Brotherhood whereas al-Sisi and Netanyahu both see it as a threat).
Yaalon said when he resigned I fought with all my might against manifestations of extremism, violence and racism in Israeli society, which are threatening its sturdiness and trickling into the armed forces, hurting it already. . .
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Related video:
Euronews: Netanyahu reshuffle means Israel being taken over by extremists
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TeleSur |
After the CIA inspector general admitted it destroyed a 6,700 page report on torture, the famed whistleblower said the CIA does not destroy by accident.
Edward Snowden commented this week on the CIA inspector general offices mistaken destruction of its only copy of a top secret torture report: When the CIA destroys something, its never a mistake, he quipped.
The 6,700 page report detailed controversial enhanced interrogation methods deployed by the CIA at overseas prison sites, including waterboarding and sleep deprivation. The reports demise was never reported to the public, and only came to light after Yahoo News began an investigation.
Another copy of the report exists on an untouched computer disk in a locked vault at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virgina.
Snowden tweeted: I worked @CIA. I wrote the Emergency Destruction Plan for Geneva. When CIA destroys something, its never a mistake.
The full report is still classified and it is possible that it will never be published. A 500-page summary was published in 2014 by Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and made available to the public.
Snowden continues to seek asylum in Russia after being charged under the Espionage Act for leaking classified details of mass surveillance by the U.S. government in 2013.
Via TeleSur
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Related video added by Juan Cole:
The Majority Report with Sam Seder: Oops!!! CIA, Like, Totally Accidentally Destroys Torture Report
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By Sam Heller | ( RFE/RL ) |
When the self-proclaimed Islamic State declared the establishment of a global Muslim caliphate in 2014, the move accelerated a race for legitimacy within the international jihadist movement. ISs rival Al-Qaeda which had long held out a righteous Islamic state as a far-off ideal, not something that could be realized in June 2014 in the Syrian desert faced new pressure to deliver on jihadist aspirations and shore up its own credibility.
Yet, unlike IS, Al-Qaeda could not do it alone. IS has imposed jihadist unity at the point of a sword, crushing its militant rivals and monopolizing control within its caliphates borders. In contrast, Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, like Syrias Al-Nusra Front, have attempted to manage a complex set of relationships with local factions and, wherever possible, rally them behind Al-Qaedas leadership.
This was the impetus for Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahris May 8 audio message called Hasten To Syria, in which he urged Syrias mujahedin (holy warriors) to unify, calling it a matter of life and death.
While Zawahri used the recording to speak to various constituencies, his primary audience seems not to have been the Al-Nusra Front or the Salafi-jihadist hardcore. Rather, Zawahri was apparently addressing Syrias other Islamist rebels chiefly opposition faction and Islamist movement Ahrar al-Sham groups which have rejected IS but which have been wary of Al-Nusra Fronts affiliation with Al-Qaeda.
Syria, Zawahri made clear, is now the center of the jihadist world.
Syria today is the hope of the Muslim nation, he said, because it is the lone popular revolution of the Arab Spring revolutions that has adopted the correct path.
Syrias fighters are on their way to erecting a righteous Islamic state not ISs tyrannical, false caliphate, he suggested. But he warned against the conspiracies of what he termed Crusader enemies and their Arab puppets.
Zawahri did deliver at least one message aimed at the jihadist base, affirming that the ISs members are Khawarij, a historical Muslim sect of hyper-extremist deviants. Labeling the Islamic State group as such has been controversial within Salafi-jihadism theorist Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi has resisted it in part because it requires jihadists to act on the Prophet Muhammads prescription for dealing with the Khawarij: qatl Ad, or total extermination. Zawahri has now come down firmly on one side of this intra-jihadist debate.
But much of the rest of the recording was implicitly directed at Syrian rebels outside the narrow circle of Salafi-jihadism, whom Zawahri attempted to reassure about Al-Qaedas intentions. Zawahri emphasized that Al-Nusra Front and Al-Qaeda are not interested in monopolizing power in Syria but rather in championing Gods law and an Islamic state chosen by Syrias people. We are not by the grace of God seekers of power, but rather seekers of the rule of Gods law, said Zawahri. We do not want to rule Muslims; rather, we want to be ruled, as Muslims, by Islam.
And if it were necessary to establish this righteous Islamic government, Zawahri said, then organizational membership (i.e., Al-Nusra Fronts Al-Qaeda affiliation) would never God permitting be an obstacle to these great aspirations.
Some in the media thought this meant Zawahri was giving Al-Nusra Front the green light to cut ties with Al-Qaeda. But, in fact, Zawahri was laying out a trade: The dissolution of Al-Nusra Fronts Al-Qaeda affiliation is conditional on the erection of an Islamic government that meets Al-Qaedas purist standards.
This was no real concession, but rather an endorsement of Al-Nusra Fronts existing stipulations for breaking its Al-Qaeda link. In fact, Zawahris arguments were entirely in line with those of Al-Nusra Front and its chief, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, who made the same point in an interview with Al-Jazeera in June 2015:
Weve said to all the [rebel] factions: When we really come together and create an Islamic government and these are not my words, these are the words of Dr. Ayman [al-Zawahri] himself he said that when Syria has a righteous Islamic government approved by the consensus of its factions, when it is governed by consultation, when the law of Greatest God is the authority, then we will be the first soldiers of this righteous government.
Short of this condition, Al-Nusra Front has refused to break with Al-Qaeda. That is what apparently scuttled rebel merger talks in January, when Ahrar al-Shams insistence on breaking the Al-Qaeda ties and Nusras refusal brought negotiations to an impasse.
With that in mind, Zawahris discussion of an Islamic government seemed mostly theoretical. He was speaking broadly about the mujahedins ultimate aim in Syria, not issuing an urgent call for the creation of an Islamic emirate.
Zawahri did not say this explicitly, but there are a number of obstacles to the declaration of an Islamic emirate in the near term, including rebels current preoccupation with a defensive battle against the Syrian government and its allies. But more pertinent in this case an emirate also requires the consensus endorsement of Ahl al-Shoukeh (the People of Influence), including Syrias most important rebel factions. So long as Ahrar al-Sham and others continue to object to Al-Nusra Fronts Al-Qaeda link and refuse to jointly declare a jihadist emirate (and thus become international pariahs), then an emirate is off the table.
In the meantime, Zawahri seemed unperturbed by the controversy over Al-Nusra Fronts Al-Qaeda link, which he dismissed as the product of foreign dictates, an attempt, he said, to distract the mujahid Muslim community in Syria from its real enemies.
Just as Al-Nusra Fronts leader Jolani did in his June 2015 interview, Zawahri questioned what good it would do if the group somehow split from Al-Qaeda. Would that be enough, Zawahri asked rhetorically, or would these Crusader criminals extract a series of more and more humiliating concessions from its members before ultimately tossing its members in prison, as happened with the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in Algeria and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Geneva talks, truces all of these are conspiracies, Zawahri said. And he warned rebels who have been partnering with regional patrons and tentatively engaging in the political process not to listen to the whispers of these subservient, puppet, apostate governments.
Zawahri instead called on rebels to emulate the Talibans Mullah Omar, who famously sacrificed his emirate rather than surrender Osama bin Laden to the West. According to Zawahri, this steadfastness is what defeated the Crusader military apparatus, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq.
And therein lies the tragedy when Al-Qaeda has adopted your cause: Al-Qaeda operates in a frame of reference in which Syria has been the lone success story of the Arab Spring, not an insane bloodbath; in which Afghanistan and Iraq were victories, not permanently destroyed countries and societies.
Now, Zawahri said, Al-Qaeda has wed its fortunes to that of the Syrian revolution.
Your victory is our victory, he said, your honor is our honor, and your empowerment is our empowerment.
And while he may ultimately aspire to an Islamic state not more butchery and death he and Al-Qaeda are clearly ready to pay a terrible human cost along the way.
Sam Heller is a Beirut-based freelance writer whose work has been published by VICE News, The Daily Beast, World Politics Review, War on the Rocks, IHS Janes, and elsewhere. Follow Sam on Twitter at @abujamajem
Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
Via RFE/RL
Related video added by Juan Cole:
Wochit News: Al Qaeda Leader Calls ISIS Extremists, Renegades'
Attorneys for Chelsea Manning, the former US military soldier who leaked secrets to WikiLeaks [advocacy website], on Thursday, filed a brief [text, PDF] to appeal her 35-year prison term [JURIST report] for violating the Espionage Act. Manning is asserting that her rights to free speech were violated by the Espionage Act [18 USC 794 et seq.] because the court failed to determine the importance of the interest of the publics need to know the information. Manning also argues that the limiting of speech under the act prevents a democratic society from being able to hold government officials accountable for their actions. Furthermore, the vagueness of the act will have a chilling effect on speech because the government has neither narrowly tailored the restrictions nor has it used the least restrictive means to regulate speech. As such the deterrent effect is to discriminatorily prosecute government whistle blowers and leakers:
The conviction and sentence of PFC Manning under the Espionage Act must be overturned for two reasons. First, the Espionage Act is unconstitutionally vague, because it provides the government a tool that the First Amendment forbids: a criminal statute that allows the government to subject speakers and messages it dislikes to discriminatory prosecution. Second, even if the Act were not unconstitutional in all its applications, the military judges application of the Act to PFC Manning violated the First Amendment because the military judge did not permit PFC Manning to assert any defense that would allow the court to evaluate the value to public discourse of any of the information she disclosed.
Manning has also appealed [text, PDF] her conviction [press release] from violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act [18 USC 1030].
Manning filed [JURIST report] for a presidential pardon of her 35-year sentence in September 2013. US Army Major General Jeffery Buchanan upheld [JURIST report] Mannings conviction and prison sentence for turning over classified information to WikiLeaks in April 2014. Manning was found guilty [JURIST report] of violating the Espionage Act in July 2013 but was acquitted of the more serious charge of aiding the enemy.
The Pentagon announced [press release] Friday that the Periodic Review Board (PRB) [official website] has cleared Afghani Guantanamo detainee Obaidullah [NYT materials] for release after almost 15 years of detainment. Obaidullah was captured [Daily Mail report] in November 2002 when forces determined he had landmines in his possession and that he had received orders to detonate them. He was later charged [JURIST report] with conspiracy and providing material support to terrorist in 2008, but those charges were dismissed by a military tribunal in 2011. The PRB determined that Obaidullah no longer poses a threat to the security of the nation despite his past as a known bomb maker:
The Periodic Review Board, by consensus, determined that continued law of war detention of the detainee does not remain necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States. The Board has some concern with the detainees failure to demonstrate sufficient candor related to events prior to detention but, in light of the factors and conditions of transfer identified below, the Board found that the risk the detainee presents can be adequately mitigated.In making this determination, the Board noted that the detainee has not expressed any intent to re-engage in terrorist activities, has not espoused any anti-US sentiment that would indicate he views the US as his enemy, that neither the detainee nor his family have any ties to extremists outside of Guantanamo, and that the detainee has been mostly compliant while at Guantanamo.
It is not when known when Obaidullah will be transferred or to where.
There are currently 80 detainees remaining at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. In February US President Obama delivered a plan to Congress to close Guantanamo [JURIST report]. Last month the Department of Defense (DOD) announced the transfer [JURIST report] of nine Yemeni Guantanamo detainees to Saudi Arabia. Earlier in April the DOD announced the transfer [JURIST report] of two Guantanamo detainees to Senegal.
The Oklahoma legislature [official website] approved a resolution [text, PDF] Thursday asking Congress to impeach President Barack Obama over his administrations guidance [press release] on ensuring the protection and inclusion of transgender individuals in federal civil rights law. The legislators believe that the president has overstepped his constitutional authority and are requesting that congress initiate impeachment proceedings:
The members of the United States House of Representatives elected from this state are hereby requested to file articles of impeachment against the President of the United States, the Attorney General of the United States, the Secretary of Education and any other federal official liable to impeachment who has exceeded his or her constitutional authority with respect to the letter referenced in this resolution, based upon the grounds that the Constitution of the United States does not grant the executive branch of the federal government any authority whatsoever over the public education system, nor over the use of restrooms or other facilities thereof.
The legislature reiterated that they believe in safe and nondiscriminatory environments for all students, but they believe the measures [text, PDF] announced by the Justice Department are unconstitutional.
Rights of transgender individuals have become a hot button issue globally. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced [JURIST report] legislation Tuesday that would ban transgender discrimination, including it within Canadas hate crime laws. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), along with several other organizations, asked a federal court [JURIST report] on Monday to block the enforcement of a North Carolina law that they claim targets transgender people for discrimination. The Massachusetts Senate advanced [JURIST report] legislation last Thursday aimed at protecting transgender individuals from discrimination
News / National
by Tanaka Mrewa
A COURT yesterday issued a garnishee order against a Central Intelligence Officer (CIO) from Bulawayo who was not paying maintenance money on time.Marlene Mkutshwa told magistrate Batanai Tuwe that Munyaradzi Hwingiri was neglecting his child. Hwingiri has a standing maintenance order to pay $150 per month for his seven-month-old baby."Your worship, he doesn't pay the child's money on time and I'm struggling to make ends meet. As it is my child wasn't feeling well and I struggled to get medication. It would be better if the money is deducted straight from his salary," said Mkutshwa. Magistrate Tuwe said the two had become regulars at the court."It looks like the two of you are having serious problems regarding this matter. A garnishee order would help both of you," said Tuwe. Hwingiri did not object.He said the money would be deducted from his salary and transferred to Mkutshwa's account.
News / National
by Mashudu Netsianda
A HIGH Court judge has ordered the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare to pay more than $47,000 to a Bulawayo man who sustained permanent injuries when a speeding senior government official collided with a commuter omnibus which he was travelling in four years ago.Justice Martin Makonese's ruling follows an application for a default judgment filed at the Bulawayo High Court by Abel Mkhwananzi, 71, through his lawyers Majoko and Majoko Legal Practitioners.In papers before the court, the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare and its Matabeleland South provincial social welfare officer, Tirivavi Totamirepi were cited as the defendants.Mkhwananzi sustained hip and knee injuries and he had to undergo surgery outside the country.Justice Makonese ordered the defendants to pay Mkhwananzi $47,309 for special damages for medical expenses, loss of amenities of life, disfigurement, pain and suffering."I've no difficulty at all in accepting the claim for future medical treatment as sufficient evidence has been placed before the court detailing the exact nature of treatment to be rendered to the plaintiff as well as precise costs thereof. In assessing damages for pain and suffering the prime considerations are the duration and intensity of the pain," said the judge.Justice Makonese said Mkhwananzi, whose disability is rated at 37 percent, can no longer do ordinary chores without assistance.Totamirepi, 48, was in July, 2012, fined $400 and banned from driving for six months by Gwanda magistrate Innocent Bepura who convicted him of two counts of culpable homicide following the accident in February 2012.The court heard that Totamirepi was driving a Mahindra pick-up truck registration number GLL 6641 with one passenger towards Bulawayo along the BulawayoBeitbridge Road.On reaching the 24km peg from Bulawayo near Match Binding in Esigodini, he lost control of the` vehicle and encroached into the opposite lane and collided with a Toyota Hiace commuter omnibus.As a result, one passenger in the commuter omnibus, Nkosilathi Baloyi, died on the spot while another who was in the same vehicle, Jabulani Mathuthu, died on admission to the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH).The court established that Totamirepi was speeding and failed to control his vehicle resulting in the collision.The defendants, through the Civil Division in the Attorney-General Office, entered an appearance to defend but were barred for failing to file their pleas on time, which resulted in the matter being placed on the unopposed roll.
News / National
by Melody Baya
A MAN from Cowdray Park suburb in Bulawayo allegedly assaulted his girlfriend's ex-husband after a confrontation.Paul Gatsi, 28, together with his two brothers allegedly bashed Busani Ncube, 23, of Gwabalanda using a shovel, fists, and logs on his head as well as other parts of the body. The court heard Ncube is admitted to Mpilo Central Hospital due to injuries sustained.Ncube allegedly saw his ex-wife Thubelihle Ncube walking with Gatsi and his companions when he asked to have a word with her.Gatsi was offended and teamed up with his brothers to assault Ncube, a court heard.He appeared before Western Commonage magistrate Themba Chimiso facing an assault charge.Chimiso did not ask him to plead and remanded him in custody to June 1. Prosecuting, Mufaro Mageza told the court that on May 16 at around 9PM at Ezigodweni area in Cowdray Park, Ncube bumped into Gatsi walking with his ex-wife."As the complainant approached his ex-wife, the accused who was acting in common purpose with Norman and Eric Gatsi who are still at large started assaulting the complainant using fists, stones, shovels and logs all over his body," said Mageza."The accused was arrested for the assault and his accomplices fled from the scene and are still at large."The prosecutor said Ncube was rushed to Mpilo Central Hospital for treatment where he is still admitted.
News / Regional
by Staff Reporter
A HWANGE Colliery hospital guard on duty reportedly bashed helpless patients before proceeding to the mortuary where he offloaded corpses and threw them all over the place, a local tabloid has reported.According to B-metro, Emmanuel Zulu caused drama at the hospital when he turned against patients and nurses on duty who reportedly scurried for cover.It took a group of nurses and security guards to stop him because he was behaving like a wounded lion.A source at the Colliery said, "Zulu was on duty at the hospital and no one knows what happened to him leading to the strange behaviour."He was heard screaming and when nurses checked on him, he ran to the wards where he started beating all patients who failed to run for their dear lives."After beating patients, Zulu reportedly went to the mortuary and started throwing dead bodies all over the place.A team of nurses and other guards managed to manhandle Zulu before vaccinating him with a sleeping injection. Efforts to get a comment from Hwange Colliery officials hit snag. - B-Metro
Opinion / Columnist
One of the things the white colonialists used to do was speak for the blacks. "Our blacks are very happy with this! They are very happy about that!" they would say. How patronizing! Robert Mugabe has become as oppressive as the what colonialists and, worse still, just as hypocritical and patronizing.Having denied the blacks a fair of the country's wealth and vote in the governance of the country the white added insult to injury by denying the blacks a voice. The whites took it upon themselves to tell the blacks they must be gloriously happy being exploited and treated as a third class citizen in the country of their own forefathers.It does not matter how many time the white told the blacks they were happy being exploited and treated as third class citizens the truth is the blacks were not happy. No human being is ever happy about being denied their freedoms, their basic human rights and dignity.The white racists tried to dehumanize the blacks but failed because it is not for another mortal to deprive another of their God given humanity.Zimbabwe's struggle to end white colonial domination and exploitation was meant to reaffirm the blacks's humanity by restoring their freedoms and human rights including the right to a meaningful say, vote, in the governance of the country and the right to life itself. Little did Zimbabweans know in 1980 when the country attained her independence that we were removing the white colonial oppressors only to replace them with black oppressors.It does not matter what Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies say the fact of the matter is the regime has systematically denied the overwhelming majority of black Zimbabweans their freedoms and basic human rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections."You get countries like France that think they can run our affairs. America has been quite open, they say they can change regimes and in Zimbabwe they say they will change. I say never. That is why I am still here, because regime change will never come," he said.Yes Mr Mugabe you are still president of Zimbabwe 36 years after independence because Zimbabwe is a de facto one-party cum one-man dictatorship. You laid the ground for it soon after independence by destroying all the country's democratic institutions and have even killed many innocent black and white Zimbabweans to accomplish your goal. Over 30 000 Zimbabweans have been murdered for selfish political gain.Since when have the Americans or any other foreign nationals cast a vote in Zimbabwe? So how has Mugabe denied the Americans "regime change" in Zimbabwe if they have never ever cast a vote to demand regime change? It is the people of Zimbabwe Mugabe has cheated by denying them a meaningful vote in free, fair and credible elections to decide whether or not there should be regime change.Mugabe could not achieve his no-regime-change mantra and still hold free, fair and credible election that is nonsense, it is an oxymoron. It is not the Americans he has denied the right to free, fair and credible elections but follow black Zimbabweans.It is the Zimbabwean electorate in a truly free and fair democratic election, who alone decide who governs the country and not some select group of individuals regards of their position in society. It is not the Americans Mugabe is denying regime change but the people of Zimbabwe.Just like the white racists before him, Mugabe has been riding roughshod over our freedoms, hopes and dreams but to add insult to injury he tell us this is what we wanted and are very happy about it. What chutzpah!Mugabe is a corrupt, incompetent and murderous tyrant, he can say what he please but history will catch up with him just as it did catch up with Ian Smith and his fellow white colonialists! As for regime change; in 1965 Ian Smith said they would be no black majority rule in "a thousand years", his regime did not last for more than 15 years; Mugabe's reign of terror will not last for much longer now. Zanu PF is imploding as the party members fight over who is to take over after him but the coup de grace is coming from the economic meltdown. 36 years of gross misrule have taken its toll and economic recovery is impossible with regime change!
Politicians bend the truth. All politicians spin the facts. But Donald Trump is mounting an audacious experiment in mendacity: How brazenly can a candidate lie and get away with it?
Consider the bizarre and, in any other context comical, events of last week.
The Washington Post published a 1991 audiotape with the voice of a man who sounded uncannily like Trump, but he identified himself as John Miller, a Trump spokesman. In the recording, Miller told People magazine that Trump, newly divorced, was fending off girlfriends, not counting Madonna, in whom Miller said Trump had zero interest.
When the 2016 candidate was asked about the 1991 tape, his denial was absolute.
It was not me on the phone, he told NBC. Not only that, I dont know anything about it. Youre telling me about it for the first time.
Yet, back in 1991, Trump admitted it was him on the phone. People printed his apology back then for what he called a joke that went awry. That wasnt Trumps first brush with pseudonymity. In a 1990 court case, he testified under oath that he also made phone calls under the name of John Barron, the Post reported.
A trivial controversy? Not really, because it fits into a rich pattern of whoppers and falsehoods often followed by equally bogus denials.
Hes lied about small things and large.
Bizarrely, he has lied about statements that are easy to check. In January, he denied a report that he had called for a 45 percent tariff on imports from China. Its The New York Times; theyre always wrong, he said. The Times published the tape; Forty-five percent, Trump said.
In March, when asked if he would reject the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, Trump said: I just dont know anything about him. That was nonsense; in 2000, Trump publicly denounced Duke as a racist.
On foreign policy, Trump said hed be a better president than Hillary Clinton because he opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2011 war in Libya. But thats not true: Trump publicly supported those wars before they started.
Even when hes not exactly lying, Trump often shows little regard for consistency. His claims about his economic proposals the heart of his bid for the presidency make no sense at all.
Trump has called for a gigantic tax cut that would reduce federal revenue by an estimated $10 trillion over 10 years. His campaign says the tax cut would produce an economic boom, generate $7 trillion in new revenue, and wipe out the federal deficit.
He doesnt seem to have noticed that $7 trillion, the new revenue, is smaller than $10 trillion, the added deficit, piled atop the existing deficit.
Will any of this matter?
Its true that Trumps likely Democratic opponent has had problems with credibility, too. Some polls suggest that voters consider Trump the least honest candidate in the race, but others give that honor to Hillary Clinton.
Still, say what you like about Clinton, she plays by traditional rules. She doesnt deny her past statements when theyre on tape.
Political scientists have long noted that partisan voters are hard to shake from their allegiances, no matter what the facts. They call it motivated reasoning, the tendency of people to disbelieve arguments that challenge their beliefs. Democrats practice it as well as Republicans.
Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth College has even found that fact-checking makes some voters more committed to their candidate, not less a phenomenon he calls the backfire effect.
But Trumps cost-free dissembling may be coming to an end, Nyhan told me via email. It didnt hurt him in the Republican primary race, but hes heading into the general election with the worst favorable/unfavorable ratings ever.
If there are undecided voters out there, he said, fact-checking could help them decide not to vote for Trump, although it wouldnt guarantee that theyd vote for Clinton.
This campaign will be a test of Trumps own advice from his 1987 bestseller and it really was a bestseller, no lie The Art of the Deal:
You cant con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you dont deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on.
Doyle McManus is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Readers may email him at doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com.
Opinion / Music
It is not in our African culture - we guess in all humanity - to celebrate the misfortunes of other people, especially when it comes to natural afflictions and death. As such, even when your enemy is stricken by disease or death, humanity demands that we show compassion and grace. It is not for gravity to celebrate. But not many of us have that sense of compassion and grace - especially when it comes to politics.In Zimbabwe we have seen opposition politicians and their lapdogs in the media outdoing each other in celebration each time President Mugabe has gone somewhere for a medical check-up - or is rumoured to have fallen ill.In fact, it has become such staple for the private media to speculate on the health of President Mugabe. Worst of all, though, has been that morbid ritual of announcing the death of the veteran leader each time he is on his annual vacation.It is such a strange and sick fascination, which also feeds into hostile foreign media. There is a method to the madness though. The continuous speculation feeds into the general negativity and campaign of the opposition against President Mugabe.Only, this time, the opposition appears to concede its failure to dislodge President Mugabe and his ruling party, zanu-pf, and looks up to some kind of divine or supernatural agency.It is desperation by failed political forces.And every so often, opposition figures and supporters take extraordinary delight in reports about President Mugabe's ill-health, whether the reports are real or imagined.They see the demise of the President as a political blessing and this has become customary for opposition characters such as Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC-T and Tendai Biti to urge Zimbabweans to shun President Mugabe and the ruling party because President Mugabe would have fallen ill and is advanced in age.As we all do; as we all shall, that is.But it was Biti's underling, Jacob Mafume, who gave us probably the most distressingly sick comment regarding President Mugabe's health.He said last December: "People must understand that old age is an illness . . . The idea that a country can be ruled by people who have both feet in the grave is sad, if not tragic. The sad thing is that the people of Zimbabwe have no clue how to protect themselves from the First Family."He was calling for the impeachment of the President and added: "We are going to enter a period of lamentations if that happens and as Zimbabweans we can no longer wait for 2018 because we will have perished."The year 2018, of course, is the year of elections.It is conceivable that those elections will be lost by the opposition, in a massive way as they always do.Ailing politiciansOne riposte to the ill-health rumour-mongers was given by a sharp-tongued columnist who reminded the nation that President Mugabe was far healthier than his younger political rivals in the opposition. Interestingly, Biti himself has been stalked by health rumours, especially after pictures of his less than chubby face surfaced in 2014.Not least, there have always been swirling rumours of some fatal affliction.But he had to be on the defensive at some point.He told a newspaper: "Are they my doctors?" (those speculating)."I am not sick but obviously I will not go public over malice. I will not dignify their malice by speaking. I have seen what they are writing and saying but that will not stop the renewal movement."It had obviously cut close to the bone!President Mugabe himself has many times alluded to the fact that many of his colleagues in zanu-pf are promiscuous and spreading HIV because of reckless and immoral sexual behaviour, including having "small houses".This means that these guys are in some danger that President Mugabe, for all his advanced years, is well clear of.Poorly TsvangiraiYesterday, we woke up to screaming headlines in the opposition media announcing that Tsvangirai had been taken ill and flown to South Africa. "Sick Tsvangirai rushed to South Africa," said the NewsDay while the Daily News announced, "Ill Tsvangirai on the mend".There is little doubt that the two stories were deliberately planted by the office of Tsvangirai himself to manage speculation that would come with the knowledge of his condition especially were such grim news to be announced by the so-called State media.And the Daily News wanted the news to be hopeful and not want its readers burdened with such weighty an announcement.That is, so much so that they had to tell us news about a "mend" whose bend they had not even told us of before!Of course, it has been a public secret that Tsvangirai has been unwell for some time and actually failed to address a march that the opposition held a few weeks ago at least for more than four minutes that he managed on that day.The news that he is today poorly and in South Africa is a mere confirmation of what we knew already.Not that we celebrate.Today, Tsvangirai reminds us of our humanity and frailty as men and women of flesh.People fall ill.People die.It is natural, for no man is meant to live forever, unscathed.That is why it is reprehensible for opposition personalities and sick media mouthpieces to savour the news of President Mugabe's ill health, real or imagined.But there is also something remarkably profound in the statement that was issued by Douglas Mwonzora, the secretary-general of the MDC-T.He said: "We kindly request the nation and the party to give the president and his family the necessary space and privacy as he recovers. The nation and the media will be kept updated."Of course!A person in a poor condition as Tsvangirai is today demands all our prayers, not death wishes.Their families also deserve privacy and space for them to reflect and not to be subjected to unnecessary speculations and innuendo.Real politics is about policies and programmes, not silly death wishes and morbid savours.At that, we wish Tsvangirai a speedy recovery.
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Virtual visits are increasingly the rage amongst forward-thinking healthcare providers that want to jump on the telehealth band wagon. Extending the office visit across distance, using the same technology we use to keep in touch with loved ones (videoconferencing such as Skype and FaceTime), is a safe and logical way for providers to venture into a new tech-enabled world that may still be scary for some.
One way to think of this trend is to consider virtual visits an extension of the brick and mortar care model made famous a decade ago by companies like MinuteClinic. Offer convenient access to a care provider for a limited number of conditions.
Virtual visits can take place by either video or voice connection. These interactions are most often for indications that are non-life threatening, acute problems such as a sore throat, earache, urinary tract infection and the like. There is also a role for this technology in follow-up care for conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, but for this post, well focus on acute care.
Employers and health plans are interested in this mode of care delivery too. In a relatively short period of time, virtual visits have gone from a curiosity to a table stakes offering in the world of employee health. Several companies now offer services in the space, most notably Teladoc (now publically traded) and American Well. These companies are interesting in that they can offer a complete service (i.e., software platform for access and a network of physicians who are waiting by the (video)phone for your call) or pieces of the service (for instance, just the software platform). This has led to some confusion in the marketplace. A consumer can now get a virtual visit from Walgreens or CVS (using the complete approach noted above). Blue Cross of MA offers its fully insured members access to virtual visits through American Wells software and network.
You can see why provider organizations would sit up and take notice, with concerns about loss of revenue in the very important segment of primary care, as well as fragmented care. Hence, providers are looking very carefully at how they can offer these services themselves, before they are disrupted by the likes of CVS, Walgreens, and their local health plan.
With this backdrop, I read two interesting journal articles this month. The first, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, employed individuals trained to act as patients with the following acute illnesses: ankle pain, strep throat, common cold, low back pain and urinary tract infection. These were chosen because there are recognized quality measures (which go by the acronym HEDIS) for how they are to be handled in an outpatient setting.
These fake patients performed 599 virtual visits across a number of different vendor scenarios. The findings revealed that quality of care delivered by this method is variable. For instance, the correct diagnosis was arrived at in 458/599 visits. Rates of guideline-adherent care ranged from 206 visits to 396 across eight different vendors. The big challenge with this and something we have trouble talking about is lack of comparison to the face-to-face office visit. For example, in traditional office-based circumstances, doctors misdiagnose and sometimes do not follow established guidelines.
The second paper was published in the Journal of Telemedicine and eHealth. The authors specifically targeted virtual visits from Teladoc, and they did the comparison with office visits. The approach was different, however, in that it involved a retrospective insurance claims analysis from a specific organization, the California Public Employees Retirement System.
The first interesting data point is that of 233,000 eligible individuals, 3,000 took advantage of virtual visits, accounting for just over 4,600 visits. Utilization of just 1.3 percent is worth noting for those of us preparing to offer these services in the near future. We probably dont need to anticipate an avalanche of demand.
The punch line from this study: Teladoc doctors performed worse on a number of indicators than office-based practitioners. Specifically, they did not order strep tests as much as office providers, and they ordered antibiotics for bronchitis more often. This makes some intuitive sense, as it is additional work and bother for the virtual doctor to insist the patient get a strep test. (The patient will also be thinking, Why did I bother to do this virtually and why do they offer this service if I have to travel for a strep test?) In the case of antibiotics, the virtual provider may be more cautious without the person in the same room and err on the side of treating with antibiotics.
Both of these papers highlight how early we still are in the widespread adoption of virtual visits. Though there is lots of pressure to move, and we should do so, we have some time to get it right. We can take comfort in the low utilization, and work on educating providers on the pitfalls of the virtual environment. We can also educate our patients up front that even though their entry into the healthcare system will be virtual, they may need to travel to get additional diagnostic services, etc.
It seems that anytime a new tool or technology is introduced, we inevitably apply it broadly, learning as we go that the tool has ideal applications. Think about how we reflexively use text messaging, email, voice calls and in-person meetings in the context of our work lives. With time and a thoughtful approach, well get there with virtual visits as well.
Of course, there will come a time when that strep test can be done in-home, at the time of the virtual visit (or even before). Well have better tools for determining which cases of bronchitis should be treated with antibiotics. Who knows, we might even be able to do some sort of portable imaging for your low back pain.
Until then, well be well served to educate both providers and consumers regarding both the excitement and the limitations of virtual visits.
Joseph Kvedar is director, Center for Connected Health, Partners HealthCare. He blogs at the cHealth Blog and is the author of the Internet of Healthy Things.
Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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Most industrialized nations have long supported the idea that access to health care is a fundamental right, and have built centrally planned systems to accomplish that goal. The result has been universal coverage that delivers excellent-quality outcomes at lower costs than the United States.
In some countries, such as England and Canada, the government controls both financing and certain aspects of health care delivery, while in others, including Australia, Sweden, and Germany, the system is publicly funded, but with the majority of the medical care privately delivered.
In sharp contrast, the United States provides health care coverage through a variety of channelssome public (Medicare and state-based Medicaid programs), some commercial (employer-sponsored health insurance) and more (individual, brokers and exchanges). Almost all of the care in the U.S., other than the Veterans Administration and some county-sponsored clinics, is delivered privately.
Policy experts argue that these other global health care systems have advantages over the United States. In particular, they tout the personal financial protection and the superior clinical outcomes they achieve.
Most independent, published reports on global health outcomes put the United States in the lower half of industrialized nations, and at the bottom on measures like life expectancy and childhood mortality. And our results are getting worse. A recent study noted that among Whites, life expectancy is declining, not improving.
You might think, based on the success of others, that the U.S. would identify the best parts of each, and embrace these global models. We could debate whether the results would be as positive in practice as in theory, but the objective information is not the issue. Our country wont decide to follow their lead. And the reason is simply our culture.
Behind the scenes in Canada, England and Australia
During my training years at Stanford, I had the opportunity to spend six months in Calgary, Canada, working in its university hospital, and have returned many times since then. In addition, for over a decade, we at Kaiser Permanente have collaborated with the British National Health System to help them improve both their outpatient and their hospital care. And most recently, I traveled to Australia, and had the opportunity to discuss its health care system with a variety of individuals.
Although all three countries have a federally financed health care system, they vary in design. In some cases, decisions are made through the federal government, in others at the provincial or county level. And although some countries, such as Australia, encourage private insurance to supplement the public system, others, such as Quebec Province, have outlawed it.
But overall, how health care is financed, delivered and experienced is more similar than different. Citizens in all three countries report satisfaction levels with their national health systems of between 85 percent and 90 percent. Support for their health care system, respect for their physicians and confidence in the quality of care provided is extremely high in each. And these outstanding outcomes are achieved at a cost relative to their GDP, which is dramatically less than in the U.S.
The patient experience
On the plus side, universal coverage relieves stress on families and facilitates the work of physicians and hospitals. When patients go to a doctor in the community or are admitted to a public hospital, their bills are paid by the government, with minimal out-of-pocket expense to themselves. The stress of worrying about how they will pay for the care they receive is eliminated and the risk of personal bankruptcy virtually nonexistent.
The drawback, however, is delays in access, particularly for routine procedures. Urgent, more acute problems are generally attended to in relatively short order. But expected waits for routine procedures in public hospitals vary from four to six months, depending on the particular interventionfar longer than what commercially insured Americans experience today.
Why so? These publicly funded systems tend to be political in nature. And when it comes to taxing people to pay the cost, elected officials are reluctant. For that reason, the funds available to provide the access for routine but expensive diagnostic and surgical procedures are insufficient, less than most patients desire and physicians recommend. As a result, in many of these countries, individuals who can afford to do so buy private insurance and move to the front of the line.
While publicly insured individuals sometimes can wait up to a year for a total joint replacement those with private insurance can be scheduled in a couple of months. And even for urgent, but not emergent care, those with public insurance can be delayed in getting what they need, while those privately covered are treated instead.
The delays in obtaining care are no secret. Everyone I spoke with who had public coverage knew they existed. What surprised me was peoples reaction. Nearly all of the people I talked with accepted the waits as a reasonable trade for the economic security they provided, and few were outraged or even resentful that others could jump the queue. Overall, most of the citizens were grateful for the health care they obtained.
Part of the reason is cultural. In British culture, sacrifice for the greater good is held dear as a value and a virtue. The metaphor of the stiff upper lip as evidenced in London during the German bombings of World War II attests to a certain forbearance and resilience, even in the face of adversity. And the idea that some are entitled to go ahead of others is intrinsic to a culture that bestows and respects titles, be they earl, lord or king.
What would Americans say?
How would average Americans react to the same delays and inconvenience? Most Americans would be up in arms if they had to wait months for an appointment to see an orthopedic surgeon and a year to have a total joint surgery performed. They would be outraged if others cut in line ahead of them. I predict across the U.S. there would be legal challenges, legislative prohibitions and intervention by regulatory agencies. Americans would not accept the limitations of these other health care systems.
Of course the U.S. rations health care, too, but less visibly than other countries do. Patients covered by Medicaid, particularly in states where government payments are significantly below the cost of providing the services, often have difficulty finding specialists and diagnostic facilities willing to provide services to them. And even though the middle class in the U.S. can more quickly obtain advanced diagnostic testing, specialty care and routine surgical procedures, high deductibles, often $5,000 or more, increasingly are creating a different type of access challenge. Although many Americans complain about the U.S. health care system, in general, nearly all report being satisfied with their doctors and the care they provide.
The Swedish formula
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to spend a week visiting the main hospital in the city of Jonkoping. The difference between how medicine is practiced there and in the U.S. was huge. The physicians and hospital administrators viewed health care as a public service, and felt privileged to be able to provide it for the benefit of all. Collaboration, not competition, was the focus of their day-to-day practices. Even how they paid their physicians reflected this emphasis on equality and evenhandedness, with the salary difference between primary care physicians and surgical specialists being relatively small, particularly when compared to the U.S.
None of this should be surprising. Sweden is a homogeneous country, with most of its citizens sharing a common history and ethnicity. When you perceive others as family, the greater good trumps personal freedom, including in your approach to health care. And you are appalled when someone is hurt or suffers. As a consequence, Sweden is the only country I know of where the legal limit for blood alcohol while driving is zero.
How well does it work?
Health care in Sweden is efficient and effective, remarkably so. The quality outcomes achieved rank among the highest in the world, and the costs of doing so are much lower than in the U.S. In this hospital, their passion and key to success is standardization. Individual doctor choices are limited. Hospital-wide efforts bring together physicians and nurses to define, down to the smallest detail, how patients will be treated. New doctors are expected to follow these standardized clinical protocols, and changes in clinical practice require common agreement. Deviating from these care pathways is culturally unacceptable.
The advantages of their approach to health care delivery are numerous. Nurses never need to adjust to the specific approach used by each doctor. Operating rooms dont have to stock dozens of different instrument sets and total joint implants to meet the preferences of each individual surgeon. And the same excellent level of care is provided regardless of the day of the week or the doctor on call.
And when a public health risk is identified, doctors and nurses on hospital staff respond rapidly. The entire health care team is committed to implementing effective protection for everyone in the hospital, whether patient, visitor or staff, as a core value, even when it impinges on their own autonomy and freedom. Within and across practices and specialties, team spirit prevails.
The result is high quality delivered at low cost, with consistently favorable clinical outcomes.
What would Americans say?
In spite of the outstanding results they achieve, physicians and patients in the U.S. would resist and reject this expectation for consistency and conformity. The Swedish approach simply clashes with our culture, which values rugged individualism. American doctors and patients perceive variation and freedom in practice as virtuous, even when the data contradict that view. In the end, culture proves overwhelmingly powerful.
Health care as cultural imperative
It would be almost impossible to get Italians to act like Germans or vice-versa. How we are raised and the values we are taught shape how we see the world. Culture comes from history and is handed down from generation to generation. Wars are fought over such differences.
The U.S., for example, values personal freedom above the common good. Our nation was born in revolution, refusing to be told how to act and what to do. Our constitution was founded on the concept of equality, averse to relegating anyone to being a second-class citizen. We believe in individualism, and tell ourselves stories about how anyone can become President.
Doctors expect the right to practice medicine as they decide. Patients are impatient, and will scream if others are allowed to cut in line ahead of them.
How health systems are organized, and care is delivered reflect a nations values. And ours is no exception. Its precisely because our nation embraces individual independence over the collective good that the integration of health care, with the requisite collaboration and cooperation among American doctors, proves so difficult. It helps explain why we cling to a deeply flawed payment system that reimburses individuals for doing more, and are slow to move to one that would reward value over volume. Although we are slowly moving to approaches that pay more to organizations and physicians who achieve superior quality outcomes, focus on prevention and maximize patient safety, it is happening in spite of, not because of, our medical culture.
Is culture destiny?
Culture can change. And ours must. We believe, and presidential candidates often tell us, that our care is the best in the world no matter how often the Institute of Medicine shows us graphs about how much better clinical outcomes are in places like Sweden than here.
Now, make no mistake: These other health care systems are far from perfect, and most face plenty of challenges, including escalating costs and rancorous political debate. But compared with the U.S., they offer higher-quality, universal coverage at lower costs.
Even within the U.S., there are geographies doing a much better job than others, according to the Medicare database and the Dartmouth Atlas. And within geographies, there are physicians and hospitals achieving better outcomes based on the data from the National Committee for Quality Assurance and the Leapfrog Group. But to help everyone match the performance of the best will require greater collaboration, conformity and consistency. And each of these characteristics runs head-on into our culture, which values highly individual freedom and independence. And thats why, no matter how much better these other health care systems might be, the U.S. wont be embracing them soon.
Cultural change is possible, but cultural shifts seldom happen by themselves. They require leadership. That leadership can come from above. Governments can legislate new laws and regulations, insurance companies can adjust guidelines and fees, and hospital administrators can send e-mails and implement new policies. But most of these efforts fail to have the positive impact the people who designed them expected.
This is why physician leadership is so crucial, and going forward will determine whether our health care system achieves its potential. Physicians will resist changes imposed by health plan executives and hospital administrators, and nearly all pay-for-performance incentives fail to achieve their desired results. Physicians will change their practices and implement improvements to benefit patients, but only when the efforts are led by colleagues they know, respect and trust.
This is our culture in the United States. As Malcolm Gladwell described in his book the Tipping Point, the colonists followed Paul Revere because they knew and trusted him, not because of his title or position. The United States will never be Australia, England, Canada or Sweden. As long as our culture prevents us from embracing the approaches others use, we will have to accept the limitations that result.
But nothing should stop our country from achieving outcomes just as good as theirs.
Robert Pearl is a physician and CEO, Permanente Medical Groups. This article originally appeared in Forbes.
Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Paul Coplin and Teresa Shaw hold a button showing Amber Coplin. Amber was killed earlier this month in Port Orchard, allegedly by David Michael Kalac. Paul Coplin was her husband, from whom she was separated; Schraw was her stepmother.
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By Andrew Binion of the Kitsap Sun
PORT ORCHARD ? When it came to her family, Amber Coplin's heart was bottomless. And when she had it in her mind to do something, she did it.
She was also known to break out in song, especially in the car. Sometimes one of her boys would join in.
"It drove everybody crazy," said Paul Coplin.
The death earlier this month of Amber, 30, whose maiden name is Schraw, was as public as it was wrenching, stacking tragedy on top of heartache for the family she cherished. Her father is currently battling cancer.
Paul ? who was married to Amber, but the couple had separated ? said Friday their boys are dealing remarkably well with the loss and have been a source of strength for him.
"They are just finding their own way," Paul said. "If it wasn't for them, I would probably be losing my mind."
David Kalac, 33, has been charged with first-degree murder for Amber's death and has pleaded not guilty. The two had been in a relationship, though Paul said Amber was trying to end it. Kalac allegedly posted photos of the crime scene on the Internet, making what prosecutors are calling a domestic violence murder not only accessible to the community, but to her family and children.
Most of the media attention has gone to her accused killer, so Amber's loved ones felt it important to give a voice to Amber, who was the main character in their family's story, a woman devoted to her family, who smiled all the time and was described as "head strong" and sometimes just simply "stubborn."
"Somebody has got to tell her side of the story," Paul said. "She didn't put up with anything, not at all."
Born in Bremerton, Amber attended school at Marcus Whitman Junior High and South Kitsap High School. She was working at State Farm Insurance at the time of her death, enjoying it, and she had plans to return to school.
"When she made up her mind to do something, you couldn't change it," said Daylene Wey, Amber's mother, who lives in Oakdale, California.
She had four biological children, all boys and all with Paul, but she counted Paul's son from a previous relationship as one of her brood. She was known as a devoted mother. At the time of her death, Amber's oldest was living with her, the other boys were living with Paul.
"She loved them to death," Paul said.
Wey said the loss has shaken her.
"My best friend got taken away from me," she said.
Wey last saw Amber about two-and-a-half years ago, when Amber's favorite uncle fell ill with cancer. She traveled down to California to visit him in his last days and attend his memorial.
"She was always family-oriented," Wey said.
Amber was born at Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton and gave birth there as well.
Wey recalls the day Amber was going to deliver her oldest son. Amber started getting nervous. The hospital maternity ward was full, Wey said, and asked her to keep calling until there was a spot for her. The family had outfitted the newborn's room with a crib, and all the pieces were falling into place. Then they got word there was now room at the hospital. It was time to go have a baby, but then the nerves hit.
"She looked at me and said, ?Can we go tomorrow?'" Wey said, laughing. "?I'm hungry, let's go have dinner.'"
Amber became pregnant at 16. In many ways, it was the start of her life.
"It was the best thing in the world for her," Wey said. "She was one of those kids. She was going in one direction, and as a soon as she got pregnant, she did a (turnaround) and went the other way."
"She grew up really fast," Wey said, saying that almost overnight she matured and accepted the responsibilities of being a parent. "It was in a good way, a very good way."
She wasn't shy, but she wasn't an extrovert either.
She always had friends, though. Including Wendy Nelson, whom she met about four years ago when the two women were neighbors in Port Orchard. The two spent summers barbecuing on Nelson's deck. Coplin wasn't one to tell a lot of jokes, but she was quick with a laugh.
"She had a beautiful laugh," Nelson said.
Nelson said her first impression of Amber was that she was a driven and tough mother of five boys who kept them in line. Nelson has two girls.
"We joked a few times we wouldn't want to trade each other," Nelson said.
Paul said their oldest, who discovered his mother's body, has seen the photos and has been remarkable through the ordeal.
"He's a strong, brave kid," Paul said. He said they talk about what happened, and the boy has made it clear he plans to turn his anger and hurt into something constructive and to make his mother proud.
"He is saying, ?What would mom say in that situation,'" Paul said.
The rest of the boys are dealing with it in their own way. The youngest, 5, doesn't seem to have grasped what happened, but the older boys are behaving like normal teens. One has taken an interest in learning about their mother from her friends. Taken together, Paul said he is impressed by their resilience and maturity, and said they have kept him steady.
"She always looked forward to having the boys," said Teresa Schraw, Amber's stepmother. "It was the highlight of her life."
Amber's family has mostly refrained from making public statements, but Paul said it was time to tell Amber's story.
"She was great," he said, adding that despite the discord that had ended their romantic relationship, they remained in close communication over their boys and had taken to spending time together when dropping off the kids, to check in and talk about their families.
"She had plans," Paul said.
The family is thankful to their Port Orchard and Kitsap neighbors for their support.
"There is a reason why I keep coming back to the Port Orchard community, and it is obvious why," Paul said.
Amber's mom, Wey, said she was also grateful for the show of support.
"There are good people up there," she said.
A spaghetti dinner fundraiser is being held to benefit Amber Coplin's family at First Christian Church, 4885 SW Hovde, Port Orchard on Nov. 28 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
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By Ed Friedrich of the Kitsap Sun
PORT ORCHARD Three North Kitsap politicians will get free rides to new terms, while five locals joined throngs competing for state offices.
When filing week closed at 4:30 p.m. Friday, no names were written beside state Sen. Christine Rolfes, state Rep. Drew Hansen and County Commissioner Rob Gelder, all Democrats.
"It gives me more time to work on important things," Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island, said of not being distracted by campaigning. She can continue to concentrate on the public's work, such as meetings she attended Friday about salmon, ferries and education. Plus, there'll be fewer campaign signs sullying the 23rd District, she said.
Hansen signs also will be absent from the district's roadsides.
"I'm both surprised and grateful that the people in this district think I'm doing such good work protecting jobs in Kitsap County and helping people get college degrees so they can get better jobs that no one wanted to file against me," the Bainbridge Island Democrat said.
Two of the seven candidates vying to replace retiring Peter Goldmark as public lands commissioner Steven Nielson and Steve McLaughlin reside in Kitsap County. A third, Hilary Franz, did until recently.
Nielson, of Port Orchard, is running as a Libertarian. The 36-year-old works as an aerospace engineer for an advanced composite material company. A quality systems expert, he looks for long-term effective solutions. He'd do the same with the state's forests, which he says are unhealthy.
"We need somebody who's not just a leader but has a vision to plan ahead 30, 60, 90 years to assure the forest is restored and sustained for the next generations," he said.
Over the next 30 years, 1 million forest acres are projected to become urban. It can't be replanted. Seven percent of the state's forest would no longer be renewable, Nielson said. Schools, which rely on sustainable forests, would suffer.
"I'm running on proper forest management and resource diversification for the future, including industrial hemp," he said.
McLaughlin, of Seabeck, seeks to restore balance to managing public lands.
"I believe we can safely protect state lands while still having access to those lands to generate revenue under our constitutional obligation to provide revenues to public schools and the counties," he said.
A Republican, McLaughlin retired from the Navy 10 years ago. He now works as a security program manager for an engineering firm and is an incident command instructor who trains emergency responders.
McLaughlin, 60, is particularly concerned about rural counties and communities that have been plagued by unemployment "because the public lands are locked." He'd like to increase revenues from them "which may reduce the tax burden on the normal voters while continuing to protect the environment but restoring healthy forests."
Healthy forests could also reduce fire danger that's exploded the past two years in Eastern Washington, he said.
Former Bainbridge Island Councilwoman Hilary Franz, an attorney and director of Seattle-based conservation group Futurewise, is running on a platform of environmental sustainability. She wants to apply greater science and common sense to timber harvests near steep slopes and watersheds, and hopes to revise a system that feeds timber revenues into school construction.
"To have a truly sustainable model for our resources especially in light of climate change you have to mitigate and adapt, whether it's for forest fires or drought," said Franz, a Democrat.
A Kitsap Peninsula resident and a Bremerton native are among nine vying for the lieutenant governor position Brad Owen is surrendering after 20 years.
Marty McClendon is a Gig Harbor Realtor and pastor who first worked as an anesthesia technician. "He believes there's always an opportunity to do things differently, to be better, to be smarter and to build bridges through the state where all of Washington can be represented and benefit," says his website.
Bill Penor grew up in Bremerton before moving to Lake Stevens, where he's a manager at Snohomish County's Paine Field.
"I didn't see anybody coming up with any ideas I thought were worth a darn, so I decided to jump in," he said. "I think I have some creative ways to take care of McCleary and the education gap."
The lieutenant governor is responsible for succeeding the governor and serves as president of the state Senate.
Penor said he'd like to bring more development to Bremerton National Airport and make it a hub of educational activity.
Manchester Democrat Paul Nuchims is among five challenging incumbent Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, to represent the Sixth District in Congress.
SHARE Sprecher and Zietgiest Gallery, Nashville/special to the news sentinel This oil and inkjet on canvas by Knoxville artist Jered Sprecher is called "Way." Joshua Bienko/Special to the News Sentinel Jered Sprecher This oil-on-canvas by Jered Sprecher is called "A Plane is a Pocket in the Corners of the Mind." Sprecher and the Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson, N.Y./special to the news sentinel Sprecher and Zietgiest Gallery, Nashville/special to the news sentinel Jered Sprecher's 6-by-10-foot "Respiro" is oil on canvas.
Artist Jered Sprecher is an associate professor in the University of Tennessee School of Art. A native of Lincoln, Neb., Sprecher got his bachelor of arts degree from Concordia University in Nebraska and his master's of fine arts from The University of Iowa. His work has been exhibited in numerous galleries, and his solo exhibitions have been shown at galleries in New York, San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles. In 2009 he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Most recently he was artist-in-residence at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas.
Sprecher answers questions about his art and himself in the News Sentinel's May Artist Spotlight.
When did you realize you wanted to be an artist?
"In high school I was busy taking mathematics, English, science, history and other academic classes. My mom kept saying 'Jered, you always loved to draw, why don't you take an art class?' The next semester I took an art class with Sue Bolton. The curriculum was just as challenging and as rigorous as all of the other courses that I was taking. It was fun and it was serious at the same time. From that point on, art kept gaining momentum in my life. My first semester of college I thought I would get a degree to teach history, literature or art at the high school level. By the end of that semester, I knew I wanted to be an artist. I realized that being an artist meant I needed to integrate and see the connections among all these other human endeavors."
In three sentences, describe your work.
"I am an artist who works in painting, drawing and installation. My work is concerned with the images and objects we make as human beings and the longing to communicate that is often embedded in those things. Most recently my abstract paintings have drawn upon the light that emanates from digital screens as well as photographs of birds, flowers and other conspicuously beautiful or picturesque imagery."
What's your favorite color and why?
"Gray. Because it is a chameleon. If you put it in the right situation you can make gray look like it is any other color. You can make it look blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and purple."
What do you know now about your work that you wish you had known when you began?
"That it is OK to not know what you are doing You just keep working hard to try and figure things out and then be comfortable as you discover there are always more questions than answers. That is the exciting thing about life and art. You have to be patient, to listen, to look."
Finish this sentence: "When buying supplies for my work, I can't resist picking up just one more.....
" ... tube of oil paint."
Vacation time! Money's no object. Where are you going and why?
"I would love to visit some blue icebergs, like the ones at Sermilik fjord near Greenland. Whenever I see photos of blue icebergs, each one looks so majestic and ethereal. I want to see them with my own eyes."
What music or song do you always play too loudly in the car?
"Funny, when I am in the car, I am usually talking with (wife) Christine and the kids. (The couple has three sons.) The music I have been listening to in the studio is Kamasi Washington's 'The Epic.' He played at the Big Ears Festival and was absolutely amazing."
It's been one long day and you need some comfort food for dinner. What's on your plate?
"Fish tacos or tacos al pastor."
What sound can always make you smile?
"My sons laughing."
What word or phrase do other people use to describe you?
"Thinking and Feeling."
What's your favorite quote from a film or book?
" ' I want to overhear passionate arguments about what we are and what we are doing and what we ought to do. I want to feel that art is an utterance made in good faith by one human being to another. I want to believe there are geniuses scheming to astonish the rest of us, just for the pleasure of it.' From Marilynne Robinson, The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought."
Amy McRary, amy.mcrary@knoxville.com
SHARE Bryan Cranston portrays President Lyndon B. Johnson in a scene from "All the Way," premiering at 8 p.m. Saturday on HBO.
By Frazier Moore, Associated Press
For five seasons of "Breaking Bad," Bryan Cranston displayed his versatility through the dramatic evolution of his character, Walter White, from milquetoast schoolteacher to meth-marketing monster. But that was just a warmup for "All the Way" (premiering at 8 p.m. Saturday), an HBO film adapted from the Tony Award-winning Broadway play that calls for Cranston to embody the almost moment-to-moment volatility of its larger-than-life real-life hero, President Lyndon B. Johnson.
"He was big, he was small. He was boisterous, he was laconic. He was embracing, he was cold," marvels Cranston. "The polemic of his personality was just unbelievable."
But Cranston's performance in the film is much more than an acting exercise. "All the Way" is a full-bodied portrait of a flawed yet overpowering political force, an unrivaled sweet-talker, arm-twister, bully and, above all, horse trader who mastered, as few have, the clattering contraption of Washington governance.
The film travels the rocky road that led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, with LBJ finessing the clash of activism led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. versus hidebound members of Johnson's own Democratic Party as, at the same time, he furiously fought to hold on to the presidency against his '64 Republican rival, Barry Goldwater.
Cranston had made his Broadway debut with "All the Way" a nervy challenge he couldn't say no to once he read Robert Schenkkan's script.
"It's all about the story," Cranston explains, "how this man ascends to power under great tragedy, and then, a Southern guy, changes how we treat African-American citizens and other minorities in this country."
He threw himself into research, reading books, visiting key sites (including Johnson's Texas ranch and his presidential library in Austin) and meeting with people who knew him, including his two daughters.
Even before he opened at the Neil Simon Theatre in March 2014, a film adaptation was in the cards. Then, during the four-month engagement that would win him a Tony, he settled on his next project: starring as blacklisted screen writer Dalton Trumbo. Jay Roach (whose credits include HBO political dramas "Game Change" and "Recount") was signed to direct.
A year later, in late summer 2015, Roach and Cranston re-teamed to film "All the Way" (with Schenkkan bringing his play to the screen).
It was a comfortable transition for all concerned. "Bryan had not only inhabited the character for so long," said Roach by phone, "he had also thought in great depth about what mattered in each scene, in each MOMENT, really. On this film, like 'Trumbo,' I almost forgot he's an actor, even though he's so freaking good."
"The character was already in my bones," agrees Cranston, "so it was like putting on that jacket you haven't had on in months: It just feels good and comfortable and well-worn."
The chameleonic Cranston vividly recalls the tragedy that put Johnson into office more than a half-century ago.
As a 7-year-old, "still self-centered, as children are," he was rocked by the awful bulletins on TV, and even more so by his parents' response: "My mother broke down and wept and my father was hugging her. Here, for the first time, something very important was happening that didn't center on me. For me, it was a turning point. And Johnson became the first president that I came to know."
Johnson's saga (which also will be brought to theaters later this year in the Rob Reiner-directed film "LBJ," with Woody Harrelson in the title role) is all the more compelling now, in the current political climate where head-butts and intransigence, not constructive reform, is the protocol.
"Johnson knew that in a negotiation, both sides have to feel they've come away with something: 'What I give you might hurt me a little bit, but you want it and I need YOU.' Now it's so polarized, with politicians refusing to give an inch," says Cranston.
Knox County Criminal Court Judge Steve Sword during the murder trial of Norman Eugene Clark, accused of killing his girlfriend, Brittany Eldridge, and their unborn son. Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2015. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL)
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By Jamie Satterfield of the Knoxville News Sentinel
A Knox County judge on Friday refused to put the brakes on a controversial and legally untested policy of prosecuting repeat shoplifters as burglars.
The decision by Criminal Court Judge Steve Sword directly contradicts a ruling by General Sessions Judge Patricia Long in the same case, ensuring the new policy by Knox County District Attorney General Charme Allen will continue unimpeded and that an appellate court will ultimately decide whether the strategy is legal.
Allen last year enacted a policy of filing burglary charges against shoplifters who commit new thefts at stores that already had banned them because of prior thefts. The policy came at the behest of Walmart and a handful of other chain stores. Burglary of a business is a felony. Shoplifting is a misdemeanor.
No other jurisdiction in Tennessee and few in the nation have sought to classify as burglary an entry of a business that is open to the public 24 hours a day. In the handful of cases Knox County assistant public defenders Jonathan Harwell and Sarah Parker unearthed nationwide in a motion to dismiss their client's case, such a move was deemed unconstitutional.
In the case Friday, Belinda Kay Vincent was accused of shoplifting $24 worth of merchandise from a Walmart on Walbrook Drive in August. Five years earlier, she was caught stealing from a Turkey Creek Walmart. The store gave her a letter warning that if she returned to any Walmart store, she would be charged with trespassing, a misdemeanor. The letter did not mention a burglary charge as a consequence.
Prosecutors TaKisha Fitzgerald and Phil Morton contend a provision of the burglary law in Tennessee makes a person a burglar if that person goes into a business "without the owner's effective consent." That provision makes no mention of whether the business must be closed. But Harwell and Parker argue a preceding section of the same law clearly states a person commits burglary when, without permission, he or she enters a building "not open to the public." A store such as Walmart wouldn't qualify, they argue.
Long agreed at a hearing in September.
"There is confusion even among the judges," Parker said Friday. "If our own judges don't know what constitutes (burglary), how is Ms. Vincent supposed to know?"
Harwell argued there is no evidence the state Legislature intended the burglary law to cover entry of an open business.
But Morton countered the Legislature could have used the words "not open to the public" in each section of the burglary law but did not. Without those words in the particular section of law Allen is using to justify the felony charge, prosecutors, he said, are legally correct in labeling repeat shoplifters banned from Walmart as burglars.
"They need to be making their argument to the Legislature," Morton said.
Sword agreed with Morton.
"I don't care what the state Legislature intended to pass," he said. "I only care what the state Legislature passed. Simply just because the district attorney here started prosecuting under this statute doesn't make it vague."
Sword and Long are former prosecutors, although Long also served as a defense attorney. Sword said he was not troubled by his disagreement with his lower court colleague in the Vincent case and suggested the policy was much newer when Long made her decision. After Long dismissed the burglary charge, prosecutions successfully convinced a grand jury to reinstate it.
Sword recently presided over the first trial by jury involving the policy. A jury convicted that defendant of burglary.
Tennessees upcoming tourism news is consolidated for your convenience below. For a complete list of Tennessee events, visit tnvacation.com/calendar.
Ongoing
Nashville Receive reciprocal, half-off admission to see Macchine Italiane: A Tour of Italys Motoring Spirit through Oct. 9 at Lane Motor Museum and Bellissima! The Italian Automotive Renaissance, 1945-1975 through Oct. 10 at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.
Nashville Neil Simons classic Rumors runs through June 5 at Chaffins Barn Dinner Theatre.
May 21
Nashville Styx with the Nashville Symphony perform their classic hits 8 p.m. CT at Ascend Amphitheater.
Nashville Celebrate World Whisky Day with the whiskey of the month, Virgil Kaine Ginger Infused Bourbon at Embers Ski Lodge in Nashvilles 12South neighborhood.
May 21-29
Jonesborough Sense & Sensibility is Jane Austens classic novel performed on stage at the Jonesborough Repertory Theatre.
May 22
Chattanooga Mountain View Bluegrass provides foot-stomping music all day at Chattanooga Market.
May 21-22
Elizabethton Nearly 200 living history persons reenact the 1776 Siege of Fort Watauga at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park.
May 23
Cookeville The 28th annual Run for the Wall motorcycle event, honoring veterans, POWs/MIAs, makes Cookeville a major stop in their cross-country route to Arlington with more than 300 riders arriving into town 4:30 p.m. CT down Jefferson Avenue.
Jonesborough The live show of local stories, I Didnt Join, I Was Drafted takes place 7 p.m. ET at the International Storytelling Center.
May 24
Nashville The Grand Ole Opry salutes the 75th anniversary of the USO with a red carpet arrival and special show featuring Trace Adkins, Charlie Daniels Band, Lee Greenwood, the Oak Ridge Boys and more 5:45 p.m. CT at the Grand Ole Opry.
May 25
Nashville Join winery production winemaker Bill Anton and assistant winemaker Laura Cypress as they take a look at basic winemaking and advanced techniques 6 p.m. CT at City Winery.
May 26-29
Crawford The Spring Music Festival: Americana Roots Music, Camping & Arts Festival features music by Guy Marshall, Little Johnny Kantreed, Hackensaw Boys, Barstool Romeos, Wild Ponies, Charly Horse, Jimmy Davis and more at Jammin at Hippie Jacks.
May 27
Nashville Zoovie Nights kick off with the showing of Minions beginning at sundown at Nashville Zoo.
May 27-28
Lewisburg Festival on the Rocks BBQ Cook-off Competition is filled with barbecue, cooking and competition at Rock Creek Park.
May 28
Memphis International Blacksmiths Day is features blacksmithing demonstrations 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. CT at The Metal Museum.
May 28-29
Brownsville Exit 56 Blues Fest is two days of live music from the porch of the last home of blues legend Sleepy John Estes at the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center.
May 28-30
Shiloh A concert, artillery demonstrations, special exhibits,ranger-guided tours and a Memorial Day service take place at Shiloh National Military Park.
May 29
Jackson Touch a Truck Day invites guests to explore police cars, limousines, helicopters, firetrucks and more at Fairgrounds Park.
May 30
Memphis Fans of Star Trek celebrate its 50th anniversary with the showing of Star Trek First Contact, Star Trek 2009, and Star Trek into Darkness 4 p.m. CT at The Pink Palace Family of Museums.
May 31
Nashville The Music of Elton John with Michael Cavanaugh & the Nashville Symphony is presented 7:30 p.m. CT at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.
June 1
Bristol, TN/VA Learn about Vintage Base Ball from Adam Alfrey of the Knoxville Holstons Vintage Base Ball Club 6:30-8 p.m. ET at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum.
Lewisburg The new Bonjour Boutique opens for business beside Tillis Jewelry on the Lewisburg Square.
June 2
Collierville The 2016 Sunset on the Square Concert Series kicks off with Wolf River Rednecks on Main Street in downtown Collierville.
June 2, 3
Memphis Kick off the 2016 Summer Movie Series with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 7 p.m. CT June 2 and Beverly Hills Cop 7 p.m. CT June 3 at The Orpheum Theatre.
June 3
Collierville The next outdoor family-friendly movie is Minions as part of Movie Mania at Carriage Crossing.
Knoxville Enjoy music by The Tallest Man on Earth 7 p.m. ET at the Bijou Theatre.
Memphis Peter and the Starcatcher, based on the novel by Dave Berry and Ridley Pearson, comes to the stage through June 26 at The Circuit Playhouse.
Nashville Brew at the Zoo includes animal encounters, live music, local food trucks and 100 craft beers on tap 6:30-11 p.m. CT at the Nashville Zoo.
June 4
Dover Take a day trip to Fort Donelson National Battlefield with the Tennessee State Museum departing 7:30 a.m. CT and returning approx. 4:30 p.m. CT from the Tennessee State Museum on Charlotte Ave. and 10th Ave. North.
Red Boiling Springs The Red Boiling Springs Folk Medicine Festival features old-time medicine and natural healing, arts and crafts, and live demonstrations 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. CT in downtown Red Boiling Springs.
Union City Beloved characters Peg + Cat spend a day visiting guests at Discovery Park of America.
June 5
Knoxville Sturgill Simpson performs 7 p.m. ET on the U.S. Cellular Stage at the Bijou Theatre.
June 8
Nashville Marty Stuarts Late Night Jam welcomes country music stars 10 p.m. CT at the Ryman Auditorium.
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The mission of the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development is to motivate travel to and within Tennessee by inspiring enjoyment, creating memories, producing a desire to return, and establishing key long-term relationships that result in visitors becoming residents. The promise of Tennesseethe birthplace of the blues, bluegrass, country, gospel, soul, and rock n rollis to be the global music destination of choice. To deliver an unparalleled experience of beauty, history, and family adventure, infused with music that creates a vacation that is the Soundtrack of America. Made in Tennessee.
Chief Justice Sharon Lee, center, and the Tennessee Supreme Court's Indigent Representation Task Force listen to Blount County Public Defender Matthew Elrod during their stop at University of Tennessee College of Law Friday, May 20, 2016. At right is Susan Kay professor of law at Vanderbilt Law School. They are hearing from those interested in sharing thoughts about representation for those who are accused of a crime and unable to afford an attorney. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL)
SHARE The Tennessee Supreme Court's Indigent Representation Task Force member Dean William Koch questions Sevier County Public Defender Ed Miller during their stop at University of Tennessee College of Law Friday, May 20, 2016. They are hearing from those interested in sharing thoughts about representation for those who are accused of a crime and unable to afford an attorney. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL)
By Jamie Satterfield of the Knoxville News Sentinel
The chairman of a state task force created in the wake of a failed effort to convince legislators to shell out more money for attorneys protecting the legal rights of the poor has already labeled as "dead on arrival" any future bid for funding.
"I mention this only to help you understand that there is no chance no chance that the General Assembly will agree to appropriate more money to fund the current system," retired Tennessee Supreme Court Justice William Koch wrote in a letter obtained by the News Sentinel. "Thus, any proposal to increase the current appropriation for the purpose of increasing the hourly rate paid to private attorneys appointed to represent indigent criminal defendants is and will continue to be dead on arrival."
Letter from Indigent Representation Task Force Chairman William Koch
The letter prompted its recipient, attorney Christopher Seaton, on Friday to call a "listening tour" by the state Indigent Representation Task Force "a sham."
Koch, now dean of the Nashville School of Law, readily admitted his assessment in an interview after a Friday stop of the task force at the University of Tennessee College of Law, but he countered the task force is no sham.
"The Legislature is not going to pay money for the same old thing," Koch said. "We haven't, in the last 30 years, looked at (the process of providing legal services for the poor) holistically."
Tennessee Supreme Court Chief Justice Sharon Lee agreed.
"I think we are looking at the overall system," Lee said. "I personally think the rates should be increased but that's a Band-Aid. We need to look at the overall system. How can we more efficiently and effectively provide this service?"
Tennessee's pay for private attorneys to represent poor people accused of crimes $40 an hour for out-of-court work and $50 in-court with caps ranging from $500 to $5,000 is the lowest in the nation except Wisconsin. That state doesn't impose caps, though. Even expert witnesses garner more hourly pay than do court-appointed lawyers. The rates haven't been raised in more than two decades.
The Tennessee Bar Association has pushed in recent years for a boost, but the Legislature has spurned it while, at the same time, creating new criminal laws and increasing penalties for current laws. As speaker after speaker at Friday's packed meeting and Koch himself noted, most legislators view poverty-stricken defendants as criminals, so boosting pay rates for their attorneys is a tough, if not impossible, sale.
In October, the Legislature approved the creation of the task force. Members have been touring the state to hear from interested parties and also gathering data on the entirety of the court system civil and criminal of providing legal representation to the poor. The state currently provides $36 million to the effort. That includes $19 million for criminal representation. The rest goes to civil issues.
The state has a public defender's office system, with separate funding. Each judicial district has such an office, which is supposed to mirror the prosecution side of the courtroom with attorneys, investigators and support staff. Those offices also struggle with funding issues, evidenced by comments Friday by Knox County Public Defender Mark Stephens and 4th Judicial District Public Defender Ed Miller, whose district covers Sevier, Jefferson, Grainger and Cocke counties.
Private attorneys are needed to handle those cases the public defender's office cannot, such as a drug conspiracy involving several defendants or a case in which a witness was once a client.
Unlike prosecutors, whose appeals are handled by the state attorney general, public defenders must handle their own appeals, increasing workload and decreasing time spent with new clients. Lee and Koch voiced support Friday for a separate appellate division to allow the poor to receive the same level of legal representation on appeal.
Another idea voiced Friday was the elimination or, at least, a revamping of the bail bond system in which the accused must fork out to a private company 10 percent of whatever bond is set to gain freedom pending trial. Some counties have successfully used a pretrial release program, complete with monitoring, to ensure an arrestee comes to court, but such programs are a rarity. A defendant who shells out money to a bondsman has less cash to afford a lawyer.
"Get rid of the bail bonding system in the state of Tennessee," attorney Herbert S. Moncier said. "A person should (not) be required to choose between their right to liberty and the right to an attorney."
Lee said she supported a review of that system.
Koch said the task force hopes by year's end to present to the Supreme Court a set of proposals "that are reasonable," educate the Legislature on the need for adequate funding and provide the best means of "delivering services to the indigent, both the civil and criminal parts."
Knox County Schools Superintendent Jim McIntyre (WADE PAYNE/SPECIAL TO THE NEWS SENTINEL)
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By Don Jacobs of the Knoxville News Sentinel
Knox County Schools Superintendant Jim McIntyre on Friday canceled contracts with Mayes Bus Lines, citing service issues.
The company says the move could end a student transportation business that had spanned 60 years.
Letter sent May 20 to co-owner of Mayes Bus Lines terminating Knox County Schools contract.
"Unless we can convince them otherwise, and I don't think we can, I guess we'll just sell the buses one by one," co-owner Darrell Mayes said Friday.
McIntyre on Friday notified Kara Mayes, also a co-owner of the family business, of his decision. The termination of six routes officially takes effect Monday.
Darrell Mayes said the company provided transportation to Halls and Powell high schools and Copper Ridge, Brickey-McCloud and Adrian Burnett elementary schools. He said his father started the business and as a Powell High School student drove a bus carrying his fellow students at the beginning and end of each school day.
The superintendent outlined in the letter shortcomings of Mayes Bus Lines that were first discussed in February 2015 with Kara and Chris Mayes. Because of "service failures associated with the nine school bus routes" Mayes had then, McIntyre decided to terminate one route.
McIntyre said he "expected your company to implement necessary actions to ensure that all of the remaining eight service assignments operate as scheduled every instructional day." The Friday letter noted he explained then that termination of Mayes Bus Lines' contracts was a potential consequence if further problems arose.
More issues surfaced Sept. 2, McIntyre wrote, when school officials confirmed "two school buses without current inspection stickers" were carrying students. The next day, McIntyre revoked two routes from Mayes Bus Lines, leaving the company six active contracts.
Since then, school officials have received "numerous reports related, but not limited to, service failures, inconsistent schedules and inappropriate driver interactions with students, parents and staff for the 2015-2016 school year," McIntyre wrote.
The letter did not provide specifics of the allegations.
Darrell Mayes said the school system has accused the company of "numerous instances that's untrue."
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"Seems like they're just picking on us," he said. "It seems they just want to give our routes to someone else."
Darrell Mayes said the family was not told whether the company could seek Knox County contracts at any time in the future. Schools spokeswoman Melissa Tindell said she was unable to address that question.
McIntyre said a school system representative would contact the company Monday to arrange for the removal of seven mobile radios and 14 video recording systems on Mayes' buses. The superintendent noted in the letter the bus contract states the bus owner is responsible for any lost, stolen or damaged equipment.
Each radio is valued at $650 and each video recording device is worth $300 with depreciation, McIntyre said in the letter.
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By Richard Locker of the Knoxville News Sentinel
NASHVILLE Gov. Bill Haslam may face a big job selling a fuel tax hike to state lawmakers next year but about half of Tennessee voters are already with him on the issue, the new Vanderbilt University Poll indicates.
The survey of 1,001 Tennessee registered voters found that about half of the respondents are willing to pay between 8 and 16 cents more in taxes per gallon if the proceeds are spent on roads and bridges, as state law already requires.
Tennessee last raised its gasoline tax in 1989, to the current 21 cents per gallon. The governor went on a statewide tour last summer to publicize what he says is a need for more transportation funding. In the face of opposition by Republican lawmakers, he did not propose a tax increase this year. But he has said he likely will in 2017, or else the state's roads and bridges and by extension, the state's economy will suffer.
Vanderbilt pollsters alternately asked one-third of those surveyed whether they would be willing to pay an 8-cent per gallon increase, another one-third about 12 cents more and the remaining one-third about 16 cents more. And 46 percent said they would be willing to pay 8 cents more; 52 percent said they would not. Those numbers were reversed for a 12-cent increase: 52 percent said they would support it but 46 percent said they would not. And 47 percent would support a 16-cent increase; 51 percent would not.
"Instead of asking voters if they support a tax or not, we got specific in terms of possible policy proposals that would be relevant to voters," said Vanderbilt political science professor Josh Clinton, the poll's co-director. "We split the sample up and gave each voter one question about whether they would support or oppose a tax at various levels.
"There continues to be support for funding transportation projects across the state. As to whether it's 8 cents, 12 cents or even 16 cents, nearly a majority of registered voters in the state would support such a proposal," Clinton said.
In the last Vanderbilt Poll in November, pollsters asked about different levels of increases and 66 percent said they'd support a 2-cent-per-gallon increase, 54 percent would support an 8-cent hike and 46 percent would support a 15-cent increase.
"It's kind of consistent, even though gas prices are a little higher now than they were back in November," Clinton said. "There's still, you could say, kind of robust support among nearly half of registered voters for some kind (of transportation tax increase) and whether its 8 cents versus 16 cents doesn't seem to make that much of a difference."
The Vanderbilt pollsters called people across the state on land lines and cellphones from April 25 to May 11 and released their findings Thursday. The poll's overall margin of error is plus or minus 4.2 percent.
In other findings on state issues:
Fifty-nine percent favor a bill similar to what the legislature approved this year that allows full-time employees of the state's colleges and universities who have handgun-carry permits to carry guns on campus. Thirty-nine percent oppose the bill, which the governor allowed to become law without his signature.
Voters were split on the controversial bill that designated the Bible as the "official state book" of Tennessee, which lawmakers approved but Haslam vetoed after the state attorney general opined that it was unconstitutional. Forty-seven percent of respondents said they agreed the bill was unconstitutional and 47 percent said it was not.
But when pollsters asked about the bill in a more nuanced way, the results were varied. Twenty-nine percent said the bill "would not have violated the constitution and would not have made light" of the Bible as sacred text. Twenty-six percent said it would have violated the constitution and would make made light of the Bible. Seventeen percent said it would have been unconstitutional but would not have made light of the Bible. And 12 percent said it would not have violated the constitution but would have made light of the Bible. Thirteen percent said they didn't know.
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I belong to the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society. BASS is a very large international organization that holds bass fishing tournaments throughout the United States. These tournaments can be seen on ESPN, usually on weekend mornings.
I don't fish the big national trail (Elites) because of the time it takes to learn all the waters from California to Vermont. Also, I own a large company and can't afford the time it takes to turn pro. I am a weekend angler who belongs to my state's (Massachusetts) amateur division of BASS called the Massachusetts BASS Nation.
Every state, plus Canada, South Africa, Spain and other countries have a division (my word) called "Nations" that are all affiliated with BASS. This equals thousands upon thousands of fishermen who fish in local tournaments that qualify us to compete in the first step in an entry into the BassMasters Classic.
The Classic is the most important fishing event in the world, bar none. It is the World Series of bass fishing, and the winner approaches millionaire status through winnings and endorsements. That first step is called the divisionals. There are four divisionals held throughout the United States. On May 4-6, the BASS Eastern Divisionals were held on Douglas Lake in East Tennessee.
Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Ontario, Canada, all sent 20-man teams to this Tennessee lake. About 32 percent of the United States and a large section of Canada were represented.
Most of us arrived early so we could practice on a lake that we had never seen. I arrived on Thursday, April 28, which means that I had five days to practice before the tournament began on May 4.
Until this trip, I had never fished in any Southern waters. The farthest South I had "wet a line" was the Potomac River (the farthest North is the Saint Lawrence Seaway). I have been fishing in tournaments since 1978. I have been on just about every major waterway from Maryland to Canada and from Maine to New York. In all of those lakes in all of those states and in all of those rivers in all of those states, I have never experienced or seen a body of water as disgusting as Douglas Lake.
There are pictures showing me fishing in an area of trash that is about 75 feet wide by 60 feet long. Another photo shows a TV floating amid an area of trash And, yes, another area shows a hot tub floating in a cove. Almost every cove and there are hundreds is strewn with trash heaps. There are logs, but these logs have no bark, which means they have been there for years.
The lake has bottles, both glass and plastic, floating everywhere. Without exaggerating a single percent, there must be more than 3,000 bottles floating. And can you imagine if all of this is floating, what has sunk and is sitting on the bottom from one end of this large mountain lake to the other?
If Douglas Lake were located in the Northeast, they would shut it down to all public access. The lakes in the Northeast are pristine and clear as gin. I cannot imagine living on this lake. I saw many very expensive homes, but it is obvious that the people living in these homes couldn't care less about the image their backyard presents to the world. Most lakes in the Northeast, even the small ones, have lake associations that care for them. I guess the Douglas Lake Association is more concerned about. Sorry, I don't know what they are concerned about.
If Douglas Lake represents the image of Tennessee, then Tennessee, your image is a dump.
Ray Lentine is a business owner and fisherman from Oxford, Massachusetts.
Here's a quiz. Rank the following presidents by how much they expanded the territory of the United States: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Polk, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.
It's a trick question.
Washington ranks only if you give him credit for the 13 original colonies, an area of 892,135 square miles. But the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, six years before he became president.
Lincoln, likewise, is a top 5 contender only if you say he added the Confederacy about 750,000 square miles which, of course, was subtracted during his term, too.
Jefferson might be the popular pick for No. 1. His Louisiana Purchase, 827,987 square miles, has gotten great press through the years.
But the leader, far and away, was Polk. During his term the United States added Texas, 389,166 square miles; the Oregon Territory, 286,541 square miles; and the Mexican Cession, 529,189 square miles. Those 1,204,896 square miles had the makings of Texas, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada, Utah, most of New Mexico and Arizona, and hunks of Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Oklahoma and Kansas.
(Fellow Tennessean Johnson contributed Seward's Folly, aka Alaska 591,000 square miles.)
Known as "Young Hickory" as opposed to "Old Hickory," Andrew Jackson Polk has languished in his mentor's shadow. Even last month, when the Senate passed a bill to study the preservation of Polk's home in Columbia, Tenn., the big news of the day was the plan to demote Jackson on the $20 bill.
No question, Jackson was a giant of American history. He won the Battle of New Orleans, invaded Florida, fought the "corrupt bargain" battle with Henry Clay, established the "spoils" system, and founded what became the Democratic Party.
Polk, on the other hand, was a just a smart lawyer and political insider before his presidency. He got elected to Congress and became Speaker of the House, then ran for governor, winning once and losing twice. He had his hat in the vice presidential ring at the 1844 Democratic convention. But then he became the nation's first "dark horse" candidate for president, winning the nomination on the ninth ballot.
Still, he might have been a better president than Jackson.
Old Hickory stomped out South Carolina's first bid to secede during the Nullification Crisis. But he also signed the Indian Removal Act, sending the Cherokees down their Trail of Tears, and torpedoed the Second Bank of the United States, helping trigger the Panic of 1837 and a national depression.
Young Hickory annexed Texas, fought and won a war, made peace by buying California and the Southwest for $15 million, and cajoled England into splitting the Pacific Northwest. He established the Naval Academy and the Smithsonian Institution and created the Department of the Interior. He even addressed the banking mess by setting up an independent U.S. Treasury.
He did it all in four years, sticking to his promise to be a one-term president. Sadly, retirement didn't agree with Polk. He died of cholera 103 days after leaving office.
He remains, though, a Tennessean to be remembered.
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President Barack Obama will visit the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan, next Friday. He is the first sitting president to visit the site where the first atomic bomb was used in war. His visit is a positive step forward, but a very small one.
I live in Oak Ridge, where the uranium used in the Hiroshima bomb was enriched. I extend a personal invitation to Obama to come tour the community that helped end the deadliest conflict ever seen by mankind. A visit would be a huge step forward toward national recognition of these ignored Manhattan Project workers.
The distance from Washington, D.C., to Hiroshima is around 7,028 miles. The road from the White House to Oak Ridge is 509 miles. Oak Ridge is the shorter journey, but the harder road to travel for any American president. Hiroshima requires sympathy for the suffering of the Japanese; Oak Ridge demands the president praise, celebrate and honor the Manhattan Project workers.
The decision to bomb Hiroshima has always been controversial, and because of that, American hearts and minds have been closed to the Oak Ridge story. It is a national tragedy. Obama can, with a single visit, fix this injustice of history.
Oak Ridge is one of the great untold stories of American history. The Manhattan Project was extraordinary because of what it achieved in such a short time under impossible conditions. We have forgotten what was at stake in the war. The loss of American life during World War II would equal a 9/11 attack every five days for three and a half years. The carnage was unimaginable.
Over 75,000 workers came flooding into a new town still under construction. The purpose of the complex was top secret. Only a tiny handful of scientists knew they were creating fuel for a weapon that would change the world forever.
Officials were successful in keeping the project secret, but two aspects of the project were out in the open for every worker to see. The scale was unlike anything the workers had ever seen, and the speed was breakneck and unrelenting. From the time the government bought the raw, undeveloped farmland until Japan surrendered was a month shy of three years.
In 1943 there were 800 students in area schools; two years later there were over 8,000. One of the largest bus systems in the country was created to ferry workers between the dormitories and the industrial plants. A bus arrived or departed the main bus terminal every 60 seconds, 24 hours a day.
Filtering weapons-grade uranium demanded massive amounts of electricity. Oak Ridge consumed 10 percent more electricity than New York City. New York had 7.5 million residents: Oak Ridge, 75,000. Even seven decades later, the story of Oak Ridge reads almost like science fiction.
Because Manhattan Project workers are linked to Hiroshima, their work and sacrifice has been ignored or condemned by a judgmental nation. We assume if we honor the workers we also celebrate the bombings. This is absurd, but it is a tragic truth. Politicians and military leaders made a wartime decision to use a new weapon, and in turn we have condemned the workers for the decision of our leaders. How does this make sense?
While in Hiroshima, Obama can witness and reflect on the atrocities of war. When he returns home he must visit Oak Ridge and pay tribute to these ignored heroes of World War II. Going to Hiroshima will take empathy. Traveling the shorter journey to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, will take courage.
Richard Cook is the author of "Ignored Heroes of World War II: The Manhattan Project Workers of Oak Ridge, Tennessee."
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A look at recent events in the news that pleased us ...
Brick by brick: Gov. Bill Haslam joined construction industry leaders on Wednesday in launching a marketing campaign called "Go Build Tennessee" to encourage high school students to consider careers in the building trades.
The program will use an array of media, public relations and outreach efforts targeting students as early as junior high to consider careers as boilermakers, carpenters, electricians, electric linemen, equipment operators, iron workers, masons, plumbers and pipe fitters, welders and other trades.
Haslam said that for every five skilled tradesmen about to retire, only one new worker is in the education, training and apprenticeship pipeline to replace them. And he said the construction industry is expected to grow 22 percent over the next decade.
R&D development: The first private tenant has agreed to move its operations to the Cherokee Farm Innovation Campus in Knoxville. Civil & Environmental Consultants Inc. said this week that it would construct a 45,000-square-foot building at the site.
Cherokee Farm is the only research-and-development park in the Southeast affiliated with a research university, the University of Tennessee, and a national research lab, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
New inn: An Atlanta-based developer has submitted a proposal for a $43 million, 232-room Residence Inn and Courtyard Marriott hotel at the vacant lot on Church Avenue between Gay and State streets. The nine-story hotel will offer 88 full-suite rooms with kitchenettes under the Residence Inn brand, along with 144 conventional hotel rooms under the Courtyard Marriott brand.
The lot was home to the News Sentinel before the newspaper moved to the Mechanicsville area in 2002. Paramount acquired the property in 2012 for $1.1 million.
Unintended consequences: Eliminating the state's Hall income tax would not only remove millions of dollars from Knoxville's budget, but it could have other unintended consequences including threatening the bond ratings for cities across the state Knoxville Finance Director Jim York warned City Council members on Tuesday.
York said the Hall tax repeal presents challenges because no one has addressed how to replace the lost revenue. On Friday Gov. Bill Haslam signed the bill aimed at reducing and ultimately repealing the tax on interest and dividend income.
Mayor Andy Berke invites the community to join him tomorrow at 11 a.m. in the Chattanooga Get Fit Challenge for a fun hike up to the overlook at Old Bell Avenue Trailhead at Stringers Ridge, the 92-acre urban wilderness park just minutes from downtown Chattanooga.
Mayor Berke and participants in the Get Fit Challenge will explore one of the largest natural areas within city limits that boasts spectacular scenery and views of the Tennessee River and downtown. The group will get to see how close the urban wilderness is to the heart of Chattanooga and learn how to easily incorporate a day hike into a weekend.
Mayor Berke will lead the hikers up to the Stringers Ridge overlook, and there will be additional options for avid hikers to explore some of the parks more moderate to strenuous trails before everyone returns to the trailhead. It will also be an opportunity for the public to get to know the new Chattanooga Outdoor Ambassadors, a multicultural, multilingual group that is leading adventures and introducing more people of all backgrounds to the outdoors.
The hike is a family-friendly event, and its National Kids to Parks Day, which is an initiative from the National Park Trust encouraging future generations to discover and enjoy the nations open spaces. Even four-legged family members are welcome - Stringers Ridge is dog-friendly.
Directions
From Chattanoogas NorthShore head toward Red Bank on Cherokee Boulevard. Just before the Red Bank Tunnel, turn right on Old Bell Avenue. Then, take an immediate left at 790 Old Bell Ave. where the trailhead starts (Nikkis Drive-In will be on your right, across from the trailhead).
Parking
Trailhead and parking are across Old Bell Avenue from Nikki's Drive-In (located just before you go through the Red Bank Tunnel). On-street parking is also possible along Old Bell Avenue.
For more information visit http://connect.chattanooga.gov/getfit.
By Choi Sung-jin
More than 8,000 Chinese visitors enjoyed "samgyetang," or ginseng chicken soup, at a park alongside the Han River earlier this month, which might be worthy of mention in The Guinness Book of World Records.
Korean agents of the five-day incentive tours for the executives and employees of the Joy Main Group, a Chinese multilevel marketing firm, also organized excursions for them to royal palaces, shopping malls and souvenir shops, and estimated the economic impact of the tours to be 49.5 billion won ($41.5 million).
Government officials, central and local, as well as distribution businesses are trying hard to create "second and third Joy Main examples."
The question arose, however: Were the tours worth all the hubbub?
For starters, the Seoul Metropolitan Government footed the bill of 250 million won for the much-touted samgyetang party with taxpayers' money. During their five-day stay, the Chinese tourists visited major attractions in the capital city, including a design complex, floating islands, a folk art district, royal palaces, a theme park on the city's outskirts, shopping malls and duty-free shops.
They had up to two hours of free time at each stop but the economic effects of their shopping were concentrated on duty-free shops. Other shops on their itinerary even suffered losses, as Koreans avoided these places for fear of them being overcrowded. A riverside restaurant operating near the place of the samgyetang party, for instance, remained almost empty because more than a hundred local guests canceled their reservations.
A neighboring convenience store, which had built up its inventory to meet the expected surge in demand, saw its sales plunge 80 percent from the previous day, as organizers set up a barricade around the party site, blocking access to the store not only to Chinese tourists but to Korean visitors as well.
The Chinese tourists hardly opened their wallets in the Insa-dong cultural district, either, walking past cosmetic shops and street stores. "Typically, Chinese tourists have bought cosmetics up to 800,000 won per customer, but few Joy Main employees did that while they were here," said the owner of a Face Shop store. "I guess they all rushed to the duty-free shops."
Chicken and beer are the Chinese tourists' favorite snacks, thanks to a famous Korean TV drama. Few chicken restaurants around hotels where the Joy Main people were staying, however, rung up much in sales. "Tourists in large groups seldom spend at places other than those included in their itinerary," the owner of a chicken restaurant complained.
On the other hand, a few malls and duty-free shops hit the jackpot. Lotte Duty-Free Store, for instance, recorded sales of 20 billion won in just two days. "Given that these employees received cash incentives from their company, we had estimated that each of them would spend about 3.3 million won on duty-free shopping," said a Lotte official. Shilla Duty-Free Store also registered a sharp sales increase but stopped short of revealing any concrete figures.
Doota, a fashion mall in Dongdaemun (East Gate), also enjoyed a 30-percent sales increase through careful preparations by, for example, giving discount coupons exclusively to Joy Main visitors and securing large parking lots in nearby facilities.
By contrast, a souvenir shop at Imjingak, which provides a glimpse into North Korea through a telescope, recorded two-day sales of a meager 560,000 won.
"There are two groups of Chinese tourists those who spend money and those who don't," a tour agent said. "Tourists who come in groups of 20 or more belong to the latter." Equally stingy are those who visit on incentive or free tours, he said, adding that the case of the Joy Main employees was no exception.
In response to the mounting skepticism about the "Joy Main effect," a Korean organizer attributed it to insufficient time. "Tourists need more free time to shop, but the recent tour was full of official events' that they were pressed for time."
By Choi Sung-jin
"Can we order a pizza at home and receive it from a drone?" To this question, a government official replied, "In most cases, no," at a recent government- private sector meeting on deregulation to foster new industries.
Of course, a pizza parlor can fly a drone and deliver a pizza with it. According to regulations, however, the pizza-carrying drone should remain within the visible range of its operator. The pilot has to follow his drone, worried it might spiral down. Nor can the pizza parlor accept orders at night and deliver them to their customers with drones.
All this reflects concerns about the government's optimistic expectations about turning the industry into a new growth engine by relaxing regulations on flying drones, industry officials said.
In the Cheong Wa Dae meeting Wednesday, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said it would allow the use of drones for most sectors except for those related with public safety and national security, would make it easier to foster operating manpower and lower the entry barriers for new applicants. The ministry expects the industry to create 31,000 jobs and add 12.7 trillion won ($10.6 billion) to the economy.
The industry welcomed the move, of course, saying various regulations have hampered the growth of this new enterprise that has great potential, and expressed hope that the government will come up with various policy supports.
Others are more skeptical about the government's goal, however, saying that such excessive illusions about commercial drones will surely turn into disappointment.
Above all, drones can hardly replace the existing home delivery system in operation.
The current mode of using motor vehicles is far more advantageous given Korea's domestic geographic conditions and residential structure focusing on high-rise apartments, the critics said, adding that up to 70 percent of the delivery demand is concentrated in Seoul and the surrounding area of Gyeonggi Province. In Korea, national delivery in almost all cases is routine and inexpensive from Seoul to Jeju Island by the following day by conventional means, reducing the effectiveness, if not the necessity, of delivery by drone.
Add to this the safety problems, weight of parcels, confirmation of parcels delivered, delivery costs and retrieval of drones after delivery, and drone delivery service becomes far trickier than previously imagined, they said.
"Drone enthusiasts in the United States are quite eager to introduce commercial drone delivery because they maintain it will be effective in rural areas where distances are vast and there are few high-rise buildings," said an industry executive. "In Korea, there is not much need for drone delivery except perhaps in some mountainous areas or to remote disaster scenes that might be difficult to reach with motor vehicles."
An expert agreed. "Drones are mostly powered by batteries, and their average travel range still remains short with most of them unable to fly for more than an hour depending on the weight of the parcels they would carry and weather conditions," said a university professor wanting to remain anonymous. "I have the impression that the government is bent on promoting only the positive aspects of drones without realistic considerations."
Contrary to the government's explanations, many regulations also remain in place. For instance, drone flights are prohibited beyond visible range, in densely-populated areas, at night and near airports and other important state facilities. The government plans to allow flights under these conditions on a limited basis after verifying safety problems but is yet to unveil criteria for such verification.
Safety problems have not been solved even in countries with advanced drone technology and infrastructure, the experts said. Drones often crash, no matter what country they operate in, and controversies remain about the infringement on privacy by photo-taking drones, expensive operating costs and the possibility to be abused as military weapons, they said.
By Park Si-soo
An unseasonable spell of hot weather is expected to continue through this weekend with the daytime high reaching 33 degrees Celsius in Seoul and the surrounding area on Saturday, according to the national weather agency.
The heat wave will continue to grip the Korean Peninsula through Sunday, the agency reported, adding that it will recede with a round of rainfall on Tuesday.
The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) has issued heat wave advisories in Seoul and seven locations in Gyeonggi Province on Friday, the first warning of this kind issued in May. KMA issues an advisory when the midday temperature is forecast to reach 33 degrees Celsius or higher for two consecutive days.
"It's an unprecedented warm spell for May," Lee Hyun-soo, a KMA official, said, comparing it to the data collected for May since 1994. "We think that this weather condition stems from migratory high atmospheric pressure. Also I think that global warming is partly to blame for the heat wave."
The Ministry of Safety and Security advises the elderly and small children to avoid outdoor activities during the daytime and to take care of their health -- it also recommended they drink plenty of water.
The government is also concerned about a surge in energy consumption as people tend to increase their use of air conditioners during the heatwave.
By Choi Sung-jin
"I feel scared and frightened, too. But we must not avoid riding taxis or using public restrooms. We should be able to work late at night, enjoy alcohol if we want to and exercise our rights 100 percent as workers and taxpayers."
So said a woman in her early 30s to hundreds of people gathered in front of a department store in Shinchon on Friday. She was one of the dozens of impromptu speakers at a "street filibuster" for stopping violence against women, organized by Womenlink, a group working to protect women's rights.
It was one of two such gatherings in Seoul, the other near the Gangnam Subway Station where a psycho and self-professed misogynist stabbed a 23-year-old woman to death, Tuesday, who was a total stranger to him.
The crowds at the street filibusters, mostly women and some men ranging in age from their 20s to 50s, shared the experiences of how it is to live in Korea, how they "fear" and "survive" in this society, a considerable part of which ignores even hates the other sex.
A woman in her late 20s recalled her experience as a high school student. "On my way home from school one time when I was riding the bus, a man grabbed a part of my body and then went on his way. I knew his behavior was not right but was too scared to tell others about it." Another woman said, "When I was 12, I used a public toilet and was caught by two men reeking of alcohol. I barely escaped but have since been unable to go to a public restroom or walk at night."
Most of the speakers said they were not only victims but often targets of criticism. "People say that immoral women roam around at night and go to dangerous places,'" one speaker said. "Are women not allowed to even go out at night?"
The female participants comforted one another and encouraged all women to be more courageous.
"When I have watched the news of women getting killed through sexual violence, I felt as if I had been killed, so I make it a rule to wear only pants and long-sleeved shirts," another woman said. "But I don't want to give up my work, and don't want to give up wearing short skirts and putting on red rouge."
Most women said they have long felt these unfair, even hostile, social trends but it seems as if they have now found their "language" to express themselves because of the unfortunate, grisly murder.
"Whether the suspect is mentally ill or not is not important in this incident. What matters is women who have suffered from social discrimination and deep sense of unrest almost daily are about to find a social context of response," said Professor Lee Na-young of Chung-Ang University. "This process itself should open the gate for changing public consciousness about the hatred of women."
By Park Si-soo
North Korea has proposed holding a working-level meeting with South Korea in late May or early June in preparation for high-level military talks, Pyongyang's state media said Saturday.
The North's National Defense Commission made the proposal, said the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
"We propose to hold working-level contact for opening (the two Koreas') military authorities talks at the date and place both sides deem convenient in late May or early June in a bid to defuse military tension and create confidence-building atmosphere between the military authorities of North and South Korea," KCNA said in an English dispatch.
The U.N.-sanctioned state has recently ratcheted up effort to resume inter-Korean dialogue following the country's recently concluded ruling party congress, during which its leader Kim Jong-un tightened his grip on power.
During the congress, Kim said there is a "need to fundamentally improve North-South relations," adding the North won't use nuclear weapons unless the country's sovereignty is violated.
Early this week, Kim Ki-nam, vice chairman of the Workers' Party, called on South Korea to come forward to have sincere talks.
South Korea on Friday rejected the North's offer for military talks, saying Pyongyang should first take concrete steps toward denuclearization.
"The Seoul government maintains a firm stance that denuclearization steps should be a top priority when it comes to dialogue with North Korea," South Korea's defense ministry said.
The South called the North's proposal a "propaganda ploy" that lacks sincerity at a time when North Korea claims it is a nuclear state.
South Korea on Friday called on North Korea to end its nuclear and missile programs as Seoul marked the 100th day since shutting down the joint industrial complex in the communist country.
Seoul shut down the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the North's border city of the same name on Feb. 10 in response to Pyongyang's January nuclear test and long-range rocket launch in February.
The decision came amid concerns that money generated from the factory zone is bankrolling the North's nuclear and missile programs.
Seoul's unification ministry said that the closure of the complex reflects the government's resolute decision to take into account national security.
"We urge North Korea to suspend its nuclear and missile provocations and show its sincere commitment toward denuclearization," Jeong Joon-hee, a ministry spokesman, told a regular press briefing.
Hamilton Countys Read 20 Program is dedicated to creating a strong community of readers by promoting the importance of reading with children at least 20 minutes a day or more, officials said.This year, eight elementary schools participated with 1,417 students reading above and beyond what is expected within the course of a school day; reading one million or more words during the 2015-2016 academic year.The 2015-2016 Millionaire Reader Recognition will be presented to the students, parents, and faculty of Ganns Middle Valley Elementary on Monday at 8:30 a.m."This spring Ganns MV Elementary will celebrate the success of 100% of their student body for reading independently or with a committed adult outside the school classroom instruction. The students and their families have made concerted efforts to read a minimum of 20 minutes or greater every day for the entire academic year. These students and their families are engaged in their education by making reading every day," officials said.The Scotty Probasco Literacy Award is being awarded to Ganns Elementary with a check of $10,000 from private donors to be used for resources in their new library.Officials said since 2006, Read 20 has distributed over 960,980 books (valued at $1,162,785.80). The Read 20 program has interacted with over 528,158 children (facilitating over 28,158 hours of read aloud interaction with children), confirmed at least 47,401 adults reading with children every day and provided resources and training for 2,669 teachers in area schools and early child care facilities.
Firsts in the Scripture ought to capture our attention. We should pay close attention to those things occurring first in the Biblical record. Acts 2 records the first sermon after the coming of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, Peters message to those present in the upper room constituted the first sermon to the newly birthed Church. Peter focused on the evidences that Jesus was exactly who He said He was. Peter concluded the sermon by telling his hearers that they had crucified the long-awaited Messiah. Acts 2:37 records their response, Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do?" (NASU) A sermon ought to pierce the heart of the hearers. They ought to ask what they should do.
Acts 2:38-46 records the first response to the first sermon to the newborn church.
Several actions are listed. Repent is the first thing. Without an admission of guilt and a turning from the guilt-producing crimes, there will be no salvation. Following repentance, one ought to be baptized thus giving a graphic illustration that the person is publicly identifying with Jesus, particularly in the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord. One ought to recognize the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. One ought to recognize the fact that his crimes against God and humanity have been forgiven based on the sacrificial death of Jesus.
Acts 2:42 records a second list of longer-term actions, They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (NASU) Proper response to sermons must include a willingness to submit to Biblical instruction. We must submit to being instructed in the Word, in fact we ought to be continually devoted to being instructed. This might be more difficult than one might imagine. Often, we do not want to hear what the Word has to say because it is critical of us. Furthermore, being a hearer of the Word only is not enough. We are called to obey it. A proper response to a sermon will also involve being continually devoted to Christian fellowship. Certainly joining a fellowship (church) is part of the proper response but that is not enough. One ought to be actively engaged on many levels (in many ways). There must be a strong sense of belonging to this institution/organism that God has ordained to be the dwelling place of God and the very Bride of Christ.
A proper response to a sermon will include a deep desire to participate in church love feasts (fellowship meals) as well as the Lords Supper where Christs death on the cross is specifically remembered. There will be no apathy or lackadaisical attitude toward congregational fellowships. A proper response to a sermon will include a continual devotion to prayer. Isaiahs and Christs declaration that Gods house will be a house of prayer will be a reality. Steadfastness in prayer will be realized. Acts 2:46-47 gives one last response as well as an affirmation from the Lord, They were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. (NASU) Happiness in the Lord and in each other is a proper response to a sermon. It seems that a happy church is one to which the Lord is pleased to daily add people.
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Montgomery County prosecutors plan to pursue a death penalty for a Mexican citizen who is charged for the shooting death of a man on the day after he is accused of killing four people in Kansas.
Prosecutors submitted court papers Friday saying they will seek capital punishment for Pablo Serrano-Vitorino if he's convicted of first-degree murder for the shooting death of Randy Nordman on March 8 at that man's home in New Florence.
A judge last week ordered Serrano-Vitorino to stand trial in that case. Arraignment is scheduled for June 1.
Serrano-Vitorino also is accused in Kansas of killing a neighbor in Kansas City, Kan., and three other men at the neighbor's home on March 7.
An attorney for Serrano-Vitorino did not return a phone call seeking comment on Friday.
It has been a couple of years since the Chattanooga community, in its finest hour, built a beautiful house in one frantic but fun week for Army Sgt. Andrew Smith and his young wife, Tori. Hundreds of volunteers gathered in Apison for this Wounded Warrior and, when the front-door keys were presented, grown men openly wept.
Andrews legs were blown away by a bomb on his first patrol in Afghanistan and the look on his face when he and his wife first saw the house showed an immediate transfer from helpless to hope. It was simply spectacular.
Tomorrow afternoon another set of keys will be handed over to a United States Marine in the tiny community of Speedwell, Tn. It is fully expected to be the biggest thing that has happened in Claiborne County, which butts up against Kentucky in the upper eastern part of the state, since the biggest hotel in the United Sates opened its doors in 1892. Seriously, an eccentric Englishman built a 700-room hotel in nearby Harrogate that was four stories high, had a lobby that was 75 feet square, and a dining room 160 feet long.
The complex was lavish. It included a hospital, a sanitarium, and a renowned saloon called The First Chance Last Change. The only problem was that folks had no easy way to get there and, with a staff-guest ratio of 15-1, the hotel would have been a bigger flop than it was had not Lincoln Memorial University been borne on the exact spot after the hotel and a saloon were dismantled.
The fact that nobody could get to rural Claiborne County back then was hardly lost on anyone this week as firefighters (read a huge crowd of New York Citys finest who saved thousands during 9/11) from all across the country joined patriots, friends and others from the Great Volunteer State to build a handicap-accessible house for Lance Cpl. Cody Evans and his mother. Today at 1 oclock Cumberland Gap will have its finest moment and, curiously, Chattanooga will be right there.
After so many delighted in Andrew Smiths christening the new house as he and Tori gleefully fired automatic assault rifles into a bank outside the house (Whoo-WAH!), a foundation was shared by the Smith family, Honoring The Sacrifice that helps our service men who have lost limbs due to IEDs.
At last years banquet nine Wounded Warriors shared in the glory of the night, two who had lost both their arms and legs. The Wounded Warriors, to the man, had such an invincible spirit and such a positive outlook on life that the banquet was quite successful. Earlier this week, Andrews dad Todd Smith took Marty Woody and a carload of others to Speedwell to lend their expertise and experience.
The Smiths also took a chunk of Honor the Sacrifice donations in honor of Lance Cpl. Evans and his mother. They are basically a poor Cumberland Gap family and the house will totally change their lives, said an organizer, while Cody, a Marine I remind you, said, Ive never seen the effort like these people put out. That was accented by the fact at 1:00 o'clock one early morning this week there were 100 people painting, caulking, digging in bushes, installing electricity and goodness knows what else.
It is the most humbling thing that I will ever know, he added for a Knoxville TV crew while his mother, Regina, admitted she was taken aback when firefighters started arriving from every part of the nation. I cant begin to describe how proud I am of my country.
The Honoring the Sacrifice Foundation has just announced Lt. Col. Allen West, a 22-year veteran of the Army and now a well-known columnist, will be the speaker at this years banquet on July 15. Because last years event was totally sold out, this years event will be held at the Chattanooga Convention Center.
As the foundation has grown, weve been fortunate in helping more severely-wounded warriors than we had hoped, said spokesman Marty Woody, and this summers banquet with Col. West should be our biggest ever. We have invited more Wounded Warriors than before because they get such a thrill out of it but what they feel is nothing compared to what those who support them feel."
For me, Woody added, it is almost like Christmas!
Sponsorships, table reservations, and contributions can be made by visiting www.honoringthesacrice.org Those desiring further information can email info@honoringthesacrice.org and those wishing to use a mailing address may write to the foundation at P.O. Box 21806. The foundations telephone is 423 910-9129.
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You have never lived until you have almost died, and for those who chose to fight, life has a special flavor the protected will never know. Capt. R. S. Kirti Chakra.
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The SLFP does not condone the continuation of the Emergency Regulations (The Public Security Ordinance) more than a day necessary
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I don't know that I ever bought into the issue of whether or not Mr. Obama was born in Kenya or not. But I must say he sure does give a lot of food for thought with his decisions that give the look of a third world country dictator. Here are just a few examples.
1. Healthcare that costs twice as much as it used to, that is a documented fact.
2. The Iran nuclear deal that now shows deceit in the way it was proposed.
3. Transparency or lack thereof.
4. A bathroom policy that apparently applies to the voters, but not the politicians and their families. I dare say that most husband and wives are saying, "Not with my children or grandchildren, you're not."
Ron Ray
Lookout Valley
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I think you're right about all of these "facts". I'm also pretty sure that Obama's Kenyan father helped us fake the moon landing back in 1969 - another "documented fact".
Lonnie Hatmaker
Chattanooga
PRESS RELEASE
9/11 Families Lash Out at Saudi Campaign of Lies
May 20, 2016 (EIRNS)The Anglo-Saudi empire is in a desperate flight forward to block the release of the 28 pages and the passage of JASTA, which has the potential to blow open the entire top-down London-Riyad control over global terrorism.
In the past 24 hours, the Saudi government has produced and circulated to every Member of Congress a 104-page white paper claiming to document the key role that Saudi Arabia is playing in combatting terrorism worldwide. The Saudi document, exposed today in Politico, prompted an immediate response from attorneys Sean Carter and Jack Quinn, who represent the 9/11 families in their ongoing lawsuits against prominent Saudis. After citing the Politico story, the attorneys assailed the Saudi document as more whitewash than white paper, noting that the Saudi chronology of the so-called anti-terror actions began years after the 9/11 attacks. The statement quoted from the very paragraph in the 9/11 Commission report that the Saudis claim exonerated them of any role in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, which stated
This conclusion does not exclude the likelihood that charities with significant Saudi government sponsorship diverted funds to Al Qaeda.
The letter noted that 9/11 Commissioners Sen. Bob Kerrey, Navy Secretary John Lehman, Congressman Tim Roemer and Richard Ben-Veniste have all made clear that the Commission report did not, and did not intend to, exonerate the Saudi regime.
The letter concluded by blasting President Obama:
What is absolutely clear is that the victims and families have no recourse whatsoever to the Executive Branch of government at this time. Only the courts can help them discover the truth of 9/11 and only the enactment of JASTAif necessary by an override of the presidents vetocan ensure that the courts are available to do just that.
In another obvious British-Saudi put-up job, Anthony Cordesman, the top Gulf expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), penned a disgusting report, dated May 19, headlined Dealing Fairly with a Key Ally: Releasing the 28 Pages. In that paper, Cordesman picked up on the same fraudulent claims that were first made by CIA Director John Brennan on Meet the Pressthat the fact that mid-level Saudi officials were tied to the 9/11 terrorists does not necessarily implicate the Saudi Royals or the Saudi regime as a whole.
Releasing unvalidated material out of context, he wined, raises critical issues in terms of both U.S. relations with a major ally, and in the fairness of any such release.
While Cordesman acknowledges he has not seen the 28 pages, he nevertheless described the pages as unvalidated material, unvalidated charges and conspiracies, and conspiracy theories.
The Cordesman rant was actually a brief summary of a longer draft report he posted on the CSIS website, going into greater detail in defending the Saudi role as a key U.S. ally and partner in the War on Terrorism.
PRESS RELEASE
NATO About To Start Next Phase of Libya War
May 20, 2016 (EIRNS)Gen. Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters en route back to Washington from Brussels, that the United States could begin combat operations against the Islamic State in Libya in days. During meetings with other NATO officials, Dunford confirmed that the Alliance was awaiting a formal request from the recently-installed Libyan Government of National Accord to send combat forces and weapons into the country to battle ISIS. Dunford confirmed that there will be a long-term mission in Libya.
The pending Libya operations by NATO was a topic of discussion at the NATO foreign ministers meeting on Thursday and Friday. That session also agreed on plans to escalate NATO naval operations in the Mediterranean to deter new refugee flows into Europe, and it ratified the formal invitation to Montenegro to join NATO. Montenegro is the first country since 2009 to be formally invited to join the Alliance, and the Russian government immediately issued a statement denouncing the action as a further provocation against Moscow.
PRESS RELEASE
Sochi Declaration Highlights Economic and Security Cooperation between Russia and Association of South East Asian Nations
May 20, 2016 (EIRNS)Following the ASEAN-Russia Commemorative Summit held at Sochi on May 19-20, the participating heads of state and government have issued a declaration that emphasizes stronger economic linkages and joint efforts to develop a reliable and open security architecture for the Asia-Pacific region, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a news conference, the Kremlin website reported.
Cooperation in these fields is
"based on the principles of equality, mutual benefit and shared responsibility to promote peace, stability, security, prosperity, economic growth, sustainable development and social progress in the Asia-Pacific region with a view to working towards a strategic partnership,"
the Declaration states.
Plans for deepening economic interaction in 2016-2020, include steps to develop cooperation in trade, investments, finance, energy, industry and mineral resources, transport as well as tourism and socio-cultural areas. Oil and gas, electric power, energy efficiency, civilian nuclear energy, and renewable energy to enhance energy security; promote cooperation in agriculture, ensuring national and regional food security, as well as the expansion of trade and investments in food products. Financing of joint infrastructure projects is to be expanded.
Space frontiers were not ignored. The nations agreed to "promote scientific and technological cooperation aimed at facilitating an innovation economy in areas such as aeronautics, bio-, nano-, and space technologies and medicine, and to
"explore cooperation through the transfer of technologies, joint technological research and development as well as capacity building in space technology and its applications."
The national leaders discussed the possibility of establishing a comprehensive free trade zone between the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and ASEAN, at their working breakfast meeting, and there was "unanimous support for this idea," President Putin told the concluding press conference.
Asked by a journalist if he knew what "our SCO partner, China," thinks of this initiative, Putin answered confidently:
PRESS RELEASE
Israeli Defense Minister Yaalon Resigns As Netanyahu Blows Up New Effort for Peace Talks with Palestine
May 20, 2016 (EIRNS)Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon announced his resignation at a press conference in Tel Aviv. He said he will also resign from the Knesset. Although he said was taking a break, he did "not intend to leave political and public life." On the surface the move is a dirty deal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to expand his coalition, bringing the rightwing-ethnic Israeli Russian Yisrael Beteinu party into the coalition and making its leader, former Foriegn Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the defense minister. Furthermore, Netanyahu aims at blowing up the initiative of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to get the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks restarted, which has the backing the United Nations Security Council.
Yaalon blasted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at his press conference, saying:
"In all my actions and decisions, I saw before my eyes the security of the state and its good above every other consideration....I found myself in difficult political arguments with the prime minister over core values.
"Senior politicians chose the path of incitement. Its unbearable that we should be divided in a lust for power. A position of leadership does not subject itself to polls and the prevailing public mood."
He continued,
"Fundamentalist influences have taken over Likud. This is not the same Likud that I joined. A spirit of fracturing is ruling the movement.
"I fought with all my strength against the phenomena of extremism, violence and racism in Israeli society that threatens our might and also permeates the [Israeli Defense Forces] IDF, and has already damaged it."
While it has yet to be decided, the appointment of Lieberman, who lives in a West Bank settlement, as defense minister, is nothing but a provocation to blow up any effort to get peace talks going, if not to actually get a new war started.
While Yaalon is far from a peace activist, he did oppose launching an attack on Iran. As one unnamed member of the Knesset told Ynet, "Weve lost a sane and sound voice within the insane and dangerous current right-wing government."
Napa is famous for superb Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Stone ales? Escondido-based Stone Brewing plans to open a tap room, restaurant and small brewery in a Napa landmark. Built in 1877, the 10,000 square-foot Borreo Building offers views of the Napa River and downtown.
The historic Borreo building is the perfect space for us to put down our roots in Napa, Greg Koch, Stone chief executive and co-founder, said in a statement. Not only is it literally made of stone, its one of downtowns most iconic links to the 19th century and a landmark thats been vacant for the past 15 years.
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A local brewery gastropub Napa Point had announced similar plans for the building in 2013. But Napa Point shut down in 2014. In March 2015, authorities said, its former owner, Robert Dahl, gunned down an investor among the grapevines in his vineyard a few miles away and then killed himself.
Koch, a regular visitor to Napa, first toured the property five years ago. After the Napa Point venture collapsed, Stone began preparing its bid.
This is the latest out-of-town venture for Stone, the countys largest brewery and the nations 10th-largest craft brewery. Besides its headquarters plant and bistro in Escondido and a similar operation in San Diegos Liberty Station, Stone operates stores and tasting rooms in Pasadena, San Diego, Oceanside and Richmond, Va.
Although a tasting room in San Diegos South Park neighborhood closed in 2015, this year Stone plans to open to open breweries in Richmond and Berlin. The latter will be the first German brewery owned and operated by an American company.
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These satellite operations span the globe yet fit a pattern, said Vince Vasquez, who studies craft beer at National Universitys System Institute for Policy Research.
As Stone expands its footprint, it does so in a complementary way, identifying key locations, said Vasquez, a senior policy researcher. Berlin and Richmond, you see the opportunities for visitors coming through.
I think the same thing is true of Napa. You have so many people coming through there.
Napa is already home to several craft breweries, the most prominent being Napa Smith. None, though, are as large or well-known as Stone, which last year produced 325,645 barrels. (Each barrel is 31 gallons.)
Plans for Napa include an outdoor patio with communal seating and fire rings. An on-site brewer will make beer in a modest 10-barrel system; the restaurant and tap room will offer Stone beers made on the premises and in Escondido.
Weve tried a few times to make something happen there, Koch said of Napa, and are thrilled to finally see it come to fruition!
peter.rowe@sduniontribune.com
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5:27 P.M. REPORTING FROM CANNES, FRANCE
I, Daniel Blake wins Cannes Palme dOr as a jury goes its own way British director Ken Loach with his trophy after winning the Palme dOr at the Cannes Film Festival. (Loic Venance / AFP/Getty Images) Its not always noted, but there are two Cannes film festivals, one composed of critics, journalists and industry professionals, and the other inhabited by the sequestered jury. Sometimes these two Cannes speak with one voice, but in this 69th festival, they definitely did not. The German film Toni Erdmann, directed by Maren Ade, one of the few women in the competition, was easily the non-jury favorite among the 21 films eligible for prizes. Both wildly raucous and movingly humane, it chronicles the evolving relationship between a prankster father and his high-powered careerist daughter. Far from winning a top prize, however, Toni Erdmann was totally shut out by the jury chaired by Mad Max director George Miller. Instead, the Palme dOr went to 79-year-old British filmmaker Ken Loach for I, Daniel Blake, the on-the-nose narrative of working-class folks getting the run around from an unfeeling government welfare bureaucracy. Read more
3:16 P.M. REPORTING FROM CANNES, FRANCE
Cannes: How George Millers jury got it wrong George Miller, president of the Cannes Film Festival jury, fourth from right, poses with jury members, from left, Arnaud Desplechin, Kirsten Dunst, Laszio Nemes, Vanessa Paradis, Donald Sutherland, Katayoon Shahabi, Mads Mikkelsen and Valeria Golino. (Thibault Camus / Associated Press) During a news conference after last years Cannes Film Festival awards ceremony, Joel Coen, co-president of the jury, responded to a question about why the Palme dOr had gone to Jacques Audiards tepidly received Dheepan, rather than one of the more acclaimed films in competition. Coens response was characteristically blunt: This isnt a jury of film critics. Indeed. And setting aside my own obvious bias in the matter, I can say that this arrangement is in theory, and sometimes in practice a good thing. We critics are often accused, sometimes rightly, of approaching our chosen art form with harsh scowls and highfalutin criteria at the ready, our judgments reflecting a profound detachment from the experience of the general audience, as well as of the artists who work hard to entertain them. At the same time, I would counter that Cannes, the greatest film festival in the world, has a mandate to honor the best in world cinema, which at times means pushing back against popular expectations. Theres also the fact that anyone who serves on a festival jury is, by definition, exercising critical judgment and making an assertion of personal taste. Some of the most satisfying Palme dOr winners in recent memory Amour, Blue Is the Warmest Color, The Tree of Life, and even a difficult work like Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives have demonstrated that its possible for non-card-carrying critics to make smart, aesthetically adventurous decisions. Theyve also demonstrated that honoring the art form and satisfying an audience are not mutually exclusive goals. There were a number of films in this years competition that managed to do both, perhaps none more brilliantly than Toni Erdmann, an alternately piercing and side-splitting dramedy from the German director Maren Ade, which premiered to rapturous acclaim early on and led the critics polls to the very end. Close behind was Paterson, Jim Jarmuschs exquisitely wrought portrait of the poet as a young city-bus driver (played by wait for it Adam Driver), which emerged as an immediate and unexpected high point in the American indie darlings career. And the competition ended on a strong note with Paul Verhoevens supremely sinuous Elle, starring Isabelle Huppert in a career-crowning performance as a woman who turns the tables not only on her rapist, but on the entire troubling subgenre of rape-revenge thrillers. Hayley Squires and Dave Johns in I, Daniel Blake. (Joss Barratt) None of these films won a thing. Instead the jury, led by the Australian director George Miller, awarded the Palme dOr to Ken Loachs I, Daniel Blake, an appreciably passionate, sometimes stirring yet excessively contrived and self-congratulatory drama about the ravages of poverty and unemployment in the U.K. Its a film that many in Cannes liked more than I did, and which drew widespread praise from British critics in particular, who can surely attest to the authenticity of its harsh depiction of their welfare state. But in handing Loach his second Palme (he won the first in 2006 for The Wind That Shakes the Barley), Millers jury, deliberately or not, wound up favoring an angry, relevant message rather than a great work of cinema. Loach inadvertently seemed to confirm as much when he noted in his acceptance speech that film is exciting, its fun, and as youve seen tonight, its also very important. Still, better for the Palme to have gone to Loach than to Quebecs Xavier Dolan, the 27-year-old world-cinema enfant terrible who pretty much horrified the press audience by inexplicably winning the runner-up Grand Prix for Its Only the End of the World. In my 11 years of attending Cannes I cannot recall a worse jury decision than this one. A badly shot, shrilly performed and all-around excruciatingly misjudged dysfunctional-family torture session that felt far longer than its 97-minute running time, World was by far the least endurable film in competition (and that includes Sean Penns dreadful but dreadfully entertaining The Last Face). Far inferior to the directors 2014 jury-prize winner, Mommy, the picture failed to win over even Dolans many fans, and I have counted myself among them on more than one occasion. The jury did honor excellent films elsewhere. The decision to split the director award between Romanias Cristian Mungiu and Frances Olivier Assayas was inspired; Mungius Graduation is a tense, beautifully structured and richly expansive morality tale framed and acted with his usual precision, while Assayas Personal Shopper, an eccentric supernatural thriller starring Kristen Stewart as a medium, was one of the festivals most successful and surprising experiments. Frankly, handing Mungiu and Assayas the top two prizes would have made for a more satisfying outcome. Along similar lines, I had hoped that Andrea Arnolds deeply enveloping road movie American Honey would garner something more than a jury prize the third such honor shes won at Cannes (after 2006s Red Road and 2009s Fish Tank). Given the advance the new film represents in terms of scope, ambition and achievement, Arnold surely rated more than another third-place mention this time around. Shahab Hosseini and Taraneh Alidoosti in The Salesman. (Habib Majidi / SMPSP) I cant begrudge the Iranian drama The Salesman its prizes for actor Shahab Hosseini and for writer-director Asghar Farhadis solid, well-carpentered screenplay. Nor can I dispute the effectiveness of the quietly stirring performance given by the Filipino actress Jaclyn Jose in Brillante Mendozas Ma Rosa, except to point out that it was chosen in a year with so many superb female performances including Sandra Huller in Toni Erdmann, Sonia Braga in Aquarius, Stewart in Personal Shopper, Ruth Negga in Loving, Huppert in Elle that struck me as fuller, richer and more resonant achievements. Asked about their decisions at Sundays news conference, Millers jury responded with the kind of diplomatic evasiveness that past Cannes juries have showed before them: There were so many fine films, it was a difficult decision, you cant please everyone, etc. My own sense, judging by their awards slate, is that they entered their deliberations with Ken Loachs buzzword importance ringing in their ears. By and large, their taste ran toward tales that focused on economic disparity around the world (I, Daniel Blake, Ma Rosa and even American Honey), or that examined human corruption under oppressive societal circumstances (Graduation, The Salesman). These are worthy causes to illuminate and, in some cases, worthy films as well. But after seeing all 21 movies in competition, I can attest that the 2016 Cannes Film Festival will not be remembered most for the films that trumpeted their importance (and self-importance) the loudest. It will be remembered for the gorgeous flurries of comedy and heartache in Toni Erdmann, which was acquired during the festival by Sony Pictures Classics and should put Maren Ade decisively on the international map. It will be remembered for the still but deep-running waters of Paterson, and for the high-wire interplay of terror, eroticism and provocation in Elle (and, for that matter, in Park Chan-wooks highly entertaining The Handmaiden). Is there no room, in the recognition of cinematic excellence, for movies that dont wear their politics or morality on their sleeve that touch less obvious, more nuanced chords? (Like, for example, the movies of George Miller?) That say a lot without raising a megaphone? That show that comedy is worth taking seriously? As Joel Coen noted, no, this is not a jury of film critics. But it should be a jury of artists with a less rigid, more sophisticated idea of what award-worthy cinema can and should be. And who can recognize a terrible Xavier Dolan movie when its staring them in the face.
7:14 A.M. REPORTING FROM CANNES, FRANCE
Cannes: With Elle, Paul Verhoeven makes noise, and another comeback French actress Isabelle Huppert and Dutch director Paul Verhoeven arrive for the screening of Elle at Cannes. (Anne-Christine Poujoulat / AFP/Getty Images) The movies opening may as well arrive with an on-screen statement. Loud shrieking lends the impression a couple is having sex, but the first sight is a close-up of a cat. Then the camera cuts to the source of the shrieks, and it turns out what sounded like love was actually an assault. Paul Verhoeven is baa-aack. Needling, absurd, sexual, kinetic all those adjectives apply to Verhoeven. The Dutch-born director has followed one of the more improbable career arcs in modern cinema from European obscurity to Hollywood heights to industry punch-line (Showgirls, anyone?), back to European acclaim. And then, finally, to silence. Now, after a 10-year feature-film hiatus, the 77-year-old has returned with one of his most provocative and unclassifiable films yet. It is vintage Verhoeven by not being vintage Verhoeven. Read more
6:18 P.M. REPORTING FROM CANNES, FRANCE
Cannes: Why Toni Erdmann could win the Palme dOr and other predictions Peter Simonischek in Toni Erdmann. (The Match Factory) Predicting the major prizewinners at the Cannes Film Festival awards that are handed out by a nine-person jury that changes annually, and whose individual reactions have been a complete mystery all festival long is a fools errand. But Ive never been one to let that (or my dismal track record) stop me. Here are my thoroughly whimsical, highly unscientific predictions for what will win the Palme dOr and other prizes from George Millers jury on Sunday evening. I am adhering to the festivals rules, which state that no film can win more than one prize (with the exception of the acting and screenplay awards, which can be paired for the same film). Palme dOr: Toni Erdmann. Maren Ades achingly funny, utterly surprising relationship comedy has been the dominant critical favorite of the competition, and the dominant critical favorite often wins. (Last years middlingly received Dheepan proved an exception to the rule, but other recent winners Blue Is the Warmest Color and Amour come to mind have borne it out.) It helps, too, that Toni Erdmann is a genuine crowdpleaser, packed with the sort of showstopping moments that make its lengthy 162-minute running time feel not just bearable but wholly earned. A win for Ade would not only be richly deserved, but also make her the first female director to win the most prestigious award in international cinema for the first time since Jane Campions The Piano tied with Chen Kaiges Farewell My Concubine. It would also be a nice feather in the cap of Germany, which hasnt been well represented at Cannes of late: The last German-directed films to win the Palme were Wim Wenders Paris, Texas (1984) and Volker Schlondorffs The Tin Drum (1979). Some potential spoilers: Julieta has not been rousingly received, but Pedro Almodovar is considered long overdue for a Palme, and affection for this beloved auteur runs deep. (Expect the film to win the Palme or nothing.) The two Romanian heavyweights, Cristi Puius Sieranevada and Cristian Mungius Graduation, were both well received and have passionate admirers. And Andrea Arnolds American Honey, the only other female-directed film in competition besides Toni Erdmann to have generated significant acclaim, might well emerge as a major challenger. Grand Prix: Sieranevada. Puius two-ton family epic screened on the competitions first day and has remained in the running ever since. Rumors that it was one of the festivals best films had long preceded its arrival on the Croisette, where they were roundly confirmed. Like all Puius films, Sieranevada rewards patience in spades; it takes some time, though not much, for the directors filmmaking mastery of character and dialogue, tone and style, framing and blocking to get its hooks into you. Graduation offers a worthy and more accessible alternative, but if the jury takes into account Mungius awards history (a Palme for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, screenplay and acting prizes for Beyond the Hills), they may be inclined to give this runner-up prize or the Palme itself to the other godfather of the Romanian New Wave. Jury Prize: Graduation. A total shot in the dark, especially since this third-place award could conceivably go to any film (or films) that the jury likes well enough. Even if both Romanian films emerge with big prizes, its not at all likely or certain that theyll be honored in this particular configuration, and the awards history I mentioned earlier could work against Graduation as well. But I have a feeling that the intelligence of the films construction, the seamlessness of the camerawork, the resonance of the storys moral inquiry and the emotional impact of the ending will make it hard for a jury not to recognize Mungius achievement somewhere along the line. Most of the films mixed notices have taken issue with its familiarity in the context of the directors work, but thats a complaint lodged more often by critics than jurors, who are often encountering a filmmaker or an entire national cinema for the first time. Sasha Lane in American Honey. (Protagonist Pictures) Director: Andrea Arnold, American Honey. Arnold has twice won the festivals jury prize (for Red Road and Fish Tank), and while her roving, ravishing, pop-and-adrenaline-fueled youth road movie was one of the festivals more polarizing entries, I suspect the jury might be more favorably inclined than not toward its outsized ambition. As noted earlier, Arnold could be in line for an even bigger prize, but her sheer display of formal chops here a decisive triumph of bold, jagged image making over thin-to-nonexistent narrative seems most likely to be rewarded in this category. Other possibilities: Ade for Toni Erdmann, and Alain Guiraudie for Staying Vertical, one of the competitions most likably eccentric titles and a master class in sustained, low-key dream logic. Actress: Sonia Braga, Aquarius. The years single most competitive category, and how refreshing is that? Isabelle Huppert gives an arguably career-best performance in Paul Verhoevens marvelously deft thriller Elle, but shes won this award twice already, and I imagine the jury may want to acknowledge someone new. Kristen Stewart holds you for every minute of Olivier Assayas spooky paranormal thriller Personal Shopper, but her presence in two films here (the other being Woody Allens Cafe Society) and her international stardom may seem reward enough. Sandra Huller is a knockout in Toni Erdmann, but assuming that film is bound for a bigger prize, as Im predicting, she wouldnt be eligible for this one. In a lesser year, I imagine Adele Haenel (the Dardenne brothers The Unknown Girl), Elle Fanning (The Neon Demon) and Sasha Lane (American Honey) would have been stronger candidates. Should the jury be inclined to honor a fresh face, they might well go with Ruth Neggas gently revelatory work in Jeff Nichols Loving. But in the end, I think this is Bragas to lose. Shes stupendous in Kleber Mendonca Filhos Aquarius, in which she plays a woman in her prime at 65, taking on corrupt developers and flaunting her blazingly intelligent, funny, righteous, dignified, sexy-as-hell presence in scene after scene. The chance to reward a veteran for one of her finest performances may be too much for the jury to resist. Actor: Adam Driver, Paterson. Pickings are slimmer where the boys are concerned, though the competition did turn up some excellent late-in-the-game options, courtesy of Adrian Titieni (Graduation) and Shahab Hosseini (Asghar Farhadis The Salesman), both giving nuanced performances as family men navigating slippery slopes into moral corruption. The British actor-comedian Dave Johns could be a favorite, too, for Ken Loachs I, Daniel Blake, in which he plays a down-on-his-luck carpenter railing against the bureaucratic tyranny of the British welfare state, and is always convincing even when the film goes into oppressively worthy Stations of the Cross mode. But amid all these talky, sometimes shouty performances, the quiet dignity of Drivers work in Paterson stands out all the more. Showing theres more to him as an actor than brash comedy and Kylo Ren, hes in the frame at almost every moment, and he commands the screen through sheer taciturn presence alone. This isnt a mopey performance or a self-consciously minimalist one; its a beautifully rendered study of a man trying, at every moment, to synchronize his rhythms with those of his environment. Driver won best actor at the Venice Film Festival two years ago for Saverio Costanzos Hungry Hearts; a second major festival prize would be well deserved. Screenplay: David Birke, Elle. Not in any way a confident prediction, and a writing award might seem odd for a film that is so clearly such a high-wire feat of acting and direction. But listen to just a few of the scintillating lines in Birkes surprisingly ambitious and gloriously unpredictable script (adapted from Philippe Djians novel Oh ), and the worthiness of this choice becomes very clear. Other contenders, assuming they dont win big elsewhere: the tidal wave of talk that is Sieranevada, the intricately nested wordplay of Paterson, the cleverly structured morality plays of Graduation and The Salesman, and the bravura loop-de-loop twists of Park Chan-wooks The Handmaiden.
12:54 P.M. REPORTING FROM CANNES, FRANCE
Cannes: Elle, with Isabelle Huppert, brings competition to a strong close Isabelle Huppert in Elle. (Guy Ferrandis / SBS Entertainment) The Dutch-born, Hollywood-friendly director Paul Verhoeven has a gift for bringing out the very best in his leading ladies, usually by forcing them to embrace the very worst. From Sharon Stones ice-pick-wielding femme fatale in Basic Instinct (1992), to Carice van Houtens Nazi-seducing Jewish resistance fighter in Black Book (2006), Verhoeven has always had fun playing with his heroines desires and desirability, allowing them to wield their sexuality with the kind of brazen self-assurance rarely accorded women on American screens. But he also likes putting them through the wringer, as evidenced by the hideously memorable image of van Houten covered in human excrement at once an act of degradation and the foulest sort of baptism. Not unlike Brian De Palma, another filmmaker who likes to skirt the boundaries of good taste, Verhoeven has inspired no shortage of gender-based arguments over the years: Whether his female characters are misogynist constructs or avatars of empowerment is a topic open to continual debate and reappraisal. That seems unlikely to change with his latest work, Elle, a breathtakingly elegant and continually surprising French-language thriller that brought the 69th Cannes Film Festival competition to a rousing close on Saturday. If the early reactions seem tilted in Verhoevens favor, its surely because this indecently entertaining provocation his first film since Black Book, and his first to compete for the Palme dOr since Basic Instinct seems to belong equally to the French actress Isabelle Huppert, who rises to the occasion with one of the greatest performances of her very great career. In Huppert, Verhoeven has more than met his match; he has found a stunning collaborator, an actress who brings flurries of wit and tremors of complication to the sort of material that, in less assured hands, might well have tilted into outright disaster. In Elle, Huppert plays Michele, a mother, a recent divorcee and a successful video-game company executive. We know none of these things about her, however, in the startling opening scene, in which she is sexually assaulted on the floor of her home by a masked intruder. The act is quick, brutal, and filmed with nary a hint of exploitation. Verhoeven doesnt seem to be trying to shock us; he merely seems to be dispensing with the nasty preliminaries, the better to get on with his slow and steady deconstruction of Micheles psyche. Most importantly, he doesnt make the mistake of assuming that being a victim is the most interesting thing about her. And victim, in any case, is hardly the operative word here. After sweeping up some broken crockery and taking a bath, Michele returns to her normal routine with eerie calm. In the days that follow, she bickers with her mother and her son, and clashes with her (mostly male) co-workers. She matter-of-factly informs her ex-husband and closest friends about the attack, quietly shrugging off their horror. She thinks about what happened to her, and what she might have done differently and when her attacker unexpectedly resurfaces, she contemplates what she might do next. I dont want to give away too much about Elle, the considerable pleasure of which lies in the steady unraveling of its secrets. (The beautifully constructed screenplay was adapted by David Birke from Philippe Dijans novel Oh ) Suffice to say that what seems at the outset like a standard-issue rape-revenge thriller gradually becomes something deeper: a subtle character portrait and a wickedly dry comedy of manners, in which the characters gender and power dynamics are continually being renegotiated, scene by scene. Even uttering the words comedy and rape in the same sentence, of course, immediately risks offending certain sensibilities. And while Verhoeven doesnt downplay or trivialize the trauma of sexual assault, he isnt afraid to suggest that Michele might respond to her attack in any number of difficult, troubling ways, not all of them wholly or purely negative. All in all, its hard to imagine Elle working without the poker-faced reserve of Hupperts mesmerizing performance: Always among the most steely intelligent of actors, she illuminates the mystery of Micheles identity, paradoxically, by holding her feelings in check. Huppert is no stranger to exploring the outer limits of sexual debasement, as she did 15 years ago in Michael Hanekes The Piano Teacher, which earned her the second of two best actress prizes at Cannes. No one who sees Elle will begrudge her for winning a third. You dont always understand what Michele is doing and thinking, but you cannot help but believe her, every delectably perverse step of the way. ***** Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem in The Last Face. (Kelly Walsh) Saving one of the competitions very best offerings for last was smart scheduling on the festivals part. It would have been even smarter had they spared us the embarrassment of Sean Penns atrocious The Last Face, which stars Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem as international aid workers falling in and out of love in war-torn Africa. Its astonishing, in this day and age and less than a year after Cary Joji Fukunagas scrupulous, superior Beasts of No Nation to encounter a movie that so blithely presents Third World atrocities as grist for a romance between two gorgeous movie stars. Its even more astonishing coming from Penn, who has done good work behind the camera before (Into the Wild, The Pledge), and whose own passionate commitment to humanitarian causes can scarcely be disputed. But again and again over the course of this 132-minute movie, that sincerity proves his undoing. Climaxing with a dreadfully teary-eyed speech from Therons character about how poverty attacks dreams, The Last Face is both hectoring and drippy, an interminably goopy romance and a fatuous humanitarian lecture. Deservedly laughed off the screen on Friday, Penns film immediately supplanted Xavier Dolans Its Only the End of the World as the worst-received title in competition; if its completely forgotten by next week, itll be a kinder fate than the film deserves. The late screening of Elle also served to put a provocative bit of punctuation on a program that has featured an uncommonly rich array of movies about women. Maren Ades Toni Erdmann, Andrea Arnolds American Honey, Olivier Assayas Personal Shopper, Park Chan-wooks The Handmaiden, Pedro Almodovars Julieta, Kleber Mendonca Filhos Aquarius, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes The Unknown Girl and, yes, Nicolas Winding Refns The Neon Demon its an altogether astounding lineup, and the fact that many if not all of them will be headed to American theaters serves as a welcome corrective to the glut of male-centric movies that, with a few heartening exceptions, tend to clog our cinemas year-round. In one of those peculiar threes-a-trend coincidences, Elle is the third film in nearly as many days in which the plot pivots on a vicious physical attack on a woman by a man. The other two are Cristian Mungius well-received Graduation and Asghar Farhadis solid if underwhelming The Salesman, which was acquired for North American distribution by Amazon Studios shortly before its unveiling on Friday in Cannes. The film is another of Farhadis characteristically thoughtful morality plays stemming from a series of dangerous, all-too-human misunderstandings: A woman in Tehran lets a man into her apartment, mistaking him for her husband; the accidental encounter leaves deep physically and psychological scars, awakening in her husband a wholly understandable yet all-consuming desire for revenge. Beautifully acted by its three principals (Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti and especially Babak Karimi), Farhadis movie is a grave inquiry into the many varieties of male aggression and the moral cost of punishing our enemies, especially those who turn out to be as pitifully, redeemably human as we are. Its title is a deliberate nod to Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman, a local production of which the husband and his wife are both performing in a peripheral metaphor that never quite satisfyingly merges with the bigger-picture drama. If The Salesman feels like a lesser achievement than Farhadis About Elly, The Past and his Oscar-winning masterwork, A Separation, it may be because it lacks the dizzyingly intricate craftsmanship of those films, which functioned like humanist detective stories: Ingeniously plotted and endlessly multifaceted, they were Hitchcockian thrillers by way of Jean Renoir. Nevertheless, the new films wrenching final moments ably confirm Farhadis standing as a dramatist of the first rank, an artist whose far-flung domestic dramas can make us feel painfully at home.
12:40 P.M. CANNES, FRANCE
Neon Demon director Nicolas Winding Refn brought his pulsating provocations to Cannes Nicolas Winding Refn is one of those directors who pushes buttons as much with his pronouncements as his work. In an interview with The Times at Cannes a few years ago for the polarizing Thai western Only God Forgives, he fashioned an elaborate metaphor out of the image of a birth canal then proceeded to compare it to sex. The Danes appearance at the festival this year has been no less needling. Refns Neon Demon played its first screening Thursday, and the movies hyper-stylized mashup of noir, fashion films and a host of other influences quickly became the most debated movie of the festival. In person, too, the artsploitation auteur wasted little time getting down to business as the self-proclaimed punk king of the global cinema world a comparison that became literal in one instance. He also dropped a dis track on a countryman. Here is a sampling of his comments from the Neon Demon news conference Friday afternoon. On the divided reaction to Neon Demon: If I dont split, what are we doing here? Creativity is about reactions. And reactions are the essence of experience. If you dont react, what are you doing here? Why would you waste your time? There are so many things in life you could do besides watch a film or TV show. Look at all the reactions you guys are having. Take it or leave it, but you cant deny it. On the punk-like quality of that last quote: I passed Iggy Pop on the way to rehearsal last night. Its like we took the trophy from him. On countryman Lars von Trier: Lars. Hes done a lot of drugs. Over the hill. The last time I saw Lars, he was telling my wife he wants to have sex with her. I told him to [bleep] off. So he found another slut. On his unlikely bit of casting: Just having Keanu with a knife at someones throat is the best. On feminism in his new movie: All the men are like the girlfriends in other movies. Because the women are the focus. The men represent certain approaches of fear, or control, or predatory behavior. On the unlikely connections between fashion, mortality and iPhones (theres a through-line in here somewhere): "Theres something very interesting about the digital revolution becoming a reality. Digital alters reality, so what you see is unreal which is death. Beauty and death are the same because theres nothing; its just the end of the line. Theres a dangerous possibility of this alternate world becoming a reality for our children because were not going to reverse the wheel. Its just going to get more and more." This is about, well, the thing that, you see...never mind, we cant really set this one up: The lesbian necrophilia scene is the essence of the film. We shot at the L.A. Morgue We had to sign a paper that if someone died, we had to leave. It escalated into a really intense necrophilia scene. [I asked actress Jena Malone] Can you stick your tongue in the mouth [ of the actor playing a corpse]? OK, thats great. Can you get more saliva on her? [He describes increasingly sexual acts.] And after that, we found the character. So now go with God. The lesbian necrophilia scene is the essence of the film. We shot at the L.A. Morgue. We had to sign a paper that if someone died, we had to leave. ... It escalated into a really intense necrophilia scene. And after that, we found the character. So now go with God. @ZeitchikLAT
7:12 P.M. REPORTING FROM CANNES, FRANCE
Cannes: The Neon Demon, Graduation and the curse of auteur expectations Elle Fanning in The Neon Demon. (Gunther Campine) How you approach the sick, ravishing object that is Nicolas Winding Refns The Neon Demon is entirely up to you. Nervy feminist provocation or misogynist freakshow? Hypnotic art piece or exploitative trash? Im still wrestling with it myself, and have not yet ruled out the possibility that it may be all of the above. Refn, who competed in Cannes years ago with the very good Drive (2011) and the very bad Only God Forgives (2013), has in some ways surpassed Quentin Tarantino as the filmmaker with the least shame or discretion when it comes to projecting his most demented fetishes and fantasies onto the screen. This is no small thing. For all the praise directors routinely get for the honesty of their visions, it can be galvanizing to encounter one who truly operates without a filter (except, of course, for whatever filter he uses to achieve those sizzling reds and cool blues in his gorgeously tinted widescreen images). A voluptuously arid, glacially paced evisceration of an industry that routinely leaches beautiful women of sustenance and soul, The Neon Demon stars Elle Fanning as a naive, fresh-faced 16-year-old beauty who moves to L.A. and becomes the sensation of the modeling world. This prompts her impeccably coiffed, nipped-and-tucked rivals to begin their (very) slow descent into murderous jealousy. The movie is Refns Black Swan, his Mulholland Dr., his All About Eve, his Death Becomes Her and his Suspiria rolled into one. Its got gold body paint, menstrual floods, cannibalism, lesbian necrophilia and Keanu Reeves. Its bewitching to behold, with its surreal strobe effects and static, fashion-shoot-style compositions, and bewitching to listen to, with its nightmarish synth-on-stilettos score by Cliff Martinez. Its banal, ludicrous, thuddingly one-note and once you adjust to its narcotic rhythms entirely mesmerizing. By the end I was aghast and, loath though I was to admit it, impressed by the terrible coherence of Refns vision. Others were less impressed, and not shy about making their displeasure known: It was clear, five minutes into the screening, that The Neon Demon was going to draw the loudest and longest boos of the competition though as is always the case with a movie willing to sink to such disreputable depths, the catcalls were answered by a blast of defiant applause. Itll be interesting to see how Amazon Studios, after such classy, well-received Cannes entries as Paterson and The Handmaiden, handles the marketing and release of this already critically derided oddity. If past festival scandales have taught us anything, its that hatred is usually far preferable to indifference. I bowed to no one in my contempt for Only God Forgives, which, a juicy performance from Kristin Scott Thomas aside, felt like a creative dead end from a talented filmmaker. Featuring a cast of beauties made to look like bulimic vampires, The Neon Demon may be no less the work of a director with his head (and camera) somewhere in the vicinity of his colon. But what a beautiful colon it is! And what intoxicating moods it produces! The movie builds to a silly, unforgettable image with a nice little sting of a visual punchline: In this debauched charnel house of a movie, beauty truly is, ahem, in the eye of the beholder. ***** Adrian Titieni and Maria Dragus in Graduation. (Mobra Films / Why Not Productions / Les Films du Fleuve) Neon Demon or no Neon Demon, this has been one of the most consistent, strength-to-strength competition programs in some time. For many, an estimable Palme dOr contender arrived Thursday in the form of Graduation, Cristian Mungius latest sobering glimpse into the cold, black heart of Romanian society. Such an outcome would make Mungiu a double Palme winner, as he won the festivals top prize in 2007 for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. (His 2012 follow-up, the arthouse exorcism drama Beyond the Hills, won Cannes prizes for acting and screenwriting.) Less galvanizing than 4 Months, but more complex and persuasive than Beyond the Hills, Graduation traces the welter of moral complications that arise when a high-school senior, Eliza (Maria Dragus), is attacked one morning; her injuries, though not serious, will make it harder for her to take her all-important final exam. Her father, a middle-aged doctor named Romeo (Adrian Titieni), unwisely decides to intervene, at which point this swiftly paced, scrupulously measured film becomes a blow-by-blow indictment of this man and his manifold hypocrisies. Those who know a thing or two about Romanian history may pick up on a subtext about the lingering aftereffects of the Nicolae Ceausescu regime and how they impacted men like Romeo, who pride themselves on their strict moral compasses but are at the mercy of desire and self-interest. But even those who bring no such background knowledge to the table will be held, I imagine, by the force and fluidity of Mungius storytelling, and by the richness of the moral dilemmas he confronts us with: Who wouldnt want to do the best for their children, and to spare them the cruel deprivations of an earlier generation? Dragus, a German actress, first came to international attention in Michael Hanekes The White Ribbon, and there is something of the Austrian directors chilly spirit suffusing Mungius characteristically gray palette this time around: With its tale of rocks being thrown through windows and startling, out-of-nowhere physical attacks, Graduation evokes the social paranoia of both The White Ribbon and Hanekes earlier Cache. But this is finally a gentler, more compassionate film than either; Mungiu may be a ruthless realist with no love for the grim regimes of despots past, but his final shot offers bracing assurance that children really are the future. ***** Nathalie Baye and Gaspard Ulliel in Its Only the End of the World. (Shayne Laverdiere / Sons of Manual) Compete at Cannes often enough and youll find that your biggest rival may be your own enviable track record. Graduation, although admired by many, also drew criticism from those who felt Mungiu was treading thematic water rather than breaking new ground. Ironically, the Romanian film counts among its producers the great Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, whose own competition entry, The Unknown Girl, came in for even worse knocks a day earlier most of them directed at the unusually schematic nature of the story. The Dardennes, who have twice won the Palme dOr (for Rosetta and Lenfant), are among the most consistent filmmakers alive, to the point that even their strongest films are sometimes received with an impatience that can tilt over into ingratitude. Ill concede that The Unknown Girl, a socially conscious detective story that reminded me in some ways of Ruth Rendells 1994 crime novel Simisola, is something of a disappointment: Although fronted by a remarkable performance by the French actress Adele Haenel, it lacks the powerful moral and dramatic surprises typical of their best work. But if all disappointments were this thoughtful and mature or, for that matter, as thoughtful and mature as Pedro Almodovars tepidly received Julieta life would be almost too marvelous to bear. Auteur expectations are all but impossible to shake off at Cannes: If theres a reason a competition entry like Toni Erdmann has been such a critical favorite, its that Maren Ade, with just two features under her belt, arrived here as something of an unknown quantity. The same goes for the Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonca Filho, whose sophomore effort, Aquarius, merges the rich social critique of his acclaimed debut, Neighboring Sounds, with an unexpectedly accessible character study. Playing a woman who refuses to vacate her longtime apartment and finds herself at war with the buildings new owners, the 65-year-old Sonia Braga gives a performance of bravura intelligence, sensuality and emotional range. And if theres a director whose every new movie arrives bearing far too much expectational baggage these days, its surely Xavier Dolan, that 27-year-old Canadian enfant terrible, whos been known to divide audiences with films such as Mommy (winner of a Cannes jury prize in 2014), Tom at the Farm and Laurence Anyways. Ive been an erratic but sincere admirer of Dolans work over the years, but no amount of devotion could have kept me from recoiling from Its Only the End of the World, an insufferable compendium of dysfunctional family neuroses that stars a maddeningly aloof Gaspard Ulliel as a gay man making a rare trip home to tell his folks of his impending death. Im all for no-holds-barred emotional scrutiny, but rarely have I felt so imprisoned by a movie as by this one. The actors who include Lea Seydoux, Nathalie Baye, Vincent Cassel and an unprecedentedly awful Marion Cotillard are wretchedly served by their material, as well as by Dolans decision to trap them all in extreme closeups throughout. Ingmar Bergman believed the human face was the greatest subject in all of cinema, but I doubt even he would have lasted five minutes into Its Only the End of the World. Youve seen Biore pore-cleansing-strip commercials before, and theres no reason for them to be this tediously shrill.
3:55 P.M. REPORTING FROM CANNES, FRANCE
Going under the shell of Cannes animated sensation The Red Turtle A still from the Dutch animator Michael Dudok de Wits film The Red Turtle. (Touchwood PR) CANNES, France The opportunity to make a feature film is, for most directors, the ultimate grail, a pearl without price, but for Dutch animator Michael Dudok de Wit, its always been an offer he felt he had to refuse. Until he couldnt. The 62-year old Dudok de Wit, a Dutch filmmaker based in London, is not just any short-film animator. He was twice nominated for an Academy Award in that category and took home the Oscar in 2001 for his emotional Father and Daughter. When I direct a short, I do all the elements myself: the design, the backgrounds, everything, I dont have to justify or explain, I just do it, the filmmaker says. With features there are always discussions, and that really puts me off. And I was not ready for the struggle of raising money. A thoughtful man with a quiet, reserved air, Dudok de Wit arrived at Cannes with two things he didnt expect: an infection that led to a bandage over his right eye, and a dazzling animated feature, The Red Turtle, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard section, earning exceptional early notices and a U.S. distribution deal with Sony Pictures Classics. Read more
4:30 A.M. Feminism, Spielberg and a German showstopper: Times staffers make sense of Cannes (Walt Disney Pictures) The Cannes Film Festival hits its one-week mark Wednesday night, and while for some that sounds like an endless amount of time, for those at the fest -- where big movies from the likes of Paul Verhoeven, Sean Penn and Nicolas Winding Refn are yet to premiere -- thats far from the end. Its a good moment, in other words, to have a conversation about whats unfolded here at the so-called Olympics of cinema. READ MORE
4:35 A.M. REPORTING FROM CANNES, FRANCE
Julian Assange film Risk offers an inside look at controversial Wikileaks founder Wikileaks founder Julian Assange squints in the sunlight as he prepares to speak from the balcony of the Ecuador Embassy in London in February. (Carl Court / Getty Images) New administrations can mean a change in fortunes for controversial figures. But a Hillary Clinton presidency would not improve the status of Julian Assange, say those aligned with the Wikileaks founder, who remains in Ecuadors London embassy pending a Swedish extradition request. In fact, they argue, it could well do the opposite. Under Clinton [Assanges situation] will possibly get worse, said Wikileaks staffer Jacob Applebaum. Clinton was secretary of State when Wikileaks released a trove of classified cables in 2010, many of them sensitive or embarrassing to the U.S. government. Applebaum noted a meeting he had with a senior Clinton staffer at the time that he said carried with it an air of intimidation. (Incidentally and not unexpectedly, Applebaum was hardly bullish on Donald Trump either. I dont have any ideas about other candidates but I dont think they have any ideas either.) Read more
1:09 A.M. Cannes: Jeff Nichols Loving stirs a festival and enters Hollywoods diversity debate (Patricia Williams / For The Times) As it reached a boiling point earlier this year, the #OscarsSoWhite movement and its proponents raised strong doubts about Hollywoods willingness to address issues of equality. Serious, topical films about race were lacking, they said, and consequently so were black nominees. At the Cannes Film Festival on Monday, those critics were given an answer. Premiering at the worlds most prestigious cinema gathering was Loving, a fact-based drama, from the Arkansas-raised auteur Jeff Nichols, about an interracial romance deemed illicit in Virginia circa 1958. Impeccably made and drawn closely from historical research, the film tells the relatively little-known story of Mildred and Richard Loving, a couple whose case, which eventually went to the Supreme Court, both exposed the racial divides of the time and helped bridge them. But as with so many films that touch on diversity, the movie has also just as quickly drawn skepticism, in this case for not being sufficiently hard-hitting about the racism of the era. Nichols has sought to keep a distance from the fray, saying he was simply looking to tell an intimate tale of a couple that overcame obstacles, not a larger social history. You look at this film from a distance and there are so many pitfalls for melodrama or histrionics, the writer-director said in an interview with The Times. But then you start to look at these people and theyre not melodramatic. Read more
6:23 P.M. REPORTING FROM CANNES, FRANCE
Cannes: Kristen Stewart in Personal Shopper, and other grief-haunted heroines Kristen Stewart in Personal Shopper. (MK2 Pictures) There may not be enough female directors competing for the Palme dOr, but there has certainly been no shortage of stories about women in the mix. Its not the first time that assessment has been trotted out at Cannes, but oh well: It happens to be very, very true this year, and as such its a point worth both critiquing and celebrating. Not that the media audience seemed to be in a very celebratory mood on Monday night, to judge by the ill-considered boos that greeted Olivier Assayas Personal Shopper, a deliriously spooky paranormal thriller featuring another remarkable performance from Kristen Stewart this time as a fashion buyer and spiritual medium haunted by her twin brothers recent death. Booing films off the screen is a silly yet time-honored festival tradition, and my main objection to the practice apart from how it reduces an artistic showcase to a sporting event is that the movies that wind up getting the brunt of it are usually those with ambiguous endings or unconventional narratives. In short, the ones that attempt the most significant or daring creative risks. (Among the recently Cannes-booed, Abbas Kiarostamis Like Someone in Love and Carlos Reygadas Post Tenebras Lux come to mind.) If youll allow me to butcher Susan Sontag, the act of booing is too often little more than the revenge of the audience upon the intellect. There were no boos, if I recall correctly, for Assayas and Stewarts first collaboration, Clouds of Sils Maria, which premiered in competition at Cannes in 2014 and went on to win a raft of international acting prizes for Stewart (including the Cesar for best supporting actress). That film gave her a wryly humorous turn as a celebritys assistant, and so does Personal Shopper, except that here the celebrity stays almost entirely off screen while Stewart remains front and center. Its a smart choice: Assayas plot is preposterous and he knows it. He needs every moment of his leading ladys restless intelligence and twitchy, self-effacing beauty to carry it off. Stewart plays Maureen, an American living in Paris. (Assayas, savvy cine-globalist that he is, knows better than to explain why.) Maureen is moderately conversant with the spirit world, and Assayas wastes no time plunging her into the inky shadows of a haunted house, where she moves from room to room, murmuring the name of her late brother (Lewis ?) while a ghostly, ectoplasmic presence materializes every so often behind her. Before long, Maureen is receiving coyly menacing text messages from an all-knowing presence, and the escalating intensity of their back-and-forth makes for perhaps the most creepily sustained use of screen-within-a-screen since last years Unfriended. Where some might see an extended product placement for Apple, I see a director in full command of his craft and not too proud to flex his genre muscles. Assayas display of raw filmmaking chops here is so shiveringly bravura he turns those little iPhone text-in-progress bubbles into a harbinger of dread that it almost doesnt matter whether the ideas behind it cohere. And yet, on some eerie, subterranean level, they do. In films as different as his autumnal masterpiece Summer Hours and his sensationally trashy cyber-thriller demonlover, Assayas has long evinced a fascination with how globalization and technology are continually reshaping our relationships with the modern world, and with one another. His roving camera is forever drawing invisible lines and parallels between his characters, but here he has chosen to emphasize disconnection and disembodiment in every frame. Why does the movie end in Oman? What happens during Maureens climactic hotel-room assignation with the mystery texter? How hot does Stewart look in a black bondage gown? Only one of those questions will be answered definitively, but they are arguably not the right questions to start with. In Personal Shopper, a thriller whose heroine is forever at the mercy of unseen tormenters communicating with her remotely (her boss not least among them), Assayas has stumbled on perhaps the most literal definition of ghosts in the machine. And in Stewart, an extraordinary talent who does her best work at her most seemingly ordinary, he has found an ideal medium for his ideas. Maybe Im over-intellectualizing. A friend summed things up perfectly as we exited the theater: Its got Cartier and ghosts. Whats not to like? ***** Adriana Ugarte in Julieta. (Sony Pictures Classics) If youd asked me months ago which director would show up in Cannes with a kinky supernatural chiller about a woman reeling from personal tragedy, I might well have guessed Pedro Almodovar. Instead this justly beloved Spanish auteur has arrived on the Croisette with Julieta, a more subdued yet still powerfully affecting portrait of implacable grief and its myriad ripple effects. The movie is what you might call a return to form but then, after his mirthless airplane comedy Im So Excited!, you might call anything other than 96 minutes of uninterrupted black screen a return to form. Shuffling with effortless grace between the past and present lives of his title heroine (played at different stages by Adriana Ugarte and Emma Suarez), Almodovar seems to have taken the theme of loss unusually to heart. Julieta is a melodrama by subtraction; its about the traumas we dont always see or register, the painful emotions that we actively stifle and allow to consume us. The scenes that cut the deepest are practically invisible: A fatal accident is left off screen. Without explanation, a lady vanishes (not the films sole nod to Hitchcock). The teary ending we expect never happens and in some ways, the one we get is even more shattering. The reviews of Julieta have run the gamut from raves to polite yawns; the words minor Almodovar have popped up more than once, and in this context they feel both understandable and a bit ungenerous. Its true that since his triumphant Volver (which narrowly lost the Palme dOr at Cannes in 2006), Almodovars films, including Broken Embraces and The Skin I Live In, have seemed to merely go through the motions. You could see the gears spinning: After years of flooding the screen with outre melodramatic gestures, lush homages to Sirk and Hitchcock, and acres of crimson-streaked production design, the directors heart didnt seem to be in it anymore. Julieta is promising evidence to the contrary. This deceptively tamped-down film may not have the audacity and emotional force of an Almodovar masterpiece, but it reveals his mastery nonetheless. His manipulation of time frames, his sly infusions of comedy and his flawless direction of his actors all merge together with the dexterity of an artist who doesnt need to wow us to earn our love. Its a lesson I hope Almodovar carries with him always, even in the unlikely event of some idiots booing him off the screen.
1:57 P.M. REPORTING FROM CANNES, FRANCE
Cannes pays tribute to 1992s richly emotional Howards End (Derrick Santini / Sony Pictures Classics) The Cannes Film Festival does more than anoint the triumphs of the present, it also celebrates whats transcendent in the past. Which is why a crowd of admirers waited patiently in line a few nights ago, a few with autograph books and posters they hoped would be signed, to both see a new 4K restoration of a modern classic, 1992s Howards End, and to do so in the presence of its director, James Ivory, and its perhaps most ethereal star, Vanessa Redgrave. Read more
1:54 P.M. REPORTING FROM CANNES, FRANCE
Oldboy director brings feminist thriller The Handmaiden to Cannes Kim Tae-ri, from left, director Park Chan-wook, Kim Min-hee and Ha Jung-woo at Cannes. (Albert Pizzoli / AFP/Getty Images) In The Handmaiden a thriller told Rashomon style by original Oldboy auteur and all-around gore maestro Park Chan-wook the two lead female characters are the narrative focus, theyre the love story and, though there are times one or both seems powerless, they often gain leverage, with their minds far more than their bodies. (OK, there is plenty here involving their bodies too; this is a lesbian romance that doesnt skimp on the sex scenes.) Im not afraid of this being called a feminist film, and certainly I had that intention, said Park, via an interpreter, as he sat on a rooftop deck here Sunday. Then, in his inimitably better-you-than-me-to-interpret-my-work manner, he added, But once you start labeling movies you start focusing only on that. And I dont want to focus just on that. Read more
6:11 A.M. Cannes, France
Cannes 2016: Kristen Stewart shares her philosophy, work approach (Ian Langsdon / EPA) Kristen Stewart addressed reporters ahead of the premiere of Personal Shopper, her Europe-set ghost tale that reunites her with director Olivier Assayas, in Cannes on Tuesday. Here are excerpts from her comments: The constant nature of life is so terrifying that you cant get away from it. Right now. I cant get out. I cant get out. Thats really scary. "[This film] is a ghost story but supernatural aspects lead you to the very base questions. Am I making this up right now? Is this current reality a thing? Its so ridiculous. Is this (my) perception compared to yours? It is really a movie about finding yourself. Its an identity crisis movie. On super-fame:
Sometimes I feel like I have my limbs cut off. Thats not a bad feeling. Its just surreal. On playing an assistant to a person so rich and famous she cant leave the house:
Theres a lot of hatred and conflicted desires that go along with [my characters] attraction to shiny things. To be on the other side [of someone who is] not able to go to a store and buy something. Technically you can but it can prove to be ... not worth it. Maureen is so capable just so tactile and physical.. It was fun to play someone who was sort of like um, whats the word Im looking for dude. So capable. Ive been thinking a lot about distractions. Im absolutely guilty of constant stimula thats not actually stimulation.In the context of the movie the fact that she can sit behind the phone and feel closer and feel alive, it says something about how we interact with technology. It would be a lot easier for me to sit down and write an email of what Im talking about right now. [Pause.] But its nice to engage too. On Assayas, who also directed her in Clouds of Sils Maria:
Theres a flame he lights under mine [butt] that is stronger than I ever felt. I dont know why. I really try to navigate my career by feel, and I just feel him. Without any religious implications, Im agnostic about ghosts. [Pauses] This is going to sound great in quotes. Im really sensitive to energies. I truly believe were driven by something. Im driven by something, I cant really define. I cant necessarily take responsibility for it and it gives me a feeling were not so alone. On sexually charged scenes:
I wasnt afraid of that. Im really--Ill do anything. I really appreciate all of it. On acting technique:
Im not trying to affect you, Im not trying to manipulate you. [Its not about] packaging and delivering a notion. Its being shocked by it and then someone captures it. And the only way to do that is to get naked. My favorite kind of work is someone says did you know that about yourself, because I saw it and wanted to highlight it. Do I believe in ghosts? I guess. I believe in something. Thats not a very finite answer. But thats the film.
11:10 A.M. Photos from the red carpet and beyond Actors Matt Bomer, left, and Ryan Gosling and director Shane Black arrive for the screening of The Nice Guys at the Cannes Film Festival. (Ian Langsdon / European Pressphoto Agency) Edgar Ramirez, left, Robert de Niro and Usher Raymond IV at the Hands of Stone photocall at the Cannes Film Festival. (Loic Venance / AFP/Getty Images) Adam Driver poses during a photocall for the film Paterson at the Cannes Film Festival. (Anne-Christine Poujoulat / AFP/Getty Images) Actress and jury member Kirsten Dunst arrives at the premiere of Loving at the Cannes Film Festival. (Alberto Pizzoli / AFP/Getty Images) Read more
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.
7:07 A.M. REPORTING FROM CANNES, FRANCE
Cannes: American Honey, The Handmaiden and a (brief) word on long movies Sasha Lane in American Honey, which runs 162 minutes. (Protagonist Pictures) How long is too long? Its a question that moviegoers are accustomed to asking at the Festival de Cannes, with its reputation for marathon running times, and this year has been no exception. The official selection got its most time-consuming entry out of the way on the first day with Cristi Puius just-shy-of-three-hours Sieranevada. But Puius film is scarcely the sole competition entry to have clocked in at well north of two hours. Park Chan-wooks The Handmaiden runs a tightly coiled 145 minutes, and Maren Ades Toni Erdmann and Andrea Arnolds American Honey last a somewhat baggier 162 minutes each and have, even in their most glowing notices, taken some flak for their perceived self-indulgence. (Still to come: Kleber Mendonca Filhos 140-minute Aquarius and Na Hong-jins out-of-competition thriller The Wailing, listed in the festival program with a running time of 156 minutes.) Ive already written about why I think Toni Erdmann, in mapping the contours of an unusually intricate father-daughter relationship, largely earns the right to be unhurried and exhaustive. American Honey, though in some ways trickier to parse, earns it, too. Arnold, the prodigiously talented British director of Red Road, Fish Tank and Wuthering Heights, has shown an increasingly fearless command of form with each film, and in American Honey, her tough, electrifying, the-kids-are-definitely-not-all-right road movie, she leaves conventional ideas of narrative structure almost completely by the wayside, relying on pure texture, sensuality, imagery, music and performance to drive her picture forward. The astonishing newcomer Sasha Lane plays Star, a Texas girl who, fed up with her depressing home life, impulsively tags along with a band of teenage drifters making their way across the Midwest. At the instruction of their whip-cracking manager, Krystal (a terrific Riley Keough), these kids raid remote outposts and suburban neighborhoods trying to sell magazine subscriptions, though its soon clear that what theyre really selling are their own dead-end sob stories something that will stir the charitable empathy of the poor and wealthy alike. They are in effect selling themselves, the implication of which Arnold follows, at one point, to its logical conclusion. There are some toxic romantic complications and misunderstandings involving Krystals top seller, Jake (a charismatically grunged-up Shia LaBeouf), who shows Star the ropes and soon shows her other things as well. But the movie never becomes fully invested in their on-again-off-again flirtation, and with a few exceptions, we never learn much about the other kids in this nomadic commune, either. Arnolds attention gravitates toward other elements in this rural American panorama: the startling beauty of a prairie sunset, the furious pop energy supplied by the films terrific soundtrack, and the small insects that repeatedly creep into the frame as though drawn, moth-like, to the flame of Lanes magnetism. You cant blame them: Arnold and her extraordinary cinematographer, Robbie Ryan, keep their camera close to their leading lady, who has both a spunky-sultry impudence and a profile worthy of a Greek coin a quality emphasized repeatedly in Ryans ravishing square-frame compositions. American Honey is a jaggedly beautiful aesthetic object, and at two hours and 42 minutes, its accumulation of immersive details is meant to frustrate your sense of time passing. The subculture being examined here is a fascinating one, but long stretches of tedium, we come to understand, are also a significant part of the characters journey. Which is not to suggest that Arnolds road movie, for all its sensory pleasures, lacks an arc or a destination: In a revelatory culmination of song, image and wordless exchange, the movie arrives exactly where it needs to, with Star emerging a bit sadder and a bit wiser an epiphany that wouldnt matter as much to us if we hadnt seen and experienced so much alongside her. How long is too long? Roger Ebert was fond of saying, No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough. I have a feeling he would have dug American Honey. ***** Kim Min-hee and Kim Tae-ri in The Handmaiden. (CJ Entertainment) The Handmaiden is the Korean director Park Chan-wooks most delectable narrative feature in years and I say that as someone who found his Stoker a genial hoot, but had little patience for Thirst, Oldboy and his other strained exercises in gore-sloshing perversity. Theres a little of that sadism on display here, but it doesnt rear its head until the very end, and when it does it feels almost reflexive, compulsive as if Park himself had become so wrapped up in the yarn he was spinning that he suddenly realized, shoot, he hadnt sliced off anyones fingers yet. Adapted from Sarah Waters Victorian-set novel Fingersmith, but relocated to 1930s Korea, this ornately art-directed erotic puzzler centers around two beautiful women: Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri), a wily pickpocket turned duplicitous caretaker, and Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee), a Japanese heiress who is the target of Sook-hees deception. Over the course of the movies three chapters, two of which provide a revelatory, Rashomon"-style shift in perspective, the women will become lovers, rivals and allies, and their teasing, mercurial role play is what gives the movie its seductive pull. A sort of Gaslight-meets-Jane Eyre with a big ol splash of Diabolique, The Handmaiden has predictably generated a lot of ink over its explicit lesbian love scenes a touch that might well have been decried as exploitative (just as Blue is the Warmest Color came under attack here at Cannes three years ago), if not for the righteous narrative primacy that Park grants his leading ladies. Guys may well get off on the sight of these two women going at it, but the entire audience can take a certain gratification in the way they turn the tables on the devious and controlling men in the picture, including Hidekos uncle (Cho Jin-woong), a pervy old purveyor of Japanese erotica who keeps a collection of human genital parts in jars. Fetishism is both a crucial plot point and an entirely accurate description of Parks stylistic approach. The Handmaiden may not be much more than ravishing surface at the end of the day, but Parks embrace of his own voyeurism is awfully infectious. He likes to watch, and its a pleasure to admit that we do, too. ***** Marion Cotillard and Alex Brendemuhl in From the Land of the Moon. (Studiocanal) By Eberts running-time logic, Nicole Garcias dreary competition entry From the Land of the Moon, though relatively trim at two hours, should feel positively interminable. It doesnt, exactly. Marion Cotillard never ceases to be watchable even in a role as painfully limiting as Gabrielle, a gorgeously miserable 1950s Frenchwoman who spends all (and I do mean all) her time pining for men who will never be hers, while her perfectly decent, sensitively stubbled husband (Alex Brendemuhl) suffers silently in the background. Wallowing gently in picturesque scenery, coyly filmed couplings and prettily tortured shots of Louis Garrel, but without ever building the sort of delirious, full-on sexual boil that might have cut through its exquisite drippiness, the film (adapted from Milena Angus book Mal di Pietre) builds to a ludicrous final twist thats pure Nicholas Sparks. That said, this particular masochistic weepie is still preferable to last years stealth Nicholas Sparks movie in competition, Gus Van Sants indefensible The Sea of Trees. (Presumably the sea of trees and the land of the moon are thematically if not geographically adjacent.) In a year of heightened attention to industry-wide diversity issues, much worthy attention has been focused on the presence of three female filmmakers in competition: Its not enough, but its still an improvement over past editions of Cannes, and Id argue that the improvement is as much a factor of quality as quantity. Toni Erdmann and American Honey both have their detractors, but youd be hard-pressed to find two Palme dOr contenders that feel more thrillingly, urgently and cinematically alive. From the Land of the Moon isnt in the same league, though Im leery of comparing leagues in the first place: Why lump filmmakers together simply because theyre female and why hold Garcia to a more exacting standard than that of the numerous male-directed mediocrities that have been slotted into competition without a second thought? Garcias film can be defended, up to a point, as an old-fashioned throwback to the womens pictures of the 1940s and 50s, though its retrograde sexual politics would almost certainly have felt livelier and less dated in that context. Like most movies that take themselves with such deadly (and deeply French) seriousness, this unhappy-marriage drama almost begs to be remade as a comedy, perhaps even a sitcom. One of these days, Gabby, bang, zoom! Straight to the land of the moon!
4:07 P.M. REPORTING FROM CANNES, FRANCE
Cannes: Mark Rylance reunites with Steven Spielberg and astonishes anew in The BFG Mark Rylance in The BFG. (Walt Disney Pictures) By his own admission, Steven Spielberg doesnt become personal friends with many of the actors he works with. I have a lot of acquaintances over 44 years [as a filmmaker], he told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday. And I havent brought a lot of people into my life from the movies ... He has, however, made an exception for Mark Rylance. The director said hes become close with the actor, a fact that runs parallel to their professional lives, with two collaborations under their belts and a third on the way. Audiences should be glad for the relationship. Rylance, who played the simmering spy Rudolf Abel in Spielbergs 2015 hit Bridge of Spies, returns, in a remarkably different guise, in Spielbergs latest, the adaptation of the Roald Dahl childrens fantasy The BFG, which premieres here Saturday. The 56-year-old British-born Tony and Oscar winner (and Emmy and Golden Globe nominee) stars as said title character -- it stands for big friendly giant. He gives a performance in motion capture as rich and subtle as his turn in the Soviet-era espionage drama. Read more
Where is it written that a bottle of wine must be 750ml? Well the answer, roughly, is found in U.S. law, which decreed such a measure when the government tried fitfully to convert the country to the metric system in the seventies 750ml being just a few silly milliliters short of a fifth of a gallon, a booze bottle standard since Prohibition.
European producers complied, squeezing their potable content into seven-fifties. But in the last 10 or 15 years, the liter has made a modest incursion onto the bottle landscape, most notably through the persistent efforts of a small number of Austrian producers, who, in the late 90s, used them to introduce Gruner Veltliner to the American public cheaply and expediently. Gruner, of course, is the invigorating, herbaceous white variety indigenous to Austria, a bracing wine that can be complex or, in the case of liters, eminently glug-able.
According to Willi Klinger of the Austrian Wine Board, the presence of liters in the American market swelled during the recession of 2008: There are at least a half-dozen viable Gruner liters in the local market at present. German, Chilean and even American producers have followed Austrias liter lead (check out the Tendu blends, California appellation wines made by Napa indie Steve Matthiasson).
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All this is by way of saying that if youre looking for a picnic wine, an outdoor wine, a verdant spring wine, a break from rose look no further. Gulp for gulp, inexpensive Gruner is better than just about any other white wine in its category, delivering fresh flavors, vibrant acidity, lower alcohols and best of all (volume! volume! volume!) a third of a bottle more to enjoy. Here are three you can find with relative ease on retail shelves:
2014 E&M Berger Niederosterreich Gruner Veltliner From whats known as Lower Austria, the Danube Lowlands, this brisk white smells of pea shoots, melon and Golden Delicious apples. The flavors are brisk and very light, with a thirst-quenching acidity and a finish that hints of delicate green spice, like chervil. About $15 at Lincoln Fine Wines, Wallys and Domaine LA.
2015 Der Pollerhof Niederosterreich Gruner Veltliner The Poller family has been making wine for more than 300 years, and accounts for the picture of Erwin Pollers grandfather, Johann, on the label the first in the family to devote himself to wine exclusively. Erwin Poller farms his vines organically, and theres a concentration to this wine that lends a bit of gravitas, with a lemony acidity and nervy chalk-dust mineral grip that feels mouthwatering and fresh. About $14 at Woodland Hills Wine Company and Lou Wine Shop.
2014 Franz Etz Kamptal Gruner Veltliner You can detect more warmth in fruit from the Kamptal, a warm river valley within the Niederosterreich, and this wine is a bit more forward as a result, with scents of melon and parsley. The flavors fall more toward apples and pear; theres a pleasant mineral grip to this one that seems to close the wine like the cut of a razor. About $13 at K&L Wines, and the Wine Club, Santa Ana.
Alan Young, the amiable comedic actor who became a TV icon in the early 1960s starring opposite a talking horse named Mister Ed, died Thursday. He was 96.
Young, whose later career included doing the voices for Scrooge McDuck and other cartoon characters, died of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Home, the Motion Picture & Television Fund confirmed on Friday. He lived at the retirement community for more than four years and died with his children by his side.
A veteran of radio and movies who starred in his own Emmy Award-winning TV comedy-variety show in the early 1950s, Young was on a career downswing when he was signed to play the lead in Mister Ed.
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Comedian-producer George Burns already had financed a failed Mister Ed pilot with other actors when he told his associates: I think we should get Alan Young. He looks like the kind of guy a horse would talk to.
Mister Ed, which began as a syndicated series in January 1961 and moved to CBS that fall for a four-year run, featured Young as affable architect Wilbur Post, who moves with his wife Carol (Connie Hines) into a new home and is startled to discover that the backyard barn includes a horse that speaks to him.
Young later said that he and his four-legged co-star were great pals and that the relationship between Wilbur and Ed was the backbone of the series.
Wilbur was naive and bumbling, while Ed was a wily one, he told The Times in 1990. I think its the same chemistry that made Laurel and Hardy and Jackie Gleason and Art Carney: Its the one guy making a fool of the other guy.
An un-credited Allan Rocky Lane, a former B-movie cowboy star, provided the deep voice for the mischievous Mister Ed.
Because he had been a star at one time, Rocky didnt want his name to appear on the credits, Young said in a 2004 interview with the State newspaper in Columbia, S.C. But after the first year and the show had become a success, he went to the producers and said he would like a credit line.
They told him no because kids in the audience were writing to Ed and thought the horse could really talk. They gave Rocky a nice raise instead, and he seemed happy with that.
When Young filmed scenes with the horse, whose real name was Bamboo Harvester, Lane would stand at the edge of the set with a microphone and his script.
It really helped to do it like that, said Young. Having Rocky there made me feel sometimes like I really was talking to the horse.
One of the first questions fans always asked Young was: How did they get the horse to move his mouth when he talked.
For years, he kept the answer a closely guarded secret.
I started a big lie, he confessed in a 2001 interview with the Archive of American Television. I said, Well, when you were a kid did you ever get peanut butter stuck under your lip? Oh, thats how its done! So I never really lied; I just asked them a question. But that wasnt true at all.
When pressed to reveal the answer, Young explained animal trainer Lester Hiltons technique for getting Mister Ed to talk.
Lester had a knack, said Young. He used a soft nylon thread put under the lip. And then he had the end going down the bridle, and hed just give it a little tug [and] Ed would try to get rid of it; that was his cue. And then hed lay the [riding] crop across Eds forelegs, and that was the cue to stop. That was it.
For the second year, we could hardly stop him from talking. As soon as he heard my voice stop, his lips would start to go.
That proved to be the case off-camera as well.
I learned to ride on Ed, said Young. Lester and Id go riding in Griffith Park together, and wed talk as we rode along. And suddenly Lester laughed.... He said, Look, look at Eds mouth. When I stopped talking, Ed would start to move his mouth. So he was a smart horse.
He was born Angus Young on Nov. 19, 1919, in Tynemouth, England, and his family later moved to Edinburgh, Scotland. When Young was 6 or 7, his family moved to Canada, where his Scottish father worked in a West Vancouver shipyard.
Often bed-ridden with bronchial asthma from age 10 to 17, Young would listen to The Jack Benny Program and other radio comedy shows, which hed reenact the next day for friends and family.
At 13, his flair for performing and mimicking accents led to his becoming a regular performer on a Saturday night revue show on radio station CJOR in Vancouver.
At 17, he was writing and performing on The Alan Young Show, a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. radio comedy variety program.
During World War II, Young joined the Canadian Navy but resigned his commission after finding out hed be spending his time writing for a Navy show. He then volunteered for the Army but was rejected because of his childhood asthma.
In 1944, he was brought to New York as a summer replacement for The Eddie Cantor Show on NBC Radio. That fall, The Alan Young Show was launched on NBCs Blue Network, and it later moved to NBC. For a brief period, while starring in his own Sunday evening show, he also played Jimmy Durantes sidekick on Durantes Friday night show.
On television from 1950 to 1953, he starred in The Alan Young Show, a half-hour comedy-variety show on CBS. Dubbed the Charlie Chaplin of television by TV Guide, he won an Emmy Award for best actor in 1951, the same year his program earned an Emmy for best variety show.
Young, who was brought to Hollywood in 1946 by 20th Century Fox, made his movie debut in Margie, a 1946 comedy starring Jeanne Crain. Later film credits include Androcles and the Lion (1952) and The Time Machine (1960).
After flopping in a 1967 Broadway comedy The Girl in the Freudian Slip, Young retired from show business.
A longtime member of the Christian Science faith, he become communications director for the Christian Science headquarters in Boston in 1968. He later spent time as a lecturer for the church before returning to acting in the mid-`70s.
His return included providing the voice of Scrooge McDuck as Ebenezer Scrooge in Disneys 1983 animated short Mickeys Christmas Carol and voicing McDuck in Disneys animated TV series DuckTales.
He also did voice work for The Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks and other animated TV series.
But for many, Young remained best known as Wilbur in Mister Ed, which continued a long life in reruns.
He chronicled his experiences on the show in his 1994 book written with Bill Burt, Mister Ed and Me.
To judge the old series continued popularity, Young recalled in his book, he conducted his own impromptu consumer test two years earlier.
After stepping into a crowded elevator, he faced the door and quietly sang the first line of the shows theme song: A horse is a horse. Then he stopped, and his fellow passengers behind him sang out in unison, Of course, of course.
According to the Associated Press, Young married Mary Anne Grimes in 1940 and they had a daughter, Alana, and a son, Alan Jr. The marriage ended in 1947. A year later, he married Virginia McCurdy in 1948. They had a son, Cameron Angus, and a daughter, Wendy. Information on survivors was not available.
news.obits@latimes.com
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If you have driven up Signal Mountain Road to the top of the mountain even once, you can fully appreciate the stupidity of locating a large convenience store and gas station in the first major curve going up the mountain at the intersection of Glendale Drive and Signal Mountain Road. Not only would it be true irresponsibility on the part of the city of Chattanooga to allow large commercial development to creep up the mountain into this scenic residential area, it is a dangerous location on many levels. Glendale Drive residents and Signal Mountain residents are outraged at the proposition and have become vigilant in their work to inform neighbors about the facts and implications of this development.
Recognizing among other issues the danger of planting a large commercial development at this intersection as you start up Signal Mountain, Chattanoogas Regional Planning Agency has already made their professional recommendation to deny rezoning this land from residential to commercial. Additionally, the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission unanimously voted against the rezoning at their May 4 meeting. However, the final vote on this rezoning and proposed development (Re-zoning Case #2016-077) will take place Thursday, June 14, 6 p.m. at the City Council Assembly Room of the City Council Building.
Despite the outpouring of opposition, Houchens Industries is, in essence, telling the public, Ready or not, here we come. Just one day ago, Glendale Drive residents received a postcard inviting them to a community meeting to provide input to Councilman Chip Henderson regarding the proposed Crossroads [IGA] Market at the foot of Signal Mountain. This community meeting will be held Monday from 5:30-6:30 p.m. at Mountain Creek Baptist Church. While the postcard does not indicate who is doing the inviting, Houchens Industries Facebook link states the following:
Councilman Chip Henderson is hosting a community meeting about our project. You are invited to join us on Monday, May 23, from 5:30- 6:30 p.m. at the Mountain Creek Baptist Church located at 1001 Mountain Creek Road to learn more about the project, ask questions and provide input to us.
Furthermore, on this same Houchens Industries Facebook link, they state: Were excited about what the future holds for this site. We believe the community deserves a place that reflects the beauty of the area, inside and out. Thats why youll soon be seeing mountain stone with landscaping that will provide a warm welcome to our customers. Youll also notice that were paying attention to additional details. Our outside lights will shine downward and will be limited to our property. We know a good nights sleep begins with a dark room. We also know it begins with quiet. Thats why our markets hours will be from 6 a.m.-11 p.m. #?GoodNeighborsStartHere?
Ummm. Does Houchens Industries know something that we dont know? Sounds like they are ready to break ground next week. Do they realize the Chattanooga City Council has not yet made a decision? Or maybe we should be askinghave they?
Chattanooga and Signal Mountain neighbors, if you would like to voice your concerns over the rezoning at Signal Mountain Road and Glendale Drive, be at Mondays meeting.
Wendi Morgan
Signal Mountain
* * *
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety," - Benjamin Franklin
Jerry Hickey
Chattanooga
The idea of an American president meeting with leaders of Vietnams Communist government once would have sparked outrage among the immigrant diaspora in Orange Countys Little Saigon.
Anti-communist feelings have always run strong in the district, where thousands resettled during the late 1970s. But time, and the normalizing of U.S. relations with Vietnam, has led them to being more open to such dialogue.
So when President Obama lands in Vietnam on Sunday, Vietnamese Americans have focused on a wish list of issues they want him to press. At the top: human rights reforms, more religious freedoms and greater protections for the environment in a country where officials believe pollution may be the cause of a recent mass die-off of fish that washed ashore.
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All these issues have a direct connection to many who still have relatives in their homeland.
Its more than giving citizens a voice, said restaurant manager Adam Le, alluding to the nearly 100 political prisoners who are believed by human rights activists to be imprisoned without having a trial. They need to be able to communicate openly -- on any platform and not be arrested.
Santa Ana retirees Hau Ngo and his wife, Hong Vu, agreed. Running an errand at the Little Saigon post office, Ngo, 73, stopped to say that when world leaders step foot in a poorer country, they should pay attention to the basics. Vietnamese citizens have a right to protest. A right to worship. When I go back to Vietnam, I go out on the streets and my family members warn me not to speak a word about politics. The police know when locals have foreign visitors. They trail your every move on every corner. How can anyone live like that?
Obama will be the third U.S. president to enter Vietnam, following the footsteps of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. But unlike previous trips, this one will have a different symbolism, said Quan Dinh, an economist specializing in international development who led a U.S. congressional delegation to Vietnam last month. Those others focused on the legacies of the past. Mr. Obama will have his eyes on the future. The visit will strengthen the conviction that the U.S. is still committed to Asia.
As the Hanoi government lays out the red carpet for the leader of its former enemy, the ruling party is looking for alliances to boost a troubled economy and to reduce security threats from neighboring China.
If Obama decides to lift the arms embargo, Vietnam could finally buy advanced weapons to defend itself against an assertive China flouting international laws in the South China Sea as it seeks deeper control over the region, including the hotly disputed Spratly and Paracel islands, Dinh said.
Vietnamese officials also are eager to discuss the U.S.-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim countries that would raise living standards while lowering trade barriers.
We talk big problems, yes, but under all the seriousness are matters in our heart, says homemaker Huong Pham, 65, loading Buddhist prayer books onto her bike before heading home blocks from Little Saigon.
I always want to visit Vietnam. The money that Vietnamese overseas send back allows our families that remain some peace. But what about those without relatives outside the country? They have no one -- so when they see a big name coming -- they have hope.
For Le, 40, travel between the United States and Vietnam is nothing new. Hes been back 10 times since leaving his homeland and moving to Orange County in 1994.
Its normal these days. People dont live in isolation anymore. And people are not surprised that President Obama is coming to visit, he says, sipping coffee in front of Pho Lovers, the eatery where he works in Westminsters Little Saigon.
Twenty years ago, many overseas Vietnamese who regularly flew or did business inside Vietnam -- or drawn home by arranged marriages -- kept quiet, for fear their reputation could be harmed or their source of income might be boycotted. But increasingly, the global economy and assimilation of Vietnamese Americans changed that, immigrants say, allowing more expatriates to work and nurture relationships out of the shadows.
Vietnamese-language websites and social media brim with stories about moguls or music stars balancing dual lives between America, their adopted country, and the country of their birth.
Its a natural progression because ultimately, Le said, immigrants like to return to where theyre from.
anh.do@latimes.com
Twitter: @newsterrier
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The role of an employee at Best Buys nationwide computer repair center has become a central issue in the case of a Newport Beach doctor facing child pornography charges as a result of information from the employee.
The doctors attorney says the FBI essentially used the employee to perform warrantless searches on electronics that passed through the massive maintenance facility outside Louisville, Ky., where technicians known as Geek Squad agents work on devices from across the country.
Since 2009, the FBI was dealing with a paid agent inside the Geek Squad who was used for the specific purpose of searching clients computers for child pornography and other contraband or evidence of crimes, defense attorney James Riddet claimed in a court filing last month.
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Riddet represents Dr. Mark Albert Rettenmaier, a gynecological oncologist who practiced at Hoag Hospital until his indictment in November 2014 on two felony counts of possession of child pornography. Rettenmaier, who is free on bond, has taken a leave from seeing patients, Riddet said.
Federal prosecutors declined to talk about the case on the record, but in court filings, they contested the idea that Justin Meade, a supervisor at the Geek Squad center, was doing the FBIs bidding.
I never asked or ordered Mr. Meade or any Best Buy employee to search for child pornography or gather information on child pornography or any other crimes on my behalf or on behalf of the FBI, Tracey Riley, the FBI agent Meade contacted, wrote in a declaration filed in January.
According to Riley, Meade essentially became the Geek Squads liaison to the FBI. He and Riley spoke frequently because Meade was the one who reached out any time a technician found child pornography.
The declaration acknowledges that Meade was paid $500, but it doesnt explain why.
According to Best Buy public relations director Paula Baldwin, Geek Squad policy requires that we notify local authorities if our Geek Squad agents find suspicious content as they are opening files necessary to perform the services specified on the customers work order.
Baldwin declined to comment on whether employees are allowed to accept compensation from law enforcement for such reports.
However, receiving payment from the FBI would be against company policy, Jeff Shelman, a Best Buy spokesman, said.
We are looking at whether this is true and, if so, will deal directly with the employee, Shelman said.
In 2012, Best Buy moved Meade to a new job that no longer required him to contact the FBI, Shelman added.
Meade could not be reached for comment, but in his own declaration in the case, he wrote that he reported the pornography because of Best Buys policy, not on any direction from the FBI.
I never reviewed evidence or communicated to the FBI out of a motivation to get paid by the FBI or any other law enforcement agency, Meade wrote.
He said he doesnt remember being compensated.
Rettenmaier has pleaded not guilty, and Riddet has asked a judge to throw out the bulk of the evidence in the case, arguing it was gleaned from illegal searches based partially on the FBIs relationship with Meade.
A hearing on the topic in which Riddet hopes to question Meade is scheduled for August.
According to Riddet, Rettenmaiers case began in November 2011, when he took a computer hard drive to a Best Buy store for repairs.
Updated at 10:54 p.m. with more information from Best Buy.
The drive was shipped to the maintenance center in Kentucky, and in January 2012, Meade contacted a local FBI office to say a technician had found something suspicious.
Meade showed an FBI agent photos on Rettenmaiers hard drive, and the agent recognized them as child pornography, according to court records. The Geek Squad had to use specialized technical tools to recover the photos because they were either damaged or had been deleted, according to court papers. Riddet contends it is impossible to tell when the files were placed on the hard drive or who accessed them.
Based on the discovery of the photos, the FBI obtained a search warrant for Rettenmaiers Laguna Hills home, which it raided in February 2012, court documents state.
During the search, Rettenmaier returned home and investigators seized the iPhone he had with him, according to prosecutors.
The U.S. attorneys office in Orange County indicted Rettenmaier on allegations of possessing child pornography on a laptop, multiple hard drives and the iPhone.
Prosecutors say the phone held more than 800 pictures of naked or partially nude girls.
According to Riddet, an informant file he received from prosecutors shows that Meade began speaking with the FBI as early as 2007.
Riddet claims the informant file, which is under seal and not available to the public, shows Meade was officially signed up as a source for child pornography investigations in 2009.
In 2010 and 2011, Meade contacted the FBI more than a dozen times before his informant file was closed in November 2012, according to Riddets court filings.
The file also reportedly shows the FBI paid Meade $500 for his work between October 2010 and September 2011.
If Meade was working on behalf of the FBI, the practice may have run afoul of the 4th Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches, according to one prominent legal scholar.
If the government wants to look at somebodys computer, they need to get a warrant, said UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, an expert on constitutional law.
But whether paying informants automatically makes them agents of the government is not a clearly defined legal issue. According to Chemerinsky, the outcome of Rettenmaiers case will greatly depend on its individual circumstances.
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jeremiah.dobruck2@latimes.com
Dobruck writes for Times Community News.
Twitter: @jeremiahdobruck
Donald Trump tells Latino church leaders: Youre going to like President Trump
Donald Trump told an annual gathering of Latino church leaders Friday that he will win the election in November and that they are going to like President Trump.
In a short video message played at the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference Convention in Anaheim, the presumed GOP presidential nominee abstained from the heated immigration rhetoric that has earned him many critics in the Latino community.
Instead, Trump stressed what he would do for poor and middle-class minority communities, vowing to lower taxes, improve schools and create jobs.
Im going to win and were going to take care of everybody, Trump said. Were going to take care of you. Youre going to like President Trump.
In her taped remarks to the convention, Hillary Clinton, Trumps likely rival in the November general election, addressed Trump and his calls for mass deportations.
Were hearing some divisive and dangerous rhetoric in this election, Clinton said, citing Trumps allegation that Mexico is sending drug dealers and rapists to the United States. That is not who we are as a people.
Clinton repeated her promise to push for comprehensive immigration reform legislation that would allow most of the estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally to stay.
According to recent polls, most Latinos have an unfavorable impression of Trump and favor Clinton by large margins.
Latino evangelical Christians, many of whom embrace conservative social values, have long been seen as natural targets for Republican votes. Many of them supported GOP nominee Mitt Romney against President Obama in 2012.
But Trumps targeting of immigrants in the country illegally over the past year has made it hard for some Latino Christians to support him, said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Leadership Conference.
It offended me and my community, Rodriguez said at a news conference shortly before Trumps video aired. Immigrants, Rodriguez said, are parishioners in our churches.
But many evangelical Latinos also have doubts about Clinton, who supports abortion rights and same-sex marriage.
That puts evangelicals in a difficult position, Rodriguez said. It is a weird year.
Bernie Sanders, with a sense of urgency, barnstorms California
Bernie Sanders, lagging behind in fundraising and delegates to Hillary Clinton, is showing a sense of urgency in California with about two weeks until primary day.
The Vermont senator traversed California this week and returns Saturday for a rally in the San Diego area, followed by events throughout the state over the next few days, including stops in Irvine and Santa Monica.
While polling has been sparse as of late, Sanders trailed Clinton in each of the past four polls of California Democrats. The latest poll, conducted by KABC/SurveyUSA at the end of April, showed Clinton with a 19-point lead over Sanders. An average of the polls shows Clinton up by about 10 percentage points.
In California, 475 pledged delegates will be allocated by congressional district in the June 7 primary, and for weeks, pressure has grown on Sanders to exit the race. Clinton has a dominating lead in pledged delegates, and when superdelegates unbound delegates who are free to switch their support are taken into account, the former secretary of State needs only about 90 delegates to clinch the nomination.
Yet Sanders, whose populist message centered on income inequality has resonated with progressives, vows to remain in the race and fight for a more liberal platform at the partys July convention in Philadelphia.
And as Sanders makes the rounds in the state, Clinton is not taking California for granted.
Former President Bill Clinton is set to make two stops in Southern California on Saturday to rally supporters of his wife. Hell then head to Northern California, while Hillary Clinton will travel to Riverside, Orange County and San Jose early next week.
Despite his uphill climb for the nomination, Sanders still appears optimistic.
We just won Oregon. And were going to win California, Sanders said at a rally in Carson last week, noting that he also won Washington states caucuses. I am getting to like the West Coast.
Good morning. I'm Paul Thornton, The Times' letters editor, and it is Saturday, May 21, 2016. It isn't exactly the ideal day for a beach escape weather-wise, but now you have the option of taking the train.
Here's a look back at the week in Opinion.
R.I.P. #NeverTrump, mumble dismayed establishment Republicans. Long live #NeverTrump! retort optimistic libertarians. Reason magazine editor Matt Welch fills us in on the third party that can save us from a Donald Trump (or Hillary Clinton) presidency.
He writes:
For the majority of non-Beltway Americans who prudently maintain unfavorable opinions of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the Libertarian candidate is certain to advocate several welcome policies that neither major-party nominee will touch with a 10-foot pole. In a political year that has broken one precedent after another, the Libertarian Party may well shatter its previous record of 1.1% of the vote. Fiscal conservatives anxious about the countrys $19-trillion debt will be happy to hear that all three leading Libertarian contenders former New Mexico Republican Gov. Gary Johnson (who was the partys 2012 nominee, pulling 1.0%), antivirus software designer John McAfee and 35-year-old libertarian media entrepreneur Austin Petersen want to eliminate large swaths of the federal government. Those alarmed by Trumps cavalier approach to the Constitution will notice Petersen waving around a pocket-sized copy, while Johnson talks up repeal of the 17th Amendment. Progressives who dig Sen. Bernie Sanders opposition to drug prohibition and military interventionism issues on which Clinton has been awful for decades can rest assured that the Libertarian Party embraced these positions decades ago. Johnson as governor in 1999 became the first major American politician to come out for ending the drug war; McAfees core message is that our bodies and minds belong to ourselves, and Petersen dreams of a world in which gay married couples can defend their marijuana fields with fully automatic machine guns. As that last quote attests, the Libertarian message can sound jarring to those accustomed to the political status quo, not least because of the, shall we say, colorful track record of the messengers. McAfee, who seems to have taken Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the World ad campaign as a personal dare, is an international fugitive wanted for questioning in Belize in connection with the killing of his neighbor, is married to a former sex slave that he rescued (according to his account, anyway; he delights in pulling reporters chains) and is frequently accused by the tech media of making extravagant some might say fraudulent claims to publicize his companies. Click here to read more.
Here are a few more #NeverTrumpers: Us. The Times editorial board doesnt let the fact that Donald Trump is the only Republican in his partys race get in the way of picking another candidate any candidate. Really: We obviously cannot endorse Trump in his primary; we can only urge California Republicans to cast a protest vote for some other candidate. L.A. Times
Bernie Sanders supporters dont like superdelegates, but theyre the candidates only chance at winning the nomination. Tom Gallagher, a Sanders delegate from California, says his comrades will argue at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia that the country needs a revolution, and Bernie is the better candidate to do that (and beat Trump, by the way). L.A. Times
Jerry Brown for V.P. Times editorial writer Mariel Garza makes the case for Californias governor as Clintons No. 2, his age (78) being a plus factor: So many young Democrats seem to relish having a cranky septuagenarian lecture them about the correct way to think. In the L.A. Daily News, Democratic strategist Dave Jacobson endorses Rep. Xavier Becerra from Los Angeles as Clintons pick.
The Expo Line averages about 15 mph; this train may do 700. The hyperloop could whisk passengers between L.A. and San Francisco in about half an hour. At a preview in Nevada, however, architecture and design specialist Allison Arieff detects a whiff of hubris among hyperloop boosters. New York Times
Speaking of the Expo Line, heres what Metro can learn from its decades-long effort to build light rail (nearly) to the beach, according to The Times editorial board: Speed up the trip by building grade-separated tracks, include more vehicle parking at stations and plan for development along the line. L.A. Times
Also in transportation news, its Bike Month in L.A. As a cyclist, Im less than enthusiastic about it, mostly because of a comically dangerous stretch of bike lane pavement in northeast L.A. that, for at least two years, the city has known about but done nothing to fix. L.A. Times
If youre a renter, theres a reason you have no sway over your landlord. And no, the fact that youre paying way too much for your cozy studio has nothing to do with the luxury towers going up or already looming over L.A.s trendy neighborhoods. In reality, Los Angeles vacancy rate hovers near 3%, the lowest among major cities and very likely the reason why housing remains largely unaffordable. L.A. Times
Send me feedback: paul.thornton@latimes.com.
When officers in the Sacramento County town of Galt finally corralled Freeway Frida, she didnt put up much of a fight.
She barked and nipped, but after being stranded on a median on Highway 99 for five weeks with two broken bones, she quickly submitted to her rescuers.
She was very thin, very emaciated, said Michael Johnson, medical director at the VCA Bradshaw Animal Hospital in Elk Grove, south of Sacramento. To still be alive seems miraculous to me.
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According to police, the 5-year-old German shepherd fell off a truck on April 10. By the time they located her she weighed just 44 pounds, about half of what a dog her age should weigh.
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No one knows how she survived, but some guess that she must have subsisted on the scant rainwater that fell along the highway and whatever she could forage in the bushes between the north and southbound lanes of Highway 99.
Although she was stranded on the median for such a long time, her presence did not go unnoticed.
Her fall off the truck had triggering a wave of frantic 911 calls from witnesses who had watched her tumble from the vehicle.
But by the time police and California Highway Patrol officers got to the area a three-quarter-mile-long stretch between C Street and Simmerhorn Road the dog had disappeared.
Then, a few days later, drivers began reporting an injured dog running on the freeway. Again, the pup wasnt found. Another few days went by, and again, more reports came in.
The calls stopped early last week, officials said, and no drivers reported seeing the dog for about five days.
But on May 14, a driver called police to report a dog on the highway about 6:30 a.m. Galt Police Officer Sylvia Coelho was working a rare weekend shift when the report came in.
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FOR THE RECORD
May 24, 10:15 a.m.: A previous version of this article misspelled the last name of Galt Police Officer Sylvia Coelho as Coehlo.
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Im like, OK. Were going to find this dog, said Coelho, perhaps the Galt Police Departments biggest animal lover. I never work weekends. It was meant for me to work that Saturday.
Coelho and fellow Officer Christina Hill drove their cruisers down Highway 99 looking for the injured animal. Hill spotted her first.
She gets on the freeway. OK, I see the dog. So we know the dog exists, Coelho laughed.
But the median separating the northbound and southbound lanes is protected by guardrails and blanketed in a thicket of oleander bushes. The dog disappeared again as Hill parked her car along the southbound side and Coelho positioned herself on the northbound side of the median in case the dog made a break for it across the highway and into traffic.
When a CHP officer also showed up, the group hatched a plan to capture the furry fugitive.
As idling motorists looked on, Hill chased the dog toward the CHP officer while Coelho blocked off its escape route. After about 45 minutes, the dog was caught.
She fights, she bites. Were saying, Its all right, its all right, Coelho recalled. And those big brown eyes just staring up at me She didnt fight us after that at all.
The dog was taken to the animal hospital and has gained more than 10 pounds since she was rescued. The media nicknamed her Freeway Frida, but the officers call her Agent 99, Coelho said.
The dog didnt have a chip or tags and wore only a flea collar. She had a broken tibia and fibula and tendon damage, Johnson said. Hes not sure whether her leg will ever fully heal.
Meanwhile, calls are flooding into the Police Department with people asking about adopting her.
Coelho, whose father was a volunteer with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, grew up rescuing dogs, cats and rats and anything else that crossed her path. Initially, however, she wasnt interested in taking in the dog.
When my dad passed away, I inherited his dog and it was so heartbreaking when it passed away, she said.
But Coelho has visited Freeway Frida twice since the rescue. The two are bonding and her husband said this week that hed be fine if they took in a third pet to go along with their two cats.
Look what happens, Coelho said with a chuckle. All that pain goes away when those big brown eyes look at you.
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For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna.
Los Angeles police are searching for a man who allegedly lit two people on fire at a South L.A. homeless encampment Thursday morning, officials said.
Detectives believe Phillip Darryl Cole approached the encampment at 83rd Street and Vermont Avenue around 6:40 a.m. on May 19, doused two people in a flammable liquid and then lit them on fire, according to an LAPD news release.
Both victims were seriously injured, police said.
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Investigators believe Cole is a transient who lives in the area where the attack took place. He has black hair and brown eyes and stands 5 feet and 11 inches tall and weighs approximately 260 pounds, according to police.
An LAPD spokesman could not comment on a motive in the attack or provide an update on the victims conditions.
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Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in Southern California.
A day after San Franciscos mayor announced the departure of the citys beleaguered police chief, the departments new leader said Friday his top priority is instituting sweeping changes to the scandal-plagued organization.
Reforms, reforms, reforms, interim SFPD Chief Toney Chaplin told reporters when asked where his focus would lay. The department has to move forward and thats what Im here to do. To steer this ship in a direction it was already headed in.
In an unexpected announcement Thursday afternoon, Mayor Ed Lee said at his request Greg Suhr had resigned as chief after the two met following an officer-involved shooting in which an unarmed black woman in a stolen car was killed.
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Lee had previously expressed confidence in Suhr, praising the chief for understanding the need for reform, even as public calls had mounted for his ouster. But the mayor said progress has been too slow.
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These officer-involved shootings, justified or not, have forced our city to open its eyes to questions of when and how police use lethal force, Lee said in a statement at City Hall on Thursday. The progress weve made has been meaningful, but it hasnt been fast enough. Not for me, not for Greg. ... The men and women of SFPD put themselves in harms way literally every day. We owe it to them to restore the communitys trust in their work.
Suhr tendered his resignation hours after Thursdays shooting, Lee said. Chaplin, a 26-year department veteran who previously led the departments homicide division, was named acting police chief. He said Suhr was encouraged when they met after Suhr had stepped down.
He told me to take the reins and get the department to where it needs to be, Chaplin said. It sounds like a small amount of words but they carry a lot of weight and responsibility.
For more than a year, San Francisco police have been under scrutiny as several scandals unfolded, including officers accused of violating citizens civil rights, exchanging racist text messages and an impeding criminal investigation.
Last year, a federal grand jury convicted an officer of violating a persons civil rights while conducting unlawful searches at a downtown hotel that serves the poor.
Public calls for reform escalated after cellphone video recorded five police officers shooting and killing Mario Woods, 26, in the same neighborhood where the woman was fatally shot Thursday by police.
The department said that shortly before 10 a.m., two officers spotted a suspected stolen car with a woman in the drivers seat, and after officers tried to make contact, the woman drove off. The woman eventually collided with a truck near the dead-end of a street and as officers tried to take her into custody, she moved the vehicle. At some point, one of the officers opened fire, striking her. She was later pronounced dead at a hospital, police said.
Civil rights activists demanded a federal investigation into the killing of Woods, a black man who was struck by more than 20 bullets. In February, the Department of Justice launched a two-year review of the Police Department, which Lee requested.
Anger over Woods killing was compounded by a judges decision that officers who exchanged racist and homophobic text messages could keep their jobs.
The racist text messages found on officers cellphones embroiled more than a dozen officers and put more than 3,000 criminal cases in jeopardy, including several homicides.
In April, a second text-messaging scandal rocked the department, revealing that officers referred to minorities as barbarians, cockroaches and other slurs. A former lieutenant was also charged with impeding the investigation of a fellow officer accused of rape.
After the discovery of the racist text messages last year, Suhr and city leaders had pledged to implement a host of reforms to add officer training against implicit bias and increase accountability for officers who dont report misconduct by their colleagues.
Some of the reforms underway might have prevented or clarified todays incident, Lee said.
In a statement, the San Francisco Police Officers Assn. said Suhrs resignation was a great disappointment.
His retirement under pressure is an extreme loss to the department and the city, the statement said. Chief Suhr, at the core, was and always will be a cops cop and dedicated to the men and women who don the uniform every day to serve and protect.
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joseph.serna@latimes.com
Twitter: @JosephSerna
For nearly eight years, President Obama has struggled to end wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Next week, hell finally succeed in closing chapters on two other ones instead Vietnam and World War II.
Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima and will meet with survivors of the atomic bombings that ended World War II. He will also travel to Vietnam, to whose communist government he is considering selling more weapons, a sign of how the U.S.-Vietnam relationship has blossomed in the decades since the war there ended.
For the president who promised to end two wars only to watch them persist, the end points this week in Vietnam and Japan decades in the making show just how hard that is, and how long peace could ultimately take.
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Weve seen the difficulty or inability to disengage from the war on terror, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundations Asian Studies Center. And he has seen that these U.S. commitments to protect friends and allies can be long-standing commitments, as evidenced by our continued presence in South Korea and Japan and Germany.
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Obama will pay heed to the past by promoting how far the alliances with Vietnam and Japan have come since the countries were bitter enemies of the U.S. He plans to highlight growing commercial ties in Vietnam, one of the 12 countries that are part of the massive Pacific Rim trade deal being negotiated. In Japan, where he will also meet with the heads of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, Obamas visit to Hiroshima is an opportunity to revisit his efforts toward nuclear nonproliferation.
The very fact that the United States is traveling to Japan, that its now one of our closest allies in the world, and Vietnam, which is an emerging partner of ours, demonstrates how you are able to move beyond difficult history, said White House deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes.
But even as Obama departs Saturday for Hanoi, instability in the Middle East and the terrorist threat to the West arising from it have once again emerged, providing a timely reminder of the regions hold on the president. Investigators are considering the possibility that the EgyptAir flight that crashed on its way from Paris to Cairo on Thursday was the target of a terrorist plot.
Terrorism has been a main concern at previous G7 summits, and world leaders are once again expected to talk about their shared interest in defeating Islamic State, ending the devastating war in Syria and stemming the flow of refugees from the troubled Middle East.
Obama took office with hopes of removing combat troops from Iraq. Though the White House says the 5,500 military personnel who remain in Iraq and Syria dont carry that label, Obamas former Defense secretary, Robert Gates, said this week that the troops are seeing so much action and danger that they are clearly in combat.
NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >>
Further underscoring the difficultly of U.S. withdrawal is the growing instability in Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters recently managed to take control of the city of Kunduz. Obama has abandoned a 2012 plan to withdraw by 2016 and instead will leave 5,000 combat troops in Afghanistan when he vacates the Oval Office.
We cannot just leave, because the conditions dont allow it, acknowledged Kurt Campbell, who as assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 2009 to 2013 was a key architect of Obamas rebalance of resources toward Asia. The key challenge is finding the hours, being completely determined over a period of years about looking to Asia and to the future.
Thats what the president has to do find the time to balance out this essential imbalance in the energy we spend in the Middle East and the energy we spend elsewhere, he said.
Obamas trip starting Sunday, a blend of trade talk, diplomacy and history, is designed to do just that.
Hell meet with leaders of the communist government in Vietnam as well as political dissidents, before giving an address in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, to mark the end of the Vietnam War 41 years after the city fell to the North Vietnamese.
Hell pitch the Pacific trade deal he is trying to push through Congress by meeting with entrepreneurs and business leaders in Vietnam, Southeast Asias fastest-growing economy. If American businesses cant more fully embrace Vietnams burgeoning middle class, his aides argue, China or others will.
Obama may encounter some anti-American sentiment in Japan, where the arrest of an American suspected of killing a woman who disappeared last month has sparked outrage. Police say hes also suspected in her death but have not charged him.
On his final day in Japan, Obama will go to the city of Hiroshima, where the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb used in war in 1945. That bomb, and another dropped on Nagasaki three days later, killed at least 129,000 people and poisoned a generation with radiation.
Obama will pay tribute to the suffering and loss of war, aides say, though he wont apologize for the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which he views as having been necessary to end the war and save the world from tyranny.
At the time, President Truman made a decision he believed was consistent with our national security priorities, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in explaining Obamas refusal to apologize. He believed that lives on both sides of the conflict could be saved by dropping the bomb.
Obama has offered a similar defense of his own decision to use armed drones in the fight against terrorists in the Middle East.
More than that, though, he has spoken admiringly of Trumans commitment to a new post-war order in which nations of the world worked together the very kind of shift he has sought to enable the world to fight off crisis while still taking steps toward progress.
That new order was a marriage of idealism to hardheaded realism, an acceptance of Americas power with a humility regarding Americas ability to control events around the world, Obama wrote in his 2006 book The Audacity of Hope.
But the lessons of the 20th century wars only go so far, said Campbell. They dont necessarily provide a clear pathway for todays leaders.
The conditions are just so different, and so dramatically dissimilar, said Campbell, author of the forthcoming book The Pivot: Americas Rediscovery of the Asia-Pacific Century.
What happens in the Middle East going forward, I just dont know, Campbell said. People will say its a 30-year recovery, but how does it work? Its impossible to say.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Follow @cparsons for news about the White House.
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UPDATES:
9:55 a.m.: This story was updated with details of an American arrested in Japan in connection with a womans death.
This story was originally published at 7:24 a.m.
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine has abandoned the use of live pigs to train students, joining all but one other U.S. medical school in forgoing a practice thats long been criticized by animal rights activists who consider it unnecessary in the age of computer simulation.
While Johns Hopkins officials maintained that the four-session surgical training course that used anesthetized swine was popular among third- and fourth-year students, they said it was no longer essential to train the best doctors in the world.
The latest task force to examine the pros and the cons and the ethics decided that the bar has to be pretty high to justify doing this, said Audrey Huang, a Johns Hopkins spokeswoman. While students were huge fans of the course, it felt like it wasnt absolutely necessary.
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The move, which was announced Wednesday, leaves the University of Tennessee Health Science Centers College of Medicine in Chattanooga as the last holdout among medical schools in the United States and Canada, according to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an animal rights group that has waged a decade-long battle to stop the use of animals in training.
If they were passing students without the course and they were becoming good physicians without using animals, it would be hard to say its essential. Dr. John J. Pippin
Johns Hopkins officials have said in the past that the medical school complied with U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations and other institutional and governmental animal welfare guidelines, and that officials periodically took an in-depth look at the use of animals.
Nonetheless, the physicians committee has orchestrated many events in opposition to the use of animals over the years, bringing lines of picketers as well as petitions signed by doctors inside and outside the medical institution. The group even sought unsuccessfully to have Johns Hopkins investigated by the Baltimore City prosecutors for violating the states animal cruelty laws.
The group also backed legislation introduced this year in the Maryland General Assembly aimed at ending the practice. The bill targeting Johns Hopkins died in committee after a hearing where the university faced tough questioning but defended the practice.
The bill sponsor, Democrat Shane Robinson, said he didnt intend to put one of the more prestigious medical schools in the country in a negative light, but said he thought it was necessary to spark renewed debate at the university on the practice.
Even though, he acknowledged, Johns Hopkins wasnt using a large number of pigs anymore, Robinson, a vegan, said animals rights were important to him and lots of people in the state. He noted that the University of Maryland and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, a military medical school in Bethesda, in addition to other top-ranking schools nationwide, had moved to surgical simulators and other technology years ago.
The University of Maryland School of Medicine opened a simulator center in 2006 and officials there have said it allows students to practice tying knots and other surgical procedures repeatedly until they succeed. The military medical school stopped using animals in 2013.
I dont think its a good practice normally to legislate curriculum, but when you have cases where there are such extreme outliers, like only two institutions still using this, it makes sense to step in, Robinson said. I think its unnecessary, unethical and kind of wasteful when Johns Hopkins has the top technology available.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine cheered the move, and will turn its attention now to Tennessee.
Dr. John J. Pippin, director of academic affairs for the physicians committee, said medical schools have been dialing down their animal programs, which once commonly involved dogs.
Johns Hopkins had whittled down the courses using pigs to one optional course. But at an elite institution like Johns Hopkins, Pippin said students might feel pressure to partake in any course suggested by professors. And the institution itself might be resistant to change because clearly the system was producing top-notch doctors.
The practice, however, couldnt be defended as essential if it was classified as optional, he said.
If they were passing students without the course and they were becoming good physicians without using animals, it would be hard to say its essential, Pippin said. Every other elite medical school also has stopped using animals.
Pippin said when the group launched its effort to stop the use of animals in training doctors 10 years ago, there were 30 medical schools still using live animals out of 197 polled in the United States and Canada.
He said it would take many more years to get animals out of research, which remains required by federal authorities who oversee drug approvals. Most drug trials fail on humans despite success in animals, an untenable situation for researchers and pharmaceutical companies that invest billions in the studies, he said.
Researchers are investigating other means of testing such as using simulators and lab-grown human cells.
That process will be a bit slower because in research into human disease animals are much more deeply entrenched and the issue more nuanced, Pippin said. The limitations are being recognized, but until the FDA gets to the point where they will allow pharmaceutical companies other ways to do it, there will be no option.
Cohn writes for the Baltimore Sun. This article originally ran on baltimoresun.com on May 18.
1,000 New Divvy Bikes Are Headed To Chicago's South And West Sides
By Mae Rice in News on May 20, 2016 9:55PM
Divvy bikes (Photo by Phil Roeder via the Chicagoist Featured Photos pool on Flickr)
The South and West Sides are about to get 1,000 new Divvy bikes and an unspecified number of new Divvy stations, Chicago's Department of Transportation (CDOT) and Divvy announced Friday. The new stations will be installed in coming weeks as part of a citywide Divvy expansion plan announced in January.
The stations' exact locations are "still being finalized," a CDOT spokesperson told Chicagoist. The bikes, however, have already arrived at Divvy's Pilsen warehouse.
The expansionwhich will take Divvy to Austin, Garfield Park, Burnside, Chatham, Greater Grand Crossing, Brighton Park and Englewood, as well as some suburbsappears to be driven by demand. Divvy riding is up 48 percent year-to-date since 2016, according to Divvy. All told, since the bike-sharing program launched in June of 2013, Divvy bikers have taken 7 million trips across the city. Somewhat miraculously, there have also been zero fatalities associated with the program.
Low-income residents of the South and West Sides will easily be able to afford Divvy, too, via the Divvy for Everyone program. Launched in 2015, the program subsidizes bike share memberships for those with income of less than three times the federal poverty level, so that an annual membership costs just $5 a year. Typical annual membership is $75.
France is in the midst of two national rituals: the celebrated film festival in sunny Cannes and massive street protests against proposed labor law reforms in slate-skied Paris. Other than feeling distinctly French this is a culture that loves its cinema and loves its demonstrations these two events may seem unrelated. But they unspool from the same historical sources, and they measure the distance France has and hasnt evolved.
The Cannes Film Festival was the invention of Jean Zay. Between 1936 and 1939, this 30-something idealist, committed to the values of French republicanism, served in Leon Blums Popular Front, as minister of national education and fine arts. When Leni Riefenstahls film Olympia, a grim paean to Nazi buffness, won the top prize at the Venice film festival La Mostra in 1938, Zay was outraged. His outrage only grew upon learning that Mussolini and Hitler had fixed the vote, and he decided to draw up plans for a counter festival.
Working with American film studios, Zay issued invitations to the worlds leading filmmakers and actors to participate in the event. What better way, he thought, to defy the lengthening shadow of totalitarianism? His festival, like the Paris Exposition of 1889, would reflect the abiding legacy of 1789. No need, this time, for an Eiffel Tower. The revolutionary trinity of liberty, equality and fraternity would be broadcast to the world from La Croisette, Cannes seaside promenade.
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But on the same day the festival was to open, Germany invaded Poland. The festival was cancelled and Zay quit his ministerial post to enlist in the army. Following Frances defeat, Zay was arrested and imprisoned by the collaborationist Vichy regime; four years later, as the Allies were landing in Normandy, Vichys fascist thugs killed him.
In the wake of Frances liberation, with much of France in ruins, the unions especially the largest and most militant one, the General Confederation of Labor played a key role in the resurrection of the festival. In 1946, union workers volunteered to build the festivals grand hall, the Palais de la Croisette a gesture welcomed by the money-strapped organizers. This act of national solidarity was recognized at last years festival, when the C.G.Ts current leader, Philippe Martinez was the guest of honor.
France has adapted to and accepted global commercialism the very force ... spurring workers in Paris to march under banners as red as the carpets in Cannes.
Yet Martinez was sorely out of place: 70 years after its rebirth, Cannes has grown into a glam affair focused on multimillion-dollar deals, not Republican ideals. Critics note that the large studios, which haul to Cannes blockbusters such as The Da Vinci Code and Star Wars, increasingly control a festival that once helped obscure filmmakers and unknown auteurs win notice. Rather than serving as midwife to rising talents, Cannes now mostly plays butler to established names; Cannes no longer makes stars, but rather it is stars who make Cannes.
At Cannes, to put it simply, France has adapted to and accepted global commercialism the very force weighing on traditional industries and spurring workers in Paris to march under banners as red as the carpets in Cannes. Those workers dont want change; they want to maintain the rights their ancestors fought hard to win.
Like Cannes, these protests have their roots in the history of the Popular Front, the uneasy alliance of Socialists, Communists and Radicals voted into office 80 years ago this month. This win at the ballot box was accompanied by vast labor strikes that brought all of France to a halt. Following frantic negotiations, the unions won a historic victory, including a 40-hour workweek, paid vacation and collective bargaining. Today, workers believe the Socialist government they voted into office five years ago now threatens to reverse those gains. Desperate to improve the countrys crippling unemployment rate 10% and counting the flailing government proposed legislation to make it slightly easier for employers to hire and fire, as well as lengthen the workweek from the current 35 hours. This did not sit well with workers or students. Carrying signs declaring Yes to work, No to slavery, the protesters grabbed the media spotlight from the star-studded galas to the south.
What would Zay who worked as tirelessly for the democratization of leisure as he did for the democratization of culture make of events in Paris and Cannes? Would he be shocked at Cannes transmogrification into a high-flying high-security zone? Would he be pleased or worried by the demonstrations in Paris, where the workers fidelity to a heroic past offers little guidance for an uncertain future?
It is, of course, impossible to say. But to misquote a line from The Wizard of Oz, a movie scheduled for the 1939 festival that never was, were not in Zays France anymore, even if the workers wish they were.
Robert Zaretsky teaches in the Honors College at the University of Houston. His latest book is Boswells Enlightenment.
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Before Friday, it had been more than 60 years since Los Angeles enjoyed rail service to the beach in Santa Monica. The opening of Phase II of the Expo Line promises to free beach-bound Angelenos from their vehicular cages, weve been told, in exchange for reliable, safe transit to paradise.
Reliable and safe, maybe, but not that quick. The 45-minute-plus trip time between downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica prompted most of the nearly three dozen readers who wrote letters about the new service to react critically to the Expo Lines completion.
The possible takeaway for Metro officials? They still have their work cut out for them if they want to win over new transit riders.
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James Roman, author of the book Chronicles of Old Los Angeles, compares L.A. and New York:
When comparing New Yorks mass transit to the challenges faced in L.A., theres one forgotten fact that cannot be repeated often enough.
In the early 20th century, New Yorkers saw such grave importance in public transportation that the city acquired the private trolley lines, ripped up the streets and installed them as the city-run subways that are still in use today. In contrast, those who ran Los Angeles took the small-government approach: In a capitalist system, let market forces determine the railroads future.
In 1926, the owners of the Pacific Electric Red Cars offered to build a network like New Yorks, moving the trolley tracks underground in downtown L.A. and building elevated tracks that would not interfere with auto traffic in outlying areas. The catch: The public, not the railroad, would finance it. The plan was put to a referendum, and in the end, Los Angeles voters rejected the proposal.
Our great-grandparents saw no reason to pay to replace what they already took for granted. Theyd rather spend their money on cars. Were paying for it now.
Los Angeles resident Darryl Rehr remarks that Metro missed its chance to get it right:
An editorial on Friday describes the Expo Line to Santa Monica as something so logical. But why werent the so-called lessons learned not equally so?
Does it really take an expenditure of $2.5 billion to learn that we should invest in the best or make it easier for drivers to become riders?
When residents near the line appealed for grade separation, they were often labeled NIMBYs. According to Metro presenters at community meetings, these residents were not entitled to grade separation, a determination that was made using formulaic standards, never mind the effect on the rides efficiency.
Now, its a lesson learned. Were the people who planned this project and the commentators who lavished such praise on it (until now, of course) really that short-sighted?
Paul Zimmelman of Marina del Rey finds L.A.s system lacking:
We have a new attraction: the slowest commuter trains in the modern world. And no bathrooms to boot.
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After Ted Cruz dropped out of the presidential race, his campaign staffers boxed up their mementos and souvenirs as they prepared to shutter the Houston headquarters, and the Texan announced that he would seek reelection to the U.S. Senate.
Yet Cruzs team didnt abandon the race for the White House entirely. It still filed a slate of potential presidential delegates for Californias June 7 primary, and continues to monitor delegate selection in states that already voted in the GOP nominating process.
The end result is that Cruz will have more than 550 loyalists attending the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July a ground force that helps him establish himself as the national leader of the conservative movement, protect the partys conservative platform from what the senator has called Trumps New York values, and lay the foundation for a potential 2020 presidential bid.
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It would be very inconvenient. I would have to bring anti-nausea medicine with me to Ohio. Jon Fleischman, a potential Cruz delegate from California, on whether he would attend the Republican convention this summer in Cleveland
Anything the Cruz delegates are planning is to keep the engine warm for 2020, said Rick Tyler, a former Cruz aide.
Its not unusual for candidates who failed to win the nomination to try to make a strong impression in front of top elected leaders, deep-pocketed donors and committed activists at their partys nominating convention.
They seek, first of all, to make sure their campaign wasnt in vain, said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in the governance studies program at the Brookings Institution.
What is remarkable this year is the sheer number of Cruz supporters who will be in Cleveland: 566 pledged delegates, as of Thursday, as well as many more sympathetic to his cause.
The campaigns meticulous delegate-gathering strategy paid off last week in California, where almost all of the states 172 delegates are awarded by congressional district. Six days after Cruz dropped out, his campaign submitted a nearly full slate of delegates in each of the states 53 congressional districts, even though its unlikely he will win even one district.
The move was a public recognition of his most ardent supporters in California, who began working on his behalf last summer, said Ron Nehring, the former state GOP chairman who was a top aide in Cruzs presidential bid.
Conservative blogger Jon Fleischman is on the Cruz delegate list, and says although he does not expect to go to the convention, he would delay plans for a tropical family vacation to head to Cleveland should Cruz win his Orange County congressional district.
It would be very inconvenient. I would have to bring anti-nausea medicine with me to Ohio, said Fleischman, adding that he abhors Trump. But I would go, and my primary objective would be to make sure that Donald Trumps New York values dont get placed into the national Republican Party platform.
California is an outlier in asking Republican candidates to select delegates before its election. In most states, candidates are awarded a set number of delegates after voters participate in primaries or caucuses, and those delegates are later elected at party conventions.
The Cruz campaign worked these arcane party gatherings to make sure that delegates sympathetic to their cause were elected, even in states where Trump trounced them. They continue to do so, monitoring recent state party conventions in Nevada, Oklahoma, Montana and Texas. They are also still holding conference calls with campaign leaders and delegates across the nation.
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The goal, said Robert Uithoven, Cruzs western states regional political director, is not just to gather Cruz supporters as delegates, but to win the contest within the contest securing spots for their supporters on four key committees at the convention: those that govern the rules, the platform, credentials and permanent organization.
All of these could aid a potential Cruz 2020 run. On rules, conservatives would like to see Republican primaries restricted to registered GOP voters. Trump, whose success has been boosted by independent voters, has lashed out against such restrictions.
The platform committee is getting the most attention because of concerns about Trumps shifting views on issues such as abortion. Trump once supported abortion rights and opposed a ban on partial-birth abortions, but is now pro-life. In April, he said he would revise the GOPs platform to allow for exceptions for rape, incest or if the life of the mother was at stake.
I would like my partys platform to reflect conservative views, said Libby Szabo, a Colorado delegate for Cruz. As for the GOPs presumptive nominee, I dont know that hes proven that. Hes kind of been all over the board. That concerns me. Who is the real Donald Trump?
She still plans to go to Cleveland.
Were taking our vacation time to go to the convention. Were spending our own money and its not cheap to go to participate, Szabo said. Its part of our civic duty.
In past elections, runners-up have also tried to extract concessions, land high-profile speaking slots, negotiate deals to pay down lingering campaign debts or enhance their standing in the party.
At the contested 1976 Republican convention, Ronald Reagans gracious withdrawal and eloquent concession speech built goodwill among the party faithful that helped his 1980 bid. In 1988, Jesse Jackson, feeling he was shortchanged by the delegate allocation process, was able to wrangle a pledge from the Democratic nominee, Michael Dukakis, to change the rules so all states would award their delegates proportionally.
In recent years, the also-rans on the Republican side did not amass a significant number of delegates. But they can cause a stir, as former Rep. Ron Pauls fiercely loyal backers did in Tampa, Fla., in 2012 when they tried to put the former Texas congressman into contention for the nomination but were stymied by RNC rules changes. After party leaders refused to recognize them, they compared the convention to Nazi Germany and walked out.
This year, after it became clear that Cruz did not have a chance at winning the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination through primaries and caucuses, his delegates planned to attend in hopes that Trump would not be able to get to the number either, which would lead to a contested convention.
That dream was shattered after the Indiana primary, causing Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich to drop out of the race and leaving Trump as the presumptive GOP nominee. Few Cruz backers would contemplate publicly on the unlikely notion that Trumps nomination could still be derailed in Cleveland.
Knowing Trump, theres always a possibility for mayhem, said Saul Anuzis, a senior Cruz advisor. If he blows up, then he blows up.
The Texas senators supporters noted that Cruz would end up with far greater support and resources compared with when he launched his White House bid 14 months ago.
Sen. Cruz has built the largest political organization within the Republican Party, as measured by volunteers, donors and activists, Nehring said. Sen. Cruzs focus going forward is winning reelection to the Senate in 2018. What comes afterward will depend on the choices Sen. Cruz makes in the future. But he has 7 million more friends behind him now than he had before he ran for president.
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Hollywood Burbank Airport officials on Thursday hosted one of two community workshops to inform Burbank residents about a proposed 14-gate replacement terminal.
About 50 people attended the workshop, held in a meeting room in the Community Services Building, where several 50-inch, high-definition televisions were set up and displayed a PowerPoint presentation made by airport staff explaining the major components of the highly debated project.
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Airport officials are looking to replace the existing 232,000-square-foot terminal with a new facility that meets current Federal Aviation Administration and modern seismic standards.
Airport staff members and consultants were available at each station to answer any questions residents had about any aspect of a draft environmental impact report for the project.
Our goal is to make sure that Burbank residents and the greater number of people that live in the region understand the issues surrounding the replacement terminal, said Dan Feger, the airfields executive director. This is really about education, and soliciting public input and being able to answer each and every one of those questions in the final [environmental impact report].
The draft report was published on April 29 and marked the beginning of a 45-day public review process that allows anyone to make comments about the proposal. Airport officials will accept comments and questions through June 13.
Hollywood Burbank officials are leaning toward building a new 355,000-square-foot terminal with 14 gates in the northeast quadrant of the airfield. Two other options are building a 355,000-square-foot or a 232,000-square-foot, 14-gate terminal in the southwest corner of the airfield.
However, consultants said in the draft report that the two latter options would have considerably more environmental impact such as the potential removal of trees and relocation of a hangar that is eligible for a listing on the National Register of Historic Places compared to building the terminal in the northeast area.
Resident Emilia Platas attended the workshop to better inform herself and her family who live near the airport about the proposed project. She said she favors the new terminal in the northeast section, but was concerned about how the project would be paid for, what the environmental impacts would be and how it would affect traffic.
Platas said that she probably will not read the entire 3,700-page report and appreciated the workshop for keeping her informed.
Resident Doug Isbell also liked the new terminal in the northeast quadrant, saying that he likes that airport officials are adamant about having only 14 gates.
Its probably good for the economy of Burbank, he said.
Airport officials will host another community workshop from 6 to 8 p.m. on June 1 at the Buena Vista Library, 300 N. Buena Vista St.
Residents will also have a chance to make public comments during a meeting of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority at 9 a.m. on June 6 at the airfield.
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Anthony Clark Carpio, anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com
Twitter: @acocarpio
For 20 years, guitarist Pat Donohue was heard by millions of listeners across the country as a member of the Guys All-Star Shoe Band on Minnesota Public Radios A Prairie Home Companion, hosted by Garrison Keillor, who is retiring from hosting the show. Fans of the energetic finger-picking style of Donohue can catch up with the musician on Thursday, May 26, at the Coffee Gallery Backstage in Altadena.
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Influenced by the folk and blues players who came before him, Donohues current tour is bringing him to small venues and halls across the country. In 2005, he won a Grammy for his role on Pink Guitar, an acoustic guitar tribute to the music of Henry Mancini. His original songs have been recorded by the likes of Chet Atkins, Suzy Bogguss and Kenny Rogers.
His new album is Blue Yonder (Blue Sky Records), which has Donohue accompanied once again by members of the Prairie All Stars.
The show begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20. The Coffee Gallery Backstage is located at 2029 Lake Ave. in Altadena. More information at coffeegallery.com and (626) 798-6236.
Indian Affairs
Author and UCLA Professor Benjamin Madley will sign copies of his book, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, at a talk on Saturday, May 21, at the Autry in Griffith Park.
The book explores the lesser-known plight of Native Americans in California, where the Indian population dropped from 150,000 to 30,000 between the years 1846 and 1873. Madley will discuss the motives behind the massacre, the resistance, and the involvement of state and federal officials.
The talk begins at 11 a.m. The lecture is free with museum admission. Reservations recommended. More information at (323) 667-2000 and theautry.org.
Dancing Beauty
A live afternoon performance of the ballet The Sleeping Beauty, with music by Tchaikovsky, is set for June 19 at the Lanterman Auditorium in La Canada. The ballet will be performed by students of various age groups studying at Vonder Haar Studio. They will also be joined by child performers from the Vault in Pasadena.
Leading the adult performers is instructor Leigh Purtill. The Sleeping Beauty will be presented in an abbreviated 45-minute version. Following a short intermission, dancers from the Vault will demonstrate jazz, hip-hop, and acrobatic moves.
Lanterman Auditorium is at 4491 Cornishon Ave. in La Canada. Tickets are $18. More information at (818) 472-6466.
Illuminated Lecture
Curator Dr. Elizabeth Morrison of the J. Paul Getty Museum will lead a talk on medieval Armenian manuscript illumination on May 26 at the Brand Library in Glendale. The program, Curator in the Spotlight: Illuminating the Armenian Middle Ages, begins at 7 p.m.
Morrison will discuss the ancient handmade relics and speak on the work of Toros Roslin, an important Armenian artist of the Middle Ages. Morrison is Senior Curator of Manuscripts at the Getty, where she has been based since 1996. She has curated many exhibitions at the influential museum, and has served on the board of directors of the International Center of Medieval Art.
The lecture is in connection with Armenia: An Open Wound at the Brand, where it will remain through June 11. Admission is free. The Brand Library is at 1601 W. Mountain St. in Glendale. More information at (818) 548-2051, www.ArmenianAmericanMuseum.org and www.brandlibrary.org.
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Homeowners on Flanders Road and La Canada Boulevard who petitioned Southern California Edison last year to see whether unsightly, potentially unsafe power lines in their neighborhood might be moved underground recently learned the project would be physically feasible.
Adrian Garcia, a liaison between the utility provider and the city of La Canada Flintridge, informed the City Council during an April 19 meeting that an initial examination of the area had been done and a feasibility report was on its way to the resident group.
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Neighbors Philippe Hartley and Jennifer Schloessman, two among the cohort thats led the effort so far, confirmed in a recent interview theyd received such a report from Edison. Now, the only things that remain to be determined are how, when and by what means the immense undertaking could possibly be executed.
Edison came about five months ago, surveyed the property and said yes, they could do it, Hartley said. "(But) theyre not general contractors, and theyre not motivated to do it.
That could be a serious sticking point, as the onus on completing and bankrolling the necessary legwork may fall largely on the residents themselves. According to the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates Edison and other privately run public utility providers, there are a few different options for undergrounding power lines, under the agencys Rule 20.
Rule 20A stipulates cities may bank annual funding allocations specifically for undergrounding projects, and borrow against future allocations to cover costs beyond whats been banked. In La Canada, that option was pretty much exhausted when officials used their allocation to install underground lines along Foothill Boulevard, according to City Manager Mark Alexander.
My understanding is that the Rule 20 money allocated to La Canada has been mortgaged out 20 some years, Alexander explained to council members in a meeting in August. Were not going to see Rule 20 money available to us for quite some time.
You cant just keep putting bigger and bigger poles in. Really, its a quality of life issue. La Canada resident Jennifer Schloessman
Other options, as outlined in Rules 20B and 20C, explain how similar work can be done upon agreement of the utility provider and the applicant at the expense of the person or entities requesting the work, once certain conditions have been met and arrangement regarding the purchasing of equipment have been made.
No Edison spokesperson would comment directly on undergrounding, either in the case of the La Canada neighborhood group or at large, although a company statement was provided for this story.
Southern California Edison understands the interest by communities to improve neighborhood aesthetics by placing existing overhead utilities underground, the statement read. The company operates primarily as an overhead electric utility, but will work with local governments and agencies when undergrounding projects are initiated and approved.
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Alexander and La Canada Public Works Director Edward Hitti indicated any plans to move forward from this point would have to be made by the neighbors themselves.
SCE has done the preliminary analysis and has provided information to the residents to help aid their decision-making, but additional consultant information will be required for them to gain a full and true understanding of the total costs and process involved, Alexander wrote in an email interview.
Hartley said that while some of the neighbors who signed the groups petition indicated theyd consider establishing a special tax assessment district to help pay for undergrounding, both Edison and the city of La Canada should take a broader interest in creating a 21st century solution to supplying power to a growing community.
There was an assessment for sewers I accepted that, as Im still paying for that assessment and I absolutely do not mind that assessment, he said. But I want the city to pay its share, and the utility to pay its share.
Schloessman agreed, saying installing bigger power poles was not an adequate solution for the meantime.
Were going to keep growing our infrastructure. You cant just keep putting bigger and bigger poles in, she said. Really, its a quality of life issue.
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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com
Twitter: @SaraCardine
Outbreaks of yellow fever in central and southwest Africa have not reached the level of a global emergency, but a stronger response by affected nations and the international community is needed to prevent the spread of the deadly disease, the World Health Organization said Thursday.
An expert committee convened by the U.N. health agency in Geneva to weigh the evolving risk of the virus in urban areas of Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo and the status of the global stockpile of yellow fever vaccine determined that the event does not at this time constitute a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
Categorizing the outbreak as such would have deemed it an extraordinary event that called for immediate action and possibly a coordinated international response, according to WHO guidelines. Such a declaration was made to combat the Ebola and Zika virus outbreaks.
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Since December, there have been 2,267 suspected cases of yellow fever and almost 300 deaths in Angola from the acute hemorrhagic disease that is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the same insect that transmits the Zika virus and dengue fever.
The number of infections and casualties underscores the potentially explosive nature of this disease and the risk internationally, WHO expert Bruce Aylward told reporters after the emergencys committees meeting.
Yellow fever cases have been imported by travelers from Angola to Kenya, China and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and raised the alarm in nations that border Angola, including Namibia and Zambia. An unrelated bout of yellow fever has also taken hold in Uganda.
The global stockpile of the vaccine was expected to reach 7 million doses by the end of May and rise to as many as 18 million doses in a few months, Aylward said, and this could help prevent the virus from spreading further. But the priority was ensuring the vaccine was used as rapidly and widespread as possible, Aylward added, noting that getting vaccination coverage up high enough fast enough had been a challenge.
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The WHO expert committee recommended that the health agency and its member nations accelerate surveillance to detect possible cases of infection, implement mass vaccinations and enhance vector control in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among other measures. It also emphasized the need to ensure that travelers to and from countries at risk for yellow fever, especially migrant workers, receive vaccination against the virus.
The vaccine is highly effective and one injection offers a lifetime of protection, health officials have said.
On Thursday, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said its staff and volunteers in Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda were working with affected communities to identify and eliminate mosquito breeding grounds and help people reduce their risks of infection.
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A troubled economy, a potent Islamist insurgency, mounting concerns over human rights and media freedoms and now this.
The crash of EgyptAir Flight 804 is the latest calamity in a country that has lurched from crisis to crisis in the five years since the protests that forced longtime President Hosni Mubarak from power.
On top of social and political turmoil, Egypts tourism sector, which accounts for 12% of the economy, has been battered by two previous incidents involving passenger airliners in the past seven months. The Egyptian currency dived in value as the number of foreign visitors fell off by nearly half at the beginning of this year.
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The country was just beginning to shake off the effects of the deadly crash of a Russian jetliner in the Sinai Peninsula last October, and the bizarre but ultimately injury-free hijacking of an EgyptAir domestic flight in March.
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As investigators hunt for clues as to why Flight 804 plunged into the Mediterranean Sea hours into a journey from Paris to Cairo, the presumed deaths of all 66 people on board including 10 EgyptAir personnel and 30 Egyptian passengers have united many Egyptians in sadness and disbelief.
The only way it could get worse, many say, is if Egypt is found to be at fault.
1 / 19 A handout picture made available by the Egyptian Defense Ministry shows a life jacket from EgyptAir Flight 804. (Egyptian Defense Ministry / EPA) 2 / 19 A photo on the official Facebook page of the Egyptian military spokesperson reportedly shows EgyptAir crash debris. (AFP/Getty Images) 3 / 19 A photo on the official Facebook page of the Egyptian military spokesperson reportedly shows EgyptAir crash debris. (AFP/Getty Images) 4 / 19 An image reportedly of debris from the EgyptAir crash posted on an official Egyptian military Facebook page. (AFP / Getty Images) 5 / 19 A relative of Salah Abu Laban, Sahar Qouidar, Ghassan Abu Laban and Reem al-Sebaei, all victims of EgyptAir Flight 804, grieves following prayers for the dead, at al Thawrah Mosque in Cairo. (Amr Nabil / Associated Press) 6 / 19 Relatives and friends of passengers of the EgyptAir plane that crashed in the Mediterranean pray at Abou Bakr el-Sedek mosque in Cairo. (Mohamed Meteab / AFP/Getty Images) 7 / 19 An image from an Egyptian Defense Ministry video shows Egyptian pilots searching the Mediterranean Sea for wreckage of Flight 804. (AFP/Getty Images) 8 / 19 In an image from an Egyptian Defense Ministry video, the Egyptian military searches the Mediterranean for wreckage of the plane that crashed Thursday. (Egyptian Defense Ministry / AFP/Getty Images ) 9 / 19 A radar aircraft of the Hellenic Air Force took part in the search for EgyptAir Flight 804. (Thanassis Stavrakis / Associated Press) 10 / 19 A relative of a passenger who was flying aboard an EgyptAir plane that crashed en route from Paris to Cairo cries as family members are transported to a gathering point at Cairo International Airport on May 19. (Khaled Desouki / AFP/Getty Images) 11 / 19 An unidentified employee of EgyptAir speaks to journalists at Charles De Gaulle Airport on May 19, after one of the airlines jets crashed as it traveled from Paris to Cairo. (Thomas Samson / AFP/Getty Images) 12 / 19 A relative of a passenger on EgyptAir Flight 804 grieves at Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris. (Michel Euler / Associated Press) 13 / 19 French officers stand guard at the entrance of the Mercure Hotel next to Charles de Gaulle airport, where relatives of the passengers are gathering near Paris. (Etienne Laurent / EPA) 14 / 19 Relatives of missing EgyptAir passengersgather at Cairo Airport. (Khaled Elfiqi / EPA) 15 / 19 Relatives of missing EgyptAir passengers gather at Cairo Airport. (Osama Sayed / EPA) 16 / 19 Relatives of passengers aboard EgyptAir Flight 804 grieve as they leave the in-flight service building at Cairo International Airport. (Amr Nabil / Associated Press) 17 / 19 A French member of the border police stands guard at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport. (Etienne Laurent / EPA) 18 / 19 An EgyptAir Airbus A320 is seen at Istanbul Airport in Turkey in May. (Christoph Schmidt / EPA ) 19 / 19 Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail talks to reporters at Cairo International Airport after the crash. (Selman Elotefy / Associated Press)
The reaction among people is one of resignation that these accidents keep taking place, and of course sorrow for the victims, said Mustafa Kamel Sayed, a political science professor at the American University in Cairo.
But there is also a sense of relief that so far nothing points to the responsibility of either the Egyptian government, authorities or EgyptAir.
Within hours of the crash, Egyptian officials speculated that it was caused by terrorism, not a mechanical failure. That helped focus attention on a possible security breach at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, where the flight originated Wednesday night.
U.S. investigators also believe terrorism possibly a bomb smuggled on board may have caused the Airbus A320 to veer sharply at 37,000 feet before falling from the sky. The theory of an explosion was bolstered Saturday when a French civil aviation agency said the aircraft sent alerts about smoke in the cabin shortly before it lost radar contact.
NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >>
But U.S. intelligence agencies have found no evidence that any of the passengers or crew had links to terrorists, and no group has claimed responsibility for the crash. Egyptian officials have issued few statements on the investigation while recovery teams continue to scour the Mediterranean for remains and wreckage, specifically the black box cockpit voice and flight data recorders that could hold the keys to what went wrong.
Egypt has speculated no more than the U.S. or France on this crash and sounded very reasonable and measured, said H.A. Hellyer, senior fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council.
Had this been a flight that departed from Egypt, the response from the government might not have been quite so measured.
Discovery of a security failure by Egyptian authorities, or lapses by the airline, would be another blow to Egypt, and particularly President Abdel Fattah Sisi.
Under Sisi, Egypt has become particularly sensitive to allegations of governance failures. Since 2013, when Sisi ousted the Muslim Brotherhood government that took office in the countrys first free elections, the authoritarian former army field marshal has restricted civil rights in favor of stability.
Yet, Sisi has faced a growing threat from militancy in the Sinai, which began as a local security problem and has metastasized into a powerful insurgency claiming allegiance to Islamic State.
The militants, calling themselves Sinai Province, have claimed responsibility for attacks in mainland Egypt, including the killings of eight policemen in a southern district of the capital earlier this month.
Egyptian forces have launched operations against the militants, but efforts to pacify the insurgency by arming local Bedouin tribes have failed.
In October, Islamic State said it had bombed a Russian Metrojet aircraft that crashed in the Sinai, killing all 224 passengers and crew, the vast majority Russian tourists.
Egyptian authorities for months blamed technical malfunctions, but Sisi in February appeared to acknowledge that it was terrorism. He said in a speech that those who downed the flight wanted to harm Egypts relations with Russia, which has been carrying out attacks against Islamic State in Syria.
Three years later, Egypt is not as stable and not as secure, Omar Ashour, a professor at the University of Exeter in Britain who studies Egypt, said of Sisis tenure.
An insurgency that started as a limited security problem on the border of Gaza became a larger insurgency with the capacity to strike elsewhere in the country and pull off attacks like Metrojet. So the governments raison detre is undermined.
Concerns about Sisis government also increased after the body of an Italian man was found, tortured and mutilated, in February outside Cairo. The victim, 28-year-old Italian Giulio Regeni, was a doctoral student conducting research on labor unions in Egypt, and his killing bore the hallmarks of an extrajudicial execution by state security forces.
The case sparked outrage in Egypt and Italy. The European Parliament issued a stinging statement saying it was deeply concerned by the overall human rights situation in Egypt and reports that police brutality and forced disappearances were on the rise.
The government has continued a harsh crackdown against human rights activists, particularly pro-democracy groups seen as having supported the protests against Mubarak in 2011. In 2013, a court ordered the closure of several such groups, including Freedom House, a U.S.-based organization, and issued jail sentences to dozens of staff members.
On Monday, a court is due to decide whether to freeze the assets of two prominent human rights activists, Hossam Bahgat and Gamal Eid, who are accused of receiving foreign funding illegally. The judgment could carry major implications for all nongovernmental advocacy groups in Egypt.
A law banning gatherings of more than 10 people without government permission has stifled protests against Sisis policies. News coverage of the civil rights crackdown has also generally been muted because many media organizations and commentators supported Sisi for removing the Muslim Brotherhood, which they viewed as extremist.
But dissent increased last month after Sisis Cabinet announced that Egypt was ceding two Red Sea islands to neighboring Saudi Arabia. Following a rare mass demonstration, state security forces rounded up hundreds of lawyers, activists and journalists, charging many of them with terrorism-related offenses.
The arrests prompted anger even among Sisis supporters. But many are also outraged at the Muslim Brotherhood which has been banned as a terrorist organization since 2013 for attempting to capitalize on the EgyptAir crash.
The group issued a statement in English on Saturday blaming the Sisi government without providing evidence, saying that as long as this treacherous coup [administration] remains, Egypt will be vulnerable to further disasters, isolation and loss.
Its a very small minority of people who jump to this conclusion, said Sayed, the professor. In general, people appreciate the way the government is handling the situation.
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shashank.bengali@latimes.com
Twitter @SBengali
The top U.S. commander for the Middle East secretly visited Syria on Saturday for a firsthand look at efforts to build cohesive alliances of Arab, Kurd and other local fighters to defeat the Islamic State.
Army Gen. Joseph Votel, who is head of U.S. Central Command, became the highest-ranking U.S. military officer known to have entered Syria since the U.S. began its campaign to counter the Islamic State in 2014.
Votel flew into northern Syria and spent nearly 11 hours in the country. He met with U.S. military advisors working with Syrian Arab fighters and conferred with leaders of the Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella group of Kurdish and Arab fighters supported by the U.S.
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A small group of reporters accompanied Votel on a flight from Iraq under ground rules that, for security reasons, prohibited disclosing his visit until after he had left Syria.
Votel landed at a dusty outpost, surrounded by wheat fields, that serves as a U.S. camp for American military advisors who are training Syrian Arab troops in basic soldiering skills. Splitting off from the reporters who flew in with him, Votel then visited several other undisclosed locations in Syria before returning to the camp.
Aides said Votels flight into Syria was the first made in daylight by U.S. forces, who have about 200 advisors on the ground but no combat units. Military ground rules for the trip prohibited reporting the kind of aircraft Votel used, the exact location of where he landed and the names and images of the U.S. military advisors, who said they have been operating from the camp since January.
An Associated Press reporter and journalists from two other news organizations were the first Western media to visit the secretive operation.
In an interview as dusk fell and he prepared to fly out of Syria, Votel said his visit had hardened his belief that the U.S. is taking the right approach to developing local forces to fight Islamic State.
I left with increased confidence in their capabilities and our ability to support them, he said. I think that model is working and working well.
The U.S. has struggled to find an effective ground force to take on the terror group in Syria, where President Barack Obama has ruled out a U.S. ground combat role. This presents a different problem than in Iraq, where the U.S. at least has a government with which to partner.
The problem in Syria is complicated by the fractured nature of the opposition to the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The U.S. Is trying to develop credible Arab fighters to retake Raqqa, the Islamic States self-declared capital, while Syrian Kurds have retaken territory from the group in other parts of northern Syria.
The U.S. is supporting what it calls the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is predominantly comprised of Syrian Kurds, numbering at least 25,000 fighters, with a smaller element of Syrian Arabs, numbering perhaps 5,000 to 6,000. The U.S. is trying to increase the Arab numbers.
The last known high-level U.S. official to visit Syria was Brett McGurk, Obamas envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State. He spent two days in Syria in late January, including a tour of Kobani, the small town near the Turkish border where Kurdish fighters backed by U.S. airstrikes had expelled an entrenched group of Islamic State fighters a year earlier.
Votels predecessor, Gen. Lloyd Austin, who was leading Central Command when the U.S. kicked off airstrikes in Syria in September 2014, never visited the country. Votels decision to go reflects his emphasis on getting an up-close look at all aspects of the counter-terror campaign early in his tenure.
Syrian Arab commanders who were made available for interviews at the U.S. camp Saturday said their forces are gaining battlefield momentum but also need a lot more help. They were quick to say the U.S.-led coalition should pitch in more.
Qarhaman Hasan, the deputy commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, said he has given the Americans a list of his most pressing needs. Atop his list: armored vehicles, heavy weapons like machine guns, as well as rocket launchers and mortars.
Were creating an army, he said through an interpreter, and have had to rely on smuggling to get weapons.
You cant run an army on smuggling, he said.
Tribal leaders said in interviews that they also want to see the U.S. do more, both militarily and with humanitarian aid.
America has the capabilities, said Sheik Abu Khalid as he puffed on a cigarette under the shade of pomegranate and pine trees.
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140 Arrested In Giant Gang Takedown Effort From CPD
By Mae Rice in News on May 20, 2016 9:25PM
Crime scene tape (Photo by LukaTDB via Shutterstock)
One hundred and forty people have been arrested in a gigantic gang takedown in the 11th and 15th wards, the Chicago Police Department announced Friday. The mission, run by the CPD's Organized Crime Bureau, is "one of the largest narcotics unified enforcement missions in CPD's history," Chief of Police Eddie Johnson said in a press conference.
Of the 140 arrested, 136 will face felony charges, and the other four misdemeanors. Fifty of those arrested were already convicted felons, police said, and 83 had received enhanced charges of selling narcotics within 1,000 feet of a school. Eight offenders were put in CPD's diversion program, an alternative for non-violent offenders that provides addictive and social services to drug users who need "real, real help," as Johnson put it.
As they made the arrests, CPD seized 23 weapons, more than $45,000 worth of narcotics, 278 packs of unstamped cigarettes and more than $7,000 in cash.
Chicago police collaborated with Ald. Patrick D. Thompson (11th) and Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th) on the mission. Chicago's 11th Ward covers elements of Bridgeport, Canaryville, Armour Square, Pilsen, Stockyards, University Village and UIC; the 15th Ward covers elements of Brighton Park, Englewood and Back of the Yards.
Police have done several large raids like this recently, including a South Side gang raid where 64 were arrested and an Uptown narcotics bust where 16 were arrested, both in April. Nevertheless, Chicago gun violence is up substantially from last year and arrests are down, a citywide trend that began when footage of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald's fatal shooting at the hands of a police officer was released to the public this past November.
The mercurial leader of the Taliban was likely killed in a drone strike Saturday, U.S. officials said, delivering a crucial blow to the resurgent militant group that has launched high-profile attacks across Afghanistan in recent months in a bid to topple the countrys floundering government.
The airstrike, authorized by President Obama, hit Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour with missiles launched from drones overhead as he traveled in a vehicle around 3 p.m. local time with another man along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, southwest of the remote town of Ahmad Wal in western Pakistan.
U.S. military and intelligence officers were assessing the results of the strike, but the early evidence suggested Mansour had been killed, officials said. He has emerged as the leader of a resurgent Taliban that has mounted a powerful insurgency against the Afghan government with a string of attacks that have killed civilians, Afghan forces and U.S. military personnel.
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Mansour has been an obstacle to peace and reconciliation between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, prohibiting Taliban leaders from participating in peace talks with the Afghan government that could lead to an end to the conflict, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement.
Few details have been released about the operation. The drone strike in Pakistans Baluchistan region is rare for the U.S. and raises questions about the Pakistani governments involvement or approval of the operation. U.S. air strikes are usually concentrated to the east, in Waziristan.
But Mansour had been in the U.S. militarys crosshairs for years.
Mansour, shown in photos as a portly man with a long, dark beard, was appointed amir-al-mumineen, or leader of the faithful, last summer after the Taliban acknowledged that its reclusive leader and founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had died.
Omar had not been heard from in nearly a decade, and Afghan officials said he had died two years earlier in Pakistan. His death set off a power struggle inside the organization, with Mansour eventually selected to succeed him because he had been running the Talibans day-to-day operations in Omars absence, the group said.
Mansour was initially said to have endorsed a U.S.-backed effort to launch peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government, but months of meetings among diplomats from Afghanistan, Pakistan, the U.S. and China had failed to bring Taliban leaders to the table.
About a month after Mansours ascension, the Taliban hoisted its white flag in the center of the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, the first urban area it had captured since the U.S.-led invasion after the Sept. 11 attacks, and the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban in 14 years of insurgency.
Even as Taliban and allied militants gained ground against Afghan government forces in late 2015, a power struggle developed inside the groups Pakistan-based leadership. A dissident faction led by Mullah Muhammad Rasool, a rival to Mansour, announced a split from the group last fall and the two factions occasionally battled each other for territory inside Afghanistan.
The internal disputes blew into the open last December, when some Afghan government officials said they believed Mansour had been killed in a shooting at a meeting of Taliban leaders near the Pakistani city of Quetta, in Baluchistan. Taliban officials denied the report, and Mansours death was never confirmed.
In recent months, Taliban fighters seized additional territory in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz and the southern province of Helmand. The Taliban has kept up the fight, striking a coalition military vehicle Saturday morning in a suicide bombing near Bagram Airfield, the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan. No one else was reported wounded.
The Taliban controls more territory now than at any time since the war began, according to a report released Jan. 30 by the Pentagons independent inspector general. Battles with the Taliban last year also revealed glaring weaknesses in Afghan security forces, which suffered 5,500 deaths in combat last year.
At the same time, the Haqqani network, a Pakistan-based militant group believed to be responsible for some of the deadliest attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was gaining greater influence inside the Talibans leadership.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani network insurgent faction, reportedly became deputy leader of the Taliban. According to some Afghan officials, the move was spearheaded by Pakistans security establishment, which has long had a relationship with Haqqani and wanted to protect him in case peace talks began.
If Mansours death is confirmed, Haqqani, due to his reputation for military prowess and support from Pakistan, would emerge as the most likely next leader of the Taliban. Haqqanis hard-core anti-American views would appear to make peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government even less likely.
Mansours death comes at a critical time for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Army Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., who took over U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan in March, is trying to determine whether the Obama administration should maintain its current deployment of 9,800 U.S. troops.
Nicholson promised to prepare a detailed assessment within 90 days of taking the job. Obama has signaled he wants to cut the number in half by the time he leaves office, but the renewed violence has key lawmakers demanding the numbers stay put.
Most U.S. troops are focused on advising Afghan police or military troops, or are tracking and killing leaders from Taliban, Al Qaeda or Islamic State.
I hope this strike against the Talibans top leader will lead the administration to reconsider its policy of prohibiting U.S. forces from targeting the Taliban, said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Armed Services Committee chairman. Our troops are in Afghanistan today for the same reason they deployed there in 2001: to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for global terrorists.
Mansours death, while significant, would not eliminate the ongoing threat from the Taliban to U.S. troops and to Afghanistan, said Rep. Adam B. Schiff of Burbank, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
That is why we must remain vigilant and well-resourced in the field, and must continue to help create the conditions for a political solution, ever mindful that the Taliban is playing the long game and the situation in Afghanistan remains dangerously volatile, he said.
Hennigan reported from Washington and Bengali from Cairo.
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william.hennigan@latimes.com
Follow me on Twitter @wjhenn
UPDATES:
4:22 p.m.: This story was updated with new details and background.
This story was originally published at 2:20 p.m.
Prosecutors Release Harrowing Details Of Family's Massacre In Gage Park
By Emma G. Gallegos in News on May 20, 2016 9:08PM
Diego Uribe, 22 (left) and Jafeth Ramos, 19, both of whom have been charged in the Gage Park Massacres (Chicago Police Department)
Prosecutors have laid out their case against Diego Uribe Cruz, 22, and his girlfriend Jafeth Ramos, 19, who are accused of brutally murdering six members of a Gage Park family on February 4. Judge James Brown ordered the pair to be held without bail, saying their actions were "pure evil." Both were charged with six counts of murder.
Though the massacre was ostensibly kicked off by a robbery attempt, the pair made off with very little, according to the Sun-Times: $550 in cash, a piggy bank of change, an Xbox One, jewelry and some cell phones they later broke and threw out. The pair bought diapers and milk for their child, and prosecutors say they were hoping to buy a car with their loot.
Cook County States Attorney Alvarez said, "After 30 years as a prosecutor, I thought I had seen and heard just about anything and everything when it comes to violent crime, but a case like this is something I have never seen before. This was not an armed robbery, This was a methodical slaughter."
Prosecutors said the pair went to the home of the Martinez family armed with a gun to rob Cruz's relatives. They dined with the family before they started their rampage, according to the Chicago Tribune. Cruz admitted to police that he "had a lot of anger" over the way his uncle had been treated by his ex-wife, Maria Herminia Martinez, 32. She was Cruz's first victim. He followed her upstairs and demanded money at gunpoint, then fatally shot her several times in the ensuing struggle, prosecutors said.
When Maria's brother Noe Martinez Jr., 38, heard gunshots, he allegedly ran upstairs, where Cruz punched and choked him. Family matriarch Rossaura Martinez, 58, then rushed upstairs and attempted to punch Cruz, but he pushed her down the stairs. He then went into the kitchen to get knives and stabbed her unconscious body, prosecutors said.
Brothers Leonardo Cruz, 13, and Alexis Cruz, 10, showed the suspects where the money and other valuables were located.
Diego Cruz told Alexis to go to the basement, where he allegedly fatally stabbed him. Ramos told police she heard his screams. Leonardo then asked what happened to his brother, and Cruz reassured him and told him to look out for his grandpa. As Leonardo turned to look out the window, Cruz stabbed the boy in his stomach. Leonardo pleaded for his life, crying out "Please no! Please dont! I just want to live."
Cruz waited for his final victim Noe Martinez, Sr., 62, to return from buying tamales and hot chocolate for his family. Cruz stabbed and beat him before taking his wallet. His victim seemed baffled.
"Why are you killing me?" the grandfather reportedly said. "I don't owe you anything."
Ramos wasn't accused of killing any of the victims but Alvarez said she aided and abetted Cruz.
Ramos' legal guardian, Lourdes Oliva, told the Sun-Times that Cruz was an abusive and controlling boyfriend who she believes pressured Ramos into helping him. She said Cruz wouldn't let her wear make-up, shower or even leave the basement where they lived without his permission. She stands 5'2" and weighs 100 pounds; Oliva said, "She could not even kill a fly."
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Logo of Chinese tech giant Huawei. [File Photo]
Chinese company Huawei has signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding with UK Trade and Investment (UKTI).
The agreement focuses on identifying the best UK technology partners for Huawei's global supply chain and support Huawei's investment and business development in the UK.
UKTI is the British government department responsible for encouraging investment in the country by overseas businesses.
As a leading provider of global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions, Huawei has played an active part in rolling out high-speed broadband across the UK, and developing 4G and 5G networks.
In 2012, Huawei announced an investment of 2 billion U.S. dollars in the UK over the five years from 2013 to 2017.
Huawei said it was on track to meet this spending commitment, making it one of China's largest inward investors in the UK.
May 21, 2016, 5:01pm ET
Nissan reveals NISMO Z-based patrol cars
The company has donated three to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
Drivers in Tokyo will soon have a new patrol car to look out for. The Nissan 370Z NISMO is reporting for duty.
Nissan has supplied three new NISMO Nissan Fairlady Z (Japanese market name for the 370Z) patrol cars to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Finished in the traditional white and black two-tone of Japan's police cars, it would be a frightening sight to see its flashing red light bar in your rear-view mirror.
Luckily for speeders, for now the main duty of these Zs will be to promote traffic safety, not chase down lawbreakers. They will primarily be used for demonstrations on road safety campaigns and at charity events.
"They chose the NISMO Z because they wanted an iconic car," explains Makoto Fujii, a manager at Nissan Japan. "It's a long time since we last supplied cars to the MPD." Indeed, several previous iterations of the Nissan Z have served as actual highway patrol cars, including the mid-90s Z32 generation (what we know in the US as the 300ZX). The collaboration goes back to the early 1970s, in which a Fairlady Z432 a special racing homologation model with a high-performance Skyline GT-R engine that was a Japan-only model patrol car was used.
Of course, all the cars are equipped with police scanners and light bars, so even if they're only promotional vehicles now, they could unleash their 350-horsepower engines down the road.
Word reaches us that the National Liberal Club has, for the first time ever, elected a woman take over its running. Janet Berridge is its new chairman.
We do have to wonder what took it so long, but were happy to see this development.
Janet said, on her election:
I am tremendously honoured to have been elected the new chairman of the National Liberal Club. Situated in the heart of London, the club appeals to a wide variety of professions and age groups and provides an environment to suit different interests and requirements. There is no such thing as a typical club member at the NLC the diversity that has been nurtured over many years is reflected by its members. My aim in the coming years is to make sure that our clubs foundations are fit for the 21st century while maintaining its traditions and much-loved customs. By embracing the values of Liberalism espoused by the clubs founders and their successors, I am confident that this challenge can be met and achieved.
And a little bit about Janet and the history of the NLC from the club:
Born in Birmingham in 1952, Janet Berridge works with her husband Michael as a freelance translator in the music business. She divides her time between London and Berlin, and is a committed European. She is also an active Liberal Democrat in Bromley, and is keen to keep the clubs unique heritage alive. The National Liberal Club was founded by Prime Minister W.E. Gladstone in 1882 to act as a home from home for Liberal activists and supporters and it still does so today. On Wednesday night, the great and the good of Lib Dem politics were gathered in the club for the unveiling of its latest painting: a portrait of former party leader Charles Kennedy. The club boasts a wide range of distinguished members, including Paddy Ashdown, Desmond Tutu, and Aung San Suu Kyi. Past members include Winston Churchill, Bram Stoker, Dylan Thomas, H.G. Wells, and every Liberal and Lib Dem Leader since Gladstone. The National Liberal Club was the first of the traditional gentlemens clubs of London to admit women as full members which it did in 1976, with many other clubs not moving with the times until the 1990s or 2000s and half a dozen clubs today still persist in being men only. The NLC, by contrasts, stresses its inclusiveness.
We wish Janet well as she takes up her term of office.
This week, Liberal Democrat Councillor Geoff Reid became Lord Mayor of Bradford. He was proposed for the office by fellow Councillor Jeanette Sunderland. Extracts from her speech follow. Its longer than our usual articles, but its a fascinating read.
Geoff has a lifelong record of community service as a Methodist minister and Councillor. He has spoken truth to power and provoked the ire of a Conservative Cabinet Minister. He played a pivotal role in providing support and healing for communities in Bradford after the riots.
You can read more about him on the Telegraph and Argus site here.
It is with great pleasure that I ask for the support for the nomination of Councillor Geoff Reid to be the Lord Mayor of Bradford for the municipal year 2016-2017.
Geoff Reid will bring a depth to the role of Lord Mayor which finds it roots in his history as a Methodist Minister, a politician, a collaborative write, a visitor to pubs and his love of public transport.
Geoff Reid born on the same day in 1946 as Freddie Mercury, in a two room flat in the Scotswood Road area of Newcastle upon Tyne. His parents wanted a council house but having only one child failed to qualify.
His father, who had returned from five years as a Prisoner of War to become a leading light of the Tyneside Anglo-German Friendship Society, joined a self-build group of 32 men who completed 32 houses in their spare time. Geoff moved across the city to North Heaton, eventually attending Heaton Grammar School. In the 1950s he came on an early visit to Ilkley with Newcastle Methodist Mission Poor Childrens Summer Camp.
Geoff attended Newcastle University to read English Language and Literature, so he lived at home, often returning on the All Night East End Circular bus. His student career included regular participation in debates, losing an election to Kate Adie, and offering overnight hospitality to Hugh Gaitskells daughter.
From there he went to Cambridge and collected another first degree while training for the Methodist ministry. He then served as a Methodist Minister in Wallsend, Rotherham, Barnsley, Salford Urban Mission (1986-94) and to Bradford serving at Touchstone, Bradford from 1994 to 2009.
Geoffs 39 years as a Methodist Minister has seen him working in some of the poorest communities in the cities and Metropolitan Districts of the North. For some years he was a member of the Methodist Conference, the churchs governing body, where he was a regarded variously as the voice of the north, team ministry specialist and experienced urban missioner.
He co-authored the Powerful Whispers Report on the Bradford Urban Hearings and chaired the Centenary to Millennium Report, C2M. Geoff helped to establish the first Food Bank, was the first Chair of the BEACON, Bradford Ecumenical Asylum Concern and trained Church Community workers. He also edited a column in the [email protected] for fifteen years.
Behind all this he secured the future of the Touchstone project, unashamedly exploiting the pages of the Methodist Recorder with his writing skills, to persuade the Methodist Church to put serious money into Bradford.
Geoff also has a record as a political activist having fought political campaigns in the old Rother Valley seat where he managed to gather around him 50 people to hand-address 37,500 leaflets, saving the deposit by 0.9% with 9828 votes and coming 2000 behind Gary Waller, subsequently MP for Keighley, and 35,000 behind the winning Labour candidate!
In Barnsley Geoff secured what is still the highest ever Liberal percentage vote.
Despite his lack of parliamentary electoral successes Geoff was not without his supporters. The former Liberal MP for Colne Valley on recommending Geoff as a Parliamentary Candidate to Party Headquarters said: His Methodism and his politics blend well together, partly because he is not a stuffy clergyman; he knows he must address the problems and the human nature around him.
It gave Geoff great pleasure to stand in the Eccles constituency which included areas represented by Hilaire Belloc, Liberal MP for Salford South 1906-1910, friend of G K Chesterton, churchman, politician and lover of good ale. Chris and Geoff led a successful residents campaign to get a new community pub as an alternative to the awful Whitbread house up the road. As Geoff pulled the first pint he quoted Belloc When you have lost your inns, go and drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England. Little wonder that one of the leading lights of the Salford Campaign for Real Ale wanted Geoff to be canonised.
As Chair of Age Concern Barnsley he played a key role in the expansion of the organisation and subsequently did the same as Vice-Chair of Bradford Nightstop.
Geoff has never been afraid of difficult situations. He spent the night of the 2001 Bradford riots on White Abbey Road with the Rector of Manningham and the Director of Bradford Community Broadcasting, at one point retreating from the bus shelter into somebodys front room as the petrol bombs rained down behind the police lines. The following morning he was helping churches come to terms with the nights events and was at the heart of helping the churches respond to what had happened.
Geoff did have previous experience of riots, none of which were his fault. In Barnsley the riot was known as the Miners Strike and a group of Methodists wrote a book about it, in which Geoff wrote the chapter on the South Yorkshire Police, which he was inspired to look at again over the last few weeks. During the strike he had his disagreements with the Miners national leadership but at a meeting to look at the after effects he chided the Secretary of State for Energy, Peter Walker, for going over the top in his demonisation of Arthur Scargill. The Secretary of State said that he had never heard such disgraceful words from a Methodist minister in his life a comment which Geoff has cherished ever since as a badge of honour.
Geoff was the Chaplain to the Lord Mayor, Councillor Allan Irvine Hillary and in 2008 he became an Honorary Ecumenical Canon of Bradford Cathedral. In 2009, the year of his retirement, he received a Community Harmony Award. In 2010 he was elected as a Councillor in Eccleshill and re-elected in 2014. He has been Group Chair since 2011. Also since 2011, he has chaired Eccleshill Community Association, based at Eccleshill Mechanics Institute.
He has been a member of Standards Committee since he joined the Council. He has also served on Bradford Planning, Childrens Services Scrutiny and Bradford East Area Committee. He was a member of the West Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority until its abolition and has also been a member of Bradford SACRE (Standing Committee on Religious Education).
Geoff is the only member of the Council active in Bradford CAMRA, having been a member of the Campaign for Real Ale since the early 1980s. He appeared in the 1992 Good Beer Guide following a successful campaign for a community pub in Salford. Understandably therefore his favourite tipple is real ale (draught or bottle-conditioned), but he does enjoy the occasional Island malt whisky.
He is a long-time student of public transport organisation, having received his first bus timetable at the age of seven, which stimulated a friendship with the late Councillor Stanley King. He is the only person I know who considers it OK to test ones knowledge of local bus services through the Lib Dem pub quiz.
While at Newcastle University, Geoff was described by a President of the Methodist Conference as a synthesiser who could bring very different ideas together to see what happened. His nearest and dearest say that sometimes they have no idea what hes on about but in general terms he is normally worth listening to. I think that is a sentiment which members of the local constituency party and the Liberal Democrat Council Group would share. He also specialises in bringing very different people together in the same room, a skill which has had a bearing on his contribution to Bradford over the last two decades.
It feels right that Geoff now takes up the mantle of civic leadership in Bradford. He is intertwined in its history, has knowledge of its public transport systems and real ale that it is second to none. Geoff has made a substantial contribution to the Districts progress through faith, through collaboration with others and through politics. I ask that you support his nomination to be the Lord Mayor of Bradford for the Civic year 2016-2017.
In the autumn of 1980, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was urged by political commentators and members of her own party including Ted Heath to U-turn on policies that ushered in a fierce liberalisation of the economy. In a response that was to gleam through the decades as one of the most memorable moments of UK politics in recent history, with her now-iconic sternly glare and aura of authority, she addressed her party at the Conservative conference with the immortal phrase, You turn if you want to the ladys not for turning. And so, Thatchers ferocious refusal to compromise was to solidify her part in British history, play a juggernaut role in keeping her in power for the next eleven years and earn her the nickname The Iron Lady.
However, for the past six years, public perception has been that the Liberal Democrats are the antithesis of that caricature Thatcher had built for herself we have been branded as the party of the centre ground; the party of compromise. The party that sells itself as radically centrist, able to flexibly navigate in and out of both the left and right, pandering to voters on both sides. I am here to argue that this is not only unabashedly false, but frighteningly hurtful to the causes of liberty, freedom and equality, the three main tenants of our party.
But first, we should as a party note that Nick Clegg did what he believed to be right, and in his time as deputy prime minister liberal policies were indeed implemented. Same sex marriage was finally legalised; the snoopers charter was halted; he helped us stop vicious cuts to our NHS Nick did more than what most would have done in his position, but still this idea of us being a party that sees things down the middle prevailed, and at the time advisors and the higher-ups of our party gleefully, though wrongly, took that brush and helped paint the perverse picture that lost us an unprecedented amount of votes.
But the reality is, there is nothing compromising about us. We are a party of social democrats, liberals and libertarians, united together in both our strengths and in our beliefs, defending without pause the right to individual freedom; waving the flag of free speech higher than any of the other parties; pushing for drug policy reform; campaigning for the rights of mental health patients; lowering taxes and balancing the economy while not stepping in to socialism like Corbyns Labour will certainly do, or crony capitalism like the Tories. We are first and foremost a party of ideology, and that ideology is one centred heavily round personal, economic and social freedoms. We are classical liberals and democrats, and there has never been anything compromising about these schools.
Our crushing defeat in the 2015 election was not because we held on to these ideas, but because the public perceived us to leave them at the door when we entered a coalition with the Tories but thankfully, defeat does not translate to failure. Ive not a shred of doubt in my mind that if each Liberal Democrat does his or her duty, becoming louder and carrying more certainty in what our party stands for, then we shall set sail in to these uncertain waters of 21st century politics, ride calmly with Tim Farron as our captain through the political storm that has sunk the ship of New Labour and once again re-establish ourselves as the champions in the corner of a fair, equal, and most importantly, free society.
There are those who will tell us that our fight is over. Those people are gravely mistaken. As the twenty-first century unfolds, it is becoming evident that there has never been a time where liberalism has been so important and greatly needed. With the refugee crisis, the EU referendum coming up, on-going wars in the Middle East, the rise of far-right politics in Europe and America, and strains in the relationship with Russia and NATO, I cannot imagine a convincing argument that would suggest were not needed we are. And we are still in this fight.
* Dean Moore is a student in Salford and has been a member of the Liberal Democrats since February 2016.
SHANNON Airport is well positioned to tap into any potential deal for a new carrier to fly to the United States, if the way is cleared by US authorites for Norwegian Air International to fly across the Atlantic.
Industry sources have indicated that Norwegian will likely use Ireland as a major hub for flights to North America from Europe, if it gets approval from the US Department of Transportation.
Norwegians attempts to get the green light to operate low cost flights to the US have become an issue in the Presidential campaign, with Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders recently voicing his opposition to the deal. Shannon has lodged a submission in support of the carriers attempts to win a permit to operate services between Ireland and the US.
Most of the major carriers into the US were against the Norwegian bid, including American, US Airways and Delta, and industry experts believe the deal will level the playing field for low cost operators looking at the transatlantic market.
Preliminary approval for permits for Norwegian has been granted, which Shannon has said would mean having a new carrier on its runway, as a result of discussions that are ongoing since 2014.
It is understood that a service between Boston and Shannon would be the first route if the deal gets the go ahead. Industry sources have suggested that there is a big appetite among Irish authorities for the deal to go ahead, with Ireland to become an anchor point for the States, offering a hub opportunity both for Norwegian and other carriers.
Shannon has formally stated its support for Norwegians bid in its submission, which has also been backed by the Irish Aviation Authority in a separate submission to the US transport department. Mary Considine, acting CEO of Shannon Group, said that the launch of these services would be a boost for tourism and business.
We welcome the planned NAI services and the benefits to visitors and to businesses which they will bring, Ms Considine said in the submission.
We have been in discussion with Norwegian since 2014 and we are happy to have been able to demonstrate the strong and growing demand for travel between Ireland and the US and to have convinced the airline to launch Shannon-US service subject to regulatory approval.
We welcome NAIs plans to develop transatlantic service from Shannon to complement our existing and valued range of flights, and we are confident that NAIs initial and subsequent routes will grow the overall market and develop more transatlantic trade and tourism.
Meanwhile, Shannon this week announced details of a new programme to support airport users with autism and special needs and their families.
Launched by Marty Morrissey, the initiative includes a new instructional video and brochure hosted on www.shannonairport.ie for people with autism and special needs to help them to understand the process of getting through the airport.
SHE has been the toast of Cannes this week, is tipped to be an Oscar nominee for best actress next year, but for her family in Limerick she has always been a starlet in their eyes.
Ger Malone, one of Ruth Neggas four uncles in Limerick, where she grew up in her early years, said all the family have been delighted to witness her success with her latest movie, Loving, which has received rave reviews at its premiere this Monday at the Cannes film festival.
It has also put her firmly in the spotlight as a potential Oscar nominee for 2017.
One of Gers sons, David, who like Ruth also lives in London, accompanied her on the trip to the glitzy French seaside town and walk up the famous red carpet, where Hollywood stars and movie makers and shakers descend at least once a year.
Absolutely, were all very proud of her, Mr Malone told the Limerick Leader.
Shes a hard worker, very committed and deserves every success. Its a tough game, shes very busy, over and back between London and America, so she deserves everything she gets. She was always a great little actress growing up.
Ger said it would be fantastic if she received an Oscar nomination, and said if she does, theyll be eagerly watching from home, while Ruth enjoys herself with her younger cousins in Tinseltown.
Among her cousins in Limerick is Peter Malone, another son of Ger, who has played rugby with Bruff, St Munchin's, Garryowen, Munster, and who is now Munster Rugby's elite player development manager.
Ruths mother Nora now lives in London, after moving from Limerick, and there are four other aunts and uncles from the Dooradoyle Road, and even more cousins.
Negga, an only child, was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she lived until she was four. Her mother Nora was working in Ethiopia as a nurse when she met Negga's father. Sadly, Ruths father died in a car accident when she was just seven.
She went to national school in Roxboro, and later spent part of her secondary school at Scoil Carmel on OConnell Avenue, before moving to London and completing her drama studies at Trinity College Dublin.
The former Love/Hate star, 34, who also played Shirley Bassey in an acclaimed BBC drama, stars in the big screen in Loving, which tells the true story of an illegal inter-racial marriage in 1950s Virginia and stars Joel Edgerton as Richard Loving with Negga who went to school for a time at Scoil Carmel on OConnell Avenue playing his wife, Mildred.
The couple battled before the Supreme Court in 1967 for their right to live together as husband and wife.
The Hollywood Reporter also described the actress this week as the definition of a decade-long overnight success.
The Daily Telegraph said that Negga, an Ethiopian-Irish actress best known for a handful of TV roles, is place-your-Oscar-bets-now tremendous in the role of a black woman quietly fighting her way to the centre of her own life story.
This is the most important film Ive ever made, said Negga. It's one of the most important films in history, I think. I'm kind of overwhelmed by everything.
Mildred shied away from the spotlight completely, but she changed the course of American legal history. All she wanted to do was marry the man she loved. It took nine years. Can you imagine taking on the might of the American legal system? They were poor and fairly uneducated, but they just wanted to be with one another.
Her breakout role was in Neil Jordans 2004 film Breakfast on Pluto, followed by Ophelia at the National Theatre, the Misfits TV series on E4, amongst others.
APPROVED plans to deliver a makeover to the Crescent Shopping Centres shopping experience were welcomed this week.
This week, Limerick City and County Council gave the go-ahead to the Dooradoyle complex to undergo a major expansion to their retail, cafe and restaurant space, with the inclusion of a new, landscaped public plaza.
The plans, which were first lodged on March 24, also include the raising of ceiling space in various malls; the reconfiguration of seven external units and one unit, which will provide six internal units; the creation of five new external units, and three of which will cater for restaurant, cafe and deli-bar uses.
Metropolitan mayor, Cllr Jerry ODea said that he was delighted to see further progression and the prospect of construction and retail jobs being created.
I had a look at the plans, and it seems that they will aesthetically, very much so, improve the appearance of the Crescent Shopping Centre. I think it is a very positive move. People will comment that the city centre needs similar rejuvenation, and we are working hard at that. The Crescent is a great asset to Limerick. I personally think that the traffic management will be the big focus of the extension.
He added that, while the city has seen some successes in recent times, he said that the Georgian buildings do not offer the floor space that some companies require.
We are working hard on the strategic plan for the city, and hopefully that will give the companies that want to come in, the size and style of space they need. And that is a work in progress, he said.
City trader, Helen ODonnell told the Leader, while she welcomes the councils approval, she said that they would like the bigger chains to operate in the city centre.
They are obviously reorganising their space, and there are malls that did need upgrading. While one would hope that people coming to Limerick with a new business will look at the city centre first, if there is an existing shopping centre in Limerick, we will want it to be the best shopping centre in Limerick.
The challenge is to provide the type of units that high street shops want, and unfortunately our Georgian buildings dont lend themselves to that, and we have limited enough units that will attract some of the bigger chains that are in other cities. And some retailers can be fussy about who they are right next door to. Its about the retail mix in the city, she said.
When the plans were first lodged, Pat Kearney, of Rooney Auctioneers, who worked on the delivery of the Crescent Shopping Centre in 1973, said that the city needs to be more appealing to customers and retailers.
The people, who shop, go to where their comfort is offered. They go to where they have all-weather shopping, they go where there is free carparking, he said.
According to the proposed development, which received no official submissions from the public, will see an overall increase of 1,743 square metres in retail space, with an overall increase of 3,384 square metres on the complex.
The council also approved of the relocation of 41 car parking spaces, the provision of 24 bicycle parking spaces and an upgrade to the junction at the County Library.
According to planning files, the HSEs environmental department service had no objections to the Dooradoyle shopping centres application. However, the HSE stated that the preparation for all food units shall be discussed with the HSE before construction commences.
The Limerick Leader contacted management at Crescent Shopping Centre a number of times on Tuesday, but they were unavailable to comment.
THE Court of Appeal has dismissed a case against by an Askeaton man against his conviction for dangerous driving causing the death of a married couple in their sixties, in 2009.
Michael Harty, of St Marys Terrace, Askeaton was sentenced in 2013 to five years imprisonment and disqualified from driving for 30 years as a result of causing the death of Maurice and Margaret Hartnett, at Ard Tomin, Askeaton,on July, 29, 2009.
At the time of the crash, he was driving with an alcohol level of 153.9 nearly twice the legal limit then.
The couples daughter Elizabeth said during the 2013 trial, in which he was found guilty, that not being able to say goodbye to their parents would haunt us to the day we die.
Mr Harty appealed his sentence on the grounds that the judge erred in law by permitting the prosecution to adduce evidence before the jury of a biochemistry report.
He contended that this evidence was received in circumstances which were in breach of his constitutional right to privacy.
Counsel on behalf of Harty contended that even if there was an entitlement by the gardai to receive the toxicology report from the hospital, they should have requested a judicial search warrant.
The court delivered an ex tempore judgment on the May 11, 2015, in which it rejected the appellants ground of appeal and dismissed the appeal against conviction.
The court said at the time that it would later set out more fully its reason for holding that the claimed right to privacy in this case was subject to the requirements of the common good and public order, namely, in this case the requirement that a suspected serious crime be properly investigated.
The prosecutions case was that on July 29, 2009, Mr Hartnett, 62, the deceased man, had attended at the house of Kitty Walsh in Askeaton.
He had commenced tiling work at 9am and finished work at about 5.30pm. He then collected his wife, 60, who was visiting in the locality, and drove his Volkswagen Caddy van in the direction of Rathkeale. Both were pronounced dead on the evening of the collision.
The collision occurred at an area which was governed by an 80 kmph speed limit. The approach to the scene of the collision was covered by signs indicating the presence of dangerous bends.
While there was no eyewitness of the collision, the prosecutions case rested on a forensic examination at the scene of the collision on the late Mr Hartnetts correct side of the road and on testimonies that Harty, who was driving a Rav Jeep, was intoxicated at the time and his capacity to drive was impaired.
Evidence of the consumption of alcohol came from three sources including paramedics who were at the scene, and witnesses from two pubs where Harty had been observed drinking that afternoon.
In addition, blood samples showing the concentration of alcohol in his system were taken from him after the collision. Harty, who did not give any evidence during the trial, told gardai when interviewed that he did not remember the collision and had no memory in respect of his movements on the day of the accident.
One witness, Brian OGrady, who knew the defendant, gave evidence that he had seen him in Quaids Bar at about 4pm that afternoon with another person, and he recollected that Harty had ordered two bottles of beer.
The licensee of Quaids Bar also gave evidence stating that Harty and a companion had ordered and consumed a bottle of beer each and that when he observed the appellant and his companion, they were both cold stone sober.
Liam O'Sullivan, who was a barman at another licensed premises in Adare, saw Harty and another man in the public house and stated that they had roughly five or six pints each.
Maurice Hartnett, the other driver, was sober and had no alcohol in his system.
On September 3, 2009, Garda Cathy Healy called to Hartys home, and he signed a consent form stating as follows: I hereby consent to the Garda Siochana Askeaton garda station, Co Limerick, obtaining from the Mid-Western Health Board a medical report on the injuries sustained by me on July 29, 2009, at Ard Tomin, Askeaton.
Garda Healy acknowledged that she had not advised Harty that the material in question might be used against him. She said that she was not aware at the time that she should have obtained a further consent.
The trial judge ruled during the case that the evidence was admissible, saying the accuseds consent was immaterial.
What could be relevant in this context is if the gardai tried to get his consent under a deliberate subterfuge and misrepresentation of matters and then went off to the hospital with a consent having been obtained in such underhand methods but that doesn't apply here, said Judge Carroll Moran at the time.
The Court of Appeal ruled that Hartys interest in keeping the records in question private was not sufficient to override the public interest in the gardai being able to secure the results of the toxicology tests as part of their criminal investigation into the suspected serious offence of dangerous driving causing death, in circumstances where the appellant had been driving a relevant vehicle and was suspected of having been under the influence of alcohol.
The court also ruled that the toxicology report in this case was properly admitted into evidence, and dismissed the appeal.
DROMCOLLOGHER, the home of Irelands first co-operative creamery in 1889, will play host this Sunday to a more recent slice of social history but one which is certain to stir memories at the towns annual May Fair.
This years May Fair, one of the chief organisers Seamus Stack explained, will feature a restored mobile creamery.
This mobile creamery went from cross-roads to cross-roads in Kerry and Clare during the 1950s and 1960s, he said. The Kerry Co-Op Group has very generously given it to Dromcollogher and our local vintage enthusiasts have restored it.
That bunch of enthusiasts will be present on Sunday to explain about the mobile creamery and show people around it, Mr Stack added.
In addition, a number of retired creamery managers from around the county have been invited to Dromcollogher for the day.
It will be a great chance for people to meet up with the men who were important to so many families in the past , Mr Stack said.
But the mobile creamery and its nod to past customs are only a small part of what will be on offer to patrons from 1pm this Sunday.
There will be a vintage display of cars, tractors, farm machinery and motorbikes. In addition, there will be lots of stalls including bric-a-brac, produce and plant stalls as well as stalls with a range of goods and implements to be bought. There will be fun and games for children as well as a music and a dog show.
And all funds from the May Fair will go towards the Dromcollogher and District Community Respite Care Centre.
These funds are badly needed, Mr Stack said, explaining that they help to bridge the shortfall in finances needed to run the 20-bed centre.
We get funding from the HSE and from Pobal and the residents themselves pay 250 a week because we try to keep it as close as possible to the pension level, Mr Stack said. But funds are always needed to maintain the centre and its 40 part-time and full-time staff. This year too, we have spent a lot of money upgrading the centre for the greater comfort of the residents and to keep abreast of the HIQA requirements, Mr Stack said.
Happily, he added, the centre has been successful in meeting its obligations under HIQA.
Since the centre opened 14 years ago, we have cared for nearly 5000 people, Mr Stack said. We care for people from all over Limerick.
If you would like to support this work or simply enjoy a family day out on what the organisers hope will be a sunny summer Sunday, drop along this Sunday. The May Fair takes place in a field close to the town and GAA grounds.
A WORLD-renowned poet who is performing at the Belltable this weekend, has commended Limerick for its offering of protection to 100 Syrian refugees, who will be housed across the city and county throughout the year.
Palestinian poet and human rights activist Rafeef Ziadah, who was undocumented for most of her life, will perform her newly-released spoken word album, We Teach Life, at the Belltable this Saturday, at 8pm.
She said that the album, performed with musician Phil Monsour chronicles the stories of Palestine and the Middle East, and quite a lot of it deals with the current refugee crisis. It is spoken word put to music, produced in Australia, with a lot of Arabic undertones to the music, as well.
Speaking to the Limerick Leader, the London-based poet said that its nice to know that the people of Limerick are accepting refugees and taking them in so beautifully.
I have grown up undocumented for most of my life, so I understand how it feels to lose everything and wanting to settle somewhere new.
The trouble with the camps in the Lebanon is that they are already overcrowded with Palestinian refugees. There is no infrastructure, theres no electricity, water is scarce, so youre adding to an already horrific situation. You have Palestinians who fled to Syria, and are now double refugees, and they are not allowed in the camps in Lebanon or Jordan, and are being forced to take any route they can to Europe, she said.
Due to huge demand for the show, Ms Ziadahs Dublin show was recently moved from the Abbey Theatres Peacock stage to its main stage.
I have been completely humbled by how wonderful people in Ireland have been. We had to move from a smaller theatre to the Abbey Theatre. And to be part of the centenary events, especially since I am part of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, Ireland has a very place in history, for me. So it is an honour to be heading to Ireland to speak the poems, she said.
It has been confirmed that 100 Syrian refugees will be resettled across the city and county this year. It is expected that 50 refugees will be resettled within the next week.
Flash
Pilots of an Egyptian military plane take part in a search operation for the EgyptAir plane that disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea in this still image taken from video May 19, 2016.
Egyptian Armed Forces have found human remains and more wreckage of the crashed EgyptAir flight, Egypt's ministry of civil aviation said on Friday.
In a press statement, the ministry said besides human remains, the army has found the plane's seats and passengers' belongings.
The search is still going on, the statement said.
Earlier on Friday, the military has found debris from the crashed EgyptAir plane 290 km north of the coastal city of Alexandria.
The Airbus A320, en route from Paris to Cairo, disappeared from radar screens on Thursday at 2:45 am Cairo local time (0045 GMT) with 66 people aboard, including 30 Egyptians and 15 French.
The plane was flying at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,280 meters) when losing contact with the radar, an official source in the airline said.
Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos said that the plane had made abrupt swerves and lost altitude within Egyptian airspace.
The flight MS804 entered the Greek airspace at 02:24 am local time (2324 GMT, May 18), according to an earlier press statement.
During the last contact of the plane's pilot with Greek air traffic controllers at 02:48 am local time while the Airbus was flying over the Greek island of Kos no problems were reported.
The aircraft exited the Greek airspace, before suddenly disappearing from radar screens within Egyptian airspace at 03:29 am according to the Greek authorities.
Athens attempted to contact the plane at 03:27 am for the typical transfer of communication to Egyptian air traffic controllers, but there was no response, according to the official announcement.
The Greek Civil Aviation Authority, as well as Greece's Defense Ministry, have not confirmed local media reports that the captain of a passenger vessel reported a flash in the sky about 130 nautical miles off the Greek island of Karpathos, Greek national news agency ANA-MPA stressed.
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Flash
Chinese President Xi Jinping Friday sent messages respectively to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and French President Francois Hollande, extending condolences over the crash of EgyptAir's Flight MS804.
In the messages, Xi expressed deep condolences to the victims of the disaster and sincere sympathy to their families.
EgyptAir's Flight MS804, en route from Paris to Cairo, disappeared from radar screens on Thursday at 2:45 a.m. local time in Cairo (0045 GMT) with 66 people aboard, including 30 Egyptians and 15 French.
The Egyptian Armed Forces said in a statement on Friday it had found parts of debris from the missing plane in the sea 290 kilometers north of the coastal city of Alexandria.
Nile crocodiles, native to Africa and Madagascar, have been identified in Florida for the first time.
Florida's native alligators and crocodiles could be facing some new competition from a bigger and meaner member of their own crocodilian family. Nile crocodiles American crocodiles' larger, more aggressive cousins from the African continent have been identified in the wild in southern Florida for the first time, according to a new study.
Between 2009 and 2012, scientists responded to reports from Floridians of "unusual looking" crocodiles, the study authors said. The scientists caught three young crocodiles one of which was captured on the porch of a Miami home and, through genetic analysis of tissue samples, confirmed that they were invasive Nile crocodiles, connecting them to crocodile populations in South Africa.
A female crocodile captured in 2012 was released and later recaptured in 2014, providing the scientists with proof that the Nile crocodile species could survive and thrive in the Everglades for nearly two years. In fact, they found that the crocodile grew about 28 percent faster during that period than juvenile Nile crocodiles typically grow in parts of their native African ranges. [Alligators vs. Crocodiles: Photos Reveal Who's Who]
Nile crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus) measure about 16 feet (5 meters) long, on average, but can grow to be 20 feet (6 m) long, the scientists wrote in the study. A full-grown Nile crocodile is an opportunistic predator that eats whatever big animals it can catch, such as zebra, buffalo, "and any other animal it can overpower, swallow whole, or rip apart and ingest" even people, according to a nonindigenous aquatic species fact sheet published by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
The USGS added that Nile crocodiles preying on humans in Africa have been "well documented" since the 1950s, and the scientists reported in their study that Nile crocodiles were responsible for 480 attacks on people across their range in Africa between 2010 and 2014, resulting in 123 deaths.
DNA taken from the captured crocs did not match samples from Nile crocodiles kept in Florida zoos. However, they were genetically identical to each other, hinting that they originated from the same source likely, they were escapees originally brought to Florida for the exotic pet trade, the scientists suggested.
Florida's native crocodilians the American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) and the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) are somewhat smaller than the Nile crocodile and do not typically prey on people. American alligator males reach 10 to 15 feet (3 to 5 m) in length on average, and adult females can grow to be 10 feet long, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).
Male American crocodiles can grow to be about 15 feet (5 m) long, while females typically range between 8 and 13 feet (2 to 4 m) in length, the FWC described in a fact sheet.
The Nile crocodile may be the biggest invader to take up residence in the Sunshine State, but it has plenty of company. Currently, about 500 nonnative fish and wildlife species call Florida home, according to the FWC.
The researchers found no evidence of established populations of Nile crocodiles lurking in Florida waters. But don't breathe a sigh of relief just yet, said study co-author Kenneth Krysko, the herpetology collections manager at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Between Florida's exotic pet trade and the demand for Nile crocodiles in animal parks, there has been a steady flow of African crocs into the region, the researchers noted. If any of these animals were to escape, they would quickly find that the local climate and abundant food supply would help them do what they do best: hunt and grow.
"The odds that the few of us who study Florida reptiles have found all of the Nile crocs out there is probably unlikely," Krysko said in a statement.
The findings were published online April 30 in the journal Herpetological Conservation and Biology.
Follow Mindy Weisberger on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.
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Gardai are investigating a public order disturbance which occurred shortly after a prayer service concluded at Longfords Islamic Centre on Friday afternoon last.
Gardai are investigating a public order disturbance which occurred shortly after a prayer service concluded at Longfords Islamic Centre on Friday afternoon last.
Some members of the community are opposed to the decision of the Board of Directors for the Islamic Community & Education Centre Limited to terminate the employment of the Imam (worship leader of a mosque).
The Longford Leader was informed that a protest had been organised last Friday to highlight opposition to the decision.
While the prayer service, attended by an estimated 150 men, was in progress at the Islamic Centre, which is situated in Townspark Industrial Estate, a manned Garda patrol car was parked outside.
As many of the attendees put their shoes back on and prepared to leave the building peacefully, there were suddenly frantic and loud calls to the Garda, urging him to come in immediately.
Raised and angry voices could be heard and one man, with a cut to his nose, claimed he had been assaulted.
Two more Gardai arrived within minutes to provide assistance and the situation was quickly calmed.
One of eight directors of the Islamic Community & Education Centre Limited, Dr Syed Shahzad Ali, using a microphone, addressed those assembled, We are living in this country but we have to live in harmony. What has happened, has happened and whoever did this will be responsible. It is not actually fair. I always said this mosque it belongs to everybody who comes in here to pray. But pray and go, dont make groups.
Protesters promptly interjected and one shouted this mosque belongs to everybody, and another pointing at Dr Ali said, This is a community mosque.
A Garda also urged people to calm down. Sorry, can you listen to me please. Can we ask you to calm down and lets try have some mediation. Can we ask you to be quiet and leave the area.
Osman Hotak, spokesperson for the protest organisers, also appealed for calm, claiming everyone was happy with the Imam and the reason for the protest was to solve the problem.
There is no point fighting, insulting and shouting. It will be solved through negotiation because the committee has asked Dr Ali to come forward and sit down, to negotiate and talk and listen to us, said Mr Hotak.
He suggested there were groups using the mosque to intimidate each other and nobody wanted this. It is a place of worship and work where people respectfully come to and there is no time for fighting.
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The US military said it targeted and possibly killed Taliban emir Mullah Mansour today in an airstrike in a remote area along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. Mansours status is unknown and the military said it is attempting to determine if he is dead or alive.
We are still assessing the results of the strike and will provide more information as it becomes available, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in an official statement.
Mansour has been the leader of the Taliban and actively involved with planning attacks against facilities in Kabul and across Afghanistan, presenting a threat to Afghan civilians and security forces, our personnel, and Coalition partners, Cook said, offering justification for the strike. Mansour has been an obstacle to peace and reconciliation between the Government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, prohibiting Taliban leaders from participating in peace talks with the Afghan government that could lead to an end to the conflict.
Mansour officially replaced Mullah Omar, the founder of the Taliban, as the groups emir in August 2015 when Omars death was disclosed. But Mansour has really been at the helm of the Taliban since April 2013, when Omar died and the Taliban kept his death secret for more than two years. Since taking the role of emir, Mansour fought and won a divisive power struggle against senior Taliban leaders who preferred Omars eldest son as heir to the group. Mansour led a deadly uprising that saw the resurgent Taliban gain more territory than any time since the US invasion in 2001.
It may take days for the US to receive physical confirmation of Mansours death, if at all possible. The Taliban has not issued an official statement announcing Mansours death. Voice of Jihad, the Talibans official website, has been offline most of the week.
While the Pentagon did not state the location of the airstrike which targeted Mansour, Reuters reported that it took place at 6 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (3 p.m. local time) in the town of Ahmad Wal in Baluchistan province.
Multiple US drones targeted the men as they rode in a vehicle in a remote area in Pakistan along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, southwest of the town of Ahmad Wal, an unnamed official told the news agency.
US intelligence officials confirmed to The Long War Journal that the strike took place in Mansours home Baluchistan province.
A strike in Baluchistan is unprecedented and may signal a shift in US policy which previously confined drone strikes to Pakistans tribal agencies. This is the first reported strike by the US in Baluchistan, where the Talibans top leadership setup shop in Quetta. All of the other 391 drone and airstrikes reportedly executed by the US took place in Pakistans province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Only one other strike took place outside of the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies, according to data compiled by The Long War Journal. Of those 390 strikes that occurred in the tribal agencies, 280 took place in North Waziristan and 90 took place in South Waziristan.
Conducting a strike in Baluchistan raises questions whether or not the US sought permission from the Pakistani government to carry out the attack in an area other than North and South Waziristan. Mansour was believed to be operating under the auspices and protection of Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.
If Mansour is confirmed killed, one likely successor is Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani Network which is also closely tied to the Taliban. Siraj is one of Mansours two deputies and serves as the Talibans overall military commander.
If Siraj replaced Mansour, he is even more unlikely than his predecessor to negotiate a peace agreement.The Taliban has insisted that only the return of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the imposition of its harsh brand of sharia or Islamic law and the withdrawal of all Western forces is acceptable.
The Taliban released a statement last month sternly denying another senior leader Mullah Adbul Qayoum Zakir, a former Guantanamo detainee had called for negotiations with the Afghan government and the West. Although he might represent a coup for the US, Mullah Zakir is an unlikely successor to Mansour. And Zakir, who is also closely tied to al Qaeda, is just as committed to restoring the Taliban to power as Mansour and Siraj.
Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, one of Mansours two deputies and the Talibans top sharia official is also a candidate to replace Mansour.
Other possible successors include Omars eldest son, Mullah Mohammad Yaqoub, and Omars brother, Mullah Abdul Manan Akhund. Both were appointed to key Taliban leadership positions last month in the groups executive council as a way to smooth over any lingering discontent. Omars kin opposed the appointment of Mansour and Yaqoub was rumored to have sought the seat to replace his father. It took nearly two months after the change in leadership for Yaqoub to swear allegiance to Mansour in September 2015.
By that point, it was already clear Mansour had navigated through turbulent times. In August 2015, Mansour accepted the oath of allegiance from al Qaeda emir Ayman Zawahiri, as well as pledges from Jihadi organizations spread throughout the globe. Mansours public acceptance of Zawahiris fealty above all others signaled the new face of the Taliban had no intention to break longstanding ties with al Qaeda. The reconciliation with Omars family was a final piece to the puzzle. His apparent unification of Taliban ranks did not keep Mansour out of the crosshairs, however. In December, Mansour released an audio statement denying reports of his death, which he said were floated by his enemies to divide his group.
Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
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By Craig Giammona
Bloomberg
Whole Foods Market, stung for years by snarky comments about its prices, is about to find out if it can dispel the notion that its name should really be Whole Paycheck.
Next week, the company will open the first of several smaller stores that will specialize in cheaper private-label groceries. Its seeking to demonstrate that Whole Foods isnt just for foodies willing to pay a premium for grass-fed beef and organic kale.
Called 365 by Whole Foods Market, the new concept is designed to help the retailer compete in an era when the organic food it first brought to the masses is now widely available at convenience stores and supermarkets. Company officials are trying to ignite growth after same-store sales fell 3 percent in the three months through April 10, the third straight quarterly decline and the worst performance since 2009.
They have to do this, said Allen Adamson, the former North American chairman of the branding firm Landor Associates. Theyve played out their hand in trying to grow the Whole Foods concept.
The first 365 store will open in the hip Silver Lake section of Los Angeles on Wednesday. The company has signed 19 leases for the new stores, with locations in the Portland and Seattle areas slated to open in the next few months. The 365 units will be about half the size of a typical Whole Foods market and offer more prepared food and fewer items about a third of whats found in a standard store.
We want it to appeal to a wider audience, said Jeff Turnas, a company veteran who is running 365. This model allows us to compete with everybody in the market.
Expanding from its original store in Austin, Texas, Whole Foods rose to prominence over the past 20 years by popularizing organic food, prepared meals and craft beer. The company helped cultivate the rising foodie culture in the U.S. while benefiting from the increased interest in healthy eating. Its sales and share price rose in tandem for the better part of a decade.
But with that success came stiff competition. Conventional retailers like Kroger and Wal-Mart have expanded their organic and natural offerings, undercutting Whole Foods on price. Same-store sales growth slowed to 2.5 percent in 2015 and the shares slid 34 percent, the second-straight annual decline after a five-year stretch when Whole Foods stock gained an average of 74 percent a year.
Analysts arent convinced the new concept will stabilize the company. For one, they warn that the cheaper 365 concept may cannibalize sales from existing Whole Foods markets. Scott Mushkin, an analyst at Wolfe Research, recently called the 365 rollout a sign of the companys search for answers.
The company has lowered prices, remodeled stores and launched a national advertising campaign all to no avail as sales continue to slip, Mushkin wrote.
This isnt the first time a high-end retailer has rolled out a lower-priced sister chain to draw in more budget-minded consumers. Nordstrom had success when it started Nordstrom Rack, as did Gap with Old Navy. The Nordstrom model appears to be what Whole Foods is following, according to Michelle Grant, a grocery analyst at Euromonitor International.
The new venture will provide the company with a chance to showcase its 365 private label while also taking advantage of the fact that grocery shoppers are increasingly agnostic about where they buy food. And the lower prices at 365 should appeal to millennials who respect the Whole Foods brand but cant afford to shop there.
For a consumer who wants to eat healthy, on a budget, this will have a really strong appeal, Grant said.
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Maysa Razavi has a big job as INTAs anticounterfeiting manager. She says the global impact of counterfeiting and piracy has grown to $461 billion this year, more than double the $200 billion in 2008. That represents about 2.5% of global trade.
Counterfeiting is a problem that is growing and growing, she says. It is very hard for brand owners to manage the issue on their own, especially now that the sale of counterfeits has become so prevalent online. Counterfeiters can hide their identity online. They ship directly to the consumer and process payments directly on the Internet as well.
Enforcing marks is difficult also because laws vary internationally and counterfeiting is often a multi-jurisdictional act. That is where associations such as INTA can help. Razavi works with an INTA committee of about 260 people worldwide, about 60 of which are brand owners.
The way to tackle this issue is to build relationships with different organizations and government officials, she says. A big part of that is sharing information. That is something we have to do all together. Once we have all that information, something the anticounterfeiting world does well is talk to each other. But I dont think something we do well is talking to the public. That is a tactic we want to use more, and we are looking at different partners to do that.
As part of this, INTA launched the Unreal Campaign in 2012. This public awareness initiative educates teenagers aged 14 to 18 about the importance of trademarks and intellectual property and the dangers of counterfeit products. The campaign has reached more than 4,500 students directly so far through initiatives in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America. The campaign aims at children both through social media and directly in schools. It recently held its first event in Canada, in Ottawa.
INTA has also developed some tools for members. In February it launched an SME anticounterfeiting toolkit for expanding your trademark into China. While we were in the middle of that project the laws changed in China, so it was a labor of love to finally get it done, says Razavi. So we are really proud of that. INTA also developed a series of webcasts training customs officials about brands.
INTA is involved in many events around anticounterfeiting. In February INTA participated in Indias Central Board of Excise and Customs Anti-Counterfeiting Conference. It is also doing a series of workshops on the roles and responsibilities of intermediaries in enforcing IP rights with the International Chamber of Commerce Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP), the first of which was held in Singapore in March.
In April, INTA co-sponsored a workshop that took place in Tequila, Mexico, that brought together representatives of IP offices across Latin America to brainstorm ways to improve IP enforcement in the region. INTA will develop a repository to share best practices.
Contact details
Maysa Razavi, Esq.
Manager, Anticounterfeiting, New York
Tel: +1-212-642-1779
mrazavi@inta.org
Josephine Rima Santiago was appointed as the new Director General of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) seven months ago. Previously, she was the Deputy Director General of IPOPHL and the Director of Technology Application and Promotion at the Institute of the Department of Science and Technology.
Santiago recalled her first 100 days at IPOPHL were spent in orientation, where she had to absorb the nitty-gritty of all the programs and projects as soon as possible and address any urgent issues left unsolved before she was on board. During my first few days as the Director General, I lost no time meeting key officials of each of the IPOPHL bureaus while reacquainting myself with their core functions and operational systems, as those have evolved since my previous tenure as Deputy Director General from 1999 to 2002, she says.
In response to the promulgation of Office Order No 13-170 in 2013, the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Office was established to receive complaints about IP violations and to take action against counterfeiters. There has been positive feedback about its effective approach to filing complaints, coordinating among enforcement agencies, and reducing the possibilities for corrupt officers to request bribes.
The IPOPHL has also been dedicated to fighting fake products in the country. A recent campaign has seen the destruction of counterfeits worth PhP 9.3 billion (USD 200 million) in Cabuyao, Laguna, initiated by a joint effort of the Bureau of Customs, IPOPHL and the National Committee on Intellectual Property Rights.
The Director General is confident she can maintain the progress made by the country in IP enforcement. We will continue to cultivate a culture of respect for IP in the country. We do our best to enable IPR owners to fully enjoy the rewards and benefits of their IP assets, and to protect consumers from substandard products, she says. This hopefully will serve as an incentive for inventors to continue creating high quality goods and services.
INTAs new representative office in Singapore looks forward to working closely with Santiago on issues in the region.
In addition to strengthening the enforcement capability, another priority for IPOPHL is to reduce backlogs and accelerate turnaround time. One of our resolutions to is to modernize the IT infrastructures and deploy user-friendly online platforms to make it easier and more efficient to avail of our services, says Santiago. IPOPHL has more than 340 staff, including 30 trademark examiners, 63 invention examiners and a handful of examiners taking care of industrial designs and utility models.
Last month, the Office launched an enhanced version of the trademark online filing system which was deployed in 2005. The new system, eTMfile, introduces several new features, including the online submission of documents and payments, auto generation of statement of account and acknowledgement of receipt, and an auto assist in trademark classification.
Next in the pipeline is the e-filing system for industrial designs and utility models, which is expected to be launched in the second half of this year. The e-filing system for inventions will be launched in 2017, she adds.
It is four years since the Philippines joined the Madrid Protocol, and the Director General has observed an annual increase of 20% to 30% in the number of overseas filings with IPOPHL. New filers account for 80% among the Madrid filers in the past four years. The figures are likely to infer that accession to the Madrid Protocol has had a positive impact on Philippine business, she says.
When youre as famous and iconic a brand as Hard Rock is, dealing with the threat of counterfeiting is a constant challenge. The copiers targets include the classic T-shirts, the distinctive lapel pins and even the restaurant itself.
The challenge is evolving. For example, Rebecca Roby, senior director of business affairs at Hard Rock International, notes that, in the past couple of years, some more sophisticated designs have been coming out of Malaysia copying city-specific T-shirts that feature detailed artwork.
Combating this is a big task. Fortunately, while being an iconic brand brings unwanted copying, it also brings loyal fans. A lot of the companys counterfeit tracking comes from customers, tipping off the company about street vendors, for example.
They often send emails either to our generic email address for IP enforcement or customer care, so a lot of our fans are a great resource, says Roby. Also, our franchisees give us a lot of information in their locations around the globe. We also work with a third-party vendor to monitor online infringements in various key retail sites or initial sales where people are just printing their own versions directly.
Unfair competition in Germany
It is not only counterfeit clothing Roby must combat, but sometimes entire counterfeit cafes and hotels. The company has a long-running trademark and unfair competition dispute with an unauthorized Hard Rock Cafe in Heidelberg, Germany, which has been open since 1978. The latest development in that case came last year when the regional court of Karlsruhe decided the use of the Hard Rock Cafe logo for operation of a restaurant violated the countrys unfair completion law, despite that Cafe operating in the area before Hard Rock entered Germany.
That one is sort of an exception in terms of the history there and the length that case has been going on, says Roby. We have others that pop up now and then, whether it be full-on copying of the brand and the logo versus maybe changing one word slightly or switching the words around. We have actually seen more lately in the context of our hotels brand. Locations in Malaysia, Vietnam and India have been a problem recently.
Roby estimates that 80% of her time is brand focused with the other 20% spent on HR and employee-related matters. Of the 80%, about 30%-40% is trademark prosecution/opposition strategy and domain name strategy work, and the rest is contractual support related to the brand, such as license agreements and reviewing merchandise for IP approval.
The domain name challenge
Hard Rock has about 3,700 active trademarks. Its domain name size is roughly double that. We are working on culling that, says Roby of the domains. With the constant launching of new gTLDswhen is it going to stop?we are trying to revisit our domain strategy and cull some extensions that never really took off, or that we thought would be defensive but are very far down on the defensive radar.
Roby says Hard Rock looks at each new domain name with a cost conscious mindset. The pricing of some of the new ones, especially during sunrise periods, has just been so ridiculous that we have been passing and waiting for general availability, if at all, she says. Every now and then there have been ones in a price range during sunrise that we would be interested. But the rule of thumb is that we were setting a threshold of $500 total or less, otherwise we are not that interested in any of them.
Hard Rock took up some of the core domains to start, such as .menu and .hotel. Roby says some of the city ones may be of interest where the company has a presence or is about to have a presence. But if we register any new gTLDs, it is still a defensive mechanism and approach, she says. Our marketing strategy isnt to migrate any of our existing pages.
When asked about what changes she would like to see in the trademark system, Roby says: It would be nice if a uniform approach was chosen and subscribed to globally, as opposed to the company having to weigh the benefits of first-to-file countries versus first-to-use countries.
She would also like to see more consistent global treatment and effectiveness in battling trademark counterfeiting, such as what type of remedies or enforcement mechanisms are available.
We get frustrated when in one country we are told that raids/seizures are not a viable option, or we wont ever be able to get them to tell us the manufacturer or cough up that evidence, she explains. Or the fees for pursuing such matters are not worth the time. The penalties are not harsh enough to deter the counterfeiter from doing it again once we go away. We have had some good results in Paraguay, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and some others over the years. But efforts elsewhere have been frustratingwhile we get results, seizures made, it never seems to stop the problem or cause action higher up the chain to manufacturers, and so on.
She continues: We seem to just continue to pour money into raids and seizures in some countries but the problem never dries up. Then in other jurisdictions, our efforts have not been effective at all. So I guess my wish would be for all countries to take trademark counterfeiting seriously and adopt procedures and regulations that lead to effective results, in a timely manner, and in a cost effective way for the brand owner.
Why it is controversial to tackle OEM infringement in China?
Huang Hui: Many stakeholders who are in foreign countries use original equipment manufacturer (OEM) factories to produce their products with their trademarks that they own in their country (of destination). However, sometimes they do not own the trademark in China. It is too late for them to do it because the mark has already been filed or even registered by a third party. Maybe the filing of such prior mark was made in bad faith (pre-emptive registration), but it is not always easy to eliminate such obstacles. Meanwhile, they want to continue using the facilities provided by the OEM factory. And there is the risk: being sued by the prior trademark owner. So, they are in favour of making an exception for OEM exports.
Paul Ranjard: This is perfectly understandable. But you also have to take into account the legitimate owners of registered trademarks who wish to be able to take action against any unauthorized use of their trademarks in China. They want to be able to request the Customs to seize any shipment of infringing products going out of the country. If there is such an exception in favour of OEM exports, how could they protect their rights?
What does the latest Trademark Law say about this issue?
Huang Hui: The Trademark Law does not provide anything in this regard (previous drafts had specified that OEM could constitute trademark infringement, but this has not been kept in the final text). However, a small change was introduced at the end of Article 48, which defines the use of a trademark. The wording is exactly the same as in the previous law (to affix a trademark on goods etc.), but, in the end, the words to indicate the source of the goods are added.
Paul Ranjard: Actually, the Chinese Trademark Law follows the same protection principles as the TRIPs Agreement and the European Union Trade Mark system, but it does it a different way. In TRIPs and the Community Trademark system, the first articles define what is a trademark and the next articles define what are the rights conferred to the owner of a registered trademark (to prevent others from using in the course of trade, without consent etc). In the Chinese law, the first articles define what is a trademark, then another article (48) defines what is the use of a trademark and finally article 52 defines what is an act of infringement (to use an identical or similar trademark without consent etc). This specific article 48 on the definition of use, might be the reason why a confusion was made in the famous PRETUL case.
Please briefly summarize the Focker v Ya Huan case.
Paul Ranjard: The trademark PRETUL was registered on January 17 2002 by a Chinese individual in class 6 for fittings of metal for furniture, padlocks, locks of metal, other than electric. It was then assigned to a Hong Kong company, Focker Security Products International Limited.
In Mexico, a company Truper Herramientas, is the owner of two registered trademarks PRETUL and PRETUL & oval device in class 6.
In 2010, Truper signed an OEM contract with a Chinese factory to manufacture padlocks bearing the PRETUL marks and export them to Mexico.
In December 2010 and January 2011, Focker applied to the Ningbo Customs for the interception of two batches of padlocks exported by the OEM factory. Focker initiated a lawsuit before the Ningbo Intermediate Court on the ground of trademark infringement.
The Court of Ningbo ordered the OEM factory to immediately stop using the infringing PRETUL & oval device trademark and pay Focker a sum of 50,000 ($7,700).
Both Focker and the factory appealed to the Zhejiang High Court. The appeal court upheld the decision of the first instance court.
The OEM factory applied for retrial to the Supreme Peoples Court.
On November 26 2015, the Supreme Peoples Court revoked the Zhejiang Court judgment. The Court reasoned as follows: since the goods are not to be distributed in China, the trademark affixed on them does not fulfil its function of distinguishing the source of the goods, and therefore, is not used, in the sense of Article 48 of the Trademark law (which defines the act of use). In addition, the Court also took into account the fact that Truper owned the mark in the country of destination.
Why is the Supreme Peoples Courts judgement ground-breaking?
Paul Ranjard: This judgment provoked lots of comments. Not everybody agreed. To base the ruling in an OEM case on the last words added to Article 48 seemed artificial. As mentioned above, these words to indicate the source of the goods correspond to the TRIPs and EU wording in the course of trade, nothing more. Indeed, a trademark can be used for another purpose than indicating the source of goods, (for example, fair use, like using the trademark of a product to designate the repair services related to such products). It is only the use defined in Article 48 that is prohibited by article 52. And in the PRETUL case, it was obvious that the act of affixing the mark on the products and exporting them had been done in order to indicate the source of the goods, and not for another purpose. The fact that the goods were exported did not change anything to this reality. It would be easy to demonstrate how artificial the reasoning leading to this non-use finding is: what if the goods are exported and immediately re-imported? Is the not used trademark going to be automatically used because of this importation? What if they are first sold in China and then exported, is the used trademark automatically becoming not used ? etc.
Huang Hui: Dont forget that the Court also took into account the fact that Truper was the legitimate owner of the trademark in Mexico. It seemed only fair to let him obtain his goods, considering that no harm could be done to the Chinese trademark owner.
Paul Ranjard: This is true. And this judgment is probably a fair decision, under the circumstances. However, since it is now considered as a precedent that will inevitably influence the future decisions of Peoples Courts in future OEM cases, it is only fair to expect that the decision be based on solid legal grounds. You can easily imagine that an infringer in China could register the trademark of another person in a remote and improbable country of the third world and export its infringing goods to such country and then re-route them to anywhere it wishes. If the PRETUL doctrine were to be systematically applied, this infringer would be totally free to do so.
What messages does the Supreme Peoples Court deliver and how will it affect the practice?
Huang Hui: It is very unlikely that the Supreme Peoples Court intended to deliver a message allowing the free exportation of infringing goods from China. It probably intended to give a fair solution to a case where, for reasons that may not be precisely explained in the case, the plaintiff was viewed as having acted in bad faith, with the sole intention of exploiting a pre-emptive registration. I agree that letting the batch of goods be exported to Mexico seemed a fair decision, in the circumstances. It remains that, if it was systematically followed, this case would deprive all legitimate trademark owners of the right to seek the assistance of the Customs when infringing goods are exported.
What new messages can be obtained from the recent Shanghai Diesel v Jiangsu Changjia case regarding the enforcement of OEM trade mark?
Huang Hui: This judgment made by the Jiangsu High Court (selected as one of the top 50 IPR cases of the year) follows the PRETUL case by a few weeks only. It is interesting to see that, even though it took the precaution of declaring that, in principle, if the goods are exported, there should be no finding of infringement, the court did not apply the reasoning of the Supreme Peoples Court (about use or non use). Instead, the court looked into the background of the case. The foreign consignor was considered as having acted in bad faith and the OEM factory was liable for not having conducted a reasonable amount of due diligence. The reasoning of the court, which switched from a radical analysis of the use to a factual examination of the circumstances of the case, was welcome.
Paul Ranjard: However, the reasoning was not without weakness. Indeed, infringement of a trademark is constituted regardless of whether it is committed in bad or in good faith. The related civil liability following an act of infringement may be affected by good faith, but not the act of infringement itself. Using the trademark of another person without consent is an act of infringement period. Good or bad intentions are irrelevant.
Huang Hui: However, the Jiangsu court showed the way: examine the good or bad faith background of the case. It should have focused on the trademark owner/plaintiff instead rather than on the defendant. If the bad faith of the trademark owner/plaintiff is established, then the case can be dismissed and the goods can be exported. If the plaintiff is not acting in bad faith, the goods must remain seized. The Supreme Peoples Court in 2014 (the Ellassay case) showed the way when it dismissed a trademark infringement claim on the ground of the bad faith application by the plaintiff (and before the trademark was even invalidated).
In general, what are the key issues to consider when undertaking OEM practice involving goods manufactured in China?
Huang Hui: The key issue is, obviously, to own the trademark in China. A risk only arises if the trademark is owned by another person. The case law discussed above is for the time being in favour of the OEM system user. But we cannot guarantee that this jurisprudence will remain stable. If it is impossible to oppose or invalidate the prior registration, if no revocation for non-use can be considered, and no evidence of bad faith in the trademark application can be argued, it seems safer to abstain and arrange if possible the products to be exported without trademark.
Huang Hui
Huang Hui, JD in trademark law, is a Senior Partner at WAN HUI DA. Dr Huang is a multi-faceted intellectual property counsel with stellar academic credentials on Chinas trademark legislation and practice and a veteran lawyer who represents clients in all levels of courts up to the Supreme Peoples Court in a wide variety of litigations, some of which have become landmark cases.
Lauded as the first doctor in trademark law in China, Dr Huang has been vigorously involved in the initial drafting and subsequent amendments to Chinas major trademark-related laws, regulations, judicial interpretations, as well as regulatory documents on a frequent basis. He is also a prolific writer who has authored or co-authored a dozen IPR-related publications as well as scores of treatise published in Chinese, English and French.
Dr Huang served INTA in the capacity of subcommittee Chair of the Associations China Trademark Office Subcommittee of the Trademark Office Practices Committee (TOPC) for the 2014/15 term. He now chairs the Special Committee on Piracy and Counterfeiting of AIPPI Chinese National Group for the 2015-2017 term.
Paul Ranjard
Paul Ranjard is a French lawyer based in China since 1997. Since that date, he has been representing in China the French association Union des Fabricants (Unifab) for the protection of intellectual property, and since the creation of the European Chamber of Commerce, he has co-chaired the IP Working Group. In this capacity, he has been involved in the drafting of all the EUCCC IP Position Papers and all the comments submitted by the Chamber concerning drafts of IP legislation. Since 2008, Paul Ranjard is Of Counsel to WAN HUI DA Law Firm & Intellectual Property Agency.
The relation between the private sector and the government is essential, says Miguel Margain, Director General of Instituto Mexicano de la Propiedad Industrial (IMPI). We have found out that it is very, very important and we have been working on these relations. To tackle counterfeiting you have to involve both industry and government.
Some of Mexicos biggest challenges are counterfeit products related to audio and video, much of which is domestic, and clothing, footwear and accessories, most of which comes from Asia. The main problem here is to make society aware that counterfeiting is not a victimless crime, says Margain.
IMPI has strong enforcement powers compared to its Latin American peers. We have been working closely with the customs department. I have always said that customs is an IP authority also, he says.
Mexico has implemented a recordation system with customs. So if the customs officers find out some counterfeits are coming into the country they will give a call both to the rights holder and IMPI, and we will start the paperwork, explains Margain. They will allow us three working days to provide them with IMPIs request to stop the free circulation of goods. IMPI also holds training seminars with customs officers in the main ports of Mexico.
IMPI is active with authorities and groups outside its own borders. It has had joint actions with the U.S. authorities as well as with INTA. Last year, for example, INTA held its first Unreal Campaign student engagement session in Mexico as part of the program that aims to educate students about the dangers of counterfeiting and importance of trademarks. IMPI also had a program with the Business Software Alliance (BSA) to target software piracy. BSA found that Mexico had reduced its piracy rates from 65% in 2005 to 54% in 2013.
In April, IMPI and the White House Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator hosted a workshop, Promoting IPR Enforcement Policy in Latin America: The Role of the Intellectual Property Office, in Tequila, Mexico. The event, co-sponsored by INTA, is the first interactive forum on enforcing IP rights in Latin America. It featured participants from IP offices representing 12 countries.
The key takeaways from the workshop were to develop a working plan and to share points, says Margain. Also, to know that even though most of the Latin American offices dont have enforcement powers, they have to push and they have an important role in the anticounterfeiting actions.
Among Latin American IP offices, only Mexico, Peru and Paraguay have enforcement powers. Some asked: Well I dont have powers so why should I attend? Well, even though you dont have enforcement powers like IMPI does there is an important role you can perform in your country, says Margain.
She particularly notes the progress made with the Congressional Trademark Caucus (CTC). The CTC was founded in the 113th Congress in 2014 to educate Members of Congress and the general public about the role of trademarks.
Last year, INTA joined Senator Chuck Grassley, Senator Chris Coons, Representative Suzan DelBene and Representative Randy Forbes in announcing the relaunch of the CTC in the 114th Congress. At this time last year the Congressional Trademark Caucus was fairly new, says Cohn. It had four members, which were the four co-chairs. Now there are 19 members. We are hoping to get many more than that but thats a significant increase. These are members of Congress who agree that trademarks are important and that the public and Congress need to be educated about them.
In the past year there have been several events associated with the CTC. Three of those took place in April: a CTC briefing on the impact of top level domain expansion on trademark enforcement and consumer protection, participation in the program on the Hill around World IP Day, and a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing led by Senator Grassley focused on counterfeits. INTA also participated in a CTC briefing on counterfeits in December. The first CTC briefing took place last October and offered an introductory session on the importance of trademark protection. INTA played a prominent role as a presenter and coordinator of that briefing.
Cohn notes the bicameral and bipartisan nature of the CTC. She says counterfeiting is one of the most important issues the Association faces. Thats not only the traditional sort of counterfeits we see in brick and mortar shops, but also fighting counterfeits on the Internet. Internet transactions present new and increasingly difficult challenges to trademark owners and others engaged in the fight against counterfeiters, she says.
Members of Congress have many competing issues to focus on, adds Cohn. However, they and staff are very receptive to learning about trademarks and the issues we face. The main challenge is to maintain their focus on trademarks over some of the unrelated, but important, issues Congress must debate.
INTA has been working closely with other federal agencies, such as the Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator and the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center. Both are involved in trying to increase the ability to fight counterfeits.
We are also working very closely with USPTO officials on a regular basis to provide input on policy and operational issues and comment on whatever we can formally and also informally to try to maintain a very close relationship as stakeholders, says Cohn.
Another challenge is to change the publics opinion towards counterfeit goods. Cohn notes the dangers of counterfeiting, such as the health issues posed by fake pharmaceuticals, or even a watch made with the wrong metal. Counterfeiters dont care about how something is made, she says. They not only dont care about the brand owners, but they also dont care about the consumers.
Contact details
Deborah Cohn
INTA Senior Director of Government Relations, Washington DC
Tel: +1 202 261 6570
Email: dcohn@inta.org
Tommy Thompson still knows how to work a room.
The former Wisconsin governor thanked faculty members during a graduation ceremony last week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, calling them some of the greatest professors in the United States of America.
Well, that line didnt get enough applause for Tommys taste, so he told the crowd: You can be a little bit more enthusiastic than that these are great professors.
They are, indeed, Tommy.
Sadly, we could use more enthusiasm from state leaders about the great professors and quality of higher education we have at our UW campuses, from La Crosse to Eau Claire, Milwaukee to Menomonie and throughout the system.
Maybe its our former governors perspective as a UW-Madison graduate (both bachelors and law degrees), but its a refreshing change from our current governor, Scott Walker, who cant seem to take enough whacks at faculty and UW.
Thats a real shame, because a report issued this week by the Wisconsin Technology Council suggests that continued funding cuts will harm Wisconsins economy.
The Tech Council issued a 28-page report with critical recommendations for bolstering the UW System and the talent, technology transfer and business development in the communities those institutions serve.
The report discusses the ability of both public and private universities and colleges in Wisconsin to produce a talented workforce, intellectual property and economic activity.
The council also includes praise for research and the need to move groundbreaking ideas from the campus laboratory to the marketplace. You wont, however, find a mention in the report about research that examines the mating habits of whatever, as House Majority Leader Robin Vos once said derisively.
The Tech Council says additional funding cuts to higher education would harm access, affect overall quality and erode economic competitiveness.
It also recommends developing a blue-ribbon commission to tackle such issues as attracting and retaining world-class faculty, making college more affordable and accessible, and recognizing the need and importance of developing talent for our states economy.
In an editorial, we disagreed with recent no-confidence votes by faculty on some UW campuses aimed at UW President Ray Cross and the UW Board of Regents. While respecting the frustration among faculty, we feared that the result of these votes would be even more criticism from state political leaders who believe faculty are lazy, overpaid and privileged an assessment we do not share.
Unfortunately, the reaction we feared has come true over and over.
In his commencement address, Thompson proudly pointed to investments his administration made to campus buildings and faculty retention.
He told graduates: We raised the money and we kept those professors here and you benefited from it.
Thats what Wisconsin leaders need now: Pride in investing in higher education, in knowledge, in research, in workforce development.
Trashing the UW System and the professors who teach there may be a great way to score points with the political base, but its absolutely not the message we want to send to businesses, to research firms and to faculty.
Most important, its not the message we wish to provide to the most important investors in higher education in Wisconsin students and their families.
Our economy depends on an enlightened workforce. An enlightened workforce depends on higher education.
Higher education depends on support and not just financial support.
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.
The actress took a tumble for the second time at the Oscars - but she swears it was not staged
Jennifer Lawrence still baffles us with her ability to do everything wrong - yet somehow get it all so right.
The loveably quirky star caused the entire audience to gasp when she fell on her way up to accept her Best Actress Oscar last year.
Since then she's done countless things to entertain and surprise us - so we figured she'd pull something out of the bag for this year's Academy Awards.
Jennifer Lawrence in a red Dior dress at The Oscars 2014 (Image credit: Rex)
We did not, however, think she'd take a second stumble.
The Best Supporting Actress nominee tripped on the red carpet on her way into the ceremony. Of course, she immediately jumped up and laughed it off - in true J.Law form. But she was clearly embarrassed about her clumsy repeat - and we just wanted to give her a big cuddle.
After the slip-up, she explained the incident to Access Hollywood. 'I dont know how it happened so fast. I wasnt even at the press yet,' she said. 'But there was a cone outside my car and yeah, I ran over the cone.'
Jennifer said her main concern is that people will think it was staged.
'Im afraid that like - I got so scared and I hope nobody took a picture, because Im afraid its going start looking like a gimmick,' she said.
In our minds, it seemed pretty obvious that her tumble was an accident. Plus, she's such a down-to-earth, relaxed chick (not to mention our fantasy BFF), it would be crazy to think she'd plan such a forced publicity stunt.
But apparently the idea did cross Jared Leto's mind.
'You know, Im starting to wonder if this is a bit of an act,' the Best Supporting Actor winner told Access Hollywood after the show.
Okay, so he may have been joking. But we still think Jared needs to stick to what he knows (acting, singing and styling those gorgeous ombre waves) and leave our girl J.Law alone.
Jared Leto Oscars 2014 (Image credit: Rex)
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Pioneer Marine Inc. and its subsidiaries (OSLO-OTC: PNRM) ("Pioneer Marine," or the "Company") a leading shipowner and global drybulk handysize transportation service provider announced its financial and operating results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2016.
Financial Highlights:
For the first quarter of 2016 the Company reported a net loss of $13.9 million, or $0.46 basic and diluted per share which includes charges amounting to $8.7 million as a result of the termination of five newbuilding contracts (newbuilding contract termination agreement).
Excluding these charges, the Companys adjusted net loss for the first quarter of 2016 is $5.3 million or $0.17 per share basic and diluted.
Liquidity & Capital Resources:
As of March 31, 2016, the Company had cash and cash equivalents of $43.8 million and restricted cash of $12.5 million. The Companys commitments on its newbuilding program amount to $30.1 million which will be funded from committed loan facilities available on delivery of the newbuildings and from existing cash and cash equivalents.
Recent events:
Within Q2 2016 the Company received an amount of $44.4 million representing all instalments paid for the construction of the eight cancelled newbuildings and the interest as per newbuilding contract termination agreement.
Pankaj Khanna, Chief Executive Officer, commented, "Drybulk freight rates in the first quarter of 2016 proved to be the worst experienced over the previous four decades. The major difference being that in the 1980s operating costs were half of what they are today so the ships were still cash flow positive. In the first quarter Owners were virtually paying charterers to move their cargo with some fixtures for Capesize vessels being done at close to zero TCE rates as owners were just paid for bunkers. The weakness in freight rates was mainly a result of anaemic demand and excess supply built over the previous years compounded by an increase in speed for some of the smaller vessels.
The extreme weakness in freight rates has produced an almost immediate response on scrapping with 18.3 million tonnes sold for scrap as of early May resulting in net fleet growth of 0.3% so far this year. In addition, some owners have also chosen to idle or lay-up their vessels in hot, warm or cold lay-up, further depleting the fleet. The other big positive is that we have seen virtually zero newbuilding orders this year. During this period, we have also seen the return of port congestion at grain load ports in Brazil and Argentina, who combined exported a record 44.3 million tonnes in Q1 2016, up 19% on Q1 2015. On the demand side, the rise in real estate prices in China along with various stimulus measures provided a fillip to steel consumption and consequently prices. Chinese steel production showed its first year-on-year increase in March and iron ore imports into China for the first four months of 2016 are up 6% as compared to 2015. Freight rates in Q2 2016 have responded to these positive changes but remain barely above operating costs and have so far stagnated at this level. The industry still needs concerted scrapping of older tonnage before we see a sustained recovery.
We have focussed on cost efficiencies for the past six months and pared our running costs to the most efficient levels possible without affecting the safe and reliable operations of our vessels or the well-being of our seafarers. We have been proactive in managing the cycle and ensuring that we maintain a long enough runway to survive the drastically low rates that we are experiencing. As part of this effort, we reached an agreement with Guoyu Shipyard to cancel five newbuilding contracts. This cancellation not only eliminated future capital expenditure but also saw the return of all of our instalments that were paid. We now have two newbuildings remaining on the orderbook that are delayed beyond their scheduled delivery dates and we are considering options on those. Our strong balance sheet allows us to be opportunistic in the current weak market and we are assessing our strategic options.
Financial Review: First quarter of 2016
Time Charter Equivalent ("TCE") revenue amounted to $4.9 million in the first quarter of 2016 compared to $6.3 million for the first quarter of 2015. TCE per day for the first quarter of 2016 amounted to $3,654 as compared to $5,488 per day for the first quarter of 2015. The decrease of the TCE per day is attributed to the weaker market prevailing in the first quarter of 2016 as compared to same period in 2015.
Vessel Operating Expenses ("OPEX") amounted to $6.2 million for the first quarter of 2016 as compared to $5.6 million in the first quarter of 2015. The increase is attributable to the increased number of ship days from 1,170 days in the first quarter of 2015 as compared to 1,358 ship days for the same period in 2016.
OPEX per day for the first quarter of 2016 amounted to $4,533 as compared to $4,771 for the first quarter of 2015. The decrease in daily OPEX is attributed to operating efficiencies achieved due to cost reduction measures.
Depreciation expense for the first quarter ended March 31, 2016 decreased to $2.0 million as compared to $2.7 million during the same period in 2015. The decrease is attributable to the reduced depreciated vessel values as a result of the impairment charge taken at December 31, 2015.
General and administration expenses for the first quarter of 2016 decreased to $1.1 million from $1.3 million during the same period in 2015. G&A expenses per day for the first quarter of 2016 amounted to $815 as compared to $1,096 for the first quarter of 2015. The decrease of G&A expenses per day is attributed to cost reduction measures.
Write off of capitalised expenses and fees amounting to $8.7 million during the three months ended March 31, 2016 is due to the cancellation of five shipbuilding contracts on March 17, 2016. The amount consists of capitalised expenses during the construction period, cancellation costs net of interest for the instalments paid and deferred finance and loan fees attributable to the post-delivery financing of these newbuildings.
The Marine Corps first female artillery officers graduated from the Field Artillery Basic Officers Leaders Course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, May 17, 2016.
In the joint Army and Marine course, the Corps newest artillery officers met operationally relevant, gender-neutral military occupational specialty standards in order to graduate. This approach matches qualified Marines with the most suitable occupations in an effort to enhance the combat readiness of the force.
The officers course here is difficult, said Col. Wayne Harrison, commanding officer, Marine Detachment Fort Sill. It has a mix of technical and physical requirements that challenges the students.
One of the female officers who passed the course was 2nd Lt. Virginia Brodie. She graduated number one of the 137 students in both the gunnery portion of the course and in overall score and was recognized as her class distinguished honor graduate.
I really love this job and want to be a fire direction officer in a fire direction center, so that makes it easy to put in the extra time and effort, Brodie said.
2nd Lt. Katherine Boy graduated the 19-week course as well. She finished in the top five percent of her class and was named one of the class honor graduates.
Their path to the operating forces was no different than their classmates. Like all officers, they first had to earn a commission from a four-year college, a military academy or an enlisted-to-officer program, then attend The Basic School at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va. At TBS, officers receive six months of training and education and are selected and assigned to an MOS-producing school based on their performance, needs of the service and personal preference.
When the Department of Defense opened all jobs previously closed to women, Brodie and Boy became eligible for selection to artillery school. With the support of their leadership, they volunteered and were ultimately assigned with others from their TBS class to train at Fort Sill.
Throughout the five-month course, officers learned everything they need to know about fire support and gunnery to be an effective field artillery leader.
In fire support, they are the eyes and the ears, said Capt. Isaac Williams, an instructor at the course. Theyre the ones actually observing the round and making corrections to make sure the round hits the target.
Fire support Marines send enemy locations to the fire direction center, which uses what the students learn in the gunnery portion of the course to deliver fire.
The gunnery side of this course is extremely difficult, said 2nd Lt. Marlin Adams, a student at the course. There is a lot of math and specific details into making sure were delivering timely, accurate and safe fire from our howitzers.
Instructors and leadership from the artillery course said that even though these are the first female Marine artillery officers completing the course, nothing has changed.
The Army has [already] integrated females in this MOS for quite a while, so nothing really has changed in the way that we instruct the students, said Williams. We are not going to raise or lower the standards. The standards have been set. Marines need to keep above an 80 percent academically and pass all of the physical tasks. If they cant meet this they will not become an artillery officer.
The course will continue maintaining standards to produce the best artillery officers possible.
Boy said she is thankful she had the opportunity to be in the course and is excited to see what artillery has for her future.
I think everyone brings their own mindset and way of thinking, and the more variety of people that you can get in an MOS who are excited to be there and willing to work hard, the better its going to be to accomplish that MOSs mission, said Boy.
The Marines will participate in Marine Artillery Officer Basic Course and receive instruction in joint fires observation, target mensuration operations, Marine logistics and a command post exercise before officially receiving their 0802 MOS and reporting to their first duty station.
Following two weeks of extensive training in peacekeeping operations and non-lethal weapons, seven countries including Bosnia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia and the United States, joined together during exercise Platinum Wolf 2016 for their final field exercise on Peacekeeping Operations Training Center South Base, Bujanovac, Serbia, May 19-20, 2016. Their culminating training showed their mastery of all the skillsets taught by the participating partner nations.
Reserve Marines with Company D, 4th Law Enforcement Battalion, Force Headquarters Group, Marine Forces Reserve, seamlessly integrated and worked hand-in-hand with all of the participating nations.
It is interesting engaging with partner nations. I was coordinating training between a Macedonian officer and Slovenian officer at the same time, said 1st Lt. Jonathan Stinson, platoon commander of Co. D., 4th LE Bn., FHG, MARFORRES. Having that experience is just fun working with people from an entirely different culture and background.
With seven nations participating, the soldiers and Marines overcame unique challenges to include multiple language barriers.
First of all we have to manage to learn to coordinate in the same language, said Staff Sgt. Ivan Collautti, military police and crowd control instructor from Slovenia. It is the most difficult to manage for the nations, it is their biggest obstacle.
Despite the obstacle the U.S. Marines and European counterparts faced, they quickly found ways to communicate and effectively learn each others unique tactics and techniques.
Its interesting to know stuff like close protection, improvised explosive devices, the patrols, its very useful, said Cpl. Simeon I. Dimitrov, an infantry solider with the 26400 Mechanized Infantry Battalion, Bulgarian Armed Forces. Its good to work with other nations because all of the differences in the cultures and were like brothers in something like this, it is good to help each other.
The Marines and partner nations stressed the importance of not only mastering their peacekeeping operations, but ensured that interoperability and understanding each other was a top priority, because they could end up anywhere with anyone.
They never know what environment they could find themselves in, international abroad on a mission, said Capt. Zzoran Stankoski, company commander of the Macedonian Military Police Battalion. They will receive different tasks and missions to execute, maybe they will be in a situations where they have to control a riot, passive aggressive resistance where there have to deploy the Taser or how to expose someone to OC, they need to know the basics.
After learning from each other and utilizing their different capabilities, each of the nations applied what they practiced together during their final field exercise. They conducted field operations including a final assault in a military operation urban terrain training scenario, where the nations worked together to clear a town with simulated insurgents.
After successfully clearing the town, the nations worked together on non-lethal weapons demonstrations showing their strength, teamwork, and a combination of the new skills they have taught each other. They also demonstrated how nations with different pasts and cultures can successfully come together to build important partnerships and ensure stability in their region of operations.
There is a lot of significance to this training operation, this is a region that has experienced a lot of turmoil and ethnic violence in the past, so seeing these partner nations coming together working on a mutual purpose on promoting peacekeeping operations, that means a lot not just in the operational environment, said Stinson.
With integration and peacekeeping training as the focus of the exercise, each nation successfully combined their unique capabilities and mastered the ability to conduct peacekeeping operations. Their training and participation in Platinum Wolf 2016 is a critical component of ensuring the United States and six Balkan nations can address any issue together and promote regional stability.
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Birthdays. Anniversaries. Graduations. Bar mitzvahs. Promotions. Eagle scout-hood. Most milestones are a cause for celebration. But this weekend investors face one that doesn't bring much joy: Saturday officially marks one calendar year since the S&P 500 price index last hit a new high, with the gauge down -4.3% since.[i] That markets have gone a year without producing any gains is frustrating, especially when you consider a primary reason for the flattish returns is the correction in between, which added big volatility and scary headlines to the mix. That one-two punch-volatility with no real rewarding payoff-likely has many wondering what's in it for them: whether stocks' volatility risk is worth it. Some pundits aren't helping either, seeing the lack of upside as a sign the bull market is petering out. But here we'd counsel caution: Both these camps of investors could be setting themselves up to make a behavioral investing error. Past market trends-up, down or sideways-are never predictive of where markets are headed. As difficult as it may be, we humbly suggest now is a time to remain patient and disciplined, as fundamentals suggest the bull market likely has further to run.
First, to get a technicality out of the way: US market returns over the last year are actually a smidge better than mere price levels suggest. Including reinvested dividends (total return), the S&P 500 breeched last May's levels about a month ago. It's pulled back slightly since, to sit 2.8% below its new record as we type.[ii] Which raises an interesting point: Since 1926, dividends account for a little less than a third of average annual total returns. But most financial media outlets puzzlingly focus solely on market price levels. It is hugely unlikely you can invest in stocks and not earn a dividend, so a price-only fixation is pretty unrealistic. [iii]
But either way, price or total, returns are still basically flattish-and global stocks are a bit behind US and have not set new highs, dividends or no. However, though it may not seem so, flat (point-to-point) returns-even for periods as long as a year-aren't all that unusual in bull markets. Typically, like the current one, a bull market correction plays a role.
As we wrote on these pages recently, this is the ninth flat point-to-point period of at least 300 calendar days in a bull market since 1926. (Six flat periods before the present made it to 365 days.) In four of the previous eight, stocks rose over 20% in the 12 months after the prior high was eclipsed, and they posted double-digit gains in the year following the other four. The notion that flatness signals a waning bull market is out of step with both that point and the fact bull markets historically surge in their final stages. Giving up on stocks after periods of flatness could mean missing out on those outsized gains. Opportunity cost is money lost.
As frustrating as the past year may have been, it doesn't say anything about where markets are headed looking forward. Copious research shows past market returns have no bearing on future returns. Last fall, after markets dropped over 10%, some suggested the decline was the tip of the iceberg, extrapolating the downside forward. But markets bounced back sharply. In February, another sharp downdraft brought widespread fears a bear market loomed. But stocks defied these calls, rallying back to near previous highs within a few months. This is the sixth correction in this bull market, and each time the story has been similar. Extrapolating market direction is a behavioral error. No matter how much or how little stocks rise or fall, they can always-and often do, change direction with no advance notice.
If you need equity-like returns (for some or all of your portfolio) to achieve your financial goals, you need to be invested most of the time. No other way to do it. Selling out of stocks and going to cash, bonds or something you believe provides safety when times get tough may feel good, but unless you are a superlative market timer (we aren't aware of any), you risk lowering your long-term return. Those lower returns can jeopardize your goals.
This isn't to say, though, you should remain invested all the time. If you have a sound reason to believe a bear market-a fundamentally driven decline of at least 20% over a meaningful period-is developing, it may make sense to reduce exposure to stocks. But the key is you need to have identified a powerful negative others aren't seeing to justify this kind of move. A correction driving flat point-to-point returns in the recent past doesn't qualify. It's backward-looking and subject to recency bias-a human trait where folks (consciously or unconsciously) expect what just happened to repeat.
There is little sign a bear is approaching now. The yield curve-a proxy for banks' willingness to lend-remains positive. The Conference Board's Leading Economic Indexes (LEI) are in long uptrends, suggesting growth ahead. April's US LEI, reported Thursday, rose 0.6% m/m, extending its uptrend and, since 1959, no US recession has started when LEI is rising. Politically, eyeballs are on elections and referendums, but the key for now is most major world governments remain bullishly gridlocked, reducing the chances they pass sweeping legislation radically affecting property rights. Sentiment is far from the euphoria typifying market tops. The three key drivers-politics, economics and sentiment-point to continued bull market.
In a bull market, returns often come in clumps or bursts-not smooth climbs to ever-higher levels. When those bursts come is almost impossible to know, so remaining invested most of the time-and remaining patient-makes the most sense. We know that can be challenging, and having faith in a more fruitful future is trying during frustrating times like this. But it's worth remembering this pearl of wisdom from Warren Buffett: "The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient." We know which side of that transfer we prefer.
Statistics have been used to compare policies in Minnesota with those of Wisconsin two very different approaches to social economics. Sorting through the claims can be difficult. What is political rhetoric and what are the facts?
Stepping away from the political mudslinging, lets just look at a few very obvious facts:
Minnesota increased taxes on their wealthiest, while Wisconsin decreased taxes on their wealthiest by $2 billion and increased taxes on middle income earners by $560 million. Plus, according to the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy, Wisconsinites pay a higher share of their income to property taxes than do Minnesotans. In Wisconsin, property tax relief averaged $7/owner. Once again this cut benefited those with more expensive property, the people with the greatest ability to pay.
Minnesota chose to increase their investment in a quality education for their children by fully funding all-day kindergarten across the state. It is documented that the best investment in school success is at the earliest years. Meanwhile, nearly 100 Wisconsin school districts were forced to beg for money from taxpayers through referendums because of state cuts.
Minnesota has a vibrant renewable energy industry, both in manufacturing and installation services. Wisconsin has stymied all efforts to move toward a clean energy future, even though it is proven that policies that encourage renewable energy development create local jobs that cannot be outsourced to other countries and keeps money in the state rather than out of state to import fossil fuels. Wisconsin sends about $15.7 billion (2012 data) per year out of state in order to import fossil fuels (State Energy Department).
The Wisconsin University System has been known worldwide for its research skills and high quality professors, who are bringing their expertise with them as they take positions in other states, like Minnesota, who understand the value of the university system. Wisconsin cut its university system by more than $300 million. Many students are forced to pay for another year of college because they cannot get the courses they need to finish their 4-year degree.
The combined differences in policies of these two states has resulted in a $1.3 billion budget surplus in Minnesota and a $381 million deficit in Wisconsin. As I write this letter, we learn Wisconsin is defaulting (for the second time by the current administration) on its debt, which will result in more than $2 million additional interest payments.
Wisconsins slash-and-burn policies are more likely to result in a bankrupted future while Minnesota looks to provide its people with sustainable economic growth. Frank Buckley of George Mason University and author of The Way Back: Restoring the Promise of America recently stated (not a direct quote) that if you want to elevate people, dont break the elevator a quality education is the elevator.
The Gold Chart That Has Central Banks Extremely Worried
This gold chart should have Central Banks extremely worried. Why? Because the change in physical gold and Central Bank demand since the first crash of the U.S. and global markets in 2008 is literally off the charts.
I advise precious metals investors not to focus on the short-term gold price movement, rather they should concentrate on the long-term trend changes. This is where the ultimate payoff will be by investing in gold. Now, I say INVESTING, in gold because that is what we are doing.
Many analysts such as Jim Rickards dont believe that gold is an investment. Mr. Rickards looks at gold as money or insurance on the collapse of the U.S. Dollar and fiat monetary system. However, I look at gold as an investment due to the collapse of U.S. and World energy production.
While I have been a broken record on this, many investors still dont understand what I am trying to get across here. Gold and silver are more than money today because of the 40+ year funneling of investors funds away from REAL ASSETS and into PAPER CLAIMS on future economic activity. Thus, 99% of investors have sent their money into the largest Ponzi Scheme in history.
Jim Rickards fails to understand this principle because he doesnt factor in energy into the equation. I find most precious metals analysts do the same thing as they forecast the future gold price based on how much fiat currency (or money supply) is outstanding.
Folks. it wont matter how much money is floating around in the future as energy production plummets. Who cares if there are trillions of M2 or M3 outstanding, when we wont have the energy to continue running a system that only can function by a growing energy supply. To base the future value of gold on outstanding currency is FOLLY.
Which is precisely why I label gold and silver as INVESTMENTS. Their values will surge as most paper and physical asset values collapse. The revaluation of gold and silver will occur well beyond the collapse of fiat money they will also rise in value due to the disintegration of most physical and paper assets. This is well beyond the scope of money or insurance.
The Gold Chart That Has Central Banks Extremely Worried
Before I get into the details of this gold chart, I would like to let my readers and followers know about my recent interview on TFmetals Report. I sat down with Mr Ferguson (Craig) and discussed a lot of the Gold Market in a live webinar with many of his subscribers. He has now made the interview public:
You can either click on the image and go to the TFmetals Report website and listen to the interview, or you can click on the link below:
Okay, here is the gold chart that Central Banks should be worried about:
This chart represents the change of physical Gold Bar & Coin demand including Central Bank net purchases. Before the first collapse of the U.S. and Global markets in 2008, Central Banks dumped approximately 3,956 metric tons (mt) of gold on the market. I have figures for 2002-2015 from the World Gold Council, but I estimated a total of 800 mt for 2000 and 2001. This is based on data from the chart in the article, Germany Stops Selling Gold, Eurozone Sales Fall To Zero.
If we subtract the Central Bank dumping of 3,956 mt of gold from total Gold Bar & Coin demand of 2,776 mt, we get a net negative 1,180 mt during the 2000-2007 period. Thus, Central Bank sales added 1,180 mt more gold supply than was consumed by investor physical gold purchases.
NOTE: These figures do not include Gold ETF or similar product demand. I decided to exclude this data as it is impossible to know if the gold held by these Electronic Traded Funds or similar products is not oversubscribed to one or more owners. We know that when someone purchases either physical Bar & Coin or Central Bank gold.. there is more of a guarantee that this gold is likely unencumbered.
However, this situation changed drastically since 2008. Even though Central Banks still sold 235 mt of gold in 2008 and 34 mt in 2009, this changed to net purchases in 2009. If we add up all Central Bank gold sales and purchases from 2008 to 2015, it turned out to be 2,657 mt.
While this was a big change from Central Bank net sales of 3,956 mt (2000-2007), the real winner was the increase of Gold Bar & Coin demand. Gold Bar & Coin demand surged to 9,461 mt from 2008-2015 versus 2,657 mt during 2000-2007. Thus, physical gold investment and Central Bank demand totaled a whopping 12,118 mt from 2008-2015. This equals a massive 390 million oz (Moz) for total physical gold and Central Bank demand since 2008 compared to a net supply of 38 Moz in the first period.
Investors need to really take a good look at the chart. What a change in demand from 38 Moz of net supply from 2000-2007 versus net demand of 390 Moz during the 2008-2015 period. To get more understanding of the changing gold trends, I discuss this in my interview on TFmetals Report which I highly recommend listening to at the link above.
Lastly, now that Mainstream investors piled into Gold ETFs during the first quarter of 2016, this could really upset the market going forward. Currently, Gold Bar & Coin demand and Central Bank purchases are averaging about 1,600 mt annually for the past several years. This could easily jump to 2,000 mt once the U.S. and global stock markets start to crash as investors move into the SAFETY TRADE (of gold).
If western Gold ETF demand really starts to surge, this could cause serious trouble for Central Banks as availability of gold supply tightens. Global Gold ETF demand hit a high of 645 mt in 2009 as the U.S. and world stock markets crashed to their lows. However, we already saw a huge 364 mt inflow of Gold ETFs during the first quarter of 2016 and the DOW ONLY FELL 2,000 points. What happens when the market really tanks??
If Gold ETF demand jumps to 1,000 mt along with Gold Bar-Coin demand and Central bank purchases totaling 2,000 mt, this would equal 3,000 mt or nearly 75% of total supply.
At some point, demand for gold will overwhelm supply causing the price to skyrocket. This isnt a matter of if, but a matter of when. So, the more Central Banks screw around with monetary policy and as the broader stock markets continue their collapse, the closer we are to seeing record gold prices.
Lastly, if you havent checked out our new PRECIOUS METALS INVESTING page, I highly recommend you do.
Please check back for updates at the SRSrocco Report and you can also follow us at Twitter:
2016 Copyright Steve St .Angelo - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.
2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.
Gold And Silver 11th Hour: Globalists 10 v People 0
At the proverbial 11th hour, the globalists have a shut out going for themselves with people unable to mount any meaningful opposition. While the word hour is referenced, the time could be measured in months, even a few more years. Whatever the duration is, the time frame continues to shorten.
Rather than provide supply/demand facts for gold and silver, amply illustrated with lots of graphs and charts, provide information on Commitment of Traders data, and so much more, we prefer to engage in other situations that may be having more of an effect as to why gold and silver prices are not rallying to price levels that would reflect the true supply/ demand circumstances. These are the more pragmatic reasons for owning and holding either or both physical metals.
Unseen and unacknowledged forces are keeping a manipulated lid on gold and silver, the US being the primary instigator, [always acting was the behest of the globalists that are actually in charge]. So we point to other areas most people do not associate with why gold and silver are the only commodities that have not been price adjusted for so many decades to account for changes that would otherwise impact both metals.
The word patriot is not defined in Blacks Law Dictionary, but pauper is. Moneychangers have no interest in patriots but paupers are grist for keeping the masses suppressed, used as examples for those considering acting in ones own best interest, which, of course, can only mean acting against government interest.
The last well-known patriot in the United States was Edward Snowden, a notion that may shock the senses of those who choose not to think for themselves. a patriot is one who both supports and defends his/her country against enemies. Who, or what has done more harm to this country than the federal government. Snowden made public, and did an immense public service, by exposing the unprecedented and totally kept secret mass surveillance of every American that has a computer, cell phone, e-mail, to the extent that there is no privacy whatsoever, none!
Why all of the massive spying? National security, protection from the terrorists, etc, etc.
How many terrorists have been caught as of result of all of the spying, to date? None, nil, nada, zero, zip. Quite an impressive scorecard for the federal government that serves the interests of the globalists and not the American public. Remember, the globalists had all American citizens become enemies of the federal government [a corporation] via the 1933 Amendment to the Trading With The Enemy Act of 1917.
This Act originally excluded citizens of the United States, but in the Act of March 9, 1933, Section 2 amended this to include any person within the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof.
Here is another piece of information the federal government conveniently chooses not to make the public aware of the fact that the United States has been in a state of declared national emergency since the elites forced the US into bankruptcy on 9 March 1933. Every president, upon being sworn in, has to formally renew the national emergency. Why? When under a state of national emergency:
the President may: seize property; organize and control the means of
production; seize commodities; assign military forces abroad; institute martial law; seize and control all transportation and communication; regulate the operation of private enterprise; restrict travel;
and control the lives of all American citizens
Oh, and one more little thing, under a declared state of national emergency, the Constitution is suspended, has no effect. Theses are the kind of pesky details the globalist- controlled federal government does not want the people to know. Just go about your business.
Does anyone think the current war on cash is not without covert purpose?
Fewer and fewer people use cash for everyday transactions, preferring using debt, instead: credit cards, digital bank paper transactions, [checking accounts, where no real money is ever used]. Now, the EU wants to cease printing the 500 note, and in the US, cease printing the $100 fiat Federal Reserve Note, the most widely used fiat currency in the world.
One oft-repeated excuse is that terrorists use cash. Yet, there has been no call for a ban on cell phones, air travel, hotels, etc, also used by terrorists. Let us call it what it is, more control by government over the private lives of people. Moving to a cashless society means tax evasion will take a huge hit. There would be a paper trail for everything, and the government can, and will monitor everything, most assuredly by threat for not using a paper trail to memorialize all transaction. Privacy, or what is left of it, goes out the window.
Introducing negative rates [essentially a hidden tax], means people will be charged to carry bank balances. More people will simply take their fiat money out of the bank rather than incur a charge. Going cashless, there is no money to be taken out, and the suckers captured depositors will become more exposed to greater negative rates.
What happens of the government decides it does not like your politics of believes not aligned with government mainstream dictates. Sorry. There seems to be a problem with your digital bank account, but not to worry, we are working on it. Or how about hackers gaining access to bank accounts? That already goes on with large central bank holdings.
Need we point out this could never happen with gold and silver owned and personally held by you? Precious metals are a nemesis for central bankers/government because owners of
PMs are financially independent and have no need to rely on government.
Everyone should be paying attention to what is going on in Venezuela. It is an example of what can happen when government fails, money fails, everything fails. Something like this can happen in your own neighborhood, to some degree and at some point. Watch this five-minute video. There are two things we would like to point out.
What you see is the not as well-trained or coordinated Venezuela national guard. In the US, the police are now paramilitary forces and better armed than most actual military units. Even without civil unrest to the degree depicted below, cops are routinely shooting civilians first and asking questions later. Under more dire conditions, cops will become considerably more violent towards people.
Secondly, the Venezuelan population is unarmed. This is the main reason why Obama has pushed so hard for national gun control. They [the globalists] want guns out of the hands of people. A well-armed American public is one reason why there has not been even greater government control forced upon civilians.
This is not a pretty picture, but it could be a preview of your own neighborhood in the future.
Meanwhile, here is a preview of what one may expect tomorrow. Parts of it are graphically brutal.
There are countless stories and totally [seemingly]unrelated situations like these that offer the greatest reason[s] for buying and personally holding gold and silver. How important are the myriad stories about record coin sales, more Chinese buying gold, etc, etc, etc, as compared to events like these going on all over the world. We did not even bring up the European immigrant problem purposefully created by the globalists to destabilize the EU and make a One World Order takeover more acceptable to the bruised and abused masses.
We sometimes get criticism for not being more bullish on the metals, always wanting to see confirmation. Gold and silver appear to be at a turning point. The probability of last November/December lows being a bottom keeps increasing. While decreasing in its probability, one more downside washout of those lows still exists, however small the potential may seem.
There has been clear change in developing market activity that is favorable for gold and silver, both having the best and strongest recent rally since the 2011 highs. The rallies were also accompanied by the strongest volume increases over the past few year, another positive sign.
For us, charts are the proverbial picture being worth 1,000 words for they convey what the actual market is doing in real-time, irrespective of the [un]related news on any given day.
For the weekly gold and silver charts, we will first show activity ending at the beginning of April. The purpose is to demonstrate how past activity can, and does relate to the future, which them becomes present tense.
Points 1 and 2 are the reasons for expecting some kind of future reaction at 3, whenever price reaches that level. It is a way to be prepared at higher probability reaction areas.
The potential area at 3 became reality the first week in May. The question then became, is price absorbing to go higher, or will it fail, at least temporarily, and react lower. It has reacted. The information from increasing volume at the 1300 level was not totally clear until the last 2 trading weeks, and really not until the very last week. See daily.
The small range bar at the high was a red flag potential because price stalled. The picture was not clear because there was no real reaction lower, and price could still be absorbing sellers in preparation to rally above 1300. The last five TDs indicated a correction would develop. Now, it is a question of how much? Last Thursdays high volume, coupled with the small range and just above mid-bar close says buyers were more dominant than sellers,
With silver, the potential for future resistance was an area and not a single price level as it was for gold. Still, it allows one to be prepared for a possible reaction based on past price activity. Monitoring the market in this fashion eliminates the folly of predicting, always an exercise in futility. Stay with facts, not conjecture and ego.
The upper horizontal bar would have been more formidable to overcome, but price stopped at the lower bar, an indication that silver is still not quite as structurally strong as gold. Nonetheless, silver continues to do slightly better than gold in performance.
Next week could provide a limited risk buy opportunity, as outlined in the chart comments. Again, any buy, sell, avoid decision is a function of past market activity that is factual, and current price volume behavior is also a factual relationship. The combination may be a useful guide to take action, if warranted.
By Michael Noonan
http://edgetraderplus.com
Michael Noonan, mn@edgetraderplus.com, is a Chicago-based trader with over 30 years in the business. His sole approach to analysis is derived from developing market pattern behavior, found in the form of Price, Volume, and Time, and it is generated from the best source possible, the market itself.
2016 Copyright Michael Noonan - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.
Michael Noonan Archive
2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.
Kristen-Paige Madonia cant be pigeonholed into categories.
Like her first book, Fingerprints of You, Madonias second offering, Invisible Fault Lines was published by Simon and Schuster. It was just released last week.
The book doesnt fit neatly into any one category but can straddle a few easily. Were calling it a hybrid novel, Madonia said. Its really a hybrid of contemporary fiction, but (it) also has an element of historical fiction as well, braided together by the mystery, she said. It should appeal to a wide variety.
It is marketed in part toward teenagers as young adult, but it also has appeal to adults because of its deeper themes, she said.
Im very much interested in writing about the relationships between parents and teenagers. In some young adult books, the parents are written out of the story. With my books, I write a lot about relationships between teenagers and their parents.
Madonia will be in town this week talking about her book. She will speak at a few book clubs, and on Tuesday, at a public event at Piedmont Arts. She will have a booth on Saturday, May 29, at the Rooster Walk Music and Arts Festival.
In 2012, Piedmont Arts held a reception for Fingerprints of You. Madonia talked about the book, gave a reading from it and answered questions. Afterward, refreshments were served at a reception, and she autographed books for people.
She said she is expecting that Piedmont Arts will set it up like last time. It was a wonderful and successful event.
It is exciting celebrating my new book with my hometown, because I still feel very connected to Martinsville, Madonia, 37, said. Her father and stepmother and friends are here.
Through social media, she has been hearing from others far back in her past, too: She is even seeing (that) Mrs. Draper, my first grade teacher from Carlisle, is reading it, she said.
Madonia said she is working on a new novel and doing a lot of teaching. She teaches writing through the graduate program Long-Distance Mentorship Masters of Fine Arts through the University of Nebraska at Omaha, she said. With that program, she and her students meet there twice a year for 10 days at a time. The rest is online.
She teaches at James Madison University, her alma mater, and on and off at the University of Virginia.
Madonia said there is a two-year window or cycle from selling the book to it landing on the shelves. They have been a busy couple of years, she said. Her first child, a son, was born in 2013.
Madonia, her husband Christopher Gordon and their son, Porter, live in Charlottesville. The couple have lived there for six years, since returning from San Francisco, where they lived for a few years. Both her novels are set in San Francisco. Im still writing about that city, even though I live in Charlottesville, she said.
She attended Carlisle School through eighth grade, then continued through graduation from Martinsville High School in 1997. That was where I really started writing in earnest, with encouragement from my teachers, she said.
Writing was number one for her: I was always one of those kids not very good at anything else but writing. I was lucky the teachers caught onto that and encouraged her, she said. Pat Walmsley was one who recognized that was where my talent was. She really encouraged me.
She realizes now that she was fortunate to grow up in a small town where the teachers really pay attention to you .. as a teenager it feels stifling. As an adult, I am grateful for it.
She received a bachelors degree in 2001 from James Madison University with a major in media arts and design with a writing concentration. She has a Masters of Fine Arts from California State University in Long Beach.
Invisible Fault Lines is about dealing with ambiguous loss, Madonia said.
It is set in 2006 in San Francisco. Seventeen-year-old Callies father goes missing. No ones working very hard to find him, Madonia said. The assumption was that he left she and her mother.
The character is certain thats not what happened, so she sets out to find out what happened to her father. She also deals with her relationship with her mother.
Ive always wanted to write about grief and loss, Madonia said. This got my attention, the idea of a loss without any answers. It is a really different grieving process. Its very interesting to me.
The book has a touch of history, as it also deals with the 1906 earthquake. In 2006, San Francisco had all kinds of art tributes, memoriums, et cetera kinds of events, and the main character sees plenty of that in her search for her father.
She becomes obsessed with the earthquake after seeing a picture of a man who resembles her father, Madonia explained. Callie becomes fixated on the concept of the possibility of parallel times and universes. It sounds completely bizarre, and she knows that. The point is that we do what we have to do to cope in these situations. The reality is that a lot of teenagers do go through loss at an early age. Theres no one wrong way to deal with that.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe is reopening the door to expanding Virginias Medicaid program by vetoing a provision of the state budget that he said unconstitutionally ties all spending in the $105 billion document to a bar against accepting federal funding to expand health coverage of uninsured Virginians.
The line-item veto announced by McAuliffe today would eliminate the so-called Stanley amendment, sponsored two years ago by Sen. William M. Stanley Jr., R-Franklin, to prevent the governor from appropriating billions of dollars in federal funding under the Affordable Care Act without General Assembly approval to expand health coverage.
The governors office did not say whether the veto means McAuliffe will attempt to expand the Medicaid program without legislative approval.
However, McAuliffe said he vetoed the provision as unconstitutional for tying the prohibition to all appropriations in the two-year budget that takes effect on July 1. Previously, the amendment had been tied to a specific sum sufficient funding provision in the Medicaid budget in case a now-moribund commission cleared the way for expansion.
House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, immediately challenged the governors veto as unconstitutional and said the assembly would refuse to recognize it.
The governors purported veto is not valid and will not be reflected in the final budget law, Howell said in a statement.
This position is consistent with rulings of the Supreme Court and has been applied by both Republican and Democratic speakers. The governor cannot veto conditions attached to appropriations without vetoing the appropriation as well...
This has been the consistent practice of the General Assembly, and the governor will be notified accordingly next week.
The governors office did not say whether the veto means McAuliffe will attempt to expand the Medicaid program without legislative approval.
However, McAuliffe said he vetoed the provision as unconstitutional for tying the prohibition to all appropriations in the two-year budget that takes effect on July 1. Previously, the amendment had been tied to a specific sum sufficient funding provision in the Medicaid budget in case a now-moribund commission cleared the way for expansion.
The governor said the provision would prevent him from exercising his line-item veto without also rejecting all of the monies appropriate in this $100 billion budget bill, which he otherwise approved. As a result, he said the General Assembly has attempted to entirely remove the governors ability to reject an objectionable item, which is an unconstitutional overreach.
McAuliffe said the provision also violates a constitutional prohibition against a law embracing more than one object.
If the policy underlying (the budget item) were a separate bill, as it should have been, then I would have vetoed it and that veto certainly would have been sustained, he said. The General Assembly has attempted to avoid that result by embedding that policy in the budget bill.
On Thursday, staff and parents of students at Chippewa Falls Area Unified School District received a letter from Jeffrey Holmes, Superintendent about active shooter swatting calls taking place at multiple school districts across the state. Swatting calls are hoax reports of threats made to police which insight panic.
Police say similar types of false threats have occurred at multiple schools across the state Thursday. These threats included 911 calls to police across the state claiming that schools had an active shooter.
EAU CLAIRE As the unemployment rate continues to fall, it is spreading all sorts of positive news throughout the state. But it is also putting more pressure on businesses in the Chippewa Valley and throughout Wisconsin to find workers.
That was one of the messages delivered by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Friday at the Chippewa County Economic Development Corporations annual meeting Friday morning, in the Hawthorne Aviation Hangar at the Chippewa Valley Regional Airport.
Walker said the unemployment rate has dropped from 9.2 percent when he ran for office in 2010 to 4.4 percent, which he said was the lowest it has been in about a decade and a half. He also cited Wisconsins ranking for business desirability from Chief Executive magazine as rising from 41st in the nation to No. 11. He called that a remarkable turnaround, and credited business people such as the ones in attendance Friday.
Heres the headline: In 2016 there were more people employed in this state than there has ever been, and thats thanks to all of you, he said, noting that governments do not create jobs, they only create an environment for businesses to create jobs.
Among factors Walker cited as helping the business climate were: $4.5 billion in tax relief since 2010; average property and income taxes that are lower than when he took office; and freezing tuition for four consecutive years at University of Wisconsin campuses.
However he said there was one unintended consequence of a low unemployment rate, and it is the one thing he hears about most when he is in the Chippewa Valley. It is connected to figures showing that the states labor force participation rate is 68.8 percent, six percent higher than the national average.
That is tremendous, unless youre an employer looking to hire, and all throughout this valley I see help wanted signs, Walker said. I didnt see them in 2010, and thats great, but the challenge is not about jobs, jobs, jobs, but how to fill those jobs, jobs, jobs. We hear that every day.
On a previous trip to the area he heard how an employer was unable to fill openings for five welding jobs, with a possibility of adding 7-8 more jobs if the first five could be filled. Walker said that scenario isnt restricted to manufacturing, but is also found in the information technology, construction, transportation and health care fields, to name a few.
That is why Walker said the state has invested millions into its technical colleges, why its making education more affordable for certain types of students, and why it is working with the University of Wisconsin system. He praised the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire for taking the lead in guaranteeing students a completion rate of four years if specific criteria are met.
The one other thing were doing that I hope benefits all of you is that we cant afford to have anybody on the sidelines. I dont believe there should be any man or woman in this state who is physically and mentally capable of working, who isnt required to be in the workforce.
To that end, Walker said anyone looking for assistance, such as food stamps, is required to enroll in the states job training program, look for work five days a week and pass a drug test.
Why? Because if you have basic job skills and can pass a drug test, I can find you a job in virtually every part of the state of Wisconsin, he said. The best (thing) is its not only good for all of you employers looking to hire, and for our taxpayers who want our tax dollars to be spent on people who are truly in need, but you know what its best for? The person.
The governor said that the state isnt doing people any favors by keeping them in these programs and under the control of the government.
The American dream is that if you work hard and play by the rules, you dont have to own the biggest company in town, but youll have a career to support yourself and your family and you can pass on to your children and their children a society thats just a little bit better.
Have you been dreaming about a job where you can just sit back and relax all day? Have we got the gig for you, and its with one of Silicon Valleys largest companies.
By Emily Price
Full Story: http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2016/05/17/google-is-hiring-drivers-for-its-self-driving-cars/
CHIPPEWA FALLS James Jim Patrick McElroy Sr. died peacefully April 20, 2016, eight days short of his 93rd birthday.
He was born April 28, 1923, and raised in Chippewa Falls. After high school, he married the love of his life, Jeanne Irene Connell, in 1942. He proudly served in the Army in the Philippines, during World War II.
After leaving Wisconsin, Jim and Jeanne spent most of their years in the Pacific Northwest. He had a variety of jobs, including working at the shipyards in Bremerton, Wash., wood floor finisher, carpenter building houses, and 20 years at Boeing in Renton, Wash. After retiring from Boeing, he started his own business as a cabinet builder in Renton.
While his family was growing up, Jim used his many skills in fixing cars, remodeling their home, and building a cabin where the family enjoyed many weekends. Jim and Jeanne moved to Enumclaw, Wash., in 1996, and were very involved in their church, volunteer work, always helping family, friends and neighbors.
Jim is survived by his children, James P. McElroy, Jr. (Kaaren) of Seattle, Timothy J. McElroy (Linda) of Renton, Daniel J. McElroy (Ellinor) of Vero Beach, Fla., Mary J. Sutherland (Robert) of Bonney Lake, Wash., Anthony J. McElroy (Susan) of Bonney Lake, Jane L. Bunyan (Anthony) of Camano Island, Wash.; 20 grandchildren and stepgrandchildren; 15 great grandchildren and stepgreat-grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Jeanne I. McElroy; their son, Richard Jacob McElroy; their grandson, William Jasper; his parents, James H. and Louise (Beaudette) McElroy; his sister, Bernadine (Willard Bud) Hughes; and his sister, Bernadette (Woodrow Woody) Loiselle.
He will be greatly missed by his family and friends for his caring nature, wonderful sense of humor and great stories.
A funeral Mass was held at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Enumclaw, April 29, 2016. He was buried in Enumclaw Evergreen Memorial Park, Enumclaw. The family suggests that any memorial contributions be made to the James P. McElroy Memorial Scholarship, Chippewa Falls Area Unified School District.
MILWAUKEE (AP) A Milwaukee custard shop owner with an English-only ordering policy has called off a meeting with a Latino rights group.
Ron Schneider of Leon's Frozen Custard was to meet Friday with the League of United Latin American Citizens. But the group says Schneider needed more time to meet with his attorney.
The policy became public Tuesday after a Spanish-speaking customer was told by a Spanish-speaking employee that she was only allowed to take his order in English.
Schneider said at the time that he didn't want to encourage non-English orders because it could become "a problem down the road," adding that "we can't be the United Nations."
But Leon told WTMJ-TV on Thursday he has now decided his bilingual employees can help customers in whatever language they both speak.
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These findings suggest a whole different way of thinking about chemotherapy resistance - and the potential to harness immunotherapy drugs to treat ovarian cancer.Study author J. Rebecca Liu, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan, said, "In the past, we've thought the resistance was caused by genetic changes in tumor cells. But we found that's not the whole story."Researchers looked at tissue samples from ovarian cancer patients. They separated the cells by type to study the tumor microenvironment in cells and in mice. They also linked their findings back to actual patient outcomes.Ovarian cancer is typically treated with cisplatin, a platinum-based chemotherapy. The researchers found that fibroblasts blocked platinum. These cells prevented platinum from accumulating in the tumor and protected tumor cells from being killed off by cisplatin.Immune T cells, on the other hand, overruled the protection of the fibroblasts. When researchers added the immune T cells to the fibroblasts, the tumor cells began to die off."T cells are the soldiers of the immune system. We already know that if you have a lot of T cells in a tumor, you have better outcomes. Now we see that the immune system can also impact chemotherapy resistance," says study author Weiping Zou, Charles B. de Nancrede Professor of Surgery, Immunology and Biology at the University of Michigan.By boosting the immune T cells, the researchers were able to overcome the chemotherapy resistance in mouse models. They used interferon, a type of small protein, to manipulate the pathways involved in cisplatin.The researchers suggest that combining chemotherapy with immunotherapy may be effective against ovarian cancer. PD-L1 and PD-1 pathway blockers are FDA-approved treatments in some cancers, although not ovarian cancer."We can imagine re-educating the fibroblasts and tumor cells with immune T cells after chemoresistance develops," Zou says."Then we could potentially go back to the same chemotherapy drug that we thought the patient was resistant to. Only now we have reversed that and it's effective again," Liu adds.Source: Eurekalert
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"To get the characteristic layered, 'core-shell' architecture of the nucleolus, all you need to do is mix the right molecules together at sufficient concentrations," said study co-lead author Marina Feric, a Ph.D. student in chemical and biological engineering. "We've provided a biophysical mechanism for the structure of the nucleolus that automatically emerges from the collective behavior of immiscible liquids," said the study's other co-lead author, Nilesh Vaidya, a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow in Brangwynne's lab.Brangwynne and colleagues had previously shown that a number of other organelles besides the nucleolus are also phase-separated liquid droplets of RNA and protein. The present findings point to how these organelles, all of which lack the obvious compartmentalization offered by membranes, can nevertheless exhibit intricate architectures tailored for their cellular duties. "The basic properties of fluids dictate which components of the nucleolus are on the inside and the outside," said Brangwynne. "Since the fundamental principles underlying this effect are observed even in non-living states of matter, we think this physical picture applies to many organelles inside cells."Other Princeton co-authors on the study are graduate student Lian Zhu and junior Tiffany Richardson, both in Brangwynne's Soft Living Matter Group. Other authors include: Tyler Harmon and Rohit Pappu of Washington University in St. Louis; Diana Mitrea and Richard Kriwacki of St. Jude's Research Hospital, Memphis. Funding for the research was provided in part by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation. The researchers investigated nucleoli by conducting experiments with purified nucleolar proteins as well as living frog egg cells, roundworms and cultured cells, plus some computer modeling.The work on the frog eggs -- spearheaded by Feric -- took advantage of the fact that the eggs possess multiple, large nucleoli, easing the organelle's observation and manipulation. In these eggs, the nucleoli normally do not come into contact because of an elastic actin network. Feric incubated them in a pharmacological drug to break down the actin, allowing nucleoli to contact one another, and observed their contents fuse, much like how two droplets of water coalesce into a larger drop. By analyzing these fusion events, the researchers teased out the differing biophysical properties for the respective nucleolar layers.Meanwhile, the protein-based lab work, led by Vaidya, found that droplets of the two main nucleolar proteins, dubbed FIB1 and NPM1, would not blend into each other as a homogenous fluid. Instead, because FIB1's surface tension was higher than NPM1, the former became engulfed by the latter, precisely mimicking the nucleolar structure seen in living cells. As a demonstration of this phenomenon, the researchers also created similar multi-phase drops --liquids embedded within other liquids -- using vegetable oil and silicone oil in water.Altogether, the data handily explain how the individual subcompartments of the nucleolus nestle inside of each other, somewhat like a Russian matryoshka or "nesting" doll. "This study is very important and exciting," said Steve Michnick, a biophysical chemist at the University of Montreal who was not involved in the research. "It establishes both that the suborganization of the nucleolus results from one phase-separated body enveloping another and explains the physical complementarity between each body and the surroundings that results in this arrangement."For the nucleolus, this layered form follows function. Newly made RNA molecules proceed from the organelle's core into the middle, then outer components, receiving modifications as they do so, as if on an assembly line. Like a factory, nucleoli churn out these RNA bits, which after leaving the nucleolus ultimately enter into the cell's cytoplasm and link up to form structures called ribosomes. Factories in their own right, these ribosomes manufacture a cell's many thousands of proteins.Beyond making ribosomes, the nucleolus has lately emerged as a hub for coordinating cellular growth, helping to regulate cell division and even setting the timing of a cell's self-destruction in reaction to stress or damage. Given this centrality, the nucleolus is also increasingly being recognized for roles in disease. For instance, during certain illnesses, nucleoli may lose some of their normal liquidness. If the faulty nucleoli become more fibrous, throwing off kilter the smooth flow of RNA through their chambers, this could contribute to heart and neurological diseases.Another major disease nucleoli figure prominently in is cancer. In malignant cells, hijacked nucleoli overproduce proteins to fuel out-of-control, rapid divisions. Oncologists routinely grade cancer cells' aggressiveness in part on the degree of their misshapen and bloated nucleoli.Further insight into the normal layout of nucleoli, as the new Cell study provides, will thus help in assessing the organelle as a promising therapeutic target for drugs in near future. Brangwynne also hopes that understanding nucleolar core-shell structure will inform his lab's ongoing studies into other overlooked organelles without membranes, like stress granules, p-bodies and Cajal bodies. Although these structures barely turn up in biology text books, recent work has suggested they too play key roles in both cell physiology and many diseases, including aggregation diseases such as Alzheimer's and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)."This research is very exciting for us," said Brangwynne. "It's amazing how complex structures like the nucleolus can self-organize, based on relatively simple physical principles. We're hoping that there is also simplicity underlying how such organization can go awry in disease."Source: Eurekalert
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The CDC is now using two separate registries to track pregnant women residing in the United States and all territories, as Puerto Rico is keeping separate records."Both of these systems include pregnant women with any laboratory evidence of possible Zika virus infection, with or without symptoms," said Denise Jamieson, the co-lead on the CDC's Pregnancy and Birth Defects Team, part of its Zika Virus Response Team."We've learned a lot in the last four months," said Margaret Honein, a top official at the CDC's National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. Scientists now know of cases of infants born with microcephaly whose test results suggest a Zika infection, but whose mothers did not remember having any symptoms, she said."The new surveillance systems cast a broad net to ensure we are monitoring all pregnant women who may be at risk for poor outcome associated with Zika," Honein said.The CDC did not release the number of cases of sexually transmitted Zika, saying it cannot definitively separate those cases from mosquito-infection cases. At least five women contracted Zika without leaving the continental US, but had sexual relations with someone who had, Honein said. The baseline rate of microcephaly in the United States is normally 6 per 10,000 infants, the CDC said.There is no vaccine to prevent Zika. Experts have warned the continental United States will likely see an increase in cases during the summer months when mosquitoes are more prevalent. President Barack Obama was due to receive a briefing on the country's battle against Zika on Friday.Source: AFP
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"That process is semisynthesis, modifying the naturally occurring substance. In contrast, the process described in the Nature study involves using "eight industrial chemicals, or substances derived from them," Myers says, and manipulating them in various combinations and then testing the products against panels of disease causing bacteria. This allows us to make new "new compounds in fewer steps than was previously possible."Ian H. Seipel, who was a post doctoral fellow in Myers's lab and now is at the School of Pharmacy at UC San Francisco, and Ziyang Zhang, a Myers post doc, are first author's on the Nature report.For a host of reasons - from the difficulty of developing antibiotics to the relatively low return on investment they offer, by 2013 the number of international pharmaceutical companies developing antibiotics had dwindled to four. And in each five year period from 1983 through 2007, the number of new antibiotics approved for use in the US decreased, from 16 at the beginning of that period to only five by its end.One thing that has complicated antibiotic development is a perceived reluctance by federal agencies to fund the research. In fact, Myers says, his new antibiotic development system would have been impossible without support from a Harvard alum and his wife who are interested in science, and Harvard's Blavatnik Accelerator Fund, which provided support for the initial creation of Myers's company Macrolide Pharmaceuticals."I was making a presentation to a group of visiting alumni interested in science and one, Alastair Mactaggart, asked me about funding. I told him I had no funding - because at that time we didn't, and he followed me back to my office and said, 'this is ridiculous: we have to do something about this."Myers said that without the support of MacTaggart and his wife, Celine, and the Gustavus and Louise Pfeiffer Research Foundation, the new antibiotic creation platform would not exist. "And the Blavatnik Accelerator funding was also hugely important."The Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator awarded funding to Myers' project in 2013, enabling synthesis and testing of compounds. In 2015, with support from Harvard's Office of Technology Development, Myers founded a startup, Macrolide Pharmaceuticals, which has licensed the synthesis platform and aims to commercialize novel antibiotics for serious infections."One of the things that's quite encouraging about the data in our paper is that some of the structures we've made are active against clinical bacterial strains that are resistant to every known macrolide," Myers said.In fact, he added, two of the 350 compounds reported on in the Nature paper have, in initial testing, shown efficacy against a bacterium that has become resistant to vancomycin, "which is known as the antibiotic of last resort. And if you have a bug that's resistant to vancomycin, you're in trouble," Myers adds."This is an early effort," Myers says of his lab's work with the new drug development system. "We have a lot of work ahead of us." Some of the 350 compounds reported on in the paper will undergo more extensive testing to evaluate their potential as candidate drugs.Myers is quick to point out that the road from drug candidate to a treatment at the bedside is long, arduous, and expensive. First comes the initial identification of possible compounds."Microbiologists evaluate those against panels of bacteria," explains Myers. "Hopefully your panels contain clinically relevant strains that are found in hospitals.""If you find an effective compound, then you advance it: First you make sure it's not toxic to human cells in the lab; then you see how stable it is in human plasma; next come animal studies - typically in rodents to see if you can cure infection. And then come the three phases of human studies."I said to a friend the other day," says Andrew Myers, "that I'm really pleased this paper is out - my students worked unbelievably hard to make this happen. But if this is where this ends, I won't be satisfied. Our objective from day one was to have a drug in the clinic."Source: Eurekalert
At this point, the best thing Bernie Sanders supporters can probably do for his reputation is to vote against him in the remaining primaries and caucuses.
Hillary Clinton long ago wrapped up the nomination. Tuesdays results her narrow victory in Kentucky and his win by about 10 percentage points in Oregon doesnt change anything: Its over. If you include superdelegates, Clinton is only about 100 delegates away from clinching, and with Democratic proportional allocation, she is basically guaranteed to get there.
Yet the closer Clinton gets to her official victory, the more Sanders and his campaign act as if the nomination was unfairly stolen from him that somehow the doors of the party have been unfairly closed against his followers. This culminated in an ugly scene in Nevada last weekend, with Sanders supporters threatening Democratic Party officials there.
The result? Liberals have turned on Sanders, urging him to get out of the race now or, at least, to change his tone. Josh Marshall, of Talking Points Memo, said Sanders is lying to (his) supporters. At Mother Jones, Kevin Drum called him very, very bitter. Paul Krugman, of The New York Times, said Sanders has a problem in facing reality and called his campaign a terrible mess.
And, as New York Magazines Ed Kilgore explained, claims that the nomination was stolen or rigged are complete bunk. Some longtime rules worked against Sanders. He did worse in states with closed primaries (restricting voting to only registered Democrats). But the systems in other states worked for him. He cleaned up in the caucuses.
The biggest rule-based effect has probably just been that the Democrats proportional representation system has created an illusion of a tight battle. The truth is that Hillary Clinton has won more states. She won bigger states. She won, overall, by bigger margins, with the exception of a handful of caucuses, most of which were in small states. Overall, she has won about 57 percent of the vote, beating Sanders by some 14 percentage points.
Thats a blowout. And, for what its worth, it matches Clintons national polling lead over Sanders.
Sanders has said he would support Clinton against Donald Trump in a general-election battle, and theres no reason to doubt his word. Nor is a national party convention as easy to disrupt as a state gathering. Sure, Sanders supporters could hold demonstrations and grant interviews to a media that is always looking for controversy, but his fans are more likely to look like sore losers than anything else. Meanwhile, almost all rank-and-file liberals who, remember, have always liked Clinton even as many of them have voted for Sanders will line up behind the nominee and against Trump. This is true even if a handful of Bernie or bust die-hards dissent.
But the Vermont senators truculence could have serious effects on his movement and on his own ability to wield influence after the campaign. His ability to excite large crowds and win plenty of votes could make him a more formidable presence in the Senate than he has been. But if he behaves irresponsibly, hell forfeit that influence.
This is why at this point the best thing for Sanders may be that he loses solidly in California and New Jersey on June 7, making it clear to his followers and perhaps to the candidate himself that he lost the nomination fair and square. Yes, hell fall short even if he wins each remaining contest, but it wont be nearly as obvious that he was solidly beaten.
And apparently being solidly beaten is what its going to take for Sanders to convert his impressive but losing campaign into a positive force for his ideas in the future.
In a hazardous year for political predictions, Ill offer one confidently: if the Republicans currently freaking out over Donald Trump can redirect that energy toward beating Hillary Clinton, shes toast.
But that is a giant if. Many conservatives need to examine what keeps them mired in their objections to Trump now that the Republican primary race is over.
During that race, it was proper to weigh his pluses and minuses versus the competition. Maybe his inconsistent conservatism made some people prefer Ted Cruz. Maybe his sharp edges made some lean toward Marco Rubio. Those are the battles of months gone by.
But Cruz and the rest of the field are gone. The choice of Republican voters is Donald Trump, which yields two types of conservatives: those who can handle that, and those who cannot.
I can, and I will. Not because Trump is perfect; I expect him to annoy me with ideological and behavioral curveballs all the way to November, and perhaps beyond. But on balance, the issues where he resonates conservatively stronger borders, lower taxes, rebuilding the military, ditching noxious political correctness and, most importantly, constitutionalist Supreme Court justices make him the obvious choice for anyone claiming to favor conservative principles.
Yet it is principles that are flaunted by the malcontent faction of conservatives as they proudly crow how they could never vote for Trump, the only human being who can stop Hillary, who most of them have spent decades opposing.
What is it about him that melts their otherwise sharp minds? Any claim that the Clinton and Trump presidencies would be indistinguishable is evidence of a severe perceptual disorder. Yes, the prospect of his candidacy is filled with some very valid questions. But her questions are all answered, and from a conservative perspective, the answers are all horrible. The notion that he is no better on borders, job creation, gun rights and the Supreme Court is certifiably crazy.
Voters supporting other candidates are simply licking fresh wounds. Many followers of Cruz, Rubio, John Kasich, Jeb Bush and a dozen others still cannot believe they were dismantled by the EF5 tornado of Trump. Those voters, and the candidates themselves, will come to their senses if they have the slightest desire to prevent a Hillary presidency that will do violence to all, not just some, of their conservative beliefs.
And among establishment ivory tower types and the writers and talkers who have spent years espousing conservatism but who will now facilitate a Hillary presidency by failing to show preference for Trump? Its all about the comfort zone.
A second Clinton era would be a disaster, but it would be filled with predictable moments that would make conservatives look smart as they tick off several I-told-you-so moments on the way to the end of the America they once fought to protect.
A President Trump? They have no idea what hell do, and it drives them insane. The so-called conservative intelligentsia has been bloodied by months of being wrong about virtually everything about his rise. They have zero interest in additional years of embarrassment as a Trump presidency churns out possibly surprising successes they did not allow themselves to see coming.
After the tantrums and third-party fantasies fade, conservatives with any remaining shred of coherence will settle onto the fact that the Trump candidacy, with all of its flaws they have dutifully listed, is infinitely preferable to the return of the Clintons.
The ideas run a gamut of strategies, but a thread of urgency runs through the more than 100 proposals to improve campus climate sent to University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank.
After a semester studded with reports of bias incidents and capped with a protest that occupied a campus library, one student who submitted an idea called the strained atmosphere on campus an emergency.
Another student invoked Thomas Jeffersons remark about how the realization that controversy over slavery might destroy the union of states filled him with terror like a fire bell in the night.
The ringing sounds once again and this time at our front door, wrote the student. The names of students, and other contributors who did not want to be publicly identified, were redacted from suggestion forms posted online Thursday by university officials.
Richard Davidson, founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at UW-Madison, called the issue of inclusivity a global challenge.
We consider this to be not only a critical issue for our campus, but a grand challenge nationally and globally to educate world citizens for the 21st century, he said.
And contributors want to begin confronting the challenge soon. Many of those suggesting new or expanded education, mentoring or support programs, for example, suggested starting as early as this summer.
On the suggestion that the campus hire more faculty and staff of color, one contributor set a simple time frame: Immediately. Another spoke to method of accomplishing: Prioritize.
Blank told a meeting of the Faculty Senate Tuesday that a committee that reviewed the proposals will send a top five or ten list to her for further evaluation. Completion of a new training module on community inclusiveness and diversity will be required of all incoming students in the fall, Blank told faculty. She previously said she and her staff will participate in diversity training this summer. Blank also previously announced that more staff is being hired to improve mental health services to students, especially students of color.
Many contributors to a website set up for that purpose suggested that the university create more opportunities on campus for discussion of race issues by students, faculty and staff. Others urged highlighting the success stories of people of color on campus. A few want to recast the standard of how and why learning about "inclusion" takes place.
And one contributor argued that the focus on race is exacerbating tensions on campus. He suggested the university drop ethnic studies and close all race or gender-based departments and clubs. It would greatly reduce racial tension by getting rid of race-baiters and agitators, wrote the unidentified student.
Many contributors, including faculty in ethnic studies units, suggested the ethnic studies requirement be expanded to two courses or more. Incorporate diversity right into the curriculum, suggested others, by adding works and ideas by women, people of color and queer people to those by white elite males that now dominate.
Davidson wants to change how people learn about inclusion. He proposed using techniques from both ancient contemplative tradition and modern science to make inclusion practices a learned, subconscious skill.
Intellectually understanding the value of respect and equality does not necessarily translate into a person who is respectful and inclusive in their behavior towards others, particularly toward members of an out-group, he wrote.
Many wanted to extend improved diversity education to faculty and staff, maybe by making it a requirement. Graduate students and staff who advise students in particular need training, said some contributors.
Some suggested that ethnic studies go deep, or focus on the current situation; be delivered in graduate-level seminars, or in pop-up performances intended to disrupt and shock by-standers out of their complacent views. Teach inclusion through games, said others.
Professor Laura Albert McLay suggested posters with diversity messages be installed in toilet stalls or above urinals. It would be cheesy, informal and fun, said McLay, who saw the tactic used to educate about micro-aggressions at Virginia Commonwealth University.
It could be a way to subtly make students recognize that some of their behaviors are not healthy by providing them with a better alternative. A huge benefit is that these might not be seen as a diversity effort, she wrote.
Safe places on campus are needed to discuss race and ethnicity issues, some contributors said, for people of color and also for whites who are struggling with biases they carry.
UW-Madison should build a just and merciful community, said one student. An emphasis on kindness compassion, generosity and love would shift the model from mechanical heeding to the rule to humane attention to the individuals involved.
Others called for bringing principles of restorative justice, with its emphasis on repair of harm, to inclusion issues on campus. But demands for zero tolerance of bias incidents and swift punishment also were registered.
Some contributors want to showcase the stories of people of color on campus, through an online Story a Day, through ambassador graduates of UW-Madisons Odyssey Project humanities program who would tell their stories in classrooms and dormitories, or a human library of people from out-groups who agree to be lent out to others to talk about their experiences.
Create an online community where faculty, staff and students can tell stories of how experiencing diversity enhanced their working or learning life, suggested Ron Jetty, an academic staff member.
Many contributors suggested creating settings that would encourage relationships between people from different backgrounds.
Fabu Carter, a member of the academic staff, suggested fostering a broader community of culture for minority studies. Building greater ties through the existing UW-South Madison Partnership with community groups like churches, businesses, nonprofit organizations and families would create a support network for students. They need to form support systems and be among people who look like them, speak their language, eat similar food, remind them of their families and who positively affirm them culturally, spiritually and mentally, she wrote.
Other contributors posted ideas to improve campus climate for LGBT students, religious minorities and international students.
Academic staff member Harry Webne-Behrman called for dialogues on racism and bias based on reconciliation models. He remarked that after more than 40 years associated with UW as student, alumnus and staff, It concerns me greatly that our larger political landscape of polarization, hateful speech and actions of marginalization is infecting our campus," he said.
But we should not delude ourselves: Such attitudes and actions have been here as long as I have been on campus, Webne-Behrman said.
The semesters events may seem to provide a teachable moment, but there has been brainstorming on campus about diversity and climate before, another staff member wrote. He attended a seminar in February where there was good dialogue about diversity and inclusion.
What happened to all those ideas? he asked.
On 20 May, Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias participated in the sessions of the second day of the spring Meeting of NATO Minister of Foreign Affairs, which looked at NATO-EU relations and developments in Afghanistan, respectively.
Mr. Kotzias highlighted the discrete role of NATO and the EU and the need to develop this cooperation without excluding any member state of either organization. He also underscored respect for the institutional integrity and autonomy of decision-making of each organization. Finally, he noted that it is desirable for Alliance countries that are not members of the EU to have full access to and participate in European capabilities and actions, and acceptable provided that EU countries that are not members of the Alliance enjoy the same treatment.
The session on Afghanistan was also attended by partners contributing to Resolute Support Mission (RSM) as well as the Foreign Minister of Afghanistan. The Allies were briefed by the latter on his governments efforts to achieve peace and national reconciliation and to promote political and economic reforms. Briefings were also provided on the security situation, by the new RSN Commander, and political developments in the country, by the NATO Senior Civilian Representative.
Our country supports the efforts of the international community (UN, EU, NATO) to restore peace and security in Afghanistan through an holistic approach that, beyond the security aspect, will include socioeconomic development policies, combating of corruption, strengthening of democratic institutions, and respect for human rights, including restoration of womens equal role.
As expected, the Republican leader asked an Ingham County circuit judge Friday to reverse District Judge Hugh Clark Jr.'s Thursday ruling.
Cotter says he cannot be compelled to testify next week because of the Michigan Constitution's speech and debate clause. He also asserts his testimony would violate state law and the separation of powers since expulsion matters are reserved solely for the Legislature.
Former Republican Reps. Todd Courser, who resigned, and Cindy Gamrat, who was expelled, were later charged with felony misconduct in office related to an attempted cover-up of their extramarital affair. Courser also faces a perjury charge.
The new offices will house more than 60 full-time corporate and management employees who previously worked in offices at multiple area locations.
Michigan Sugar says the transition to the new offices was made this week.
The company is a cooperative owned by sugar beet growers that makes Pioneer and Big Chief brand sugars. It was founded in Bay City more than a century ago. Across the region, Michigan Sugar has nearly 1,000 full-time employees and more than 1,000 seasonal workers.
BAD AXE Two people have been arrested and authorities are looking to locate a third suspect involving the theft of televisions from Wal-Mart, Thursday afternoon.
According to the Bad Axe Police Department, officers were dispatched to the business around 1:30 p.m. for a theft complaint. An investigation revealed that three men had loaded up televisions into shopping carts while in the electronics department and walked out of separate doors simultaneously.
Working with Wal-Mart, pictures were obtained from video surveillance and were posted on the City of Bad Axe Facebook page. Within 20 minutes, the post had been shared over 150 times and department received over 30 phone calls. All the phone calls identified the same individuals and the Facebook post was taken down once positive identifications were obtained.
Further investigation resulted in contact being made with one of the suspects in Ubly, with one stolen television recovered from his residence.
As the investigation continued, a search warrant was obtained for a residence on Leppek Road in Paris Township, and resulted in a second search warrant being executed by the Huron County Sheriffs Office around 11 p.m.
During that search, illegal drugs were found, which required the need for a drug search warrant. The continued search resulted in the seizure of heroin, a variety of prescription pills, drug paraphernalia and a loaded handgun. Charges will be sought next week against a 28-year-old man, who resides at the residence.
Finally, around 7 a.m. Friday morning, a second suspect involved in the Wal-Mart theft was arrested in the Cass City area, and he is currently being held at the Huron County Jail pending formal charges by the Huron County Prosecutors Office.
Officers are still attempting to locate a third suspect.
Bad Axe police were assisted by the Ubly Police Department, the Huron County Sheriff Department and the Michigan State Police.
LANSING Bills moving in the House and Senate could add Michigan in with 30 other states that require students to learn CPR before graduating from high school.
House Bill 5160 and Senate Bill 647 would require students between seventh and 12th grades to learn CPR and the use of automated external defibrillators (AED) before getting a diploma. Education committees in both chambers recently approved the bills.
Do we really want to mandate that everyone has to learn this? said Rep. Ed Canfield, R-Sebewaing.
Canfield, a physician, says he has mixed feelings. Mandating CPR makes sense its a good technique, he says, and he encourages others to learn it.
But Canfield says hes not sure adding another government mandate is a good idea in an era where our education system is so packed and full of requirements already.
I think we mandate too many things, he said.
The bills state CPR programs would have to be based on those developed by the American Red Cross or American Heart Association (AHA).
Thirty-one states require CPR training to graduate, according to the AHA.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in late April signed a bill requiring students between seventh and 12th grades to learn CPR, days after South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed a similar bill.
The AHA says nearly 357,000 people suffer cardiac arrest outside of a hospital every year and only 8 percent survive, and that CPR can nearly triple survival rates for cardiac arrest by providing assistance until EMTs arrive.
County Commissioner Rich Swartzendruber, who taught at the elementary level in Bad Axe for 27 years, says he agrees with the goals behind the bills.
Its great to have young adults graduating high school with that kind of skill, Swartzendruber said.
But he disagrees with the states methods, and says he wouldnt support legislation that requires students to learn CPR in order to get a diploma.
I would prefer they recommend to include instruction in CPR as part of their health or PE curriculum, he said. I dont like the mandating section of it. I would prefer it be more of a voluntary action for local districts.
Adding CPR programs could increase costs by an indeterminate amount for the state and school districts, according to a House analysis. Canfield says he has not looked into costs schools might have if the bills pass.
Sarah Poole, Michigan government relations director for the AHA, told The Detroit News the legislation lets districts choose how they want to incorporate CPR into their curriculum.
Costs can vary depending on the type of training utilized, but estimates show the per student cost being approximately 60 cents per student which is well worth the investment every time a life is saved, Poole said, according to The Detroit News.
But locally, Commissioner Swartzendruber sees it as stripping control from local school districts and another unfunded state mandate.
Which weve had more of our share of, he said.
Canfield says he hasnt decided how hell vote, but thinks most of his colleagues will support the bill. A better idea, Canfield says, is requiring students learn how to balance a checkbook.
Rep. Tom Hooker, R-Byron Center, introduced HB 5160 last December. The House Committee on Education gave its approval last week. The Senate bill moved forward the week before.
Everybody should learn CPR and our schools are the ideal places to teach it, Hooker said in a news release. Without simple heart compressions and an AED, brain damage and death could occur in three to five minutes. Knowing these skills will keep a friend or family member alive until first responders can arrive.
BAD AXE The scenery in downtown Bad Axe may have looked a little dull and bare in recent weeks, but the citys Downtown Development Authority is working to bring back some beautification.
The committee first began removing ash trees in 2014 that were infested with emerald ash borer a green jewel beetle that feeds on ash.
We began taking them down last year and the year before as they became more noticeably diseased, said Barbie Brooks, member of the Bad Axe DDA. It was recommended that they (trees) will all have to come out.
Within the last two weeks, the city has completely removed 11 trees on East Huron Avenue.
Weve taken out trees all over the city, Mayor Jim Hicks told the Tribune. Three trees were taken down (Friday) on the corner (of East Huron Avenue and North Van Dyke).
The vacant slots where the trees once stood will be filled in the near future.
There will be concrete on it within the next day or so if not, the first of (next) week, Hicks said of the holes. Were eventually going to build flower pots or something on the streets. Something different.
The mayor guaranteed the ankle-deep holes will be covered with cement before next Saturdays Memorial Day Parade.
He said the city is in talks with horticulturists from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University for insight on what would look best to replace the dead trees.
Were doing what we can and trying to save what we got, he added.
Its unclear when all trees will be removed, and how many remain, but this summer should be the final step in the removal process.
Brooks said the DDA has every intention of creating, and bringing back, some beautification to downtown Bad Axe.
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.
The Angels are on pace to exceed the leagues $189MM luxury tax threshold, GM Billy Eppler told reporters including Pedro Moura of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link). While other in-season moves could well impact the final result, that represents a notable development given the teams oft-reported operating philosophy.
Los Angeles has long been said to target a level of spending that does not exceed the cap, with that reasoning often cited in explaining the teams level of interest in seemingly appealing trade and free agent targets. For instance, the hopeful contenders forewent several notable corner outfield options this winter in favor of a budget platoon. Of course, running just past the cap number is quite a bit different than blowing past it with a major acquisition.
But with a whole variety of injuries hitting the club, especially in the pitching department, it was necessary to add reinforcements. The Angels acquired Jhoulys Chacin, taking over his $1.1MM salary, and added Tim Lincecum on a deal that will pay him a pro-rated portion of a $2.5MM annual payout (plus incentives). That last move has apparently pushed the organization past the line, at least if its roster composition holds its current form.
Some have suggested that the Halos could be more comfortable moving above the cap for a single year, and that appears to be the case. Indeed, owner Arte Moreno suggested as much before the 2015 season, and Eppler called it a possibility just this winter. All said, it seems that the club has heavily weighed the luxury tax, but obviously doesnt view it as a hard cap.
For one thing, Los Angeles will only have to pay a 17.5% tax on any overages as a first-time offender. For another, it may be relatively easy for the team to duck back below the line next year thus avoiding a bump in the rate because several high-priced veterans will reach free agency, including C.J. Wilson, Jered Weaver, Joe Smith, and (if his option isnt exercised) Yunel Escobar.
It remains to be seen whether moving into position to hand over some extra cash will have much of an impact on the teams plans the rest of the way. The Angels entered play today three games under .500, but theyre still fully in the mix in a crowded AL West. Its possible to imagine the organization trimming some payroll to dip back under the limbo bar if it falls out of contention, or perhaps being slightly more comfortable in going further over, though its hard to see such considerations driving the decisionmaking.
Only six organizations have ever paid luxury tax bill, including the Angels in one prior season (2004). The Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, and Tigers appear currently set to do so in 2016. New York, of course, has accounted for the vast majority of the tax dollars over the years. Of course, other organizations could conceivably join them most notably, the Giants and Cubs. San Francisco edged past the line in 2015 after several mid-season trade acquisitions.
Luxury tax calculations, notably, are not as simple as tabulating annual salaries. Long-term deals are averaged, and there are many nuances that make assessment based on public information a tall task not least of which is the constantly changing set of players owed salary at the major league level and the ex post calculation of bonuses and options. Plus, theres a charge (usually estimated at around $11MM) for all teams to account for assorted additional player expenses, such as insurance and pension benefits.
Cubs outfielder Jason Heyward will undergo an MRI this morning after leaving yesterdays game following a diving catch, Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune notes. Heyward says his lower rib bone and hip bone hit each other. He adds that he isnt experiencing any sharp pain and is relieved that there arent any broken bones, but it sounds like he could still wind up on the disabled list. If Heyward were to head to the DL, the Cubs could activate Matt Szczur, whos currently on the DL with a hamstring injury. Heres more from the National League.
Padres outfielder Melvin Upton Jr. appears to be getting his career back on track in San Diego, writes FOX Sports Flinder Boyd in a lengthy profile that chronicles the twists and turns Uptons career has taken. After miserable seasons with the Braves in 2013 and 2014, Upton has quietly had modest success with the Padres, batting .257/.327/.429 last season and .266/.346/.441 this year. I stopped trying to live up to other peoples expectations, says Upton. Im just thankful for another opportunity.
outfielder appears to be getting his career back on track in San Diego, writes FOX Sports Flinder Boyd in a lengthy profile that chronicles the twists and turns Uptons career has taken. After miserable seasons with the Braves in 2013 and 2014, Upton has quietly had modest success with the Padres, batting .257/.327/.429 last season and .266/.346/.441 this year. I stopped trying to live up to other peoples expectations, says Upton. Im just thankful for another opportunity. The Rockies have recalled pitchers Jordan Lyles and Miguel Castro from Triple-A Albuquerque and placed righty Christian Bergman on the 15-day DL with a strained oblique, as MLB.coms Thomas Harding notes (Twitter links). Theyve also optioned righty Scott Oberg to Albuquerque. The moves give the Rockies bullpen somewhat of a new look. Lyles, who has struggled in both the big-league and Triple-A rotations this year, will take Bergmans long relief role. Castro had briefly been optioned to Albuquerque after a stint on the DL for shoulder inflammation. The hard-throwing 21-year-old was previously off to a fast start with the Rockies, whiffing nine batters and allowing just one run and two walks in his first seven innings.
Adeles 25 was one of the best-selling albums of all-time and she, along with other British artists, had a record share of the global music market.
More music was consumed in all sorts of ways, from streaming video and audio to good old-fashioned vinyl.
There was just one problem money earned from sales and streaming actually fell. And the industry knows who it blames YouTube.
The trade body the BPI has released its annual compendium of music industry statistics and is using the opportunity to throw a few rocks at Google, the tech company it has long blamed for many of its problems.
Years ago, the prime cause for complaint was that the search firm did nothing to dissuade users from finding illegal copies of music rather than paying for the genuine article. Now the focus has switched to YouTube, which has become a very popular way for millions to access music.
The BPI contrasts the income artists get from audio-streaming services like Spotify with the revenues from video streaming. An 82% rise in the number of audio streams saw revenue from this source soar by more than two-thirds to 146m. Meanwhile, video streams increased at an even faster rate but revenue rose a mere 0.4% to just 24.4m.
The BPI said that was even less than the industry earned from vinyl sales last year. For its chief executive Geoff Taylor, the message is clear: Music is helping to grow YouTubes business but they are not sharing that value with its creators.
But most of the music on YouTube is there because its been uploaded by Vevo, a company created by the labels for that purpose. So isnt the problem that the labels have simply negotiated a poor deal with YouTubes owner Google?
Ah, says Geoff Taylor, that is down to the industry being in a weak position because of Safe Harbours. Safe what, you may ask? He is referring to American and European legislation that protects technology platforms from being sued when their users illegally upload copyrighted material.
Image caption Streaming services are increasingly seeking exclusives to set them apart from their rivals
That apparently means that the labels are at the mercy of the technology giant that owns the worlds most important video platform if they dont agree terms, their music will be uploaded anyway and they will earn nothing.
The industry seems to want the government to do something about this though I am not quite clear what.
When I get through to someone at Google, theres a sigh. We seem to be their villain of the day.
The company tells me that the safe harbour argument is nonsense after all, Google invested heavily in its Content ID system, which allows the labels to track down copyrighted material and choose either to take it down or to monetise it.
YouTube also rejects the comparison with Spotify (which ironically is itself a low payer in many artists eyes).
It says a subscription service based solely on music is very different from a video service that offers all kinds of content free, supported by advertising.
Google wants the music industry to see YouTube as a great promotional tool for bands new and old a bit like radio rather than a revenue centre.
What are we to conclude then? That the music industry is still struggling to come to terms with an era when fans will find all kinds of ways, many of them free, to enjoy and share the output of their favourite artists?
Or that once again, an arrogant US technology company is making huge profits from creative content while pretending that it isnt a media business so doesnt have to play by the rules?
Of course, you may decide that both of those versions are true.
Source: BBC
Tunis (AFP) - Canada on Saturday announced the start of a security pact with Tunisia, initially for three years, to support the North African country in its fight against "terrorism".
The agreement was announced during a visit by Canadian Foreign Minister Stephane Dion.
"The international community must support Tunisia in battling terrorism," Dion told reporters after meeting his Tunisian counterpart Khemaies Jhinaoui.
"That is why I am announcing an investment of four million dollars over the next three years for Canada to have a security partnership with Tunisia."
"Our two governments will ensure that this assistance... is extremely effective in helping Tunisia out of this vicious circle where security is linked to the economy," Dion added.
He gave no further details.
He also said that "when a country chooses democracy, it will always have Canada's support".
Tunisia has managed the political transition to democracy since its 2011 revolution, but the economy is still struggling.
It has also had to confront a rise in extremist Islam and the growth of a jihadist movement responsible for killing dozens of soldiers, police and civilians including 59 foreign tourists.
Over the past few months, several countries including the United States, France and Britain have also proposed strengthening security cooperation with Tunisia.
Washington (AFP) - Egyptian authorities were investigating reports late Friday that there was smoke on the doomed EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo shortly before it crashed into the Mediterranean.
"We are looking into this report," an Egyptian civil aviation ministry official told AFP. "At this point I can't deny or confirm it."
The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said automated warning messages indicated smoke in the nose of the aircraft and an apparent problem with the flight control system.
The warnings, which were automatically sent by the Airbus A320's computer systems, came about 2:26 a.m. Thursday local time, just before air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane carrying 66 people, the Journal said.
The messages indicated intense smoke in the front portion of the plane, specifically the lavatory and the equipment compartment beneath the cockpit. The error warnings also indicated that the flight control computer malfunctioned, the report said.
CNN also reported smoke alerts on the flight minutes before it crashed, citing information it obtained from an Egyptian source that was filed through the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, which sends messages between planes and ground facilities.
Egypt's aviation minister has said a terrorist attack was a more likely cause than technical failure for the crash.
On Friday, search teams found wreckage including seats and luggage about 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Egypt's coastal city of Alexandria, Egypt's military said.
The plane disappeared without any distress signal between the Greek island of Karpathos and the Egyptian coast.
It had turned sharply twice in Egyptian airspace before plunging 22,000 feet (6,700 meters) and vanishing from radar screens, Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos has said.
21.05.2016 LISTEN
BOB MARLEY: STIFF-NECKED FOOLS
Stiff-necked fools, you think you are cool; to deny me for simplicity.
Yes, you have gone for so long, with your love for vanity now
Yes, you have got the wrong interpretation; mixed up with vain imagination
And forever, yes, erase your fantasy
The lips of the righteous teach many, but fools die for want of wisdom
Yes, you have gonegone for so long, with your love for vanity now
But I don't wanna rule ya!...
I don't wanna fool ya!...
I don't wanna school ya: Things youyou might never know about!...
PROF. ERNEST ARYEETEY ON COMMON SENSE
But how enough is Prof. Aryeeteys enough common sense? He did not exactly say.
Is common sense quantifiable?
We do know that Josh Billings once said enough common sense is genius.
And yet, his condescending elitist posturing tended to undermine the workable praxes involving all the familiar examples he gave to illustrate his operational or working theory of common sense.
For instance, why does a Ph.D.-holder need common sense to deal with politiciansespecially Ghanaian politicians, a primitive, rag-tag bunch of lazy liars and lazy, uncreative thieves?
Prof. Aryeetey does appear to attach too much importance to these dangerous, deadly species and strains of political animals.
The fact is that the kind of political animals we breed lack common sense!
All these politicians have in their empty thick skulls is Fela Kutis colomentality.
Notwithstanding all the preceding, we want to ask:
What is common sense?
How is common sense related to intelligence and wisdom?
How is common sense related to book smarts and street smarts?
Is common sense age-specific, time-specific and culture-specific?
Is common sense innate (instinct) or learned, or both?
Does the music of Bob Marley have common sense? Do the writings of Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka have common sense? Did the politics of Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela have common sense? Do the inventions of Bill Gates and Thomas Edison and Steve Jobs have common sense?
Did Imhotep have a Ph.D.? How about those of our ancestors who created great civilizations such as the ancient Egyptian, Mali, Ghana, and Songhai civilizations?
How about the creativity of Mark Zuckerberg, of Oprah Winfrey, of Mother Teresa, of Prince (musician)and yours?
What does the human genome project say about common sense? Where does common sense fit in the nature vs. nurture debate? In other words, is common sense learned or acquired (hereditary)?
How is common sense different from the power of discernment? Is common sense more powerful than an advanced degree(s)? How is common sense related to imagination?
What does folk (commonsense) psychology say about common sense? Is common sense universal? What are the connectionsif anybetween common sense and moral agency?
In the end Prof. Aryeetey could actually be right after all when he said:
A Ph.D. is always important but common sense is the most important. You need enough to assess what the student is telling you.
Our view is that Ghana needs to learn to produce more men and women with common sense than Ph.D.s.
Perhaps that is the only way we can progress and develop as a people.
And let no one come here and tell us we are jealous of Ph.D.s!
After all we did not say anywhere that Ph.D.s are useless, just that we need less of those and more of ordinary citizens with a patriotic sense of common sense.
But then again one looks closely at Prof. Ernest statements and is compelled to reconsider the other version of Ph.D. the so-called Pull Him Down Syndrome, arguably one of the nations major debilitating symptom-complexes threatening the very existence of the nation, solidarity, stability, patriotism, development, growth, entrepreneurial drive and creativity.
One would have wished the good professor had already seen a need to establish a think tank or research institute, Pull Him Down Is The Enemy of Common Sense, a department at the University of Ghana, The Department Of Common Sense, or a university, The University Of Common Senseany of whose primary research mandates will focus on the connections among common sense, productivity, political and economic stability, industrialization and development.
Students should also answer this question: Is common sense better than a Ph.D.? We ask because Prof. Aryeeteys interview did not answer this question! The interview merely danced around it.
And with the good professor himself at the head or helm of affairs of any of these three institutions, we could be churning out scientific/technical papers and textbooks on common sense and awarding covetous PhDs in common sensewhich we may also call PhD. Common Sense or Doctor of Philosophy in Common Sense!
Those who fail these academic programs should be banished from the country or institutionalized in psychiatric wards (mental hospitals).
Once we have settled on this we could then start with our politicians first, then our religious folks, the electoratekids.on and on and onto unborn babiesand award degrees from diploma up!
Finally, Prof. Aryeeteys view that a Ph.D. is always important is debatable because this is not always necessarily soor true.
Maybe he should have accompanied this statement with a disarming clarity of categorical qualification.
In fact, every degree can always be important depending on the degree-holders positive contributions to his/her society and human civilization.
As children some of us held this class of Ph.D.-holders in awe as when we saw them bundled in those awe-inspiring, intimidating colorful academic gowns and mortarboards, just like children characteristically view the class of La Sape (Sapeurs) in certain parts of Africa, only to realize as maturity set in that we were viewing this class of [Ph.D.] human beings the same way a child would view Father Christmas.
A child grows up and soon realizes that the Father Christmas he knew and took to was just as human as his/her father or mother. Ironically the story does not end, however. The father who now knows more also learns to take his/her child to see Father Christmas on Christmas seasons.
But then again, strip individuals of this class of their awe-inspiring, intimidating regalia and there you have it in the abundance of paralyzing clarity, ordinary human beings crawling in their full nakedness, fears, weak humanity, finite consciousness and knowledge, and fallibility.
The central important point here is that maturity and increased knowledge of the world and of human psychological evolution demystified this class for uslargely.
Thus, a Ph.D. merely provides space for the acquisition of specialized knowledge in this ever-expanding world of human intellectual evolution, knowledge, and research capacity.
And of course, it is the only innovative, creative, or imaginative ones among this class who can usefully turn this specialized knowledge around to benefit human beings.
This also implies an existing class of lazy, uncreative, and unimaginative class of men and women with advanced degrees, a class of individuals who may not be as important in human civilization as non-Ph.D.-holders such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, Thomas Edison(see also Paul Hudsons 100 Top Entrepreneurs Who Succeeded Without A College Degree).
As a matter of fact, having a Ph.D. does not necessarily make one an epitome of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom as we thought of as uninformed children.
Put simply, acquiring a Ph.D.which is always a good thingdoes not necessarily put one on the tapering pinnacle of human knowledge.
For human knowledge is such a vast infinite world that no single human being, however knowledgeable, can totally claim expert ownership of it.
It is the height of boastful exuberance for anyone to think otherwise, for, even, polymathicity has its own encircling rigid limitations. The human mind is only as elastic as mans certain mortality.
Thus a Ph.D. does not necessarily even make one knowledgeable, smart, wise and intelligent.
After all, the classroom is also not necessarily a complete storehouse of human knowledge, expertise, and experiences.
Even people with multiple degrees turn to learn more from the outside world than what the classroom has to offer.
In the end, though, it is how one can use his/her knowledge to benefit him/herself, his family and society or community and the world at large that truly matters.
Acquiring an advanced degree merely for its own sake, without considering this other side of the realities of life, makes no practical sense. This is not what education should be about.
As a matter of fact, more and more non-Ph.D.-holders and non-degree-holders are getting the worlds attention as and when their technological, industrial, scientific, social, and entrepreneurial contributions to human civilization are recognized with honorary doctorates and institutions named after them. And as expected some jealous, lazy, hollow, uncreative Ph.D.-holders take umbrage at this!
Yet we still have to insist that it is not always true that a Ph.D. is always important without qualification, for, after all, did Joseph Goebbels, Hitlers Propaganda Minister (see Reference for Henry A. Leas paper Criminals With Doctorates), the American mathematical prodigy Ted Kaczynski (Unabomber), and several other influential men and women involved in crimes against humanity not have Ph.D.s and use their expertise, research and knowledge acquired through their doctorates?
The final question we intend asking is this:
Is common sense really better than a Ph.D.? Maybe those Ph.D.s without common sense can help us answer this question, and sufficiently, not the way Prof. Aryeetey certainly did. On the other hand we may have to submit, that having both common sense and advanced degree(s) are necessary or that on a more serious note, common sense may actually be more important than a Ph.D., any degree for that matter.
Unfortunately, todays world may seem to value or put a premium on paper education than an abstract construct such as common sense. This may be why we have rotten minds in places that should have actually been places for men and women with common sense, men and women who are familiar with and can effectively deal with the paralyzing challenges and vicissitudes of life. We submit also that these contentions are not absolute and open to debate.
Well said then!
Common sense, said Josh Billings (courtesy of George Bernard Shaw also), is instinct, and enough is genius.
FINAL THOUGHTS 1
We are not saying there are no high quality caliber Ph.Ds out there, in Africa. What we are rather saying is that, our professors and lecturers should be doing more in terms of upgrading themselves, their research capacities and their knowledge base.
Some of the notes and textbooks they use for their classes are old, outmodedbehind the times.
Worst of all, many if not most of these textbooks look at ideas mostly from the perspective of societies whose values and worldviews where these texts originate and many a time these texts deal with topical issues with no direct relevance for Africaare not always constant with Africas.
Of course, the theoretical content of syllabi and curricula generally meets international standards but it is the transition from theory to praxis that is where we are found most wanting as a people, as a continent.
It is the absence of this transition which separates Africa from Asia and the West, as well as school or schooling from education.
And we may also posit that it is rather pedagogical and andragogical overemphasis on theoretical indoctrination of students that may be killing common sense in Ghanaians in particular and Africans in general.
Yet theory is as just as importantif not more importantthan the praxis of knowledge.
FINAL THOUGHTS 2
On the question of professors and lecturers upgrading themselves, their research capacities and their knowledge base, we had a professor who used to give first-year students graduate questions on their examinations, questions he claimed to have been part of his graduate studies. He would then leave the class for one of the windows, while his students were taking the examinations, then smirked spasmodically as he realized that students were visibly struggling with the questions.
You guys have it easy, he would say, while still smirking spasmodically at his struggling students. You have no idea what I went through when I was in graduate school Sometimes he would also say: While the white man is going to the moon, the black man is going to his villages.
Yet this was a professor who used notes he himself had used an undergraduate student.
But then again, testing students on above-average questions as bonus questions is not unusual.
Professors and lecturers do this often just to identify talented or gifted among student populations under professorial or lectorial tutelage.
And at a time when Asian and American school children are past the modern dispensation of Microsoft Word usage, many if not most of our Western-trained [old-school] Ph.D. professors and lecturers struggled to find a way around Microsoft Word. The sad part is that, some of the major lectorial and professorial lapses still trail their studentsincluding this authorwherever they go.
In fact, some of these Ph.D.s avoid the paralyzing tension and stress of the American classroom and institutional pressure to research and publish in exchange for tenure and departmental respect, by leaving for Ghana where they expect to do less for greater rewards, undeserved respect and public patronage. Some of our loud Ph.D.s do not even read or are not widely read!
CONCLUSION
Common sense is supreme and nonpareil in comparison to other innate and external knowledge forms. In fact in more specific terms and in simple language also, common sense is probablyif not certainlysuperior to all other learned and acquired knowledge formsin our opinionalthough we put this contention forward as a debatable and speculative interrogation of the obvious.
A Ph.D. on the other hand can easily be acquired by anybody based on a number of factors including, but not limited to, one who is willing to go to the extra mile or stretch, has the right frame of mind and resources including a competently knowledgeable team of dissertation advisor(s) and research materials and finances (funding), has efficient and effective time management skills, is in total control of his/her personal/familial problems, and finds him/herself in the right program (Re: knows what he/she is about and wants in terms of life goals) and the right institution.
Acquisition of a Ph.D. is also largely based on a specialized form of knowledge and could be adaptable depending on the creativity of the holder and how that specialized body of knowledge effortlessly weaves itself seamlessly into or across other related knowledge forms.
In the end common sense is a master of and superior to the classroom. What is also important is that a Ph.D. comes and goes but common sense remains foreverwhich is that common sense is immortal.
We have already pointed out elsewhere that educationwhether formal or informalcontributes enormously to the development of, as well as enhances the right or appropriate context for, the judicious application of common sense. Prof. Aryeetey is more than right to posit that a Ph.D. is always important but common sense is the most important.
Therefore, he could not have stated his case clearer in defense of common sense!
REFERENCES
Henry A. Lea (University of Massachusetts-Amherst). Criminals With Doctorates: An SS Officer In The Killing Fields Of Russia. Lecture Delivered at the University of Vermont. November 18, 2009.
Paul Hudson. 100 Top Entrepreneurs Who Succeeded Without A College Degree. Elite Daily. May 13, 2013.
21.05.2016 LISTEN
Who is Yeshua? Truly have you ever heard of Yeshuas name? I am here to tell you about the reason why he was born, why he lived and why he came back to life after his death. His name is Jesus or Yesus according to the transliteration of Hebrew letter phonemes into Greek characters.
Every language has its own phonemes or sound particles for the expression of words that have meaning. This is why transliterationchanging the phonemes of one language into anothers alphabetcan be a problem. In Hebrew, some sounds exist, that DO NOT exist in other languages. One of them is the sound sh, which is represented by the letter shin of the Hebrew alefbet. Ancient Greek lacks the phoneme sh unlike Hebrew. This is why the name Yeshuawhich is Aramaicwas written as Iesous. In ancient Greek, the s sound is the closest thing to the sh phoneme of the Hebrew letter shin.
Unfortunately, some people without wisdom have perpetuated a LIE about how Yesus or Iesousa transliterationwas intended to honour the Greek false god called Zeus. Also, it is worth mentioning that originally, the English letter j had a y sound and not the hard sound that we use in terms like jump or Jesus today. This is why even in other European names--such as those from Scandinavian countries--the j (as in the surname Jorgensen or Bjork) has a y sound in pronunciation. Anyhow, this is not our topic today.
My topic today is to look at Yeshua in terms of his love for Yahweh and the resulting righteousness he demonstrated while on earth. It is written, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (Yochanan/John 3:16 KJV). This verse will always be on the mind of every believer in the righteousness of Yahweh and Yeshua, in that it is the very essence of why Yeshua came to the earth. God gave his Son for the purpose of ensuring that every person who ever comes into contact with this truth can know his or her Father in heaven.
Yeshua ha Mashiach: the person
It is written, Now the birth of Jesus Christ [Yeshua ha Mashiach] was on this wise: When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Spirit (Mattityahu/Matthew 1:18 ASV).
As you can see, like many of us, Yeshuas birth was very controversial. How do you justify a pregnancy in the natural realm whereas only the Spirit of God is available to witness that the Father of Creation conceived the child supernaturally? Well there is a verse for a situation just like this one; it is therefore written, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible (Mattityahu/Matthew 19:26 KJV).
Yeshuas birth was controversial, but was ordained by prophecy. There is a prophecy regarding the birth of Yeshua that is often neglected by many believers in Yeshua of this generation. This prophecy was uttered by Yahweh to one of Yisraels greatest and most revered of Seers. His name is Moshe ben Amram (Moses son of Amram). The prophecy about Yeshua ha Mashiach described in Devarim /Deuteronomy 18:15, 18-19 reads as follows: Jehovah [Yahweh] thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearkenI will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him (Devarim /Deuteronomy 18:15, 18-19 ASV).
The former prophecy of Yeshuas coming may be summarised as follows in order to understand that although Yeshua is not mentioned by name in the prophecy, the reference is contextually about him and NO ONE else but him.
The prophet was to be raised up by Yahweh only and no other; The prophet was to be raised up from within Yisrael (meaning of Yisraelite seed); The prophet was to be of the brethren of Yisrael like Moses was raised up from among Yisrael; The prophet would both have the words of Yahweh and speak them as commanded; There would be a consequence or penalty for not hearing the words of Yahweh given to this prophet who was supposed to come in Yahwehs name.
Yeshua ha Mashiach: his life
So why did Yeshua come to the earth at all? Well the answer to the question stems from the prophecy provided by Yahweh to Moses that He would raise a prophet up that needed to be heard. Yeshua himself provided more of the evidence of why he needed to be heard and what his purpose on the earth actually was. As well, the evidence of the angelic messenger that brought news to Miryam (his mother) about her conception of Yahwehs child reveals much. Here is the evidence: behold, an angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph [Miryams/Marys husband], thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus [Yeshua]; for it is he that shall save his people from their sins (Mattityahu/Matthew 1:20-21 ASV).
So then, Yeshuas life was for the purpose of saving his people Yisrael from their sins or habitual breaking of Gods commands according to unrighteousness. The need for people to turn to Yeshua is of essence in everything: marriage, business and government. Every facet of life was meant to be given over to Yeshua so that he can show mankind how to live life free from the power of sin and death that follows from sin.
Yeshua ha Mashiach: his death
When Yeshua died, many who believed in him as the Son of Yahweh, were disheartened. Unfortunately, they did not see that Yeshua really never died at all except that his physical body liberated his spirit and soul, and was then resurrected never to die again.
It is written, And Jesus [Yeshua] cried again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom (Mattityahu/Matthew 27:50-51 ASV). So you see, when Yeshua was nailed to the wood, as a result of his death, the Holy Spirit was liberated and human beings were able to access God in person unlike before. The death of Yeshua atoned for the sin of Yisrael and the rest of mankind and made human beings able to visit the holiest place in existence: the presence of God, where there is no sin.
Yeshua ha Mashiach: his resurrection
After his death, Yeshua was resurrected from the dead state of his body not having a spirit in it. His Father in heaven was able to do this by the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit which is called in Hebrew, Ruach ha Kodesh. The significance of Yeshuas resurrection is that he was able to change the death sentence of Yisrael and the rest of humanityfor violating Gods commandsinto the mercy the Father willed, all as a result of his blood having been shed.
It is written, And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death (Revelation 12:11 ASV). The key to overcoming the power of sin that comes through Satans and heathen governments influence is to ensure that you accept and believe in the blood sacrifice of Yeshua ha Mashiach. This is necessary in order to BEGIN your path towards being liberated from heathenism.
In fact, Yeshua never left his people without hope. He loved Yahweh and intended for there to be a righteous government order in the earth. His name is therefore holy and set apart unto righteousness!!
Now for todays Evhe lesson. Today we will deal with the matter of righteousness and the Evhe language. In Evhe, we say dzdzenyny for righteousness. It literally means the state of straightness. To be righteous, one must walk a straight path under grace or the regulating power of the Holy Spirit. Then you will develop the right ethics for work in the Kingdom. Amen. Here is a list of Christian ethics in Evhe. Enjoy!!
nunana | giving nyattoto | telling the truth dww | work amokui-vsasa | self-sacrifice gba | preaching nuddr | judgement nufiafia | teaching nussr | studying gbdodo a | prayer amdom nn | fellowship amdzroxx | hospitality to the saints Mawumnn | staying in the Lord nuaa kpl nu | sowing and reaping dmnyui ww | acts of kindness
The Evhe language is being pushed by some of its local and international speakers. In case you are interested in learning, feel free to contact me at [email protected]. Thank you very much (Akp kakaka).
Cairo (AFP) - Search teams scoured the Mediterranean Saturday for more wreckage and the black boxes from EgyptAir flight MS804 for clues on why the plane plummeted and turned full circle before disappearing off radar.
An EgyptAir official said the search was focused on finding the bodies of the passengers and the Airbus A320's flight recorders, which will stop emitting a signal in a month when the batteries run out.
The plane carrying 66 passengers plunged into the Mediterranean early Thursday while flying from Paris to Cairo.
While Egypt's aviation minister has pointed to terrorism as more likely than technical failure, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said there was "absolutely no indication" of why the plane went down.
"We're looking at all possibilities," he said, as reports indicated there had been smoke on board and an apparent problem with the flight control system just before it went down.
The disaster comes just seven months after the bombing of a Russian passenger jet by the Islamic State jihadist group over Egypt's Sinai peninsula in October that killed all 224 people on board.
Families of the passengers on the EgyptAir flight gathered at a hotel near Cairo airport after meeting airline officials as they struggled to come to terms with the catastrophe.
"They haven't died yet. No one knows. We're asking for God's mercy," said a woman in her 50s whose daughter had been on board.
On Saturday, EgyptAir Holding Company chairman Safwat Moslem told AFP that the priority was finding the passengers' remains and the black boxes.
"The families want the bodies. That is what concerns us. The army is working on this. This is what we are focusing on," he said.
French investigators met their Egyptian counterparts in Cairo, while a French patrol boat carrying equipment capable of tracing the plane's black boxes was expected on Sunday or Monday.
The plane disappeared between the Greek island of Karpathos and the Egyptian coast in the early hours of Thursday, without its crew sending a distress signal.
It had turned sharply twice before plunging 22,000 feet (6,700 metres) and vanishing from radar screens, said Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos.
The French aviation safety agency said Saturday that the plane had transmitted automatic messages indicating smoke in the cabin.
"There were... messages emitted by the plane indicating that there was smoke in the cabin shortly before data transmission broke off," a spokesman of the Bureau of Investigations and Analysis told AFP, adding that it was "far too soon to interpret and understand the cause of the accident as long as we have not found the wreckage or the flight data recorders."
The Wall Street Journal and CNN earlier cited unnamed sources as saying the plane's computer systems sent warning messages indicating smoke in the nose of the aircraft just before air traffic controllers lost contact.
The messages indicated intense smoke in the front portion of the plane. The error warnings also indicated that the flight control computer malfunctioned, the Journal report said.
It said the information was insufficient to determine whether the plane was brought down by a bomb or other causes.
- Boy, babies on board -
Philip Baum, the editor of Aviation Security International Magazine, told the BBC that technical failure could not be ruled out.
"There was smoke reported in the aircraft lavatory, then smoke in the avionics bay, and over a period of three minutes the aircraft's systems shut down," he said.
"That's starting to indicate that it probably wasn't a hijack, it probably wasn't a struggle in the cockpit, it's more likely a fire on board. Now whether that was a technical fire, a short circuit, or whether it was because a bomb went off on board, we don't know."
Greek civil aviation chief Constantinos Litzerakos said the pilot had mentioned no problem in his last communication.
"The flight controllers contacted the pilot at a height of 37,000 feet... he did not mention a problem," he said.
Personal belongings and parts of the Airbus A320 were spotted by teams searching the sea off Egypt's northern coast about 290 kilometres (180 miles) from the city of Alexandria, the military said.
Kammenos said the teams, which include multinational aircraft and ships, had found "a body part, two seats and one or more items of luggage".
The passengers included 30 Egyptians, 15 French citizens, two Iraqis, two Canadians, and citizens from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. They included a boy and two babies.
Seven crew members and three security personnel were also on board.
The European Space Agency said one of its satellites had on Thursday spotted an oil slick about 40 kilometres southeast of the plane's last known location.
In October, foreign governments issued travel warnings for Egypt and demanded a review of security at its airports after the Islamic State group said it downed the Russian airliner over Sinai with a bomb concealed in a soda can that had been smuggled on the plane.
IS has been waging a deadly insurgency against Egyptian security forces and has claimed attacks in both France and Egypt.
Accra- 20th May, 2016: Airtel Ghanas corporate social responsibility initiative Evolve With STEM (EWS) which seeks to demystify the study of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in basic schools and inspire the pupils to cultivate insatiable interest in such subjects has reached some public schools in the Central and Brong Ahafo Regions of the country engaging and inspiring young minds.
As part of its regional tours to meet and engage customers, retailers and other stakeholders across the country, the management of the Smartphone Network took their mind transforming project to the William De-Graft Preparatory School and Boahen Korkoor Presby Junior High School in Cape Coast and Sunyani respectively where Lucy Quist and the Airtel team met and interacted with the pupils of these schools.
Her discussion with the students focused on self-belief, hard work and focus which, she described as key elements they need to attain their dreams no matter how big or small they may be. Lucy Quist explained to the attentive pupils in both schools how she was able to pursue a course and a successful career in STEM. With this, the CIMG Marketing Woman of the Year challenged the young ones to apply the same approach in their studies.
EWS at William De-Graft Preparatory School in Cape Coast
Inspired by Airtel Ghanas Managing Director, Lucy Quist, about 60 Junior High School pupils of the William De-Graft Methodist Preparatory School in Cape Coast have pledged to believe in themselves and pursue their abilities to achieve their dreams as well as eliminate all fear they associate with studying Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The students made these promise when Lucy Quist engaged them in an EWS mentoring session during the visit.
The team from the Smartphone Network also made a donation of over 500 books on Science, Mathematics, History, Grammar and Social Studies to the school to improve teaching and learning.
Pleased with Airtels support and charitable gesture, Mrs. Dorothy Effie Slippe, Headmistress of the school expressed her sincere gratitude to the Airtel delegation, saying, it is one thing for young children to be told to believe in themselves and another for them to willingly make that pledge, as an educationist I know that the effect of the latter is more profound and long lasting. The words of encouragement and experiences that have been shared will go a long way to fully unleash their potentials, and, for this, we are most grateful
At Boahen Boahen Korkoor Presby JHS in Sunyani
The headmaster, teachers and pupils of the Boahen Korkoor Presbyterian Junior High School in Sunyani prepared adequately for Airtels visit thus organizing a very engaging EWS mentoring session which left all participants excited, informed and inspired.
At the end of the session, the pupils believed in their ability to become greater than the great men and women who went through their school. They also admitted Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics are easy and not as difficult as they once thought.
EWS also donated about 300 books on Science, Mathematics, Grammar and Social Studies to the school to improve teaching and learning.
The Headmaster and teachers of the schools were elated and expressed profuse gratitude to the Smartphone Network for undertaking such a mind transforming and education improving corporate social responsibility activity in their school. The Headmaster, Mr. Agyeman Yeboah said, Were lucky Airtel decided to undertake this project in our school and were very excited our school is the first in Brong Ahafo region to start it. Indeed, Airtel came at the right time, a time when were expanding our facility to house an ICT centre with the objective of improving the teaching and learning of Science and Technology in our school.
Explaining why Airtel took the project to these schools, Lucy Quist pointed out that, since the launch of the initiative, its impact has been felt in our flagship schools in Mataheko, Accra, and on social media. This month we decided to widen our reach a little more because these messages of encouragement which we hope will demystify STEM is meant for every developing mind. We hope to find more creative ways to reach more and more children as this initiative grows.
Led by the Managing Director of Airtel Ghana, Lucy Quist, Evolve With STEM has impacted the lives of over 1000 pupils and some teachers through inspirational talks, experiential exercises and capacity building for teachers.
All these exercises have sought to demystify the study of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and ultimately encourage these young minds to reach for their dreams. The pupils have also had the opportunity to attend events that have challenged their thinking and inspired them greatly such as the Microsoft DigiGirls Day and TEDx Accra, both of which were organized in partnership with Airtel Ghana.
About Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 3 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed DSL broadband, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 353 millioncustomers across its operations at the end of January 2016. To know more please visit, www.airtel.com
About Airtel in Africa
Airtel is driven by the vision of providing affordable and innovative mobile services to all. Airtel has 17 operations in Africa: Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Airtel International is a Bharti Airtel company.
For more information, please visit www.airtel.com , or like the Airtel Ghana Facebook page via www.facebook.com/airtelgh or follow us on Twitter via the handle @airtelghana.
Cairo (AFP) - EgyptAir flight MS804 sent automated messages signalling smoke onboard before plunging into the Mediterranean, the French aviation safety agency said Saturday, as search teams hunted for more wreckage.
The Airbus A320 carrying 66 people had been flying from Paris to Cairo early Thursday when it plummeted and turned full circle before vanishing off radar, with some debris later found in the Mediterranean Sea.
While the automated messages may offer clues, more wreckage including the black boxes will need to be found before investigators can piece together what happened.
"There were ACAR messages emitted by the plane indicating that there was smoke in the cabin shortly before data transmission broke off," a spokesman for France's Bureau of Investigations and Analysis told AFP.
ACAR, which stands for Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, is a digital system that transmits short messages between aircraft and ground stations.
It was "far too soon to interpret and understand the cause of the accident as long as we have not found the wreckage or the flight data recorders," he added.
Search teams were scouring the sea on Saturday for more parts of the plane and the black boxes for clues on why it came down.
An EgyptAir official said the search was focused on finding the bodies of the passengers and the flight recorders, which will stop emitting a signal in a month when the batteries run out.
While Egypt's aviation minister has pointed to terrorism as more likely than technical failure, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Friday there was "absolutely no indication" of why the plane crashed.
"We're looking at all possibilities," he said.
The disaster comes just seven months after the bombing of a Russian passenger jet by the Islamic State jihadist group over Egypt's Sinai peninsula in October that killed all 224 people on board.
-'Families want the bodies'-
Families of the passengers on the EgyptAir flight gathered at a hotel near Cairo airport after meeting airline officials as they struggled to come to terms with the catastrophe.
"They haven't died yet. No one knows. We're asking for God's mercy," said a woman in her 50s whose daughter had been on board.
On Saturday, EgyptAir Holding Company chairman Safwat Moslem told AFP that the priority was finding the passengers' remains and the black boxes.
"The families want the bodies. That is what concerns us. The army is working on this. This is what we are focusing on," he said.
French investigators met their Egyptian counterparts in Cairo, while a French patrol boat carrying equipment capable of tracing the plane's black boxes was expected on Sunday or Monday.
The plane disappeared between the Greek island of Karpathos and the Egyptian coast in the early hours of Thursday, without its crew sending a distress signal.
It had turned sharply twice before plunging 22,000 feet (6,700 metres) and vanishing from radar screens, said Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos.
- Boy, babies on board -
Philip Baum, the editor of Aviation Security International Magazine, told the BBC that technical failure could not be ruled out.
"There was smoke reported in the aircraft lavatory, then smoke in the avionics bay, and over a period of three minutes the aircraft's systems shut down," he said.
"That's starting to indicate that it probably wasn't a hijack, it probably wasn't a struggle in the cockpit, it's more likely a fire on board. Now whether that was a technical fire, a short circuit, or whether it was because a bomb went off on board, we don't know."
Greek civil aviation chief Constantinos Litzerakos said the pilot had mentioned no problem in his last communication.
"The flight controllers contacted the pilot at a height of 37,000 feet... he did not mention a problem," he said.
Personal belongings and parts of the Airbus A320 were spotted by teams searching the sea off Egypt's northern coast about 290 kilometres (180 miles) from the city of Alexandria, the military said.
Kammenos said the teams, which include multinational aircraft and ships, had found "a body part, two seats and one or more items of luggage".
The passengers included 30 Egyptians, 15 French citizens, two Iraqis, two Canadians, and citizens from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. They included a boy and two babies.
Seven crew members and three security personnel were also on board.
The European Space Agency said one of its satellites had on Thursday spotted an oil slick about 40 kilometres southeast of the plane's last known location.
In October, foreign governments issued travel warnings for Egypt and demanded a review of security at its airports after the Islamic State group said it downed the Russian airliner over Sinai with a bomb concealed in a soda can that had been smuggled on the plane.
IS has been waging a deadly insurgency against Egyptian security forces and has claimed attacks in both France and Egypt.
21.05.2016 LISTEN
Whether believers or not, we are all agreed today that the earth is essentially a shared inheritance, whose fruits are meant to benefit everyone. Hence every ecological approach needs to incorporate a social perspective which takes into account the fundamental rights of the poor and the underprivileged. Pope Francis
"VRA to use sea water for coal plant" was the title of an article that appeared in the business section of Ghana Web on March 21st 2016.
The published article was on the collaboration between Shenzhen Energy Group Co., Ltd. (SEC) and the Volta River Authority (VRA) to develop a 2350MW supercritical coal-fired power generating facility (including the affiliated coal handling terminal) along the coastline of Ghana. The coal fired plant will be built at Abaono in the Ekumfi district, Central Region.
We, Ghana citizens at home and abroad, support the position of the Ghana Youth Environmental Movement to vehemently oppose the building of a coal fired plant for electricity for a number of reasons:
(1) Coal is a dangerous fossil fuel generation of power because it causes health hazards. In 2011, the American Lung Association (ALA) released a report stating that: Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year. The ALA report pointed to coal-fired power plants as among the worst offenders.
(2) Coal power poses environmental hazards like smog and its attendant dangers. The consultants scoping report on Environmental and Social Impact Assessment of the project, acknowledges these environmental hazards;- release of poisonous gas into the atmosphere; threat to aquatic life; management of the 5 million tons of ash to be generated by the plant. Yet, to date, no national debate has been organized to fully discuss the implications of the destruction to the environment.
(3) The Paris Accords of 2015 calls for all nations to phase out coal power. Coal-burning plants world - wide are one of the worst industrial polluters. In some regions of the world coal burning plants produce approximately one-third of carbon dioxide (CO2, a major contributor to global warming), 40% of mercury (highly toxic if ingested or inhaled), one-quarter of nitrogen oxide (an ingredient found in smog) and two-thirds of our sulfur dioxide (a component of acid rain). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the US is on record to acknowledge that sulfur dioxide promotes heart disease and asthma, while nitrogen oxides destroy lung tissue.
(4) Every nation - including China, US and Europe- is phasing out coal powered plants to reduce negative environmental effects. The biggest coal mining corporation in the world, Peabody, is also phasing and/or closing out coal mines worldwide. Why does Ghana want to embrace an obsolete technology that is dangerous to the environment?
(5) There are several alternatives to coal power that are environmentally friendly and do not contribute to climate change. These alternatives include wind, solar, gas, thermal, nuclear and hydro power.
(6) The claim that Ekumfi Aboano became the preferred location to accommodate the coal-fired power generating plant, especially for reasons of minimal environmental impact and implications is at best dubious. We are not convinced. The scoping report itself acknowledges that: there is limited knowledge and awareness of the operational features of coal-fired
power plant and the advancement in technological efficiency and pollution controls. For one, there are alternate power generating technologies that in the long run will be safer and environmentally friendly than the preferred coal-fired plant to be built at Ekumfi Abaono.
We support the call by the Ghana Youth Environment Movement to reject coal-fired plants in Ghana. It is an obsolete technology and represents a serious threat to the safety of our environment; particularly air quality and water bodies.
Respectfully Submitted on behalf of Concerned Ghanaians for a Clean Environment.
Prof. Steve Panford (Retired) Former Chair & Director of Liberal Arts and Arts, New York City College of Technology, City University of New York
Prof. Kwamina Panford - Former Vice Provost, North Eastern University, Boston
Prof. K. Botchway Professor, New York City College of Technology, City University of New York
Mr. Thomas Panford - Retired Civil Servant, New York City
Mr. Kingsley Duker - Retired Civil Servant, Finance Department, New York City
Mr. Kwabena Achampong - Senior Administrator, Home care Services, New York City
Mr. Kwame Danso - Attorney At Law, New York City
Dr. Ohene Frempong - Prof. Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania Medical School
Mr. Kkwabena Akosah - Former Correspondent, BBC
Mr. Billy Essilfie - Former Marketing Manager, TOPP Ghana
Cc: Volta River Authority (VRA)
Shenzhen Energy Ghana
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Ministry of Environment, Science & Technology (MEST)
21.05.2016 LISTEN
I am horrified at the vicious attack on the ace economist Dr Mahamudu Bawumia by John Mahama's propagandist Seth Mifetu. It would seem that the NDC is feeling the pinch of the great strides that he is chocking in the three Northern Regions of Ghana, exposing the liars of the NDC for their corruption, thievery, misfeasance, malfeasance, nihilism and other most obnoxious traits of social terrorism.
I can almost vouch that the NDC is crippled by the lack of astute politicians to direct it on an appreciable bearing of democracy. It is one party that is riddled with infantile personalities and unknowledgeable literate charlatans who interpret logic as a 'fart', falsehood as holy dictates, and wickedness as a social necessity.
Seth Mifetu must have forgotten that John Mahama was the one who went on a tour of the three Northern regions asking the people to vote for him because he was a Northerner. The ignoramus must have forgotten that it was Attivor who made that tribalistic comment in the Volta Region asking Voltarians to vote for the NDC because they are Ewes. Seth Mifetu must have forgotten that Asiedu Ntetia and his shrinks threw their weight behind Attivor defending her inflammatory rhetoric. Aah, but what can one say to an undiscerning fool? The tribalism of John Mahama and his NDC stooges/crooks is embedded in their genes.
Talking about Dr Mahmoudu Bawumia going to church and shrines etc. Which shrine did he go to. He has never been to any shrine, and if you, a Christian, claim that Dr.Mahmoudu Bawumia's visit to churches is a blasphemy, then you ought to bury your head in shame. He is a Muslim and very tolerant of other religions, as we Muslims are taught to be, unlike the few Western-incited religious bigots that are found in every religion. Shame on you Seth Mifetu for insinuating that going to church is a blasphemy. The fact that he went to church with Nana Akufo-Addo just accentuates the need for unity and religious tolerance, which the NDC lacks.
Your obnoxious lies will only cement your abode in hell where you belong inshallah. What has John Mahama done for the Northern regions? If, as a legislator in Parliament for 12 years, he was unable to bring any appreciable and documented development to his constituency, how would you figure he would do that on a broader scale as an error president? You said he built what? School children remain under Sheanut trees. Dr Mahmoudu Bawumia had to raise the red flag by donating furniture for some schools in John Mahama's neighbourhood, there in the Northern Part of Ghana. Medical facilities are inop. There are no medicines and the infant mortality rate in the three Northern regions is the highest anywhere. What development did you say John Mahama brought to those communities? Infrastructural projects? Social interventions? Basic amenities for survival? Human development? My GOD!!!
In fact this is the reason why John Mahama and the NDC must be relegated to the Manhole of disgraceful history. John Mahama cannot stick his chest out with any claim of development for the three Northern Regions at all. Even agriculture is a dead deal. Agriculture has become a non-culture under the wicked rule of John Mahama; and idiots like you defend the indefensible. The road to the Tamale is a death trap, what has he done on that one? Talk about Nana Akufo-Addo? father. You rightly said that he was a ceremonial president and it is a well-established fact that such a position came without authority. The aliens act did not target Muslims, on the contrary. Nana Akufo-Addo never insulted Muslims. Where did you get that one from? I do not know how old Seth Mifetu is, but for the length of time I have been on earth and always in Ghana, I have never once heard anything as preposterous as the nonsense that Seth wrote.
Besides, was it not Fiifi Kwertey who said that a Muslim can never be the President of Ghana and that Ghanaian Christians will never vote for a Muslim? Fiifi Kwertey was speaking on authority of the NDC at the time. Let me borrow John Mahama's term to describe you, BALONEY! And so if Malam Issah stole, was he expected to go scot-free. Of course he was going to be jailed. Last week, in the Central region, John Mahama and his guards desecrated the sanctity of a Mosque by walking into it with their shoes on. And you have the audacity to spew mendacity and propaganda.
On Paul Afoko, Seth Mifetu's lack of reason and judgment confirms that he is a non-entity. In the first place, he does not know the constitution of the NPP to talk rubbish. Secondly, knowing that Paul Afoko is a stooge of the NDC, it does not surprise me that an NDC devil like Mireku will mount such a defense in his favour. Dr Mahmoudu Bawumia will continue to expose the thievery of John Mahama and his idiots and that is what is causing their pain. John Mahama and the NDC have robbed the country dry. They have reeled in shame and disgust to Ghana. How about the 250 million dollars that the government recently stole, Seth Mireku?
#VoteJohnMahamaOut #NDCisKillingGhana #JohnMahamaIsIncompetentAndADisgrace
21.05.2016 LISTEN
I dedicate this article to "The Hope," UCC's Valco Hall President-2016/2017.
Some people wonder why my hope as a promising writer remains unflinching in every sense of the word. You may also be quite sceptical of my dreams because they seem unrealistic, yet my unwavering hope believes otherwise. I know our Ghanaian society suffers from actue mediocrity, but I firmly hope to emerge as a world champion in the writing fraternity. Yes, I am unperturbed by failure oriented circumstances at the moment. Hope tells me that mighty success will be my ultimate prize. After all, "Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all," Dale Carnegie revealed. Oh I will never abandon hope since it lubricates my path to rare greatness in the face of sickening struggles.
Now let us figure out the true essence of hope in everyday life. Hope, according to Wikipedia, is an optimistic attitude of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes related to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large. And hope is even a fundamental principle in Christian living which works in sync with faith and love (1 Corinthians 13:13). Also, "Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air...but only for one second without hope;" I couldn't agree more with Harold Lee Lindsey, an American evangelist and Christian writer. And according to Thich Nhat Hanh, "Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear hardship today."
Moreover, hope is a priceless attitude required in the pursuit of wonderful goals. In fact, the greatest personalities in the world today had hoped to become incredibly successful irrespective of their past hustles. They saw a very glorious light far ahead despite all the pitch-darkness myopic souls were accustomed to. Here is an inspiring story to prove the veracity of hope. Mike Tyson saw Muhammad Ali's last match at age 14 and got mad at Larry Holmes who beat Ali. Tyson got Ali on the phone and said, 'I'll grow up and get him back for you.' 7 years later, Tyson met Holmes. Retired Ali stepped into the ring and said, 'Remember what you promised.' Tyson destroyed Holmes in the 4th round. Gosh, that is the practical power of hope!
"Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future," as Robert H. Schuller, a US televangelist and motivational speaker, advised. For "he who does not hope to win has already lost," according to Jose Joaquin Olmedo. Forget the dream killers, wet blankets and naysayers; let your hopes be your central preoccupation. Discard any logic that seeks to undermine your burning ambition to do the unthinkable. Hope is mightier than conventional thoughts; hope and logic are often at variance. Above all, "There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic powerful as expectation of something tomorrow," Orison Swett Marden strongly declared. Hope, hope and hope for the best, but expect the worst too.
Source: sirarticle.blogspot.com
Brazzaville (AFP) - The Republic of Congo has called on the European Union to recall its ambassador to Brazzaville over EU criticism of President Denis Sassou Nguesso's controversial re-election in March, Congolese and EU officials said Saturday.
"We have formally written to Brussels to ask for the recall of (EU) ambassador (Saskia de Lang), who is engaging in activism activities that are contrary to the Vienna Convention," a Congolese foreign ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The letter, signed by Foreign Minister Jean-Claude Gakosso, was sent on May 9, the official said.
In its response on May 17, Brussels expressed its unwavering support for the EU representative, warning that "any decision from your side with regards to her will affect the relationship of trust between the EU and Congo", an EU spokesman in Congo said.
Relations between Brussels and Brazzaville have turned sour since EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini criticised the March 20 presidential election, which saw Sassou Nguesso's 32-year grip on power extended for another five years.
Sassou Nguesso's win only became possible after an October constitutional referendum ended a two-term limit on presidential mandates, allowing the former paratrooper to run again in a move denounced by his opponents as "a coup".
Congo has been on edge ever since, with deadly clashes erupting in the capital that pitted government forces against suspected rebels.
After the vote, Mogherini denounced "the grave shortcomings of electoral governance" in Congo.
"The post-election process was marred by human rights violations, arrests and intimidation of the opposition and the media," she said.
"This brings into question the credibility of the results."
The United States also expressed dismay in April at the conduct of the elections.
21.05.2016 LISTEN
Accra, May 20, GNA - The Government, through the Ministry of Health, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Kingdom of the Netherlands to accelerate early detection of Tuberculosis (TB).
Mr Alex Segbegia, the Minister of Health, signed for the Government, while Mr Marcel Lantinga, the Director of the Dutch company Oldelft Benelux, signed for the Netherlands for the commencement of the project; "Accelerating Tuberculosis Case Detection in Ghana."
Mr Segbefia said the current agreement would allow Delft Imaging Systems, a Dutch Company, to supply 52 digital imaging systems which consist of a combination of fixed units and mobile clinics, as well as accompanying information technology services.
He said the total project cost was 21.6 million euros, of which 7.56 million euros was covered by a Facility for Infrastructure Development (ORIO) grant from the Government of the Netherlands.
ORIO provides grants for public infrastructure development in developing countries in order to contribute to human and private sector development.
Mr Segbefia underscored the importance of timely diagnosis and prompt treatment of TB to ensure control and cure.
He said the project was, therefore, aimed at boosting the currently low TB detection rate where 63.000 people suffered from the disease annually.
According to the 2013 National TB Prevalence Survey, 264 out of every 100,000 Ghanaians were affected by the disease.
Mr Segbefia said: "This co-operation with the Netherlands will enable Ghana to increase its detection rate to 85 per cent and as such will mean a major improvement to the health of many Ghanaians."
Mr Hans Docter, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Ghana, who witnessed signing, said the Dutch Government had been active in the health care sector of Ghana for years.
He said it was currently supporting activities in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights, and was also actively promoting an innovative and private sector-driven approach to health care.
Mr Docter said the current project served as an example of innovative investment in e-health as it was a faster, cheaper and effective way of TB control.
He said the facility would also help to provide additional income to health institutions in the form of internally generated funds to provide for quality maintenance.
GNA
Members of Airtel Ghanas senior leadership team have paid a courtesy call on Nana Kwabena Nketia Omanhene of Esikado, Sekondi in the Western region as part of the companys stakeholder engagement efforts across the country.
The team, led by Managing Director Lucy Quist, included Sales and Distribution Director, Samuel Sarpong, Head of Corporate Communications, Richard Ahiagble, the Zonal Sales Manager for Western and Central Regions, Ishmael Wiaboh as well as team members from Human Resource and the Customer Experience functions of the company.
Speaking to Airtels investment in the region in terms of network expansion and enhancement to improve customer experience and the companys commitment to improve education in the region through its Corporate Social Investment programmes, Lucy Quist said Ours is a company that passionately believes in investing in our network to enrich the experience of our customers and also to empower local communities through impactful and relevant corporate social responsibility initiatives in education, sports, health and enterprise development.
We have through our flagship Airtel Touching Lives invested and supported several projects across the country including refurbishing the Himankrom Methodist Primary school in the Agona-Ahanta and building a fully furnished library facility to facilitate an effective teaching and learning environment in the school.
She continued through our recently launched Evolve with STEM initiative, we inspire belief, empower and encourage young people to pursue Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics education because these subjects empower and inculcates problem solving skills in our young people. Since launch, Evolve with STEM has impacted more than 1,000 pupils in Accra alone and we are working to extend its reach to other schools within the country.
On improving the companys network infrastructure to provide unmatched services to customers, Lucy said delighting customers with unparalleled offerings that gives them the best experience on our network is what drives us as a business. To this end, we have over the years invested to expand capacity and improve network quality including introducing a second carrier on our network to give customers internet speed up to 42 mbps on enabled devices across several locations in the country.
We continue to innovate ahead of the industry bolding leading in data and digital innovation to enrich the lives of our customers through the telecommunications and lifestyle products and services we offer. She concluded.
On his part, Nana Kwabena Nketia commended Airtel Ghana for its investments not only in the Western region but across the country. He singled out Airtels support for Arts and Culture through the Smartphone Networks sponsorship and association with Uncle Ebo Whyte for the quarterly Roverman Production plays. According to him, such collaborations promote true Ghanaian arts and ensures that good Ghanaian virtues are translated through theatre. Airtel Ghanas support for a sector that is neglected by many other organisations is highly commendable.
He also commended Airtel Ghana for its commitment and investment in education to empower the next generation of leaders for the country and continent. He said education is key to our development as a nation and for empowering the future leaders of this country and continent. For your commitment in this area which goes beyond financial support to include changing mindsets about Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, your organisation needs to be commended.
The team made a donation to support Nana Kwabena Nketias development work within the Esikado community.
Airtel is Ghanas fastest growing telecommunications network with superior communications, connectivity and collaborative solutions for all customer segments.
The company is the industry leader in data and digital innovation providing exceptional experience for its customers.
The regional tours are part of the companys commitment to regularly engage stakeholders.
About Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 3 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed DSL broadband, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 353 millioncustomers across its operations at the end of January 2016. To know more please visit, www.airtel.com
About Airtel in Africa
Airtel is driven by the vision of providing affordable and innovative mobile services to all. Airtel has 17 operations in Africa: Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Airtel International is a Bharti Airtel company. For more information, please visit www.airtel.com, or like the Airtel Ghana Facebook page via www.facebook.com/airtelgh or follow us on Twitter via the handle @airtelghana.
Tucked in a rural and serene part of Erin Ijesa, Osun State , the Olumirin Waterfall is one of the most prominent and magnificent waterfalls in Nigeria.
Surrounded by rocks with a lush and evergreen ambience adding to the beauty of the waterfall, it is frequented by Nigerians couples, lovers, children, youth corp members, and adventure seekers from far and wide. If you are searching for a place to have a good time this is the perfect place to go as Jovago.com, Africas No.1 hotel booking portal shares how you can have an unforgettable 24 hours at Olumirin Waterfall by road.
FROM LAGOS
Board a bus from Osodi
Leaving early will add to your experience as you do not need to worry about delayed arrival. But since you are not travelling alone, you have to be patient especially when you are travelling with a woman.
At Oshodi, Lagos, you will find buses hailing passengers travelling to any part of south-west Nigeria. Board a bus going to Ilesha Osun State. It is N1,700. Importantly, since, a lot of reconstruction work is taking place at Oshodi, you need to agree on where to meet. Although the bus may take some time to fill out, but as you sit waiting, the occasionally distracting chant of prayer warriors, sellers, and the banters between drivers can be quite entertaining.
IN ILESA
The journey from Lagos to Olumirin Waterfall should take approximately six hours. That is all things being equal. So for about 5 hours you enjoy the ride to Ilesa. On arrival at Ilesa, you have another one hour ride to Erin Ijesha. The ride from Ilesha to Erin Ijesha cost N1,000.
At the magnificent OLUMIRIN WATERFALL
You can either take a motorbike to the Waterfall or walk down. At the entrance into the waterfall, there is an entry fee of N500 required. After settling the fee, you can either pay a tour guide to take you around or find your way.
To climb the Erin Ijesha requires strength and patience. It is not for the feeble-minded. Why? Because the Waterfall cascade in seven different phases and only a handful have gotten to the seventh phase. It is a tough task but it is fun also as you climb the steps, holding weakly to the various tree trunks and feeling the warmth of the waterfall. The waterfall is a site to behold.
Your visit to the Waterfall is never complete if you do not soak yourself in the water which some say has spiritual significance. Also, you can move from one phase of the Waterfall to another while dipping your whole being in the water. It is soothing and you will be wowed!!!
Return to Ilesa to satisfy your taste buds at the African Kitchen
As the sunset, it is time to leave. You are now hungry as the fast food you ate can no longer suffice. Say goodbye to the waterfall, return to Ilesa and if you want delicious African cuisine, ask for The African Kitchen. When you arrive, settle down to a plate of rice, swallow and any food of your as well as assorted drinks.
Of course, you cannot return to Lagos that same day, You have planned everything as you have booked a hotel on Jovago. Your best option for a hotel is the Spring Hill Hotel.
Things to pack for a trip to Olumirin Waterfall
*Change of clothes/slippers
*Power bank/charger
*Shower cap for women
Johannesburg (AFP) - Some 750 South African families who say they were pushed out of their land on a natural reserve during apartheid will be handed over $5 million in compensation, President Jacob Zuma said Saturday.
"We have come together about land, to restore the rights of our people who were dispossessed," Zuma said in Kruger, South Africa's largest natural reserve.
"Today we are contributing to the reversal of the apartheid legacy by compensating six communities, three from Limpopo, and another three from Mpumalanga, all who were dispossessed through harsh apartheid laws," he added.
"We are awarding a total amount of 84 million rand ($5.4 million, 4.8 million euros) to six communities," Zuma said.
The 757 families who make up the six communities are the descendants of people expelled starting from the year 1930. While apartheid officially started in 1948, racial segregation began earlier.
They will be the first group to receive compensation on their claims on the Kruger national park, Zuma said.
"We celebrate this milestone in the history of Land Restitution in our country," he said.
The government has decided to compensate the families rather than return their land because Kruger is now a major natural reserve.
Since the end of apartheid rule in 1994, 3.3 million hectares (8.2 million acres) of land have been restituted to 1.9 million people, Nomfundo Ntloko-Gobodo, an official at the agriculture ministry, told AFP.
Many white South African farmers fear that the country may take the path of Zimbabwe, where the state-sanctioned seizure of white-owned farmland starting in 2000 left the agricultural sector in ruin.
21.05.2016 LISTEN
To qualify for an EEA family Permit you must show among others that you are the family member of an EEA national in accordance with the EEA Regulations.
Proof that you are a family member of an EEA national.
Under the Regulations the ECO must issue an EEA Family Permit to a person who applies for one if he is satisfied that the person is a family member of an EEA national and the EEA national is residing in the UK in accordance with the Regulations. To prove that you are related to the EEA national, you may submit documents like birth certificate or adoption certificate, marriage certificate, phone records, emails, letters, and photographs. However, the submission of these documents does not necessarily guarantee that the ECO will be satisfied that you are related to the EEA national as claimed.
If you are a child of an EEA national, your primary evidence of the relationship to your EEA national father will usually be your birth certificate. However, the officer may be less likely to accept your birth certificate as sufficient evidence of your relationship if it discloses that your birth was registered significantly later after your birth. For example, if your birth certificate discloses that you were born on January, 10, 2000, and the registration column on the birth certificate shows that your birth was registered on January, 10, 2010, this will mean that your birth was registered 10 years after your birth. In the absence of further evidence, the ECO may likely determine that since you birth was registered late, he only accepts the entry as merely a record of what the person who registered your birth told the Registrar of Births and not necessarily that you were born on that date.
If the consular officer disputes the entry on your birth certificate he is in fact disputing that you are the child of your claimed EEA national parent and hence do not qualify as a family member of an EEA national under the Regulations.
Primary evidence
To prove that the entry on your birth certificate is a true and accurate reflection of your birth record, you must submit in addition to your birth certificate such primary and/or secondary evidence to support your claims.
Primary evidence may be in the form of original baptismal certificates, hospital records including weighing cards, immunization certificates, etc., school records especially ones from kindergarten or elementary school. Letters obtained from your health or educational institution must specify your dates of admission and exit, your date and place of birth, your parents names, and such other relevant information as may be disclosed by the institutions records.
To give weight to the letters issued by the institution, they must be supported by copies of any document, record, or other entry upon which the contents are based.
Secondary evidence
Secondary evidence is generally not documentary evidence and is relevant in cases where documentary evidence is clearly lacking. They are usually statements from persons who can attest to certain facts or events contemporaneous to the time of your birth. This may usually be in the form of witness statements, affidavits, or declarations affirming that they either witnessed your birth, naming or baptismal ceremony or such other event immediately on or about the time of your birth or early childhood.
In preparing affidavits or declarations, it must be noted that legal jargons, fancy language and resort to existing precedents may hold little weight before the consular officer. Where there are no documents to support your statements, you must include names, dates, events, occurrences or other situations that are contemporaneous with the event you are attesting to in order to convince the officer that your statements are indeed a true and accurate representation of the event for which reason they must be accepted.
Disclaimer : This article only provides general information and guidance on UK immigration law. The specific facts that apply to your matter may make the outcome different than would be anticipated by you. The writer will not accept any liability for any claims or inconvenience as a result of the use of this information. The writer is an Immigration law advisor and a practicing law attorney in Ghana. He advises on U.S., UK, and Schengen immigration law. He works part-time for Acheampong & Associates Ltd, an immigration law firm in Accra. He may be contacted on [email protected]
A new policy paper, No more excuses jointly released by the UNESCOGlobal Education Monitoring (GEM) Report and UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) ahead of the World Humanitarian Summit on May 23-24 reveals new data showing that only 50% of refugee children are in primary school and 25% of refugee adolescents are in secondary school.
The paper calls for countries and their humanitarian and development partners to urgently ensure that those forcibly displaced are included in national education plans and to collect better data to monitor their education status and progress.
There are unprecedented numbers of forcibly displaced populations, putting huge pressure on education systems. But for these children and youth education is especially important: by simply being in school, they are better protected from trafficking, illegal adoption, child marriage, sexual exploitation and forced labour,saidIrina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO.
Behind the global average number of refugee children out of school, there are significant differences among countries. Primary enrolment rates average 80% in selected refugee sites in Egypt, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Yemen, but only 40% in Pakistan and 50% in Ethiopia.
Access to secondary education is even more limited for refugees in many countries. In Kenya, Pakistan and Bangladesh, less than 5% of adolescents aged 12 to 17 were enrolled in secondary education. Enrolment in early childhood education also remains very limited in some countries, reaching only 7% in Turkey in 2015.
"Refugee children, like children everywhere, have the right to education. It is fundamental that children who have been uprooted by war and violence are not left behind even further," said Filippo Grandi, High Commissioner for UNHCR. "We urge donors and development organizations to support efforts to include refugee children and youth in national education systems."
Aaron Benavot, Director of the UNESCO GEM Report says collecting information on moving populations is challenging, if not impossible sometimes. What little we know is mostly about those living in camps, yet more than half of the worlds refugees reside in urban areas, where even less is known because information systems arent tracking them. We need to know who they are, what theyve been through and whether were effectively responding to their needs.
From select available data outside of camps, the paper shows that of school-aged Syrian refugees only 53% in Jordan and 30% in Turkey are enrolled in school.
Reliable data on internally displaced people (IDPs) are even more limited, but reports indicate that their displacement is putting huge strain on already weak education systems. In Nigeria, for instance, children displaced due to attacks by Boko Haram in 19 out of the 42 camps did not have access to any form of education in June 2015. In Iraq, only 32% of internally displaced children and adolescents in 2015 had access to any form of education. In Yemen, only one third of school age IDP children in Lahj governorate were enrolled in school.
Those already marginalised, such as girls, are often the worst affected among refugees. In Kakuma camps in Kenya, in 2015, only 38% of primary school students were girls. In Pakistan, where child marriage and teenage pregnancy are often cited among refugee girls, dropout rates for refugee girls are as high as 90%.
Girls and women make up 70% of the worlds internally displaced population and are left the furthest behind in education. In Iraq, in Najaf governorate 81% of 15-17 year-old girls were out of school compared to 69% of boys of the same age. In urban areas in Afghanistan only 1% of IDP women were found to be literate versus 20% of IDP men.
The paper advocates for four main policy directions for governments and their partners to tackle the diverse neglected needs of IDPs and refugees:
Enshrine forcibly displaced peoples rights to education in national laws and policy
Include displaced children and youth in national education systems
Enable accelerated and flexible education options to meet diverse needs
Ensure an adequate supply of trained and motivated teachers
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'Our focus is to stabilise cedi' ...
Donald Trump's poor standing among women, Hispanics and young voters could create a drag on the Republican ticket potent enough to flip as many as 16 Republican-held Florida House seats to the Democrats, some party strategists believe.
Democrats particularly optimistic about picking up seats in Miami-Dade County
Republicans believe predictions of massive losses in November are premature
Eight of the seats are in swing districts in Tampa Bay and Central Florida that have historically favored Democrats in presidential election years, when Democratic turnout is typically higher. The other eight are in South Florida, where changing demographics, including an influx of non-Cuban Hispanics, represent an additional challenge for Republican incumbents.
Making the electoral landscape in the districts especially volatile for Republicans, strategists say, are Trump's derogatory remarks about Hispanics and his pledge to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants should he win the presidency. As his party's new standard-bearer, Trump's positions are likely to influence the campaigns of down-ticket Republicans.
Democrats are particularly optimistic about their chances of picking up some or all of the targeted seats in Miami-Dade County.
"You're looking at a place that Obama won by 22 points last time; Clinton may win by 35 or 40 points," predicted Democratic strategist Steve Schale. "For people that are in swing districts, where maybe they only had to deal with a couple point difference, now (with) maybe a 20-point difference, it becomes a lot harder to get re-elected."
Even if Democrats were to sweep the vulnerable Republican-held seats, however, the party would remain firmly in the minority in Tallahassee. Republicans outnumber Democrats two-to-one in the House, though they would lose some valuable procedural tools that accompany their supermajority status, such as placing time limits on floor debates of contentious bills.
And many Republicans believe the predictions of massive losses in November are premature, not least among them the party's presumptive presidential nominee.
"Some people say, 'it's inclined toward the Democrats'," Trump told a recent rally, referring to states traditionally carried by Democratic presidential candidates. "And then I walk in, they said, 'Mister Trump', and I talk to people, you know, like consultants. They said 'Mister Trump, I have to be honest. You've got something going on that we've never seen before. You will win this state. You're going to win this state'."
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Smoke was detected in multiple places on EgyptAir flight 804 moments before it plummeted into the Mediterranean, but the cause of the crash that killed all 66 on board remains unclear, the French air accident investigation agency said on Saturday.
Investigators said smoke was detected moments before EgyptAir flight 804 crashed
Photos of the wreckage was released by the Egyptian Army
The cause of the crash remains unclear
Agency spokesman Sebastien Barthe told The Associated Press in Paris that the plane's automatic detection system sent messages indicating smoke a few minutes before the plane disappeared from radar while flying over the east Mediterranean early on Thursday morning.
The messages, he explained, "generally mean the start of a fire," but he added: "We are drawing no conclusions from this. Everything else is pure conjecture."
Looking for clues to whether terrorists may have brought down the Airbus A320, investigators have been poring over the passenger list and questioned ground crew members at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, from which the plane took off.
The aircraft had been cruising normally in clear skies on a nighttime flight to Cairo early Thursday when it suddenly lurched left, then right, spun all the way around and plummeted 38,000 feet (11,582.4 meters) into the sea, never issuing a distress signal.
Search crews are scouring for further wreckage of the aircraft. Experts said answers will come only with an examination of the wreckage and the plane's cockpit voice and flight data recorders, commonly known as black boxes.
Planes and vessels from Egypt and five other countries - Greece, Britain, France, the United States and Cyprus - continued searching a wide area of the eastern Mediterranean on Saturday, a day after the Egyptian military found debris from the passenger jet in the sea 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of the Egyptian port city of Alexandria.
The waters in the area are 8,000 to 10,000 feet deep (2,440 to 3,050 meters), and the pings from the black boxes can be detected up to a depth of 20,000 feet (6 kilometers).
On Saturday, the Egyptian military released photographs of the debris from EgyptAir flight 804. The photos were posted on the Facebook page of the chief military spokesman. They appear to show the heavily-damaged remains of plane seats, life jackets - one of which was seemingly undamaged - and a scrap of cloth that looks to be part of a baby's purple and pink blanket or sleeping bag.
The spokesman's Facebook page later posted a brief video that showed more debris, including what appeared to be a piece of blue carpet, seat belts, a shoe and what looked like a woman's white handbag. The short clip opened with aerial footage of an unidentified navy ship followed by a speed boat with five service members aboard heading toward floating debris.
Egyptian authorities said they believe terrorism is a more likely explanation than equipment failure, and some aviation experts have said the erratic flight suggests a bomb blast or a struggle in the cockpit. But so far no hard evidence has emerged.
No militant group has claimed to have brought down the aircraft. That is a contrast to the downing of a Russian jet in October over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula that killed all 224 on board. In that case, the Islamic State group's branch in Sinai issued a claim of responsibility within hours. On Friday, IS issued a statement on clashes with the Egyptian military in Sinai, but said nothing about the plane crash.
Three European security officials said on Friday that the passenger manifest for Flight 804 contained no names on terrorism watch lists. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation. The manifest was leaked online and has not been verified by the airline.
Further checks are being conducted on relatives of the passengers.
French aviation investigators have begun to check and question all baggage handlers, maintenance workers, gate agents and other ground crew members at Charles de Gaulle Airport who had a direct or indirect link to the plane before it took off, according to a French judicial official. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Whatever caused the aircraft to crash, the tragedy will most likely deepen Egypt's difficult predicament as it struggles to revive a battered economy and contain an increasingly resilient insurgency by Islamic militants.
In the five years since the country was first mired in turmoil caused by a popular uprising against longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, the lucrative tourism sector has been decimated, the value of the local currency has progressively fallen and domestic debt has mushroomed.
While the latest tragedy may not reflect directly on security at Egypt's airports, as the Russian jet crash did in October, the country's association with another air disaster will impact negatively on tourism and the flow of foreign investment.
In Paris, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Saturday that he and other officials - including representatives of Paris Aeroport, the French prosecutor, EgyptAir, and the Egyptian ambassador to Paris - had met with about 100 family members to express "our profound compassion" over the crash.
In a statement delivered to reporters following the meeting, he said: "All the hypotheses are being examined - none are being favored."
"In the name of France, once more, I am expressing my solidarity, but also our affection ... for all those people who learned that a loved one, or even an entire family, have drowned in the sea - and who want to know, to know to be able to grieve. It's a difficult moment, a painful moment. I wanted to say it again: We're on their side."
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Satter reported from Paris. Associated Press writer Angela Charlton contributed to this report from Paris.
Emily Browning and Heston Graves were at the top of the class at Plainview Christian High School and valedictorian and salutatorian, respectively.
Commencement was held at 1 p.m. Saturday, May 21, at Harral Auditorium on the campus of Wayland Baptist University. A reception followed inside Waylands Laney Center.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Plainview Christian Academy.
Emily Cecilia Browning, PCHS valedictorian, is the daughter of Lee Browning and Sandra Browning and has been at PCA for 13 years. She served in the student council as historian and second vice-president, she was in art for two years and served on the Hale County Junior Literacy Council as a junior board member and placed third place in the Science Fair.
In the ACSI Art competition, Browning got best of show. She is a member of the National Honor Society and was a cheerleader. She served Meals on Wheels and on the Harvest Christian Fellowship Hospitality Team for six years and as a Harvest Pre-K teacher for two years. She has received the International Entrance Scholarship and the Literacy Council Scholarship.
Browning attends Harvest Christian Fellowship. She will be attending University of Prince Edward Island in Canada to major in English.
She is receiving a distinguished diploma and is graduating with honors.
Heston Cole Graves, class salutatorian, is son of Ron and Melinda Graves and has been at PCA for 13 years.
He was active in choir with parts in Charlie Brown, Godspell, No Refunds and the Dinner Theater. Graves also was active in 4-H shooting sports, placing first in 2-Man Trap Team in the Texas State Games with Konner Smith, first place Texas Tech Shotgun Invitational, the High Point Individual Shotgun West Texas A&M Invitational, the High Point Overall Gaines County 4-H Shootout, High Point Individual Garza County Individual Shoot.
With his 4-H livestock projects, he exhibited the Reserved Breed Champion Gilt at the San Antonio Livestock Show.
He was a junior counselor and potwasher at the White River Youth Camp and was on the Junior Leader Worship Team. Graves served with Meals-on-Wheels and lighting for the Junior High Musical. For scholarships, he received the West Texas A&M Institutional Scholarship, the Don & Sybil Harrington Academic Scholarship, the O.V. Hodges Memorial Presidents Honor Scholarship, and the West Texas NRA Scholarship.
Graves attends Sunset Church of Christ in Lubbock. He will be attending Wayland Baptist University to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering.
He is receiving a distinguished diploma and is graduating with honors.
Bucking the statewide trend, the employment picture is improving across the Central High Plains of Texas.
According to figures released Friday by the Texas Workforce Commission, all six counties served by the Plainview High showed a decline in the unemployment rate for April. At the same time, the jobless rate statewide rose from 4.3 percent in March to 4.4 percent in April.
The most significant drop was for Floyd County, going from 5.8 percent in March to 4.8 percent in April. Lamb County fell from 7.1 percent to 6.7 percent, while Castro went from 2.9 to 2.5 percent.
Briscoe County declined from 4.5 to 4.3, Swisher from 4.3 to 4.1, and Hale from 5.6 to 5.3 percent.
Whats significant, at least in Hale County, is that the workforce numbers grew at the same time the unemployment rate declined, said Danny Soliz of Lubbock, director of business development for South Plains Workforce Solutions. That means you are getting people moving back into the community from the Oil Patch, and they are finding jobs.
The strong improvement in Floyd County, Soliz adds, shows somebody is doing something right out there, since the county showed a growth in the workforce as well as increased employment numbers.
Soliz will be keeping a close eye on the reports for May and June. Over the next couple of months, well be seeing the impact of the end of the school year, he said. Thats when the school bus drivers and school food service workers and others will be looking for employment over the summer.
Mike Fox, executive director of the Plainview/Hale County Economic Development Corporation, added, The latest drop in the countys unemployment number is another positive sign for our local economy. That coupled with the increase in labor force makes the news even better. Our workers want to work and are finding jobs. This is overall a very encouraging report. We were at 6.1 percent just 12 months ago.
Linda Morris, executive director of the Plainview Chamber of Commerce, noted, I think sometimes its hard to say why a small unemployment number decline comes about, however it is always good when more of our citizens are working, with more discretionary income our community and businesses benefit. I especially think in April it is a positive sign, because it is a non-seasonal and summer internship month, so we hope the decline if filling full time or permanent part time jobs.
The Amarillo Metropolitan Statistical Area recorded the months lowest unemployment rate among Texas MSAs with a non-seasonally adjusted rate of 2.7 percent, followed by the Austin-Round Rock and Lubbock MSAs with rates of 2.9 and 3.0 percent respectively, in April.
The national average is 5.0 percent, down from 5.1 percent in March.
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After living and working on an apple orchard for decades, Wisconsin writer Jane Hamilton knows a few things about cultivating distinctive varieties.
The Excellent Lombards, her new novel, is both a lively coming-of-age story and a deeply felt portrait of an endangered species, the American farm family.
The novel could be read and taught in both an eighth-grade classroom and a small-business course the latter because it grapples with agonizing issues of partnership and succession.
Heres a taste of Mary Frances (Frankie) Lombard, the novels youthful protagonist and narrator.
On a visit to a nearby orchard, whose commercialized operation she considers soulless, Mary Frances is offered a taffy apple with a Honey Crisp at its center. She declines. Even under the best of circumstances, she tells us, the showy Honey Crisp was without character, a fruit only a philistine would grow.
The spunky Mary Frances may remind some readers of Mary Louise Finch, aka Scout, from To Kill a Mockingbird, although unlike Scout, Mary Frances has a complicated relationship with a living mother to work out. Her mother has a different word for her daughters character: She thinks Mary Frances is too full of spleen to be a farmer.
More Information The Excellent Lombards By Jane Hamilton Grand Central, $26 See More Collapse
To be clear, when it comes to Honey Crisps, the character doesnt speak for the author.
I dont feel as passionately about their being wrong as Mary Frances, Hamilton said during an interview in the kitchen of her home in the Racine County Village of Rochester, Wis.
But and this but gets to the heart of the orchard and the way of life it entails very few people have had a ripe Honey Crisp, she said, because theyre not picked ripe, and a ripe one is pretty darn good, but its still not anywhere near the greatness of a fully ripe Macintosh or Macoun. It doesnt have the subtlety.
In the course of writing The Excellent Lombards, Hamilton tilled some hard ground, emotionally speaking.
Readers who know her earlier novels The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World, both Oprah Book Club selections, might be surprised to hear that Hamilton feared both books in general and her writing career were over.
In the 2000s, I was very depressed and anxious about the state of the book, she said. I just had this sense that the book was over, I was over, bookstores were over, reading was over.
So I was very desperately trying to write a last book that would just slip over the transom before it was all over, she said.
Please note that, by this point, Hamilton had already published six novels.
I was writing very badly, and I wrote a bunch of really bad books that were not published, she said, almost spitting those words out like she had tasted something rotten.
While some complain that publishing gatekeepers in New York are elitist, Hamilton said she is all for them. They kept saying no. No. And Im really grateful because they were bad books.
Walking down Lexington Ave. in New York, she bumped into her agent, who wanted to hear what she was working on. Hamilton told her the plot she had in mind. She imitated, in a suitably dramatic voice, her agents response: That is the worst idea Ive ever heard. Really truly, dont do that!
Write a memoir about that farm of yours, the agent suggested. Its so interesting.
Never, Hamilton told her. Well, the agent countered, write a novel about the farm.
I have to wait until the relatives are dead, Hamilton told her. Once again, she put on a dramatic voice to imitate her agents response: Well, youll be dead, too!
That made an impression on me, Hamilton said.
Its not like Hamilton hadnt been thinking about the family farm, and American family farms in general.
She described herself as preoccupied with the issue of succession and who gets to take over the farm and any family business, who cant stay, who gets to stay, who stays but really doesnt want to be there, who cant return, all of those vexed things.
The Excellent Lombards dramatizes these worries, infused with anticipatory sadness about what might happen to these farms and families.
She poured all of these questions into the character of Mary Frances, whom she also graced with a passionate attachment for the farming life, a girl who can even rhapsodize about processing sheep manure: the sheep dung compacted into sheaves so that instead of digging at them it was an archaeological matter of peeling away the layers with the fork.
When she was germinating this farm novel, Hamilton read Carson McCullers novel A Member of the Wedding, centered on an awkward preteen girl, Frankie. Hamilton began to see her character as kin to McCullers Frankie: Theyre both fierce, theyre both deranged by love.
That fierceness, that intensity, I wanted to bring a little of that over here. So I called her Mary Frances, Frankie, in honor of that character.
Her favorite apple? Whatever apple in that moment is ripe, she said.
When we think of slavery in America, we think of Africans stolen from their homeland. But Indians were enslaved as well, in what has become a hidden chapter in our history.
In his long-awaited and important book, The Other Slavery, Andres Resendez notes that the enslavement of Native Americans was fairly common and that there was a thriving market for Indian slaves.
Between 1670 and 1720, he writes, Carolinians exported more Indians out of Charleston, South Carolina, than they imported Africans into it.
Tens of thousands of Native Americans were taken from the colonies, often sold in the Caribbean for labor on Spanish plantations.
The first European explorers bought and sold Indian slaves; among them was Columbus, whose first business venture in the New World consisted of sending four caravels loaded to capacity with 550 Natives back to Europe, to be auctioned off in the markets of the Mediterranean.
What distinguishes Indian slavery from that of African is not just the number (between 2.5 million and 5 million Indian versus 13 million African), but that for most of its history, Indian slavery was illegal, which undoubtedly accounts for much of our historical myopia regarding it.
More Information The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America By Andres Resendez Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30 See More Collapse
Resendez, a professor of history at the University of California Davis, counts more than 15,000 books on African slavery, compared with hardly two dozen manuscripts on Indian slavery.
What Resendez illustrates most poignantly is how Indian slavers were able for four centuries to slip under the law, oftentimes by amending laws prohibiting slavery to suit their purposes.
King Charles of Spain issued his New Laws in 1542, freeing the Indians of the Americas.
Yet in 1552, Prince Philip, Charles successor, amended the laws to meet the labor needs of the silver industry, such that while Indians working in the mines were free, they would still be compelled to work as long as they were paid here the beginnings of debt peonage.
And while frontier captains could no longer take Indian slaves, they could take into custody rebels and criminals who were tried, and if convicted, were forced to work five to 20 years and sold to the highest bidder here an early case of convict leasing.
A rebel might be any Indian not accepting the Catholic faith; a criminal any Indian attempting to protect his or her family against frontiersmen.
Certainly slavery was not unknown in the New World before European contact.
Indian tribes throughout the New World raided neighboring tribes, most often enemies, taking captives as slaves.
But it wasnt uncommon for the slave to be incorporated into the social fabric of the tribe, most notably through marriage, as in the well-known case of Kiowa writer N. Scott Momadays great-grandmother, who had been a Mexican captive.
What changed after contact was the full-scale commodification of slavery, where certain tribes not only took advantage of the slave trade to acquire ammunition from the European settlers but then used those munitions and additional slaves to expand their territories.
The ethnic makeup of a tribe sometimes changed, as in the case of the Comanche, where, as Resendez notes, by the 19th century nearly half of all Comanches were of Mexican descent.
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Serving freshly-cooked food at the Pearl Farmers Market became a little more expensive on Saturday as vendors paid a new fire inspection fee that they say cuts into their already-thin profit margins.
All vendors who cook their food over open flames or with electrical appliances must pay the new fee every day they operate at a farmers market in San Antonio. The fee, which is part of a food booth ordinance passed in October, is $35 if paid ahead of time through a visit to a city administration building or $45 if paid on the spot, along with a $1.05 technology fee.
On Saturday morning, a fire inspector made the rounds at the Pearl market to check permits or collect checks from booths that didnt have them. Several booth operators said the fee was burdensome and unfair, especially when compared to fees paid by other food businesses such as brick-and-mortar restaurants and food trucks, which pay a $300 annual fire permit fee.
Charging us for fire safety I think thats fair, said Luis Morales, owner of the Humble House booth, which serves dishes such as grilled sweet corn and fried chicken skins. The amount of money thats whats not fair.
Ming Qian, who is co-owner of the Mings Thing Asian street food booth, griped about the new fee to the inspector before writing a $45 check on Saturday morning. She said she was too busy to drop off the money ahead of time.
I understand its a safety issue, Qian said. I just dont understand why we have to pay so much. Its going to kill the market, period.
For vendors who work a single booth once a week and pay ahead of time, the new fee will cost them $1,874.60 a year; if they pay on the spot, it is $2,340 annually.
Qian, who operates her booth at The Pearl market on Saturdays and Sundays, said she expects the new fee to cost her almost $5,000 a year. Thats a hefty sum when compared with the $7,000 her booth made in profit last year, she said.
The permit system seems designed for one-time events and not established businesses, Qian and other vendors said. They said that getting the permits was time consuming, requiring frequent visits to city offices.
The fee only hits vendors who make ready-to-eat food. Those selling fresh produce, fresh or frozen meat, or canned, jarred and other packaged food are unaffected. Still, many fear that the fee could endanger San Antonios growing farmers market industry, including events such as the Peoples Nite Market at La Villita.
I dont know what this money means or why we have to pay it, said Will Hoppe, who works at YAPA Artisan Empanadas. Some (vendors) dont make a lot of money.
Recently, local farmers markets have expanded their offerings beyond produce grown by area farmers and have become combination of community gathering place and outdoor food court, where shoppers can buy prepared goods as well as hot meals.
Efforts to lessen or abolish the fee are already underway. Representatives from The Pearl market have told the Express-News that they have a meeting scheduled for next week to address the matter with Fire Chief Charles Hood.
The Food Policy Council of San Antonio has formed a farmers market working group to look into the fees, according to board member Stephen Paprocki.
The city and local farmers market also clashed in 2013, after the city health department introduced a farmers market vendor permit intended to make it easier for farmers to sell their products. But the permit also prohibited vendors from selling meals cooked on site. Following criticism, the city reversed itself and passed a proposal liberalizing the rules.
The new fees mark the first time the city has consistently levied a fire safety fee on farmers market booths, Morales said. At certain times in the past, the booths have been expected to pay annual fees under mobile vending regulations, he said.
I think weve always been in a gray area, he said.
rwebner@express-news.net
@rwebner
Several members of law enforcement from the Rio Grande Valley and Houston have been indicted in an alleged cocaine trafficking conspiracy as a result of a four-year investigation called Operation Blue Shame, the U.S. attorneys office announced Friday.
U.S. Border Patrol Agent Daniel Polanco, 34, of Edinburg and Edinburg Police Officer Hector Beltran, 40, surrendered to federal authorities Friday. Former Houston Police Officer Marcos Esteban Carrion, 38, who was in custody on unrelated charges, also was indicted. Former Deputy Constable Juan Ignacio Leal, 36, of Houston is expected to be in federal court on May 31.
Public higher education in the border area of Texas has improved in myriad ways.
It began with a lawsuit by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) in 1987.
The Texas border area, including the area from Brownsville to Corpus Christi to San Antonio to El Paso, with 20 percent of Texas population, has improved from 11 percent of Texas higher education revenues in 1993 to 18 percent in 2013, and remains at 18 percent today. The area has gone from three doctoral programs in 1993 to 65 doctoral programs in 2016. And state average revenues per university student went from 70 percent in 1993 to 95 percent in 2016.
Most important, the border has 70 percent more students attending higher quality and more comprehensive universities in 2016 than in 1993.
These improvements the greatest leap in Texas history in higher education offerings in a state area have led to greater opportunities for students, more focus on community issues and a very rapid increase in the economic and development effects of the universities on their communities and the state.
MALDEF filed the LULAC v. Richards lawsuit in 1987.
It represented the League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the Texas GI Forum, the Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education, other Latino organizations, and 25 students. They challenged decades of discrimination against Mexican-Americans in the border area.
Until the 1970s, San Antonio was the largest city in the United States without a public university.
The entire border area was and remains the largest and most populous area in the United States without a comprehensive university offering a wide variety of doctoral and professional programs. UT Austin, Texas A&M, the University of Houston, Texas Tech and even UT Dallas, UT Arlington and the University of North Texas have significantly more.
On average, students in the border area traveled 225 miles to attend a comprehensive public university, while students in the rest of Texas traveled only 45 miles. So only 20 percent of border students, but 60 percent of the students in the rest of Texas, attended a comprehensive university.
Commerce, Denton, Lubbock, Nacogdoches and other small Texas cities each had more doctoral programs than the entire border area. The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University each had more programs and a larger budget than all higher education institutions at the border.
There were no doctoral programs even in international trade and Spanish in existing universities in El Paso, Laredo, Edinburg or Brownsville. But College Station, Austin, Denton and Commerce did have such programs.
So, why do all these statistics matter?
Doctoral and professional programs represent superior quality of faculty, research laboratories, libraries, and employment opportunities for students.
Doctoral and professional programs reflect a much broader, higher quality and respected educational program at all levels. The border now has twice as many students attending a public university and those students are attending higher quality institutions.
And more comprehensive higher education programs are a major factor in attracting white collar jobs and high-tech businesses in general.
At the trial in 1991, Henry Cisneros testified that San Antonio competed with cities around the United States to attract the national computer research center SEMATECH (a consortium of universities, computer manufacturers and the U.S. government) to San Antonio in the late 1980s, but lost the competition to Austin because of the far superior higher education opportunities in Austin.
Concentrations of higher education programs have been the catalyst for the international high-tech centers in the Silicon Valley, Route 128 firms in Boston, and the research triangle firms in North Carolina.
Students in all the large and medium-size communities in Texas outside the border could live at home and attend a comprehensive university. Students in the border could not afford to move and attend these institutions, but were relegated to attend the less resourced universities in their areas.
The MALDEF lawsuit was one important cause for this improvement in higher education. Why was a lawsuit necessary to do this?
Unfortunately, in Texas, changes in state systems in public education, higher education, prisons, mental health, and child welfare require a lawsuit to break through decades of neglect. They serve to focus public and governmental attention.
For generations, Texas misguided leaders assumed the border area was not ready for the highest levels of education. They were focused only on getting students out of high school and into the workplace. This assumption was ironic because the state didnt support efforts to educate the states students in public education either. This neglect has led to many of the educational and social crises we confront today.
To force an improvement in the unconstitutional funding of higher education in Texas, MALDEF won a court order requiring Texas to improve border higher education.
That year, MALDEF and Texas Rural Legal Aid now called Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid worked with community leaders, legislators, and experts to develop a plan for higher education in the border, with specific programs and funding recommended for the border universities in San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Kingsville, Brownsville, Edinburg, Laredo, Alpine and El Paso.
All the border area state senators and representatives, as well as the community leaders from the border cities, signed on to this comprehensive plan to improve the universities at the border. This unanimous support led to legislation passed in 1993 that created UTSA downtown, Texas A & M International University in Laredo, full four-year universities for the first time in Brownsville and Corpus Christi, rapid expansion of masters and doctoral programs, and new buildings and scholarship opportunities.
The 1993 legislation was the seed for vast improvement in higher education throughout the region. The border region representatives recommended the creation of a medical school in both the Valley and in El Paso. The medical school in the Valley did not become a reality until 2015, while El Paso has yet to develop its new medical-related programs into a full medical school.
After the Texas Legislature passed this new significant funding for the border universities, the Texas Supreme Court reversed the underlying lawsuit, though the court acknowledged the inferior funding of the border universities and the significant new investments made in the 1993 Legislature.
In 1993, all the universities in the border area were in the lowest two of five tiers of higher education. Now we have several universities in the second and third highest tiers, a nationally recognized and respected improvement.
What should be our focus for the future?
The border community must lead in efforts to improve the regions universities and education in general to the levels attained in the rest of the state.
UTSA and UT El Paso should reach top tier status.
We should support continued development of the medical school in the Valley and an additional medical school in El Paso.
We should work to improve the universities in Corpus Christi, Kingsville and Laredo to offer a much greater range of doctoral and specialized programs focused on their special expertise in coastal and border issues, as well as education and business.
And we must increase state funding. Much of the increase in funding in Texas higher education has come from increases in tuition, rather than direct state funding. This puts great financial strain on students and their families, and discourages the low-income community from accessing higher education, which is the best ticket to progress for families.
The border area, long relegated to the lowest tiers of Texas higher education, should be funded at a level to recognize the unique opportunities and challenges of the region.
At least 5 million people reside in Mexico within 10 miles of the Texas border. This population, as well as the billions of dollars of economic activity on the Mexican side of the border area, has direct effects on Texas border communities.
We must enhance our higher education resources in the border area to study and interact. We must recommend policies to deal with these international issues. And most important, we must give our children a fair chance at education at all levels.
Al Kauffman, one of the attorneys for MALDEF in the LULAC case, is a professor at St. Marys University School of Law. The detailed study from which this article was excerpted will be published in the October 2016 Journal of Law and Education.
Down here in San Antonio, the unequivocal home of the breakfast taco, we watched the recent ride-hailing vote in Austin with interest.
Not because we have an opinion about what types of background checks the people of Austin think are appropriate for Uber and Lyft drivers. Fingerprint checks or name-based searches its their choice. But because we were curious to see what the voters in tech-savvy Austin would choose.
SHARE Jaden Sanchez A 25-year-old Naples man was killed and at least three teenage passengers were seriously injured when a pickup plunged into a canal early Wednesday in Collier County. (Ryan Mills/Staff) A 25-year-old Naples man was killed and at least three teenage passengers were seriously injured when a pickup plunged into a canal early Wednesday in Collier County. (Ryan Mills/Staff) Related Photos Canal crash in Collier
By June Fletcher of the Naples Daily News
Jaden Gabriel Sanchez, 18, was arrested Friday by Florida Highway Patrol troopers and charged with DUI manslaughter in connection with a Nov. 25 crash in the Naples area.
Sanchez was driving a crew cab pickup west on Third Avenue Northwest, about 1 mile west of Collier Boulevard, without headlights, when he ran off the roadway shortly after midnight, according to the arrest report.
The truck struck roadway end markers, climbed the barrier and became airborne. Although it cleared a canal, it struck the embankment on the opposite side, settling into the water.
One passenger, Jeremiah Edward Hernandez, 25, was pronounced dead at Physicians Regional Hospital at 1:10 a.m. An autopsy showed he drowned. He was sitting in the right front passenger seat and was not wearing a seat belt, the report said.
Two other passengers, Brenden Eddington, 18, and David Sexton, 18, suffered serious injuries and were transported to Lee Memorial Hospital. Eddington was wearing a seat belt and was seated in the center front passenger seat; Sexton was in the truck bed.
Two other passengers who were seated in the bed of the truck, Chris Verdes, 18, and Jonallen Velazquez, 18, had minor injuries, and were taken to NCH North Naples Hospital.
Sanchez faces charges of DUI manslaughter with serious injury, property damage, and injury. He also was charged with careless driving and DUI. He was taken to the Collier County jail.
The driver and passengers are all from the Naples area.
Sanchez, of the 7500 block of Sanctuary Road in Golden Gate Estates, attended Hastings College in Nebraska.
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SHARE A Cauliflower Jellyfish stuck under a concrete piling on the artificial reef. During early fall Cauliflower Jellyfish migrate through the waters off Naples, and as seen here, can find a way to get lodged on anything. The growth around the reefs is a couple months old. (Photo courtesy of Conor Goulding) In this file photo, a worker has his back wheels lifted up as a concrete load falls in time Friday, Jan. 9, 2015 in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Marco Island, Fla. A dozens came out to witness the first of 36 artificial reef habitats installed by McCulley Marine Services, Inc. based out of Fort Pierce. A front end loader placed several tons of concrete for ecosystems to build in the sand bottom Gulf. The project was funded by a 1.3 million dollar grant from BP and $50,000 dollars from private donors. (Corey Perrine/Staff) Inf this file photo, patrons part of the flotilla pass by Friday, Jan. 9, 2015 in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Marco Island, Fla. A dozens came out to witness the first of 36 artificial reef habitats installed by McCulley Marine Services, Inc. based out of Fort Pierce. A front end loader placed several tons of concrete for ecosystems to build in the sand bottom Gulf. The project was funded by a 1.3 million dollar grant from BP and $50,000 dollars from private donors. (Corey Perrine/Staff) Two Goliath Groupers swim in the reef modules dropped into the sea. (Photo courtesy of Conor Goulding)
By Eric Staats
A new network of artificial reefs off Collier County's coastline already is making a splash with fish and the anglers and divers who chase them.
A public-private partnership has finished what a Naples fisherman and attorney started more than two years ago when he started shopping around the reef idea.
The first 500-ton pile of concrete rubble was dumped overboard in January, and the final pile was sunk earlier this month, nine months later to the day.
"We're going to keep going," said the reef project's brainchild Peter Flood. "We're not done."
By the end of the month, crews should be finished dropping 29 limestone rock pyramid-shaped reef modules and 60 concrete benches. The city of Naples donated the benches, which had been swapped out with new ones around town.
Then it's on to the next big idea: recruiting artists to design an underwater sculpture park.
Money for the reef project has come from $350,000 in private donations and a $1.3 million economic recovery grant from BP stemming from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
For $100,000, donors can put their names on one of the three remaining nameless reefs; for $2,500, donors can get their names on a module plaque.
Behind the money, though, was a group of volunteers that donated time and talent to a project that became a community cause.
"Everybody came together and made it happen," said Diane Flagg, co-chairman of the county's Economic Recovery Task Force, which oversaw the project.
She said she's been fielding inquiries about the reefs from as far away as Germany and England and from all over the U.S.
One study estimated the reefs would lure $30 million a year in annual economic impact from anglers and divers coming to Collier County to experience the reefs.
They'll have plenty to see, reef monitors said.
Plenty of fish groupers, snappers, lionfish, cobia have been spotted on the reefs, along with sea turtles, stingrays, jellyfish.
"You name it, they're already out there," said SCUBAdventures divemaster Bill D'Antuono, who also runs the Naples Spearfishing League. "There's a lot of stuff already showing up."
Krakonoon charter captain Bill Goulding, who helped ferry divers to the reef sites for pre- and post-surveys, said they've seen goliath grouper show up within 15 minutes of a reef module hitting the Gulf's sandy bottom.
Give it a couple months, and reefs already are covered with corals and sponges, he said.
"A lot of these things are like magnets for fish," Goulding said.
Flood, who first pitched the reef idea, said the organizers' goal was to build a world-class reef system without using taxpayer money.
"I think we're there," he said. "I really do."
Enterprise Florida President and CEO Bill Johnson addresses Hertz employees and media at the new Hertz Global headquarters in Estero during the new location celebration on Friday, Jan. 22, 2016. (Dorothy Edwards/Staff)
By Arek Sarkissian of the Naples Daily News
TALLAHASSEE Outgoing Enterprise Florida President Bill Johnson gave no-bid contracts to a confidant for part-time consulting and speechwriting work to the tune of $158,000, according to documents obtained by the Naples Daily News.
Johnson offered his former PortMiami spokeswoman, Paula Musto, with two contracts and one extension one in March 2015 for $68,750 and a second in August 2015 for $75,000, extended in March of this year for $99,999. That falls just shy of Enterprise Florida policy that requires contracts more than $100,000 to be scrutinized by the Enterprise Florida board of directors, according to documents obtained by the Daily News through a series of public records requests. Musto works 25 hours a week; her contract expires June 30.
Johnson also bypassed his agencys competitive bid policy by claiming Mustos contract fell under exemptions that include work for artistic services, academic program reviews, lectures, financial auditing, legal services and health consultation, documents state.
As of April, Musto billed Enterprise Florida $157,896 for her services. Enterprise Florida could not produce the invoices her contract requires that she submits for payment, where shes required to detail the work she performed.
The scope of Mustos work for the part-time contract job included developing marketing strategies, and preparing speeches and presentations.
Musto said she helped Johnson recruit marketing veteran Joseph S. Hice as Enterprise Floridas senior vice president and chief marketing officer.
My work with Bill (Johnson) was broader than speeches and presentations, Musto wrote in an email. I filled in the gap until (Johnson) recruited Chief Marketing Officer Joe Hice. He took over much of what I did.
Hice was hired by Enterprise Florida in October. Efforts to reach him Friday via cellphone were unsuccessful.
Efforts to reach Johnson via cellphone, email and through his spokesman were also not successful.
When asked by the Daily News about Musto, Enterprise Florida Vice Chairman Alan Becker said he knew she was working for the agency but was not aware of her contract.
Im aware of the individual doing the work but Im not entirely sure about the contracts, Becker said. I would have to actually look at the documents to see what they are.
Enterprise Florida is chaired by Gov. Rick Scott. His spokeswoman, Jackie Schutz, said that the governor does not monitor the agencys employees or its contracts.
Hearing about Mustos contract from the Daily News drew sharp criticism from incoming House Speaker Richard Corcoran. He said Mustos contract proved House Republicans rightly rejected Scotts request of $250 million toward an incentive fund Enterprise Florida uses to lure companies to the state. Scotts request was one of his top two priorities during this years legislative session and sent the agency spiraling toward a cost-savings review.
This report shows that Florida House Republicans did the right thing earlier this year by refusing to waste $250 million on an agency that is out of control, Corcoran said. Florida House Republicans plan to aggressively eliminate corporate welfare and take on the culture of exclusion that sees government rewarding the politically connected with taxpayer money at the expense of average citizens.
The Daily News learned about Mustos contract during a cost-savings review that Scott ordered in March on the same day Johnson announced he would leave Enterprise Florida on June 24. At the time Scott ordered the review he wrote in a memo to Enterprise Florida board members that $23.5 million of the agencys budget was paid by taxpayers and only $1.8 million was covered by private donations. This ratio is far from the equal public-private partnership concept designed in 1996 under the administration of Gov. Lawton Chiles.
Scott tapped former Florida Department of Children and Families Secretary David Wilkins to identify areas of the Enterprise Florida budget that would yield $6 million in savings. Wilkins revealed his review before the Enterprise Florida board of directors during its quarterly meeting in Naples on May 11, which included the elimination of 27 positions.
Wilkins review also found Enterprise Florida could save $450,000 by cutting or consolidating program services contracts, which is the area of the agency that pays Musto.
Both Musto and Johnson were also collecting payments from the Florida Retirement System through their Miami-Dade positions, which is allowed under state law. Musto retired from her county position in 2014 and receives $4,772 a month. Johnson had entered the FRS Deferred Retirement Option Program in July 2010 while he was with Miami-Dade, and he finished in June 2015, receiving a lump payout of $914,915. He now receives a monthly payment of $14,254, according to information provided by the Florida Department of Management Services.
Johnsons severance package will pay him $132,500 half his $265,000 salary when he leaves next month, just six days shy of being eligible for $100,000 in bonuses.
Contact Daily News reporter Arek Sarkissian at 850-559-7620
Mike O'Day and his family will receive an Ambassador for Peace Medal in honor of his younger brother's service. Laurence O'Day is listed as missing in action in North Korea. (Heather Corace/Special to The News-Press)
SHARE Cpl. Laurence O'Day remains a MIA from World War II. (Courtesy photo)
By Stacey Henson, The News-Press
After more than 66 years, Mike O'Dea, 96, says a sliver of hope remains he will learn what happened to his baby brother, Army Cpl. Laurence O'Dea, missing in North Korea.
"There's always hope that they maybe were sent to China and lived a life of some kind," the 20-year Naples resident said. "The hope now is very small. There's not much evidence of it. So, my hope was that he died instantly without having to go through a lot of stuff."
Saturday, Collier County Honor Flight is flying on behalf of Laurence O'Dea and the nation's other 83,000 warriors listed as missing in action. The first of its kind among the 130 Honor Flight hubs, it is the ninth flight since 2013 and second one this year for the local group. Veterans receive a free daylong trip to Washington, D.C., to tour war memorials.
The flight includes 52 Korean War veterans and 15 World War II veterans, mostly from Lee and Collier counties. Each is paired with a guardian escort who will wear an official POW/MIA remembrance bracelet. Heather Corace, an honor flight board member, said the bracelets each came with biographies, many with photos, of the people they represent.
"It's heartbreaking," she said. "It brings it home."
While the bulk of Americans listed as MIA are from World War II, the U.S. government reports about 7,800 remain from the Korean War, which lasted from 1950-53.
Robert Henderson, vice president of the Korean War Veterans Association, Chapter 155, of Cape Coral, has worked with the South Korean Consulate in Atlanta to honor Korean War veterans. He's authorized to give them the Ambassador for Peace medal as an expression of appreciation. He's distributed 98 of the keepsakes.
Often called "the Forgotten War," he said the medal helps those understand the importance of the U.S. role in saving Korea from communist forces.
"I appreciate the attention to us and what we did," said Henderson, who was an Air Force staff sergeant serving 18 Air Force bases based in Japan. He will present one of the medals to the O'Dea family in honor of Laurence O'Dea's service.
"We're grateful that he's receiving some recognition," O'Dea said.
Henderson is among those on the honor flight, with more than 200 Korean War vets on a waiting list. He was looking forward to seeing the Korean War Memorial, with its 17 larger-than-life steel figures representing a squad on patrol.
"This is a big deal," Henderson said. With preference for flights given to the aging World War II population, this has the most Korean War vets in attendance for a single flight.
Corace said although there are many WWII veterans waiting, many are snowbirds and have returned home, are too ill for this trip, or have asked to go in cooler weather, freeing slots for the slightly younger Korean veterans.
The flight also honors Air Force Staff Sgt. Charles Bishop, who died in 2014 before he could take the flight. Uniformed military personnel will carry placards with information about Bishop and Laurence O'Dea. When the flight returns to Southwest Florida International Airport, flag bearers will present U.S. flags and the placards to the Bishop and O'Dea families in a private ceremony.
Henderson also will present the O'Dea family with the peace medal.
Service
The elder O'Dea served as an Army captain after being called up with a National Guard unit before the war started, eventually serving under Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the South Pacific. He said he hopes to one day join an honor flight and see all the war memorials.
"I just want to take it all in," he said. Two of his sons served in Vietnam, one losing a leg, and two of his brothers also served in WWII.
Twelve years and five siblings separated the eldest O'Dea from his youngest brother. When Mike O'Dea left for World War II, Laurence was 8.
Mike O'Dea had returned a war hero, earning the Distinguished Service Cross and surviving a gunshot wound to the arm. He had returned to his small-town Owosso, Michigan, farm when Laurence O'Day was drafted.
"He just got out of high school," Mike O'Dea said. "He had three or four months' training and then he was on a ship going overseas."
Laurence O'Dea, 18, sent letters and postcards home, providing the family with few details of his life in the Army.
O'Dea said his letters indicated although assigned to an engineer battalion, the Army had given them rifles and machine guns, using them as infantry.
"He was in action before he knew what was going on," Mike O'Dea said.
Then, the family received the telegram informing them he was MIA.
The family pieced together that Laurence O'Dea was near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, when the Chinese forces invaded, fearing if they didn't intervene the north would fall. O'Dea believes his brother was among those holding off the Chinese as other units retreated to safety. The Chinese eventually forced the Americans back, almost to Seoul.
O'Dea's mother died in 1967.
"She always held out hope until her death," O'Dea said of finding his brother. The stone marking his parents' grave honors O'Dea, with his name and that he's MIA in North Korea etched on top.
That Laurence O'Dea is honored with a medal more than six decades after he disappeared allows the family to continue sharing his legacy.
"My son is named after him, and a nephew is named after him," Mike O'Dea said. "I think the memory will live on."
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If you go
What: Welcome home ceremony, with a special "Flags of Our Heroes" program. As part of the Collier Honor Flight, 67 veterans who flew to Washington, D.C., to see the war memorials. Join family members, local service members and veterans groups, childrens groups, local law enforcement, and community well-wishers.
When: Approximately 9:30 p.m. Saturday.
Where: Southwest Florida International Airport.
To donate: Call 777-9295, or make out a check/money order to: Collier County Honor Flight, P.O. Box 8001 Naples, FL 34104
Information: collierhonorflight.org
By Eric Staats of the Naples Daily News
Jim McFadden has flown into and, thankfully, back out of the eye of a hurricane 575 times. The patch on the shoulder of his blue flight jumpsuit says "Storm Eye Master."
On Friday, McFadden, 82, had his feet planted on the ground at the Naples Municipal Airport for the final leg of a five-city hurricane awareness tour that gave crowds of schoolchildren and curious adults an up-close look at the aerial backbone of U.S. hurricane forecasting.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration flew a shiny and sleek G-IV aircraft to Naples, and the Air Force Reserve flew in one of its gray, stalwart C-130 Hurricane Hunters, after a delay in Biloxi for mechanical repairs. The airplanes were the big draw, but they came with a message: Be Prepared.
Get the latest weather forecasts and find tips on how to prepare before, during and after a hurricane at naplesnews.com/weather/hurricane.
The most accurate forecasts are for naught if people in the path of a storm don't move out of the way to safety when emergency managers order evacuations, Miami- based National Hurricane Center Director Rick Knabb said.
"Just don't wish the hurricane is going to go somewhere else and stop there," Knabb said.
Emergency officials encouraged the crowd to get stocked up on supplies now, not in the panicky days before a storm hits, collect important papers in one place to take quickly when evacuating and have a plan for where to go.
Hurricane forecasters produce those familiar-looking tracking maps using data sent to them from the aircraft. Crews drop cylinder-shaped devices full of instruments that read humidity, air pressure, and temperature. Called dropsondes, they fall for 15 minutes, dangling from a parachute and transmitting GPS location data four times per second. Forecasters can determine wind speed and direction by tracking the dropsonde's path.
Forecasters are adding a new twist this year with maps predicting storm surge to help people better understand the dangers posed by landfalling hurricanes in low-lying coastal regions. Hide from wind, run from water, they say.
Southwest Florida is one of the most vulnerable areas to storm surge, which occurs when a hurricane pushes water up and out of the Gulf and into areas where people would never expect water to end up.
"The water is going to come in, and it's going to come fast," Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Craig Fugate said.
Hurricane season begins June 1 and runs through November. The hurricane hunters are ready. On Friday, though, the storm was in the form of questions from fourth- and fifth-graders.
"Are we going to get in the helicopter?" No, came the answer from crew chief Angel Negron, who was showing off a model of an experimental drone that forecasting crews fly into storms to record data.
"How much does it weigh?" It's pretty light, 14 pounds.
"How fast does it go?" 60 mph.
"Does it come back?" No, and they cost $30,000 a piece.
The drone is sacrificed for the sake of data collection, keeping the G-IV flying safely ahead or and around the storm, not into it. The plane flies seven miles per minute, at 45,000 feet, high enough to see the curvature of the Earth.
They are named after Muppets characters. The one that came to Naples is called Gonzo because of the size of its radar antenna. Others are named Kermit and Miss Piggy.
Each flight mission, which lasts about eight hours, is carefully plotted on the ground. But once the wheels go up, hurricanes often don't follow the plan, said Lt. Cmdr. Jason Mansour.
"It's a realization that the hurricane is alive," he said.
McFadden, now the chief of programs for NOAA's Aircraft Operations Center, said his journeys into the eyes of hurricanes, where the C-130s go, have ranged from "terrifying, sheer rock hard turbulence" to serene pleasure, he said.
None, though, compares to the flight into Hurricane Hugo in 1989.
"I'm telling you, we were slammed around every which way," McFadden said. "Things were flying everywhere."
He's thinking about the 180-pound life raft, the one that slipped out from its straps when Hugo swung the back end of the cargo plane around.
The plane dropped, the raft jumped to the ceiling, and just as quickly came back down, landing six inches from where McFadden sat, still strapped in.
He said you can still see the dent the raft made in the overhead handrail.
With a little motivation from a floating plastic ball, Lessly Trejo helps her daughter, Bella Miaflores, 1, learn how to swim at the Sanchez-Casal Academy Pool on Saturday, May 21, 2016, in Naples. Hosted by the Naples Swim School, the classes help parents better understand how to properly train their small children to safely swim in the pool. May is National Drowning Prevention Month. (Luke Franke/Staff)
SHARE Naples Swim School managing director Dan Little helps parents safely introduce their small children, ranging from 5 1/2 months to 3 years, to swimming at the Sanchez-Casal Academy Pool on Saturday, May 21, 2016, in Naples. May is National Drowning Prevention Month. (Luke Franke/Staff) Naples Swim School managing director Dan Little helps parents safely introduce their small children, ranging from 5 1/2 months to 3 years, to swimming at the Sanchez-Casal Academy Pool on Saturday, May 21, 2016, in Naples. May is National Drowning Prevention Month. (Luke Franke/Staff) Patrick McGirl, helps his son, Luca McGirl, 2, float on his back during a pool exercise hosted by the Naples Swim School at the Sanchez-Casal Academy Pool on Saturday, May 21, 2016 in Naples. The classes help parents understand how to properly train their small children to safely swim in the pool. May is National Drowning Prevention Month. (Luke Franke/Staff) Naples Swim School instructors Mary Navidonski, left, and Kirsten Little help Cooper Peters, 3, safely swim to the edge of the pool during a swimming lesson at the Sanchez-Casal Academy Pool on Saturday, May 21, 2016 in Naples. The classes help parents understand how to properly train their small children to safely swim in the pool. May is National Drowning Prevention Month. (Luke Franke/Staff)
By Alexi C. Cardona of the Naples Daily News
There may be no splash, no sound, no warning.
Drownings happen in an instant, and seconds matter when trying to save a child from permanent brain damage or death.
May is National Drowning Prevention Month, and water safety advocates in Collier County work to continually spread the message that children need to be supervised and taught how to swim.
"There's nothing soft about drowning prevention messages," said TJ Snopkowski, administrator for the NCH Safe and Healthy Children's Coalition of Collier County and chairman of the Collier County Drowning Prevention Committee. "Drowning is preventable. The message needs to be out there that there are risks all around, and children need to be protected."
According to the Florida Department of Health, more children younger than 5 drown in Florida than in any other state. In 2013, Florida had the highest unintentional drowning rate in the nation for children ages 1 to 4.
Drowning is the leading cause of death of children ages 1 to 4 in Collier County, according to the Safe and Healthy Children's Coalition.
The organization emphasizes that multiple layers of protection are key to prevent drowning.
The 2014 Florida building code requires that private swimming pools have at least one of the following: a minimum 4-foot-tall barrier around the entire pool; self-closing, self-latching devices on doors leading to the pool with a release mechanism at least 54 inches above the floor; a pool cover; or exit alarms with a sound rating of 85 decibels on all windows and doors that face the pool.
"No single layer of protection can drown-proof a child," said Dr. C. Todd Vedder, a pediatrician for Healthcare Network of Southwest Florida. "The first and most critical ingredient is to get the whole concept of drowning on a parent's radar screen. A lot of people, including myself when I first came here, don't realize how accessible water hazards are and how many children die due to drowning."
Snopkowski has been a lifeguard and swim instructor for several years. He recommends enrolling children in swim classes as soon as they are developmentally ready. Vedder said a child's pediatrician can help parents determine when kids are ready for swimming lessons.
"Don't rely on water wings, because they're not guaranteed to save your child's life," Snopkowski said. "Get them into swim lessons and know the certifying body of your instructors. Beware of people without the appropriate certifications trying to cash in on private lessons."
Vedder said supervision near water is also key.
"Children can drown in just an inch of water, but the preponderance of data shows that pools and lakes are some of the greatest hazards" he said. "You have to have a dedicated adult watching at all times because it only takes seconds to cause permanent brain injury or death."
The most recent drowning death and injury data from the Florida Department of Health is from 2014. That year in Collier County, two people ages 5 to 19 drowned; eight people were taken to emergency rooms with nonfatal injuries, six of whom were age 4 and younger; and one child age 1 to 4 was hospitalized.
According to Vedder and Snopkowski, two children have drowned in 2016. An 18-month-old nearly drowned in a rental home pool on Marco Island in late March. The boy was treated at NCH and was taken off life support after several days, Vedder said. In early April, an 11-month-old boy drowned in a pool while visiting family in Golden Gate Estates.
"Drowning is permanent," Vedder said. "We'll never know what a child would've grown up to be. It's a scar that lives with you for the rest of your days."
Through partnerships with other organizations, the Safe and Healthy Children's Coalition has made a mission of putting preventative messages everywhere, from doctor's offices to beaches. Local pediatrician's offices have water safety and drowning prevention pamphlets available. Doctors with the Healthcare Network of Southwest Florida are now required to ask parents about the water hazards present in their homes.
The coalition's mascot, Stewie the Duck, is touring schools and community events to teach children about swimming. The local U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary and the coalition installed life jacket loaner stations on local beaches, including Clam Pass Park, Delnor-Wiggins State Park, Vanderbilt Beach, South Marco Beach, Tigertail Beach, the Naples Pier, Barefoot Beach and Lowdermilk Park.
The Healthcare Network is also giving out 4,000 window and door alarms at seven pediatric clinic locations.
"We're working with everyone we can to push the message out there and get drowning prevention on everyone's minds," Snopkowski said.
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Swimming lessons for children and adults are offered at the following locations in Collier County:
Greater Naples YMCA - 5450 YMCA Rd., 239-597-3148, www.ymcapalms.org (Ages 6 months +)
- 5450 YMCA Rd., 239-597-3148, www.ymcapalms.org (Ages 6 months +) Greater Marco Family YMCA - 101 Sand Hill St., 239-394-3144, www.marcoislandymca.org (Ages 6 months +). Financial Assistance Greater Marco Family YMCA
- 101 Sand Hill St., 239-394-3144, www.marcoislandymca.org (Ages 6 months +). Financial Assistance Greater Marco Family YMCA Sun-N-Fun Lagoon - 15000 Livingston Rd., 239-252-4021, www.collierparks.com (Ages 6 months +). Financial Assistance Collier County Parks & Recreation
- 15000 Livingston Rd., 239-252-4021, www.collierparks.com (Ages 6 months +). Financial Assistance Collier County Parks & Recreation Golden Gate Aquatic Facility - 3300 Santa Barbara Blvd., 239-252-6128, www.collierparks.com (Ages 6 months +). Financial Assistance Collier County Parks & Recreation
- 3300 Santa Barbara Blvd., 239-252-6128, www.collierparks.com (Ages 6 months +). Financial Assistance Collier County Parks & Recreation Immokalee Sports Complex - 505 Escambia St., 239-657-1951, www.collierparks.com (Ages 5 years +). Financial Assistance Collier County Parks & Recreation
- 505 Escambia St., 239-657-1951, www.collierparks.com (Ages 5 years +). Financial Assistance Collier County Parks & Recreation City of Naples River Park Aquatic Center - 451 11th Street North, 239-213-3037, www.naplesgov.com (Ages 3 years +). Financial Assistance City of Napless
River Park Aquatic Center - 451 11th Street North, 239-213-3037, www.naplesgov.com (Ages 3 years +). Financial Assistance City of Napless South County Family YMCA - 27200 Kent Rd. Bonita Beach, 239-221-7560, www.southcountyfamilyymca.org (Ages 6 months +)
- 27200 Kent Rd. Bonita Beach, 239-221-7560, www.southcountyfamilyymca.org (Ages 6 months +) American Red Cross Collier County Chapter - 239-596-6868, www.colliercountyredcross.org (Ages 6 months +)
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James F. Lally, Naples
Honoring vets
President Obama's announcement that he will visit Hiroshima and its Peace Park rekindled the debate about the United States' decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the waning days of World War II.
Critics may, appropriately or not, view his actions as honoring the victims of the bombings that were caught in the cruel crossfire of history.
He could also honor those aging American veterans of the Pacific Theater by following this itinerary.
As Air Force One departs the main islands of Japan and flies 750 miles south and east, Obama will see, as the pilot descends to a lower altitude, a barren volcanic island dominated by Mount SuribachiIwo Jima. Historians have recorded that during the epic battle for the island, the U.S. sustained 26,000 casualties with 7,000 killed.
Farther south and west in the Philippines, outside Manila, the president should visit Manila American Cemetery. It is the largest grave site of servicemen killed in World War II 17,201. Then as the journey continues eastward, and as Obama returns to his home state of Hawaii and Honolulu, he will have a special memory if he visits the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific as his grandfather, Stanley Dunham, is buried there.
Finally, in his return to the White House, a slight detour to view Arlington National Cemetery in twilight with the Iwo Jima Memorial silhouetted against a burnt orange sky will be in order.
This itinerary will be a final salute for many from their commander in chief to "the greatest generation" and it will also be a reminder that many of their comrades-in-arms made the ultimate sacrifice.
Key players in 2022-23 Silly Season Can you hear it? Just listen. That is the sound of the NASCAR rumor mill starting up, and there are plenty of questions to answer for 2023.
Doctors told they should ask patients about seatbelt use, sexual activity and GUNS
Using mental health records to refuse firearm sales
(NaturalNews) The American College of Physicians, the second largest physician group in the U.S., is pushing doctors to question patients about firearm safety , as shown in a new report published in theThe report reminds doctors that the law doesn't prevent them from asking patients about firearms, and encourages them to inquire more about firearm ownership."Yes, You Can: Physicians, Patients, and Firearms" sends a loud and controversial message to doctors, suggesting that they "counsel" patients about firearms just as they do other health related matters, and that "when necessary," they disclose the information to third parties Doctors have "unique opportunities" when it comes to preventing gun violence, the report reads, adding that despite what you might think, no state or federal laws prevent you from discussing firearms with your patients.However, that is not exactly true.Florida's "Docs vs. Glocks" case ruled that physicians are limited in terms of what they can say about a patient's gun ownership . The law prevents doctors from putting that information into a patient's medical record, if the physician agrees it's irrelevant to the patient's medical care or safety. This is for good reason, as gun registries make it a lot easier for the government to confiscate firearms.Outside the state of Florida, physicians are able to ask routine questions about patient firearm ownership, including "when the patient provides information or exhibits behavior suggesting an acutely increased risk for violence, whether to himself or others, or when the patient possesses other individual-level risk factors for violence, such as alcohol abuse," says theDoctors aren't involved in these conversations often enough, the reports adds. "Asking about firearm access is an issue of health - just like asking about car seats, alcohol use, sexual behavior, and smoking," said coauthor Dr. Megan L. Ranney, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Assistant Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice at Brown University.Ranney's reasoning is completely illogical. Questions about sexual activity cannot be compared to firearm ownership, since the latter is a Constitutional right. Doctors can't stop people from having unsafe sex or drinking booze, but through gun registries they could certainly threaten an individual's right to own a firearm . In fact, this is already happening.Following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, back in 2012, President Obama vowed to implement "common sense" gun control, which included the creation of a registry that would report the names of people diagnosed with mental illnesses to the FBI Today, the FBI is in possession of more than 3 million mental health records, which it has used to deny more than 6,000 firearm purchases, reported in January.Based on the American College of Physicians' report, it appears that the government is looking to expand the program even further."Once you've put information in a computer, then it's anybody's game," said Larry Pratt, Executive Director for Gun Owners of America, hinting that the information could end up in anyone's hands."I would say a 14-year-old would be able to obtain that data. The Canadians had a registry for long guns for several years, and they found the thing was being hacked, typically by younger people because they're so good at computers. They finally took the registry down. So if the Canadians have learned that you can't put this kind of sensitive information in some central pot, then hopefully we'll learn from them," he added. poll completed by NPR three years ago found that only one-third of participants believe healthcare providers should question patients about the presence of guns at home. About 44 percent said they supported banning doctors from asking about guns, while 37 percent said that they were against preventing physicians from asking about guns.
For some people, getting some action in the bedroom is a fun thing, but for parasites, it's tough love. Called traumatic insemination, this mating process for some insects involves the male parasite stabbing the female with its penis. Ouch!
National Geographic reports that this bizarre mating procedure is practiced among worms, spiders, bedbugs and a winged insect called S. ovinae. A recent study published in the journal Scientific Reports reveals how the painful traumatic insemination is done among the insects.
According to the study, due to the winged male's short lifespan of just a few hours ad the females lack of eyes, wings and genitalia, the male has to attach itself to the female and stab its body cavity with its hook-shaped penis. By stabbing the female's neck, sperm is inserted into the insect's body for egg fertilization.
But why do males specifically target the neck, you say? The researchers revealed that female S. ovinae has a fertilizing pocket in their necks to stage the sperm injection. However, the tough love doesn't end there. Once the female S. ovinae yields an offspring, the larvae abandons the female after eating her alive.
Michael Siva-Jothy of the U.K.'s University of Sheffield, said "This is a really elegant and clever study that adds a new piece of evidence to what we know about traumatic insemination."
It's also the same situation among bedbugs. A 2000 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America says that different from neck pockets among S. ovinae, male bedbugs stab and inject their sperm in the abdominal wall of female bedbugs, wounding the latter.
Also, female bedbugs do not necessarily benefit from the mating process, saying that "traumatic insemination is probably a coercive male copulatory strategy that results in a sexual conflict of interests."
For a more closer look of this wildy weird copulation among insects, watch the video below:
When Kuno and Jessica Copelands neighbor moved out of their quiet San Francisco neighborhood, they had no idea their life was about to be turned completely upside down.
Within the first week, they noticed crowds of people coming and going from the house next door, sometimes hanging out on the sidewalk drinking and smoking. They said strangers carrying luggage, shuttled in by a constant stream of Uber cars, would mistakenly ring their doorbell late at night.
Then they noticed the lock on their neighbors door had been replaced with an electronic key pad.
I think after the first couple of days when about 15 to 20 people showed up, we put the pieces together and realized this isnt a tenant situation, this is an Airbnb situation, Kuno Copeland said.
The Copelands suspicions were confirmed when they found a listing on Airbnb advertising the home as a crash pad for travelers. Overnight, the 930 square foot home next door had been turned into a hostel where guests could stay for $33 a night. Even the garage was being rented out.
The situation was unnerving, Copeland said, especially since they had a newborn baby at home.
Listings and reviews posted on Airbnb say the small three bedroom house could accommodate up to 20 guests and showed photos of bunk beds stacked side by side. There are only two bathrooms for about 20 people at max capacity and has a high turnover rate, one guest wrote in a review.
30 bucks a night and they pack em in tight, Copeland said. I cant believe that many people would be in a room this small.
An NBC Bay Area investigation into the illegal use of short-term rental platforms found dozens of other ads for hostel-like accommodations on websites such as Airbnb, VRBO and Craigslist. Many appeared to be in violation of the citys short-term rental laws, which state homeowners and tenants are only permitted to rent out their primary residence and only for a maximum of 90 days a year unless the homeowner or tenant is also present. In addition, each host must register their short-term rental with the citys Office of Short-Term Rentals.
The laws are designed to prevent homeowners from turning rental properties into unlicensed hotels or hostels. While some of the advertised units reviewed by NBC Bay Area were properly registered with the city, many had the telltale signs of an illegal hotel: no registration, beds crammed into as many rooms as possible, and no signs of a permanent resident.
NBC Bay Area went undercover to a short-term rental to see what a potentially illegal hotel looked like on the inside. Our crew rented a bunk bed at a 9th Avenue apartment for $42 a night. Inside, they found 14 beds packed into a three bedroom apartment and no signs it was someones primary home. At full occupancy, the owner could potentially make more than $17,000 a month listing the three bedroom apartment as a short-term rental.
Critics say the rise in these illegal hotels and hostels is exacerbating San Franciscos affordable housing crisis by taking rental units off the market. In many cases, landlords can make double or triple what they can charge a tenant in rent by advertising their home on a short-term rental platform instead.
What Im particularly concerned about is the loss of affordable housing, San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin said. Pennsylvania State University and the Citys own Budget and Legislative Analyst both estimate some 2,000 units of permanently affordable housing have been removed by unscrupulous players and turned into illegal twenty-four-seven, 365-days-a-year hotels.
Peskin said the City estimates more than 75% of all short term rental units are not legally registered with the City.
But a top executive at Airbnb, the most popular home sharing platform on the market, said hes skeptical the service is having a significant impact on the cost of housing in San Francisco. The company doesnt deny that most listings are unregistered, but cites a survey of the Airbnb community that found 85% of users say they rent out their primary residence to make ends meet, which doesnt impact the stock of available rental units.
The citys objective of the law is to make sure youre not taking long term rentals off the market, that youre not running illegal hotels, said Chris Lehane, Director of Global Affairs for Airbnb. Any objective analysis of the Airbnb hosts and what our platform looks like makes it abundantly clear that this is overwhelmingly everyday people using the houses that they live in on an occasional basis. Thats what it is and thats very consistent with the point of the law.
Lehane said Airbnb has been vigilant about removing listings from users who appear to have multiple listings. The company has taken down nearly 200 properties in 2016, he said.
Yet some city officials say Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms arent doing enough to curb bad actors. The Office of Short-Term Rentals sent letters to the major players in the industry, including Airbnb, asking for more assistance enforcing the Citys laws. The letter asked the companies to identify hosts with multiple listings, require hosts to list their registration number, and deactivate listings that are not occupied by a permanent San Francisco resident. However, the agency said the platforms have done little to cooperate.
Peskin and fellow supervisor David Campos co-authored legislation in April that would mandate platforms to help police their own sites. Without that cooperation, they say enforcement is nearly impossible. The legislation would make hosting platforms verify hosts are registered with the City before they could list their home on the website. Platforms could face penalties of up to $1,000 a day for any unregistered listings.
The hosting platforms have perfect access to all of this information, Peskin said. They know which individuals are renting out multiple units. They can block them from their website. They can share that information with the City so that we can return these thousands of units back to our rental market and help bring down rent in San Francisco.
Airbnb says all of those unregistered users are signs the Citys registration process is overly complicated and time consuming, not evidence of unscrupulous actors trying to cheat the system.
Its incredibly complex, Lehane said. It makes going to the DMV the equivalent of a walk in the park. For the average person, it takes 30 days to do it.
Lehane said the complicated registration process makes it burdensome on users who depend on the platform to avoid evictions and foreclosures. He also questioned whether it was appropriate for a private sector company to act as an enforcement arm of the government.
Philosophically we dont necessarily believe that we should be an enforcement agency, Lehane said. Can we work with the City if we have a simpler process to make sure the City has the tools and access it needs? Absolutely.
But Peskin and Campos call it corporate accountability, which they say short-term rental platforms are spending big bucks to avoid.
These are incredibly powerful players, Peskin said. When Supervisor Campos and I introduced legislation, the next day Airbnb made over a quarter of a million in political campaign contributions to individuals who will support their efforts and thwart our laws.
Airbnb disputes the timing. A spokesman said these records show the company filed contributions on April 22 to initiatives to support parks and healthcare reform.
But records from the SF Ethics committee show the contributions were recorded with its office April 25-28. Supervisor Peskins Office also confirmed Airbnb was aware of the proposal several days before it was officially introduced on April 27.
On the periphery of the battle between San Francisco and short-term rental platforms are residents like the Copelands, who feel the impact when these illegal hotel opens up shop next door. Theyre frustrated with both the City and the hosting platforms for not doing enough to enforce the law.
I think some of the bigger tech firms including Airbnb are lobbying the City and their leadership in a way that maybe doesnt protect or serve the best interests of their constituents, Kuno Copeland said. One of the major issues is what happens when people are left behind.
Both the Copelands neighbor and the owner of the 9th Avenue apartment declined to comment for the story.
Airbnb says they have suspended both listings while they investigate.
_____________________________
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Watch the entire series in this NBC Bay Area investigation:
Hunger strikers and activists are taking steps to begin a recall effort for San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee.
The push to remove Lee from City Hall comes a day after Greg Suhr resigned from his post as police chief.
"I will do anything in my power to see that happens because he has failed our city," activist Cristina Gutierrez of the mayor.
Gutierrez is one of five hunger strikers who slept on the street for more than 10 days demanding Suhr be replaced after a string of officer-involved shootings.
After Suhr resigned Thursday, Gutierrez's group, Frisco 5, and other activists called for Lee to also step down.
"Somehow since he became mayor we're losing our homes and police are murdering people like crazy," Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez said the group on Friday afternoon filed a notice of intention to circulate a recall petition with the Department of Elections.
Acting Police Chief Toney Chaplin, who was appointed by Lee to the be the city's top cop, on Friday said the department has to move forward.
Chaplin, a 26-year veteran, said his top priorities include body camera rollouts for officers and re-examining the department's use of force policy.
"I'm going to do a top to bottom assessment of everything we do," Chaplin said.
Gutierrez is eager for the city's new top cop to meet the community.
Suhr resigned Thursday at the behest of the mayor, hours after a 29-year-old woman was shot to death by one of his sergeants.
The woman was identified by the medical examiner's office as San Francisco-resident Jessica Williams.
The Palo Alto community is still grieving the loss of young lives after two suicide clusters in the past seven years.
Now, the father of a Gunn High School senior who took his life last year is speaking out to parent and urging them to take seriously the threat of mental illness.
TC Lee has visited two churches with a cautionary tale after the death of his son Harry Lee.
Lee says his 17-year old son was a joke-telling, artistic student who loved to help others. Yet, he confessed to his parents he was depressed. Just a month later, Harry committed suicide in his home in January 2015.
It was a shock for me, said Lee. We didnt know [depression] can be so dangerous until it hit us. But it can hit anybody.
Lee has spoken to congregations about the need to keep teens safe from academic and cultural pressures.
The Asian, Chinese culture, and also a lot of high achieving culture here, is performance based. So your kids have a good score, go to good school, and has very good achievement, you praise it. But if they have something they are very proud of themselves but cannot necessarily lead into a good career, or good school, then we dont think thats important, Lee said. I think the most important thing is to praise your kids and accept who they are, not what they do. To accept them today, not what theyre going to be in the future.
Lee, who has since moved from Palo Alto, says speaking out is a way of honoring his son. He has also changed his hairstyle and gotten piercings and a tattoo in honor of his son. He says he was displeased with his sons physical expression, but has now mimicked it to communicate to Harry he fully accepts who he was.
Harry, dad is very proud of you. I wish I could say that before he passed away. I wish I could say to Harry your hair is beautiful.
Lee, who is a religious man, says he struggled deeply after his sons passing. He prayed to God for a sign that his sons spirit was ok.
Around the same time, Lee says he had been having dreams of a watermelon that was cut from a vine. In the recurring dream, the vine produced a new vibrant watermelon that spreads seeds throughout farmland.
He says soon after crying bitter tears, a package was delivered to his home. Someone had given his family old drawings and letters from Harry. In the first envelope, was a drawing of a watermelon. Harrys signature was next to the image.
Harry became like that watermelon, Lee said. He died, but spread the seeds.
Lee is considering more parent talks in the future, though none are currently scheduled.
A North Carolina man is in custody after allegedly shooting the mother of his daughter Friday and then abducting the child, police said.
Devon Anthony Whaley, 24, is facing attempted murder charges. He was arrested Saturday after a traffic stop and the toddler was found safe inside his vehicle.
The shooting happened at about 7:30 p.m. ET in a residential area in Youngsville, according to NBC affiliate WRAL. The mother, who was not identified, attempted to flee the scene in her car, but crashed less than a mile away.
The mother, who was not identified, was in intensive care, Youngsville Police Chief Daren Kirts told NBC News. Whaley has a history of domestic violence, he added.
After launching a pilot program to test lead levels in Chicago Public Schools, the district announced Friday that it would expand testing after lead levels were detected at some schools.
"Were going to test every single water outlet in the district and were going to do it on an expedited basis and make any adjustments we might occur," said CPS CEO Forrest Claypool.
CPS received test results from the first 32 schools tested within the last month Thursday night. The results show that 236 samples were taken and 218 detected no lead. Of the 32 tested schools, 25 had no traces of lead, six had levels of lead below EPA standards and one school had levels of lead exceeding EPA standards.
Tanner Elementary School was found to have three water fountains with lead in exceeding amounts. The impacted fountains were turned off and there will be additional diagnostic testing at the school, officials said.
Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health Dr. Julie Morita called the incident an isolated situation.
We are not Flint, Michigan, and what CPS and the Department of Water Management we have been doing is out of an abundance of caution," she said. "We know the vast majority of children who are lead poisoned in the city of Chicago are lead poisoned as a result of lead-based paint."
If parents are concerned, they can contact their health care provider, Morita added.
A letter was sent out to Tanner families Friday outlining the test results.
"CPS is working with CPS Facilities Management and the Chicago Department of Water Management (DWM) to determine the precise cause of the elevated lead levels, and will make any necessary remediations that will provide a long-term solution," the letter reads.
But parents expressed concern and uncertainty over the results.
"I'm very upset right about now," said parent Edwin Barnes.
"My kids go there every day and drink the water," added Rayal Blackman. "And my kids, at this age, they drink a lot of fountain water."
"I just want to know why there would be lead in a Chicago public school system?" asked Kareem El, whose son is in kindergarten.
There is a meeting planned at Tanner next Tuesday for parents to address concerns following the test results.
A total of 250 schools will now be tested. These are schools that have been in place before 1986 that could have lead piping.
Claypool said the lead testing was not linked to complaints but was rather sparked by the Flint, Michigan water crisis, which focused on the dangers of lead pipes, according to the Sun-Times.
The mayor's office echoed Claypoool's sentiment at the time.
While CPS has no indication that there is any lead present in school water, CPS has launched a pilot program to develop a standard approach for testing across the district, a city statement released in April said.
Testing initially began last month at the CPS schools chosen based on criteria including the age of the school, its students and the condition of pipes, officials said. About 80 percent of city buildings are connected to water mains by lead pipes, which were banned in 1986, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The report also noted that schools were also chosen based on whether they have a kitchen where meals are prepared and whether they have pipes in need of repairs.
List of schools in the pilot:
Burr
Canty
Coonley
Crown
De Diego
Dett
Ericson
Evers
Hefferan
Mahalia Jackson
Jamieson
Jungman
Kellman
Kozminski
Lenart
Mays
Neil
Nicholson
Parker
Pritzker
Saucedo/Telpochcalli
South Shore ES
Stagg
Sumner
Tanner
Harold Washington ES
Webster
Westcott
Schools that paid for testing:
Burley
Chopin
Ogden
Ravenswood
A Federal judge stuck to his guns Friday, ruling the city cannot just admit that a code of silence exists within the Chicago Police Department -- he wants to hear Mayor Rahm Emanuel describe it for himself.
The testimony was ordered for a case where two veteran police officers, Shannon Spalding and Daniel Echeverria, say they faced retaliation after attempting to expose corruption in the Ida B. Wells housing project on Chicagos South Side.
Officers and supervisors were involved with running the narcotics trade, Spalding told NBC5 Investigates. It became very clear that there was not going to be an unbiased investigation.
After Emanuel spoke of an unwritten code in remarks before the Chicago City Council last fall, Spalding and Echeverrias attorneys added the mayor to their potential witness list. City lawyers fought to exclude his testimony, even offering to stipulate to the existence of the so-called code."
But Judge Gary Feinerman refused, ruling that Emanuel would offer "further evidence of an unwritten policy and practice."
Outside court, attorney Jeffrey Taren, one of the lawyers representing the two officers, welcomed the news of Emanuels likely testimony.
Its obvious the City wants to suppress any reference to the code of silence, he said. Were looking forward to it.
But that wasnt the officers only victory. Over city objections, the Judge also ruled that the Spalding and Echeverria can introduce the findings of the recent police accountability task force.
The code of silence is not just an unwritten rule, or an unfortunate element of police culture past and present, the task force wrote. The code of silence is institutionalized and reinforced by CPD rules and policies.
It is extraordinarily prejudicial, city attorney Alan King told the court. I think it is an inappropriate position to be put in.
But the judge refused to bar introduction of the report, calling its value undeniable, and reminding King and his team they can attempt to punch holes in the task forces credibility.
That puts the City in another difficult position, potentially questioning the validity of a scathing report on police operations, even as the mayor promised to adopt a majority of its findings.
Far from a case about the lone experiences of a pair of officers, attorneys have made clear they intend to raise the spectre of a pattern of behavior in the department which resulted in the punishment of their clients.
Officers who went and did the right thing by going to the FBI against fellow officers and supervisors, are being treated horrifically for doing the right thing, Spalding and Echeverrias attorney Christopher Smith told NBC5 last January. The lawsuit deals with the way the Chicago police department and its supervisors treat people who go against their own.
Fridays repeated rulings against the City only increased pressure for the Emanuel administration to settle the officers case. Barring that, the City faces the embarrassing possibility not only of the Mayors testimony, but also potentially troubling scenes of commanders taking the fifth amendment, and public allegations that corrupt cops were allowed to go free.
These are criminal allegations, really serious allegations, Spalding said. Ninety nine percent of the officers go to work and they serve with honor every day. But the ones who are bad, are really bad.
Dozens of girls without fathers had some very special escorts to the Chicago Police Department's second annual 'Daddy Daughter Dance' on Friday night.
The Chicago Police Department sponsored the event at the South Shore Cultural Center after the first-ever dance last spring was a major success.
Fathers and daughters in the community were invited to attend, and police officers stepped in to escort many of the girls without fathers on their big night.
"After last year's event, we had several officers and the young ladies that they escorted, they kept up with one another and it really bridged a gap," said Sgt. Kimberly Woods. "It let the girls know that officers are just people too and we dance, and we dance funny like your dads do."
This year's theme was "All Shades Are Beautiful," and participants enjoyed dancing, refreshments, and even goodie bags from officers and sponsors. 150 girls attended Friday's dance, doubling last year's attendance.
The Chicago Police Department and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives planned the dance to encourage healthy relationships between daughters and their fathers.
The world's second-oldest female orangutan, who lived at Brookfield Zoo, has died, according to the Chicago Zoological Society.
Maggie, a 55-year-old Bornean orangutan, was Euthanized Friday "a gradual decline in her health, as degenerative changes associated with her advanced age began to severely impact her quality of life," Brookfield Zoo said in a statement posted on Facebook.
The Zoological Society initially identified her as the oldest, but later said she was the second-oldest known orangutan in the world.
She suffered from arthritis, heart disease, hypothyroidism, and round cell sarcoma, according to Brookfield Zoo's veterinary staff.
Born at San Diego Zoo in 1961, she was described as curious, intelligent, and playful by the primate staff who cared for her. Maggie had four offsprings while there before being transfered to Brookfield Zoo in 1995, where she served as a surrogate mother to two infants. The youngest, Kecil, is now 2 1/2 years old.
"Maggie will be truly missed," Brookfield's Animal Programs Department said of their "beloved" orangutan.
A senior commander of the Afghan Taliban confirmed on Sunday that the extremist group's leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansur, has been killed in a U.S. drone strike.
Mullah Abdul Rauf, who recently reconciled with Mansur after initially rebelling against his ascension to the leadership, told The Associated Press that Mansur died in the strike late Friday "in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area."
The office of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani confirmed in a statement that the strike took place but could not confirm Mansur's death.
Today DoD carried out a precision airstrike targeting Taliban leader Mullah Mansur. Another step to make our troops safer in Afghanistan Alyssa Farah (@PentagonPresSec) May 21, 2016
Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, however, said that Mansur is "more than likely" dead.
Speaking live on television as he chaired a Cabinet meeting, Abdullah said Mansur's death would have a positive impact on attempts to bring peace to Afghanistan, where the Taliban have been waging an insurgency for 15 years.
Mansur was "the main figure preventing the Taliban joining the peace process," Abdullah said. "From the day he took over the Taliban following the death of Mullah Omar, he intensified violence against ordinary citizens, especially in Afghanistan."
Mansur formally led the Taliban after the death was announced last summer of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the movement's founder.
Mansur, Mullah Omar's deputy, concealed Mullah Omar's death for more than two years, and ran the Taliban in his name until the death was revealed by the Afghan government.
The revelation caused wide fissures in the movement that Mansur worked hard to mend.
Mullah Rauf was an early detractor of Mansur's but decided earlier this year to declare loyalty to him in the interest of unifying the movement.
Earlier, the U.S. Department of Defense said a drone strike had targeted Mansur "in a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region."
Afghan officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be named as they were not authorized to speak to media on the subject, said the drone strike took place in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, in the Ahmad Wal area.
The Afghan government has long accused the Pakistani authorities of harboring and supporting the Afghan Taliban.
The drone strike targeted Mansur's vehicle which was carrying Mansur and one other person at the time, a U.S. military source said.
Another Taliban source identified the driver as Muhammad Azam Hasanai, and said the vehicle the two men were traveling in was completely destroyed in the drone strike.
Former "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart and his wife are giving a new home to a horse that was shot more than 100 times at close range with paintballs and lost an eye from her injuries.
Stewart and his wife, Tracey, adopted the 20-year-old horse named Lily. They have a farm in Middletown, New Jersey.
Lily was found at a sales stables in New Holland, Pennsylvania, in March. Police say the horse needed surgery to remove the injured eye. The Lancaster County SPCA has been caring for her.
Phillip Price, of East Providence, Rhode Island, was convicted Friday in New Holland of animal cruelty and other charges accusing him of injuring the horse.
The Stewarts partnered with Farm Sanctuary last year to open an animal sanctuary at their farm.
RHAM Middle School in Hebron promised maximum security as students and teachers head back to classes today after a threatening message was found in a bathroom Friday that warned something harmful would unfold at the school on Monday.
State police are trying to figure out who was behind the hateful message.
While their investigation continues, parents must decide what to do with their children and whether to send them to school.
Its something parents take to heart because you see whats going on in the world today, says Jordan Porter, a substitute teacher at RHAM.
Porter and other teachers, students and parents received an alert involving RHAM Middle School in which the superintendent warned the community of the threat and laid out what precautions were being taken.
Working with the State Police, a plan was developed to provide for maximum security all day Monday. As part of that security plan we have requested that the State Police provide bomb sniffing dogs for a full sweep of the building prior to opening on Monday morning, Dr. Robert Siminski, superintendent of Regional School District No. 8, wrote.
Students and staff should expect to see more State Police and Hebron Police patrolling the campus.
People NBC Connecticut talked to, including substitute teacher Jordan Porter, were happy with the districts response to the threat.
Its very scary and were going to take any threat seriously at the school, Porter said.
Even with all the precautions theyre taking the district will understand if parents want to keep their child home from school on Monday, the superintendent said.
A man charged with killing six people during a night of random shootings in Michigan was dragged out of court Friday after bizarre outbursts during testimony by a woman who survived the rampage.
A judge called a recess and ordered Jason Dalton to jail where he can participate by video. Tiana Carruthers sobbed loudly on the witness stand while stunned relatives of other victims watched him be hauled away by deputies.
Judge Christopher Haenicke must decide whether there's probable cause to send Dalton to trial on charges of murder and attempted murder in southwestern Michigan's Kalamazoo County. It's a low threshold; prosecutors don't have to present all their evidence.
Dalton made strange references Friday to "old people with these old black bags." The judge cut him off after he said, "It's time to get to temple."
Police said Dalton, 45, was driving for Uber when he shot eight people on Feb. 20 at three locations in the Kalamazoo area; six of them died. Police have quoted Dalton as saying a "devil figure" on Uber's app was controlling him. He's been found competent to understand the charges and assist his lawyer.
Before the hearing was interrupted, Carruthers, 25, described how she was with children outside an apartment building when Dalton drove up.
"He cut us off," she testified. "I actually grabbed the children because he almost hit us."
Carruthers was the first person shot that day, and police credit her with shielding the children from possible injury.
North Texans have heard a lot about West Nile virus and Zika virus over the past few years, but now another mosquito-carried illness is joining the list in Denton.
On Friday, the City of Denton announced a mosquito trapped off of West University Drive and Gay Street, near the Rayzor Ranch shopping area, tested positive for California Serogroup virus.
City Environmental Services Director Dr. Ken Banks said the illness, and even the mosquitoes that carries, it is extremely rare in Texas.
Of all of Dentons trapped mosquitoes, Banks said about 0.3 percent are the flood water mosquito needed to bring the virus around, and statewide could only find about five instances of the illness showing up in mosquitoes since 2009.
Most commonly found in the upper Midwest and mid-Atlantic states, California Serogroup is, as the name suggests, a grouping of viruses that are each very different.
Dr. Banks said most that would show up in this rare case are illnesses that show up in wildlife and arent an issue for humans.
Others though, especially one called La Crosse Encephalitis, are a concern.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, La Crosse virus is a lot like the West Nile virus in that there is a lesser form that carries a lot of flu symptoms and a more serious neuroinvasive disease form that can lead to long term complications, and in very rare situations, death.
Banks said the likelihood of that being in North Texas is very low and that its very unlikely this situation is of a serious health risk to the area, but until they know for sure which of the Serogroup their mosquito carried, they are proceeding with caution.
"We're waiting for an actual virus identification, said Banks. It could come back that it's a wildlife virus, it very likely will. There is a possibility, though, that it could be something like La Crosse, and if that's the case, we're going to have to look into this a little further."
In the meantime, the city has elected to keep their mosquito alert level where it is, but crews are monitoring more aggressively in the area where that sample was trapped earlier this month.
Banks said, regardless of which form of the virus the CDC finds in that sample, the defense against getting it is the same as they recommend with the West Nile virus: use bug spray with deet, avoid the outdoors at dusk and dawn, drain standing water and dress in long sleeves and long pants.
City leaders are awaiting the results of that test and plan to put out more information when they know exactly what they found.
Three bikers arrested after a shooting involving police outside a Waco restaurant have filed lawsuits against local officials, alleging civil rights violations.
The Waco Tribune-Herald reports that Bradley Terwilliger, Benjamin Matcek and Jimmy Dan Smith filed suit Friday in a Travis County federal court seeking unspecified damages.
The suits name McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna, Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman, Waco police officer Manuel Chavez and an unidentified Texas Department of Public Safety agent as defendants.
Altogether, 10 bikers have filed civil suits alleging unlawful arrest and due-process violations. Nearly 200 people were arrested after the May 2015 shooting that left nine dead. Since November, a grand jury has indicted 154 people on charges of engaging in organized criminal activity.
No trial dates have been set
More than two months after she arrived, a rare Peregrine falcon remains at the Rogers Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Hutchins.
"Once she's up, she can fly back and forth, but it's getting from the ground up where she has the problem," said Kathy Rogers, founder of the wildlife center.
Blinded by a March hailstorm in Dallas migrating from Mexico to her home in Winnipeg, Canada, 5-year-old Beatrix quickly regained her sight.
But now, unseen injuries keep her from flying higher than a few feet.
"The x-rays showed the bone structure is fine, there's no breaks, there's no problems visible," Rogers said. "She's either severely pulled a ligament or strained a muscle or any of those things that take time".
Beatrix spends her days outside in a large flight cage, trying to regain her strength for the 1,300 mile flight home to Winnipeg.
"We're still hoping to get her to a point where she is able to fly back, but on her own. But if she's not, we're in the process of trying to make some arrangements to accommodate that," said Rogers.
Beatrix was found on the ground near SMU, on the McCommas Boulevard Bridge over North Central Expressway in Dallas.
A band on Beatrix's leg led Rogers to the Peregrine Falcon Recovery Project in Manitoba, which says Beatrix is something of a local celebrity.
"We have web cams on that particular nest site, so people are able to watch and watch her grow up," said Tracy Maconachie, Project Coordinator with the Manitoba Peregrine Falcon Recovery Project.
"We had a contest to name the chicks and her name was chosen from amongst a whole bunch of names for her," said Maconachie.
After waiting weeks for Beatrix to return, her mate in Winnipeg finally allowed another falcon into the nest, and together they now have four eggs ready to hatch later this month.
"He sort of gave her the cold shoulder for a little while and then Beatrix wasn't turning up, of course. So he thought 'okay, Beatrix isn't coming home, this is a nice young lady,'" said Maconachie.
"It's all good," said Maconachie. "If we can get her back up into fighting form then she'll be ready to go for next year and that's really what we're all trying to have for her as a future."
"Our goal is to get her where she is releasable to fly on her own," said Rogers. "But we're certainly going to help her if she can't."
The Rogers Wildlife Rehabilitation Center has already collected enough donations to fly Beatrix home on a plane if necessary.
As lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender community leaders showed off their new home in Dallas Saturday, they did not shy away from the so-called "bathroom debate" playing out across the country.
Before cutting the ribbon on the new, 20,000 square foot facility near Dallas Love Field, Resource Center CEO Cece Cox brought the bathroom debate front and center before the crowd of hundreds there for the event.
Im going to go there. Im going to talk about the bathrooms right now, said Cox. Its for everyone.
Cox and several other speakers went on to address Lt. Governor Dan Patricks recent stand on the issue in Fort Worth.
Earlier this month, Patrick held a press conference before a Fort Worth ISD board meeting challenging a district policy that will, among other things, allow transgender students to use the restroom or locker room of the gender they identify with. Lt. Patrick said students should only use the restroom or locker room that is on their birth certificate.
Cox said that situation along with violent attacks on gay men in Oak Lawn since last September have created more of a need than ever for their expansion.
"In this whole environment of talking about bathrooms and discrimination against the LGBT community, we're standing for justice and love and equality, she said.
The Resource Center offers several health services to people fighting HIV and AIDS, but also strives to empower the LGBT community through counseling services, youth programs, advocacy, and other offerings. Those services are featured at the new building at 5750 Cedar Springs Road in Dallas.
Along with the new facility, the organization will continue to operate their clinic and food pantry locations at 2701 Reagan Street in Dallas.
As that bathroom debate rages on, visitors to the new Resource Center will notice the bathrooms inside are labeled as gender neutral and say Its for Everyone.
Cox said Saturday that would include, if hed like to come discuss the topic, the Lt. Governor himself.
And if Mr. Patrick and his boss, Greg Abbott, want to come by here and use our restroom, have a chat, have a cup of coffee, we welcome that, she said. They might even learn something.
Lt. Patrick vowed at the state Republican Convention to create a bathroom bill for Texas similar to the one in North Carolina.
Advocates for action on the matter, like Lt. Patrick, say the rules are about safety in the privacy of those public restrooms.
We will pass legislation in the state senate this session to keep men out of ladies rooms and locker rooms and showers and bathrooms, Lt. Patrick told the crowd at the convention.
A small fire shut down a generating tower at the world's largest solar-thermal power plant, leaving the sprawling facility on the California-Nevada border operating at only a third of its capacity, authorities said.
Firefighters had to climb some 300 feet up a boiler tower at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in California after the fire was reported on an upper level around 9:30 a.m. Thursday, fire officials said.
The plant uses mirrors to focus sunlight on boilers at the top of three 459-foot towers, creating steam that drive turbines to produce electricity.
But some misaligned mirrors instead focused sunbeams on a different level of Unit 3, causing electrical cables to catch fire, San Bernardino County Fire Capt. Mike McClintock said.
David Knox, spokesman for plant operator NRG Energy, said it was too early to comment on the cause, which was under investigation.
The fire ignited about two-thirds of the way up the tower, said Jeff Buchanan of Nevada's Clark County Fire Department, which also responded. Plant personnel had the fire out by the time firefighters got there.
Photos showed melted and scorched steam ducts and water pipes.
Knox said the tower was offline while crews assess the damage. He could not immediately say when it would restart.
When fully operational the plant can produce enough power for 140,000 homes, but a second tower is shut down for maintenance, leaving only one running.
It was the first fire at the plant, which opened two years ago on federal land in the Mojave Desert about 45 miles southwest of Las Vegas. The $2.2 billion complex has nearly 350,000 computer controlled mirrors each roughly the size of a garage door that sprawl over roughly 5 square miles of desert.
The search for an attempted murder suspect continued Saturday after a West Covina police officer was shot and wounded, authorities said.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department identified the suspected shooter as Jose Luis Chavez, 47. It wasn't immediately clear if Chavez was a resident of West Covina, but deputies said he is known to frequent the area.
The Sheriff's Department also said he has an extensive criminal record, but did not provide specifics. He is considered armed and dangerous, deputies said.
The shooting was reported around 11:30 p.m. Friday near N. Yaleton Avenue and Badillo Street, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Police said the officer was out on patrol when he approached a man on a bicycle who pulled out a gun. The man and officer exchange gunfire and the officer was struck in the chest, police said. It is unknown if the assailant was wounded.
The officer was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive.
Multiple agencies were assisting with the investigation and search for the gunman. Chavez was described as 6-feet 1-inch tall, weighing 225 pounds, with a left eyebrow piercing.
The neighborhood was on lockdown as authorities searched for him early Saturday. Investigators said Chavez may have been wounded, as they followed a trail of blood a block south of the shooting.
Circumstances leading up to the shooting were unknown, but the Sheriff's Department said Chavez fired rounds as the officer tried to detain him.
Chavez's family said they were confused by the entire situation, revealing he was a father and talented tattoo artist.
"I don't want to believe he actually exchanged gunfire with a police officer," Maria Tijerina, Chavez's sister, said.
His family said he told his daughter he would be right back, and he loved her, before leaving on his bike.
"I can't deny the fact that that's his bike," Tijerina said.
His family told NBC4 he's been to prison many times for drug related offenses but not for violent crimes.
"I've never seen him with a gun or a knife," Tijerina said.
His family had a message for Chavez:
"I can't believe this is something you have done. You need to think about your daughter and mother."
Bill Cosby's wife was deposed in Springfield, Massachusetts, in February, as part of a defamation lawsuit seven women filed against the comedian.
A transcript of the exchange was released late Friday afternoon, but it doesn't offer much insight into Camille Cosby's state of mind, or her marriage. The deposition was testy, with Cosby refusing to answer many questions, even walking out at one point.
Seven women are suing comedian Bill Cosby, claiming he branded them liars after they accused him of sexually assaulting them decades ago. About 50 women have publicly accused Cosby of forcing unwanted sexual contact on them over the course of decades. Cosby has denied the allegations.
Their lawyer deposed Camille Cosby inside a Springfield hotel in February, but she frequently invoked spousal privilege, which legally protects communication between spouses.
"Now, can we agree that throughout your marriage, Mr. Cosby acted with a lack of integrity?" the accusers' lawyer, Joseph Cammarata, asked Camille Cosby.
"I am not answering that," she replied.
"And why not?" asked Cammarata.
"Because of the privilege of privacy," answered Cosby.
Time and again in the six-hour deposition, Cosby refused to answer dozens of questions in a combative back-and-forth about what she knew during her 52-year marriage to Bill Cosby.
Cammarata asked Camille Cosby if her husband used his power and standing "to manipulate young women." She did not answer.
When she was asked what honesty means, she said: "I'm not going to expound on this." When she was told she had to answer the question she said, "I do not have to. I'm done."
The Cosbys have a home in Shelburne Falls, an hour's drive from Springfield, where the lawsuit, seeking unspecified damages, was filed.
In addition to the defamation lawsuit and others, the 78-year-old comedian and actor faces a criminal case in Pennsylvania, where he is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in his home more than a decade ago. He has pleaded not guilty.
In the deposition, Camille Cosby said she never obtained Quaaludes for her own use or someone else's use.
A spokesman for the Cosbys declined to comment on her deposition.
A spokesman for the Cosbys declined to comment on her deposition.
Bill Cosby has been granted a delay for being deposed because of his pending criminal case.
The Found & Forgotten Files are the biggest mysteries within the Broward Sheriff's Office and the cases are extremely difficult to solve.
In the eight years since the launch of Operation Found & Forgotten, only one person has been identified.
It was a case that riddled BSO for a quarter century. Blonde hair and blue eyes stared off into the distance for decades. She was an enigma. Her name was unknown until special investigators posted her case online and crossed their fingers.
"That particular case when we were reviewing it, we had partial fingerprints we could resubmit and have them revisited and in that case, we were fortunate enough to get a hit," said Sgt. Scott Champagne with BSO.
It was Sgt. Champagne's case and the first identified in the Found & Forgotten Files. Her name was Mary Ann Lambert and her brother had recognized her on BSO's website.
Lambert was raped and murdered in 1983, found seven blocks from her home in Pompano Beach. Once detectives knew who she was, the investigation shifted from finding her name to finding her killer.
"It gives a heartbeat to a case that didn't have one. Again, it gave us a little bit of hope, nicknames of people we want to look at. Unfortunately, through the course of time you lose a lot of that," Sgt. Champagne said.
The most recent case in the Found & Forgotten Files was discovered inside a Dania Beach home in 2009. A man's body found badly burned in a fire. Was it homicide or a natural death? Those questions can't be answered when his name is unknown.
Whether the case dates to the 1960's or the last decade, investigators hold onto the evidence.
"We take all of it and hold it in evidence and depending on where the investigation takes us in the future. In the 60s and 70s, they didn't know about DNA. We could be sitting here and 40-50 years from now there could be a new type of science we're not aware of. So we want to hold on to all this for future endeavors as well," said Lt. Ken Kaminsky with BSO.
That means holding on to body parts because bones can help tell the story.
One man's skull was found with his fillings still intact. Capt. Fernando Gajate worked to recreate his face with hopes it will spark someone's memory.
"You don't know if they had a mustache or beard, how bushy their eyebrows were, dimples, things like that, the skull can't tell you that. So it'll be a challenge to find a facial triangle, which is what a person focuses on when they see someone's face," Capt. Gajate explained.
Each of Capt. Gajate's sketches and molds are posted onto the BSO Found & Forgotten website for the public to see. That's the main way detectives expect to get leads on their 66 remaining cases. Until they're identified, it's impossible to hunt down their killers.
"It's not over dramatic to say that, the reality is, there's a potential there's a killer on the loose. Reality could be that he gets away with one and commit another," Sgt. Champagne said.
To learn more about Operation Found & Forgotten and to flip through the files of unsolved cases, click here.
Chaos erupted at a Coral Springs high school, when students acted out after some say they were discouraged from displaying their love for their country on Haitian Flag Day.
The incident occurred at J.P. Taravella High School in Coral Springs Friday.
"It turned into chaos because we felt as if like everybody was judging us," said Alexis Jones, a student at Taravella.
Students said there were food fights, riots and a lot of skipping classes.
The controversy ignited from an incident that occurred Wednesday. Student Danitra Toomer posted on social media that a school administrator snatched her property after she was taking a picture representing her country
"It wasn't fair to me either because I was trying to take pictures and how come they get the stuff taken away," Toomer said.
The student said she was later told to take down her offensive tweets.
Both the administrator and student made amends but that didn't stop some students from disrupting the school day Friday.
Principal of J.P. Taravella, Shawn Cerra, responded to the incident on Twitter: "Some of us throwing food, water bottles, pushing others, refusing to go to class and not listening to any adults?? We're better than this!!!"
He also added: "As you well know, we strive to support ALL of our STUDENTS & THEIR heritages. I feel bad that this happened. Sorry!"
Broward County Public Schools released the following statement:
Broward County Public Schools takes pride in a culturally rich and diverse student population, representing 208 different countries and speaking 181 different languages. Students are absolutely allowed and encouraged to celebrate their heritage. However, in doing so, students are not allowed to disrupt the school day or violate the Code of Student Conduct.
Today, school administrators did need to stop a "celebration" at lunch when some students became unruly and disruptive. The situation was brought under control quickly by school leadership and local law enforcement. The school was placed on a modified lockdown and students returned to their classes. The modified lockdown remained in effect until dismissal this afternoon.
Regarding inquiries about discipline, at this juncture no student has received discipline according to the District's Student Code of Conduct and the Discipline Matrix.
Several members of the group Anonymous were arrested outside of a condominium in West Palm Beach Friday afternoon.
The group first gathered at the State Attorney's office to protest his decision to send the Corey Jones police-involved shooting to a grand jury.
Later they marched to a condo where the State Attorney lives.
A handful of protesters were arrested, reportedly for trespassing.
Also seen being put into handcuffs was Palm Beach Post political reporter George Bennett who said he was detained "just following the story."
According to The Post, Bennett was released from custody around 4 p.m.
As he was being arrested, protester Michael March said, "This is a travesty of justice. And were going to jail for what? We're going to spend all this money all these resources, 10-15 officers for what? What are we doing? We're speaking. We're speaking out against corruption, against corruption and we will not be silenced."
Report provided by NBC affiliate WPTV
A Venezuelan man has been charged with administering buttocks-enhancement injections that resulted in the death of a woman in 2013.
Jose Robusto, 43, was booked Saturday with manslaughter and practicing unlicensed medicine resulting in death.
He is accused of giving the injections that killed Suyima Torres, 28. The medical examiner's office ruled she died of an embolism.
The Miami Herald reports Robusto is accused of performing the injections at a clinic that only had a license to give massages but advertised on Facebook that it had certified plastic surgeons.
Police said 43-year-old Robusto posed as a Venezuelan doctor at Cuerpos Health and Aesthetics on the 8400 block of West Flagler Street. He injected an oily, yellow substance with a plastic syringe into the woman's bottom for $1,500 in April 2013. Police said she returned for a second treatment about 10 days later, at a cost of $800.
She was later spotted disoriented outside the center by a neighboring business owner.
Torres' mother, Coralia Espinosa, said her daughter was then rushed to the hospital accompanied by the center's owner, Ruth Planas.
Torres died 10 hours after receiving the injections, leaving behind two daughters, aged seven and eight.
Robuso is listed on the jail's website, but it's unclear whether he has an attorney.
After the death, Robusto left for his native Venezuela but was arrested when he returned to Miami on Friday.
Three innocent bystanders were injured when a fight escalated into gunfire near a McDonald's restaurant in the Bronx, police said.
The shooting occurred around 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Claremont neighborhood. A large fight broke out on the sidewalk outside the McDonald's on Webster Avenue.
Witnesses said they heard at least six gunshots, sending people running from the restaurant.
"Everybody just started running toward Webster Avenue," said a witness.
One of the bullets pierced the window of the restaurant, sending glass flying into the face of someone inside, according to police. Outside, another bullet hit a woman in the leg, and another man had shards of glass in his arm.
Police say a 41-year-old woman, a 27-year-old man and a 22-year-old man were taken to Lincoln and St. Barnabas hospitals with injuries that weren't life-threatening.
Police initially said they thought one of the injured victims had been stabbed, but the lacerations turned out to be from the shattered glass.
Police said a man was taken into custody at the scene. Charges against him are pending.
A police officer cuffing a man in Harlem pointed his gun at bystanders filming him, then later punched one of them in the face, according to witnesses and cellphone video.
"My man didnt do nothing, just sat there recording because what they were doing is wrong," said Eric Worrell, the 17-year-old who recorded the incident. "The fact that he pulled the gun out on us was wrong too."
Video appears to show an NYPD officer point a gun while making arrest in Harlem on Friday, May 20, 2016.
The officer has been stripped of his gun and badge, police said.
On Thursday evening, officers chased a man suspected of riding an illegal dirt-bike into a public housing project on West 134th Street. They struggled with him while making an arrest, witnesses said.
Worrell, Kalen Adams and Jenico Harvey were in front of the building, and began recording the altercation with their cellphones.
One of the arresting officers noticed them recording, pulled his weapon and pointed it at them while shouting at them to back up, video shows.
"I thought he was going to shoot," said Ronnie Pinkerton Jr., another friend who also recorded the incident. "First thing I thought, he was going to shoot."
Minutes later, a second video appears to show the same officer walk out of the building lobby and punch Harvey in the face before wrestling him to the ground and placing him under arrest.
"The cop was bypassing him, he could've just kept bypassing him, but just turned and hit him and wrestle him down for no reason," Worrell said. "It was crazy."
"He hit him for no reason, hit him real hard," said Pinkerton.
Harvey is described by friends as a college student who is back in the city for summer break.
Law enforcement sources told NBC 4 New York that the video did not show Harvey allegedly yelling, "I'm going to kill you," just before the officer reacted.
Still, neighbors who witnessed the scene or watched the video say the punch wasn't warranted.
"For him to just get punched in the mouth, corralled and apprehended like he's a piece of cattle of some sort, in a rodeo, just makes absolutely no sense," said state Assemblyman Keith Wright.
Officers were apparently in the neighborhood to bust people riding illegal dirt bikes, part of the NYPD's larger initiative to crack down on unlicensed drivers across the city.
A spokesperson for the NYPD said the incident is under internal review and didn't comment on whether there were any arrests in the case.
A least eight people were injured Saturday morning when a fire burned through a home in Queens, according to authorities.
Two people were critically injured in the fire, officials said. Information about the extent of their injuries wasn't available.
A family of four was inside the Jackson Heights home when the 6:21 call about the fire came into the fire department.
The couple and their two children were huddled near a rear window of their third-floor apartment in the home at 69th street and 31st avenue, firefighters said.
They were just looking for air, one firefighter said. It was pretty much just smoke. There wasnt any heat or fire upstairs. So we sheltered them in place until the companies got the fire knocked down.
The family wasn't hurt in the fire.
It was not immediately clear how the fire started.
A military exercise in Eastern Europe that involves hundreds of American, British and Georgian troops has led to increased tensions between the West and Russia, NBC News reported.
The joint-military action, Exercise Noble Partner, was designed to bring the Georgian military closer to NATO. The drill comes at a time of growing tension between the Western alliance and the Kremlin.
The Vaziani Training Area where the drills took place is just 45 miles from the Russian border, infuriating Moscow.
"We regard this ongoing 'exploration' of Georgia's territory by NATO forces as a provocative step aimed at escalating the military and political situation in the South Caucasus," the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
Sen. Bernie Sanders is vowing to take his fight for the Democratic presidential nomination all the way to the party's national convention this summer.
Sanders held two rallies in the state, trying to garner support from voters in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
The chants and hoots from the crowd at the Albuquerque Convention Center were deafening Friday evening as Sanders took the stage.
He told voters it's too late for establishment politics and that the U.S. needs a government that represents more than just wealthy donors.
Sanders says Albuquerque seems ready for a revolution and that he's ready for a victory in New Mexico.
He was greeted earlier Friday in Santa Fe to chants in Spanish of, "Yes, you can."
The Vermont senator acknowledged he needs commanding victories in the final round of primaries on June 7.
Sanders said he can win New Mexico if there is a large voter turnout. Hillary Clinton is on track to clinch the nomination through the combination of pledged delegates and superdelegates after contests on June 7.
A postal worker was arrested after he allegedly groped three women while delivering mail at state police stations in Bethlehem.
Robert Wechsler, 60, of Coplay is charged with three counts of indecent assault. Investigators say he inappropriately touched a 34-year-old woman, 60-year-old woman and 47-year-old woman inside the Pennsylvania State Police Liquor Control Station on 2936 Airport Road as well as the Pennsylvania State Police Troop M barracks on 2930 Airport Road back on May 16.
All three women told police Wechsler touched their breasts with the back of his hand while exchanging mail with them.
Wechsler works for the United States Postal Service. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is assisting in the investigation.
Police arrested one suspect and are searching for another after both men allegedly exposed themselves on the Schuylkill River Trail Saturday morning.
A 33-year-old man told police he was riding his bicycle on 300 N. Schuylkill River Trail around 7:30 a.m. when he spotted another man lying on the ground. The suspect, later identified as 34-year-old Salin Smalley, exposed himself and was partaking in a lewd act, police said. Responding police officers arrested Smalley. He is charged with indecent exposure, open lewdness and harassment.
Around 15 minutes later, a woman told police she was jogging on 53 N. Schuylkill River Trail when she spotted a man with his pants down partaking in a lewd act. The man then fled up the steps onto JFK Boulevard. Police describe the suspect as a stocky Hispanic man in his late 30s to early 40s with black hair wearing a grey jacket and backpack.
If you have any information on the second suspects identity, please call Philadelphia Police.
Enthusiastic supporters filed into a high school in San Diego Saturday for a rally with former U.S. President Bill Clinton in support of his wifes campaign for the White House.
Clinton held an organizing event for Hillary Clintons campaign at Bonita Vista High School on Otay Lakes Road in Chula Vista, hoping to get voters fired up ahead of Californias June 7 primary.
Clinton was set to speak at 11:30 a.m. at the high school's gymnasium. Supporters were lining up around the campus several hours earlier, hoping to get into the event.
This included residents from across the county, like a supporter who was celebrating his birthday by rallying for Hillary Clinton.
Nothing ever happens on my birthday, and I knew I needed to be here to support Hillary Clinton, the local told NBC 7 as he waited in line.
Local Brandon Flores was the first person waiting in line to get into the high school. He was there with his mother, a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton.
She really wanted to come see Bill Clinton and Im not going to pass up a chance to see him in person a former president you dont get the chance to see that often, Flores told NBC 7.
Im so excited for Hillary. Ive been [a supporter] for her for years because shes like the bouncing ball; where you hit it, and she bounces right back. And this is what we need in our president somebody that has resilience and brains, Flores mother said.
By 11:40 a.m., Clinton campaign staffers were sending Clinton supporters into an overflow area at the high school, as the gym where Bill Clinton was set to speak was filled to capacity.
There were loudspeakers in the overflow area so the crowd could still at least hear the rally. Despite not being able to get inside the gym to see Bill Clinton, the crowd at the rally continued to grow, including many families with children in tow.
People being sent to outdoor overflow area. Hundreds more wait in line for Bill Clinton event at Bonita Vista HS. pic.twitter.com/dLai6NDNr3 Rene Gonzalez (@ReneNBC7) May 21, 2016
Politicians including Shirley Weber, Ben Hueso, Marty Block and Susan Davis warmed up the crowd ahead of Bill Clinton's speech. The crowd cheered and clapped in anticipation.
At 12:30 p.m., the former president took the podium as Pharrell's "Happy" song played in the background. The crowd erupted into more cheers.
Bill Clinton discussed many topics at the rally, including student debt, clean energy, immigration reform and bolstering America's work force while eliminating discrimination. He also talked about building bridges, not walls in American society, calling out Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump.
"We need to rise together," he said.
When discussing the debt of college graduates, Bill Clinton called an education a "lifetime asset," and likened it to owning a home.
After about a half-hour of speaking, Bill Clinton wrapped up and thanked supporters for attending the rally.
NBC 7 has confirmed Bill Clinton will also speak at a fundraiser at The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe (5951 Linea Del Cielo) Saturday. He was headed straight there after the Chula Vista rally.
This visit to San Diego is part of Clintons campaign tour throughout California, which also includes stops in Pomona, Bakersfield, Fresno, Delano, Stockton and Sacramento.
Shirley Weber, Ben Hueso and Marty Block warm up Clinton crowd #NBC7 pic.twitter.com/UoHTjDHOWz Rory Devine (@RoryNBCSD) May 21, 2016
Bill Clintons next stop is scheduled for Sunday at Cesar Chavez High School in Delano, California, where he will be joined by civil rights and labor leader Dolores Huerta, according to the Clinton campaign website.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clintons campaign rival, U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, will also rally with supporters in San Diego over the weekend both Saturday and Sunday.
Sanders will first rally at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Kimball Park in National City. On Sunday, Sanders will head to Rancho Buena Vista High Schools stadium (1610 Longhorn Dr.) for a 2 p.m. rally with supporters.
U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders took his campaign to San Diego Saturday, holding a rally in National City ahead of Californias June 7 primary.
Before taking the podium at his rally at Kimball Park, Sanders enlisted the help of actor and comedian George Lopez to warm up the crowd.
"As I look out at all these faces - this is America. It is diverse," Lopez said to fellow Sanders supporters. "This is the United States of America where they speak English, y tambien se habla espanol."
At around 7:30 p.m., Sanders spoke in front of a large group of supporters at the park.
"Whoa, there are a lot of people here," Sanders said when he approached the podium. "I'm running for president because in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world too many people are living in poverty."
The Democrat touched on many topics, including the disappearing middle class and high unemployment numbers and said, "We need a massive federal jobs program to put our people back to work at decent wages."
Sanders also discussed billionaires and corporations who stash money overseas to avoid paying taxes. "Together we are going to change that, and the billionaires and the corporations are going to start paying their fair share of taxes."
Speaking about what he called a "broken criminal justice system" he said, "I want this country to have the best educated population on earth, not to be the country that has more people in jail."
He also touched on universal health care, free college, the legalization of marijuana and climate change.
He briefly mentioned de facto GOP nominee Donald Trump, reminding supporters of his leadership in the birther movement and describing him as a person who often lies and changes his positions.
Burn Baby Burn!bumping as supporters roll in for Bernie Sanders rally at Kimball Park https://t.co/GV65gE8tJR #NBC7 pic.twitter.com/n5TMEGuHVe Omari Fleming (@OmariNBCSD) May 22, 2016
Sanders supporters filed into Saturday's rally hours before Sanders arrived.
I wouldnt miss it for the world. I had other things to do but I changed them all because I want to be here, Victor Colmenero, who lives across the street from Kimball Park, told NBC 7.
Victoria Estrella lives in Encanto. She expected the crowd at the rally to be very diverse.
When asked about the rally taking place in National City, she said, I think it shows he cares. He really cares about the working people that society forgets about. That dont really count in a lot of eyes.
Sanders will stay in San Diego through Sunday.
He has another rally planned for 2 p.m. in Vista Sunday, at Rancho Buena Vista High Schools stadium located at 1601 Longhorn Dr. The doors open at 11 a.m.
According to Sanders campaign website, the U.S. Senator will make his way north to Irvine, California, on Sunday, too, holding another rally at 6 p.m. at Irvine Meadows Amphitheater.
Hillary Clinton's campaign also hit San Diego Saturday, with Bill Clinton rallying at Bonita Vista High School and The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe.
Employees at a La Jolla business say they were on hold for 10 minutes when they called to report a robbery in progress last week.
A San Diego Police Department spokesman said there were never any 10 minute holds on any 911 calls made about the incident, and there were no major issues with dispatch.
"The victim called 911 twice during this incident," said San Diego Police Department Lt. Scott Wahl. "The first time they held for 40 seconds and they hung up. The second time they got through in 17 seconds. This was on our 911 line. Officers were then immediately dispatched."
Wahl did not immediately respond to a follow-up question about the exact time of the 911 calls or the time officers were dispatched to the scene, but he stressed there were no issues with dispatch on the call.
A man who owns a business nearby tells NBC 7 they noticed the suspect even before the robbery took place and tried to get a hold of police.
Lt. Scott Wahl said the business never called 911 during the incident, but instead called the non-emergency line to report a possible suspicious person. At the time of that first call, no robbery had taken place.
Buisnessman Adam Barno says if they had been able to get through to Dispatch, the suspect may have been stopped.
I think he was able to take his sweet time and scope, and do all these things, Barno said. Even if somebody does call on him, they know they have enough time to get away with it.
Wahl said Barno called the non-emergency line at about 8:50 p.m. and waited 4 minutes and 13 seconds. At the time, no armed robbery had occured yet. Wahl said Barno was reporting a possible "caser" in the area, or a person possibly conducting surveillance on nearby businesses to find an opportunity to potentially commit a crime.
Why would I be calling that number? Obviously something is happening and I need assistance. Police, or whatever it is, medical. It's an emergency. That's the only reason were gonna call, said Barno.
On May 9th, Chedi Thai Bistro restaurant on Pearl Street and Mabel Bell Lane in La Jolla was robbed at gunpoint around 9 p.m. The suspect, described to be in his 20s, took off with an undisclosed amount of cash.
After the robbery, Barno tried calling police again but on the non-emergency line, SDPD Lt. Wahl confirmed.
"Mr. Barno called our non-emergency line a second time at (9:10 p.m.) 21:10:16, waited 5 minutes and 22 seconds. 21:15:38 (9:15 p.m.) got through and reported a robbery to a neighboring business and that he had possible video," Wahl said via a written statement.
Another witness told NBC 7, he had also called 911 to report the robbery but he was put on hold by Dispatch.
Barno tells NBC 7, that wasnt the first time he has been unable to get through to police, and said he doesn't feel it should matter what line is called when citizens are trying to get ahold of police.
Wahl said calling 911 to a crime in progress will result in police being immediately dispatched to the scene versus the non-emergency line which will be prioritized along with all the other calls and incidents working throughout the city.
SDPD can sometimes receive more than 200 calls to 911 per hour.
In April 2016, the longest wait time for a 911 caller was 7 minutes and 6 seconds.
State mandates require police departments to try to answer 911 calls within 10 seconds at least 90 percent of the time. In April 2016, SDPD answered within the 10 second goal only 67 percent of the time.
Wall said hang-up calls compound 911 wait times, and accidental calls make up nearly an approximate third of the total call volume.
"Every police officer, firefighter, paramedic, lifeguard, we all want to get to emergency situations as quickly as we possibly can," Wahl said. "When you call 911, the best thing you can do is stay on the line and resist that natural tendency that we all have to hang up when you dont get through right away."
A surveillance video outside of Barnos liquor store captured a video of a man that matched the suspect description police gave for the May 9th robbery. The suspect is described be in his 20s, 5-feet, 8-inches tall. He was described as wearing a gray long sleep shirt, brown shorts, and white shoes.
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer has pledge approximately $652,000 to improve the issue of delays with 911 calls.
His office says they cannot disclose how exactly the funds will be spent to fix the issue, but that Faulconer recommends they will be spent on retention and recruitment in the dispatch center.
Editor's Note: NBC 7 reached out to SDPD Friday, and Lt. Scott Wahl responded Saturday with the following details regarding the emergency calls during the robbery in progress:
Mr. Barno never called 911 during this incident. He called our non-emergency line.
There was no 10 minute wait time or delay with dispatch for anyone on this call.
Mr. Barno called our non-emergency number at 20:50:33, waited 4 minutes and 13 seconds. 20:54:46 he got through and reported a possible caser in the area casing businesses. A caser call was then formatted.
Mr. Barno called our non-emergency line a second time at 21:10:16, waited 5 minutes and 22 seconds. 21:15:38 got through and reported a robbery to a neighboring business and that he had possible video.
The victim called 911 twice during this incident. The first time they held for 40 seconds and they hung up. The second time they got through in 17 seconds. This was on our 911 line.
Officers were then immediately dispatched.
A popular movie franchise is rolling out the red carpet at this years Comic-Con International in San Diego.
Star Trek Beyond, the next installment in the Star Trek franchise, will hold its exclusive red carpet World Premiere at Comic-Con, according to the Comic-Con website.
The premiere will be held on Wednesday, July 20th at the Embarcadero Marina Park. Some fans will have a chance to attend the special screening and watch the movie in a first-ever outdoor IMAX format.
The cast of Star Trek Beyond, and the crew will be attending. There will also be a live concert performance by the San Diego symphony orchestra.
Details about tickets to the event will be announced before the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con International.
A western Maryland man shot a black bear on his deck and left her for dead, Department of Natural Resources officials said.
David Wall, 53, of Oakland is charged with hunting black bear out of season after shooting a sow with yearlings on his deck and leaving her for dead, officials said Thursday.
Wall fired his rifle Monday night at his home to scare the bear, but she was hit and paralyzed, officials said.
In the morning, Wall discovered the bear was still alive, surrounded by three yearlings, and called the black bear response team.
The sow was euthanized, and her yearlings are being monitored, officials said.
Investigators determined Wall shot the bear through an open door, didn't call the department for help, and neither Wall nor any pets or livestock were in danger, police said.
Fairfax County police said an innocent bystander was shot when gunfire was exchanged between a man who robbed a jewelry store and an officer on Saturday.
About 12:22 p.m., officers responded to a report of an "unknown situation" at 7041 Brookfield Plaza in Springfield, Virginia, police said.
Officers discovered there was an armed robbery in progress at the Dubai Jewelers store.
An officer confronted the robber when he left the jewelry store and the suspect fired a handgun at him, police said. The officer returned fire, and a bystander was shot during the exchange, police said.
The bystander was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, police said. Their condition has since been upgraded, and police said their injuries are considered non-life threatening.
Police said it appears the bullet that struck the bystander was fired by the robber.
The man managed to get into a parked car and flee the scene before crashing the car at Spring Village Drive and Hampton Creek Way, police said.
He then carjacked someone's vehicle, fled again and crashed the vehicle in the 7600 block of Hooes Road before fleeing on foot, police said.
Darcy Spencer/NBC Washington
No one was injured during the carjacking, police said.
Police advised residents in the area to stay indoors but have lifted the shelter-in-place. They said anyone who sees anything suspicious should call police immediately.
The robber is described as a black man who is 20 to 30 years old and was last seen wearing all brown clothing and a brown hat. Police said he may have changed his clothes.
Brookfield Plaza was shut down, but businesses reopened outside the crime scene, police said.
Fairfax County officers, Virginia State Police troopers, K-9 units and a helicopter are searching the area.
The officer involved in the shooting was not injured, police said.
It is unknown if the robber was injured, police said.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe has signed a $100 billion, two-year state budget lawmakers passed earlier this year.
The governor signed the spending plan Friday, while also vetoing a single paragraph in the 545-page budget barring him from using any state money to expand Medicaid.
McAuliffe, a Democrat, favors expanding publicly funded healthcare for the poor in Virginia, something Republicans have strongly opposed.
Republicans put language in the budget expressly prohibiting McAuliffe from a unilateral expansion of Medicaid. McAuliffe said the language was an unconstitutional overreach.
GOP House Speaker William J. Howell said McAuliffe's veto is not valid, and won't be included in the final budget law.
The debate is likely to remain an academic argument. The governor has not signaled any recent plans to try and expand Medicaid on his own.
A Virginia elementary school teacher will have life-changing surgery in the coming weeks thanks to a generous -- if unconventional -- donation from a students mother.
Officials at Nottingham Elementary School in Arlington announced last year that second grade teacher Maurice Katoens health was failing. Katoen, with 16 years of teaching experience, needed a kidney transplant, or he would have to endure a lifetime of dialysis treatments.
Alison Rice, whose daughter, Lucy, had been in Katoens classroom two years ago, stepped up to help after she heard the news.
Sometimes you sit there and think, Someone ought to do something, someone ought to help someone, someone needs to step up and do it, and at a certain point you think, Well, you know what? Maybe that person that Im waiting to do this is me, Rice said.
Rice underwent a year of testing to confirm that she could donate one of her kidneys to Katoen. The transplant surgery has been rescheduled once but should occur within the next few weeks.
[It] speaks volumes, Katoen said of Rices decision to be his kidney donor. Thats why Ive been here at this school for so long, because this community is so awesome.
Videos posted to social media show people screaming and frantically running out of an apartment in College Park, Maryland, after University of Maryland police used pepper spray to break up a party early Saturday morning.
University police said officers were called to The Courtyards, located at 8500 block of Boteler Lane, around 1:45 a.m. after receiving a call about a loud party and a possible fight at the on-campus apartments.
When officers arrived, a person said there was a fight inside an apartment and someone may have had a baseball bat, according to police.
Officers told the partygoers numerous times to leave the apartment, but not everyone complied, police said. Officers used pepper spray to disperse the crowd.
Some are concerned police went too far when they used pepper spray to break up a party at an apartment in College Park, Maryland. News4s Erika Gonzalez reports.
Two people, Brittney Hunter, 21, of Waldorf, and Montee Hunter, 20, of Capitol Heights, were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, failure to obey lawful order and obstructing and hindering, police said. It's not clear if they have hired attorneys.
The fire department arrived to treat the people sprayed, police said.
As medics were providing care, a confrontation broke out in the parking lot outside the apartment complex, and officers used pepper spray a second time, police said.
University of Maryland Police Chief David Mitchell told News4's Darcy Spencer on Sunday the incident is cause for concern.
"First of all, let me say I'm very concerned about the perception that my students have of what happened," Mitchell said. "So far, what I see causes me concern in some cases, on both sides. Students who just should have just left and perhaps we could've performed better in a couple instances."
Mitchell said several officers were wearing body cameras and the department expects to release some of that video.
"Of course, the question is, was this reasonable use of pepper spray?" Mitchell said.
The University of Maryland Police Department released a statement Sunday night saying police had completed an initial review of the incident an "a formal investigation is now underway to determine if the use of force was appropriate."
"President Loh and Chief Mitchell are committed to a complete and transparent investigation to determine the facts of the incident," the statement continued.
Video on Twitter from a person at the party shows the moment when pepper spray was used by officers.
WARNING: Details in this story are disturbing and may be difficult to read for some viewers.
In the final moments before a Gage Park family of six were massacred in their bungalow on Chicagos Southwest Side, they fed and spent time with their alleged killers.
In court Friday, prosecutors revealed the horrific moments that led to the gruesome killings in February, which rocked the Chicago area and remained a mystery for months.
Authorities have charged a relative of the family, 22-year-old Diego Uribe Cruz, and his 19-year-old girlfriend, Jafeth Ramos, each with six counts of first-degree murder. They were both ordered held without bail Friday as the disturbing details behind what happened on that quiet city street were detailed minute by minute.
The last time anyone in the Martinez family was seen alive or heard from was at 6:45 p.m. on Feb. 2, when Noe Martinez Sr., 62, returned home from purchasing tamales and hot chocolate. A cooler with those tamales and a tray of cups was found next to his body two days later inside the home in the 5700 block of South California, Cook County prosecutors said.
Scattered around him were the bodies of his wife, 58-year-old Rossaura Martinez; his son, 38-year-old Noe Martinez Jr.; his daughter, 32-year-old Maria Martinez; and two grandchildren 10-year-old Alexis Cruz and 13-year-old Leonardo Cruz. All were either stabbed to death, beaten or shot.
According to a statement Ramos allegedly gave to police following her arrest, she and Uribe Cruz, who is the nephew of Maria Martinezs ex-husband, had gone to the house with plans to rob the family. She claimed Uribe Cruz was prepared to kill the family in order to get money.
Uribe Cruz allegedly told police he had a lot of anger with Maria Martinez over how she treated his uncle. He also admitted to the killings, officials said.
Both suspects were appointed a public defender. They are scheduled to appear in court again May 26.
'I Just Want to Live'
Once inside the home, the couple hung out with family members and had something to eat, prosecutors said.
Shortly thereafter, prosecutors said Uribe Cruz asked Maria Martinez to go upstairs so the two could talk. It was then, prosecutors claim, that he threatened Maria Martinez with a gun and a physical altercation ensued, leading him to shoot her several times in the head.
Noe Martinez Jr. climbed the stairs after hearing the gunshots and was beaten, punched and choked by Uribe Cruz, officials said.
Rossaura Martinez then climbed the stairs and threatened to call police before she was allegedly knocked down the steps and lost consciousness.
After that, prosecutors claim the couple spoke downstairs with the two young boys. Prosecutors said Uribe Cruz, armed with multiple kitchen knives, stabbed Rossaura Martinez several times before the boys agreed to show the couple where some money was located.
The couple allegedly stole cash, change, jewelry, a piggy bank with money in it and an Xbox 1.
Thats when Ramos claims Uribe Cruz took Alexis Cruz to the basement, where his brother heard him scream. Prosecutors say Ramos told police Uribe Cruz returned from the basement alone, then stabbed Leonardo Cruz to death as he pleaded for his life, crying "Please no, please don't. I just want to live."
It was then that Noe Martinez Sr. arrived home from purchasing the tamales and hot chocolate.
Prosecutors say Uribe Cruz met him at the door, grabbed him and stabbed him as Noe Martinez Sr. cried out, asking, Why are you killing me? I dont owe you anything. Uribe Cruz then stole Noe Martinez Sr.s wallet and the couple cleaned up the blood and wiped down door knobs before fleeing.
Ramos said that she did this because she did not want the police to take Defendant Cruz away from her, a proffer from court read.
The couple allegedly disposed of the gun, pawned the jewelry and spent some of the money on milk and diapers for their child.
Uribe Cruz was identified as a suspect after his DNA was found at the scene and his cell phone indicated he was near the scene at the time of the murders, police said.
"In my 28 years, I havent seen a case that has hit so close to home for myself and so many others in this department than what was discovered on that cold Thursday afternoon in February," Supt. Eddie Johnson said in announcing the couple's charges Thursday.
The crew of Coast Guard Cutter Sanibel towed an 84-foot Massachusetts commercial fishing vessel Friday with seven people aboard after the vessel became disabled 100 miles off the coast of Nantucket.
Crewmembers aboard the fishing vessel Discovery, homeported in New Bedford, contacted watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Southeastern's command center at approximately 2:30 a.m. Friday reporting they had a disabled rudder and needed assistance.
Sector Southeastern watchstanders issued a marine safety information broadcast at about 3 a.m. requesting nearby fishermen to assist. The request went unanswered by fishing vessels in the area.
The Coast Guard Cutter Sanibel crew diverted to assist at about 3:30 a.m.
The Sanibel arrived on scene at about 11:30 a.m. and took the Discovery into tow toward Great Round Shoal.
Once closer to shore, at about 10:30 p.m., the Sanibel passed the Discovery's tow to a commercial salvage company who towed the Discovery into New Bedford.
The Coast Guard Cutter Sanibel is a 110-foot Island-class patrol boat homeported in Woods Hole. The crew's missions range from protecting and enforcing laws for America's living marine economy to search and rescue.
The driver of a car that flipped over while fleeing from Edgartown, Massachusetts, police was taken to the hospital and treated for minor injuries.
Police said the driver, who was not identified, failed to stop for police at 2 a.m. Saturday on West Tisbury Road.
The car sped down Bennett Way, where it was found a short time later after crashing into a tree and rolling over.
Police are investigating the incident. There is no word yet on any charges.
A Derry, New Hampshire, man suffered severe burns to the face Friday after authorities say smoking near a medical oxygen tank ignited a fire.
The man, who was not identified, was taken to a local hospital then airlifted to a Boston medical facility, according to Derry Fire officials.
The fire, on Island Pond Road, was extinguished by a family member of the man. Firefighters ventilated the building.
Salem Fire Department assisted at the scene.
A Providence, Rhode Island, man was arrested Friday morning on charges of child neglect after police found him and his 3-year-old son living in squalid conditions in a minivan where the man and others allegedly smoked synthetic marijuana.
Hector Ortiz, 38, last known living at 48 Wesleyan Ave., Providence, was charged with cruelty to or neglect of a child.
Police also arrested Corwin J. Tetreault, 27, of 158 Burnside St., Providence, who was in the van at the time, on charges of possession with intent to deliver synthetic marijuana, driving under the influence, and operating a motor vehicle without a license.
Police stopped a 2005 Dodge Caravan at about 10:45 a.m. on Orms Street for multiple motor vehicle infractions. Police found the child in the minivan, along with more than 350 packets of synthetic marijuana and nearly $1,200.
Police described the van as strewn with partially eaten food, garbage and smelling of urine.
Ortiz told police he let Tetreault and Tetreault's girlfriend, who was not identified, use the car, police said. The girlfriend told police she, Ortiz and Tetreault were smoking synthetic marijuana with the child present in the minivan.
State child protective services took custody of the child.
The men will be arraigned Monday in the 6th District Court.
After a New Hampshire man opens fire on Manchester Police with a gun he legally purchased, many are questioning his mental health and why he was able to get ahold of a firearm.
New Hampshire is the only state in New England that does not disclose mental health records for background checks. We've learned that because of that, gun dealers in the state feel a heavier burden to make sure their products don't end up in the wrong hands.
Inside Wildlife Taxidermy in Manchester, New Hampshire, owner John Yule is constantly analyzing his customer's behavior.
"We judge them, unfortunately, if that's right or wrong, I'm sure I'll be called on it, but we're selling a potentially lethal weapon," Yule said.
When asked if he would turn someone away who didn't look mentally fit to have a weapon, without hesitating, he said, "Yes we will."
He says it's because he has no confidence in the state's background checks.
"Knowing there may be a gap somewhere in our support network, you pay more attention," Yule said.
According to research conducted by a non-profit gun control group called Everytown for Gun Safety, New Hampshire is one of the worst performing states in our country for comprehensive background checks. The Granite State is the only one in New England that does not submit mental health records to the current background check system.
"These people can fly under the radar," Yule said.
For him and many other dealers, this is a daily frustration, but is grabbing headlines this week after Ian MacPherson shot two police officers with a weapon he legally purchased from a Derry gun shop back in April.
MacPherson's father, Russell, tells us his son has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.
Russell also says his son has a violent past. MacPherson has been charged with assault for beating up his dad. But it turns out, in the State of New Hampshire, violence against a parent or child does not prohibit someone from buying a gun.
Yule says he's trying to fill those gaps on his own - like the time he called police after selling a gun to a woman he believed was unfit, but passed the state background check.
"The husband came back with the firearm and returned it, and we took it back," Yule recalled. "He was grateful and thankful we did it."
Yule says the woman was, in fact, suffering with mental health issues.
Governor Maggie Hassan tells us she has pushed legislation that would force New Hampshire to disclose mental health records, but that lawmakers have voted it down, fearing that it might infringe on Second Amendment rights and could further stigmatize mental illness.
If you look through the scores of online forums where Network Attached Storage (NAS) systems are discussed, one of the most common user wants is for a NAS to simultaneously be a DAS (Direct Attached Storage). Its a functionality that, at first blush, you might think easy to achieve but it turns out that it really isnt because its not been an available option from any major NAS vendor.
I first discovered the markets desire for a combined NAS and DAS when I was editing video and wondered if I could use the eSATA interface on the QNAP NAS I had in the Gibbs Universal Secret Underground Bunker. It turned out that, in common with other vendors implementations, the QNAPs eSATA ports were host-only interfaces which meant they could only connect to a slave drive.
Then QNAPs PR got in touch to tell me that QNAP had a solution for this problem; a NAS with a Thunderbolt 2 interface that provided a DAS service. The product is the QNAP TVS-871T which the company describes as:
the worlds first Thunderbolt DAS/NAS/iSCSI SAN triple solution. With the incredible power of Thunderbolt 2 to double the speed potential to 20 Gbps, simultaneous 4K video transfer and display is enabled with considerable cost effectiveness.
QNAP TVS-871T
Before we get to the DAS side of the TVS-871T, lets do a quick spec check:
Processor: Quad-core Intel Core i7-4790S 3.2GHz (i5-4590S 3.0GHz is also available)
Memory: 16 GB DDR3 RAM
Disk drives: 8 hot-swappable 3.5"or 2.5, SATA 6Gb/s, SATA 3Gb/s hard drives or SSDs
Networking: 2 x 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports (10GBased-T) and 4 x 1 Gigabit Ethernet ports
Thunderbolt: 2 x Thunderbolt 2 ports
USB: 3 x USB 3.0 port ( front: 1, rear: 2), 2 x USB 2.0 port (rear)
HDMI: 1 port
Front and back of the QNAP TVS-871T
There are also two PCIe slots (1* PCIe Gen3 x8, 1* PCIe Gen2 x4) but these are occupied by the Thunderbolt 2 card and the 10GbE adapter.
That is, by any standards, a nicely speced platform and fully loaded with eight 8TB drives youll get 64TB of raw storage and just under 56TB of usable storage if you select a RAID5 configuration. At the cost of one drive bay and less total storage, you can also improve system performance by adding an SSD configured as a front-end cache.
The TVS-871T, in common with all of the other models in the QNAP NAS portfolio, runs the companys Linux-derived operating system, QTS (QNAP Turbo System), currently at version 4.2, which is well-designed with an excellent user interface along with being fast and robust.
NASs have become the Swiss Army Knives of network service and in common with other NAS vendors, QNAP has added functionality to their products with a range of home grown and third party applications and utilities. Where QNAP differs from other NAS vendors is in the range of add-on services and tools; along with the usual NAS features such as backup and multi-media services, QNAP offers their QEMU-based Virtualization Station for deploying virtual machines (which I described almost two years ago as thoroughly and completely epically awesome) and the recently released Container Station for deploying Docker and LXC containers (which Im also raving about).
QNAP Virtualization Station
So, we come to the TVS-871Ts DAS functionality. In truth, this isnt really DAS, its a dedicated point-to-point, high-speed Thunderbolt NAS connection but, that said, in practice, its just as good as if it actually were DAS given that eSATA delivers a data bandwidth of around 600 MB/s while Thunderbolt 2 is rated at 2.44 GB/s. This means you really can edit 4K video as if it were local with the added benefit of RAID ensuring your masterpiece doesnt vanish in a cloud of bits after your drive bites the big one is not to be underestimated.
QNAP Thunderbolt connection manager
The way that the Thunderbolt service works in this scenario is that when first connected or reconnected to computer running either Windows or OS X (all of my testing was using an iMac 5K running OS X 10.11.4 El Capitan) an IP connection is established either with the NAS having a static IP address or it gets a dynamic IP address from the computer which acts as a DHCP server. Thats it, the Mac and the NAS are now linked and in the OS X Finder you can select which file service to use (AFP is somewhat faster then CIFS in this setup). Much the same process applies for Windows configurations. Supported protocols include:
AFP (Apple Filing Protocol)
NFS (Network File System)
SMB/CIFS (Microsoft File Sharing)
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
WebDAV
QNAP Qfinder Pro
You can configure drive mappings using QNAPs QFinder Pro utility or just navigate the network connections via the OS X Finder or Windows support. Ive seen some occasional initial Thunderbolt connection problems when the TVS-871T is configured to use a dynamic IP address which, I suspect, was due to the OS X Thunderbolt DHCP service not being ready quick enough and, as a consequence, the TVS-871T timing out (you cant restart the Thunderbolt service without a complete restart of the TVS-871T).
My only complaint about QNAPs products is that their documentation is a little weak. While the sheer scope of their product offerings obviously makes it tricky to keep the huge amount of documentation up to date it can still be laborious to find answers even though the community forums are a great resource. Also, while it's not QNAP's fault, when it comes to third party applications, the documentation varies wildly in quality which can be frustrating when you find a NAS-based app you really like and then run into problems. Again, the community forums are your friend.
You might be wondering why the TVS-871T has two Thunderbolt ports: Sure, two separate computers can each have their own dedicated Thunderbolt connections to a single TVS-871T but you could also daisy-chain up to six more TVS-871Ts or up to six NAS expansion enclosures (TX-500P or TX-800P) expansion storage units.
The bottom line is that if youre looking for combo NAS and DAS (along with iSCSI SAN support), the TVS-871T is it! Great features, great performance, and priced at around $2,800 without drives, the TVS-871T gets a Gearhead rating of 5 out of 5.
Comments? Thoughts? Suggestions? Lay some feedback on me via email or comment below then follow me on Twitter and Facebook.
If you think this review contains lots of words, you might also like:
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Today, in the Royal Court of Justice in London, the tobacco industrys challenge to the introduction of standardised packaging of tobacco products was overwhelmingly and comprehensively defeated.
The image is fully compliant with EU Tobacco Products Directive and UK Standardised Packaging Regulations. Source: ASH
From tomorrow, 20th May, cigarettes made for sale in the UK will have to be sold in drab brown packaging with dramatic visual health warnings. The new packs are required under the Standardised Packaging Regulations, secondary legislation under the Children and Families Act 2014. There will be a one year transitional period to allow for the sell-through of old stock, so from May 2017 cigarettes and other tobacco products on sale in the UK must comply with the Regulations.
The new law comes into effect at the same time as the revised European Union Tobacco Products Directive (TPD). This will require larger health warnings on the front and back of packets and prohibit slim 'lipstick'-style cigarette packs.
The new standardised packaging regulations, which received overwhelming support from MPs are also backed by the public. YouGov data shows that 64% of adults in the West Midlands support requiring tobacco to be sold in plain standardised packaging with the product name in standard lettering which ASH believes will help protect the next generation of children and young people from starting to smoke.
Two thirds of current smokers started when they were children. Research shows that dull plain packs are less attractive to young people.
Dr Stephen Munday, Director of Public Health Solihull Council and Chair of the West Midlands Association of Directors of Public Health said:
Smoking causes death and disease and adversely impacts on thousands of families all over the country. Standardised packaging is supported by people across the West Midlands. It is a vital step towards ensuring a Smokefree future and is one of the best legacies we can leave to our children in creating a Smokefree generation.
Deborah Arnott, Chief Executive of ASH said:
What used to be dismissed by many as "junk DNA" is back with a vengeance as growing data points to the importance of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) -- genome's messages that do not code for proteins -- in development and disease. But our progress in understanding these molecules has been slow because of the lack of technologies that allow the systematic mapping of their functions.
Now, Professor Benjamin Blencowe's team at the University of Toronto's Donnelly Centre, including lead authors Eesha Sharma and Tim Sterne-Weiler, have developed a method, described in May 19, 2016 issue of Molecular Cell, that enables scientists to explore in depth what ncRNAs do in human cells. The study is published on the same day with two other papers in Molecular Cell and Cell, respectively, from Dr. Yue Wan's group at the Genome Institute of Singapore and Dr. Howard Chang's group at Stanford University in California, who developed similar methods to study RNAs in different organisms.
Of the 3 billion letters in the human genome, only two per cent make up the protein-coding genes. The genes are copied, or transcribed, into messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules, which provide templates for building proteins that do most of the work in the cell. Much of the remaining 98 per cent of the genome was initially considered by some as lacking in functional importance. However, large swaths of the non coding genome -- between half and three quarters of it -- are also copied into RNA.
What the resulting ncRNAs might do depends on whom you ask. Some researchers believe that most ncRNAs have no function, that they are just a by-product of the genome's powerful transcription machinery that makes mRNA. However, it is emerging that many ncRNAs have important roles in gene regulation. This view is supported in that some ncRNAs act as carriages for shuttling the mRNAs around the cell, or provide a scaffold for other proteins and RNAs to attach to and do their jobs.
But the majority of available data has trickled in piecemeal or through serendipitous discovery. And with emerging evidence that ncRNAs could drive disease progression, such as cancer metastasis, there was a great need for a technology that would allow a systematic functional analysis of ncRNAs.
"Up until now, with existing methods, you had to know what you are looking for because they all require you to have some information about the RNA of interest. The power of our method is that you don't need to preselect your candidates, you can see what's occurring globally in cells, and use that information to look at interesting things we have not seen before and how they are affecting biology," says Eesha Sharma, a PhD candidate in Blencowe's group who, along with postdoctoral fellow Tim Sterne-Weiler, co-developed the method.
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The new tool, called 'LIGR-Seq', captures interactions between different RNA molecules. When two RNA molecules have matching sequences - strings of letters copied from the DNA blueprint - they will stick together like Velcro. The paired RNA structures are then removed from cells and analyzed by state-of-the-art sequencing methods to precisely identify the RNAs that are stuck together.
"Most researchers in the life sciences agree that there's an urgent need to understand what ncRNAs do. This technology will open the door to developing a new understanding of ncRNA function," says Blencowe, who is also a professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics.
Not having to rely on pre-existing knowledge is one strength of the method that will boost the discovery of RNA pairs that have never been seen before. The other is that scientists can for the first time look at RNA interactions as they occur in living cells, in all their complexity, unlike in the juices of mashed up cells that they had to rely on before. This is a bit like moving on to explore marine biology from collecting shells on the beach to scuba-diving among the coral reefs where the scope for discovery is so much bigger.
ncRNAs come in multiple flavours: there's rRNA, tRNA, snRNA, snoRNA, piRNA, miRNA, and lncRNA, to name a few, where prefixes reflect the RNA's place in the cell or some aspect of its function. But the truth is that no one really knows the extent to which these ncRNAs control what goes on in the cell, nor how they do this. The new technology developed by Blencowe's group has been able to pick up new interactions involving all classes of RNAs and has already revealed some unexpected findings.
The team discovered new roles for small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) that normally guide chemical modifications of other ncRNAs. It turns out that some snoRNAs can also regulate stability of a set of protein-coding mRNAs. In this way, snoRNAs can also directly influence which proteins are made, as well as their abundance, adding a new level of control in cell biology. And this is only the tip of the iceberg as the researchers plan to further develop and apply their technology to investigate the ncRNAs in different settings.
"We would like to understand how ncRNAs function during development. We are particularly interested in their role in the formation of neurons. But we will also use our method to discover and map changes in RNA-RNA interactions in the context of human diseases," says Blencowe.
Researchers at Umea University in Sweden and the Cancer Registry of Norway have studied possible causes behind the development of brain tumours. The results, published in the journal Oncotarget, show differences in expression of certain molecules known as metabolites when comparing healthy individuals with people who would eventually develop brain tumours. The greatest difference were found when looking at vitamin E.
"We know that common health-related lifestyle factors such as smoking and alcohol are not associated with brain tumours. So finding these signs of a possible link between vitamin E and brain tumours was rather interesting and something which we now will study more closely," says Beatrice Melin, researcher at the Department of Radiation Sciences and one of the article co-authors. "But we must point out that the results are preliminary and that further studies with a larger number of patients are needed to verify this link between vitamin E and brain tumours."
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A group of researchers at the Umea University departments of Radiation Sciences and Chemistry, led by Beatrice Melin and Henrik Antti, conducted the study using a unique biobank material of serum samples from brain tumour patients, taken up to twenty years before their diagnosis. The researchers looked at differences in metabolites between patients who would later develop brain tumours and a control group.
"Other studies have also showed signs of disadvantageous health effects from vitamin E, so our results are in line with current research findings concerning other types of tumours," says Henrik Antti, researcher at the Department of Chemistry and co-author. "We are of course interpreting our results carefully and will now proceed with this research to investigate if genetics play a role in the observed biomarker patterns."
The use of metabolomics to study underlying variables for future disease, such as brain tumours, is a unique field facilitated by access to the large and structured longitudinal collections of biobank samples in Umea and Oslo.
Our economy is agriculture based. Therefore, we should focus on small and medium agro-based projects, Rajan said.
RBI has been enjoying full autonomy and support of the government so far and it should be allowed to take its own decision, Governor Raghuram Rajan told the central bank's staff."RBI's decision is very crucial as it is connected with fate of crores of people. A slight mistake could put the entire country and its people in trouble. Therefore, RBI's decision must be accurate and to the point keeping in view the interest of the people," an RBI employee said quoting Rajan.While addressing an in-house meeting of RBI employees on the first day of his three-day visit to Odisha, Rajan also said that with agriculture playing a key role in India there is a need to focus on small and medium agro-based projects.He also said that the Indian economy was on the right track and could emerge as a major player globally.In the interaction programme with RBI employees, Rajan also said Odisha was rich in mineral resources and the state should also use its tourism potential to boost the economy.Rajan also visited Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) and discussed with its officials regarding the financial model of the school and its management.During his visit to the state, Rajan is scheduled to address Odisha government officers, meet Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and address the Harekrushna Mahatab Memorial Lecture on "The Global Economy and India".
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Saturday announced results of class XII board exams.The results can also be checked via Android mobile app-DigiResults.The Board will also provide Class XII digital mark sheets in DigiLocker at www.digilocker.gov.in. The DigiLocker account credentials will be sent to students via SMS on their mobile number registered with CBSE.The CBSE exams began on March 1 and concluded on April 22. This year, a total of 10,67,900 candidates registered for the Class 12 exam as against 10,40,368 in 2015.HRD Minister Smriti Irani had earlier this week assured students during a Facebook chat that the result for CBSE Board exams for class X and XII will be declared "on time" before the end of May and, as per a decision taken earlier, state boards are also expected to declare their results by May 31.The results are available on these websites: www.results.nic.in, www.cbseresults.nic.in and www.cbse.nic.in.
Four Bengal mountaineers went missing on Mount Everest after they left their camps for the summit early on Saturday morning.
Agencies in Nepal have so far failed to establish contacts with Sunita Hazra, Paresh Nath, Goutam Ghosh and Subhash Pal, all residents of areas adjacent to Kolkata.
Seven others from the state, separated in two groups, have already climbed the world's highest peak.
On May 19, a group of three mountaineers from Kolkata, Debraj Dutta, Pradip Sahu and Chetana Sahu set foot on the Everest summit. Pradip and Chetana are only the second couple in the country after Sushma and Vikas Kaushik from Haryana to summit Everest.
Chetana was afflicted with severe frost bite on her limbs during her descend from the summit and was airlifted to a hospital in Kathmandu. On Saturday morning, a group of another mountaineers Moloy Mukherjee, Satyarup Siddhanta, Rudraprasad Haldar and Ramesh Roy conquered Everest.
Faced with inclement weather during their descend, the four went out of their GPS trackers for a while but could later be traced after they reached camp 4.
Meanwhile, a former Everester, Rajib Bhattacharya, died on Dhaulagiri on Friday during his descend after reaching the world's seventh highest peak's summit as he was suffering from snow blindness and fell unconscious.
External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson said, "We welcome and deeply appreciate the gesture of Prime Minister of Canada to deliver a formal apology in the House of Commons for the Komagata Maru incident."
India on Saturday "deeply appreciated" Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's formal apology in the House of Commons for the Komagata Maru incident, saying it reflects Canada's commitment to the values of pluralism which India fully shares.The Indian diaspora in Canada has contributed immensely to Canada's growth and development and acts as a bond between our two nations, the Spokesperson said."Prime Minister Trudeau's gesture constitutes an acknowledgement of the positive role of the Indian diaspora. It also reflects Canada's commitment to the values of pluralism and multiculturalism, which India fully shares," he added.On May 23, 1914, a Japanese steamship, Komagata Maru, carrying 376 passengers - majority of whom were of Sikh, Muslim and Hindu origin- was denied entry into Canada after an immigration dispute, only for some to be killed in protests on their return to India.Earlier this week, the Canadian Prime Minister delivered a formal statement of apology in the House of Commons and said, "More than a century ago a great injustice took place."
India and Iran share longstanding civilisational ties. Iran is situated in India's extended neighbourhood and the two countries have significant overlap in their economic and security space, a statement issued by the MEA reads.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting Iran on a two-day trip to boost bilateral relation between the two countries on Sunday.During the visit, the Modi will meet Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He is also expected to hold bilateral talks with President Hassan Rouhani.India will sign a commercial contract with Iran to build and run a strategic port of Chabahar on Iran's southern coast. The other areas of discussion will be on energy, trade and connectivity.During his May 22-23 trip to Tehran, He is also likely to visit the city's only Gurdwara that is functioning since 1940s."PM's visit to Iran will seek to build cooperation in regional connectivity and infrastructure, developing energy partnership, facilitating people-to-people interaction in various spheres and promoting peace and stability in the region," it reads.
Five terrorists were gunned down in an encounter with security forces on Saturday in north Kashmirs Kupwara district that also left two soldiers injured.
Acting on specific information about the presence of terrorists in Drugmulla village of Kupwara, 81 km from Srinagar, a joint team of police and army cordoned-off the area, an army official said.
He said as the security forces were conducting a search operation, the holed-up terrorists fired at them, triggering a gunbattle.
During the encounter, five terrorists were killed, the official said, adding two soldiers also received injuries and they have been shifted to a hospital for treatment. Their condition is stable, the official said.
The identity of the slain terrorists is being ascertained, the official said, adding five weapons have been recovered from the encounter site.
With PTI Inputs.
Mumbai Bollywood actor Tiger Shroff, who will be shaking his leg at the upcoming International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards, feels privileged to be dancing alongside actors Salman Khan and Hrithik Roshan.
The 17th edition of IIFA awards begins from June 23 to 26 in Spain.
"I am very excited as well as nervous. I feel privileged to be dancing alongside Salman Khan and Hrithik Roshan. I have to step my game up. Both Salman and Hrithik are god of dancing in their own style," the 26-year-old actor told reporters today at the press conference of IIFA awards here.
The 'Heropanti' actor has never been to Spain earlier and he is looking forward to explore the place. A host of celebrities including Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra, Sonakshi Sinha, Tiger and others will be performing at the ceremony.
Meanwhile, actor Sooraj Pancholi, will also be performing at the IIFA Rocks ceremony. "For the first time, I will be performing on stage. Also it's my first year with IIFA, so I am excited as well as nervous," Sooraj said.
Actresses Daisy Shah and Elli Avram will be seen enthralling the audience with their dance moves.
"I am nervous whenever I perform. I get butterflies. I think it's a good sign. It's a great opportunity to perform at IIFA," Elli said. Daisy too is excited about her performance and is looking forward to it.
Congress received its severest political blow in the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections. For the first time the party was below the 100-MP mark in the Lok Sabha. With only 44 Lok Sabha MPs, the morale was at an all-time low.
Former Chhattisgarh chief minister and Congress Working Committee member Ajit Jogi had then said, Congress lost because it had no ground support and there was absolutely no cadre to work for the party."
Today Jogi may not be very popular in the Congress because of the controversy over a bypoll in his state but his words still hold true. Two years on the Congress is still grappling with the same problems - low morale, uncertainty over what Rahul Gandhis plans are and no dedicated cadre to spread the partys message.
A big factor in Narendra Modis 2014 victory was the strong and motivated cadre of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In each constituency the RSS-BJP cadre were in touch with their prospective voters right till the voting day.
Congress, unfortunately, doesnt have such a motivated cadre which is a huge cause for worry ahead of 2017 Punjab and Uttar Pradesh elections. No matter how well the top leaders may speak a party can never win an election if it doesnt have enthusiastic grass-root workers.
The Congress has every reason to be worried. Even though party leaders try and shrug off these five state election results as expected, the fact is the BJP is succeeding in creating the perception about a Congress Mukt Bharat.
Congress General Secretary Digivijaya Singhs recent tweet calling for major surgery within his party only reflects the frustration of a large section of party leaders. For the last two years there has been a talk of a complete overhaul in the All India Congress Committee but not much has happened.
A senior leader told this correspondent recently that top politicians in the Congress neither have the ground support nor confidence to win elections anymore. Talking informally he said, Its easy for all big leaders to join Sonia and Rahul Gandhi for protest marches at Jantar Mantar but winning elections is another thing."
Congress General Secretary and UP in-charge Madhusudan Mistry feels that top leaders should now start spending at least a month in states like UP and Punjab to get feedback and keep the workers motivated. Weekly tours and meetings will not work.
"The party must identify promising young leaders and support them," he told CNN-News18.
These days Sonia, Rahul and other top leaders are busy working on their plan for UP. In the second week of June Rahul is likely to address a meeting of 25,000 workers in Lucknow. Many more such meetings will follow but Congress should think of new ideas.
There has been resistance to Prashant Kishors recommendation to make Ghulam Nabi Azad, Sheila Dikshit and Kamal Nath a part of Congress Mission UP plan but it might not be so bad. Congress doesnt have a big regional leader in the state like Mulayam Singh Yadav or Mayawati.
The presence of these veterans may boost the partys chances. Lastly, while Rahul Gandhi in all probability will take over as AICC president this year, bringing in Priyanka Gandhi too may further help the partys cause.
Rahul has always been the obvious successor to Sonia but Priyanka is admired by many within the Congress as well. Many of the elders or those among the old guard would find Priyanka more acceptable.
Even after the Lok Sabha debacle many senior leaders including KV Thomas and Mani Shankar Aiyar had said that both Rahul and Priyanka can together lift the party.
It may not be a bad idea after all considering the party is facing its worst times politically. Why not have all hands on deck when there is a crisis?
Mamata Banerjee reinstated Rajeev Kumar as Kolkata's Police Commissioner a day after her thumping poll victory in Bengal
Kumar was removed from his chair by the Election Commission of India in April this year in the middle of the state polls and barely days before elections were held in Kolkata spread across three phases on 21, 25 and 30 April.
Kumar was removed by the EC after opposition parties questioned his impartiality in handling complaints against the ruling Trinamool. The BJP had complained that a sting operation against its leader Rahul Sinha was attempted at the behest of Kumar.
Kumar was succeeded by Somen Mitra who won accolades for conducting the polls in a violence-free manner in the city.
The order to reinstate Kumar was issued from the state secretariat Nabanna on Saturday afternoon.
Mamata Banerjee has already declared her intention to reinstate most of the government officers who were transferred by the EC during the run up to the polls to their original positions.
New Delhi: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday skipped the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) meet chaired by the Sonia Gandhi to mark the 25th death anniversary of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Rahul's absence from the youth Congress meet has raised concern within the Congress camp after its poll debacle in four states especially in Assam where the party was thrown out after being in power for 15 years.
In Kerala, too, the Congress-led United Democratic Front lost to Left Democratic Front while in Tamil Nadu the party in alliance with the DMK failed to dislodge J Jayalalithaa's AIADMK from power.
Rahul was apparently annoyed with the Congress-Left alliance in Bengal but he was convinced by some senior leaders to go ahead with the decision to fight together against Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal.
However, the Congress-Left Front alliance was decimated by the Trinamool which retained power with a bigger mandate than the 2011 elections.
Sources said, he is likely to resume party duties from Monday and will meet party leaders to analysis the poll debacle.
Ever since Congress faced a massive defeat in four states, there is a growing discontent among the party leadership. Senior party leader Digvijaya Singh on May 19 called for a major surgery.
He later clarified that Sonia Gandhi was his leader number one and Rahul is the leader number two but the party must take corrective measures.
San Francisco: With the world growing more concerned about attacks by militant groups on civilians, Microsoft Corp on Friday outlined new policies to crack down what it called "terrorist content" on some of its consumer services.
In a blog post, the company said it would ban what it called "terrorist content" on some services such as gaming tool Xbox Live, the consumer version of its Outlook email service, and its consumer documents-sharing service.
But for its search engine Bing, Microsoft cited free expression and said it would remove links only when that "is required of search providers under local law."
Initially, Microsoft will rely on consumers to report objectionable content. The company also said it would fund research of a tool that scans content and flags images, audio and video.
"We will consider terrorist content to be material posted by or in support of organizations included on the Consolidated United Nations Security Council Sanctions List that depicts graphic violence, encourages violent action, endorses a terrorist organization or its acts, or encourages people to join such groups," the blog post said.
The steps illustrate the tough predicament many companies face balancing public safety with individual rights.
The issue came to the fore after Apple Inc. and the US government clashed over whether federal authorities could force Apple to create software to unlock a phone used by a shooter in the San Bernardino attacks last year.
Ultimately, the government paid a third party to unlock the phone.
"The events of the past few months are a strong reminder that the Internet can be used for the worst reasons imaginable," Microsoft said in its post.
Microsoft said users can use an online form to recommend removal of content.
"Use this Web form to report content posted by or in support of a terrorist organization that depicts graphic violence, encourages violent action, endorses a terrorist organization or its acts, or encourages people to join such groups," the instructions read.
Microsoft said it would provide information on how to counter negative content, a policy adopted by another technology giant: Facebook Inc.
The social-media service this year announced a tool it calls "counter speech," encouraging activists to counter extremist views with posts promoting tolerance. Last year, Facebook updated its guidelines to prohibit advocacy of "terrorist activity, organised criminal activity or promoting hate."
Social media site Twitter Inc suspended 125,000 accounts, most of which it believed were linked to the militant Islamic State group.
A strike by Verizon Communications employees has extended into its second month, as company and union officials continue to meet in Washington, D.C., in an attempt to negotiate the terms of a new contract.
About 39,000 Verizon employees in nine eastern states and Washington walked off the job on April 13.
Workers in Roanoke were among those who went on strike. Chuck Simpson, president of Local 2204, said the bargaining unit for the Communications Workers of America has about 425 members in the Roanoke region. The units territory extends beyond the Roanoke Valley.
We are out here fighting for the cause, trying to keep it strong, said Michelle Camp, a Verizon maintenance administrator who was among 18 union members picketing outside a Verizon store in Henrico County on Wednesday.
We are trying to fight the outsourcing of jobs to other countries, Camp said. We are trying to keep the work here in the United States. Job security is number one.
A 16-year Verizon employee, Camp wore a placard that read: Stop Outsourcing Our Middle-Class Jobs.
In the end, this is not just about Verizon. It is a stand against corporate greed as a whole, said Nadine Wyatt, a central office technician, also a 16-year employee of the company.
Verizon and union officials agreed to restart negotiations this week after U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez met with both sides on Sunday in Washington.
The unions say they are striking because Verizon wants to freeze pensions, make layoffs easier and rely more on contract workers.
Verizon said on April 28 that the company had made its last, best and final contract offer.
The company said it offered a 7.5 percent wage increase over the term of the contract, a continued company match to the 401(k) retirement plan, health care coverage and job security provisions, provided that the company gets increased flexibility in managing and deploying the workforce.
Verizon did not say what the length of the new contract would be.
From the beginning, our goal has been to reach an agreement thats fair to our employees, good for our customers and helps our company better compete in the digital world, Marc Reed, Verizons chief administrative officer, said in the April 28 statement.
A spokesman for Verizon said this week that the company had no further comment at this time because it had agreed to make no public statements as the negotiations were restarted.
The spokesman said about 800 of the companys 3,500 unionized employees in Virginia have returned to work during the strike.
Richard Hatch president of CWA Local 2201, which represents striking workers in the Richmond area said job security, not wages, is the central issue for the union in the negotiations.
Hatch said Verizon has outsourced jobs, including call center work formerly in the Richmond area, to overseas locations such as the Philippines, where labor is cheaper.
We would like to see outsourcing done away with, said Hatch, adding that the union believes service calls by Virginia customers should be answered in Virginia and that outsourcing to foreign locations puts customer data at risk.
Verizon announced on April 29 that it was deploying thousands of additional employees and contractors to serve its customers during the strike.
The company said the employees or contractors are currently enrolled or recently graduated from the companys technical training classes in Virginia.
The Roanoke Times contributed to this report.
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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
The Bear Attacked, So She
'Popped It Right in the Nose'
If the rumors are any indication, Kate Middleton has been following the footsteps of Queen Elizabeth to gain her favorable attention and also her admiration. She has been constantly disparaged and considered in no a fashion icon that Princess Diana once used to be.
After failing miserably to copy Princess Diana's style quotient, it looks like Kate Middleton is now focusing her attention on Queen Elizabeth and her fashion sense when she was younger. However, based on recent photographs from the Royal Trust Collection of Queen Elizabeth's ball gown, it is clear that Middleton is nowhere close to being as stylish and sophisticated as Queen Elizabeth used to be.
In other reports, Countess Sophie Wessex has condemned Kate Middleton as being so hypocrite so as to win favors of the queen and become her favorite. In fact, she is also accused of boasting about raising her children like any normal household when she only brings them out when there are public photo shoots.
Countess Sophie Wessex, on the other hand, has been keeping her kids away from the media attention as much as possible. In fact, she also pointed out that Lady Louise was not even aware that Queen Elizabeth is her grandmother.
The reason why Kate Middleton has such a hard time earning acceptance of Queen Elizabeth and Countess Sophie Wessex is because of the latter's love for history and horses. On the other hand, Duchess of Cambridge is only interested in fashion, fame and the lifestyle that comes with her title. As hard as Middleton may try, Queen Elizabeth is far from convinced that the mother of Prince George and Princess Charlotte is ready to take the queen's mantle.
Fairbanks, AK (99707)
Today
Sunshine and clouds mixed. High 27F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph..
Tonight
Partly cloudy skies early will become overcast later during the night. Low 16F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.
Mumbai:
Bank consolidation should wait for the ongoing balance sheet clean-up so that the merged entity can get a fair valuation, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor S S Mundra said today and allayed fears of job losses in case SBI merges its five associate banks with itself.
All these fears about job losses are without any base. Whenever such situation arises, there are doubts and fears. But slowly, as the dialogue goes on, there will be clarity on it, he told reporters here this evening.
The comments came on a day when the unions at the five associate banks of SBI went on a nationwide strike protesting against the merger with their parent bank. They have also called for nationwide strikes on June 7 and July 20.
Mundra, who joined RBI after rising up the ranks in commercial banks, said there have not been any job losses in such situations, even in the private sector.
He, however, said it would be good for the larger process of bank mergers to happen after the ongoing balance sheet clean-up.
Consolidation has to be an activity which should be well calibrated. Right now, one important activity is on, which is the cleaning up of the balance sheets.
Why I say clean-up before consolidation is important is because that is the only way you can arrive at a fair valuation, he said.
Mundra, however, added that the five associate banks of the countrys largest lender are already integrated in a major way.
When asked if the weak banks should be merged first, he quipped that at present there is no dearth of weak banks, but consolidation should be carried for the right reasons and with the right bank so that there is a synergy.
I dont say consolidation has no room. Consolidation will have its own merit with the growth in economy and whatever global (requirement) is there. What is important is right sequencing, right intention and right process. If all the things are there, outcome will certainly be right, he said.
In a surprise move earlier this week, SBI it was ready merge all its five associate banks with itself and also take over the newly-created Bharatiya Mahila Bank, a move that will make it a Rs 37-lakh crore behemoth with over 50 crore customers and amongst the top 50 lenders globally.
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New Delhi :
Class XII Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Results 2016 have been declared on Saturday. The exams were conducted in the month of March. This year, a delhi girl, Sukriti Gupta tops the examination with flying colours scoring 99.04 per cent in the exam.
Students can check the results in CBSEs official website www.results.nic.in, www.cbseresults.nic.in, www.cbse.nic.in, or call the toll free number 1800 11 8004, if there are any queries.
Besides for the first time, this year, CBSE will provide Class XII digital mark sheets in DigiLocker at www.digilocker.gov.in, and the results will be available on an android mobile app.
Also, students can obtain their results through IVRS system by calling Ph: 011- 24300699 and 011 -28127030.
For the second consecutive year, CBSE has declared results of all ten regions on the same day, said the Board. This year in total 1065179 candidates were registered for class XII examination which amounts to an increase of about 2.38 % candidates over that of last year, said CBSE in a statement.
Keeping the trend intact, the girls once again have outperformed the boys. Pass percentage of Girls is 88.58 as compared to that of Boys which is 78.85.
The overall pass percentage this year is 83.05 as compared to last years pass percentage of 82. Besides, over all pass percentage of Thiruvanathapuram region is 97.61 which is the highest as compared to other regions, followed by Chennai which is 92.63%.
CBSE class 12 examination was held from 1 March to 26 April this year.
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Panaji:
Actor Ali Fazal has taken a break from the shoot of his upcoming film "Tadka" following health issues.
The 29-year-old "Fukrey" actor, who was shooting in Goa with co-star Nana Patekar, left for Delhi to consult his doctors.
Fazal was advised bed rest after being diagnosed with infection and extreme body temperature.
"Seem like Goa's air didn't agree with me. I have been running fever for a long time but earlier this week I had to pause shoot. I will resume work soon and will join the team again in Goa hopefully by this weekend," he said in a statement.
"Tadka" marks the Bollywood directorial debut of actor Prakash Raj. The film is the Hindi remake of his Tamil film "Un Samayal Arayil". Actress Taapsee Pannu is playing Fazal's love interest in the movie which also stars Shriya Saran.
The "Singham" actor has roped in legendary musician Ilaiyaraaja to compose the music for the movie.
New Delhi :
The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) took cognizance of a recent incident of molestation and assault of a 21-year-old woman reported from the Anand Parbat area. The commission wrote to Alok Verma, Delhi Commissioner of Police (DCP) urging him to conduct enquiry into the role of local police in the case.
DCW chief Swati Maliwal said, The recent incident of molestation of a 21 year old girl in Anand Parbat has again highlighted the security issues faced by girls and women in Delhi. Around an year back, a 19 year old girl Meenakshi was brutally murdered in Anand Parbat by the same men who had been harassing her for a long time.
In the case of Meenakshi, it was alleged that she had raised the issue with the local police yet no action had been taken on her complaint. Shockingly no one had come forward to help her while she was brutally killed in full public glare, she said.
In the recent Anand Parbat molestation case, the interaction of the Commission with the 21 year old victim and the eye-witness has revealed crucial aspects of the case which merit your immediate attention, stated the letter written to DCP.
The commission feels that the role of the local police seems to be under question. The victim in her written complaint to the Commission has stated that her FIR was registered only upon the intervention of the concerned DCP of the district. She has also complained of being pressurised by the local police and the family members of the accused to withdraw the case. The complainant continues till date to live in an atmosphere of insecurity as 3 of the accused are yet to be arrested. As reported by media, it is heartening to note that your good office has sought a report from the concerned DCP on this incident, said Maliwal in the letter.
The Commission recommended that an enquiry should be conducted into the role of the concerned local police officers and if found guilty, strict action should be taken against them. DCW also recommends that the investigation of the case should be conducted by another police station and monitored at the level of the DCP. Also, adequate steps should be immediately taken by Police to ensure the safety and security of the victim, Maliwal added.
Maliwal reiterated, The Commission wishes to reiterate its commitment of working with the Delhi Police as our aims are completely aligned when it comes to security and safety of women in the National Capital of Delhi.
Besides, DCW has also written a letter to Delhi State Legal Services Authority, asking it to provide protection to the victim and the eyewitness under the Witness Protection Scheme of the Delhi government.
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Chennai:
AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa today called on Tamil Nadu Governor K Rosaiah and formally staked claim to form government in the state.
A day after she was elected AIADMK Legislature Party leader, Jayalalithaa met Rosaiah and gave him a copy of her election to the post.
She is likely to be sworn in Chief Minister for a second consecutive term on May 23 at a function at the Madras University Centenary Auditorium, and will assume the office for the sixth time.
In the May 16 assembly polls, her party registered a major win bagging 134 seats, the first time since 1984 that voters of Tamil Nadu preferred a party for a successive term.
AIADMKs main rival DMK increased its tally to 89 and along with allies (Congress eight, and IUML one) has 98 members in the 15th Assembly that will be constituted.
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New Delhi:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate a conference titled 'India-Iran Two Great Civilizations: Retrospect-Prospects' on Monday during his visit to that country.
Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), which is organising the conference, said in a statement released here that it is a part of 'The Cultural Festival of India in Iran' from May 23 to 25 and has been put together in collaboration with Indian Embassy in Tehran along with Bonyad-e-Sadi and Farhangistan-e-Zaban-o-Adab-e-Farsi from Iran.
"The facsimile edition of the Kalila va Dimna is a tribute to the cultural interflow between India and Iran over millennia, attested by the nexus of the Rig Vedic hymns and Gathas of Zarathushtra, coming down to the reign of Akbar who introduced Persian as the language of administration in India which continued till the middle of the 19th century under the East India Company.
"The Persian version of the Kalila va Dimna entitled Anwar-i Suhayli had the historic destiny of being the textbook for learning Persian to run the government of the day," ICCR President Lokesh Chandra said.
During the conference, ICCR will also be displaying the Indian publications of Persian manuscripts. There will be a sample of over 100 books in Persian.
Besides the conference, ICCR would also be presenting an evening of poetry recital: Sitar and Tar (Iran) Jugalbandi with Nishant Khan, a leading exponent; display of rare Persian manuscripts and miniatures and publishing, in facsimile, Kalileh-wa-Dimneh of the 6th century procured from the Rampur Raza Library.
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Connecticut is full of natural beauty, but according to Travel + Leisure, the New England Trail is the most beautiful.
In honor of the National Park Service turning 100 this year, the site picked its favorite national park in each state.
"The 215-mile New England National Scenic Trail runs from Guilford, CT, up to the Massachusetts and New Hampshire border. This cross-country trail traverses mountain ridges and winds past scenic vistas, but also gives hikers a taste of New England culture as it passes through farms and historic Colonial villages. The audacious may choose to through-hike the entire trail, while the more novice hiker may plan to hike a smaller section in just a day," the site writes.
The New England Trail offers plenty of hikes and events. You may want to consider hitting the trail on National Trails Day, which falls on June 4 this year.
If you don't want to travel to Guilford, there are plenty of hiking trails around here to check out. Click through the slideshow above to see a sampling.
The New England Trail isn't just about fitness, though. The beauty of it has inspired so many artists that there is actually a network of trail artists that includes a photographers, musicians and even a hip-hop artists for kids.
"The National Park Service's Youth Ambassador Program (YAP) encourages young people to connect with the outdoors. The hip-hop group partnered with the NET in the fall of 2012 to compose a creative music video about their experience on the trail."
The deal struck last week to close a $1 billion state budget deficit slashed promised aid to municipalities, leaving many town leaders to fume that the state had put them in a financial bind.
Many Danbury-area towns had already passed budgets relying on earlier and higher estimates of state aid to supplement property tax revenues in paying for schools, roads and other services. Town leaders, who must decide whether to cut services or raise taxes to make up the difference, are unhappy legislators passed the buck.
This all looks good on paper for someone who is running for election, but it is just a shell game the Legislature is playing, said Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton.
Its an interesting way of passing the buck, said New Milford Mayor David Gronbach. The state isnt raising taxes to meet its shortfall, but is telling municipalities to raise taxes and put that on their own citizens. Thats a nonstarter for me and my administration.
Some of the largest reductions were made to school transportation, such as the $472,000 Danbury lost, and to Education Cost Sharing, which cost Ridgefield $1.2 million.
The budget fix affected not only municipal aid, but reduced payments to hospitals and forced layoffs of thousands of state workers.
Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi said the cuts are painful for everyone, but the state had little choice.
Wheres the state going to cut? Marconi asked. They are laying off more than 2,500, cutting programs all over. ... The reality is the majority in the state say the government has to be shrunk. The governor has done that, and now everyones complaining.
Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, said the cuts were necessary because of declining state revenues, and because the state has long tried to shield towns from Connecticuts fiscal challenges.
This is the first time there has been a haircut, compared to all the other years where we have held communities harmless, Duff said. The Legislature has worked very hard to keep funding at levels so towns and cities did not lay off fire and police.
The agreement, which did not include a tax increase, passed without Republican support.
State Rep. Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, said he voted against the bill partly because the plan passes the states problems to municipalities, which will inevitably lead to tax increases.
We have to start working earlier, much earlier, to get a plan in place in regards to the budget so towns have an idea, Harding said. We might pass a budget without a state tax increase, but it forces municipalities to raise property taxes. Thats just wrong.
New Milford, one of the few towns in the area that has not yet put its budget to referendum, expects to get $501,000 less than planned, said interim Finance Director Gregory Osipow.
Thats pretty sobering, Osipow said.
Gronbach is confident the town can find savings in the upcoming fiscal year, especially after the Board of Finance unexpectedly added $400,000 to his original budget proposal.
Other town officials said they are unsure what impact the changes in state aid would have on their communities.
Marconi said he didnt think the cuts would affect Ridgefields 2016-17 operating budget because the town had already planned to collect unpaid property taxes that have been delinquent for years.
We knew someday wed have to take a cut, Marconi said. My concern has more to do with next year and the year after. There are still sizable deficits being looked at. There is not a whole lot more they can take from Ridgefield.
But Ridgefield Schools Superintendent Karen Baldwin said town leaders will have to huddle to see how painful the school reductions might be.
Our preliminary assessment indicates that the reductions will create a revenue gap in Ridgefields FY 17 budget, Baldwin said. We will have to partner with the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance in the fall to assess the extent of the damage from the state funding cuts and progress versus FY 17 budgets.
Not all town officials were surprised they would receive less aid than the original projections.
We never believed those projections in the first place, said Bethel First Selectman Matt Knickerbocker. If you try to follow what the state does, it will make you tear your hair out. The only thing you can do is ignore the state and try to plan your own budget around your own (revenue) sources as best you can.
Redding, which lost $423,000 in ECS funding over last year, delayed setting its tax rate until the state announced how much aid the town would receive.
We covered the shortfall from the state with the mill rate, said Finance Director Steve Gniadek.
Editors note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed a quote to former New Milford Finance Director Ray Jankowski. It should have been attributed to interim Finance Director Gregory Osipow.
NEW FAIRFIELD The school board rejected a motion to censure one of its members Thursday night after a contentious discussion about his behavior on social media.
Late in a board meeting that featured a call by teachers for the resignation of Superintendent Alicia Roy, board member Samantha Mannion moved to censure her colleague, Scott Akam.
One of our own repeatedly engages in personal attacks on social media, Mannion said. Amy Tozzo, the boards vice chairwoman, seconded the motion.
We are public officials, Tozzo said. We should not be on Facebook making those kinds of comments.
At issue were Facebook comments directed at two residents, Craig Rosen and Patrick Bower.
Neither of you Pat or Craig have done anything for this town, Akam wrote. All you do is make nasty, negative comments about the people who actually roll up their sleeves to make a difference. Turn off the computers and get a life guys!
Akam responded that Rosen and Bower have made several negative comments about him on Facebook, including calling him weak-minded, foolish, ignorant and a coward, and that he feels bullied.
Theres an old saying respect must be earned, not demanded, Akam said.
He followed with several comments about the two and then Rosen jumped to his feet, yelled back at Akam and stormed out of the meeting. Akam also left the meeting before the motion came to a vote.
Rosen said Friday that the statements that Akam made at the meeting were untrue.
Mannion and Tozzo voted to censure Akam, but five members Steve Burfeind, Susan Starr, Sean Loughran, Jay Voss and Kevin Hearty voted against it. Edward Sbordone abstained.
I hemmed and hawed about this, and I think I came to the right conclusion, Hearty said. This is a slippery slope.
He said board bylaws govern how members should conduct themselves in meetings, but not what they do in the public arena.
We have free speech, its protected, he said. That is something we should not as a board delve into.
Contributed Photo / The News-Times
Doctors in Connecticut agree with the the president of the American Medical Association, who said last week that physicians must play a lead role in addressing the spread of opioid addiction if necessary by limiting prescription of widely used opioid painkillers.
For the past 20 years, public policies well-intended but now known to be flawed compelled doctors to treat pain more aggressively for the comfort of our patients, said AMA President Dr. Steven Stack, who visited Connecticut last week. But todays crisis plainly tells us we must be much more cautious with how we prescribe opioids.
The Bring Back Our Girls #BBOG advocacy group has faulted claims by the Nigerian Military that the second returnee Chibok girl, Serah Luk...
The Bring Back Our Girls #BBOG advocacy group has faulted claims by the Nigerian Military that the second returnee Chibok girl, Serah Luka was a Senior Secondary School One student of Government Secondary School, Chibok at the time of her kidnap. The group also disclosed that Miss Luka was never abducted in Chibok, Borno state but in her home, Madagali in Adamawa state. Spokesperson of the group, Sesugh Akume made the clarification in a statement issued on Friday in Abuja.According to Haruna Mutali, a community leader in Chibok, their background checks have revealed that this second returnee, Miss Serah Luka was an SSS 1 learner at GSS Chibok, who was abducted by the insurgents in her home in Madagali. Every citizen returned is victory for us all. We appeal to the humanity in us to stay positively focused on emerging developments.We wish to advice caution in disseminating information too promptly, as we appeal that we respect the human dignity of our returnees and their loved ones, as we engage on this topic, the statement added. Acting Director, Army Public Relations, Col. Sani Kukasheka Usman had, in a statement on Thursday night, announced the rescue of Miss Luka.He said, during debriefing, the girl revealed that she was a JSS1 student of the school at the time they were abducted. She further added that she hails from Madagali, Adamawa State. She averred that she reported at the school barely two months and one week before her unfortunate abduction along with other girls over two years ago.
Ten-man Manchester United beat Crystal Palace 2-1 in extra time to lift the FA Cup Final at Wembley on Saturday.Second half substitute Jesse Lingard's volley earlier into the second extra time period secured Louis van Gaal his first silverware with the Old Trafford club in what has been a rocky two seasons with the Premier League giants.Juan Mata forced a strong save from Wayne Hennessey in the 22nd minute. From a fortunate deflection in the box, his low, left-footed shot from the right was pushed out of danger by the sprawling keeper.United carved out a quality chance minutes later from a corner, but Marouane Fellaini's close-range header took a deflection before going well wide of the goal.Yannick Bolasie then forced a save from David De Gea on 27 minutes with a curled effort from outside the box.Marcus Rashford created a quality chance for Anthony Martial with a fine run and pass from the right side only for the Frenchman to fire straight at a Palace defender.Wilfried Zaha robbed Daley Blind in the United half and looked to have a penalty shout after a fine run into the box, but Wayne Rooney's sliding intervention was deemed clean and no foul was given.Fellaini hit the woodwork eight minutes after the break, receiving a smart flick from Rashford before slicing his powerful shot off the frame of the goal from just inside the box.Martial followed suit minutes later, looping a header from the center of the box that was only kept out of the net by the far upright.Despite the pressure it was Palace who got the breakthrough in the 78th minute through second-half substitute Jason Puncheon. Kept onside by a slow-to-react Martial, the midfielder collected a lobbed pass behind the United defence and fired home a left-footed shotPalace's pleasure would not last, however, and United struck back just three minutes later. Rooney made a winding run through the Palace defence and into the box, where his right-footed footed chip across the goal was chested by Fellaini and fell to Mata, whose volley deflected off a Palace defender before beating Hennessey.Zaha flubbed his lines just before the end of regulation but the score remained deadlocked at the whistle.Bolasie tested De Gea with a powerful, low volleyed attempt 12 minutes into the first extra time period, but the Spaniard's slight touch turned the ball past his far post.Chris Smalling was sent off three minutes later for a second yellow card offence. Marking Bolasie, Smalling's cynical tackle to keep the Congolese from skipping free after having beaten the United defender left referee Mark Clattenburg no choice.De Gea immediately came to United's rescue moments into the second extra time, kick-saving substitute Dwight Gayle's low shot after the Palace made had been played in behind the Red Devils' back line.Michael Carrick then found himself with a free header only to fire agonisingly wide.But the United mood would change just seconds later, and Louis van Gaal's side were celebrating after a perfectly hit volley from substitute Lingard. An Antonio Valencia cross was deflected directly into an oncoming Lingard's path and the United academy product hit sweetly into the top corner, leaving Hennessey no chance to react.
Governor in the Peoples Democratic Party have decided to ignore the announcement by the National Chairman of the party, Sen. Ali Modu Sh...
Governor in the Peoples Democratic Party have decided to ignore the announcement by the National Chairman of the party, Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff, that its national convention has been cancelled.A governor told newsmen that a former Governor of Kaduna, Sen. Ahmed Makarfi as the partys caretaker national chairman and that they are going ahead with the convention.He added that Senator Ben Obi was named the national secretary of the party.A faction of the party led by a former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana, had earlier held its briefing in Abuja.Our source added that the leadership which comprised of PDP governors and other eminent members of PDP agreed to name an interim committee to replace the National Working Committee, pending the election of new NWC members.Another source present at the high-powered meeting that was convened at the office of Governor Nyesom Wike in Port Harcourt said members resolved to make Mr. Markafi the chairman of the caretaker committee while Mr. Obi would function as secretary of the party.Governor Fayose said Sheriff should leave for a new caretaker chairman to take over, but Governor Wike said Sheriff should not be disgraced out of office just like that that they should let him be chairman of the caretaker. The governors rejected Mr. Wikes suggestion, the source said.The source said there will be representatives of the six geopolitical zones in the caretaker committee, too.Sheriff was not happy with the development. In fact, he had to storm out of the venue of the meeting, angrily, the source said.He said the meeting was attended by most of the partys serving and former governors, senators and honourable members as well as some members of the board of trustees.
Nigeria defeated hosts Burundi 1-0 in an U20 AFCON qualifier in Bujumbura Saturday.The first half was goalless. The match winner was scored in the 64th minute by Chukwudi Agor.The second leg will be played in the southern coastal town of Calabar next month with the overall winners squaring up with Sudan for a place in the tournament proper in Zambia next year.Nigeria are the defending champions having won the continental crown a record seven times.
Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar on Friday announced that he would establish an animal feeds factory in Abuja as part of his contrib...
Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar on Friday announced that he would establish an animal feeds factory in Abuja as part of his contribution towards boosting employment in the country.In a statement released to newsmen in Abuja by his Head of Media, Paul Ibe, Atiku said arrangement for the take-off of the factory was at an advanced stage.Mr. Ibe said the factory would complement Federal Governments efforts at creating more jobs.According to the statement, the factory called Rico Gardo, when operational, will produce animal feeds of various types, including for cattle, small ruminants, horse and poultry.It said that Rico Gardo was already existing in Adamawa State and would provide thousands of direct and indirect jobs.It will also conserve scarce foreign exchange for the country by providing high quality made-in-Nigeria animal feed for the nations livestock sector.Based on the success and impact of the Numan factory, the Abuja factory when operational, will play a significant role in providing feed for millions of cattle that presently roam the country in search of pasture, it said.It stated that the company was jointly owned by Atiku and Rico Gardo, and specialised in livestock feeds production and distribution throughout Europe and the Middle-East.The statement said that presently, the factory catered for animal food supplement needs in Adamawa, the North-East and beyond.According to it, when produced in abundance, the supplement will aid the plan of the Federal Government to limit and control the movement of cattle through the provision of ranches in selected locations across the country.(NAN)
The government of Goodluck Jonathan and the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) is in a fresh mess, according to The Nation n...
The government of Goodluck Jonathan and the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) is in a fresh mess, according toThe office, already enmeshed in the $15billion arms deal, is being fingered in the alleged disappearance of $40million (N13.6billion) approved by the administration of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan ostensibly for the negotiation of freedom for the Chibok girls.Part of the supposed deal was for Boko Haram to concede to a demand for ceasefire,The Nation gathered on good authority yesterday.The under-the-table negotiation was however botched because the Boko Haram leadership was not interested in the deal.The whereabouts of the cash is now unknown, prompting a probe by the Federal Government.One report suggested that the money was handed over to the president of a neighbouring country, while another said it was in the custody of a former presidential aide.The cash was allegedly drawn from the ONSA by the former top presidential aide.A source familiar with the development said:The government is probing how about $40million was allegedly spent by the administration of ex-President Jonathan to negotiate with Boko Haram. The cash was allegedly withdrawn from the ONSA account by a former presidential aide.The said aide alleged that the cash was routed through the Presidents of a neighbouring country, but preliminary tracking showed that the money might have been diverted.Many people have been linked with the negotiation, but the government, through relevant anti-graft agencies, is trying to ascertain the whereabouts of the funds. We have started inviting those connected with the deal for interaction.Even the ex-President in January 2016 said in an interview with a news website, Quartz, in Geneva, Switzerland that his administration did not set up any negotiation team.I did not negotiate with Boko Haram. The government never set up a team, Quartz quoted him as saying.The Boko Haram leader, Imam Abubakar Shekau, responding in one of his video messages to claims of negotiation with government, had said: We have not made ceasefire with anyone. We did not negotiate with anyone. Its a lie. Its a lie. We will not negotiate. What is our business with negotiation? Allah said we should not.Conitnuing the source said:So, there could not have been any sum spent on negotiation with Boko Haram, if there was no deal with the sect. You can see that the ongoing investigation of $15billion arms deal in the ONSA has many dimensions.The main objective of the government is to recover the $40million.Meanwhile, the BringBackOurGirls group yesterday confirmed that Serah Luka, who was rescued on Thursday by the Nigerian military, was an SSS 1 student of Government Secondary School, Chibok.It however said the girl was abducted by Boko Haram in Madagali in Adamawa State and not in Chibok.The group, which made the clarification in a statement by Sesugh Akume, laid to rest the controversy over the identity of the girl.The statement said: We are excited with the news of yet another rescued Chibok girl.According to Haruna Mutali, a community leader in Chibok, their background checks have revealed that this second returnee, Miss Serah Luka, was an SSS 1 learner at GSS Chibok, who was abducted by the insurgents in her home in Madagali.Every citizen returned is victory for us all.We appeal to the humanity in us to stay positively focused on emerging developments. We wish to advise caution in disseminating information too promptly, as we appeal that we respect the human dignity of our returnees and their loved ones, as we engage on this topic.We commend the gallant Nigerian Army, the Civilian JTF, and the other security forces. We are strongly with you, as through great sacrifice you annihilate the insurgents, return our compatriots, reclaim our territories and restore peace and normality, especially in northeast Nigeria.A top military source said: We conducted security checks on the girl before we released information to the public.As part of her profiling, we got in touch with a teacher in GSS, Chibok who confirmed that she was a student of the school before her abduction.Also, some of her relatives admitted that she was schooling in Chibok and the girl confessed that she was one of the Chibok girls.The Army is not deceiving Nigerians as being insinuated. This kind of attitude from some Nigerians can demoralize the troops.
The Lagos chapter of the Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC) and other civil society groups on Friday held a meeting to appraise the progress of ...
The Lagos chapter of the Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC) and other civil society groups on Friday held a meeting to appraise the progress of protests they've embarked against FG's recent increment of pump price of petrol.The groups also discussed strategies for boosting the protests which have so far failed to show momentum and resolved to stage a massive protest on Monday, May 23, 2016, Sahara Reporters say."We really appreciate everyone who has been on the street with us since the beginning of the protest. We would also like to appeal to you not to be discouraged. This is not a fight of the union alone but for all the people," said Comrade Amechi, the deputy national president of NLC.The union leaders decided to converge again on Sunday, May 22, 2016, to prepare for Monday's massive protests.
The 'Jagaban' crooner will feature in series of campaign for KUI across various marketing mediums rolling out from May 2016.
Popular Nigerian rapper, Ycee has just nabbed his first endorsement with hair care product KUI.The talented hip-hop artiste who has made his mark in the music industry and continues to wow his fans by consistently dropping great tunes is ecstatic about the new endorsement.Although the crooner didn't reveal how much the deal is worth he had this to say."
President Muhammadu Buhari will Monday, May 23, 2016 begin a two-day working visit to Lagos State. It will be President Buharis first off...
President Muhammadu Buhari will Monday, May 23, 2016 begin a two-day working visit to Lagos State. It will be President Buharis first official visit to the state since he assumed office about a year ago.In a statement by the State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Steve Ayorinde, stated that this is the first time in about 15years that a sitting President will be visiting the State on a working visit and is a testimony to the landmark achievements in the last one year of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode as well as the good working relationship between Lagos State and the Federal Government.Ayorinde added that President Buhari during the visit, would formally commission the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) Rescue Unit in Cappa Oshodi built by the State Government to ensure prompt and swift response to emergency situations in the State.He said the President would thereafter commission the newly constructed Ago Palace Way in Okota, Isolo after which he will pay homage to the Oba of Lagos, His Royal Majesty, Oba Babatunde Rilwanu Aremu Akiolu at the Iga Iduganran, Lagos Island.The Commissioner disclosed further that the President would later in the day be hosted to a reception rally by the State Government at the Tafawa Balewa Square, (TBS) Lagos where he will also commission and hand over security equipment and vehicles contributed by the Governor Akinwunmi Ambode-led administration to securities agencies to beef up security in the state.The release added that activities for the first day of the Presidents visit would be rounded off with a State Banquet in his honour at the Eko Hotels and Suites, Victoria Island.The President will on Tuesday participate as the Special Guest of Honour at a breakfast session with Corporate Lagos to be hosted by Governor Ambode at the Lagos State House, Marina, after which he will have a short session with the public service at the State House, Alausa-Ikeja.The Commissioner quoted Governor Akinwunmi Ambode as being joyous over this landmark presidential visit to the State that contributed so much to his emergence as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.He added that Lagosians are looking forward with excitement to receive the President in the State, just as he urged residents to bear with law enforcement agents and traffic control authorities who will effect road diversions in some of the routes that the President motorcade will pass through during the visit.
The Dangote Farms Tomato Processing Factory announced that it has halted operations in its $20 million tomato paste facility due to a sc...
Tuta absoluta attack
Nigeria is the 14th largest producer of tomatoes in the world.
It is the largest producer of tomatoes in sub-Saharan Africa.
It is the eighth largest importer of tomato paste in the world after Iraq and Japan.
The country has a significant demand for processed tomatoes but almost half of the tomato pastes found in its markets have been imported from China and Italy.
Last year, the Director General and CEO of the Raw Material and Research and Development Council (RMRDC), Dr. Hussaini Ibrahim, revealed that Nigeria spends about $1.5 billion annually on tomato product-importation from China and other parts of the world.
Erisco tomato paste known as Nagiko is the first tomato paste to be made in Nigeria.
The Dangote Farms Tomato Processing Factory announced that it has halted operations in its $20 million tomato paste facility due to a scarcity of tomatoes, barely two months after beginning operations. This announcement comes as a surprise to many that believed Dangote was the reason for the tomatoes shortage plaguing Nigeria.The tomato plant was anticipated to help reduce wastage of the fruit in the country and to also minimise the amount of imported tomato pastes in the Nigerian market. According to Nigerias Ministry of Agriculture, Nigeria produces about 1.5 million tons of tomatoes a year, but over 900,000 tons is lost to rot.Nigerians have been severely affected by the scarcity of tomatoes, which is a key ingredient in most of the delicacies prepared in this part of the continent. The price of the fruit has increased by 400 percent; Nigerians now pay around 200 Naira for the same quantity of tomatoes which was sold at 50 Naira few months ago. But while there have been different rumours concerning the tomato scarcity, the real reason for the scarcity is a devastating pest attack which has affected this years harvest. A pest known as Tuta absoluta has reportedly affected tomato farms in Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina and Plateau states.is also known by the common name tomato leafminer or the South American tomato moth and has been spreading rapidly across the world from South America, where it was first discovered. It has the ability to destroy a whole tomato farm within 48 hours and is also very difficult to control as it has a high mutation capacity with the ability to develop a resistance to insecticides. Around this time last year, farmers in some parts of Nigeria recorded losses as a result of this same pest attack but the consequences of this attack werent reflected in the price of the commodity because the demand for the crop wasnt as high as it is now.If the Nigerian government does not treat this as a matter of urgency it can take years to recover from the attack. It took Sudan about three years to recover from a similar attack in 2010. This plague could also dampen the export of fruits and vegetables.
Supporters of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) pushed their case further yesterday at the Senate, with startling facts on the sector.
Supporters of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) pushed their case further yesterday at the Senate, with startling facts on the sector.Senator Ita Enang (Akwa Ibom North East) described the opposition to the 10 per cent host community fund by mostly northern senators as misplaced.Enang, who is also the Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, said that those opposed to the fund should know that over 83 per cent of oil blocks are owned by northerners.But he did not give the number of oil blocks Nigeria has.Senator David Mark, who seemed to have been shocked by what Enang said, said the Akwa Ibom lawmaker should not be distracted (some senators were grumbling) because he was making an important point.Mark asked Enang whether he could substantiate his claim.Enang promptly pulled out a document from his folder and reeled out oil blocs and their owners.He said he did not intend to divide the country but to guide those who wanted to contribute to the debate to be truly informed.He listed northerners who own oil blocks to include Alhaji Mai Deribe, Borno State and owner of Cavendish Petroleum, which operates OML 110 with an average of about N4billion monthly.He also listed Seplat/Platform Petroleum, operators of the ASUOKPU/UMUTU Marginal Field with Mallam (Prince) Sanusi Lamido, Kano , as a major shareholder and director.South Atlantic Petroleum Limited (SAPETRO) established by General T. Y. Danjuma, Taraba State , who is also chairman of Eni Nigeria Limited.SAPETRO partnered with Total Upstream Nigeria Limited (TUPNI) and Brasoil Oil Services Company Nigeria Limited to become operators of the OPL 246.AMNI International Petroleum and Development Company is owned by Alhaji (Colonel) Sani Bello of Kontangora , Niger State.They are operators of OML 112 and OML 117, he said.He said that a former Petroleum Minister and former OPEC Chairman, Rilwanu Lukman, another northerner manages AMNI oil blocks with very key interest in the NNPC/Vitol trading deal.He said that Oriental Energy Resources Limited, a company owned by Alhaji Indimi, runs three oil blocks OML 115, the Oldwok field and the Ebok field.He said that Alhaji Aminu Dantatas Express Petroleum and Gas Limited, operates OML 108.Enang said that OML 113 allocated to Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum Limited is owned by Alhaji W.I. Folawiyo. Alhaji Saleh Mohammed Gambo, North East Petroleum Limited, is the holder of the OPL 215 Licence.North East Petroleum was awarded blocs OPL 276 and OPL 283 and closing thereupon a Joint Venture Agreement with Centrica Resources Nigeria Limited and CCC Oil and Gas.He said that INTEL is owned by former Vice President Atiku, the late Gen. Shehu Musa YarAdua and Ado Bayero. It has substantial stakes in Nigeria s oil exploration industry both in Nigeria and Sao Tome and Principe .He said that Mike Adenugas Conoil is the oldest indigenous oil exploration company with six blocks. OPL 291 was awarded to Starcrest Energy Nigeria Limited, owned by Emeka Offor, which was sold to Addax Petroleum.Enang urged the Senate to cause the immediate revocation of all oil blocks licences and their redistribution, in accordance with the Federal Character Principle.He said: My submission is that when you look at the distribution of those who own oil blocks and the amount of money that comes from the different oil blocks to the Federation Account and you see the owners of these oil blocks, you will agree with me that there is inequity in the distribution of oil blocks.The oil is produced in the Niger Delta yet it is the people of the Northeast and the Northwest and a little of the Northcentral, almost nothing of the Southwest and the Southeast, that are the persons owning and controlling these oil blocks.Almost nothing for the Southsouth, Niger Delta oil producing areas.They are quarreling with the area that takes just 13 per cent when you are producing the entire 100 per cent, you give some to the Federation Account and they give only 13 per cent of what you give and, of course, it is whatever you declared that you have produced. It is actually produced by you.I did not want to introduce something that is divisive.It is not intended to divide the country, it is intended to say look, let us be realistic.What some of the oil wells and the owners of the oil wells produce in a month and take as profit is sometimes more than what two or three states receive from the Federation Account.Enang noted that when a group of people are richer than a state and then it is produced by you, then there is so much opposition that even the people who suffer the effect of the oil production should not be give host communities fund; and we have explained that the host communities fund is not only for the oil producing; it is for any of the communities that hosts oil infrastructure, which includes oil pipelines, refineries, gas pipelines and anything that is capable of causing danger.If we had the host communities fund, the danger that we have been having in Arepo in Ogun State, the area would have benefited from the host communities fund.Enag said that other areas, such as Kaduna and some other states, will benefit from it.He went on: If you are producing and declaring only what you like and only the 10 per cent now being provided for the host communities and the 13 per cent which is after deducting everything, that cannot be in the interest of the country.What I am asking now is that oil blocs in the whole country should be revoked and redistributed according to Federal Character Principle.We are not saying that we in the Southsouth should have all or the Southeast should have all or the Southwest should have all.In fact, if there are 18 oil blocs or 36 oil blocks, we dont mind that you give us at least four, Northeast four, Southeast four, Northwest four.At least, let there be equity, but then there should be the principle of who owns it and then you give us more.But at this time, we dont even have it. The 13 per cent is what we are even suffering to sustain.Senator Olufemi Lanlehin (Oyo South) praised the maturity of Senators in considering the bill.He urged the Senate to look at the absolute and sweeping powers granted the President in Section 191 of the bill.The Section, he said, gives the President absolute and unqualified powers to grant petroleum licences to whoever he pleases.Lanlehin prayed the Senate to use the opportunity of the bill to design a template that would grow the economy.Senator Adegbenga Kaka (Ogun East) said he was supporting the bill with mixed feelings.He noted that the trend of the debate seemed to indicate that senators were more concerned about how to share the cake and not how to bake it.Kaka said the power granted the minister of petroleum in the bill should be reconsidered so that we dont give too much power to the minister.The lawmaker who insisted that the bill should be finetuned, said certain percentage of earnings should be set aside to fix electricity, agriculture and other infrastructure.Senator Mohammed Goje (Gombe Central) said before the debate, he was completely against the bill.He said the trend of the debate showed that the Senate was poised to do justice to the bill by removing offensive sections.To him, it seems a consensus is being built around certain sections of the bill.He noted that most contributors agreed that the power of the minister should be reduced, such that the minister will just be like any other minister.Goje said: We should not create a super minister.He said that definite provision should be made for frontier exploration, especially adequate funding.He opposed 10 per cent host community fund.Senator Barnabas Gemade (Benue North East) described the bill as very important and long overdue.Gemade said an adage says: Wherever you find oil, corruption creeps in and wherever you find diamond war emerges.He said the adage had been proved to be true.Gemade said the bill contained good and bad provisions. He listed the good sections to include development of the gas sector, increase in promotion of local content and the unbundling of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).The bad sections, he said, include the ministers economic power.On the host community fund, Gemade said efforts should be made to ensure that it does not degenerate to very poor management of resources as it is, according to him, in the Niger Delta Development Commission, 13 per cent derivation and others.On the frontier exploration, he said more effort should be geared towards discovering oil in other places.Senator Akin Odunsi ( Ogun West) described the bill as the most important legislation before the National Assembly.Odunsi noted that the bill becomes even more important when it is recognised that the country runs a mono economy based on oil.The lawmaker cautioned against undue sentiment in the consideration of the bill.He agreed that the bill was not perfect but posited that it could be fine-tuned to engender development.Senator Abdulahi Adamu (Nasarawa West) said he was giving the bill a reserved support.Adamu expressed worry about the absence of transparency and accountability in the oil sector.He said the bill appears to contradict the Constitution (as amended), especially when it is recognised that oil and gas as well as other minerals are in the Exclusive List and under the control of the Federal Government.The lawmaker cautioned about the unbundling of the NNPC in order not to put up the corporation for outright purchase by wealthy Nigerians.On the host community fund, Adamu said the provision would create the fourth tier of government.To Senator Gbenga Ashafa (Lagos East), the bill will be counter productive in its present form. He demanded the definition of host community.Ashafa said pipelines burst at times not because of vandalisation but because of the integrity of the pipes.Senator Ayogu Eze said his support for the bill stemmed from the realization that the oil sector should be reformed.Eze highlighted issues of details in the bill, which, he said, should be addressed at the committee and public hearing levels.It was obvious that most northern Senators were not comfortable with what Enang said.
This isnt a comprehensive list, but here are seven of the most common dysfunctional marriage types:
This isnt a comprehensive list, but here are seven of the most common dysfunctional marriage types:1. The ScorekeepersThese are the marriages where one or both spouses is always keeping score of the other spouses behavior and then using that information to manipulate or control aspects of the marriage. Forgiveness is never truly sought or truly given. Scorekeepers always have their guards up, because they see marriage as a contest to be won against their spouse instead of something to be won in partnership with their spouse.2. The FantasizersThese couples have nearly given up on pursuing passionate intimacy with each other, so they often escape into fantasy through romance novels or P0*n. The deeper they go into the fantasy, the more desensitized they become to real love and the more unsatisfied they become with their spouse, their s*x life and their marriage.3. The OutsourcersThese dysfunctional couples take the most sacred aspects of marriage (emotional support, friendship, acceptance, companionship and sometimes even s*x) and outsource those roles to other people or pursuits. They may also escape into their career or hobbies if they find fulfillment in those arenas. They give the best of themselves to other people or pursuits at the expense of their marriage.4. The BlamersThese are the marriages where one or both spouses consistently blame the other for all the struggles in the marriage. These couples tend to have regular arguments (often heated) with no real resolutions. Even when they are not arguing, their communication still contains a great deal of sarcasm and nagging. They live in perpetual frustration with each other.5. The SeparatistsThese are the couples who never seem to fully grasp the partnership required for a healthy marriage. They live as two separate individuals with separate hopes, separate dreams, separate money (often separate bank accounts), separate hobbies, separate friends, and eventually, separate lives altogether.6. The DeceiversThese couples have no trust in each other, and their lack of trust is perpetuated by keeping secrets and hiding details (or hiding money, conversations, etc) from each other. Without trust and transparency in the marriage, the couples lives in a state of artificial harmony and they never experience true intimacy, because secrecy is an enemy of intimacy.7. The QuittersThese couples throw around the word divorce in nearly every disagreement until they finally follow through and give up on the marriage. They see struggles in marriage as an excuse to quit instead of an opportunity to work together and grow stronger with their spouse. They very often remarry someone else and then repeat the same cycles of dysfunction in the new relationship.This article was originally published on Patheos.
CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE -- A California man is accused of abusing his position as trustee on his deceased sister's estate and stealing $75,000 from the money left to care for her children, according to reports.
Michael DeLeon, 46, of Oceanside, Calif., was entrusted with the estate of his sister Elizabeth Warrington after her death. It was to be used for the care of her two young sons, who live in Ocean City, Shore News Today reports. Authorities claim, however, that between 2007 and 2014 he stole from that estate and an investigation by the Cape May County Prosecutor's Office led to his arrest last week.
DeLeon was apprehended in California on May 10 and faces extradition to Cape May County on charges of second degree theft, which is subject to a 5 to ten-year prison sentence, according to the Cape May County Herald.
Rebecca Forand may be reached at rforand@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @RebeccaForand.Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Most Wanted.jpg
Orlando Gonzalez and Mark Hitchner (submitted photos)
BRIDGETON -- The Cumberland County Sheriff's Office would like your help in finding two of their most-wanted fugitives.
Orlando Gonzalez, 37, is being sought on three Superior Court of New Jersey Family Court warrants for failing to pay $64,210.15 in child support payments. Gonzalez is described as a white male of Hispanic origin, 5-foot-6-inches tall, 145 pounds, with brown eyes and black hair. He has a tattoo on his right shoulder "ELAINE" and a scar on his left knee. His last known address was North 2nd Street in Millville.
Mark H. Hitchner, 56, is being sought on three Superior Court of New Jersey Criminal Court warrants for failure to appear. Hitchner is described as a white male, 5-foot-8-inches tall, 150 pounds, with hazel eyes and brown hair. He has a tribal tattoo on his right forearm. His last known address was Brian Avenue in Millville.
Sheriff Robert A. Austino asks anyone who comes in contact with these individuals to call the police immediately. You should contact state or local police, or the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department TIP-LINE at 856-451-0625.
If you know the whereabouts of this individual, share this information anonymously by downloading the CCPOTIP App at the Android or iPhone Store and choosing Cumberland County Sheriff's Department, submitting an anonymous tip via text to 847411 with CCSONJ and your tip in the message line or going to the Cumberland County Prosecutor's Facebook page and clicking "submit a tip" and submitting a tip to the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department.
Citizens are reminded not to approach, confront, or detain these fugitives.
Don E. Woods may be reached at dwoods@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @donewoods1. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
JERSEY CITY -- Hundreds gathered under the Hoberman Sphere in Jersey City Friday night for the fifth annual Liberty Science Center Genius gala. The dinner celebrated four honorees for their achievements in science and technology. As the wall of previous geniuses states, "honorees are chosen not only for their singular brilliance but for allowing a spark of creativity to to ignite their ideas and open up new realms of discovery."
This year's award recipients were physicist Kip Thorne, paleontologist Jack Horner, architect Frank Gehry, and psychologist Ellen Langer. Also in attendance was actress and performer, Whoopi Goldberg, who introduced Jack Horner. "I asked Jack if Jurassic Park could ever really happen," Goldberg remarked. "He said no, which made me feel a whole lot better."
Cosmos host and Hayden Planetarium director, Neil deGrasse Tyson, even made a "flyby" appearance via video. (LSC CEO, Paul Hoffman, took a moment to boast that HIS planetarium is larger than Tyson's.)
While attendees wore suits and dresses, the atmosphere was far from formal. The red carpet had a photo booth with props for funny pictures, not to mention the two dinosaur mascots posing with guests. Roaming the floor during cocktail hour were two life-sized R2-D2's, one in formal attire. Volunteer Joan Tubungbanua let guests try on a pair of "upside down goggles." (When light enters your eye the image is actually upside down compared to what the brain perceives. The goggles use a prism to re-flip the image.) Most exciting Tesla coil presentation. Participants entered a Faraday cage just feet away from two massive coils shooting out bolts of energy to music.
While the gala celebrated past achievements of scientists, speakers also lauded Liberty Science Center's efforts to increase interest in STEM among children. "[We are] on a mission to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers," said corporate chair, Steve Howe. "When I'm here, I see the future.
Alex Remnick may be reached at aremnick@njadvancemedia.com or on Twitter@AlexRemnick. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
N.J. Home Makeover is a new feature on NJ.com. To submit your renovation for consideration, email home@starledger.com with your full name, email address, phone number and town/city. Attach "before" and "after" photos of what you renovated.
As solar collection panels become increasingly familiar on New Jersey homes, more owners are learning how the sun's power can offer enough energy to drastically reduce and sometimes even eliminate their electric bills.
Steve and Julie Rakus were among those peripherally aware of the economic and environmental benefits of solar energy. But they never seriously considered it for their Gloucester County home because the initial installation outlay.
"It was always 'You have to pay $40,000, and you'll recoup that money in 15 years or so'," Steve Rakus said. "That wasn't appealing to me" -- even with the 30 percent federal Solar Investment Tax Credit and the prospect of turning his home into a mini solar-power plant capable of generating enough electricity to sell to utility companies.
But then the couple, both registered nurses, learned about what is becoming an increasingly available option: solar installers who will place their panels on residential roofs to generate power for the home while selling the excess to utility companies.
New Jersey utility companies are among those required to provide a certain percentage of power from eco-friendly renewable sources such as solar. Homeowners who own their systems can sell solar power in a sometimes complicated process involving Solar Renewable Energy Certificates. Each time a solar installation generates 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, one certificate is earned, according to New Jersey's Clean Energy Program.
The renovation
Prompted by the promise of solar energy with no money down and a reduced utility bill at the same rate for 20 years, Steve and Julie Rakus opted to have 68 solar panels installed on various parts of their Washington Township home's multi-level roof. Under contract, they lease the panels from Sunrun and will pay $220 monthly to the California-based solar company that has installers in New Jersey and other states. Their system, which has been up and running since Oct. 23, would have cost them $58,000, Steve Rakus said.
If their solar installation does not generate enough electricity at less-sunny times, their electricity is supplied by Atlantic City Electric, to which they pay about $5 a month to remain connected to the grid.
"I pay Sunrun a discounted rate from what I would pay the electric company," Steve Rakus said. "My budget bill with Atlantic City Electric was $274 each month, so it's about a $50 saving a month on what I was paying before I went with Sunrun. My new budget bill would have been $349," he said.
Rakus said he and his wife have lived in their two-story, 2,400-square-foot home for 30 years and plan to be there many more. He wants to be able to control their expenses in retirement. Companies that lease solar panels typically offer a power purchase agreement with a monthly payment based on previous household energy usage.
According to the company's website, "Sunrun designs, installs, finances, insures, monitors and maintains the solar system on a homeowner's roof, while families typically pay for the electricity at a rate lower than their current utility."
Beyond the rooftop solar panels, there are two inverter boxes on one side of the Rakus home that convert the sun's energy into power that can be used from electric outlets and for lighting and other wired fixtures. Inside the four-bedroom 1985 Colonial, there's no change beyond a basement panel to disconnect from solar energy. "There's an arm on the right where I can turn it off," Steve Rakus said. "If I was to turn off the electric from Sunrun, I would get the electric from Atlantic City Electric."
What they renovated
Their home's power system by installing roof-top panels for solar energy
Who did the work
How long it took
The job took 5 days. "What takes all the time is the approval of the electric company," Steve Rakus said. "They have an inspector come and see it. We have a big system, and a bunch of crews were working on it."
How much it cost
The installation would have cost $58,000, Steve Rakus said, but couple paid nothing up front in a lease agreement with Sunrun.
Where they splurged
Their large system requires 68 solar panels to cover their household energy requirements, including year-round use of a hot tub.
How they saved
Installing the system lowered their electric bill. Their monthly payment will remain the same for 20 years.
What they like most
"We are pleased with how it looks and how it works."
What they would have done differently
Nothing
Kimberly L. Jackson may be reached at home@starledger.com. Find NJ.com Entertainment on Facebook.
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A new craft brewery revived a historic 103-year-old building in downtown Crete that's perhaps best known as the former Crete Bowling Lanes.
Evil Horse Brewing Co., named after a notoriously uncooperative horse that bucked off riders at the brewmaster's Beecher farm, opened Friday at 1338 Main Street in Crete. The new craft brewery tries to embody the same spirit of independence as that "evil" horse, said Michael Liccar, a partner in the business.
Liccar, brewmaster Steve Kamp and a group, who all attend Crete Church, launched the new craft brewery, which they hope will be a draw to downtown Crete. In keeping with the many horse farms in the area, they brew beers with equestrian-themed named such as Trot Hopple India Pale Ale, the Sergeant Reckless American Pale Ale, which is named after a horse that won two Purple Hearts in the Korean War and was featured in the Saturday Evening Post, and the Downtown Hottie American Wheat Ale, named after a racehorse who placed first after throwing off her jockey at Belmont three years ago.
The owners of Evil Horse Brewing plan to donate 10 percent of the net income after taxes to local charities.
"Most of the partners are Christian guys, so tithing is a very important part of the business," Liccar said.
The brewery employs about 15, and is looking to grow. Evil Horse plans to bottle and distribute its beer throughout Chicago, the south suburbs and the western suburbs. It plans to eventually offer sixpacks in Northwest Indiana.
"Ideally, we'll be national at some point," Liccar said. "The long-term vision is that we'll ideally be national."
But the Evil Horse brand is about more than just craft beer. The brewery also makes mustache waxes and soaps. It's developing snacks like beer cheese and popcorn with unique flavors like asiago, wasabi and paprika. A distillery also is a future goal.
Evil Horse opened its brewery in the recently refurbished Seggebruch building, which originally housed a grain, flour and feed business, and has since been a movie theater, roller rink, auto repair shop and barbershop.
The tasting room can handle about 150 people and also offers pre-packaged sandwiches like a Turkey Club from The Edge Coffee Shop in downtown Crete. Schererville-based Mixdesign Inc. helped design the interior, which features horse-themed decor, a 1950s-era Crete Lanes neon sign and bowling lanes that have been repurposed as bar and table tops.
Evil Horse will be open from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 3 p.m. to 12 p.m. Friday, 12 p.m. to 12 p.m. Saturday.
For more or updated information, visit evilhorsebrewing.com.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management is asking people to call in or go online to report if they were sickened by a noxious gas odor that first surfaced last week and is believed to be coming from an unidentified company in East Chicago.
The state agency is mapping complaints as part of an investigation into a putrid petrochemical stench that has caused throats to burn and eyes to water in East Chicago and Hammonds Hessville and Woodmar neighborhoods. It has been smelled as far away as St. John and Valparaiso.
People can call (800) 451-6027, ext. 24464, to report what they smelled, when and where. They are asked to describe any adverse effect they may have experienced, such as if it made them cough or feel nauseous, because IDEM is trying to map out the smell as part of its investigation, partly to help identify where it is coming from.
IDEM and local partners, including the Hammond Environmental Department, continue to investigate potential causes of the odor reported across the Region, but the agency has not yet identified the source, IDEM spokeswoman Courtney Arango said.
We have regularly visited facilities that were reported to be possible sources of the odor, and none of the businesses were observed to be engaging in any activities that would cause the throat burning odor that citizens have reported. We remain vigilant in our investigation and will continue to work toward resolving this issue.
Affected residents also can report information about the noxious odor online at www.in.gov/idem/5221.htm.
Anyone who calls in can remain anonymous if they request it. IDEMs regional office in Northwest Indiana has been investigating the stench since it first generated dozens of complaints late last Wednesday night and early Thursday morning.
Hammond has been working to get the air quality tested and identify the source of the smell.
It is putrid, Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said on the WJOB radio show Friday morning. You can talk to people who have lived in Woodmar and Hessville, and this is a new smell.
McDermott identified Safety-Kleen in East Chicago as the source of the odor on the radio show. The re-refinery must clean and remove sediment from an equalization tank by June 30 after putting more cyanide into the East Chicago wastewater system than was allowed last year, according to a letter from the East Chicago Sanitary District.
Safety-Kleen spokesman Eric Kraus said inspectors from both the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the East Chicago Sanitary District visited the facility Thursday, and concluded the smell was not coming from there.
We are confident the smell is not coming from our facility, and weve had verification, he said. We want to set the record straight when the name of our company is being dragged through the mud.
Michigan City is giving a tax break to the Michigan City Paper Box Co., which is investing $1.2 million in new equipment that will result in three new jobs.
The 112-year-old family-owned company makes boxes for companies like Wal-Mart, Gap, K-Mart, Banana Republic, Kohl's, Lord and Taylor and Coldwater Creek. It's a leading manufacturing of cotton-filled jewelry boxes.
Our company is committed to manufacturing the highest quality retail packaging products in the industry and upholding an unparalleled standard of customer service," President Al Hoodwin said. "Utilizing state-of-the-art technology, we will continue to expand our products and services to meet the ever-changing needs of our customers all over the world. We are proud to call Michigan City, Indiana home."
Mayor Ron Meers praised the company for investing in new technology on its production line.
"Michigan City, Indiana continues to work hard to retain its global companies by maintaining a competitive business climate and creating a sense of place," he said.
Sales of existing homes in Northwest Indiana were up more than 10 percent in April as compared to a year ago, contributing to a strong year but further tightening available inventory.
"All in all, it's a hot market," said Valerie Rosenblum, president of the Greater Northwest Indiana Association of Realtors, which includes seven counties in Northwest Indiana.
The area saw 907 homes sold in April, according to GNIAR, as compared to 824 in April 2015. For the year through April, a total of 2,859 homes have been sold, up 11.3 percent from the 2,568 sold during the first four months of 2015.
The median sale price in 2016 has been $141,000, up 9.9 percent from 2015.
The rising demand has spurred new construction, Rosenblum said, but inventory remains tight.
"For the entire area, there is a six-month supply of existing homes for sale as compared to a seven-plus-month supply for the same time last year," she said. "As we leave spring and enter into summer, we anticipate demand to remain high, thus continuing to have low inventory levels."
Nationally, existing home sales rose for the second consecutive month, up 6 percent over last year to 5.45 million, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Lawrence Yun, the association's chief economist, said the Midwest drove the national jump in sales. Prices there are the "most affordable," he said.
"Sales activity overall was at a healthy pace last month as very low mortgage rates and modest seasonal inventory gains encouraged more households to search for and close on a home," he said.
The average mortgage rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage fell to 3.61 percent in April, the lowest level since May 2013, according to Freddie Mac.
Despite an uptick in housing inventory in April, supply remains tight nationally, Yun said, with the number of homes for sale down 3.6 percent from a year ago.
In Lake County, sales of single-family homes, condominiums, townhomes and duplexes were up 9.1 percent year-over-year, hitting 491 this April. Median prices have risen 5.5 percent to $145,000.
Porter County saw a leap in sales of 18.9 percent, to 239, with the median price up 13.5 percent to $176,999.
LaPorte County saw a 5.9 percent increase in sales, to 107, with the median price jumping 15.8 percent to $110,000.
GNIAR also has member Realtors in Jasper, Newton, Starke and Pulaski counties.
SOUTH HOLLAND Two men have been charged with murder in the death of a Gary man shot to death Tuesday during an armed robbery of a Boost Mobile store, 1022 E. 162nd St.
DeAngelo T. Parker, and Floyd Bell, both of Chicago, were charged with first degree murder in the death of Christopher Lloyd, of Gary.
South Holland Police units were dispatched to the store about 2 p.m. Tuesday to investigate a report of an armed robbery and gun shots fired.
There were several people in the store at the time of the robbery and one person was confirmed shot during the incident, according to a department news release. The victim was identified as Lloyd. He was transported to Ingalls Hospital in Harvey Illinois, where he later died.
Parker was apprehended following a brief foot chase.
The South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force and the Illinois State Police Crime Scene Unit were requested to assist with the investigation.
During the investigation, detectives learned Parker and Bell agreed to rob the store and remove cash and cellphones.
During the robbery, a struggle took place involving Lloyd.
Detectives identified Bell as the second suspect and took him into custody on Wednesday. Bell implicated himself in the armed robbery, according to police.
Parker and Bell attended a bond hearing Friday at Markham 6th District Circuit Court. Bell was issued a $750,000 bond; Parker was issued a "no-bond."
The investigation is still ongoing.
GARY Police are seeking help in identifying the person responsible for shooting a man in the head Thursday night and leaving him injured near an alley in the 2100 block of West 5th Avenue.
Police found the man after responding to a call at 8:50 p.m.
The man, who police are not yet identifying, was taken by ambulance to an area hospital and was to be transferred elsewhere for treatment.
Anyone with information on this incident is urged to contact Detective Sgt. Gregory Wolf at (219) 881-1210 or the Crime Tip Line at 866-CRIME- GP.
BURNS HARBOR A flier promoting an event hosted by the notorious Hells Angels motorcycle group triggered a police saturation patrol Wednesday night in the area of U.S. 20 and Ind. 149 that drew 60 officers from 11 different agencies.
The objective was to maintain a police presence to deter any criminal activity in order to maintain the safety and security for the citizens of Porter County, according to a press release from the Porter County Sheriffs Department.
The action mirrored a saturation patrol in late March when as many as 45 officers from seven agencies flooded Portage and South Haven in response to the appearance of two hip-hop artists that police said have a potentially dangerous following. That action resulted in the arrest of musician Twista, whose legal name is Carl Terrell Mitchell, on a misdemeanor charge of possessing marijuana.
Thursdays Bike Night event was planned at the The Mill Bar & Grill at 295 Melton Road in Burns Harbor.
Teresa Wright, one of the owners of The Mill, said Friday the event was a charitable, fundraising event with proceeds benefiting SELF School and a home-school program for cancer patients.
It was a positive event, Wright said. There were no issues. It went smooth.
Wright said the business raises money for various positive causes throughout the year and this was just another fundraiser.
We didnt do this to do anything bad. They asked if they could come through and we were more than happy to contribute to this charitable event.
According to a Department of Justice 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment report, the Hells Angels are categorized as an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang, according to the Porter County Sheriffs Department. The report says Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, are organizations whose members use their motorcycle clubs as conduits for criminal enterprises.
Porter County Sheriff Dave Reynolds said: Once again, the law enforcement agencies in Porter County came together to ensure the safety of our citizens.
Agencies taking part in the saturation patrol were the Indiana State Police, Indiana Excise Police and the Porter County, Lake County, Porter, Portage, Ogden Dunes, Valparaiso, Chesterton, Kouts and Hebron police departments.
The patrol took place from 5-11 p.m. There were numerous traffic stops and a few arrests, which are still being compiled for release, according to the Porter County Sheriffs Department.
Police are planning similar saturation efforts on the future Bike Nights listed on the Hells Angels flier.
HOBART Four people, including two minors, were arrested Friday pending an investigation into a shooting, police said.
Hobart Police Department Lt. James Gonzales said the shooting happened about 1:40 p.m. in the 200 block of North Wabash Street in Hobart. No one was reported injured during the incident.
Gonzales did not have details of what led to the shooting.
The suspects at some point drove onto Interstate 80/94, but Gonzales said it was unclear if shots were fired during that time period.
He said all four suspects were transported to the Hobart Police Department.
CROWN POINT After nearly nine hours of deliberations, a Lake County jury was unable to decide if an East Chicago man did or did not shoot at a car in 2013, according to court records.
David N. Jackson, 30, was on trial this week in Lake Criminal Court Judge Samuel Cappas' courtroom. He faced two counts of attempted murder, two counts of attempted aggravated battery, two counts of attempted battery by means of a deadly weapon and two counts of intimidation.
The Lake County prosecutor's office was also seeking a habitual offender enhancement, which would have increased his sentence if he was found guilty.
He is accused of on Aug. 19, 2013, shooting at a car in the 3400 block of Lincoln Street in East Chicago. His former girlfriend's relatives were inside of the vehicle, according to court records.
Though bullets hit the vehicle, the women who were inside the car were not injured.
Jurors deliberated for eight and a half hours Thursday, before they told the court they weren't able to reach a verdict. At about 9 p.m. Thursday, Cappas declared a mistrial because of the hung jury.
Jackson will return to court June 2 for a further proceedings hearing.
VALPARAISO Debbie Misecko walked into the school auditorium Friday afternoon and was greeted by the entire school applauding her.
Misecko was awarded District 1 Principal of the year for elementary schools and the Memorial Elementary School student body was recognizing her for her efforts.
Shellie Schoff, a fourth-grade teacher, was thrilled to help surprise Misecko with the ceremony.
What makes her a great principal is that she is very hands-on with the kids, said Schoff. She knows every kid in the building and wants to see kids succeed. She gives a lot of herself to the kids, and she is very supportive of the staff.
The assembly consisted of the children singing songs to Misecko along with a video presentation about the school.
Misecko was given a painting that showed a tree and the leaves were made from each childs thumb print.
This is very cool and special, said Misecko. I get to be principal of a great school and I have an edge up on all the principals because I am here at Memorial. I have the best job because you are all the best.
MERRILLVILLE Glenda Townsend thought she was hearing ducks outside her apartment May 10, but her husband said it sounded like a distress call.
She went to a window and called her husband, Roger, over.
He came up and said, Call 911, and he flew out the door, she said.
A mother stood holding her baby, waist high in water in the pond behind their building at Hickory Ridge Lake Apartments in Merrillville.
Glenda Townsend called 911 and followed her husband outside.
He said, Hand me the baby, hand me the baby, and she handed it to him. Glenda Townsend put the phone on the ground, with a dispatcher still on the line, and immediately began CPR on the 2-year-old boy.
The mother fell over on the ground, screaming and hollering.
Townsend, who worked as a patient care aid at Methodist Hospitals before suffering a foot injury, had training in CPR. But she had never worked with an infant before, she said.
It just kicked right in, she said, and I got that water right up out of him.
She felt the boy bite down as paramedics approached, a sign he was conscious.
Ive had training, but Im still shocked, Townsend said. For a baby, for the mom to be out in the water like that. That was disturbing.
Merrillville police Detective Cmdr. Jeff Rice said neighbors, including the Townsends, and paramedics who started CPR early and treated the child while en route to Methodist Hospitals Southlake Campus likely helped save his life.
CPR works, and it works well if you get it started right away, Rice said.
Townsend said she almost wasnt there that day. She had planned to fax some documents, but decided to wait until the next day when she couldnt find the papers, she said.
She and her husband remained in shock several days later, she said.
I look at the lake, and its right there by the window where it happened, she said. I was glad to be there.
The boy later was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. A spokeswoman for the hospital said Thursday she doesnt release information in pediatric cases.
The last update police received about the boy was that he would survive and was doing well, Rice said.
The child wandered out of a fenced-in patio area and into the pond. Police said their investigation showed it was an accident.
ST. JOHN Repealing the town's sign ordinance has done nothing to cool the war between the council and the St. John Homeowners PAC.
Councilman Christian Jorgensen filed a complaint May 9 with the Lake County and the Indiana Republican Party leadership seeking to remove Joe Hero as a GOP town precinct committeeman and as a delegate to the state GOP convention to be held June 11.
The complaint is filed on behalf of Amy Jorgensen, the St. John Republican chairwoman and Christian Jorgensen's wife, and Robert Meinzer Jr., described in the complaint as a "Republican in good standing" who lives in Hero's precinct.
The complaint also seeks to bar Hero from holding any elected party position in the future because he violated the party's rules by supporting Independent candidates running against Republicans in November and worked with the PAC to print up and post signs calling for the firing of Republican Councilmen Michael Forbes and Mark Barenie.
After Town Manager Steve Kil confiscated 45 of the signs, which also called for his firing, as illegal, the PAC filed suit against the town seeking damages. Both sides have since agreed the PAC could post the signs during this year's elections, and the council agreed to repeal the section of the town's sign ordinance dealing with political signs after Jorgensen said it probably is unconstitutional.
Jorgensen previously filed a county Election Board complaint over a sign posted just before the primary calling for "No more Jorgensen." The board ordered the sign removed because it didn't have the required disclaimer saying who sponsored it.
"A committeeman is the Republican voice in the community and an advocate for the Republican platform and principles," Jorgensen said. "As an elected Republican, you can't support others, and he clearly violated that. The conflict for him is there is the PAC and the Republican Party, and he can't serve both. He's doing a disservice and an injustice to both. That's what I got fed up with."
Hearings have to be scheduled for the county and state party complaints. Lake County GOP Chairman Dan Dernulc said he had to talk to the party's lawyer to "make sure it is done right." No one from the state party could be reached for comment.
Hero said he has sent a copy of Jorgensen's complaint to the FBI, the Lake County prosecutor and the state police asking if it constituted witness intimidation. Hero said he also filed a complaint with the FBI about the actions of the election board concerning the "No more Jorgensen" sign.
Jorgensen said the PAC offered May 13 to settle its suit against the town $25,000 is for compensatory damages to cover the cost of the signs, which Jorgensen said cost about $100, and $50,000 for punitive damages.
"I'm utterly bewildered. I also wonder how the PAC expects us to pay the punitive damages. Do they expect us to float a bond? That's kind of a rhetorical question, and I will propose it (at the council meeting Thursday) as the PAC tax. It seems all they want to do is fund their operations with tax money. This is after they've already won.
"My opinion is that it is an extortion of the taxpayers to fund their liberal agenda. I'm outraged they can proffer the offer and keep a straight face."
PORTAGE A small group of Portage residents expressed their concerns this week on how to get their fellow residents engaged in the community.
In Hobart, once a Brickie, always a Brickie, said resident Denise Carpenter, wondering, why Portage residents dont have the same allegiance to their city.
The discussion was part of the United Way of Porter Countys Lets Talk initiative aimed at bringing people together to talk about issues within their communities and possible solutions. The Portage discussion Thursday night at the Greater Portage Chamber of Commerce office was the second of four set for the county.
The results of the conversations will be part of United Ways community assessment process to align organization goals with community needs.
In 2015, United Way of Porter County conducted 55 community conversations in Porter County. Nearly 300 Porter County residents attended resulting in seven priority areas being identified youth and education, transportation, housing, drug-free community, diverse and inclusive community, livable wages and highly engaged community.
At this years community conversation events, participants were asked to narrow down to three the topics to be discussed in the 90-minute program. The Portage gathering chose a highly engaged community, livable wages and transportation as their top issues.
The primary discussion among the seven residents who attended involved how to engage residents to become involved in the city.
Gerry Scheff said he believes a barrier to greater conversations and community connections is modern technology.
There is too much interaction on Facebook, said Scheff, adding people dont talk face to face with each other any more, instead rely on Facebook, texting and emails to communicate.
Participants also lamented families who are overworked, overextended in available time due to too many scheduled activities and a possible fear of getting out and meeting strangers as potential reasons people hesitate to become involved in their community.
The group suggested more activities for people to connect including block parties, potlucks sponsored by organizations and churches and free activities to get people out of their homes, meet their neighbors and become invested in their city.
The next conversation will begin at 6:30 p.m. June 9 at the Duneland YMCA, 215 Roosevelt St., Chesterton. Seating is limited. Reservations are required. For more information and to register to attend, visit unitedwaypc.org.
PORTAGE For the first time in a long time Israel Toledo cares about himself, his family and their future.
I never saw my drinking, my anger, my aggressiveness as an issue, said Toledo, 33, of Merrillville.
He didnt care about being arrested for driving under the influence. Toledo said he had about six arrests under his belt and knew hed end up with a slap on the wrist. He didnt care, at the time, about how those arrests and his behavior affected his family.
I was a tornado of self-destruction, said Toledo, a U.S. Army veteran who participated in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
That was until his last arrest, in Porter County.
When I got arrested then, I knew I didnt want to get arrested again, he said Friday following the sixth graduation program from the Porter County Veterans Treatment Court.
The program, initiated in 2010 by Porter Superior Court Judge Julia Jent, assists veterans through counseling, mentoring and soul searching to eliminate the behavior that initially brought them before her.
I understood I had a problem, but I didnt feel I had the tools to deal with the problem. They talk to you and get to the bottom of the BS, said Toledo, adding the program also holds the participants accountable.
Now, he says, he can look himself and his parents in the eye, thanks to the court giving him a chance to start over clean and sober.
It gives you a reason to change, said Toledo. I discovered me.
From broken to saved
Toledo was one of 12 graduates of the latest class of the special court celebrating their success during a ceremony at Woodland Park. Earlier this month, Lake County held its first graduation ceremony.
David Clifford bluntly stated the courts affect on him.
It saved my life, said Clifford, of Valparaiso.
An 11-year Army veteran, Clifford injured his back while deployed in Iraq. He underwent surgery and became addicted to opioid pain killers. He used them, he said, to control both his physical pain and post traumatic stress disorder.
By May 2012, he lost his love, his job and landed in jail.
Clifford said the program held him accountable for his actions and provided him the support he needed to kick his addiction.
You can really tell they do care, said Clifford, who intends to go school to be a physical therapy assistant and work in a VA hospital to pay back those whove helped him. Hes also signed up to be a mentor for other veterans going through the court.
As each veteran was announced, a letter they wrote about the program was read. Each talked about receiving support and the tools needed to get their lives back together.
I was broken, wrote Navy veteran Mark Flowers. The Veterans Treatment Court forced me to look at the man in the mirror.
They helped me work through the pain, anger, resentment and fear. They allowed me to heal the pain. I learned to embrace life again and work proudly, wrote Army veteran Sarah Jackson.
Ready to move on
There is value in this system, said mentor Bob Carnegie. The veterans court of Porter County does change lives.
Mentors, he said, have a passionate legacy to help out young men and women in their community and play an important role helping them through the veterans court process.
Jent, a veteran herself, said those who graduated Friday had accepted the challenges put before them and completed the program.
We helped them learn how to accept and work around their issues. They are ready to move on, she said, adding that it takes a team to work with the veterans during the treatment process.
Other speakers at the ceremony were U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-1st; Ind. Rep. Chuck Moseley, D-10th; Porter County Prosecutor Brian Gensel; Porter County Sheriff Dave Reynolds; Portage Mayor James Snyder and Portage Police Chief Troy Williams.
American Legion posts from throughout the county also were recognized for their efforts and donations to the program.
The Porter County American Legions have donated thousands of dollars to purchase gas cards and challenge coins, said Jent, adding they also support the program by buying Christmas gifts for families and helping in emergency home and car repairs for the veterans.
SPRINGFIELD If the Illinois General Assembly passes legislation that Exelon Corp. says is essential to the future of two financially struggling nuclear power plants, customers of downstate utility Ameren Illinois would help cover the cost but wouldnt enjoy some of the benefits, environmental advocates say.
Exelon says it needs action on its Next Generation Power Plan before the Legislatures scheduled May 31 adjournment in order to avoid shutting down the Clinton Power Station next summer. The bill is also vital to the future of the Quad Cities Generating Station in Cordova, the company says.
The bill would extend subsidies similar to those granted to the wind and solar energy industries to nuclear plants, a move the company says is warranted because nuclear power, like wind and solar, doesnt generate carbon pollution. Exelon says its proposal would cost the average residential customer of its northern Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison 25 cents extra per month.
Ameren Illinois spokesman Tucker Kennedy wrote in an email that the company is still analyzing the effect the legislation would have on its customers energy bills.
Advocates say Ameren customers could pay more as a result but wont reap the benefits of new energy efficiency commitments ComEd would make.
The bottom line is customers downstate are left holding the bag with the cost, and theyre not getting the benefits or the savings, said Nick Magrisso, Midwest states legislative director for the National Resources Defense Council.
The legislation would commit ComEd to expanding energy efficiency programs that would save customers an estimated $4 billion over the next decade.
As a result of negotiations with environmental groups and other members of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, the plan includes requirements that ComEd cut its energy sales by 18.5 percent by 2025 and 23 percent by 2030. It would receive financial incentives for meeting the targets and face penalties for missing them.
Efforts to meet those goals would create thousands of jobs in the clean energy sector, advocates and the company say, but only in ComEds northern Illinois territory.
Jason Vogelbaugh is director of energy solutions for Alpha Controls & Services, which helps commercial, industrial and governmental customers make their facilities more energy efficient. He works out of the companys Champaign office, which has worked on projects from Bloomington to Mount Vernon and elsewhere in between.
Becoming more energy efficient allows companies to invest more in their businesses and create new jobs, he said.
His company and its customers have benefitted from existing energy efficiency programs Ameren offers, and he wants to see that expand under the new legislation.
Any proposal that leaves out central and southern Illinois means were leaving big savings and jobs on the table, Vogelbaugh said.
Jack Darin, director of the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club, commended ComEd and Exelon for their willingness to work with environmental groups and other interested parties in shaping their proposal.
Those discussions have definitely borne some fruit, he said, adding that the exclusion of Ameren from the new energy efficiency standards is one of the very significant problems remaining.
Kennedy, the Ameren spokesman, said the company favors many of the provisions of the legislation, but we must consider the effect the entire package will have on our customers.
Ameren Illinois has been, and will continue to be, involved in talks with key stakeholders as this legislation moves forward, he said
According to state law, fines, penalties, and license money shall be appropriated exclusively to the use and support of the common schools ... . An exception is fines for overloaded vehicles. Seventy-five percent of those funds go to state highways; 25 percent go to the county general fund where the fine or penalty is paid. Fifty percent of money forfeited or seized in enforcing drug laws goes to counties for drug enforcement. Vehicles seized in drug law cases may be used by law enforcement agencies or sold with the proceeds going to schools.
A man is facing charges after police say he was seen wheeling his wife's dead body through a Staten Island neighborhood.
Cops say 31-year-old Anthony Lopez was spotted pushing a metal cart containing her corpse wrapped in cloth Friday morning.
Investigators say when he was confronted he ran away and left the body of 26-year-old Obiamaka Aduba behind.
He's charged with murder and concealment of a human corpse.
It happened on Post Lane in Mariners Harbor.
He was arrested in East Harlem near 112th Street and 1st Avenue Saturday following a tip.
Police say he had shaved his head to disguise himself.
They say Lopez also has prior arrests.
NY1's Courtney Gross has been doing some digging and looking at all of the mayor's nonprofit groups and how they have been selling his agenda for the past two years. She filed the following report.
Even before Bill de Blasio was sworn in as the 109th mayor of New York, his political operatives set up The Campaign for One New York.
Campaign was a fitting title.This nonprofit group was an extension of de Blasios political operation, which had just won a grueling race for mayor less than six weeks earlier.
And there would be more. Up until this April, there were three groups created to defend or push the de Blasio agenda. They are all nonprofits and closely tied to his 2013 political operation.
Two of the groups were funded in whole or in part by the mayors original nonprofit, the Campaign for One New York, which is now the subject of a federal investigation, raising questions if theres any quid pro quos to donors.
Since they were formed, observers have raised questions about whether these entities ran afoul of the city's campaign finance and conflicts of interest laws.
"It's an end run around our campaign finance laws, and it sets up a shadow government not accountable to the people," said Susan Lerner of Common Cause New York.
"There was nothing like the Campaign for One New York, and there was nothing like the solicitations that went on here in the Giuliani administration," former Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro said.
Interviews with those familiar with the mayor's nonprofit network reveal its purpose was to deflect attacks against the mayor and promote him on a national stage.
Two of the groups are in the process of being shut down. The Progressive Agenda is now a shell of an organization with no employees and an unclear direction.
"We believe that the work that was necessary to do got done. I am very proud of that fact,"
The Campaign for One New York would raise unlimited sums of cash so it was prepared to defend the mayor against deep-pocketed interests during the first two years of the administration. But a source close to the campaign tells NY1 the plan was to shut it down before de Blasio's 2017 re-election campaign kicked off to avoid any issues with the city's Campaign Finance Board.
It focused on universal pre-kindergarten to start, pushing the idea the mayor was a champion of early childhood education. It was a success, and de Blasio won the funding for the program from Albany.
Behind the scenes, the Campaign for One New York, sometimes referred to as UPKNYC, was collecting thousands of dollars in donations from people who had business with the city.
"Investigative entities can investigate anything, anytime," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. "And he has put his all into doing things like affordable housing, pre-kindergarten. and I am sure it ruffles feathers when he does that."
The American Federation of Teachers, the parent of the citys local teachers' union, was one of the first donors to the nonprofit. It gave $350,000. It's now ensnared in the investigation into the mayor's fundraising.
"We have been asked questions by the authorities, and we have said we will cooperate fully by the authorities," Weingarten said. "We were pretty transparent about the donation when it was made."
The mayor, all along, has said the group did nothing wrong.
"Everyone has a right to judge, but I want you to look very carefully at what these resources were supporting. They were supporting progressive change," de Blasio said in April. "There is a lot of money out there that's trying to hold back progressive change."
All told, the Campaign for One New York collected $4.3 million in donations, directing millions of dollars to the mayor's favorite political operatives. $500,000 to his preferred communication firm, BerlinRosen. $284,000 to the firm of his former campaign manager. And almost $1.4 million to the media company that helped sweep him into office.
It did not end there. Cue the Progressive Agenda.
"Something is changing in America. It is time to take that energy and crystallize it into an agenda that will make a difference," the mayor said on May 12, 2015.
In early 2015, the mayor's campaign decided to go national, the intent being to influence the 2016 race for president and raise the mayor's profile across the country.
This group was run by many of the same people behind the Campaign for One New York, albeit with far less success.
The mayor headed to Iowa in April 2015 and promised to host a presidential forum before the Iowa caucuses, which never got off the ground.
NY1 discovered this week that only one contribution came into the nonprofit in 2015 - what insiders call seed funding - from the Campaign for One New York. It set up a website and a social media campaign. Of the $480,000 it started with, at the end of 2015, there was only $32,000 left.
It currently has no employees. The executive director is gone.
In a statement, a spokeswoman told NY1, "As it goes through this transitional phase, The Progressive Agenda does not have staff right now and is not raising money. TPA does have an impressive core of progressive leaders who support a common agenda that when it is enacted, will restore fairness to our economy and improve the lives of working Americans. Next steps will be announced in the future."
But as the Progressive Agenda was struggling, another nonprofit was starting, infused with money from the Campaign for One New York and hundreds of thousands of dollars from some of the city's most powerful unions. It was called United for Affordable NYC.
It shared something else with the Progressive Agenda: a treasurer, Lora Haggard.
It ran ads in the lead up to a controversial vote on the mayor's affordable housing agenda.
Officials at the Campaign for One New York insist the affordable housing group was not their idea. The unions started it to run a six-week campaign to push the mayor's affordable housing agenda to the City Council. But it was also a place for the Campaign for One New York to drop $150,000 in revenue as it began to shut down.
"Feeling that the first organization was problematic, having more problematic organizations was not a good thing," Lerner said.
Of course, that's over now. These groups are closing or virtually defunct. And last week, the mayor had his first major fundraiser for his 2017 bid for re-election.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan joined hundreds in a march through the city to demand collective bargaining rights for farm workers Saturday.
Demonstrators rallied at City Hall and marched across the Brooklyn Bridge as part of the March for Farmworker Justice.
They're calling on state lawmakers to pass the Farmworker's Fair Labor Practices Act.
The bill asks for equal labor rights for the largely immigrant workforce that harvests crops.
Participants say farm laborers should get the same protections guaranteed to other workers in the state.
"This is about a sense of welcome and inclusion and embracing and this is American," said Cardinal Timothy Dolan. "This is about as apple pie as you can get. By the way, we couldn't get the apple pie if these guys weren't picking the apples, alright? This is American. This is for me very Catholic. This is for me very Biblical"
"There are over 100,000 farmworkers that don't get the rights and privileges that any other worker gets in the State of New York," said state Senator Adriano Espaillat, who represents Manhattan. "I sponsor a bill that will grant them overtime pay, a day's rest and the right to collectively bargain as well as to improve the condition of the farm they work in."
The march started in Long Island last Sunday. It ends in Albany on June 1.
The development puts in jeopardy Mr. Daumans position as chief executive of Viacom and is viewed as a major coup by Shari E. Redstone, Mr. Redstones daughter, who is the vice chairwoman of Viacom and CBS as well as a member of the trust. Long ostracized by her father, Ms. Redstone has said recently that the two have patched up their relationship.
Ms. Redstone does not to see eye-to-eye with Mr. Dauman or approve of his stewardship of Viacom, which has suffered a 40 percent plunge in the stock price in the last year. In February, Ms. Redstone voted against Mr. Daumans ascent to the chairman position of Viacom.
Shortly after news of Mr. Redstones decision emerged first reported by Fortune Mr. Dauman issued a statement of denunciation.
They are a shameful effort by Shari Redstone to seize control by unlawfully using her ailing father Sumner Redstones name and signature, Lex Suvanto, a spokesman for Mr. Dauman, said in a statement.
As she knows, and as court proceedings and other facts have demonstrated, Sumner Redstone now lacks the capacity to have taken these steps, Mr. Suvanto said. Sumner Redstone would never have summarily dismissed Philippe Dauman and George Abrams, his trusted friends and advisers for decades.
In the statement on behalf of Mr. Redstone, Mr. Tu said: The public statement made on Mr. Daumans behalf attacking Mr. Redstones capacity is disappointing and incorrect, as reflected by Mr. Daumans own testimony given under oath less than six months ago that Mr. Redstone is as engaged, attentive and as opinionated as ever. That is exactly the Sumner Redstone who made these decisions today.
Ms. Redstone could not be reached for comment.
The development comes a little more than a week after a trial over his mental competency was dismissed in a California court. The judge overseeing the case sided with Mr. Redstone, but made clear that he had not made a decision about whether or not Mr. Redstone was mentally competent. The judge said that a videotaped testimony of the media mogul showed that it was not in dispute that Redstone suffers from either mild or moderate dementia.
Like most people who pass through the rustic parlor door of Neirs Tavern, Tracey Gallagher has a history here.
She remembers the familiar faces, some living, some not, slipping in for a quick drink, but ending up staying a while. She recalls the birthdays and weddings celebrated in the quaint back room of the bar in Woodhaven, Queens.
As time goes on, though, the occasions have changed: When my close friends passed away, Ms. Gallagher, 54, said, we had their memorials here.
Ed Wendell, who runs a neighborhood historical society, remembers going to the bar as a young boy, when his father would collect union dues for Pan Am airline. And later, as families moved in and out, Mr. Wendell became a regular. The world around Neirs kept changing, our neighborhood kept changing, he said. But Neirs remained that one constant.
Through census data, we know that Americans are less geographically mobile today than at any point since 1948. Other scholarship suggests that the decline stretches back further. This might help explain why our country is having such a hard time getting out of its national funk.
Mobility is more than just a metaphor for getting ahead. In America, it has been a solution to economic and social barriers. If you descended from immigrants, Im betting your ancestors didnt come to this country for the fine cuisine. More likely they came in search of the opportunity to work hard and get ahead.
Even for those already here, migration has long been seen as a key to self-improvement. As Horace Greeley so famously advised in 1865: Go west, young man, and grow up with the country. (What preceded that advice was almost as interesting: Washington is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable.)
Fewer and fewer people are taking Greeleys suggestion. In the mid-1960s, about 20 percent of the population moved in any given year, according to the United States Census Bureau. By 1990, it was approaching 15 percent. Today its closer to 10 percent. The percentage that moves between states has fallen by nearly half since the early 1990s.
Curiously, some of the Americans who would seem poised to gain the most from moving appear to be among the most stuck. We might expect movement from a high-unemployment state like Mississippi (unemployment rate: 6.3 percent) to low-unemployment states like New Hampshire (2.6 percent) or North Dakota (3.1 percent). Instead, Mississippians are even less likely to migrate out of the state today than they were before the Great Recession hit.
The biggest chunk of the money from the new tolls and fees would enable the M.T.A. to borrow money for much-needed repairs and upgrades. For example, the authority would be able to more quickly replace its aging switching and signaling system with more reliable and efficient technology. That would allow it to run more trains, since it would be able to safely reduce the distance between them.
The agency would also be assured of the money needed to finish the second phase of the Second Avenue subway line up to 125th Street. The first section, 63rd to 96th Street, is expected to open by the end of this year. At some point in the future, the line is supposed to run all the way down to Hanover Square near Wall Street. But even before then, it will go a long way toward alleviating delays and congestion on the nearby Lexington Avenue line, the most crowded in the city.
Move NY would also give the M.T.A. the money and authority to establish new subway lines. One of the most promising proposals is for a line to connect the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn over existing rail tracks, parts of which are owned by CSX, Amtrak and the M.T.A. The 24-mile line, which supporters call the Triboro Rx, would stretch from Co-Op City in the northern Bronx to Bay Ridge in Brooklyn, passing through Astoria, Jackson Heights, East New York and Midwood.
The Triboro Rx would serve many fast-growing neighborhoods, some of which have limited or no train service now. The Regional Plan Association, which first proposed the line in the 1990s, estimates it could cost $1 billion to $2 billion, serve an initial daily ridership of 100,000 people and help reduce the time it takes to get from the Bronx to Brooklyn by as much as half an hour, a big help to many lower-income residents. Assuming the line reduces travel times by 10 to 15 minutes for the average rider, that would add up to 65 hours a year per person, the association estimates.
Similarly, the plan includes a proposal to turn existing Long Island Rail Road tracks between the Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn and Rosedale in Queens into a new subway line. Much like the Triboro Rx, it would bring service to many neighborhoods that are miles from a subway station and would vastly reduce the cost and time it takes to travel between Brooklyn and Queens.
Finally, the legislation would set aside money for transit projects in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island. It would also create new bus service and reduce fares on express buses. And it would give money to neighborhood community boards to invest in local projects like bike lanes, bus depots, public plazas and station repairs.
The Legislature has seen some of these ideas before. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for instance, offered a congestion pricing proposal in 2007, which went nowhere in the Legislature despite support from former Gov. David Paterson.
Mexico City WHEN the Mexican Army actually allows journalists to watch its soldiers in action, its often to see them burning marijuana crops. Its strictly for show, but its fun. You get to fly in a military helicopter over the Sierra Madre, then touch down to see troops posing with their rifles as they walk into green marijuana fields. And the highlight: You watch hundreds of pounds of grass go up in flames.
Mexican soldiers have been conducting this ritual for decades, and the photos have come to define the countrys war on drugs. But amid a wave of drug policy reform, those photos may soon disappear from news pages and be relegated to historical archives.
Speaking last month at the United Nations special session on drugs, President Enrique Pena Nieto said he wanted to relax the nations marijuana laws. He has since sent Mexicos Congress a bill to legalize medicine that contains cannabis, allow people to carry an ounce of marijuana without being prosecuted, and free some prisoners convicted on marijuana charges. We Mexicans know all too well the range and the defects of prohibitionist and punitive policies, and of the so-called war on drugs that has prevailed for 40 years, he said.
Mr. Pena Nieto is new to the drug-reform game. Only last year, he said he was against legalizing marijuana, and at one point said he was not even going to attend the United Nations session.
Cabin season is here again. Grandkids have it opened and thankful pumps work, etc. It makes it a long summer when something falls apart early on. The lake is 100 years old this summer. They have some special things planned. Really sounds like fun. I am anxious to read the book they have compiled about the families who have cabins up there.
Got the insurance premium letter for the small cabin. The big one comes later. I always take the $500 deductible. The insurance company has added a deductible of their own. Wind and hail damage are automatically $1,500 deductible. My guess would be that is probably the most expected thing that would happen. We're too far away to get flooded if the lake backs up. There is the possibility that the tree by the little cabin could fall on it. Have been expecting that for 20 years and it hasn't happened yet. However I am sure if I raised the deductible it would. Also replaced the shingles on the big cabin with metal sheeting. Suppose if one sheet goes they all do. Should any of this happen I am sure the grandkids will give me a colorful report!
Of all the things I never dreamed would be food for discussion, bathrooms were definitely it! I just assumed the person needing to go into it was capable of deciding which one they needed. I still do. Suppose it will go to the Supreme Court and I'll be wrong again. Guess I live in a simpler world.
Remember back when hair-dos had some flair? There was a lot of flair when teasing was in style. Back combed into place it tended to stay there. Lot better than having to mess with it every day. Especially liked mine when it was in a French roll. One of the nicer things about it I couldn't do it myself and was forced (?) to go to the hair salon. That was the main reason my husband didn't like it. Now the fashion seems to be part it in the middle and let it hang. It doesn't really look appealing. The models selling the coloring and shampoo seem to have heavenly shining, swirling hair, but I've not seen that on the average person. Mostly just limp and scraggly. Hope I haven't offended any of you. Guess if you are happy with it, it shouldn't bother me.
Are you "NCIS" fans wondering who is going to take Tony's place? I can hardly wait until next season!
Thought for the day: One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young. Ah, being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.
There was one big problem: Facebooks trending algorithms, which identify the most-talked-about terms, were not very good at discerning what was and was not news. Left to their own devices, roughly 40 percent of what Facebooks algorithms dug up would be junk or noise, a result of many people using the same word at the same time across the network. The algorithm might pick up a sharp rise in the word Skittles and deem it a trending topic not exactly the events Facebook had in mind.
That is where humans came in. Facebook enlisted a set of 20-somethings as curators, copy editors and team leads, charged with sifting through the material the algorithms unearthed. They were crucial, they were told, to improving Facebooks ability to discern, over time, what constitutes news.
What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? Whats their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source. Learn more about our process.
Even if you want to have computers do everything, for technical reasons, resource limitations and product positioning, you may want humans to oversee the algorithms, Jonathan Koren, a former Facebook employee who worked on algorithmic ranking for Trending Topics, wrote in a LinkedIn post this week.
Mr. Fearnow, who was terminated from Facebook in April for breaking his nondisclosure agreement, said his job as a curator was to massage the algorithm. Managers were ambivalent about allowing staff members to identify themselves as curators or editors on their LinkedIn profiles, he said, given concerns that outsiders would notice the element of human judgment and ask questions about it.
Facebook declined to comment, citing employee confidentiality.
During each eight-hour shift, curators were presented with a continuously refreshing list of trending terms they had to sort through and identify as junk or relevant, and draft descriptions for those topics. After labeling them and checking whether they had been independently reported by a number of major news outlets, curators gave topics a value that would make them more or less likely to show up on individual users pages. Each user saw a different list of personalized Topics based on their past actions on Facebook.
In Facebooks editorial guidelines, curators were also told to blacklist, or push aside, junk topics that appeared in their queue for a period of eight to 24 hours before they could potentially appear again, according to current and former employees. When duplicate or confusing topics arose, curators were told to inject a more accurate Topic term. Copy editors and team leads would also oversee and approve the choices being made.
The work was monotonous and not entirely gratifying. Workers were incentivized to compete against one another to clear the most trends from their queue, former employees said. Top performers were given points that could be spent on Facebook paraphernalia like T-shirts.
Investors have also been better able to negotiate financing terms that benefit them. According to a survey from the law firm Fenwick & West, investors of richly valued start-ups have been getting more provisions such as guaranteed payouts and minimum investment gains. Such terms are still relatively rare, but tend to become more common after the number and size of deals decline, said Barry Kramer, a Fenwick & West partner.
Above all, investors are no longer paying any price to invest in a start-up. Since the beginning of this year, about 30 companies have had to settle for lower valuations than they previously received when they raised money, according to the research firm CB Insights. That is nearly as many as in all of 2015.
Investors have materially more time to do diligence than before, said Ben Ling, a partner at venture capital firm Khosla Ventures. Across our portfolio, even for the best companies, fund-raising is a longer process.
Image Finance-themed board games line a conference room at the Betterment offices. Credit... Adrienne Grunwald for The New York Times
Mr. Ling added that while particularly strong companies were being funded as always, valuations for others were generally flat to about 20 percent lower than this time last year.
One start-up whose valuation was recently reduced was CARD. com, an online banking start-up. The Los Angeles-based company closed a $5.5 million financing round in February that valued it lower than its last funding round in December 2014, something known in industry parlance as a down round.
Ben Katz, CARD.coms chief executive, said it was growing by 3,000 new accounts a day, had its first month with $1 million in revenue in February and should have $1 billion in new deposits this year. Even so, Mr. Katz, 37, was pragmatic about taking money at a lower valuation.
CHICAGO The police here on Friday announced widespread arrests and seizures of numerous weapons and tens of thousands of dollars in drugs as part of a two-day operation the department called one of the largest gang raids in the citys history.
Minutes after the announcement at Police Headquarters on the South Side, two people were shot about a block away in what apparently was a gang-related shooting. A witness said a young man with a gun had ridden by on a bicycle. Soon after, the police said, a passer-by, a woman in her 40s who had been walking out of a nearby Starbucks, was shot and killed. A man, who the police said was apparently the intended target, was wounded.
In all, 140 people were arrested in an urgent push to tamp down the gun violence that has plagued the city, and that many here fear may rise along with temperatures. As of mid-May, 216 people have been murdered in Chicago, a 62 percent increase from the same period last year, and shootings have increased by 60 percent.
These initiatives send a clear message to anyone who contributes to the sources of violence in Chicago: You will be subject to the full weight of the department and our partners in law enforcement, Eddie Johnson, the citys new police superintendent, said as he announced the sweep. Put simply, violence this summer will not be tolerated.
KEY WEST, Fla. Nineteen Cuban migrants trying to reach the United States climbed a lighthouse off the Florida Keys and refused to come down during a standoff that lasted for about eight hours on Friday, the Coast Guard said.
Shortly before 9 a.m., a homemade craft carrying a group of Cubans was spotted in the water near the American Shoal lighthouse, about seven miles from shore and nearly 15 miles north of Key West, Chief Petty Officer Ryan Doss said. Apparently fearful that they had been caught before reaching land, the Cubans jumped off the craft and climbed to the top of the lighthouse.
The standoff is the latest episode involving a growing number of Cubans trying to make it to the United States before immigration rules that favor them might be changed. El Paso is overflowing with Cubans who recently arrived from Mexico after being flown there from Panama, where they had been stranded for months. And a group of more than 5,000 Cubans arrived this year in Texas from Costa Rica.
Since October, more than 3,500 Cubans have tried to reach the United States by sea.
The migrants stuck at the top of the nearly 140-year-old lighthouse on Friday had planned to wait it out, Chief Doss said.
Jacobo Timerman, an Argentine journalist who was tortured by the junta, said in 1977 that Ms. Derian had saved him from certain execution.
In the Philippines, under the authoritarian President Ferdinand Marcos, the condemned dissident Benigno Aquino was allowed to leave the country in 1980 in no small measure because of the publicity Ms. Derian had generated on his behalf. Two years earlier, she pointedly left a dinner being held in her honor by President Marcos to visit Mr. Aquino in his death-row prison cell. She wore her evening gown.
Mr. Marcos and his wife, Imelda, were scandalized. (Mr. Aquino, who lived in the United States for three years after his release from prison, returned to the Philippines in 1983 and was promptly assassinated.)
Ms. Derian was unsuccessful in her efforts to free the South Korean dissident Kim Dae-jung, who was imprisoned under the military dictator Chun Doo-hwan during her tenure. However, after Mr. Kim was elected president in 1997, he invited her to his inauguration as a special guest.
She had frank confrontations with a number of heads of state, warning them that American aid would end unless they granted due process to political prisoners and stopped killing political rivals. Some leaders were receiving opposite signals from others in the government, according to later disclosures, and were furious about it.
Her critics said Ms. Derian was calculatingly selective, restricting her human rights efforts to countries with no strategic national security value, most of them in South America. She herself expressed frustration with the limits on her agencys reach in Eastern Europe, pre-revolution Iran, the killing fields of Cambodia and the Middle East.
Ms. Derians battles with high-ranking State Department colleagues were widely publicized. She threatened to quit so often, she kept cardboard moving boxes lined up along a wall in her office. Toward the end of her tenure she left the administration in January 1981, after Mr. Carter had been denied a second term she described her conflicts with her colleagues.
SAN SALVADOR El Salvadors attorney general has begun arresting law enforcement officials who helped carry out a truce between gangs that, until just a few years ago, was central to the nations strategy for taming its infamous violence.
The truce, struck by El Salvadors biggest gangs with the governments support, won international backing and helped bring down the nations devastating murder rate by more than half in 2012 and 2013.
But the governments role in facilitating the truce caused controversy at home, and the nations leaders have switched to a very different approach, cracking down in a no-holds-barred campaign to crush the gangs.
Attorney General Douglas Melendez has already arrested one of the main mediators of the truce, along with about 20 law enforcement officials who helped carry it out.
Bill Herz, the last surviving crew member of Orson Welless mock War of the Worlds newscast, which terrified American radio listeners in 1938 with vivid bulletins warning Newark residents to evacuate as invading Martians incinerated central New Jersey, died on May 10 in Manhattan. He was 99.
The cause was complications of pneumonia, said Bill Kux, a cousin.
Mr. Herz, who worked on other radio and theater productions as stage manager and casting director for Welless Mercury Theater company, staked one additional claim to fame. Until about six months ago, he had been a regular customer at Sardis restaurant, the caricature-bedecked gathering place for celebrities and starry-eyed tourists in the theater district, for some 82 years beginning in 1933, just six years after it opened.
That longevity alone distinguished him as a bon vivant in a shrinking cadre of original Broadway personalties. But he was also singled out periodically in the wider world as a relic of a bygone era, when a bogus radio news broadcast could provoke panic as war was brewing in Europe however much that hysteria may have been overstated then and since.
Welless CBS show The Mercury Theater on the Air presented an adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds for its Halloween episode on Sunday, Oct. 30, 1938. The live hourlong program began with an updated prelude to the original novel eerily warning that superintelligent beings had been coveting this Earth with envious eyes.
It was not the fact that Jane Little played the bass that was the most remarkable thing about her, although women remain the exception rather than the rule in orchestral bass sections.
It was not that she began her career at 16, after just two years of instruction, though that was remarkable enough in itself.
Nor was it that, at 4 feet 11 inches and 98 pounds, she stood more than a foot shorter, and weighed barely 70 pounds more, than her unwieldy charge.
The most remarkable thing of all was that Ms. Little had plied her trade without interruption from 1945 to the end of her life. That made her, when she passed the 71-year mark in February, by all accounts the longest-serving musician in the world to play with a single orchestra.
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Emma Straub wrote her best-selling novel The Vacationers when she was pregnant with her first child, and her new novel, Modern Lovers, which comes out May 31, while pregnant with her second. Its all part of this giant cycle of book-baby-book-baby, Ms. Straub, 36, said. The process seems to work: Vogue selected Modern Lovers as one of its top books this month, saying that it nails the Brooklyn mise-en-scene: $2 million Victorians, a kombucha-brewing enterprise gone awry. She lives with her husband, Michael Fusco-Straub, 37, a graphic designer, and their sons, River, 2, and Miles, 4 months, in a house in Brooklyns Columbia Street Waterfront District. Soon, the family will go on book tour in outfits that match the pattern on the book cover. I am hoping they will be so amused by the fact that Im wearing my book jacket that they wont notice the bags under my eyes, Ms. Straub said.
WAKING UP Ugh, God. On a really good day, one person, somebody, sleeps past 5 a.m. If the little one is up around 5 a.m., he will eat and go back to sleep. If the big one is up at 5 a.m., he is likely to get a book and climb back in bed. By 6:30 a.m., everyone is dressed and the party has started. The party is River telling us an elaborate story about some construction vehicle or a hardware store. Miles is squawking. Mike and I are trying to brush our teeth.
In 2007, Gen. Peter Pace, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Chicago Tribune, I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts. A year later, Elaine Donnelly, who founded an advocacy group that has sought futilely to keep military personnel policy frozen in the mores of the 1950s, warned during a congressional hearing about a sexualized atmosphere in our armed forces. She expressed alarm about forced cohabitation and the spread of H.I.V.
Two years after that, when Congress appeared to be on the brink of repealing the ban, Gen. James Amos, then the commandant of the Marine Corps, cautioned that openly gay troops would be a distraction that could cost lives on the battlefield. Weve got Marines at Walter Reed with no limbs, he pleaded in a last-ditch effort to keep service members in the closet. Senator John McCain indulged the generals fearmongering. Today is a very sad day, Mr. McCain said somberly during the Senate debate on Dec. 18, 2010, as he acknowledged that he and other like-minded lawmakers had been outgunned.
The policy was repealed without a hitch. It didnt result in weakened unit cohesion, lower morale or missing limbs. As service members came out to their supervisors, they were embraced. Millennials just dont care about sexuality the way past generations did, said Lt. Col. Paul Larson, a straight Army infantry officer. The rest of us didnt care. We all knew gays were serving with distinction.
The controversy over lifting the exclusion of openly transgender service members has been less caustic and less public. After Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter pledged last July to repeal that ban within six months, a few senior military officials pushed back. They steered clear of framing their misgivings on morality grounds, instead voicing concerns about military readiness and unit cohesion. Gen. Mark Milley, the Army chief of staff, has been one of the leading skeptics at the Pentagon. In a recent interview, he said that serious, significant issues need to be completely vetted and studied before transgender people are allowed to serve openly. I have to focus on the readiness of the force, he said.
Those concerns cannot be indulged any longer at the expense of the civil rights and dignity of Americans who volunteered to serve in wartime. There is every reason to believe that repealing the transgender ban will be seamless. The Pentagon already has a blueprint of what it would take. Mr. Fanning, who was the first senior defense official to endorse military service by openly transgender people, is well positioned to help overcome the lingering misgivings of those upholding the Pentagons last discriminatory personnel policy.
In 1954, military intelligence initiated, out of sight of Prime Minister Moshe Sharett, a series of terrorist attacks in Egypt with the aim of causing a rift between that country and the United States and Britain. In 1967, the military urged Prime Minister Levi Eshkol to allow an offensive strike on Egypt and Syria. When he asked them to wait, they plotted to detain him in a basement until he gave in.
What caused the army and the intelligence agencies to become, relatively speaking, doves while the politicians have become the hawks? In the last three decades, the army and the intelligence agencies have become more cautious about breaking the law. The threat of prosecutions in the International Criminal Court has helped. Also, the defense agencies are motivated only by national interest, rather than ideology, religion or electoral considerations. Top army and intelligence officers are also intimately familiar with the nature of Israels occupation of Palestinian territories and its price.
But above all, the clash between the political and defense establishments can be summed up in two words: Benjamin Netanyahu. Many of the military and intelligence officers who have served under him simply detest him. I told Netanyahu that a chasm of non-confidence had opened up between him and them, Uzi Arad, a former national security adviser, told me. He is the worst manager that I know, said Meir Dagan, the former director of the Mossad. I quit the job because I was simply sick of him.
In 2010, Mr. Netanyahu got into a serious fight over Iran with Mr. Dagan and his two colleagues, Yuval Diskin, the former director of the Shin Bet, Israels internal security service, and Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the former I.D.F. chief of staff. The military and intelligence leaders believed that the prime ministers plan to attack Irans nuclear installations was politically motivated by electoral considerations and would embroil Israel in a superfluous war. Moreover, they thought he was going about it illegally, bypassing the cabinet.
I have known many prime ministers, Mr. Dagan told me. Not one of them was pure or holy. But almost all had one common quality when they reached the point where their own personal interest touched upon the national interest, it was the national interest that prevailed. But, Mr. Dagan said, Mr. Netanyahu was a rare exception.
Mr. Netanyahu has clashed with the security establishment over a number of issues, from proposals to improve conditions for Palestinians in the West Bank (the prime minister opposed them) to accusations that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas incites terrorism (the Shin Bet says he helps fight it) to Mr. Netanyahus proposal that the families of terrorists be deported (the Shin Bet discourages it, and the attorney general has said it would be illegal). Both the Shin Bet and the Mossad opposed the campaign against Hamas in Gaza in 2014, and the prime ministers management of it.
In some conversations Ive had recently with high-ranking officers about Mr. Liebermans appointment as defense minister, the possibility of a military coup has been raised but only with a smile. It remains unlikely. The biggest challenge to the relationship between the right-wing politicians and the top brass will come if Mr. Lieberman tries to get the army to do the kinds of things he has enthusiastically proposed in the past.
What would the army and intelligence chiefs do if the new minister issued instructions not to prosecute people who committed crimes like Elor Azariahs in Hebron? Or if Mr. Lieberman demands, as he has done in the past, that Israel assassinate Hamas leaders if they do not return the remains of fallen Israeli soldiers, or conquer Gaza or bomb the Aswan Dam, as he has said Israel would do if it ever faced war with Egypt? Will they execute his orders, or refuse because they can grasp the dimensions of the catastrophe that such actions would bring about, and suffer the personal consequences?
WASHINGTON HILLARY CLINTON is the Democratic nominee.
Really.
Just ask her.
She should have been able to finally savor shattering that highest, hardest glass ceiling the one she gloried in putting 18 million cracks in last time around when she attends her convention in Philadelphia in July.
Instead, she is reduced to stomping her feet on CNN, asserting her dominance in a contest that has left her looking anything but dominant. Once more attempting to shake off the old socialist dude hammering her with a sickle, Clinton insisted to Chris Cuomo on Thursday: I will be the nominee for my party, Chris. That is already done, in effect. There is no way that I wont be.
Its a vexing time for the Clintons. As Bill told a crowd in Fargo, N.D., on Friday, its been an interesting year: Thats the most neutral word I can think of.
After all, why should Bernie Sanders get to be the Democratic nominee when he isnt even a Democrat? And how is Donald Trump going to be the Republican nominee when he considers being a Republican merely a starting bid?
Each Saturday, Farhad Manjoo and Mike Isaac, technology reporters at The New York Times, review the weeks news, offering analysis and maybe a joke or two about the most important developments in the tech industry.
Farhad: Hello, Michael! Does anyone call you that? Were you always Mike? Im just realizing I know nothing about you. And Id like to keep it that way.
Mike: Dad calls me Michael. Mom calls me Mikey. Brother usually signals that he wants to talk to me with grunting noises. Everyone else simply elides my first and last name to refer to me as MikeIsaac. I think Im O.K. with it.
Farhad: O.K. then, lets run through some tech news. It was a big week for the big tech companies. Facebook continued to fend off fallout from the allegation that its trending news section suppressed conservative points of view. The outcry got so heated that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks chief executive, arranged a kind of summit meeting with conservative pundits this week. From reading your story, I gathered that the right-leaning thinkers shared a lot of their grievances and Zuck smiled and nodded, but he didnt agree to any substantive change in how Facebook runs its site. Also, they had fancy snacks. Is that right?
The people of Palatine, Ill., a middle-class suburb of Chicago marked by generic strip malls and tidy cul-de-sacs, had not spent much time debating the thorny questions of transgender rights. But in late 2013, a transgender high school athlete, so intent on defending her privacy that she is known only as Student A, took on her school district so she could use the girls locker room.
After the federal Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights ruled in her favor last fall, the two sides cut a deal: Student A could use the locker room and the school would install private changing areas. Some in the community denounced the arrangement; others joined the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which represented the girl, in declaring a victory for civil rights.
Now the whole nation is in a pitched battle over bathroom access, with the Obama administration ordering all public schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice. Across the country, religious conservatives are rebelling. On Friday, lawmakers in Oklahoma became the latest group to protest, proposing one measure to effectively overturn the order, and another calling for President Obama to be impeached over it.
How a clash over bathrooms, an issue that appeared atop no national polls, became the next frontier in Americas fast-moving culture wars and ultimately landed on the desk of the president involves an array of players, some with law degrees, others still in high school.
Sexist comments. Failed business ventures. Caustic rhetoric. Unseemly business dealings.
For months, Republican opponents of Donald J. Trump hit him on myriad issues, to no avail. Now, the super PAC supporting Hillary Clintons campaign, Priorities USA, is picking up where Republicans left off, with two broadcast ads focusing on Mr. Trumps remarks about women and a new online ad mocking his business exploits.
THE AD Over and over, Mr. Trump is interrupted in mid-sales pitch for Trump Airlines, Trump University, Trump Steaks, and so on with a red rubber stamp declaring Scam, Failed or Fraud. The bottom line: Far from the business genius he purports to be, Mr. Trump is no better than a con man.
THE IMPACT His detractors are of two minds about negative ads attacking Mr. Trump: Some believe his victory in the Republican primaries shows that they did not work; others say his exceptionally high unfavorable ratings show that they did. Operatives at Priorities USA say that many voters did not pay much attention to ads during the primary campaign so expect to see a lot more.
Changing channels ...
Two Can Play
Even as Democrats have begun attacking Republican congressional candidates by linking them to their presumptive presidential nominee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee released a brutal new digital ad tying Democratic candidates to Hillary Clinton.
He has criticized the party for a debate schedule that his campaign says favors Mrs. Clinton; an arrangement under which Mrs. Clinton raises money for the party; and the appointment of Clinton supporters as leaders of important convention committees.
Most recently, he and the party have sparred over what happened at the Nevada Democratic convention a week ago. There, Sanders supporters disrupted the proceedings in a fight over delegates and the state party chairwoman was later threatened. After the party rebuked Mr. Sanders for not clearly condemning what had occurred, his campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, accused Ms. Wasserman Schultz of throwing shade on the Sanders campaign from the very beginning.
This week, Ms. Wasserman Schultz pushed back against the Sanders campaign in an interview with CNN. Weve had the same rules in place that elected Barack Obama, she told the network. These rules were adopted for state parties all across the country in 2014.
In a statement on Saturday, she said that even though Senator Sanders has endorsed my opponent, I remain, as I have been from the beginning, neutral in the presidential Democratic primary.
As president, Mr. Sanders would have the ability to appoint the committee chair, though it is not likely he will get that chance, as Mrs. Clinton is close to clinching the nomination. Nevertheless, he can try to draw a little blood from Ms. Wasserman Schultz with his endorsement of her primary opponent, Mr. Canova, the underdog in the race.
WASHINGTON Some of the nations largest veterans and military organizations sent letters last week to the Veterans Affairs Department asking it to crack down on colleges that prey on veterans by charging exorbitant fees for degrees that mostly fail to deliver promised skills and jobs.
The letters were signed by top officials at the American Legion, the National Military Family Association, the Military Officers Association of America and nearly 20 other groups. They called on the department to improve its oversight of colleges that have engaged in deceptive recruiting and other illicit practices but that continue to receive millions in funding under the G.I. Bill.
We encourage you to take steps against the dozen or so colleges facing federal and state action for deceiving students, one of the letters says.
The career training and for-profit college industry has been accused in recent years of exploiting veterans, poor people and minorities. Veterans are an especially enticing target because, under a loophole in federal law, money from the G.I. Bill does not count against a cap on federal funding to for-profit schools.
WASHINGTON An American drone strike targeted the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, United States officials said on Saturday, in the most significant American incursion inside Pakistan since Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden, the Qaeda leader, in 2011.
In a statement issued on Saturday, Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said the military was still assessing whether Mullah Mansour was killed in the strike, which was carried out by an unmanned drone.
Mr. Cook said Mullah Mansour was actively involved in planning attacks in Kabul and across Afghanistan, and had been an obstacle to peace and reconciliation between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, prohibiting Taliban leaders from participating in peace talks with the Afghan government that could lead to an end to the conflict.
A United States official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the military operation, said that the strike occurred around 6 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday, and that Mullah Mansour and a second adult male fighter traveling with him in a vehicle were probably killed. Even so, officials offered caution because early assessments of the deaths of militant and terrorist leaders in American strikes have proved inaccurate in the past.
UNITED NATIONS Conflicts last longer. Soldiers and rebels break the laws of war without so much as a shrug. Millions of people are driven from their homes by wars and natural disasters. And aid workers complain that they are overstretched, underfunded and in greater danger as they try to deliver relief to the people who need it most.
The machinery of humanitarian aid is not only broke but, according to many critics, also broken.
To address these problems, the United Nations is sponsoring the first World Humanitarian Summit, starting on Monday in Istanbul. But most of the worlds most powerful leaders those whose soldiers and diplomats can end wars and hold accountable those who violate international humanitarian law are not going.
President Obama is not planning to attend, nor is his top diplomat, Secretary of State John F. Kerry. Neither is President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has rebuffed the five core commitments that the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, wants countries to embrace at Istanbul. Those commitments include respecting existing humanitarian law, preventing conflicts and donating more money for aid. In any event, they are not legally binding.
China, which operates a parallel aid system that channels money mostly to friendly governments, is sending officials from the ministry that handles foreign aid. The host nation, Turkey, is itself under scrutiny by rights groups for turning back refugees to war zones.
This offered a brief and unpleasant glimpse into Ms. Kamaus experience (seriously, two hours?). The Haggler declined the offer and enlisted the assistance of an ace researcher at The New York Times, Kitty Bennett, who quickly found United States business registrations for JustFly in various states, all of which listed the companys address as Rocky Hill, Conn. According to the filing in Massachusetts, the president, treasurer and director of the company is Douglas Helal. According to Ms. Bennett, there is only one Douglas Helal in the United States.
Efforts to reach Mr. Helal, with messages left on a JustFly phone number with a Connecticut area code, and his email address at WFSB, a Rocky Hill television news station where he is listed as a digital sales manager, yielded nothing. Well, not quite nothing. (The station has no connection to JustFly.) Someone identified as Peter Ford, part of JustFly Customer Care, wrote to the Haggler and asked if he could help. (He had evidently received the Hagglers email from Mr. Helal.) The Haggler forwarded Ms. Kamaus letter. Mr. Ford then wrote to Ms. Kamau, asking for more details.
Then things got interesting. On Monday, a man named Nick Hart called the Haggler. He said that he was the chief financial officer of a company called Momentum Ventures, based in Montreal, which owns JustFly. It turns out that while Mr. Helal is, indeed, the president of JustFly, he is an employee, hired primarily to give Momentum an agent in the United States.
Under the Our Strategy section of Momentums self-congratulatory website it says, We tackle every business decision with enthusiasm and we live the work that we do. This enthusiasm does not seem to extend to customer service.
Mr. Hart put up a spirited, even defiant defense of JustFly. This included a request that the Haggler cease harassing Mr. Helal, which seems an unfair description of what was merely an effort to get a comment from someone who the Haggler assumed ran the company. On a more conciliatory note, Mr. Hart said that JustFly needed to hire more phone representatives because it was more popular than originally expected.
Were trying to ramp up the number of agents, he said.
That is a fine start. As for how Ms. Kamau ended up with a canceled return flight from Kenya, Mr. Ford, the JustFly customer service agent, said in an email that was not JustFlys fault. So whose fault was it? Swiss International Air Lines, he wrote, which handled a portion of that return flight.
The airline investigated the issue for a couple of days and on Thursday wrote to say Youve got to be kidding. Actually, a public relations representative was more diplomatic. She just stated that the culprit was a travel agency, which, citing privacy issues, she would not name.
Across the United States, we are faced with a substance abuse epidemic that results in overdoses, addiction, and, for too many, death.
Statistics show that approximately 46,000 Americans die from a drug overdose each year, meaning nearly 130 people die every single day from drug abuse.
No community is immune to this epidemic not even Orange County, the place I have called home for 50 years.
On Monday, the Register reported that the number of deaths in Orange County caused by drug overdose rose to 400 last year, the highest level in at least a decade. More than two-thirds of these untimely deaths involved opioids.
Unfortunately, this public health crisis is not new, and abuse of prescription and illegal drugs continues to grow.
When I served in the California Senate, I began collaborating with Natalie Costa, who had just completed a documentary: Behind the Orange Curtain. Natalie was motivated to make the documentary after her daughters friend died from an opioid overdose. She wanted to make sure that this young mans death was not in vain, so Natalie set out to educate children, parents, families, teachers and administrators about the dangers of opioid abuse. Her story and work on this issue inspired me to join in this fight.
During my time in the Legislature, I participated in several town halls and panels to address the impact prescription drug abuse particularly opioid abuse is having on children and families.
As a mother of four, I am well aware of the need for parents to be more involved in advocating for substance abuse education in our schools. It also means that parents must be prepared for the challenges their children face as they progress through their middle and high school years, and on to college. Taking a proactive approach on this issue can help prevent our youth from experimenting with prescription drugs, which can lead to abuse and addiction down the road.
We must teach our kids that just because certain drugs are legally prescribed by doctors does not mean they are safe. They must understand these drugs can be dangerous and can lead to addiction. Education is a critical tool in our fight against this epidemic, but together we must do more to prevent abuse and addiction and to give those battling addiction the tools they need to reclaim their lives.
In the House of Representatives we recognize that opioid abuse, which often leads to heroin use, is growing at an alarming pace. We are committed to putting an end to this epidemic.
Two weeks ago, the House passed 18 bipartisan bills to fight opioid abuse and fight back against this escalating scourge. Among other things, our legislation will increase the transparency and accountability of government programs that are designed to curb opioid addiction.
One of those bills, the Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Reduction Act, creates a grant program that will help state and local governments combat opioid addiction. This will provide states and localities the flexibility they need to dedicate resources where their communities need them most, like prescription drug monitoring programs, overdose treatment training for first responders or rehabilitation programs. This bill is fully offset, meaning that this legislation repurposes grant funding to direct funds to address the opioid epidemic. While prescription drug abuse is a nationwide epidemic, there is not a one-size-fits-all cure to addiction. Orange County should be able to use this grant funding to direct resources to the specifically tailored needs of the community.
By approving these 18 bills, we are strengthening our nations laws to help stop the flow of illicit drugs throughout the United States, which will curb our growing opioid epidemic. At the same time, we understand that our work is not done. Last week, we began working with the Senate to send this bill to the president. I am hopeful we will accomplish that in the coming weeks and it will be signed into law.
Congress wants to help people suffering from addiction reclaim and rebuild their lives. I believe these bills will accomplish that, and I am proud to be a part of the work being done on this issue.
Republican Congresswoman Mimi Walters represents Californias 45th Congressional District.
The three major 2016 presidential candidates will be converging on Southern California next week, as they try to ramp up voter support ahead of Californias June 7 primary.
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, will make a rally stop at the Anaheim Convention Center on Wednesday, according to his campaign website.
Those wanting to attend the event must register for tickets. The rally, scheduled for noon to 2 p.m., will be held at the Anaheim Arena, Anaheim city spokesman Mike Lyster confirmed today.
As previously reported by The Register, Sen. Bernie Sanders will be making a campaign stop in Irvine Sunday, May 22, and another Tuesday, May 24, at the Anaheim Convention Center.
The Anaheim function, which also requires tickets, is expected to run from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Lyster said.
Event parking at the convention center for both the Trump and Sanders rallies will be limited.
With Californias upcoming primary and the general election six months away, Orange County is an important campaign stop, Lyster said.
After his Anaheim campaign stop, Sanders will head to Riverside and San Bernardino.
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, also is expected to be in Orange County next week, according to a campaign email sent Saturday. No other event details were immediately available.
Bill Clinton attended an event in Pomona Saturday to stump for his wife.
Contact the writer: lleung@ocregister.com
POWAY A health district in San Diego County has rejected an $800,000 water bill after seven years of only being charged for 10 percent of what was actually used by one of its hospitals.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that only last year did officials in the city of Poway catch the meter-reading error involving Pomerado Hospital, which is operated by Palomar Health District.
The error was traced to the 2008 installation of a multi-line meter. The meters face has six digits, but it was recorded as having only five digits.
The Poway City Council rejected a settlement offer of $150,000 and this week voted to file a claim against the district.
A claim is typically a precursor to a lawsuit. The health district declined comment due to pending litigation.
MEXICO CITY Mexicos government approved the extradition of alleged drug kingpin Joaquin El Chapo Guzman to the U.S. to face charges ranging from homicide to drug trafficking and money laundering.
Guzman will face charges in Texas and California. The U.S. has agreed that he wouldnt face the death penalty, which is prohibited under Mexican law, the Foreign Ministry said in an emailed statement Friday. Guzmans lawyers now have 30 days to appeal the decision, which one of them said he will do.
The alleged head of the Sinaloa cartel humiliated Mexican President Enrique Pena Nietos government by escaping from a maximum-security prison last July. Guzman was recaptured in January after a six-month manhunt. Mexico this month transferred him to a prison in Chihuahua state, on the border with the U.S.
Chapo Guzmans reign of terror as the worlds largest and most significant drug lord will come to an end once he steps across the border, said Mike Vigil, a retired head of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. He will no longer have access to his criminal infrastructure. The cases in the United States against him are extremely strong.
Jose Refugio Rodriguez, one of Guzmans lawyers, told Milenio TV on Friday that his client will fight the extradition order and that the legal process could reach Mexicos Supreme Court and last one to three years, during which time he may remain in Mexico.
The decision to extradite is a turnaround from the governments previous stance. In January 2015, then-Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam told The Associated Press that he wouldnt accept El Chapos extradition to the U.S. until after the drug boss had completed his sentence in Mexico, 300 or 400 years later.
Major health insurers have already begun to propose significant premium increases for next year in an attempt to cover their higher than expected costs on the Affordable Care Acts exchanges.
In Oregon and Virginia, the first two states to propose rate hikes for 2017, insurers are asking regulators for premium increases of 30 and 20 percent, respectively. This news comes on the heels of last months announcement by United Healthcare that it is essentially exiting the ACA exchanges after losing more than $1 billion in 2015 and 2016. Other major insurers like Health Care Service Corp. and Highmark also lost hundreds of millions of dollars in 2015.
To try to compensate for such losses, insurers have hiked prices by double-digit percentages year after year. Thats despite the fact that the ACA was promised to lower premiums by up to $2,500 per year for a typical family. Its clear that the ACA in its current form is unsustainable. Its promise to provide more choice, more competition and lower costs has resulted in less choice, less competition, and higher prices.
The debate over whether to repeal or reform the ACA, featuring politicians more interested in partisanship than improving health care, will surely rage on. But while Capitol Hill bickers, Main Street innovates.
Health entrepreneurs around the country are quietly experimenting with ways to offer good care for a cheap price. They are tapping into the market created by the proliferation of ACA-induced, high-deductible health care plans, which have turned compliant patients into discerning shoppers trying to find the best price for their tests, X-Rays, MRIs and doctors visits.
Consider Dr. Keith Smith, who runs the Surgery Center of Oklahoma. He took the radical step (in the health care industry, anyway) of posting his prices online. This allows patients to shop for health care services like any other industry. Such transparent pricing caused patients to flock to him, forcing providers from as far away as Wichita to do the same. Next came the price war among providers, which has contributed to this region having some of the cheapest procedure prices in the nation. Markets and small business ingenuity did what the ACA has been unable to do: actually lower health care prices for consumers.
Or look at the boom in telemedicine, where entrepreneurship and technology allow people to see a doctor over Skype or FaceTime, cutting out one of the major inefficiencies in health care: waiting rooms. Even better, Doctors on Demand is bringing back doctor house calls a relic of a bygone time for the general population for about $100 a pop. This Uber for doctors business model is exactly what the outdated and bureaucratic health care industry needs.
Retail health clinics found in pharmacies and department stores that are staffed by nurse practitioners and physician assistants can also offer deep discounts to the traditional doctor and insurance model. They have cared for tens of millions of patients, have very high customer satisfaction ratings and are open seven days a week.
Lastly, theres Epiphany Health in Southwest Florida. This clinic has brought a concierge care model, where patients pay a monthly fee for a set of services, to the areas fixed-income population. It is offering affordable and comprehensive primary care but not drug rehab, acupuncture, contraception and the myriad other services that drive up the price of insurance premiums.
In true entrepreneurial fashion, the owner is offering the monthly health service for about the price of monthly cell service, after seeing that his Medicaid patients all had iPhones. He thought that if low-income individuals can shell out $100 a month for an iPhone, they can do the same for quality health care. Its iPhone principles for a Post Office industry.
As the ACA continues to struggle, the public is focusing on politicians endless partisan debates over health care. Meanwhile, small businesses are out fixing it.
Alfredo Ortiz is the president and CEO of the Job Creators Network.
SAN FRANCISCO A federal appeals court Friday granted a Northern California womans request to keep her toddler who has been declared brain dead on life support past the end of the day.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order requiring Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Roseville to keep 2-year-old Israel Stinson on life support while it considers his mothers appeal. A lower court had extended life support only to the end of the business day Friday.
Israels mother, Jonee Fonseca, says she needs time to find another facility for Israel. Kaiser Permanente attorneys say Israels condition will not improve, and the hospital has provided Israels parents with a reasonable amount of time to find another facility.
The 9th Circuit did not set a new cutoff date on life support in its order, but set up a schedule for additional paperwork from Fonseca and Kaiser through Wednesday.
Fonseca sought a court order that Kaiser Permanente keep Israel on life support to give her ample time to find another facility for the boy. U.S. District Court Judge Kimberly Mueller rejected her request in a May 13 ruling, but she gave Fonseca until the end of the business day on Friday to appeal.
Fonseca is suing Kaiser Permanente, saying she believes Israel is still alive. Fonseca has said Israel moved his body in response to her touch and voice even after he was declared brain dead.
Plaintiffs are Christians with firm religious beliefs that as long as the heart is beating, Israel is alive, Fonsecas attorney, Kevin Snider, said in court documents. Snider is with the Pacific Justice Institute, a conservative nonprofit legal defense group.
Kaiser Permanente attorneys said Israels condition would not improve because he suffered permanent, irreversible and total cessation of all brain functions and futile care would deprive him of the dignity of death. The movements Fonseca experienced were spinal reflexes that did not indicate his brain was functioning, Michael Myette, Israels doctor at Kaiser Permanente, said in a court declaration.
The fight over life support for Israel is similar to the battle over Jahi McMath a 13-year-old girl who underwent a tonsillectomy and tissue removal at Childrens Hospital in Oakland, California, to treat sleep apnea. The girl suffered massive bleeding, had a heart attack and was declared brain dead in 2013. But her family fought to keep her on life support and moved her to New Jersey, which requires medical treatment of patients like McMath who are declared dead but show minimal brain function.
JERUSALEM Israels defense minister announced his resignation Friday, saying the governing party had been taken over by extremist and dangerous elements and that he no longer trusts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The departure of Moshe Yaalon one of the last moderate voices in the Likud Party deepens the rift in the Cabinet between the security establishment and the hard-line politicians.
Netanyahu reportedly intends to appoint former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to the post of defense minister. The 57-year-old Lieberman is one of Israels most polarizing politicians. Over three decades, he has at times been Netanyahus closest ally and at other times a fierce rival.
If Yaalon is replaced as expected by Lieberman, command of the Defense Ministry will transition from a general who led one of Israels most elite commando units and later was its chief of staff to a politician who held the rank of corporal, almost the lowest military rank. Liebermans limited military experience raises further questions about the appointment.
Yaalon told reporters that Israel is a healthy society with a sane majority that is tolerant of minorities and strives for a liberal and democratic society.
But to my great dismay, extremist and dangerous elements have taken over Israel, also over the Likud Party, and are shaking the house and threatening to hurt its inhabitants, he said. I fought with all my might against manifestations of extremism, violence and racism in Israeli society that threatens its sturdiness and is seeping into the army and already damaging it.
Earlier, Yaalon said he told Netanyahu that following his conduct in recent developments and in light of the lack of trust in him, I am resigning from the government. He added that he also was resigning from parliament and was taking a timeout from political life.
Yaalon and Netanyahu have butted heads repeatedly over military officers talking publicly about political matters. Netanyahu was enraged earlier this month when a senior officer made public comments viewed as critical of the government, while Yaalon backed the generals right to freely express his views.
Yaalon said he always put Israels security and other interests above his own, but unfortunately I found myself lately in tough disputes over moral and professional issues with the prime minister and several ministers and members of parliament.
Tensions between Yaalon and Netanyahu escalated in March, when military leaders criticized a soldier who was caught on video fatally shooting an already-wounded Palestinian attacker. The solider is now on trial for manslaughter. While Yaalon has backed the military, Lieberman went to the court to offer his support to the soldier.
Netanyahu said he regretted Yaalons decision and that he would have preferred him to stay on, but as foreign minister. The prime minister also said the political shake-up was not because of differences with Yaalon but out of the need to widen the coalition to bring stability to Israel against the big challenges it faces.
He said the military will continue to preserve the highest moral standards and added that the army must remain outside of politics. In a democracy, the military echelon is subordinate to the political echelon, and not the reverse, Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu this week invited Liebermans ultranationalist Yisrael Beteinu Party to shore up his shaky parliamentary coalition and negotiation teams have been meeting to hammer out the details of their alliance.
Yaalons resignation solidifies the takeover of hard-liners in the party, especially in the Cabinet, which is dominated by those who oppose concessions to the Palestinians.
Cabinet Minister Gila Gamliel said Yaalons departure was a tremendous loss for the ruling Likud. She told Israel Radio she believes it was a mistake not to offer Yaalon another post and keep him in the coalition.
Former Defense Minister Ehud Barak criticized the political upheaval.
There has been a hostile takeover of the leadership by elements foreign to the spirit of the state of Israel and to the spirit of the military, he said in an interview with Channel 10 TV.
This is a wrong appointment. To take the best man the most fitting for the job and demote him, and put in his place a person with political and other capabilities but completely lacking in experience in this field, is a mistake and an expression of faulty considerations, Barak said.
He called it a move that is irresponsible for the military and the citizens of the country.
Many Israelis have questioned the wisdom of appointing Lieberman to the sensitive post of defense minister over Yaalon, a former army chief of staff who is generally respected for his knowledge of military affairs. Lieberman has no such military experience, although he has held a number of Cabinet posts, including stints as foreign minister.
Liebermans hard-line stance has made him an influential voice at home but has at times alienated Israels allies abroad. He has questioned the loyalty of Israels Arab minority and brashly confronted Israels foreign critics. He has expressed skepticism over pursuing peace with the Palestinians, and is pushing a proposal to impose the death penalty against Arabs convicted of acts of terrorism.
Lieberman, who once worked as a bouncer at a bar, immigrated to Israel in 1978 from Moldova in the former Soviet Union and still speaks with a thick Russian accent.
He became a national figure in 1996 as a top aide to Netanyahu in a previous term as prime minister. Lieberman, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Nokdim, later quit Likud and established Yisrael Beiteinu to represent the more than 1 million immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
Those close to Lieberman say he is more pragmatic and level-headed than he appears in public.
The addition of his partys six seats will give Netanyahu a 67-53 majority in the 120-seat parliament, providing new room to maneuver on domestic affairs. Along with military policy, the Defense Ministry handles delicate security issues with allies, some of whom Lieberman has antagonized. Lieberman has angered Egypt, which has close security ties with Israel, with comments years ago calling for Israel to bomb the Aswan Dam. In another flap, he said Egypts then-president, Hosni Mubarak, could go to hell.
Yaalons departure also paves the way for Yehuda Glick to enter the government. An Israeli-American activist, Glick has campaigned to allow Jewish prayer at Jerusalems holiest site, the hilltop compound in the Old City that is sacred to both Jews and Muslims.
The compound is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, site of the two Jewish biblical Temples and the holiest place in Judaism. Known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, it houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the gold-topped Dome of the Rock, and is the third-holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.
Perceived changes to the status quo that bans Jews from praying at the site have sparked Palestinian violence. Tensions erupted in September and months of bloodshed followed with dozens of Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians and security personnel.
Since then, Palestinian attacks, mostly stabbings, shootings and vehicular assaults, have killed 28 Israelis and two Americans. About 200 Palestinians have been killed as well, most of whom Israel says were attackers.
Glick survived an attempt on his life in 2014 when he was shot several times by a Palestinian.
HUNTINGTON HARBOUR The Sons of Norway were on hand, waving Norwegian flags. A score of students and teachers with Valhalla T-shirts could be seen. And Marina High School Assistant Principal Joseph Powers was there in full Viking regalia.
They were all assembled Friday afternoon at Sunset Aquatic Marina to see the launch and maiden voyage of Valhalla, a 30-foot re-creation of a Viking ship called a knarr complete with towering dragon head built over two years by students from Marina High and the Coastline Regional Occupation Program, under the supervision of wood shop teacher Bob Meade.
Among the inaugural crew of 20 rowers were senior twins Maxwell and Roman Marvin.
Ive been anxious for this day all year long, said Roman Marvin, who was so into the project he worked on it even though he was not taking a class with Meade.
Both brothers were thrilled to be part of the vessels inaugural crew.
We put in blood, sweat and tears, literally, said Roman Marvin.
Mostly tears, his brother joked.
After a ceremony honoring donors and participants, the Valhalla was christened with the smashing of a bottle, supplied by the theater arts department and made of sugar. Then she was launched, 21st-century Viking style backed by pick-up truck and trailer down the launch ramp.
After the crew boarded, with the crowd onshore cheering, the Valhalla was pushed off from the dock and soon was moving away smoothly, with Powers at the bow chanting stroke commands.
Toward the end of the approximately half-hour voyage, the crew took charge, calling out, One, two, stroke, in unison.
The vessel is no mere model or float, but a seaworthy sailing and rowing craft about 80 percent authentic, Meade said. The planks overlap and are riveted in the traditional clinker-built method.
Modern marine plywood replaced Norwegian oak, and galvanized hardware and epoxy sealing were used. A little duct tape was applied where a small hole was punched in the hull.
However, the look and design hew close to what is known about Viking ships. The dragons head and shields, which on the port side spell out Marina, are adornments based on tradition.
About 5 feet were sliced off the originally planned length of the boat for maneuvering and transport.
Meade said he and his students worked pretty much every day, to finish the craft and make sure it was able to pass a marine safety inspection.
The Marvin brothers were joined on the maiden voyage by students Kayla Corpuz, Matt Wautlet, Isaac Wright and helmswoman Jordan Gustafson, who put in many hours on the final construction.
Powers was delighted that the school was out in force to celebrate the event.
We have our AP students and academic aces, and then we have kids trying to find their way, Powers said. I wanted the kids who did this to know it mattered this much.
Despite the willing workforce, including student volunteers, and his experience building watercraft, Meade wasnt entirely sure he could pull it off, saying he kept it under wraps because we didnt know how it would turn out.
Although Meade admits building a replica Viking warship, or longship, would have been great in theory, considerations for space and safety made the knarr, which is shorter, wider and more stable, the sensible choice.
The boat weighs about 2,000 pounds and cost about $4,200 in materials, raised from donations from groups like the Sons of Norway, as well as booster groups and from sale of wares made in wood shop.
After docking, Meade was ecstatic.
Big projects like this are exactly what these kids need, he said.
Contact the writer: gmellen@ocregister.com
TOKYO Japanese officials protested to the United States on Friday after police arrested a man identified as a former U.S. Marine in connection with the killing of a woman on the island of Okinawa.
I am extremely upset. I have no words, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters at his residence Friday. I demand that the United States take strict measures to prevent something like this from happening again.
The suspect was identified by Okinawa police as Kenneth Franklin Shinzato, 32. He was arrested Thursday after he admitted strangling a 20-year-old woman, Rina Shimabukuro, and dumping her body in a weeded area near her home in the town of Uruma, according to news reports.
The reports were based on background briefings by police and prosecutors and could not be independently verified.
Shimabukuro was reported missing April 29. Her boyfriend told the police she had disappeared the previous night after texting him to say she was going for a walk, the news reports said.
Crimes committed by Americans have long been a source of friction on Okinawa, a small southern island that hosts about half of the roughly 50,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan.
The most notorious incident, the rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl by three American servicemen in 1995, set off mass protests against the U.S. military presence.
The latest incident comes just a week before President Barack Obama is scheduled to travel to Japan for a meeting of leaders from the Group of 7 leading industrialized countries. The trip is already politically sensitive because Obama plans to visit Hiroshima, site of the U.S. nuclear bombing at the end of World War II. He will be the first sitting American president to do so.
Japans foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, summoned Ambassador Caroline Kennedy on Friday to protest the killing on Okinawa, which he called an extremely cruel and atrocious crime. Okinawas governor, Takeshi Onaga, who has campaigned to reduce the U.S. military presence on the island, told reporters Thursday that the crime had left him speechless.
This incident has occurred precisely because the base is there, Onaga was quoted by the local news media as saying. I dont know what to do with this anger.
Shinzato is no longer a Marine but is employed in a civilian role at Kadena Air Base, a U.S. Air Force facility on Okinawa, police said. He was questioned by police after his car was spotted on security-camera footage taken near the area where Shimabukuro is believed to have disappeared, news reports said.
DNA matching Shimabukuros was found in the car, according to the reports.
Shinzato was arrested on suspicion of illegally disposing of a body, a common early step in murder investigations in Japan. Police can hold suspects for several weeks before pressing formal charges.
A 27-year-old Anaheim man was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison on Friday for sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl and threatening to kill her 15-year-old sister after breaking into their home through a bedroom window.
An Orange County Superior Court jury in November found Ernesto Parraguirre guilty of felony sexual penetration of a child 10 years or younger, lewd acts on a child under 14, criminal threats, first-degree burglary and assault.
About 5 a.m. on Sept. 16, 2009, prosecutors said, Parraguirre broke into a home in Orange by removing a window screen and climbing into a bedroom where the two girls were sleeping. Prosecutors said the victims did not know Parraguirre.
Parraguirre got into bed with the 9-year-old and sexually assaulted her. The girl began to cry, waking up her older sister. Parraguirre threatened to kill the older girl if she said anything and then fled.
On Friday, both sisters told they court that the experience has left them traumatized. One sister said she cant sleep without therapy, while the other said she has trouble being around men in public.
I have nightmares a lot about the incident, she said. Its still something that haunts me at night.
Parraguirre fled to Mexico to avoid prosecution. On Sept. 25, 2009, the Orange County District Attorneys Office and the Orange Police Department appealed for the publics help in locating Parraguirre.
Parraguirre turned himself into Orange police in February 2010.
Contact the writer: kpuente@ocregister.com
SEAL BEACH Whatever its origin, the fire that destroyed the vacant Rubys Diner at the tip of the Seal Beach Pier on Friday morning is yet another setback for the beloved landmark.
We were all just heartbroken to see flames bursting out of our beautiful pier, Seal Beach Mayor Sandra Massa-Lavitt said Friday afternoon. But we are also grateful that so many agencies came together to help us.
Ironically, the City Council intended to discuss a possible timetable for the already necessary fixes to the pier weathered both by age and 2014s Hurricane Marie at Mondays meeting. Now members will grapple with additional costly repairs.
Damage from the fire was contained to the last 100 feet of the pier where Rubys Diner once sat, Massa-Lavitt said.
Except for that area, the pier is structurally sound, she added.
The planks are in good shape, Massa-Lavitt said. Its the infrastructure that you dont see and dont think about that needs rehabilitation gas lines, pipes, water lines, sewer lines.
After Rubys Diner closed in 2013, the end of the pier was blocked to visitors. The boarded-up building and locked gate created an eyesore on the citys scenic emblem rising above a surfers haven.
Officials hoped to lure another eatery to the location, and talks with owners of The Original Fish Company in Los Alamitos looked promising.
However, the city discovered that it would first need to put $4 million into repairing the pier before a new business could break ground.
When we found out about the extent of the repairs needed, negotiations with the restaurant fell apart, Massa-Lavitt said. We are not at this time in negotiations with any business.
The city is still awaiting approval by the State Lands Commission for a coastal permit to rebuild at the location.
One of the longest of its kind in California, the wooden pier is owned by the state and maintained by Seal Beach. The city insures it with the Joint Powers Insurance Authority.
Massa-Lavitt said the city does not yet have a ballpark figure for the cost of the fire damage. She said she plans to hold a public meeting soon to share information about the disaster.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Larry Kurtz said officials have not yet determined if the fire was electrical or if the vacant building still had active electrical lines.
The fire marks another chapter in the iconic piers recent troubles.
Its a historic event, Massa-Lavitt said, and, its a very expensive event.
Contact the writer: sgoulding@ocregister.com
When Disneyland opened in July 1955, the nation watched on a live ABC television broadcast. But when theme parks open these days, fans around the world get their first look through videos on social media.
For the past week or so, Ive been clicking around social networks Id never visited before, searching for videos of the rides at Shanghai Disneyland, which recently started its trial operations in advance of its official June 16 opening.
Online videos cant replicate the experience of riding a theme park attraction in person, but they can whet or kill an appetite to book a visit. Based on what Ive seen from Shanghai Disneyland so far, I need to start saving for a trip to China.
With YouTube and Facebook mostly inaccessible in China, invited guests to Shanghai Disneylands soft opening have been posting instead to Chinese social media sites such as Weibo, Youku and Meipai.
Fortunately, you dont need to understand Mandarin to appreciate the sights of a brand new Disney Magic Kingdom, especially the unique new version Disney has built in China. But some videos have made their way onto American websites such as YouTube.
My favorite has been Shanghai Disneylands Pirates of the Caribbean Battle of the Sunken Treasure. Forget what you know about the Disneyland original. This all-new version makes you feel like youve sailed into some of the best scenes from the Johnny Depp films. These boats even spin at certain points as they float through the ride.
The highlight might be the moment when an Audio-Animatronics skeleton transforms into a lifelike Captain Jack Sparrow. That effect elicited gasps from riders on every video Ive seen. Its simply the most amazing effect Ive ever seen in a theme park and I hope to get the chance to see it in person someday.
Heres that video.
After Pirates, the most anticipated new ride at Shanghai Disneyland might be the Tron Lightcycle Power Run Disneys first complete ride devoted to its cult classic Tron. This indoor launch coaster sends riders driving through The Grid, the computer-generated virtual-reality space where so much of the 1982 original and 2010 sequel took place. Click here to see that video. Its in Chinese.
Shanghai Disneyland has refreshed other classic Disney rides, though not to the extreme level that it changed Pirates of the Caribbean. On Buzz Lightyear Planet Rescue, youre still shooting at targets to defeat the Evil Emperor Zurg, but Disneys added more advance animation effects and created a slicker production design for this popular interactive ride. Click here to see the Chinese social media video preview.
Disney fans online have called Shanghai Disneylands version of Peter Pans Flight the best installation of this wildly popular Fantasyland ride. Click here for the Chinese media video.
There are online videos on some Chinese websites of those two rides as well.
Not everything is open yet during the preview. Im still looking for the first video of the parks Roaring Rapids, a Grizzly River Run-style rapids ride that features an encounter with a monstrous creature that concept art suggests might be Disneys most impressive Audio-Animatronics figure yet.
Some fans might not want to see any potential spoilers before visiting in person. But with a trip to China such an ambitious trek for many Americans, online videos provide a way for fans to get a glimpse at what might await them in Shanghai. From what Ive seen so far, it appears that planning a trip to Disneys newest land might be well worth that effort.
Contact the writer: Robert Niles is the founder and editor of ThemeParkInsider.com. Follow him on Twitter @ThemePark.
IRVINE A state agency that in March ordered additional soil and soil gas testing at the site of Irvine Unified School Districts future Portola High School has determined the site poses no risk to those who will study or work there.
A report issued this week by the Department of Toxic Substances Control said the tests prompted by community concerns over stained soil discovered at the site, once part of the former El Toro Marine base revealed traces of chemicals at levels well below those that could cause harm.
The campus, which stretches about 40 acres at the northeast side of the Orange County Great Park, will eventually enroll as many as 2,600 students in grades 9 through 12. The Portola High freshman class about 400 students are expected to enroll is slated to kick off its first year Aug. 24.
Were happy theres a conclusion to the report and hopefully that will put to rest any kind of concern that a few of our community members might have had, John Pehrson, principal of Portola High, said on Friday.
Pehrson, who was previously principal at University High School, said the testing hasnt affected preparations for the opening of the school, the districts fifth comprehensive high school.
To be quite honest, whats been going on in the site along these lines hasnt caused us to lose any focus, he said. We havent received a whole lot of concern from our parent constituents here.
The report, finalized Tuesday and shared online by Irvine Unified late Thursday, summarizes the latest round of testing done of the soil and soil gas the air in the spaces between soil at the site. In total, 109 new samples were taken, at depths of up to 15 feet, the report states.
No petroleum hydrocarbons were detected in the soil samples. Low levels of volatile organic compounds were detected in the soil gas samples. The concentrations in which the compounds were found were similar to the levels found in previous testing done at the site, according to the report.
At those levels, the compounds wouldnt pose a risk to people or the environment even if the site was used for housing, the report states.
Dozens of people packed a school board meeting in late March about the additional testing ordered earlier that month by the states toxics regulator. In response to residents pleas for more tests than initially proposed, the school board voted to increase the number of sites that would be tested.
Irvine resident Harvey Liss, who has written extensively about his concerns over potential contamination at the school site in the Irvine Community News & Views, a monthly community newspaper co-owned by longtime Irvine politician Larry Agran, said Friday he remains unconvinced of the sites safety.
The contamination is clearly site-wide and the sources, which would have higher concentrations of these contaminants, have not been found, Liss said.
The report from the state agency concludes that the likely source of the compounds detected in the soil gas is recycled irrigation water.
Liss said that doesnt comport with the 2014 discovery of a deposit of soil stained with such compounds at the northern side of the site.
The report will discussed at a school board meeting 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Irvine Unified headquarters, 5050 Barranca Parkway in Irvine.
Contact the writer: sdecrescenzo@ocregister.com
Twenty-nine years ago this week, I graduated from law school. Its been almost three decades since Ive been able to officially call myself an officer of the court, a title I wear with a great deal of pride. But while I will always be extremely proud of my pedigree and of the work it involves, I do not equate it with the profound physical courage demanded of other officers.
On Monday, President Obama awarded the Medal of Valor to 13 public safety officers who have exhibited exceptional courage, regardless of personal safety. The honor, created by Congress in 2001, recognizes the type of bravery that requires both mental and physical acuity, the symbiosis of mind, body, and most especially, heart. Twelve of the men who received their medals were able to take them from the hands of a clearly moved commander in chief. One, tragically, surely surveyed the ceremony from heaven, as his grandmother accepted the award in his name.
Sgt. Robert Wilson III earned that medal on March 5, 2015. He was at a GameStop store in North Philly, buying a present for his son, when two brothers entered the store and announced a robbery. They brandished semi-automatic handguns, Wilson drew his weapon and engaged the robbers, two on one. He is credited with having distracted the robbers from other customers in the store, and didnt stop shooting, even though he himself had been wounded. He was stopped only by a fatal bullet to the head. There were no other casualties that day.
I remember reading about Wilson last year, and I could barely make it through the reports without stopping to wipe my eyes. That mans courage is too big for words, too deep for normal understanding, too painful for dispassionate discussion. He, and his brothers and sisters in uniform, stand alone. They form an island of honor we can observe, but cannot hope to inhabit.
The other officers honored this week had similar stories, and, while they escaped with the precious rest of their lives, their acts are no less heroic than Wilsons. One rescued a toddler from a knife-wielding predator. One, off duty, rescued a man from a burning car and suffered serious injuries. One engaged in gunfire with a young man who had shot and wounded his parents and was threatening to go on a rampage near an elementary school.
I know police officers have been the target of negative publicity in the past few years. Some of it is justified, I suppose, although I do think there has been far too much negativity and far too little context given to the stories in Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia. Hashtags about racial divides are newsworthy, and make for juicy headlines, but they have a tendency to demonize one side and canonize the other.
Neither posture advances the truth.
What I do know is that the bad cops, that bread and butter of investigative journalists, are in the minority. And even the bad ones are still, on occasion, noble creatures who have willingly enlisted in a profession that places them on a collision course with danger, every blessed day.
The vast majority court that danger with pure hearts, and the souls of giants. I remember that period of 18 so months about 10 years ago, when it seemed as if Philadelphia police officers had targets on their backs. I remember the names: Officer Gary Skerski, Officer Chuck Cassidy, Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, Officer Isabel Nazario, Sgt. Patrick McDonald, Sgt. Timothy Simpson, Officer John Pawlowski. It was a continuous chain of pain. It still is.
A month or so ago, a police officer I knew who was a very good man took his own life. There were the complications of a troubled life, but, in the end, he was an honorable man and served this city up to his final moments. The shadows surrounding the circumstances of his death do not change the importance of that service.
All of this is to say we owe this profession a higher level of deference and respect than we do almost any other, except perhaps the firefighters who run toward the flames and the soldiers to who run toward the gunfire. Their flaws come from their humanity, and we are all susceptible to that. But their heroism reaches heights that we will never touch, and that should be remembered.
Im grateful to the president, for remembering Phillys brave son.
Christine Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, and can be reached at cflowers1961@gmail.com.
Re: Need more bipartisanship on climate change [Letters, May 18]: Roger Iles stated that we need to cease our bickering and name-calling regarding climate change and all agree to find a solution in a bipartisan manner. Many on Mr. Iles side of this issue resort to comparing skeptics of man-made climate change to Holocaust deniers. So, yes, I agree that progressives should stop with the name-calling. As to bipartisanship, the Lefts long-time interpretation of that word has been Republicans accepting everything Democrats demand. Their demands in this case would be onerous regulations that would further slow our already anemic economic growth. So, given that option, Id prefer to continue the debate in a partisan manner, minus the Lefts name-calling, of course.
Alexander Tomescu
Mission Viejo
Support Banning Ranch
I have been watching the debate over the development of Banning Ranch for the past several years. This is my observation: Why is there such a big fight by so-called environmentalists against any development on the 400-acre property?
Has anyone actually looked at Banning Ranch? Its a disgrace. I toured the property for over three hours; the landscape is marred by old oil derricks and oil waste from a history of oil exploration. The roads through the property are distressed and look more like something one would find in an impoverished Third World nation. Essentially, its an industrial wasteland that is an eyesore for everyone in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach and anyone who drives down West Coast Highway.
I think its a good deal being proposed by the Banning Ranch owners. They have scaled back their plans to use about 20 percent of the property for development in exchange for restoring the environment and adding bike and hiking paths and limited development. Its amazing to me that more people dont realize it. Im guessing many of the Save Banning Ranch group have never taken a full tour of the property. If they had, theyd realize there is almost no one who is benefiting from this property in its current state. Let the market conditions and the commission do their job. Lets find a settlement that will be good for all involved and move forward before the next real estate downturn comes along, and we have an environmental eyesore until things turn around again.
John Ursini
Newport Beach
ER closure unhelpful
Re: Hospital rezoning unhelpful [Letters, May 17]: Im so relieved to hear from Wayne Brown that San Clemente will still be part of a very sophisticated regional emergency network when Memorial Care closes its San Clemente emergency room later this month. Im sure people in south San Clemente will rest assured that the ride to the Mission Hospital E.R. for their loved ones in dire medical condition will only be about 15 minutes (or up to 25 minutes if Mission is closed). After all, what difference should the extra time make? Also, there is a high percentage of retired people living in San Clemente, and if they die on the way to an E.R. Im sure theyve lived their lives well.
Oh, yeah Mr. Brown lives in Mission Viejo, where Mission Hospital is located.
Warren Beacom
San Clemente
Free to choose
Re: Trump tax plan means more growth, jobs [Opinion, May 15]: Stephen Moore questions Hillary Clintons choice of words when she says that Donald Trumps plan spends trillions of dollars on tax cuts. Mr. Moore asks, How do you spend money on a tax cut?
The answer is simple, if you think like Hillary does. All of the money you make is owned by the government and the government decides how much of it you can keep, lowering taxes is taking money from the rightful owner, the government.
If, on the other hand, you believe that you own the fruits of your labor, then you reject the statist way of thinking. Roads, schools, defense and the like need to be paid for, but the premise that your labor and money belong to the government first is completely antithetical to a free society.
Ron Katz
Anaheim Hills
The runaway GOP
The current state of the Republican Party reminds me of those stampedes depicted in the old Western movies. The herd gets spooked and, in mass, starts running. No one within the stampede knows where they are going or why. No one really cares. Within the stampede the noise is so loud nothing from the outside can penetrate. There is no real communication in the literal or normal sense, just dirt and mud being kicked around. Inside the herd you can only feel, you cannot think. Only instinctual movement occurs. No one outside the herd can stop the stampede. Some on the fringes have tried to resist but they are starting to run with the noise and the rabble of the herd. Those in the path of destruction can only get out of the way. There is no logical way to stop the stampede. Once someone or something has started the stampede there is no control, just destruction. Nothing good will ever come out of the stampede. There is no reason or purpose for its occurrence, just mindless destruction.
The question is, do you join the stampede? Do you destroy the land and hope something will grow in the path of your destruction? Or do you seek higher ground, let the dust settle and hope to rebuild? If you have family and friends within the stampede, there is no way to save them; theyre just following the bull.
Steve Blasyak
Fountain Valley
Dear Sean Penn
Hows that socialism working out for you in Venezuela? Newborn babies dying every day because of lack of medical care, no food, electricity, water, not even toilet paper. You might be a little more discerning in picking friends like Hugo Chavez and remember the saying, Better to be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. Words to live by, Sean.
Adriana Salerno
Fountain Valley
Free-marketeers who are in tears about Donald J. Trumps pending presidential nomination should heed the wisdom of the Beatles in Hey Jude: Take a sad song and make it better.
Trumps policy agenda remains largely unwritten. While he has detailed solutions on immigration, taxes and health care, Trump has left many issues untouched. This is a problem, but also an opportunity.
Conservatives and small-L libertarians who supported Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio or Scott Walker for president can curse Trump or do something constructive: Work with him and his team to develop his platform.
Leaders of the following think tanks should meet with Trump and urge him to champion these conservative and free-market ideas:
The Reason Foundation should craft for Trump a limited-government blueprint to reverse the Transportation Security Agencys accelerating meltdown. Unveiling a Wollman Rink-style overhaul of the imploding TSA is the timeliest way for Trump to show how he would rescue America from Uncle Sams holistic dysfunction.
The National Taxpayers Union Foundation should encourage Trump to endorse the Penny Plan: Cut overall federal spending by one penny per dollar each year for five years, then freeze outlays at 18 percent of national income. As a businessman conversant with budgets and spending restraint, Trump would understand this idea and could sell it to voters.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute should advise Trump to smother Obamas odious Clean Power Plan. Cost: $382 billion in disposable income and $993 billion in foregone GDP through 2040. Benefit: by 2050, expected warming would slip 0.02 degrees Fahrenheit. This is like cranking a thermostat from 72 degrees, all the way down to 71.98. CEI also should ask Trump to halt government prosecution of global warming skeptics.
The National Right to Work Foundation should persuade Trump to guarantee secret ballots in union certification elections, dump Davis-Bacon requirements for union wages in federally funded building projects, end official time rules that allow bureaucrats to perform union duties during taxpayer-funded work hours, and close the union-violence loophole that lets Big Labor militants assault people provided that their mayhem advances legitimate union objectives.
The libertarian Cato Institute should identify for Trump 10 federal activities and agencies to defund and padlock in his first year as president. For starters: the sugar program, subsidies for bald-eagle-killing wind turbines, the Rural Utilities Service (formerly the Rural Electrification Administration), the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The Goldwater Institute should help Trump embrace the Right to Try: Terminally ill patients should be free to choose promising treatments, even if they lack Food and Drug Administration approval. The FDA should stop shielding those at deaths door from new medications that might kill them. Also, Goldwater should explain to Trump why the FDA should approve drugs that are safe and stop fretting about their effectiveness. Let patients and doctors worry about that.
The Property and Environment Research Center should craft for Trump a moratorium on new federal land purchases. Rather than nationalize more and more acreage, Washingtons shopaholics should authorize deferred maintenance in Americas crumbling national parks.
The Friedman Foundation for School Choice should convince Trump to finance the Washington, D.C., school voucher program. Shamefully, Obama has struggled to strangle this initiative since he showed up D.C.s ill-served black kids be damned.
Once these think tanks have earned Trumps trust, they should go back to basics. They could start by offering concrete examples of where and how free trade increases prosperity and competitive advantage. Rather than rob billions and billions from America, China sells U.S. consumers ever-better products at ever-lower prices.
Along these lines, President Ronald Reagan relied heavily on the Heritage Foundations policy cookbook, Mandate for Leadership. The Manhattan Institute introduced Rudolph W. Giuliani to broken-windows policing and other urban reforms. The Hoover Institution briefed G.W. Bush on matters both foreign and domestic.
When it comes to Donald Trump, every leader of a market-friendly think tank should recall another piece of advice from Hey Jude: The movement you need is on your shoulder.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor and a contributing editor with National Review Online.
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LOS ANGELES When Yahoo put itself on the auction block, bids were expected to land between $6 billion and $8 billion far below the companys $34.6 billion market capitalization, but no paltry sum considering the vast majority of that valuation comes from its stake in Alibaba.
But a Wall Street Journal article published Thursday night said Verizon Communications Inc. and other bidders were expected to offer just $2 billion to $3 billion in the auction for Yahoos core business.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman Warren Buffett told CNBC this week that he might be willing to help finance a purchase of Yahoo by Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert.
The declining sales price may seem like more terrible news for the struggling Sunnyvale, California, tech firm. But the precipitous drop likely has more to do with what bidders are defining as Yahoos core business than Yahoos declining fortunes.
Yahoos publishing properties, such as Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News and Yahoo Finance, are definitely seen as part of the core and have been valued by SunTrust Robinson Humphrey at about $1.5 billion. With that in mind, a $2 billion to $3 billion bid could be reasonable, said Robert Peck, managing director at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.
But other assets also could be lumped into the core, including the royalties from Yahoo Japan, valued at about $1 billion, the companys intellectual property, which could be worth $1 billion to $3 billion, and its real estate, another potential $1 billion, Peck said. If everything is included, a total bid could amount to between $6 billion and $8 billion, according to Pecks April 13 note to clients.
The real question here is what is defined as the core, and therefore what are you willing to pay for it, he said. Mathematically its almost impossible to get to the $2 billion to $3 billion if it includes all of the other assets like the IP, the royalties and the real estate.
- : , 10
Omaha Public Library wants to help readers find new books, or at least books new to them. Every month in this space, library employees will recommend reading based on different writing themes, genres or styles.
Today is Armed Forces Day a day where citizens come together to thank our military members for their patriotic service in support of our country. In recognition of this holiday, library staff members recommend some of their favorite books with a military theme. Find these at your local branch or omahalibrary.org.
Chris Cahill, clerk at Millard Library, recommended Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle by Brian Dennis. This is a picture book with photos depicting the story of a Marine who eventually takes home the stray dog that he befriends while deployed. While hes deployed, hes not allowed to have the dog, so he cannot take him along when he is reassigned. Somehow the dog finds his way across the desert to join the Marine at his new base, and the Marine finds a way to get the dog across the world to his new home.
Emily Getzschman, marketing manager at Omaha Public Library, suggested A Higher Call by Adam Makos. The author of this book was researching the stories of U.S. military veterans when he learned the story of World War II bomber pilot Charles Brown and his unlikely encounter with German fighter pilot Franz Stigler. The brief encounter between the two pilots in the war-torn skies over Germany made an impression that stayed with them for the rest of their lives.
Colby Jenkins, senior clerk at Millard Library, picked Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. An unfiltered look at war itself rather than the marketable combat elements one sees in most war movies, Matterhorn tells the story of a young group of Marines who are commanded to first construct, then abandon and finally retake a military outpost. The absurdities, mundanities and tragedies of war come blazing off the pages.
Judy Shannon, collection manager at Omaha Public Library, recommended The Giant Book of Creativity for Kids by Bobbi Conner. Filling time that would normally be spent with the absent parent can be very difficult. An activity book will not only keep the entire family busy but will often yield fun items that can be sent to the military parent and troops. One of the best activities my family did prior to a deployment was to create a paper chain with the exact number of links for the days the parent would be gone. The book covers a wide range of ages (2 to 12 years old) and interests, making it next to impossible not to find something for everyone.
Lynn Sullivan, library specialist at W. Dale Clark Library, picked Valiant Ambition by Nathaniel Philbrick. This book compares George Washington and Benedict Arnold. Arnold was ambitious for personal glory, whereas Washington sought fame for his country, not himself.
Celebrate CB: The annual Council Bluffs parade begins at 10:30 a.m. in near Bayliss Park in the historic downtown Council Bluffs. Following the parade, there are children's activities and other events in the park.
Armed Forces Day: Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2503, 89th and Military, will hold a special Armed Forces Day event featuring members of the Omaha Fire Department, Nebraska State Patrol and Omaha Police Department from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday. The event is part of the Post's Youth Appreciation Day celebration.
Concert: Head to the Holland Performing Arts Center for a performance to honor fallen members of the military and their families at 7 p.m. Saturday. The event will feature Billy McGuigan and Jimmy Weber playing a blend of patriotic, rock n roll and country songs. Tickets are $40 to $60. Funds raised will be used to buy Honor and Remember flags, host the annual Families of the Fallen gathering, dinner and walk and other events that honor the fallen. Tickets are available at ticketomaha.com.
Nature counts: Help discover the species that inhabit Homestead National Monument of America by joining the Homestead Critter Count and Biodiversity Festival on Saturday. Bioblitzes are intense periods of biological surveying in an attempt to record all the living species within a designated area. Groups of scientists, naturalists and volunteers will conduct intensive field studies over a continuous time period. Homestead also will offer three bioblitzes. After a short orientation, volunteers will go out with specialists and record what they observe. Orientations will be held at 7 a.m. for the bird bioblitz, 10 a.m. for the plant bioblitz and 12:30 p.m. for the insect bioblitz. A biodiversity festival will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information, go to nps.gov/home.
Powwow: Learn more about Native American cultures at the University of Nebraska at Omahas Wambli Sapa Memorial Pow Wow. The event begins at 1 p.m. Saturday at Baxter Arena, 2425 S. 67th St. Honor Native American cultures and enjoy dancing, songs and crafts.
Assembly election: Kerala held superstars in high regard, Tamil Nadu fails its own
Feature
oi-Pallavi
By Pallavi
Two days from the Assembly Election results, but the mood in Tamil Nadu and Kerala is still terse. While the DMK is still struggling to come to terms with its failure, there are others who say adieu to their political career that just only began.
Ironically, Thalaiva's state rejected anyone other than him. The superstars here failed to make a mark on the people during the assembly elections. Action hero and DMDK chief was brought to tears by the result and what further saddened him was his party losing the 'state party' status.
Similarly, actor-tuned politician and the leader of Samathuva Makkal Katchi, R Sarathkumar lost in the Tiruchendur constituency against his DMK rival Anitha R Radhakrishnan. He secured only 62,356 votes against Radhakrishnan who claimed victory with 88,357 votes.
Ulundurpettai completely rejected DMDK's Vijaykanth. He came third with 26,950 votes and was far behind the AIADMK candidate and DMK participant.
Call it the brand name, a DMK contestant, previously an actor- Vagai Chandrasekar- led in Velachery constituency in Chennai against his AIADMK rival C Munusamy by 8,100 votes.
Kerala artists could call it a good day
Pathanapuram in Kollam turned to be a hotbed for film stars, pitted against each other. The fact that all major parties here had fielded film actors in the assembly elections has not gone unnoticed. And as the election results unravelled, most of them seemed to have won.
For instance, actor Mukesh of the LDF had a resounding victory in Kollam constituency.
Actor-turned-politician K.B. Ganesh Kumar contested from Pathanapuram. He was pitted against another actor Jagadeeshkumar and Reghu Damodharan (Bheeman Reghu) from NDA. Ganesh Kumar won by over 24,000 votes. KPAC Lalitha was considered to be pitted as an LDF candidate from the Wadakkanchery Assembly constituency. She, however, decided against it and withdrew from the race.
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Story first published: Saturday, May 21, 2016, 12:42 [IST]
After the 'Jihad' comment, Patil now claims \"I never said it\"
Congress has won just 261 of 2,226 seats that went to polls in last 24 months
Feature
oi-Shubham
By Shubham
The Congress has lost power in a number of states in the last two years following its rout in the general elections of 2014 that the BJP-led NDA swept.
In the last 24 months, the Congress has lost Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand (where it was a ally in governance), Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and Kerala besides the power at the Centre. It only came to power in Puducherry in alliance with the DMK. [Which party rules which state now]
The party has won a dismal 261 of the 2,226 seats (11.72 per cent) that went to the polls at the Cente, 10 states and one Union Territory in the last two years.
Here, we have a look at them:
How Congress has done in last 12 elections (including 2014 LS poll)
Congress BJP Largest party Total seats 2014 Lok Sabha election 44 (19.5%) 282 (31.3%) 282 543 2014 Maharashtra Assembly election 42 (18.1%) 122 (28.1%) 122 288 2014 Haryana Assembly election 15 (20.7%) 47 (33.3%) 47 90 2014 Jammu & Kashmie Assembly election 12 (18.2%) 25 (23.2%) 28 (PDP) (22.9%) 87 2014 Jharkhand Assembly election 06 (10.6%) 37 (31.8%) 37 81 2015 Delhi Assembly election 00 (9.7%) 03 (32.3%) 67 (AAP) (52.5%) 70 2015 Bihar Assembly election 27 (6.8%) 53 (25%) 80 (RJD) (18.8%) 243 2016 West Bengal Assembly election 44 (12.3%) 03 (10.2%) 211 (TMC) (44.9%) 294 2016 Assam Assembly election 26 (31%) 60 (29.5%) 60 126 2016 Kerala Assembly election 22 (23.7%) 01 (10.5%) 58 (CPI-M) (26.5%) 140 2016 Puducherry Assembly election 15 (30.6%) 00 (2.4%) 15 30 2016 Tamil Nadu Assembly election 08 (6.4%) 00 (2.8%) 134 (ADMK) (40.8%) 234
Total 261 (11.7%) 633 (28.4%)
2,226
Verdict 2016 also has a cautionary message for Mamata, Jayalalithaa
Feature
oi-Shubham
By Shubham
Both of them have beaten the anti-incumbency challenge to win successive terms for the first time. But for Mamata Banerjee and J Jayalalithaa, there is a message in the verdict.
And that is: We support you but make sure you take care of your responsibility towards the people.
Assembly Polls 2016 Coverage; Mamata Bengal's biggest brand today
Madan Mitra's loss is a blessing in disguise for Mamata
As many as eight ministers of Banerjee's previous government lost the elections this time, besides the tainted former minister---Madan Mitra. For analysts, Mitra's defeat (he lost by 4,198 votes) is a blessing in disguise for Banerjee who single-handedly took her party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC), to victory. For it saved Banerjee from tackling with corruption-related problems, the biggest threat to her clean image. [Women make historic presence in TN election]
Two important members---Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee and Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee, who were accused in the Narada sting operation, also saw their victory margins reducing drastically.
How TMC's winning candidates accused in Narada op did compared to 2011 Name Constituency Winning margin Winning margin of 2011 Votes polled Suvendu Adhikari Nandigram 81,230 43,640 (In 2011, Firoza Bibi won from here) 1,34,623 (gone up) Firhad Hakim Kolkata Port 26,548 25,033 73,459 (up) Sovan Chatterjee Behala East 24,294 48,173 96,621 (down) Iqbal Ahmed Khanakul 43,487 27,879 1,06,878 (up) Subrata Mukherjee Ballygunge 15,225 41,185 70,083 (down)
Nobody apart from Mamata can take his/her position for granted and even Didi has a duty
It is a clear message from the voters: Nobody apart from Mamata Banerjee can claim the benefit of doubt. And as the CM, the TMC chief must also ensure that she gives a better administration in the next five years.
It's not that all the ministers who lost were doing bad. Rather their loss gives the TMC leadership a warning signal that it is time to pull up the socks. Mamata Banerjee, despite her popularity as a mass leader, needs to sharpen her skills as an administrator. Or else, 2021 might not see another benefit of doubt going in her favour.
Jayalalithaa's AIADMK also saw five ministers losing
Jayalalithaa's AIADMK, too, faces a similar challenge. Five ministers, including NR Viswanathan, R Vaithilingam, P Mohan, B Valarmathi and S Gokula Indira lost in this election. O Panneerselvam, the No. 2 in the party command after Jayalalithaa, won and is likely to continue with the finance department.
But the loss of the five ministers is a similar warning to the AIADMK ahead of its next five-year journey. Though the party doesn't have the shortage of faces to replaces the five ministers who lost, but dissatisfaction among cadre over choice of constituencies or neglect towards their seats by the sitting MLA made an impact on the fate of some of the high-profile leaders despite the party doling out freebies ahead of the election.
Here is how much salary hike you can expect this year
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Salaries in India likely to increase by 10.4%: Here is why
7th Pay Commission: Euphoric Modi govt to give final nod to 'increased payouts'; notification soon
India
oi-Mukul
New Delhi, May 20: As high voltage State Assembly polls have ended now, Government is all set to implement the recommendations of Seventh Pay Commission.
Seventh Pay Commission: Revealed! Why govt is taking time to implement 'salary increment'
Reportedly, Modi Government which is euphoric after party's victory in Assam and its good show in Kerala, looks in full mood to handover increased payout to Government staff anytime soon.
It is being believed that as model code of conduct is no longer a barrier in the way of implementing salary increment, Government could issue notification in the first week of June.
Sources say that all the formalities regarding the implementation process will be done after a Cabinet meet which will be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi soon.
7th Pay Commission decoded: Know all about salary increment, past pay commissions
A online website quoting Finance Ministry sources writes, "the BJP led central government is now in a pleasant mood, accordingly it may announce better pay package that recommended by the Pay Commission to central government employees".
Reportedly, Modi Government will give 25-30 per cent increment to Central Government employees,
Sources say that increment will be handed over in July while arrears from January till that date will be paid in August.
OneIndia News
Nitish Kumar has been affected by his age: Prashant Kishor
Could not care less: Nitish on Amit Shahs jibe
Prashant Kishor claims Nitish Kumar in touch with BJP says don't be surprised if he joins hands with it again
After liquor, Nitish govt now bans gutka, pan masala in Bihar
India
oi-Mukul
Patna, May 21: Nitish Kumar led Bihar Government has announced that now onwards there will be no sale of gutka, pan masala in the State. Reportedly the ban will be for one year, starting from Saturday(May 21).
In its notification, Bihar Government said that now distribution, storage, manufacture, publicity or the sale of any type of gutkha and pan masala in the state will be considered illegal.
When asked about the ban on these products, RK Mahajan, commissioner Of Food Safety said that ban has been imposed the interest of public health and safety.
Last month state government announced complete ban on the sale of any types of liquor in the state.
"Seeing the tremendous support from the people, particularly women and children, to the ban on country-made liquor in the State within just days of its prohibition, we decided to put a total ban on alcohol", Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had announced.
Kumar had also appealed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to implement the same in the whole country.
OneIndia News
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Story first published: Saturday, May 21, 2016, 12:50 [IST]
Apple launches iPhone 13 series, to be available in India from Sep 24: See price, specs, features and more
Explained: Here is how Apples Pay Later Service works
How quiet quitters gain from doing less work
Prioritise 5G software upgrades, Apple and Samsung to be told
Apple CEO meets PM, launches updated 'Modi app'
India
oi-IANS
By Ians English
New Delhi, May 21: On his maiden trip to India as Apple CEO, Tim Cook on Saturday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and launched an updated version of the "Narendra Modi Mobile App".
"Thank you @tim_cook! Friends, welcome and happy volunteering. Your views and efforts are always enriching," Modi tweeted.
Cook replied: "Thanks PM @narendramodi for a great meeting. Already looking forward to next visit to India. Best wishes on the app!"
The updated version contains a new volunteering network on the app.
"I am delighted to share that Mr Tim Cook launched an updated version ofAAthe 'Narendra Modi Mobile App'. Thank you, Mr.Cook," said Modi in his tweet.
IANS
BSF jawans roast papad, cook rice on hot sand in Jaisalmer
India
oi-Jagriti
Jaisalmer, May 21: Border Security Force (BSF) jawans posted on the India-Pakistan border in Jaisalmer have been using hot sand to roast papad and boil rice.
Rajasthan has been put on red alert after Pahlodi recorded 50.5C recently. This is the second highest temperature in the state since 1956 when Alwar sizzled at 50.6C.
Crude electronic devices are being used by jawans to monitor temperature. They recorded 55C temperature in the area, reported the Times of India.
The soles of jawans boots would melt when they walked in hot sand. They use camel to patrol sandy areas.
Heat wave conditions in parts of central and north India will gradually abate from May 27 to May 31, IMD said on Friday, (May 20).
Video: OMG! Woman cooks omelette on hot floor of her house in Telangana
"Heat wave to severe heat wave conditions are very likely at a few places over Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat; and at isolated places over south Uttar Pradesh, Vidarbha and central Maharashtra," the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in its forecast.
OneIndia News
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Story first published: Saturday, May 21, 2016, 12:58 [IST]
Farmer mistaken for director of Kingfisher Airlines, accounts seized
India
oi-Pallavi
Pilibhit (UP), May 21:A poor farmer from Pilibhit, Sardar Manmohan Singh, had no clue when the bank sent him notice of seizing his accounts. Alleged to be the 'director' of the now-defunct airlines, the farmer in fact never heard of the liqor baron in the first place, but can recollect something from recent news.
He said, "I have heard his (Mallya's) name but never met him. I have no idea how I was made the director of his company," said Singh whose name, according to bank officials, appeared in the list of guarantors/directors of Kingfisher Airlines. The list contains nine names, including Vijay Mallya, his son Siddharth, and Singh."
He further added, "Earlier, I thought it was just due to negligence on part of bank officials but now that no action has been taken, I have started to get worried."
Manager of Bank of Baroda Nand branch in Pilibhit said, "We received a letter to seize his (Singh's) account for recovery of the loan amount in December last year. The letter was sent by the bank's regional office at Nariman Point, Mumbai.
Following this, Singh sent two clarification letters saying he had no knowledge of the loan. Citing the irony, Singh said, "The bank officials said that my account would be reopened but they have done nothing. I have Rs 4,000 in one account and Rs 1,217 in another. How will they recover loan worth crores from my accounts? My annual income is less than 3 lakhs."
A spokesperson of the United Breweries group said that Manmohan Singh was never a director of the company. Incidentally, the company's annual report in 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 listed one Manmohan Singh Kapur, a retired banker, an independent director in the company. The report further said, "Manmohan Singh Kapur holds degrees of B Sc and MA from Punjab University. He is a career banker with more than 39 years of experience, mostly in the field of banking. He retired as chairman and managing director of Vijaya Bank."
How India beat Pakistan in getting Indian Mujahideen's logistic provider
India
oi-Vicky
New Delhi, May 21: Getting Abdul Wahid Siddibappa, the alleged logistic provider of the Indian Mujahideen was no easy task. He was arrested upon his arrival in India from the United Arab Emirates.
India faced an uphill task in this case. He was arrested two years back in Abu Dhabi and then was granted bail.
In addition to this all attempts to have him extradited were blocked by Pakistan which claimed that he is their national. Finally the NIA with the help of the Intelligence Bureau undertook a coordinated operation which eventually led to his arrest as he landed in Delhi.
An uphill task:
Abdul Wahid was arrested on the basis of an Interpol red corner alert in January 2014. India immediately sought for his deportation. However UAE informed India that it would need to seek an extradition instead.
As India prepared the papers, Pakistan stepped in and claimed that he was their national. Pakistan said that he should not be deported to India as he was their national. Pakistan even stepped up pressure on the diplomatic front to avoid his extradition to India.
Did you know Indian Mujahideen's real name is Usaba
The process was a long drawn one. Finally India managed to convince UAE that Abdul was an Indian national wanted in a series of terror cases. By the time the documents from India reached the court in UAE, Abdul had been granted bail.
Wahid had almost gone off the radar for sometime. However the Intelligence Bureau and the NIA coordinated this operation and put him back on the radar once again. They had received information that he would be flying back to India. When he landed at the Delhi airport on Friday, he was arrested by the NIA.
OneIndia News
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Story first published: Saturday, May 21, 2016, 9:57 [IST]
Golden intelligence rule: When your cover is blown, you are on your own
Spoke in Punjabi dialect, posed as Army men, the mystery behind the missing Innova
Pathankot probe in Pakistan hits a dead end
India
oi-Vicky
New Delhi, May 21: The hopes of Pakistan cooperating with India in probing the Pathankot attack appear to be fading.
Pakistan has been pulling out the same bag of dirty tricks like it did in the aftermath of the 26/11 attack in Mumbai.
One may recall that after the 26/11 attack there was denial and also a suggestion from Pakistan that there could be some insiders involved in the attack.
It is no different in case of the Pathankot attack. Pakistan suggested that there could have been insiders who were part of the Pathankot attack.
This has led to a strong denial by India which states after an extensive probe no role of an insider was found.
Hopes fading
When the Pakistan JIT visited India, it was expected that they would immediately grant permission to the NIA to visit Islamabad.
However that process has dragged on and till date there has been no response on the date. Pakistan was supposed to at least provide India information on the handlers and the masterminds.
The NIA painstakingly pieced together the evidence and handed it over to the JIT. However there has been no forthcoming response from that end.
Instead of probing on the basis of what the NIA had provided, Pakistan seems to be trying to suggest that there was a role of an insider in the Pathankot attack.
NIA officials tell OneIndia that this was not un-expected. However we will have to keep trying. Pakistan applies the same yard stick in every terrorist attack.
They lived in denial post 26/11 and Udhampur as well. In the Pathankot attack, one would not have expected anything different from them.
OneIndia News
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Story first published: Saturday, May 21, 2016, 18:48 [IST]
Delhi LG and CM greet people on Diwali, ask people to be mindful of pollution
Setback for Arvind Kejriwal! Two of four AAP's Lok Sabha MPs to resign soon
India
oi-Mukul
New Delhi, May 21: In what could be termed as a big setback for Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party, two of its MPs will soon resign from the party. Reports say that two MPs out of a total four -all from Punjab likely to resign their Lok Sabha seats and join a new political outfit to be floated by the party's volunteers.
The move has come to fore at a time when party is trying hard to take on its opponents, BJP-SAD and Congress in Punjab poll, which will go for Assembly election in less than eight months now.
It looks like there is deep distrust in party's rank and file and top leaders including Arvind Kejriwal have failed to address the grievances of local leaders.
Apart from MPs Harinder Singh Khalsa and Dharamvira Gandhi, senior party leaders -- and party star performers in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls -- like Harvinder Singh Phoolka, Daljeet Singh and Jasraj Longia -- popularly known as Jassi Jasraj -- were also tipped to join the yet-unborn political grouping in Punjab, an AAP source said.
Calling AAP Convenor -- and Delhi Chief Minister -- Arvind Kejriwal a dictator and promoter of "coterie culture", Khalsa told IANS in an interview: "I don't feel any discomfort if I have to resign my Lok Sabha seat to join the volunteers' outfit in the offing."
He said: "The Delhi leadership is treating dedicated volunteers as doormats. Instead, they are promoting the money bags who are deserting their traditional parties and joining AAP with an ulterior motive."
When asked to comment on the evolution of AAP -- which, according to its supporters, is a product of a "revolution", Khalsa termed the present-day party as "fraud and revolution of scamsters and the power hungry".
Echoing similar sentiments, party MP Dharamvira Gandhi told IANS separately: "If AAP continues to compromise on its founding principles of Swaraj and transparency, I will discontinue my association with it."
He said the party leadership's current policy of giving preference to "turncoats from traditional parties" will only pave the way for the return of the Akali Dal to power in Punjab.
"AAP's Delhi Durbar has made Punjab a colony of Delhi. They have not allowed the volunteers and the local leadership to grow," Gandhi said asserting hat "if we Punjabis are not given a say in deciding our political fate, I will not hesitate to take a drastic step".
Sharing Gandhi's sentiments, Khalsa said: "This is the primary reason they have imposed people like Sanjay Singh and Durgesh Pathak on us who are responsible for forfeiture of deposits of as many as 411 AAP candidates in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls."
Significantly, senior AAP leaders, including Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, left the outfit last year after levelling similar accusations against Kejriwal.
The development assumes significance as AAP is carrying out a high octane campaign in Punjab in the run up to assembly polls due early next year. The stakes for the party are high as the state gave it all the four MPs it has in Lok Sabha along with more than 25 percent of vote share.
According to political observers, the strong stance of the two MPs assumes significance as it comes in the wake of internal bickerings in the party which surfaced when a protest rally was being organised against Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal on the alleged "food-grain scam".
Senior party leader Sukhpal Khaira, who left the Congress in 2015 to join AAP, had accused state convenor Sucha Singh Chhotepur of "killing internal democracy" in the party and ignoring dedicated leaders.
Khaira had also not accompanied the protest delegation to the Chief Minister's residence in Chandigarh blaming Chhotepur for the boycott.
OneIndia news
(With inputs from IANS)
For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications
Story first published: Saturday, May 21, 2016, 11:49 [IST]
Islamic State bomber detained in Russia for attempting attack in India was recruited through Telegram
Why India should get access to Islamic State bomber detained in Russia
Prosecutions story may be attractive but should be backed by evidence
Top recruitments for ISIS in India come through honey traps
India
oi-Vicky
New Delhi, May 20: Indian Intelligence agencies are closely studying a video released by an ISIS member of Indian origin which threatens a series of attacks across the country.
Hindus will convert you: ISIS tells Indian Muslims in video
The video which runs into 22 minutes was released on Friday and the prominent face in it is Abu Amir al-Hindi alias Fahad Shaikh a resident of Maharashtra.
Intelligence Bureau officials say that the video warns of attacks in India. It also speaks of seeking revenge for the Godhra riots and the Babri Masjid incident.
We are studying the video closely and trying to identify the others in it who we suspect could also be Indians, the officer informed OneIndia.
We are coming back:
The video has the same old propaganda strategy which is adopted by every other terrorist group wanting to carry out attacks in India.
It speaks about avenging Godhra and Babri. References to Kashmir too are made in the video. However the message that Shaikh gives out is that they are coming to India to launch attacks.
Several persons of Indian origin have joined the ISIS. The Intelligence Bureau says that there may be around 23 of them with the ISIS.
Shaikh was part of the group of four from Thane, Maharashtra who had joined the ISIS. One of them Shaheem Tanki died in Syria while Areeb Majeed returned to Mumbai.
The video speaks about the members of the ISIS returning to India to stage attacks. It also attempts to provoke by stating that the Hindus will convert all Muslims and hence it is important to subscribe to the ISIS ideology and also support it.
The video ends with an oath being taken by the members. They swear in the video that they would return to India and carry out attacks.
OneIndia News
For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications
Story first published: Saturday, May 21, 2016, 11:37 [IST]
India always views war as last resort, but... : PM Modi to armed forces in Kargil
Modi must pressurize Iran to halt destabilizing behaviour: US group
International
oi-PTI
New York, May 21: Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Iran, an advocacy group in the US has said he should focus his efforts on pressuring Tehran to halt its "destabilizing and provocative" behaviour.
It also claimed that Iran should not be rewarded with lucrative business opportunities as there are "numeorous risks" for Indian companies in doing business there.
The United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), one of the most influential anti-Iran advocacy groups in the US, said Iran's "irresponsible and belligerent" behavior is in complete contrast to Modi's "powerful and timely determination" to tackle terrorism and corruption.
Modi has a "special opportunity to focus his efforts on pressuring Iran to halt its destabilizing and provocative behavior, rather than prematurely rewarding the regime with lucrative business opportunities," UANI Chairman Senator Joseph Lieberman and UANI CEO Ambassador Mark Wallace said in a statement released ahead of Modi's visit to Iran on May 22-23.
Modi's strategically important visit, at the invitation of the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, comes as India looks at stepping up engagement with the sanctions-free energy-rich nation.
Narendra Modi to visit Iran on May 22-23 to boost economic tie
Modi will also meet Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the visit. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had said in New Delhi that the visit will provide thrust to expanding bilateral cooperation in the wake of lifting of sanctions against Iran earlier this year.
"The visit of Prime Minister to Iran will seek to build on these commonalities by focussing on specific cooperation in regional connectivity and infrastructure, developing energy partnership, boosting bilateral trade, facilitating people-to-people interaction in various spheres and promoting peace and stability in the region," the MEA statement said.
"For these reasons, India's formidable economic and diplomatic power should not be used to further embolden and enable Tehran," it added.
PTI
Search for MH370 likely to end by August
International
oi-PTI
Sydney, May 20: The massive search for Malaysia Airlines plane MH370 in the remote southern Indian Ocean is expected to be completed by early August, the man leading the hunt said today.
Less than 15,000 square kilometres remain to be scoured out of a 120,000 sq km target zone off western Australia where the passenger jet is presumed to have crashed.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) head Martin Dolan said there was no indication the zone would be extended. "We have some way to go and our best bet is that we will complete that search late July, early August, depending on unforeseen circumstances," Dolan told The Australian newspaper, referring to rough weather.
"The technical capability is there to continue the search but the resources to do it is a matter for government," he said. Hopes of finding the Boeing 777 which vanished on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board, are receding.
"At this point there is a diminishing level of confidence that we will find the aircraft," Dolan admitted. "There will be a lot of disappointment if we don't find it.
"At worst we will know at the end of this process that the area we have searched does not contain the aircraft. At best we will find it."
The search zone has so far yielded no clues as to what happened aboard MH370, a scheduled flight that disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in one of the most enduring mysteries in aviation history.
MH370 breakthrough: Debris found in South Africa and Mauritius 'almost certainly' from missing plane
Five pieces of debris which have been identified as either definitely or probably from the jet have been discovered thousands of kilometres from the search zone -- in South Africa, Mauritius, Mozambique, Mauritius and the island of Reunion -- likely swept there by currents.
Australia, Malaysia and China have said the hunt they have jointly organised would likely be abandoned if nothing is found in the search zone.
In a weekly operational update, the ATSB said three ships continue to seek the plane but winter weather has set in with giant waves and high winds hampering efforts.
The Australian added that in the event the plane is not found, the ATSB is working on a report looking at other possibilities, including the "rogue pilot" theory that the captain deliberately crashed it into the sea.
AFP
POLICE WILL NOT ENTER 55 NO-GO MIGRANT ZONES
While reporting in Stockholm, the crew for 60 Minutes Australia was violently attacked by Somali immigrants as soon as the police presence faded. They travelled to Sweden in search for answers on the migrant crisis. Instead they were treated to a lesson in the massive failure of multiculturalism.
Even Angela Merkel admits multiculturalism is a sham.
The exact same probem is happening in Finland.
HERE'S THE FULL CLIP BROADCAST ON AUSTRALIAN TV
SWEDEN IS CHOKING ON REFUGEES
60 Minutes Australia travelled to Sweden in a search of answers on the migrant crisis.
Angela Merkel admits multiculturalism is a massive failure.
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5:50 p.m. UPDATE:
A Festus man was seriously injured in a one-vehicle crash Friday at 9:50 a.m. off southbound U.S. 67 in St. Francois County.
According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Michael Branch, 53, was driving on U.S. 67 just north of Cash Lane in his 2000 Chevrolet S-10 when his truck exited the left side of the road, over-corrected and returned to the road, overturning several times and coming to a rest on the west side of the road.
Branch was wearing his seat belt and was taken by Survival Flight to Mercy-Creve Coeur with serious injuries.
Big River Fire Chief Dave Pratte said they had to cut the top off the truck to get him out. He added EMTs were in the cab of the truck with Branch while they worked to free him.
UPDATED AT 11:20 A.M.: The highway has been reopened in the area of St. Francois State Park following the earlier serious accident.
ORIGINAL STORY: At this time southbound U.S. 67 is closed while the driver in a one-vehicle rollover accident is airlifted from the scene.
Firemen and law enforcement have shut down both southbound lanes to allow the medical helicopter to land at the scene.
The accident happened near the entrance of St. Francois State Park in the area of Barney's Bait Shop. The helicopter is due to set down within minutes south of the accident near Cash Lane.
We have a reporter on the scene and will have more details when they become available.
by Graham Pierrepoint
This years race for the US Presidency is fast becoming one of the most dramatic with Donald Trump now standing alone as the sole figurehead for the Republican Party, the other side of the fence appears to be all but decided with underdog Bernie Sanders reportedly having connected well with young working class people throughout the US. However, Hillary Clinton Sanders sole rival in the Democratic Partys race for nomination is confident that she will win the day, and this is backed up by her closing in on the number of delegate votes needed to achieve the nomination.
Clinton advised CNN in an interview that she will be the nominee for the Democratic Party, and that her race against Vermont senator Sanders is effectively over already. Certainly, the figures seem to suggest that she will most likely achieve that goal, however, the race isnt yet over as Sanders stays determined to remain in the race to ensure that all of those voting in the nominations process get their chance to vote fairly. Clintons confidence matches Trumps in his campaign, meaning that the campaign trail up to Novembers Presidential election could likely be one of the fiercest fought in recent history.
Sanders has made leaps and bounds in certain key states during the nomination process but it is Clinton who continues to hold a steady lead. Sanders will likely remain in the race until the winning candidate receives enough votes to stand for nomination and until the party convention meaning that he is in for the long haul regardless of if he is victorious or not. For Clinton, however, nomination will result in a whole new battle as winning the nomination may prove to be her least difficult of the two big challenges she has lined up in 2016.
Should Clinton gain the nomination, she will face off against the divisive Trump, who has caused controversy within his own party and inspired a new wave of voters to stand up and support the Republicans. It is likely that Clinton will shortly turn her attention to Trump if she is truly confident that Sanders is to finish second meaning that, for those interested in politics at least, the months through summer and fall leading up to the election could be very interesting indeed and one that is becoming increasingly difficult to predict.
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Bill Clinton has had his problems lately, but there's no doubt the former president is the best booster the Democratic Party has had since leaving office in January 2001. Even now, although he's clearly slowing down, Clinton is the party's most effective surrogate for wife Hillary.
Republicans haven't had the same luck. The only two-term GOP president in the last generation, George W. Bush, has stayed mostly out of politics in the seven years since he left the White House.
Bush's absence has caused some hard feeling among Republican politicos who wish they had a popular ex-president to bring more money and attention to GOP candidates. On the other hand, they know Bush's troubled time in office permanently diminished his post-presidential status. And now, to top it off, Bush, along with his father, former President George H.W. Bush, has taken the extraordinary step of refusing to endorse the presidential candidate of his own party.
In short, facing a difficult general election campaign and in need of all the help it can get, the GOP's ex-president situation is a mess.
George W. Bush left office with a job approval rating of just 28 percent after 9/11, two wars, and an economic collapse. He has since regained much of his popularity with Republicans. But even within his own party, Bush's status is shaky.
On Feb. 15, Bush broke his rule against campaigning to travel to South Carolina to appear at a rally on behalf of his brother Jeb. The Jeb Bush campaign was already in its final days, and there was nothing W. could do to save it. But W. still got a rousing reception.
Before the rally began, when the master of ceremonies asked the crowd, "Are y'all ready to see the president?" a huge roar went up. They weren't cheering for Jeb. The audience that W. attracted was by far the biggest of Jeb's campaign.
But at a Republican debate just a couple of days earlier, Donald Trump, who has criticized George W. Bush's presidency throughout the campaign, slammed the war in Iraq as "a big, fat mistake." Then Trump went further to say that George W. Bush "lied" the nation into war.
"They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none," Trump said. "And they knew there were none."
Jeb Bush stood haplessly by, unable to defend either himself or his brother.
So were South Carolina Republicans outraged by Trump -- did they take offense on behalf of George W. Bush? Not really. Republicans I talked to at the W. rally were evenly split on whether the war was a disaster, and even though most didn't agree with Trump's assertion that Bush lied, they weren't up in arms about it. And a few days later, Trump won the South Carolina primary.
It was a concise lesson in the ambiguities of George W. Bush's legacy for Republicans.
On the other hand, Bush could have helped his party by appearing at fundraisers and other events where an ex-president -- even an ex-president with a troubling legacy -- would still be a big draw. His refusal to do so has left some resentments.
Katon Dawson, a former chairman of the South Carolina Republican party, has no complaints about Bush's treatment of the state while in the White House. But afterward has been a different story.
"He was gracious to South Carolina -- eight visits, raised us money, wonderful access to the White House," said Dawson. "But then he went home and retired. We've asked him (to come), and the answer is no. The first time we saw him was when he came to bail his brother Jeb out."
Now Bush is likely to make relations with Republicans around the country even more difficult by refusing to support the GOP nominee. Some anti-Trump conservatives cheered the move, but state Republican parties are coming around to the reality of a Trump nomination.
But how could Bush support the candidate who slapped down his brother and trashed his own White House record? That would be a stretch even for a nimble politician.
Still, the refusal to support Trump makes Bush and his family look like they are putting personal interests over the party. And in the end, some Republicans wonder whether that might end up helping Trump.
"The ruling class, the establishment folks, the Nantucket-Kennebunkport-Lake Winnipesaukee crowd is opposed to Trump," said Curt Anderson, a top strategist for the Bobby Jindal campaign who is not part of any campaign now. "Trump is from a lower caste, he's too loud at dinner parties. I would be surprised to learn that their refusal to endorse is based on ideological concerns of any kind."
In the end, the Bush factor is too complicated to compute. A former president who is unpopular with many voters but popular with donors; who is pulled in different directions by family and party loyalty; who shies away from politics while his Democratic counterpart still draws crowds and moves voters.
Some Republicans like to send around a photo of a smiling Bush with the caption "Miss me yet?" The problem is, there's no clear answer.
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CHINESE company, Zijin Mining Group Company Limited is stepping up its efforts to expand its business outside China.It has already invested in eight countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa for the Kamoa Copper project, and PNG through the Porgera gold mine.Zijin Group chairman Jinghe Chen led a delegation to visit the Barrick (Niugini) Limited-operated Porgera gold mine from May 5 to 7.Chen is also the chairman of the newly-formed six-member BNL board.In Congo, Zijin bought 49.5 per cent stake in Kamoa Holding Limited - a subsidiary company of Canadas Ivanhoe Mines Ltd.At Porgera, the Zijin group holds 47.5 per cent stake in BNL with the remaining 47.5 per cent held by Barrick Gold Corporation, plus 95 per cent stake in the Porgera Joint Venture.The remaining 5 per cent is held by the Mineral Resources Enga Ltd, made up of the Enga Provincial Government (2.5 per cent) and the Porgera landowners (2.5 per cent).He said the Zijin Group was honoured to work with Barrick as one of the largest gold mining companies in the world.He said Porgera was a starting point for the Group to learn how to do business in Papua New Guinea.We believe at Porgera we have the opportunity to just complement each other with our respective strengths, he said.
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Five suspected armed robbers and 72 alleged cultists were on Sunday arrested by operatives of the Lagos State Police Command in different areas of the state.
The armed robbers according to a statement by spokesman Bala Elkana, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) were arrested at about 1:30pm on Friday behind Angle 90 Bar, Ilasan in Lekki.
Elkana said the police had received distress call on the presence of suspected armed robbers, cultists at the place and quickly deployed men there were alleged leader of the gang.
Ibrahim Abu, 32, and four others identified as Samuel Usai, John Nwaru, Emmanuel Moro, and Michael Daniel were arrested.
On searching the suspects, one locally made pistol with 10 cartridges were recovered. Investigation is ongoing, suspects will be charged to court, said Elkana.
Similarly, the Police arrested 72 suspected cultists comprising 34 Awawa Boys at Akerele in Agege and 38 others at Idiroko in Ikorodu following clashes in the areas.
READ ALSO: Five injured as suspected cultists attack Lagos residents
Elkana said the Awawa boys were arrested on July 17, at about 8:30am and seven bags of suspected marijuana recovered from their hideout.
The suspects were handed over to Taskforce, Oshodi for prosecution. The 38 others were arrested on July 16 around 9:30am after youths from Idiroko, Adeola and Ajose in Owutu, Ikorodu, engaged themselves in supremacy fight.
In the process, the youths attacked passersby and damaged some vehicles within the area. However, combined teams of policemen mobilised to the scene, successfully brought the situation under control and restored normalcy to the area.
Thirty-eight suspects were arrested and taken to Taskforce, Oshodi for prosecution. Security has been beefed-up in the area to forestall further threat to law and order.
On July 20, at about 9:45pm, Bariga Police Station arrested one Alayakin Azeez Olawale, 32, at Egbenrogde Street. The suspect was identified as the leader of a group of Aiye confraternity members that had earlier in the day attempted to cause a breach of peace within bariga town. Investigation in ongoing, suspect will be charged to court.
A gunshot victim today in Abuja during Shiite protest
A deputy commissioner of Police in charge of operations in the FCT was reportedly killed in Shiite, police clash on Monday, according to Punch.
Recall that Shiites clashed with police officers in Abuja during a protest today leading to the death of many others.
Following the incident, the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Mohammed Adamu was summoned at the villa to brief President Muhammadu Buhari on the activities of members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN).
Mr Adamu disclosed this to State House correspondents on Monday when he met the President at the Aso Villa in Abuja.
He said the President directed him to provide security for every Nigerian.
The scene of the incident
A Nigerian man who publicly proposed to his girlfriend at a mall, finally got a yes after passersby and well wishers persistently begged the lady to say yes to her kneeling boyfriend.
From all indication, the man escaped being humiliated.
It was clear that the lady was not excited about the marriage proposal from her supposed boyfriend.
The lady stared disapprovingly at the man for sometime, looking sad and displeased as the crowd cheered on, begging her to say yes, which she finally did.
Watch video below:
Reprinted from Strategic Culture
America is exceptional alright. It is the most frightened nation on Earth, subjected to hysterical propaganda over decades warning about foreign enemies and ideologies. No wonder its supposed democratic freedom is in so appallingly bad shape, when the preponderant population is imprisoned by their rulers in a virtual cage of fear.
Paradoxically, though, the dissonance of supposed freedom could not be more abysmal. At a press conference at the Cannes film festival last week American screen actor George Clooney digressed from his latest movie to talk about Republican presidential contender Donald Trump. Clooney, who is well known for his liberal brand of US politics and a big supporter of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, predicted that rightwing business tycoon Trump would not win the forthcoming November presidential contest.
Clooney dismissed Trump as a demagogue sowing fear and divisive tensions along racial and xenophobic lines. Which is fair enough. Of interest here is not so much the actor's views on Trump's chances of political success. Rather, it is Clooney's premise that Americans would not succumb to reactionary fear peddling.
Seated at the press conference alongside his American co-star Julia Roberts and film director Jody Foster, Clooney told his Cannes audience: "Fear is not going to drive our country... we're not afraid of anything."
Well, sorry George, but you are dead wrong on that score. Fear is the paramount emotional driver in American politics since at least the Second World War, and probably decades before that too.
Contrary to Clooney's bravado, Americans are very, very afraid.
The biggest bogeyman for the US public was the Soviet Union, whose specter dominated American politics for nearly 50 years. This specter has been conjured up again through casting Russia and its President Vladimir Putin as intent on resurrecting the Soviet Union .
It was Hillary Clinton -- Clooney's political champion -- who made the ridiculous and historically illiterate charge that Putin is the new Hitler. Many other senior US political figures and Western news media have since stampeded like a herd in likewise demonizing the Russian leader.
The unquestioned consensus in Washington, from President Barack Obama to his foreign secretary John Kerry, and from senior Congressional figures to the Pentagon chiefs, is that Russia is an existential threat to global security.
America's new NATO military chief General Curtis Scaparrotti has warned that the US-led alliance must be prepared to go to war against Russia at any moment due to alleged Russian aggression towards Eastern Europe and the Baltic states.
The Cold War has thus been rehabilitated a quarter of a century since the Soviet Union dissolved. As in former times, fear is once again fueling American politics. Consistently, there is negligible objective basis for this mass phenomenon. Russia today is not a threat to the US or its NATO allies, just as the Soviet Union was not a threat.
Bombastic claims about Russian annexation and invasion of Ukraine are factually tenuous, spurious or devoid. The claims don't stand up to scrutiny. But that's hardly the point. The point is that the false narrative -- propaganda -- of alleged Russian malevolence is amplified and repeated over and over again in Western independent media, not unlike the Big Lie technique of Nazi spinmeister Josef Goebbels.
US and Western allies, with the help of pliable news media, in effect are able to construct their own false reality. It is not objective reality. It is a subjective, delusional reality one in which Western nations are portrayed to be under threat from a stalking, salivating enemy in the form of Russia.
Fear is a powerful lever for control over populations, as English author George Orwell keenly perceived. Get the public to fear for their lives from an external enemy, and they will be easily manipulated into accepting authority, no matter how draconian and illegitimate that authority is. Fear is the key to surrendering democratic rights and submitting to a cage.
From the end of the Second World War in 1945, the West immediately needed the Cold War with the Soviet Union as a bulwark against more progressive, democratic development within their own countries. American writer David Talbot in his book, The Devil's Chessboard, clearly depicts how Wall Street, the Pentagon and ideologically inclined politicians were able to construct the monstrous military-industrial complex and its gargantuan consumption of economic resources for the enrichment of an elite ruling class -- based on Cold War angst and trepidation about the evil Soviet Union.
It seems to be open season on Bernie Sanders in the Democratic party now that his chances of winning the nomination are dwindling. But the criticism of him is misguided and hypocritical, and he is doing the right thing by largely ignoring it.
Here's a breakdown of what the party's establishment is saying and why it makes little sense.
The idea that Sanders, and to a certain extent others on the left, should stop criticizing Clinton because it gives Trump a better chance to win is ridiculous. Do people think that Clinton should get a free pass for the next six months -- and potentially incentive to move to the right -- on issues like Wall Street, trade, war, foreign policy and others? Just because Trump would be a disaster does not mean Clinton should be immune from criticism, nor does it mean holding her accountable will prevent her from ultimately defeating Trump.
Around this time in 2008, Clinton was still heavily criticizing the inevitable nominee Barack Obama and making divisive statements that make this primary campaign look like a walk in the park. How quickly everyone forgets (or pretends not to remember). In fact, some of the issues Clinton once criticized Obama for are now the same issues that Sanders hits Clinton on. Clinton supporters had no problem with it then, but are now feigning being offended.
It's quite possible to both continue pushing Clinton on important issues and condemn Trump. The American people are smarter than the Clinton crowd is giving them credit for.
Another common refrain. In reality, Sanders criticizes Trump all the time. In fact, he has continually used as strong or stronger language in doing so than Clinton has. He was one of the first prominent figures to dispense with the pleasantries about Trump and accused him of making racist comments months ago.
Click Here to Read Whole Article
Reprinted from Counterpunch
On the surface, it would seem that Saudi Arabia and Israel would be the worst of enemies -- and indeed, they've never had diplomatic relations.
After all, the Saudis have championed the cause of the Palestinians, who are oppressed by the Israelis. Israelis say they're besieged by Muslim extremists, and many of these extremists are motivated by the intolerant, Wahhabi ideology born and bred in Saudi Arabia.
But beneath the surface, these two old adversaries actually have a lot in common. In fact, in the contemporary Middle East, they've become the strangest of bedfellows.
Rumors about the budding relationship have been circulating for the past few years. In 2015, former Saudi and Israeli officials confirmed that they'd held a series of high-level meetings to discuss shared concerns, such as the growing influence of Iran in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon, as well as Iran's nuclear enrichment program. Shimon Shapira, an Israeli representative who participated in secret meetings with the Saudis, put it this way: "We discovered we have the same problems and same challenges and some of the same answers."
On May 5, former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal and retired Israeli Major General Yaakov Amidror spoke together at a Washington event hosted by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy -- the policy wing of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. The event, broadcast live online, showed that Saudi Arabia and Israel have finally come out of the closet -- together.
Here are some traits Saudi Arabia and Israel have in common.
Oppression
Both oppress the non-dominant groups living in their borders. Israel oppresses Palestinians, building settlements on their land and surrounding their villages with apartheid walls and heavily armed soldiers. Saudi Arabia has set up a political and judicial system that oppresses everyone who's not Sunni (like Shiites and non-Muslims), as well as women and millions of migrant workers.
Both nations respond to political dissidents in similar ways, using excessive force, arbitrary and indefinite detention, intimidation, and torture.
Aggression
Israel and Saudi Arabia have each invaded neighboring lands, killing thousands of civilians. Israel has been recurrently invading and bombing Gaza since 2008. In 2014 alone the Israeli military killed 2,104 people -- most of them civilians -- and destroyed 17,200 homes and left 475,000 living in emergency conditions.
The Saudis have meanwhile interfered in the internal affairs of neighboring Yemen. In March 2015, they launched a vicious bombing campaign directed at Shiite rebels in the country. So far they've killed over 6,000 mostly civilian Yemenis. They've bombed markets, schools, hospitals, residences, and wedding parties, displacing over 2.5 million people.
Additionally, both use weapons that have been internationally banned: Israel used white phosphorus in Gaza, while the Saudis have used cluster bombs in Yemen.
Religious Discrimination
Religion plays a key role in the politics of both nations.
See original here
You know the CIA was involved with some of the least savory aspects of the Iraq War.
But the NSA got its hands dirty, as well.
The Intercept reports:
"In the first months of the Iraq War, SIDtoday [an internal NSA newsletter] articles bragged about the NSA's part in the run-up to the invasion and reflected the Bush administration's confidence that Saddam Hussein had hidden weapons of mass destruction. "At the United Nations, readers were told, 'timely SIGINT [signals intelligence -- i.e., spying on electronic and related communications, which is what NSA does] played a critical role' in winning adoption of resolutions related to Iraq, including by providing 'insights into the nuances of internal divisions among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.'"
Specifically:
"SIGINT support [by NSA] to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations [i.e. American diplomats] has enabled and continues to enable the diplomatic campaign against Iraq. Your efforts have been essential to the plans of the U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador John D. Negroponte [a lovely gentleman], as well as to the United Kingdom's Permanent Representative, HMA Sir Jeremy Greenstock. "(S//SI) Ambassador Negroponte took time in February 2003 to provide unsolicited feedback on the quality, timeliness, and quantity of NSA reporting. He said that he could not imagine better intelligence support for diplomatic activity than he receives from the daily NSA reporting on Iraq and the UN. He was especially grateful for the timeliness of the information and asked our representative at the U.S. Mission to the UN ... to pass his thanks to the many people involved in its production and delivery. His only complaint was that "there's just so much good stuff to read and so little time to do it!" Ambassador Negroponte has been an avid user of SIGINT for many years and visited NSA in February 2002, exclaiming that he has never received better support in his 40-year diplomatic career. It is our hope that the Ambassador will visit NSA again when the frenzy of the Iraqi crisis subsides.
*** "For his part, Ambassador Greenstock, on the very day in February that he tabled the UK-US-Spain 'second resolution' on Iraq, intrigued by the close UK-US intelligence cooperation, said that SIGINT insights into the nuances of internal divisions among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the 'P5') were highly useful, enabling him to decide what line to take with P5 counterparts in New York and Washington and to temper the language of his diplomatic forays. On 5 February, the day that Secretary of State Powell made his presentation at the UN Security Council and, as a direct result of SIGINT reporting, a last-minute amendment was made to the UK Foreign Secretary's speech, making the point that UNMOVIC inspections had already been substantially reinforced."
And:
"SIGINT support to USUN's [U.S. ambassadors to the UN] diplomatic efforts concerning Iraq has been exceptional. Timely SIGINT played a critical role in the unanimous adoption of UN Security Council Resolutions 1441 (strengthened the inspection regime and demanded Iraq disarm or face serious consequences) and 1472 (revised the humanitarian aid program for Iraq).
Remember, the NSA conducts widespread industrial espionage on our allies, such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations, the Vatican and the Pope, France, the leaders of Germany, Brazil and Mexico, the European Union, the European Parliament, the G20 summit, and at least 35 world leaders.
And the United States Trade Representative is one of the "customers" of NSA data.
The blindsided DNC and the Super Delegates are leading Dems down the path to destruction with the doomed "front-runner," but bad press plus lawsuits for decertifying hijacked primary results could take place between Washington DC's primary June 14 and the July 25 convention in Philadelphia after the primaries shaking up the deluded deals with those "pledged" pledged super delegates and give Bernie the victory America needs!
1. The Presidential Commission on Election Administration, co-chaired by Bob Bauer, General Counsel for President Obama's 2012 campaign, and Ben Ginsburg, the Counsel for Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign
Here is Mr. Bauer's contact info: www.perkinscoie.com/en/professionals/robert-bauer.html
2. Election Administration Commission. I will soon be sending both a letter to educate them about our petition for a new NY primary.
Because we want the New York Attorney General's response to be available to the press and media, I renew the encouragements that those wanting the strongest and quickest response should be calling both press offices:, and again, they can forward your calls to Lourdes Rosado at the Civil Rights Bureau. Your media and editor friends also could in droves next week ask for that press release, plus any updates on the investigation of Bernie's opponent, Rep. Nita Lowie, and her realtor daughter in terms of the Brooklyn voter purges and perhaps all of them that occurred all over New York. This plan may have formulated as far back as 2008 and has by no means been limited to only Brooklyn and the Bronx.
Could it be politically dangerous for Mr. Schneiderman to immediately comply with our request? After all, New York and Louisiana continually vie for #1 or #2 as the most corrupt states in the United States, a sad distinction. If Mr. Schneiderman has what a judge friend of mine termed "enlightened self interest," he will come through for us, rather than return to being legal advisor for the hogs feeding at the trough in the 21st Century Tammany Hall that NY seems to have become.
In the 19 days since we filed the first phase of the petition (May 2), I have received one call, from Mike Mead, the NY AG's Director for Intergovernmental Affairs which was friendly but quite amorphous, and the one conversation with the lady who compiled the flowchart (filed also May 2) about the Brooklyn primary leading back to Bernie's opponent and her friend, the Congresswoman from Westchester County, Nita Lowie: that brief talk was equally vague. Mr. Mead, as well as the Unit for Public Integrity, as well as the director of the Civil Rights Bureau, can all be reached by calling: 1-800-771-7755
Because we want the Attorney General's response to be available to the press and media, I renew the encouragements that those wanting the strongest and quickest response should be calling both press offices:, and again, they can forward your calls to Lourdes Rosado at the Civil Rights Bureau.
Your media and editor friends also could in droves next week ask for that press release, plus any updates on the investigation of Bernie's opponent, Rep. Nita Lowie, and her realtor daughter in terms of the Brooklyn voter purges and perhaps all of them that occurred all over New York. This plan may have formulated as far back as 2008 and has by no means been limited to only Brooklyn and the Bronx.
Remember also that the first Board of Election "purger" said it was by accident and then had to recant when confronted with fact that, like it takes two to tango, it takes to people to do the purge of even one voter, and it certainly can't be blamed on one little bird who flew in the window and landed innocently on the mainframe computer for the NYC Board of Elections. When you look at the map of NY, Bernie's counties cover almost the entire state, and only where the purges took place went to his opponent....hmmm.... Below, you can read the President's response to two other petitions asking for a redo of the AZ primary. I am now more certain from this response that we were well advised to direct our request to the Attorney General of NY, and also to keep informed Bernie's lawyer, Brad Deutsch in Washington DC. You can write to two more venues for election complaints:1. The Presidential Commission on Election Administration, co-chaired by Bob Bauer, General Counsel for President Obama's 2012 campaign, and Ben Ginsburg, the Counsel for Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign2. Election Administration Commission. I will soon be sending both a letter to educate them about our petition for a new NY primary.Because we want the New York Attorney General's response to be available to the press and media, I renew the encouragements that those wanting the strongest and quickest response should be calling both press offices:, and again, they can forward your calls to Lourdes Rosado at the Civil Rights Bureau. Your media and editor friends also could in droves next week ask for that press release, plus any updates on the investigation of Bernie's opponent, Rep. Nita Lowie, and her realtor daughter in terms of the Brooklyn voter purges and perhaps all of them that occurred all over New York. This plan may have formulated as far back as 2008 and has by no means been limited to only Brooklyn and the Bronx.In the 19 days since we filed the first phase of the petition (May 2), I have received one call, from Mike Mead, the NY AG's Director for Intergovernmental Affairs which was friendly but quite amorphous, and the one conversation with the lady who compiled the flowchart (filed also May 2) about the Brooklyn primary leading back to Bernie's opponent and her friend, the Congresswoman from Westchester County, Nita Lowie: that brief talk was equally vague. Mr. Mead, as well as the Unit for Public Integrity, as well as the director of the Civil Rights Bureau, can all be reached by calling: 1-800-771-7755Remember also that the first Board of Election "purger" said it was by accident and then had to recant when confronted with fact that, like it takes two to tango, it takes to people to do the purge of even one voter, and it certainly can't be blamed on one little bird who flew in the window and landed innocently on the mainframe computer for the NYC Board of Elections. When you look at the map of NY, Bernie's counties cover almost the entire state, and only where the purges took place went to his opponent....hmmm....
Today, a very bright nice young man, the news editor of the Associated Press NYC Bureau, informed me that AP has not yet once spoken with the two "purging ladies" at the NYC Board of Election. Maybe they will be able to get to it next week, if you call the Bureau Chief of the two Associated Press offices nearest to you.
For New Yorkers, those are in Albany (David Klepper, who told me that he would be asking Mr. Schneiderman about these concerns "the next time I see him") and NYC (David Caruso). All AP offices are clearly accessible by googling. There is also an AP office in Buffalo, NY. New York City Press Office: (212) 416-8060 Albany Press Office: (518) 776-2427
nyag.pressoffice@ag.ny.gov >>>>>>>>>
The response from the White House to those two AZ Redo petitions:
"Thank you for your petition concerning Arizona's March 22, 2016 Primary Election.
The decision whether to investigate a potential violation of federal law, including those related to elections, rests with the Department of Justice, the White House plays no role in this decision. The decision on whether a revote should take place is a matter of state law, or a matter for the courts.
We are therefore declining to comment on the specific request in your petition. As the We the People Terms of Participation explain, to "avoid the appearance of improper influence, the White House may decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government."
How the President is Working to Break Down Voting Barriers
As a more general policy matter, President Obama has repeatedly expressed concern for how difficult it can be for people to vote. In March 2016 the President said:
We're the only advanced democracy in the world that makes it harder for people to vote"it's sad. We take enormous pride in the fact that we are the world's oldest continuous democracy, and yet we systematically put up barriers and make it as hard as possible for our citizens to vote. And it is much easier to order a pizza or a trip than it is for you to exercise the single most important task in a democracy, and that is for you to select who is going to represent you in government."
In March 2013, the President established the bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration, co-chaired by Bob Bauer, the General Counsel for President Obama's 2012 campaign, and Ben Ginsburg, the National Counsel for Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign. The President created the 10-person Commission after his 2013 State of the Union pledge to identify nonpartisan ways to address some of the concerns identified after the 2012 election. The Commission was tasked with identifying bipartisan ways to shorten lines at polling places, promote the efficient conduct of elections, and provide better access to the polls for all voters.
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The Early Stages of Drug Prohibition
Many currently illegal drugs, such as marijuana, opium, coca, and psychedelics have been used for thousands of years for both medical and spiritual purposes.
Why are some drugs legal and other drugs illegal today? It's not based on any scientific assessment of the relative risks of these drugs -- but it has everything to do with who is associated with these drugs.
The first anti-opium laws in the 1870s were directed at Chinese immigrants. The first anti-cocaine laws, in the South in the early 1900s, were directed at black men. The first anti-marijuana laws, in the Midwest and the Southwest in the 1910s and 20s, were directed at Mexican migrants and Mexican Americans. Today, Latino and especially black communities are still subject to wildly disproportionate drug enforcement and sentencing practices.
Nixon and the Generation Gap
In the 1960s, as drugs became symbols of youthful rebellion, social upheaval, and political dissent, the government halted scientific research to evaluate their medical safety and efficacy.
In June 1971, President Nixon declared a "war on drugs." He dramatically increased the size and presence of federal drug control agencies, and pushed through measures such as mandatory sentencing and no-knock warrants. Nixon temporarily placed marijuana in Schedule One, the most restrictive category of drugs, pending review by a commission he appointed led by Republican Pennsylvania Governor Raymond Shafer. In 1972, the commission unanimously recommended decriminalizing the possession and distribution of marijuana for personal use. Nixon ignored the report and rejected its recommendations.
Between 1973 and 1977, however, 11 states decriminalized marijuana possession. In January 1977, President Jimmy Carter was inaugurated on a campaign platform that included marijuana decriminalization. In October 1977, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to decriminalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for personal use.
Within just a few years, though, the tide had shifted. Proposals to decriminalize marijuana were abandoned as parents became increasingly concerned about high rates of teen marijuana use. Marijuana was ultimately caught up in a broader cultural backlash against the perceived permissiveness of the 1970s.
The 1980s and 90s: Drug Hysteria and Skyrocketing Incarceration Rates
The presidency of Ronald Reagan marked the start of a long period of skyrocketing rates of incarceration, largely thanks to his unprecedented expansion of the drug war. The number of people behind bars for nonviolent drug law offenses increased from 50,000 in 1980 to over 400,000 by 1997.
This is a reprint from NewsBred.
The lead story this week by Chidan and Rajghatta in the Times of India (TOI) is factually correct on both its major points: (a) China is building forces on India's borders and (b) China is thwarting a US-supported bid for India's admission into the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). The report also states that the Pentagon has warned of China's increasing military presence in various parts of the world.
It's understandable that millions of TOI readers would be alarmed; and inclined to see US as a friend, and China as an enemy with aggressive intent. This narrative needs a bigger picture lest the Indian subcontinent and Asia is gripped with a heightened arms race. After all, a nuclear flashpoint in South Asia is arguably the greatest threat to life on our planet.
First, the Pentagon asserts that China is increasing its military presence around the world. The truth is it's the US which is operating/controlling around 1,000 military bases worldwide, according to International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases; so much so that the Pentagon "owns" the biggest land bank in the world. Over 50 percent of the world's weapons are supplied by US corporations .
Just a few weeks ago, the US signed a deal to have five military bases in the Philippines. The US Army has a "Pacific Pathways" program where it coordinates joint military operations with Australia, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Mongolia, South Korea and Thailand. The Obama administration has approved the sale of 1.8 billion dollars worth of weapons to Taiwan, the biggest such weapons supply in years. South Korea was the leading US arms importer in 2014.
The US is hell-bent on controlling the air and seas near the Chinese mainland from its bases in Australia, Guam, Japan and South Korea. A new semi-official reports by the Washington-based Center for International and Strategic Studies (CSIS) details plans for the Pentagon's preparations for war against China . The report is titled "Asia-Pacific Rebalance 2025: Capabilities, Presence and Partnerships," chiefly lists targets China.
The report is commissioned by the US Department of Defense, at the behest of Congress under the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act. It spells out the Pentagon's overall strategy for a war against China, known as Air-Sea Battle. This involves massive air and missile strikes on the Chinese mainland aimed at destroying key military assets, infrastructure, communications, economic and political leadership. It also involves an economic blockade of China by disrupting its maritime trade route through the Indian Ocean. The report is a master plan to boost the arms race in Asia that would inevitably place the region and Asia at the risk of a holocaust.
Enters India into the picture. There is little secret that India is into a massive drive to boost its nuclear and missile capability. Its defense budget has increased by 12% in 2014-15 to over $38 billion. It's now collaborating with Israel in missile defense technology. It plans to mount MIRV's on nuclear-capable Agni V missiles. Indeed, India is one of the leaders in global arms imports. Indian Missile Defense Shield is for real.
Given the wariness with which Pakistan and China view India's armed preparedness, and vice-versa, it's logical that an arms race has ensued. The Indo-US Nuclear Deal of 2008 hasn't helped matters. And now India and the US have signed a 10-year defense framework agreement. Thus, to portray China's presence on Indian borders as proof of its aggressive intent needs to be viewed in totality.
Now to the subject of India's 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group ( NSG) membership issue. Presently, the NSG is comprised mostly of OECD countries, although it also includes nations such as Argentina, Brazil, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Turkey and Ukraine. It doesn't include India. That's because NSG itself was formed in 1975 in the wake of India's 1974 test explosion of an atom bomb. Since nuclear mercantilism is also important for rich nations, they made a distinction between nuclear weapons and nuclear power and created the NSG. As they say, all is fair in business and war.
The truth is, the US wants India--like it does with Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines--to be tied down in military alignments and facilities to counter China. It wants a US-led front against the growing might of China. As NewsBred reported last year, the US would love a China-India holocaust .
If China were to place its military forces off California's coast and discuss plans to carpet bomb the American mainland, the response of the US is easy to guess. And yet, that's exactly what Washington is doing in its "Pivot to Asia." It's up to India, China and Pakistan to de-escalate rather than spiral the arms race. Trusting each other is better than being a pawn to a master who wants nothing but Asia in flames.
What looked to be a new window of detente between the US and Iran, following the signing of the Joint Comprehensive plan of Action on Iran's nuclear program has quickly turned opaque. A US decree was issued to seize $2 billion in assets belonging to the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), holding Iran financially responsible for the 1983 bombing that killed 241 Marines at their barracks in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. The funds in question have been blocked since the civilian trial in the bombing began in 2011, but awaited the final legal touch to bless the blatant theft. This came when the US Supreme Court recently upheld the Congress bill, with the approval of President Barack Obama.
This is truly alarming. It clearly is part of a tactic of goading Iran, pushing it in an attempt to bring Iran to heel. Either that or to undermine the deal. Perhaps Obama has had second thoughts about the deal.
Timeline long and tortuous:
* In 2002, Judge Royce Lamberth entered default against the defendant (Iran) in a civil suit lodged by victims. In 2003, he ruled that Iran was legally responsible for providing Hezbollah with financial and logistical support that helped the suicide bombers carry out the attack, and thus was guilty. Lamberth concluded that the court had personal jurisdiction over the defendants under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, that Hezbollah was formed under the auspices of the Iranian government and was completely reliant on Iran in 1983, and that Hezbollah carried out the attack in conjunction with Iran's Ministry of Information and Security agents. Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria have continued to deny any involvement in any of the bombings. An obscure group calling itself "Islamic Jihad" claimed responsibility, and that the bombings were aimed to get the multinational forces out of Lebanon.
* In 2007, Lamberth awarded $2.65 billion to the plaintiffs, an amount he wrote at the time "may be the largest ever entered by a court of the United States against a foreign nation." The judgment was divided up among the victims; the largest award was $12 million to Larry Gerlach, who became a quadriplegic as a result of a broken neck he suffered in the attack.
* In 2008, the $2 billion was secretly ordered frozen.
* In 2010, victims of the Beirut attack sued the Luxembourg-based clearing house and bank Clearstream for allegedly assisting Iran to move $250 million in frozen assets out of the United States, prompting the open seizure of all Iranian assets at Citibank.
* In 2012, Lambeth ordered Iran to pay an additional $813m in damages and interest. US Congress buttressed this decision with a special law that specifically directed the American bank to turn over its Iranian assets to victims' families.
* In 2014, Bank Markazi challenged the ruling.
* Now, in 2016 Judge Lamberth got the final word: the US Supreme Court ruled that Congress did not usurp the authority of American courts by passing the 2012 law concerning the 2007 ruling.
The situation is clear: the US 'justice' system is not objective. The results of the long process show it serves US political interests over any concern for justice.
Who 'dunnit' Beirut 1983?
The case revolves around Iran's supposed guilt by association with Hezbollah, and Hezbollah's supposed perpetration of the 1983 bombing. Since the bombing was never solved, there is no case here. It is the US that is guilty in falling short in its security precautions.
Shortly after the 1983 bombing, President Ronald Reagan appointed a military fact-finding committee. The commission's report found senior US military officials responsible for security lapses and blamed the military chain of command for the disaster. It suggested that there might have been many fewer deaths if the barracks guards had carried loaded weapons and a barrier more substantial than the barbed wire the bomber drove over easily. The commission also noted that the "prevalent view" among U.S. commanders was that there was a direct link between the navy shelling of the Muslims at Suq-al-Garb and the truck bomb attack.
When you are so universally loathed and occupying another country, you should be very, very careful. Israel knows that well. Former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky, in his 1990 book By Way of Deception, has accused the Mossad of knowing the specific time and location of the 1983 bombing, but only gave general information to the Americans of the attack, information which was worthless. According to Ostrovsky, then Mossad head Nahum Admoni decided against giving the specific details to the Americans on the grounds that the Mossad's responsibility was to protect Israel's interests, not Americans. Ostrovsky further claimed that among the high level officers of the Mossad there was a view that if the Americans "wanted to stick their nose into this Lebanon thing, let them pay the price."
The perpetrators of the bombing are still unknown, but the US insists it must be Hezbollah and thus, indirectly, Iran. Both have denied responsibility. Seizing the funds, given the inconclusive evidence and the security lapses of the occupiers, can only be described as theft. President Rouhani referred to the US Supreme Court ruling on seizure of Iran's blocked assets as "a blatant robbery and a major legal scandal for the US", saying the move is indicative of Washington's continued hostilities toward the Iranian nation. "They (the Americans) should be aware that the rights of the Iranian people cannot be violated and plundered," he said, adding, "No thief can take pride in his theft and think what he has stolen belongs to him."
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Erickson Inc., famous for its fleet of large Air-Crane helicopters, is struggling with declining sales and big financial losses. Shown here, one of the company's helicopters made a demonstration flight as employees and guests celebrated the headquarters move of its headquarters from Southern Oregon to Portland. Fredrick D. Joe/The Oregonian
(Fredrick D. Joe)
Portland helicopter company Erickson Inc. is struggling to stay aloft.
Erickson's has lost significant money two years running and its stock has collapsed, closing Friday at 99 cents. The company's bonds have been downgraded repeatedly and are now well below junk-bond status.
"There's a fear that the company could face a liquidity crunch at anytime," said Hamed Khorsand, who follows the stock for BWS Financial Inc. "There's just not enough revenue coming in."
The liquidity crunch, in fact, may already be underway.
A subcontractor sued Erickson this week claiming the company is overdue on more than a million dollars worth of unpaid bills.
Erickson Chief Executive Officer Jeff Roberts joined the company 11 months ago, part of a sweeping change of its top executive lineup. He vowed that "we have brighter days ahead.
"Our recent performance is unacceptable and below expectations of our leadership team," he said. "This is a transformative time for Erickson and we feel confident we will improve our performance."
Erickson's fate is crucial to Southern Oregon. Though headquartered in Portland, much of its operations and most of its 785 employees work out of the company's facilities in Central Point and Medford.
Erickson laid off 150 workers a year ago.
These are rough times in general in the aviation business, in large part because of the crash in the oil and gas industry. CHC Group, a Canadian helicopter player, filed for bankruptcy early this month.
Erickson is not a big player in oil and gas. But it has its own problems. It recently lost a crucial wildfire fighting contract with the U.S. Forest Service. It also borrowed heavily three years ago to buy the helicopter business from Evergreen Aviation in McMinnville, only to see the U.S. defense business that was Evergreen's forte go into a tailspin.
The toll on Erickson's financial performance has been dramatic.
The company lost $10.2 million in 2014 and another $86.7 million in 2015. So far, 2016 has brought little relief, with Erickson losing another $26 million in its first quarter.
On Wednesday, Starlite Aviation sued Erickson seeking payment of more than $1.1 million.
Starlite was hired by Erickson as a subcontractor in its government and military contracts. The Irish company claims in its lawsuit that Erickson officials blamed their inability to pay Starlite on its deteriorating financial position.
"Defendants (Erickson) notified Plaintiff that Defendants are having a cash crisis and will not be in a position to make any payment until July 2016, at the earliest, and only if Defendants are able to refinance their business," Starlite claimed.
Part of Erickson's problem is the hundreds of millions in new debt it borrowed to fund the Evergreen acquisition. The controversial deal was driven by ZM Funds, a private equity firm that bought a sizable ownership stake in Erickson.
The acquisition of Evergreen by Erickson was a very good thing for ZM, since it was owed a sizable amount of money by Evergreen.
It's been a mixed bag for Erickson. It got the company into the new niche of Defense Department contracts. But the associated debt load had weighed on the company. In April, Moody's downgraded Erickson's debt to Caa1, deep into junk bond status, in part because of the company's "weak performance sustained following its acquisition of Evergreen Helicopters Inc."
When the acquisition closed in 2013, Erickson's stock was trading for around $19 a share.
The stock sank below $1 this week.
The deal spawned a class-action shareholder lawsuit. The case is still pending.
-- Jeff Manning
503-294-7606, jmanning@oregonian.com
It's a familiar setting, but a different side of Darren Carrington.
Carrington, the junior Oregon Ducks wide receiver from San Diego, stands at midfield of Autzen Stadium. Then the music begins.
No, this isn't a highlight tape -- it's Carrington's "official debut music video," according to the YouTube page of "Savin All My Lovin," the track that Carrington raps on while the video follows him around Eugene.
Carrington did not respond to an interview request regarding the song's background and message through a UO spokesman, but the track often references his late best friend, Markel Byrd, the New Mexico safety who grew up with Carrington before dying in a December car accident while driving back to California to spend the holidays with Carrington.
Carrington wore Byrd's No. 22 in the Jan. 2 Alamo Bowl in honor of his friend.
Since its May 13 release the song has been praised on social media and also criticized, with CSNNW.com writing it "demonstrates poor judgment" due to its strong language. But Carrington responded on social media that the song should be taken as a tribute.
State regulators have found three cancer-causing heavy metals at levels above state health benchmarks near Precision Castparts, a manufacturing plant in Southeast Portland. None pose any immediate health risks, regulators said.
The discovery, the first result of Department of Environmental Quality air monitoring near the plant, comes almost four months after a toxic air scare ignited concerns about high levels of cadmium and arsenic near Portland stained-glass manufacturing plants.
On Thursday, Gov. Kate Brown directed the department to tell Bullseye Glass to stop using a variety of heavy metals, including lead, in unfiltered furnaces for 10 days after air monitors revealed dangerously high levels of lead near a daycare in the area. On Friday, Multnomah County offered free lead testing for people concerned about airborne lead in southeast Portland.
The state tested near Precision Castparts after U.S. Forest Service researchers found elevated levels of nickel in moss.
Although the monitors found elevated levels of two other metals - arsenic and hexavalent chromium - nickel is of particular note because it was found at significantly higher levels than those found in the rest of the city, state experts said. In other words, it's normal to have levels of arsenic and hexavalent chromium near the levels found near the plant, but not nickel. Hexavalent chromium was found at a level slightly above expected urban background levels.
When the amount of nickel is at the state health benchmark, one in a million people will get cancer if they breathe the air throughout their lifetime. At the level the monitors found, that risk would almost double.
State benchmarks are so strict, an Oregon Health Authority official said, that even with the higher levels of nickel, the risk to the public is minimal.
"There's really no danger," said David Farrer, a state public health toxicologist.
There also wasn't anywhere near the amount of nickel in the air to cause immediate health problems, Farrer said. To be an immediate threat, there would have to have been about 30 times more nickel in the air than the monitors found.
Precision Castparts is the likely reason behind the nickel in the air, Farrer said, at least in part because the company is known to use the metal. Per its website, the company specializes in "nickel-based superalloy, titanium, stainless steel, and aluminum investment castings."
It's virtually impossible to tell if the arsenic and hexavalent chromium are connected to the company, Farrer said.
The company has in the past been ranked among the worst industrial polluters in the nation. Precision Castparts told DEQ that as of May 16 it had installed additional industrial filters, according to an Oregon Health Authority news release. Through a spokesman, the company said it would discuss the hexavalent chromium and nickel levels at a community meeting May 25 after reviewing the state's data.
Two people claiming to live near the plant sued Precision Castparts earlier this month. Per the complaint, the two are worried about the effect the plant's pollution could have on their and their five-year-old son's health. The plaintiffs are demanding that the company stop emitting toxics, clean up environmental contamination, and pay damages.
DEQ will continue to monitor the pollution in the area, said Brian Boling, director of the DEQ lab that tests the air sampled by the monitor. The state will also install a monitor near Precision Castparts for a full year. At least one of the goals, Boling said, is to try to definitively establish the source of the pollution.
The toxic air scare has roiled Portland since February and has had a variety of consequences, large and small. State environmental regulators promised to overhaul regulations. Federal regulators have reexamined their own rules. Hundreds have gathered at community meetings railing against government inaction. And at least one child has had to bear the brunt of his parents' worry.
Nikki Meyer, 30, held her son on her lap in the basement of the Multnomah County Southeast Health Center in Southeast Portland, the kid looking around, curious and playful. Large cameras and people gathered around, as Perry Cabot, a Lead Risk Assessor, told Meyer to keep the boy distracted.
With a prick, blood started to ooze from one of 11-month-old Luke Klassen's fingers, his face suddenly scrunching up as he began a plaintive wail.
He was one of dozens of people whose blood was tested Friday for lead, a day after state monitors found dangerously high levels of lead near Bullseye Glass.
Brown had directed state regulators to order the stained glass-manufacturing company to stop using nine heavy metals, including lead, in unfiltered furnaces for 10 days. The amount of lead in the air presented an immediate, short-term health risk, the Department of Environmental Quality said in a news release Thursday.
Bullseye Glass is the same company that the state connected to high levels of cadmium and arsenic in Southeast Portland.
Cabot handed the baby's blood to his colleague across the table, who put it on a piece of paper and tested it in a machine with a three-minute turnaround time. Dad had already been tested, and mom was next.
Within minutes, there were results for everybody. Neither mom, dad nor son had enough lead in their blood to require further testing.
"I think it's pretty much an all clear," Cabot said, after getting the boy's results.
The family lives about three miles east of Bullseye Glass, Meyer said, and has had congestion and breathing problems for about a month. They believe their health problems are linked to the heavy metals that had been emitted by Bullseye Glass, but haven't confirmed that that's indeed the case. The lead results did not allay their fears, Meyer said.
By 5 p.m. about 60 people had been tested, said Multnomah County spokeswoman Julie Sullivan. None had tested above 5 micrograms per deciliter, the level at which the county recommends people go to a doctor to get more precise testing.
-- Fedor Zarkhin
503-294-7674; @fedorzarkhin
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A man leaves the Forest Grove Safeway with a plastic bag of items. The city's Sustainability Commission has proposed a draft ordinance that would ban plastic bags.
(Samantha Swindler/Forest Grove Leader)
The Forest Grove City Council will vote Monday on the first reading of an ordinance that would ban most plastic shopping bags from being distributed by retailers in the city. It would be the first city in Washington County to do so.
The ordinance would ban plastic carry-out bags from stores and city-sponsored events, such as the Forest Grove Farmers Market. It would not apply to plastic bags used for bulk items, wrapping foods, protection from dampness (such as flowers), unwrapped prepared foods or dry cleaning bags.
Larger stores would charge customers five-cent per paper bag used, but stores with 10 or fewer full-time employees could opt out of the charge.
The city's Sustainability Commission, is an advisory board to the Forest Grove City Council, first began public talks about a plastic bag ban in February 2015. They held a public forum about the proposal last September.
The public is invited to comment on the proposed ordinance during a hearing at the City Council meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. Monday, May 23 at the Community Auditorium, 1915 Main St.
Jaime Tinoco, a teen convicted of raping one woman and accused of killing another, is mentally fit to go to trial in his murder case, a Washington County judge decided Friday.
Tinoco, 19, is charged with aggravated murder in the fatal stabbing of 29-year-old Nicole Laube at a Cedar Mill apartment complex on Aug. 19, 2014. He's serving a 14-year prison sentence for the rape and beating of a Eugene woman near Autzen Stadium.
Circuit Judge Kirsten Thompson agreed with a state hospital doctor who diagnosed Tinoco with an anti-social personality disorder and rejected claims from the teen's defense that he suffers from schizophrenia.
The judge said she believes Tinoco is a challenging client for his attorneys but has the capacity and intelligence to help with his case.
Tinoco lacks the "bizarre or delusional beliefs" present with a psychotic disorder, she said, and when motivated, the teen is able to make decisions.
The state argued that Tinoco suffers only from the personality disorder, has chosen to not engage in learning about the legal system and prefers the state hospital over state prison.
The defense countered that Tinoco is incapable of understanding legal concepts because he suffers from psychosis and should go back to the state hospital for restorative treatment.
In March, Thompson signed an order for doctors at the state hospital to examine Tinoco. Prosecutors requested the evaluation, which was completed earlier this month and sealed last week by the court.
Tinoco's attorneys, Robert Axford and Scott Sharp, first raised the issue of their client's fitness to proceed after a clinical psychologist, Dr. J. Wilson Kenney, evaluated Tinoco for the defense and diagnosed the teen with schizophrenia. In a Feb. 9 report, Kenney concluded Tinoco isn't mentally competent to help in his murder defense.
Dr. Courtney Prokosch, a clinical psychologist at the state hospital, diagnosed Tinoco with the anti-social personality disorder. Her report, according to her testimony, didn't reach a conclusion on Tinoco's understanding of the legal system. She noted, however, that Tinoco was capable of learning, just unmotivated to do so.
Thompson said Prokosch, at the time of her evaluation, had more information than Kenney because of Tinoco's three-month stay at the hospital.
While in custody, Tinoco has repeatedly and aggressively acted out, including fighting with other inmates and acting inappropriate with women while in prison and at the state hospital, according to testimony from the hearing and court documents.
During the first day of the two-day hearing Thursday, Tinoco often squirmed in his chair at the defense table. He wore a dingy white prison-issued jumpsuit with tan slip-on sandals. His arms were shackled to a belly chain around his waist, and he repeatedly scratched his right ear during the testimony.
At times, he quickly wiggled his ears, moved his jaw back and forth and tilted his head from side to side, looking up toward the ceiling. A few times, he turned around and looked into the courtroom gallery, where his father was seated.
On Friday, Tinoco was more still. The judge said the cause of Tinoco's facial tics was unclear and noted the behavior would come and go.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Jeff Lesowski told the court that if Tinoco lacked knowledge about the justice system, it was because he wasn't trying to learn.
"He's not a dumb man," Lesowski said. "He understands what's going on around him."
Tinoco, Lesowski said, was a juvenile delinquent who "has been around the block" and is familiar with the system. During Tinoco's hospital stay, he liked roughhousing with other patients, watching TV and playing Call of Duty on the Xbox, the prosecutor said. Tinoco wanted to stay in the state hospital, a "luxurious resort" compared to a "hard-core prison like the Oregon State Penitentiary," Lesowski said.
But Tinoco, Axford countered, has done nothing to keep himself at the hospital and has repeatedly denied having a mental illness. Tinoco told one doctor there that he'd rather go back to prison than answer the doctor's questions, the defense attorney said.
During Tinoco's time in prison, Axford said, a doctor concluded he was suffering from psychosis and prescribed him anti-psychotic medication.
"At Oregon state prison, they don't give out anti-psychotics for fun," Axford said. He added that his client's behavior improved on the medication.
The defense attorney also made reference to a doctor at the state hospital initially diagnosing Tinoco with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder. Weeks later, the doctor changed that diagnosis to a personality disorder, and later, Prokosch reached that same conclusion.
Axford said with treatment he believed his client's competency could be restored.
But the judge decided the teen didn't need any more time at the state hospital. She noted that in Marion County, where Tinoco is charged with assaulting a public safety officer, his case is moving forward and he is scheduled to change his plea next month.
Tinoco's murder trial was set to begin in July, but his attorneys said Friday they will ask to postpone that date.
-- Rebecca Woolington
503-294-4049; @rwoolington
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Ballots are prepared for counting at Multnomah County election headquarters in Portland, Ore., Tuesday, May 17, 2016. Tuesday is Oregon's primary election.
(The Associated Press)
By Elizabeth Hovde
Voters have proved they are about candidates, not parties. No wonder Donald Trump thought himself fit to be the Republican Party's presidential candidate, even though he does not reflect the GOP that many recognize or its platform.
A lot of today's voters don't know party platforms or care if candidates line up with them. Part of this lack of knowledge is because we are on a fast track to "Idiocracy," a movie that I found satirically amusing when I watched it in 2007, but now find prophetic. And we should expect an increase in the number of uninformed voters to go along with an increase in voter registration, which, for better and worse, is becoming effortless. The system does offer efficiency for prospective voters, despite concerns about interest and cost. Oregon was the first of the 50-nifty United States to have automatic voter registration. Now four states (including Oregon) do, and many more are discussing the idea.
How are voters, who are no longer expected to register themselves and who can't find a stamp to mail a ballot, as some Oregon politicians claimed this year, supposed to be expected to do research about a candidate?
Oh, wait. Facebook memes.
Trump's successful hijacking of the Republicans' nomination process should have the party's leaders running away from him as fast as possible and apologizing in hopes of keeping their party alive. But Trump's success should also have the public running away from the idea that they should be paying for these parties' primaries.
In many states, including Oregon, the primary election doesn't even invite unaffiliated voters to this party that taxpayers host. And having taxpayer dollars subsidize elections for private organizations in which some voters cannot participate has made this independent bitter for years.
Oregon's closed primary system is especially odd considering that Oregon's new automatic voter registration system added more than 67,000 new voters to the rolls, the secretary of state's office reports. These new registrants are initially registered as unaffiliated voters and are mailed a form giving them the option to adopt a party affiliation or opt out entirely. But a whopping 76 percent did not take that extra step in time to participate in the presidential primary. Many of the new voters may have been surprised to learn they couldn't cast a vote in Oregon's primary Tuesday for either Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders, who are leading the anger-driven segment of a presidential race that has gotten so many people interested in voting.
The Oregonian/OregonLive's Dana Tims writes, "A total of 2,293,959 voters, an all-time record, are now registered and eligible to cast ballots in the state." That is, if they are affiliated with a major party. Less so, if they are not.
Unaffiliated voters were still able to vote in some local races where, I'd argue, a person's vote most impacts his or her daily life. It will be interesting to see final ballot-return numbers concerning this.
Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins estimates more than 1.2 million votes were cast in Tuesday's primary, outpacing 2008's primary, which was a record. While that's more people voting than ever before, the turnout percentage is lower than 2008, however, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Having more voters registered with the new system affects that.
Oregonians turned down a pitch for an open primary as recently as 2014, when it was rejected by two-thirds of voters. Booooo! The proposal would have been approved by at least two-thirds of voters, I bet, if Oregon voters knew the 2016 primary ballot would include Trump and Sanders. If I only I could have seen that argument coming and used it.
Tims writes: "Overall, some 110,000 voters changed their party affiliations to Republican or Democrat this year, with the largest share looking to vote in the Clinton-Sanders race." And: "Non-affiliated, Independent Party and almost every minor party declined both in total numbers and as a share of the electorate. The Libertarian Party of Oregon, for example, dropped by 10 percent since September. The Oregon Progressive Party's numbers fell even further with a 32 percent decline."
This party affiliation hopping, which endangers minor parties, and this year's Trumptastrophe add fuel to my argument that parties need to pay for their primaries, not taxpayers. Feel the burn.
*
Elizabeth Hovde's column appears on the fourth Sunday of the month.
Trump's Supreme Court picks: Back in the days of the Bush/Cheney regime, Republicans scolded those of us who dared to question or criticize the president's actions. Their words were something like, "If you don't respect the president, then at least respect the office of the president."
Now that a Democrat has held the highest office for several years, how the right-wing tune has changed. Refusing to cooperate or even consider any kind of compromise, the GOP-controlled Congress has stonewalled virtually every bill that President Obama has put forward. Now, the Republicans are blocking the confirmation hearings of the president's nomination for the Supreme Court, without exception, no matter who that nominee may be. Not only that, but in a blatant attempt to usurp the power of the president, Trump has just announced his nominees for the court.
Trump's power play harkens back to the days of that Republican golden boy, Ronald Reagan, who dealt with terrorists to free the Iran hostages prior to his election. How times have changed.
At least Reagan said, "Tear down this wall." Trump would rather build one.
Mitch Scheele
Albany
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Representatives of two Midland organizations, New Hope Village and ACT Uganda, are smiling a little brighter today after receiving sizable grants from the Kiwassee Kiwanis Club.
New Hope Village (NHV) received $25,000 to be used for its Windows on the World Media Room while ACT Uganda received $5,000 for the newly formed Health is Essential to Life (HEAL) program.
For the last two winters, NHV has used the Community of Christ Campground in Sanford to assist people in need of housing. With the grant, plans are to purchase computers, projectors for presentations and homework assisting items for children.
I cant thank you all enough, said NHV Director John Congleton. This tremendously helps us fulfill the dreams we have for New Hope Village. Kids from homeless situations and poverty situations are behind, socially and scholastically. The goal of this is to get them caught up.
Representing ACT Uganda was Lisa Corso, HEAL team leader.
We would like to thank everyone for what you are doing for us at ACT Uganda and the people of southeast Uganda, Corso said. We partner with the Muko sub-county in Uganda.
HEAL will provide a comprehensive self-sustainable pathway toward improved individual and village living conditions in Muko.
We go into the villages and have the villagers themselves come up with what they need to do to make their lives better, Corso said.
Besides HEAL, the organization provides several other programs for the people of Uganda: orphan sponsorship, HANDS Program (Helping Agricultural New Development and Sustainability), Muko Empowerment Program designed to provide opportunities for income and employment to the women of Muko through handcraft training and a music program.
Throughout the years, Kiwassee Kiwanis has been gathering funds to use for the clubs mission of changing the world one child and one community at a time.
We had these funds that accumulated over the years despite the fact that we had increased our giving to the community every year, said President Bruce Rayce. This is all due to the generosity of our sponsors and the Midland community.
The process for choosing the two beneficiaries began when each of Kiwassees five committees sought out, evaluated and vetted various projects. Then they came up with their top candidate for each of the two different dollar amounts.
The $5,000 could be used outside the Midland area, but the $25,000 had to be used locally, Rayce said. The board of directors and the executive committee voted on those projects by secret ballot to come up with two projects at the $25,000 and at the $5,000 level. We then presented the four projects to the membership at large, who voted.
For more information on NHV, call (989) 615-7066 or visit its website at newhopemidland.org. For more information about ACT Uganda, visit actuganda.org.
Kiwassee Kiwanis meets every Tuesday from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church, 3701 Jefferson Ave. For more information about the club, visit kiwassee.org.
Northwood University will offer three new scholarships and grants thanks to a gift from the Patricia L. Naegele Trust. Funds from the trust also will go toward the Robert and Patricia Naegele Student Scholarship Endowed Fund, which has provided scholarships to Naegele Scholars since 1996.
The new student awards include competitive scholarships of variable amounts up to a total of $50,000 available each year; as many as 20 grants of $1,250 available for students who complete the universitys Educational Success Program each year; and five annual $5,000 scholarships for international students. These scholarships and grants may remain with the recipients for up to four years. These new scholarships will go into effect for recipients in the upcoming 2016-2017 school year.
As I progress in my career, I want to be able to give back to make students educational goals a possibility and to help students in need, said Zachary Rizo, a Naegele Scholar and an automotive aftermarket management major from Washington, Mich. I couldnt be more thankful for this scholarship for providing that for me and I hope to make the same difference in the future for other students.
Im really grateful for this scholarship and how it is helping me attain my education, added Maria Serrano, a Naegele Scholar and marketing major from Beulah. I am thankful for any extra help I can get to further my studies so I can make a difference in my career and community.
Patricia and Robert Naegele both served as university trustees. They impacted generations of Northwood University students, faculty and staff. Patricia Naegele passed away in July 2015; her husband passed away in August 2000.
Drs. Robert and Patricia (Pat) Naegele were strong supporters of the university and its mission to develop the future leaders of a global, free-enterprise society, said Keith Pretty, Northwood University president and CEO. These student awards are a wonderful way to honor their memory. The international scholarship specifically reminds the community about how the Naegeles opened their home and their hearts to international students by hosting dinners and providing a home away from home for those struggling with studying and living in a new country. It gave them the chance to help guide the lives of some of our students.
In 2005, Northwood University built a new road running through the center of campus. It was named Naegele Drive in recognition of Pat Naegeles $3 million contribution to the university. Naegele said at the time that the couple had always planned to donate monies to Northwood.
Pat Naegele championed Northwood University since shortly after the Michigan campus opened. She was a founding member and past president of Town & Campus, a volunteer organization dedicated to connecting Midland-area residents with Northwood Universitys campus, students, people and events.
She and her husband later served as national co-chairs of the 5,000 member Northwood National Womens Board & Friends representing university supporters across the country.
Pat Naegele received Northwood Universitys Distinguished Woman award in 1983 and an honorary doctorate degree from the university in 1996. Her involvement in the community at large included serving on the governing board of Midland Center for the Arts. She also was named honorary manager for life by the Alden B. Dow Museum of Art and Science. She had been an active early member of the Midland Foundation and the Brownson Club of the Catholic Church. In her home state of Wisconsin, Naegele was an avid Packers fan and a longtime trustee of the Marshfield (medical) Clinic in Marshfield, Wisc.
Through the 2014-2015 school year, there have been 42 recipients of the Robert and Patricia Naegele Student Scholarship, 14 recipients of the Patricia Naegele Fashion Merchandising Scholarship and 11 recipients of the Patricia and Robert Naegele Greatest Generation Scholarship (2004-2005 and 2010-2011).
Firefighters from the 51st Civil Engineer Squadron partnered with members of Songtan Fire Department a joint training structural live fire exercise May 18, 2016, at Kyonggi-do Fire Academy.
Osan fire and emergency services members train with Korean counterparts on a monthly basis, but this was the first time they participated in an off-base live fire training.
It went really well today, said Tech. Sgt. Crayton Felder, 51st CES assistant chief of operations. All of the guys were hustling and knew what they were doing, and everyone worked very well together.
The firefighters donned their gear upon arrival at the fire academy and soon charged into the live fire facility, working together to put out interior fires under the supervision of both Air Force and Korean senior fire and emergency services members.
We get to see what theyre capable of, their facilities and how they train, said Felder. It may help spark our minds about how we can do certain things better and have a better working relationship with these guys.
The mutual exchange of knowledge also brought along a mutual feeling of appreciation for the combined training.
It was a good opportunity to train for a real world fire situation, said Kim Young-Sun, Songtan fire station response team leader. Its more effective for each of our teams to know how we each respond.
BLOOMINGTON While wait times grow longer at many major airport security checkpoints, there was no line the other day at Central Illinois Regional Airport as Marty Ropp was catching a flight to Houston.
"I love flying out of Bloomington," said the rural Bloomington resident who flies frequently for his business, Allied Genetic Resources. There was no one in front or behind him waiting to be screened.
"Free parking. No lines. It's easy and it's close to home," he said about why he flies out of CIRA three-fourths of the times he flies.
But flying home had him a little worried.
"Hopefully I won't have any delay," said Ropp. "I'll definitely get (to the Houston airport) early. I guess I better. Either that or they need to get their act together and get it fixed."
The last time he flew was three weeks ago, to Denver.
"There wasn't any issue in Denver, so it makes me wonder how in three weeks it could go from no issue at all to a big deal," said Ropp an observation shared by many in the past week.
Nicholas Manzari and his wife flew into CIRA Thursday from Georgia to visit their son, who works for State Farm Bank.
Typically, they avoid flying out of smaller airports.
"For a larger trip, we would go from a larger hub because sadly most of the times you are dealing with delays from a smaller airport," said Manzari.
But the Manzaris caught a flight out of a smaller airport near their home to avoid the lengthy security lines at Atlantas Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
The Transportation Security Administration and airlines are urging travelers to arrive at the airport at least two hours in advance because of screening delays resulting from tightened security procedures and fewer TSA screeners.
The lengthy waits have caused some passengers to miss their flights.
CIRA has not had that problem.
"We still have very efficient processing of passengers through the checkpoint," said CIRA spokeswoman Fran Strebing. "Part of that is our volume isn't that of (Chicago's) O'Hare or Atlanta and the smaller loads and the smaller flights."
She added that has "always been part of our messaging ... the convenience, the less congestion, the less hassles. But now we have the issue of the long TSA lines creating stress for people. There are folks who have missed flights."
CIRA also has not been seeing flights arriving late because of the TSA screening delays.
"The airlines are continuing their schedules as they are. I think that is much of what the uproar is about the issue that people are missing those flights because the airlines are staying on schedule," she said.
She, too, advised travelers starting their trip through a major airport to allow for more time.
"As we always advise, be very prepared," Strebing said. "Know what you can pack in that carry-on luggage."
Passengers are allowed to carry on a three quart-sized bag with their liquids, gels, creams, aerosols and pastes. Each item must be in containers holding 3.4 ounces or less.
"Have your identification ready. Make sure your pockets are empty," Strebing added. "Follow all of the instructions so that you, hopefully, will not be part of that delay process."
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has said he hopes to correct the situation with advanced technology, hiring more screeners, limiting the number and size of carry-ons and encouraging passengers to use a pre-check program.
LINCOLN The Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital (ALMH) Foundation wants to work toward a healthier Logan County one vegetable, one exercise and one health screening at a time.
The new ALMH Market, sponsored by the foundation, opens at 8 a.m. Saturday in the Expo Building of the Logan County Fairgrounds. The market will be open 8 a.m. to noon Saturdays through Oct. 29.
"We recognize, in Logan County, that the hospital has a responsibility to reach outside its walls to inspire a culture of health," said Angela Stoltzenburg, ALMH marketing and community partnerships manager.
Logan County's obesity rate is 43.3 percent, up from 19.5 percent in 2001.
"That's a significant trend upward," Stoltzenburg said. "We want to stop that trend."
Obesity increases the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers, she said.
"We recognize that increasing fruit and vegetable consumption is critical to a healthy lifestyle," she said.
To that end, the centerpiece of the ALMH Market is a farmers market that will give market-goers access to 150 varieties of fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy, honey and baked goods. Vendors will be Illinois farmers who grew or made the food that they will be selling, Stoltzenburg said.
"We want to support our local farmers," she said.
Each Saturday in addition to the farmers market ALHM Market will include fitness classes, live music and a POP (Power Of Produce) Club for children ages 5 through 12. The club's goal is to empower kids to make healthy food choices and to introduce them to local foods, Stoltzenburg said.
From time to time, the market also will include free health screenings.
In addition to activities that will happen each week, opening-day events will include introducing ALMH's Know Your Numbers campaign with free lipid profiles, blood sugar, blood pressure and body mass index screenings offered to anyone 10 and older. Screenings will be offered on future market days on a rotating basis, she said.
Opening day events also will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony, a Yoga for Stress Relief class, a blood drive, a cooking demonstration and, for children, an inflatable obstacle course and face painting.
"We want to create the ALMH Market as a wellness destination," Stoltzenburg said.
BLOOMINGTON Two Bloomington lawyers have been suspended from practicing law by the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
James G. Walker, whose office address was listed as 8 Oxford Court, was suspended on an interim basis pending the outcome of disciplinary proceedings on allegations that he made false statements in court filings about the qualifications of three Illinois Appellate Court justices.
The suspension that took effect April 11 comes after the state disciplinary board rejected Walker's claims "that his statements were true and that they were protected by the First Amendment," according to a statement from the ARDC.
The ARDC also set June 8 as the effective date for a one-year suspension for Mark D. Johnson. The Bloomington lawyer with offices at 115 W. Front St. was disciplined by the ARDC for assisting a Warren County client with criminal activity and deceiving a prosecutor and sheriff into thinking he had legal authority to enter a person's property and remove items.
Johnson also must complete the ARDC professional seminar.
URBANA The McLean County Unit 5 school district has settled the last pending lawsuit related to a former teacher who is serving 60 years in prison for molesting elementary school students in Urbana and Normal.
The terms of the agreement between the Urbana student and Unit 5 are confidential.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Pantagraph, Unit 5 attorney Curt Richardson said the district paid $62,500 toward the settlement, but he could not disclose the additional amount paid by an insurance carrier for the district.
The settlement resolves a claim by the student that Unit 5 engaged in "passing" Jon White to the Urbana school district when officials knew he was unfit for the classroom.
The Champaign County lawsuit filed on behalf of the girl was dismissed Tuesday.
White pleaded guilty in 2008 to 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in McLean and Champaign counties.
Eight counts involved the molestation of nine students in 2005 and 2006 in his second-grade classroom at Thomas Paine School, Urbana. Two others involved two students at Colene Hoose Elementary School in Normal, where he taught first grade during the 2004-05 school year.
Jim Kearns, the Urbana lawyer who represented Unit 5 in the lawsuit, said Friday the settlement was reached after "both sides decided it was in their best interests."
During court proceedings in White's criminal case, a Unit 5 official testified that White was forced to resign in 2005 after a parent complained that White followed her fifth-grade daughter around the school and gave her photos of an actress he said she resembled.
Adult pornography also was found on White's school computer by Unit 5 officials.
The molestation accusations against White involving students in the Normal-based district surfaced after he was arrested on similar charges in Urbana.
The recent settlement is in addition to more than $1 million paid by Unit 5 to resolve lawsuits related to White. Urbana claims topped $2.6 million.
BLOOMINGTON A decorated Iraq War veteran serving six years in prison for home invasion has been released on bond pending his appeal.
Sam Siatta, 26, of Diamond was sentenced to six years in January for breaking into a man's home in Normal in April 2014 and hitting the victim with a frying pan. Siatta received nine stab wounds from the victim during the incident.
According to McLean County court records, Siatta's family posted $10,000 Thursday to secure his release after the 4th District Appellate Court in Springfield granted a request from Siatta's lawyers that he be released while the court considers an appeal.
Bloomington lawyer Harold Jennings, whose firm represented Siatta on the Class X felony charge, said Friday he supports the release.
"I don't think he should have been convicted of anything," said Jennings, repeating his assertions raised in Siatta's trial that the veteran's actions were linked to symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
At an April hearing, Siatta's defense team argued the prison term violated his constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment and the state's constitutional requirement that the punishment reflect the seriousness of the crime.
Judge Scott Drazewski denied the defense motion to reduce the sentence to probation, saying that state law mandates a prison term of six to 30 years for home invasion. The state opposed a reduction in Siatta's sentence, arguing that such a decision would amount to special treatment for the defendant.
Siatta was a student at Illinois State University at the time of the incident.
Pope Francis says worshipping the god of money is causing many problems, but some pundits and politicians say a religious leader who steps outside his church to apply principles of faith compromises his authority. When the pope champions climate change issues, they decry his environmental positions.
How much time have those critics spent studying climate and environmental sciences or working in slums, prisons, homeless shelters or soup kitchens? They ridicule those who want to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources, saying climate change is a myth. Even though they scoff at the scientific facts, they cant deny the ravages of air and water pollution caused by coal, oil and petrochemicals that overwhelmingly endanger the worlds poor.
When the pope puts his faith into action, he enhances his authority, while right-wing politicians and pundits are showing they are pawns of the fossil fuel industry and the wealthy. Failing to adapt and change results in extinction in nature, business and politics.
Many government officials and corporate leaders lack vision, caring about their own wealth and power at the expense of the environment and common good. Worshiping the god of money may fatten their offshore bank accounts but it will leave their souls bankrupt, something to consider when casting a ballot.
Voting for candidates who value a moral economy where the wealthy pay fair taxes, wages are higher, workers rights are protected and cleaner energy and pollution regulation improve the environment will help create a more just and sustainable world.
Linda Doenitz, Bloomington
After two years, the sequel of "Neighbors" is released featuring Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne and Zack Efron. Movie reviews for the sequel surprisingly include parenting lessons and self-awareness.
Self-Aware Sequel
A movie review done by David Sims of The Atlantic describes the movie as something that is anchored on a sense of self-awareness that most masculine comedy films lack. It takes jabs on the insecurities of millennials particularly the male scenes. gender without coming off as tacky or forced.
Chloe Moretz on the Set of Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, September 2015 https://t.co/LpcJaJXa2A #ChloeMoretz California Pics (@california1pics) May 20, 2016
The first "Neighbors" released in 2014 mostly tackled the Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly's (Rose Byrne) anxiety over getting old and not being relevant after the coming of their first child. Meanwhile, "Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising" is more about Teddy's (Zac Efron) deeper fear: the death of traditional masculinity.
More so, Teddy finds himself at a crossroads when his roommate and best friend Pete (Dave Franco) is about to get hitched to his boyfriend (John Early). Teddy stopped being a model at Abercrombie & Fitch. Overall, the sequel was described as goofy, light on plot but heavy on silliness.
Parenting Lessons
Meanwhile, Magie Lange of GQ said labeled the sequel as one of the rare ones that turned out to be great. The conflict comes when a new set of a sorority, founded by Shelby (Chloe Grace Moretz) occupy the home next door. In protest of the Greek system, which doesn't allow sorority groups to openly have parties in their houses, Shelby teams up with Teddy to create their own party.
NPR provided a rare insight on the whole fraternity thing to protect your kids when they get to college. In real life, the National Panhellenic Conference prohibits U.S. sorority chapters from consuming alcohol in their own houses. In turn, the girls' plan to rent the house, which was occupied by Ted's fraternity before, for partying purposes may lower chances of campus rape if applied in the real setting.
However, this could mean disaster to Mac and Kelly who has a little kid and one coming on the way. They are trying to put up their house for sale and so they need to keep the commotions next door to a minimum until they close the sale.
Now the couple sees the undisciplined girls and imagines their own daughters to be like them later on. So what are you going to do? "Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising" opened in theaters on May 20.
A couple from Northern California were told that their toddler was brain-dead, but as many parents would do, they refuse to give up their son. While the court has rejected their appeal to keep the 2-year-old on life support, they see a renewed hope after a woman in the Bay Area turned out to be alive despite being proclaimed braid-dead nine years ago.
The Case of Stinson Family
Israel Stinson, 2, was brought to the hospital in April to be treated for asthma. He suffered cardiac arrest and was later declared brain-dead, CBS News reported. Two hospitals have the same diagnosis and repeated neurological exams have shown the same results. Israel's parents have been fighting in the courts to restrain the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Roseville from removing the little boy's life support. The lower courts have denied their petition and the restraining order is expiring on Friday. They are hoping that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals would hear their plea or that they would find another hospital that will accept their child.
Meshkin's Family Gives Stinsons Hope
Anahita Meshkin, 29, was pronounced brain-dead in 2007, but her father Mohammad kept fighting for her. As it turned out, the John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek mistakenly declared Anahita as brain-dead, New York Daily News reported.
Based on the diagnosis of two UC San Francisco School of Medicine neurologists and professors, Anahita "did not meet the clinical criteria for brain death." The woman remains in comatose after a seizure while she was suffering from anorexia.
The case of Meshkins is where the Stinsons draw their strength to keep fighting for their toddler. "It does make me hopeful, but it's still frustrating, that they haven't declared my son alive," Israel's mom Jonee told CBS News.
Have you ever heard or read about cryptic pregnancies? Or women who didn't know they're pregnant until they've given birth? Well, experts said this pregnancy case is more common that people think, noting a television show titled, "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant," has been dedicated to women who experience cryptic pregnancies.
What Is Cryptic Pregnancy?
Cryptic pregnancy aka pregnancy denial is a type of gestation where there is little or no detectable hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin), a hormone produced by the embryo during pregnancy, in the mother's system. In this case, the fetus may go undetected by mother and doctors, up until childbirth.
Despite the fact the medical community has refused to recognize the existence of cryptic pregnancies, these cases are reportedly not rare. According to Stuff, cryptic pregnancies are estimated to occur in roughly one in 2,500 cases, suggesting almost 320 cases in the United Kingdom every year.
Characteristics Of Cryptic Pregnancy
In cryptic pregnancies, women lack all awareness of being pregnant and signs and symptoms were described as "probable and presumptive" instead of diagnostic. But cryptic pregnancy is typically characterized by negative urine and blood pregnancy test, continued "period-like" bleeding, typical pregnancy symptoms and sometimes, negative ultrasounds.
A cryptically pregnant woman also continues to experience pregnancy symptoms like the sensation of fetal movement. Unfortunately, due to negative tests, continued periods, little or no symptoms and the fact that they were told they could not have children since they're on birth control or have had their tubes tied, women go through an entire pregnancy without prenatal care and without medical confirmation that they're pregnant, Cryptic Pregnancy Support Group & The Gilmour Foundation reveals.
What Causes Cryptic Pregnancy?
Cryptic pregnancies often occur in women who have hormonal imbalance like polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) or perimenopause aka menopausal transition, a condition when a woman's body is natural transitioning toward permanent infertility (menopause) and can start as early as age 90 and can go undetected. Cryptic pregnancies can also occur in women who have been recently pregnant.
In addition, female athletes are also vulnerable to cryptic pregnancies since they have very low body fat percentage, which causes a hormonal imbalance. Women who have recently used or currently using a birth control method that continually releases hormones into the body including Norplant, Deprovera Injection or the Mirena Coil, are also prone to cryptic pregnancies.
Are Cryptic Pregnancies Really Possible?
University of Sterling Midwifery Research professor Helen Cheyne recently explained how cryptic pregnancies are actually very possible. As per Cheyne, cryptic pregnancies are common but go undetectable since the signs of being pregnant can easily be dismissed as being a side effect of something else, Cosmopolitan reports.
Can cryptic pregnancies really happen? Sound off below and follow Parent Herald for more news and updates.
Conspiracy theories are starting to emerge amidst the mourning of parents, friends and family members of the passengers of the doomed EgyptAir Flight MS804. One conspiracy theory has bizarrely linked the recent plane crash to the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, after it was discovered that there was an 804-day difference between the two mysterious aviation accidents.
The Tales Of The Doomed EgyptAir Flight MS804 And The Missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370
On March 8, 2014, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 was en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, China with 239 people onboard when it vanished from radar. The air traffic control staff lost contact with it while flying over the South China Sea in Southeast Asia. Despite the comprehensive and expensive search, the mystery of the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 remained unsolved up to the present.
On May 19, 2016, another aviation accident shocked the world when EgyptAir Flight MS804 crashed with 56 passengers and 10 crew onboard. The ill-fated plane lost contact with radar hours after it left Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport in France for Cairo International Airport in Egypt.
Greek and Egyptian officials confirmed on Friday that debris of the doomed EgyptAir Flight MS804 and human body parts were found in the Mediterranean Sea. It was also announced that there is no hope for a survivor and that the reason behind the aviation accident is still unknown.
The Bizarre Link Between The Doomed EgyptAir Flight MS804 And The Missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370
Several conspiracy theories started to arise as the world grieved for the doomed EgyptAir Flight MS804. According to the Mirror, one conspiracy theory has attracted attention after it bizarrely linked the recent plane crash to the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370.
In an apparent coincidence, EgyptAir Flight MS804 crashed at exactly 804 days after the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 mysteriously disappeared. The doomed Egyptian aircraft carries the "804" aviation call sign or tail number.
What can you say about the bizarre link between the doomed EgyptAir Flight MS804 and the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370? Is this purely coincidence? Share your thoughts below.
College break was an eruptive experience for two brothers in Pennsylvania. The conniving siblings, who happen to be twins, spent their free time creating improvised explosive devices and setting them off around their hometown.
Caleb and Daniel Tate, both 22, have now been charged with arson by possession of explosive devices, arson by explosion, conspiracy and retail theft. Both will be subjected to a preliminary hearing on June 9.
Sinister Gimmick
According to Fox News, the Tate brothers allegedly bombed five locations in Chester and Lancaster counties. Their targets included an Amish phone shed, an Amish produce shed, a mailbox, a wooded area and a well pump shed.
"Improvised explosive devices are not harmless firecrackers," said Essam Rabadi, the special agent-in-charge of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "They are dangerous, destructive and can be very deadly."
Fortunately, the bombings did not result in a single death. Police said the target zones remained mostly unoccupied during the Tates' 11-day bombing spree. Forensic investigation found that the IEDs went off early in the morning.
'We live in a world where the thought of bombs exploding around us is a very real fear,' Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan told Daily Mail. "These defendants brought that fear to our region during a two-week crime spree where they detonated multiple IEDs."
Other Crimes
The Tates were also booked for retail theft. The brothers allegedly stole common hardware materials like fuel containers, propane canisters and metal tubes to create the IEDs. The items were said to be stolen from Walmart and other convenience stores. However, not all materials were illegally picked up as some of them were bought with Daniel's credit card.
Authorities revealed that this wasn't the first time the brothers had a scuffle with the law. Court records showed that the Tates have already been charged with prowling at night, loitering and criminal mischief back in 2014.
New York resident Trudy Murdock is trending the new 20 as a fresh college graduate from Rockland Community College at 81. To hear Trudy Murdock talk, age never daunted her from fulfilling her lifelong dream to become a college graduate.
Obstacles To Her College Degree
6 ABC reports that Trudy Murdock had to deprioritize graduating from college for most of her life. At the 15, Trudy Murdock became the family's breadwinner as a bank worker.
Come her late 30s, Trudy Murdock attempted to pursue a college degree in nursing. However, Trudy Murdock had to skip a college degree once again to take care of her sick mother.
At that time, Trudy Murdock also had to look after three children besides working a full-time job. Not much room, or time, was left for Trudy Murdock and her college degree plans.
A College Freshman At 77
The upside of Trudy Murdock going to college late in life is being able to be independent of student loans. Trudy Murdock told Michelle Charlesworth of WABC-TV that she paid for her classes in cash.
Speaking of how she overcame any stigma attached to being more mature than most of her classmates, Trudy Murdock spoke about believing that a person is never too old to learn.
After years of happy marriage to husband John, Trudy Murdock finally enrolled at the Rockland Community College at the age of 77. According to the local celebrity, she saw that all her young classmates had backpacks and were busy texting on their phones.
To fit in, the persevering grandma took out her own phone and texted her granddaughter. In fact, Trudy Murdock uses FitBit and targets 6,000 steps per day.
Finally A College Graduate
Rockland Community College president Cliff L. Wood believes that Trudy Murdock's presence was a benefit to her classmates. According to Cliff Wood, her college classmates were curious and interested to hear Trudy Murdock's opinions, especially because hers differ from theirs.
Trudy Murdock has one advice to give. "Hold on to your sense of wonder," she said. "I'm interested in things; I don't go someplace and not pay attention to what's around me.
In fact, Trudy Murdock is not the oldest college graduate in America. USA Today reports that DoreethaDaniels became a college graduate at the age of 99.
When you thought that cancer is your worst nightmare, a new report says that superbugs or antibiotic-resistant bacteria may exceed the number of deaths come 2050. The annual report petitioned by the British government suggests that superbugs may kill someone every three seconds worldwide.
Deadly Superbugs
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria or superbugs have become a growing problem that only a few are aware of as stated by the World Health Organization (WHO). Therefore, the United Kingdom government headed by British economist Jim O'Neil commissioned a report that will reveal how grave the impact of superbugs to global health, CBS News reported.
The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance reported 50,000 lives lost each year to antibiotic-resistant infections in the United States and Europe alone. Worldwide, at least 700,000 people die each year due to drug-resistant illnesses that include tuberculosis and MRSA.
After 19 months of consultation and eight commissioned studies, the final recommendations have been released. If not addressed, superbugs can kill 10 million people a year worldwide, surpassing the death rate caused by cancer, road accidents and diabetes respectively, Grist added.
Superbugs will "kill someone every three seconds" by 2050 unless action takenhttps://t.co/27rHOFmBqj #bbcgofigure pic.twitter.com/HwI4ea5rit BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 19, 2016
The Cause of Increased Resistance
A clear cause in the increase rate of superbugs is the overuse of antimicrobials drugs. More so, there's the tendency to overprescribe, treating antimicrobials like "sweets," said O'Neil.
"We need to inform in different ways, all over the world, why it's crucial we stop treating our antibiotics like sweets," O'Neill, who in 2015 was appointed to the British House of Lords, Fox News quoted. "If we don't solve the problem we are heading to the dark ages, we will have a lot of people dying."
The problem is compounded by the use of antimicrobials in animal agriculture. By 2030, the use of antimicrobials will increase by two-thirds in developing countries. On the bright side, United States has seen a decline in the use of antibiotics in agriculture.
Recommendations
The report proposed global awareness campaign, encouraging pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs and most importantly, cutting recommendations for antibiotics and the use of it in agriculture. The report also suggests that government in developing countries should give emphasis to clean water and sanitation. "The less people get infected, the less they need to use medicines such as antibiotics, and the less drug resistance arises," the report recommends.
What do you think of these findings? Hit us up with your comments. To know more about superbugs, check out the video below:
Missives? Anyway.
The Duke of Burgundy: Lush flick about two butterfly researchers and their dominance/submission relationship. Some early scenes made me wonder if this would be about attention as submissionthe submissive gaze, the gaze of service, as the gaze which most truly knows its objectand Id super still want to watch that movie, but that definitely is not what this is. Then later when the twist is revealed I was like, Ugh, I hope this isnt just going to be a movie-length version of that joke about the masochist who says, Beat me! and the sadist who says, No!'
It isnt that eitheror at least, its a poignant, rueful version of that joke. This is a story about the scripts we write for our relationships, the scripts we ultimately need to surrender if we want to love another person instead of using the fantasy version of her in our heads. Theres a lot of gentle humorthe research assistant hissing her safeword in increasingly-indignant tones!and a golden, autumnal atmosphere that suggests that every lasting relationship is a long defeat. A long surrender of our own expectations.
Cant recommend as this is semi-pornographic, but I got a lot out of it. Reminded me of some of Rebecca Browns stories in The Terrible Girls.
Nadja: Mid-90s b&w artsy bisexual vampire movie that feels 80s in both its hairstyles and its sexual politics. When you put it like that youd think Id love it, right? I couldnt do it, though. Idk, maybe I just didnt get it, but this seemed pretentious and kind of pointless. Like, remember how I said The Addiction was a lot smarter and harder than it seemed on its overblown surface? This is not that.
Scotland, PA: Macbeth if it were set in rural Pennsylvania among 1970s fast-food entrepreneurs. I enjoyed this well enough but Im not sure what it did other than that sentence I just typed, you know? What is this other than its elevator pitch?
It really is fun to watch, though. Loved the clothes (especially Mrs Ms stained-glass outfit and her woods-to-Dunsinane one) and the wiggy witches.
And in fairness I liked how this film made the Macbeths arguments feel really normal, like, these are things every married couple has argued about, why dont you try harder at work? Do I have to do everything around here? Why do bad things you did make you so weird and sad? Why do we seem to grow further apart the more people we murder together?
Street Fight: Short documentary about Cory Bookers first campaign for mayor of Newark.
Two layers of outsider pov: the filmmaker, Marshall Curry, is some white random who clearly sees Newark as generic low-incomeville, a sociological case study. Booker himself is a suburbanite (and a Yalie!, if the law school counts) and pretty much the whole election is about how he is Not One of Us. Man, people flat-out use the word carpetbagger multiple times in this film, which I didnt know still happened.
And I felt them, honestly. The filmmaker doesnt get it at all, but theres a rally where the corrupt incumbent, Sharpe James, tells the crowd, Weve been here through good times and bad times, and we gonna stay here in improved times! We aint going nowhere! And we dont need any carpetbaggers! Get out! And I couldnt help thinking, Yes. Everybody nowadays is all oh rich Washington, oh DC needs to be poorer and where the Hell were these people when we were prostrate? If you didnt love DC as the murder rate soared and the population fell, if you didnt live here between the King riots and the Mount Pleasant riots, then you can go on home, we dont want any.
Meanwhile a woman leans out her window to ask Booker, De donde eres? and his staff replies, Americano!
One of Jamess supporters: We dont want nobody practicing on Newark.
The filmmakers voiceover: Cory is a vegetarian who doesnt drink or smoke. I mean I too am a self-parody but yall.
But no, all of that stuff is unfair posturing in the end. Sharpe James and his minions race-bait and fling insultsand send government goons out to harass, fine, and close down small businesses whose owners support Booker. They massively abuse their power in order to suppress black peoples votes and then hide behind Al Sharptons skirts.
In a way Im glad Curry is such a man without a hometown? because thats probably the only way to make me sympathize with Sharpe James. But then also other local reporters take [Curry] aside and tell [him] to be careful. So even though our narrator kind of is just practicing on Newark, he still has to share some of its dangers, and that is worthy of respect.
Hes totally uninterested in policy. In the interview thats one of the DVD special features he flat-out says he decided not to focus on education policy or gang initiatives or anything like that because it would have made the film a little too local! Forgive others their self-parody as ye have been forgiven yours. He wanted to tell stories about democracy (valid, the voter-intimidation stuff is intense) and *~*what it means to be black in America*~*~ (a super played story we have all heard a million times). I would have liked to know more about what has actually worked in Newark.
For me, because of who I am, the most interesting stuff in the movie is about Booker as a person. He lives in a tough housing development; he was raised by parents who were active in the civil rights movement, and pressured him to carry on the struggle. He clearly feels the obligation youre born into, the inescapable responsibility to a community which will never really see you as one of their own. I related to that really strongly on multiple levels. Kind of wish wed gotten below Bookers plaster-saint surface here. Hes a cipher. Not that I want political documentaries to be gory spelunking in the psyche but I couldve used more about where, and whether, Booker felt at home.
Captain America: Civil War. I more or less enjoyed Iron Man 4! No, what an overstuffed movie, you guys, but Iron Man is a mess and thats always great to watch. I like that in the terrific Congressional-hearing scene from IM(2? 3?) he was all, I do what I want, kiss my shiny metal ass and we cheered, and in this movie he has realized that he is a totally untrustworthy human being and is flailing around frantically for somebody to be accountable to. Note to self, do not take the United Nations as your higher power.
Best things for me: Natasha and Rhodey making actual valid arguments; Natasha and Rhodey in general; everything Tony Stark says to Gen. Ross but especially Thank you, sir as a way of trying to keep things from getting even worse; Captain America being all, Who can we trust more than ourselves? and Stark being like, Yeah no, were done here.
Eh, I cant say more for it than that, but I would watch this again if I were at a party and it was playing and my friends were into it, but also, like Tony Stark I make bad choices, so dont trust me on this.
From the National Catholic Reporter, Kentucky archdiocese nixes Supreme Court design on gay couples gravestone:
Greg Bourke and Michael De Leon were among the plaintiffs in Obergefell v. Hodges, the historic 2015 U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled same-sex marriage is constitutional nationwide. As the two recently planned their funeral arrangements, they submitted in October a headstone design to Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Louisville that included a depiction of the U.S. Supreme Court Building, along with two linking rings and a cross. . . .
On Monday, a Louisville TV station reported that the rings and SCOTUS building inscriptions were rejected by Catholic Cemeteries. . . .
In a letter dated March 30, published by WDRB-TV, Javier Fajardo, executive director of Catholic Cemeteries, explained that gravestone inscriptions are permitted so long as they do not conflict with any teachings of the Church. Your markings are not keeping with this requirement. . . .
Bourke and De Leon have accused the archdiocese of discrimination. At a Freedom to Bury press conference Wednesday organized by Catholics for Fairness, an extension of the LGBT-focued Fairness Campaign, Bourke said the decision to reject their headstone design feels like deliberate retaliation against our family.
Patna: Denying he had been missing in action since he was elected MP in the last Lok Sabha elections, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Shatrughan Sinha said that there were people within his own party who felt threatened by his stature and popularity and thus were spreading false information about him.
"I have been visiting Patna on a regular basis and have been talking to people in my constituency about their problems and based on that, I have taken measures to alleviate their complaints," the BJP leader said.
Sinha also warned his own party leaders not to take the opponents lightly saying if the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Janata Dal U chose to unite, it could create some serious problems for the BJP.
"Both Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav are quite popular and enjoy support of their base. It would be foolish to take them lightly as it would not be an easy task for the BJP to come into power following the state elections to be held later this year," he said.
The actor-turned-politician stressed the need for a 'captain' in Bihar BJP saying the party needed a leader who was unblemished in all respects and also had the mass appeal among the voters.
Refuting the rumors that he was in the race for the Chief Minister's post in Bihar, Sinha said that if the party entrusted him to lead Bihar, he was ready to take on the responsibility.
Microsoft really, really wants to get your feedback. Not content to merely periodically ask you for your thoughts on Windows 10, the company has released its Feedback Hub to all Windows 10 users, not just Windows Insider testers.
This news comes our way from the French-language blog Thewindose (via WinBeta), which first noticed the Feedback Hub app on the store. Originally built for Windows Insider users, the Feedback Hub app lets you report bugs to Microsoft, as well as offer suggestions for making Windows 10 better.
Feedback Hub on the Windows Store.
Its a free download, and you can get it right now from the Windows Store.
The story behind the story: User feedback has played a big role in Windows 10s development from the very beginning. For instance, many of the changes Microsoft made between Windows 8.1 and Windows 10such as the triumphant return of the traditional desktop-focused interface and a proper Start menuwere the result of users general dislike for Windows 8s decidedly disjointed interface.
Windows Feedback vs. Feedback Hub
The company already includes a Windows Feedback app with general releases of Windows 10 in order to solicit feedback from all users (Windows 10 will also ask you to provide feedback from time to time). Despite their similar nature, the two apps serve rather different purposes.
Windows Feedback is a little like Reddit for feedback: You can submit your own idea or suggestion to Microsoft, which will acknowledge that it received it, and you can upvote and comment on ideas from other users, too.
Feedback Hub does all that, but it also provides news on the Windows Insider program, lets you rate Windows 10 builds overall, and lets you complete feedback quests and earn badges, according to the description on the Windows Store. Windows Central notes, however, that certain features remain exclusive to Windows Insider users.
I havent yet been able to get the Feedback Hub to work properly, and some users have mentioned encountering bugs, but its received generally positive user ratings so far on the Windows Store. Have you tried it? Will it get you to submit feedback to Microsoft? Sound off in the comments.
Disclosure: The author of this article provides copywriting services to TechSoup, a nonprofit organization that works with Microsoft and many other technology companies to provide nonprofits with technology products and services. His role at TechSoup does not influence his work for this publication.
Riversides earliest place names are easy to figure out.
Theres Riverside, of course, the town by the side of the river. We also have Jurupa and La Sierra, both honoring the nearby Mexican ranchos of their respective names.
However, when one delves into the earliest history of Riverside, one comes across the name of Arlington, associated with the southern portions of the Riverside area. I had always wondered where that name came from and why it was appended to that section.
I may have stumbled onto at least a plausible answer.
The name may come from a fad prevalent after the Civil War of naming or renaming places for Arlington National Cemetery. The cemetery takes its name from Arlington House, which was built by George Washington Parke Custis (a son of Martha Washington by a previous marriage) and later owned by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
The Arlington House plantation was confiscated during the Civil War. Union Gen. Montgomery Meigs, who commanded a garrison on the plantation, commandeered the entire holdings for use as a military cemetery in 1864.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, the worst conflagration ever seen until that time, many people sought permanent memorials as a way of honoring the veterans of that war and the many thousands of men who never returned.
One main focus of attention for remembrances of those who died in the Civil War was Arlington National Cemetery. During the period of roughly 1867 to 1900, the Arlington name was affixed to many places.
According to Sara Lundberg of the Arlington (Mass.) Historical Society, the residents of West Cambridge, Mass., voted to rename their town Arlington in 1867 to honor the fallen soldiers. Similarly, parks, streets and other institutions throughout the country, especially in former Union states or areas with large northern populations, soon bore the Arlington name. (It should be noted that the town of Arlington, Texas, was named for the Arlington House, not Arlington National Cemetery.)
Riversides earliest settlers were almost exclusively people who shared John W. Norths ideas of Republican politics, abolitionist ideals and Methodist religion. Many early settlers had fought for the Union and had settled on various Riverside lands one of whom was Henry Hughes, a Civil War officer for whom Hughes Alley in Arlington is named. As more and more people settled in Riversides southern areas, a move was afoot to give the area its own name. According to early Riverside chronicler Robert Hornbeck, a meeting took place in 1877 in which a list of names was considered. The name of Arlington quickly rose to the top and was adopted.
Given Riversides early settlers, the fact that it was custom at the time to name places throughout the country for Arlington National Cemetery and that there were still deep feelings about the Civil War only 12 years after its end, I believe it can safely be assumed that the naming of Arlington in Riverside is a direct response to all three factors.
It seems to be the logical explanation for the name. However, if readers have additional or different information, Id welcome hearing from them.
Thanks to Ruth McCormack, Jennifer Mermilliod, Kevin Hallaran and Rob Istik for their help, guidance and information for this article.
If you have an idea for a future Back in the Day column about a local historic person, place or event, contact Steve Lech and Kim Jarrell Johnson at backinthedaype@gmail.com.
Beaumont certainly marched to the beat of its own drummer. You can say that without hesitation.
With Alan Kapanicas as city manager and three principals of a consulting company as department heads, the San Gorgonio Pass town of 11,000 quadrupled in population between 2000 and 2015 by using unconventional strategies. According to prosecutors:
Virtually the entire city was turned into a special-tax district, saddling homebuyers with hundreds of millions of dollars in bond debt.
Top administrators didnt work for the city; they worked for their own private companies, enabling them to pay themselves.
The city collected a regional transportation fee but didnt turn the money over to the regional transportation agency, as other cities did, instead keeping it for its own use.
The city used a private company and the citys sales tax permit to gin up extra tax from sales that really took place outside city limits.
And city funds were used to give police officers interest-free loans against earned time off without paying taxes on the money.
Those tactics now have the men who are charged with engineering them in hot water.
Kapanicas, former Finance Director William Aylward, former Urban Logic Consultants principals Ernest Egger, David Dillon and Deepak Moorjani, and former City Attorney Joseph Aklufi have been charged with public corruption.
Prosecutors accuse them of lining their own pockets by exploiting their positions of trust as public officials.
Former Police Chief Frank Coe Jr. is accused of conspiring with Kapanicas and Aylward to give himself and nine other city police officers loans of city funds, without the approval or knowledge of the City Council.
Kapanicas and Aylward, if convicted, face up to 26 years in prison. Dillon, Egger and Moorjani, if convicted, face up to 16 years; Aklufi, 15 years; Coe, five years.
I cannot recall another public corruption case in Inland Southern California where the former city attorney and former police chief are among the accused.
How did the city get embroiled in such a mess?
I think former Councilman David Castaldo hit the nail on the head when he told The Press-Enterprise the day of the arrests that council members have to rely on the advice of their city attorneys, and that advice sometimes may be wrong. (He could have added the advice of top staff.)
Just how wrong was Beaumont, under its former regime?
That has already been litigated, in the matter of the Transportation Uniform Mitigation Fee.
A judge ruled that Beaumont had no right to keep the TUMF money it collected; he ordered the city to pay the Western Riverside Council of Governments $42.9 million plus $14.8 million back interest.
Before the April 2015 FBI/DA raid on City Hall, Kapanicas home and Urban Logics offices, the council decided to appeal the judgment.
In light of the criminal charges against the schemes architects, wouldnt it make sense to drop its appeal and work out a payment plan?
Most of the people responsible for the bad decision have left the building. Its hard to imagine why the current regime, which is trying to straighten out the mess, should continue paying for an appeal the city will no doubt lose.
The sales tax scheme was another unique approach, one that Ive never seen tried by any other city government.
Kapanicas and Aylward are accused of using $6 million in city funds to buy electrical and other wholesale products so that a private company, Beaumont Electric, could sell them back to the city so they city could reap sales tax revenue.
The city netted about $62,000 in extra sales tax during that little experiment.
Kapanicas and Aylward are charged with 18 felony counts of misusing public funds and one misdemeanor count of violating the Revenue & Tax Code related to the scheme. (People are always being told to think outside the box, but this one went too far.)
According to prosecutors, the special tax district covering most of the city enabled Urban Logic to pocket a share of the proceeds every time the city issued bonds. Prosecutors said the company principals signed over the money, so the council never knew.
Councilman Lloyd White, who took office in 2014 when many of the old guard were swept out, said hes frustrated Beaumont has gotten no response from the state Attorney Generals office to its request for help getting documents from Union Bank on the bond work.
I called the Attorney Generals press office and heard back from Press Secretary Rachele Huennekens. She said the office is still reviewing the matter in consultation with other agencies that may have relevant authority.
I assume she means federal agencies that oversee banks and bond issuance.
District Attorney Mike Hestrin said this investigation resulted in charges fairly quickly, a little more than a year after the April 2015 raid. But he acknowledged Beaumont residents and officials would like faster closure.
Based on the web of unconventional strategies outlined above, I doubt a fast conclusion is in the cards.
Contact the writer: 951-368-9470 or cmacduff@pressenterprise.com
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It has been a while since San Bernardinos City Hall has been filled with treasure.
The struggling city, in fact, has been known in recent years for not having enough money to pay its bills.
The wealth of objects that filled the lobby of the city center wont square any financial accounts, but it did draw about 200 visitors on Thursday for Art Night, a collaborative effort between the city and local schools, including San Bernardino Valley College and Cal State San Bernardino.
Rebecca Ward was point person for the Valley College component. She said she spent three months working with city officials to help organize the event.
Ward, 28, of San Bernardino is a business student at Valley College. She already has a bachelors degree in music education and is an assistant to Matie Manning Scully, who heads the music department. The schools choir performed at the event, and there was a short segment of operatic arias and other musical performances by student groups.
In addition, there were displays of artwork, both two- and three-dimensional, not only by painting and sculpture students, but also those studying architecture and welding.
Nearby, in the Guatemalan Consulate, there was a photo exhibit and poster displays by Cal State San Bernardino students. There also was a film presentation by Cal State in a room in the Vanir Tower.
Ward said the event was a chance for students to get some exposure.
It gives the students an opportunity to show what theyve been working on, she said. Most of the time, they only get to show at school, and nobody knows they exist.
Among the pieces on display were glass sculptures, including a reproduction of the Star Trek Enterprise spaceship, and a striking organic tangle of colored tubes and spheres. On one table were two life-sized heads that looked as if they had come out of a comic book.
Timothy Martinez, 26, of San Bernardino said he sculpted the heads from clay. They are based on figures he has been drawing since he was in high school, he said.
A bat-eared, wolflike creature with welding goggles on its forehead sat next to a high-cheeked female bust with colorful makeup and a jeweled headdress.
Until recently, Martinez said, he had never lifted any of his characters off the page.
Ive been doing these characters for so long, I wanted to sculpt them, he said.
He said he feels like hes getting the help and guidance he needs at the local college. His art instructor encouraged him to create the pieces, he said, as part of a portfolio hes compiling to apply to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Martinez said he is also considering creating a graphic novel, with these and other characters he has created.
Eventually, I would love to be a creature designer for WETA Workshop, he said, referring to the special effects company that helped create the Lord of the Rings films.
Judy Zak, who teaches architecture and environmental design, said she was glad her students were included in the show. She was standing in front of a table with drawings of architects and buildings, along with three-dimensional models.
Architecture definitely has an artistic component, she said. We are definitely looking forward to future events and opportunities.
In a short introductory address, Mayor Carey Davis said he hopes the event will become an annual affair.
Ward said she, too, would like to see that happen.
This is a cool thing for the community, she said.
TRANSFORMATION MONEY
Riverside Community College District received a sizable chunk of $60 million that was doled out to 43 community colleges across the state for programs designed to improve success and transfer rates.
All three of the districts colleges Norco, Moreno Valley and Riverside City received Basic Skills and Student Outcome Transformation grants of nearly $1.5 million for a total of $4.4 million.
The funds will focus on programs that help remedial students meet English and math requirements that will help them transfer to four-year universities. The funds come from Proposition 98, a mandatory education spending law passed in 1988.
Contact the writer: 951-368-9595 or mmuckenfuss@pressenterprise.com
Nine Beaumont police officers took advantage of the same interest-free loan offer that resulted in their police chief being charged with misappropriation of public funds, but those officers will not be prosecuted, Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said.
Between 2010 and 2013, Beaumonts then-city finance director and city manager signed off on loans totaling $113,773 without the authorization of the City Council as required by law, according to a declaration written to obtain the arrest warrant for former Police Chief Francis Dennis Frank Coe Jr. The loans were secured by the officers sick pay.
The unauthorized loans constituted a gift of public funds, according to Michael Gavin, a senior investigator in the DAs office who wrote the declaration. Coe has not yet entered pleas to two counts of misappropriation and one count of conspiracy.
Extra monetary assistance for police officers is not unheard of, said Jim Bueermann, the former Redlands police chief who heads the Police Foundation, a Washington D.C.-based organization that promotes better policing.
Retention bonuses, cash incentives for transferring from another department, tuition assistance and home-purchasing down payment loans are available from some agencies. Those loans can even be forgiven if the officer remains with the department long enough.
But those things are all approved by city councils and are done in a transparent way, Bueermann added.
Hestrin would not reveal why he believes Coes actions amounted to a crime, whereas the other officers did not. That will come out in court, Hestrin said.
The loans were available to any city employee with enough sick time banked, Gavin wrote, but only officers took out the loans. All loans have been repaid, he added.
In May 2010, according to the declaration, Coe approached William Aylward, the finance director, and told him that he needed a loan but did not want to cash out his sick/vacation time as city employees were allowed to do because he did not want to pay taxes on the money received. Aylward allowed Coe to have a $20,000 loan backed by sick time as collateral. Aylward took the plan to then-City Manager Alan Kapanicas, and Kapanicas agreed.
The money was paid back with monthly payroll deductions. When the money was given, the sick time was taken away. As the money was paid back, the sick time was put back on the employees records, Gavin wrote.
The city does not have records of anyone receiving one of these loans before Coe, Gavin wrote. Mayor Mike Lara said in an interview Friday that the city did not have an employee loan program before the arrests and does not have one now.
Coes 2010 loan documents are signed by himself and Aylward. Coe took a second loan, of $25,000, in November 2012. Those loan documents were signed by Coe, Kapanicas, and Aylward, according to Gavin.
The nine other loans, all less than $25,000, were given between January 2011 and August 2013, Gavin wrote.
Kapanicas and Aylward were both charged with misappropriation of public funds. They have not entered pleas.
Kari Mendoza, the citys administrative services director, said Friday that none of the officers has been disciplined by the city over the loans. Some of the officers have since left the city, she said, for reasons unrelated to the investigation.
The officers have not been publicly identified. Mendoza said she was waiting on direction from the DAs office before responding to a public records request from a reporter seeking the names of the officers and the amounts and other terms of the loans.
Sean Thuilliez, the current police chief, did not respond to multiple phone messages from a reporter seeking comment.
At the City Council meeting on Tuesday, hours after the seven former city leaders were arrested, Lara said publicly that the council remains committed to transparency and accountability.
Lara theorized Friday that Thuilliez might not have responded to the messages because of uncertainty over what can be discussed publicly due to the ongoing DAs investigation.
The City Council has been working very closely with the interim city manager to make sure that information we are legally allowed to post could be posted to the city website, Lara said. The citizens will know what we know, or what they are legally allowed to know.
Contact the writer: brokos@pressenterprise.com or 951-368-9569
BACKGROUND
City Hall, consulting firm, city managers house searched
Union Bank provides records in spending probe
How Beaumont is untangling its financial mess
Complete Beaumont corruption case coverage
It hurt.
Bell native Alicia Romero said hearing her hometown being branded one of the most corrupt cities in America was devastating.
Were so much better than that, she thought in 2010, after the disclosure that the then-city manager was receiving a 7-figure compensation package in this blue-collar town with fewer than 40,000 residents.
Today, Romero serves as mayor of the little community along the Los Angeles River, southeast of downtown L.A. And while Bell has yet to fully repair its tarnished image, it is financially sound after coming to the brink of bankruptcy, Romero said.
Current city manager Howard W. Brown, Jr. said in a phone interview Friday that Bell, with a $26 million budget, has since built up a reserve of $18 million.
Bell has bounced back very impressively, said Douglas Johnson, a fellow with the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College who has studied municipal scandals.
Johnson said Bells experience as well as the comeback trails trod by scandal-scarred San Jacinto and Pasadena should offer hope to beleaguered Beaumont residents and city employees stung by last weeks flurry of arrests and criminal charges accusing seven former administrators of misappropriating nearly $43 million from the fast-growing city over two decades.
Its shocking and saddening to see things like this continue to pop up, Johnson said.
But its not surprising.
Unfortunately, this happens time and time again, and usually in the smaller cities, Johnson said. The larger cities have more people watching what the council does in part because they have more people and in part because they have a higher profile.
When TV news directors are deciding what to cover, they might send a camera to L.A. City Hall. But theyre not going to send one to Bell City Hall or Beaumont City Hall, he said.
Former Bell City Manager Robert Rizzos scheme, though, was discovered eventually. And the revelation triggered a cascade of events that appear to have put Bell on a strong footing financially and ethically, Johnson said.
Bell has set an example by prominently featuring a transparency selection option on its website, enabling surfers to quickly call up audits, economic-interest reports of council members and monthly salaries of city employees.
Other cities stung by recent scandals have managed to emerge stronger, too, Johnson said.
In short, there is life after corruption.
PUBLIC TRUST
The cure is anything but immediate, though. While some in Bell wanted faster results, Romero said it took a few years to work through deeply entrenched problems, and even longer to restore public confidence.
San Jacinto, a Riverside County city rocked in 2009 by a bribery and money-laundering scandal involving council members and developers, is still laboring to restore that confidence, said San Jacinto City Manager Tim Hults.
While the publics lack of trust here in San Jacinto has waned, it is still evident, Hults said in an email. It will take a long time for this community as well as Beaumont to win back the publics trust.
Romero likened the process to the recovery of a person who suffered a serious injury.
Its sort of like a trauma victim in the ER, she said. Basically, you have to stop the bleeding, then do the surgery, and then do the physical therapy.
So her advice for Beaumont is this: Hunker down. Justice is slow.
EMOTIONALLY CHARGED
Recovery is slow in part, said Pasadena Mayor Terry Tornek, because scandals hurt most close to home.
In 2014, the city best known for the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl game became embroiled in scandal after a city analyst was accused of embezzling $6 million.
Its one thing to rail at abuses in Sacramento or Washington, D.C., Tornek said. But its another when corruption is down the street.
Were all neighbors here, right? So when you begin to have concerns about what is happening in your hometown, its a big deal, he said. When you start talking about hometown stuff, its emotionally charged.
In San Jacinto, emotions were so raw when corruption came to light that residents cried, Close city hall, clean house, fire everybody, said Mayor Andrew Kotyuk.
Elected in 2010 following a recall of implicated council members, Kotyuk said he believed the scandal did not extend to full-time staff. But he and colleagues ordered a forensic audit by an outside firm, anyway, to investigate that possibility and clear the air. Ultimately, the audit concluded no city employees were involved.
We spent a fair amount of time digging in as deep as we could to see if there was any involvement, he said. We thought that it was paramount to go through that, even though we couldnt see anything.
VOLCANO ERUPTED
Similarly, Pasadena launched an exhaustive investigation, Tornek said, to determine if a former management analyst in the Public Works Department accused of embezzling $6 million had help from other city employees. The city concluded he didnt.
This was one guy a charismatic guy at that who found an obscure fund and found a sort of theme and found out how to scam the system, Tornek said.
The fund in question was an account that pays for burying electric wires underground.
In Bell, Romero said audits were required to come to grips with the citys finances following the chaos.
Then there was the litigation. When Romero was elected to the Bell City Council three years ago, no fewer than 60 scandal lawsuits were pending, she said.
The volcano erupted, Romero said.
And, of course, when a community gets burned by corruption, its not just the residents who react. In this instant information-on-demand age, other public officials take note.
BACK TO SLEEP
Inevitably, relationships on multi-agency boards that address daunting regional challenges such as transportation take a hit.
Kotyuk said he saw that firsthand as he took his seat on a regional board. You could tell some people were standoffish, he said.
Riverside County is pretty tightknit, Kotyuk said, and San Jacinto officials have had to work hard to restore the trust of counterparts from other communities.
Perhaps the biggest lesson of all is a whole bunch of people must work hard to prevent the next scandal.
Beaumont now needs the community to get fired up, interested and engaged, Johnson, the Claremont McKenna fellow, said.
And the engagement needs to continue long after the anger subsides, Johnson said.
Its very easy for a city to go from a crisis and awakening to back to sleep, he said. And if they do that, they are at risk of another crisis.
A DIFFERENT BELL
Its important for elected officials to ask questions, too lots of questions, Romero said.
And Pasadenas Tornek said its crucial for councils to enlist help from accountants and other professionals to make sure the right questions are asked.
Youve got to have lots of eyes, he said. And youve got to have expertise.
One things for sure: As many eyes are on Beaumont now, many have focused on Bell in recent years. And Bells mayor believes her city is better for it.
We are a success story. We have recovered, Romero said. We want to be known now as a city that is not going to be defined by that scandal in the past.
Brown, the new city manager who was recruited in a nationwide search, said Bell isnt defined by scandal.
After formerly managing a city in Oklahoma, Brown took over the helm Jan. 4.
I looked at it. I prayed about it. I just thought it was a good fit, Brown said.
I know a different Bell. I know a Bell of honesty and hard-working people.
Contact the writer: 951-368-9699 or ddowney@pressenterprise.com
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Selfie sticks are showing up in an odd place the county elections office.
As part of an effort to drum up excitement about voting in Californias June7 primary, those who cast early ballots at the Elections Office of the Registrar of Voters in San Bernardino County are turning their cellphones on themselves.
Between now and Election Day, early voters can take a ballot selfie with an unmarked ballot in a special booth. Theyre then urged to share the photo via social media.
Theres still time for San Bernardino County residents to use their selfie stick, slap on their I Voted sticker and smile.
Early voting continues at the San Bernardino office, 777 E. Rialto Ave., from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays and on June 4. On June 7, polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Riverside County hasnt mounted a selfie campaign, but officials are inviting voters to hit the polls.
Voting is at the Riverside County Registrar of Voters, 2724 Gateway Drive, Riverside, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays through June 6. On Saturday and June 4, voting is set for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. On June 7, polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Riverside County voters also can cast ballots Friday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at three malls: Galleria at Tyler, 1299 Galleria at Tyler, Riverside; The Promenade in Temecula, 40820 Winchester Road, Temecula; and Westfield Palm Desert, 72-840 Highway 111, Palm Desert.
Monday is the deadline to register to vote in the primary.
Contact the writer: community@pressenterprise.com
Some people never forget a face. I will never remember one.
This sentence, which begins the introduction in Tara Falls memoir, describes her challenging world.
Fall suffers from an unusual brain injury called prosopagnosia, or face blindness. She has no ability to recognize or remember people by their faces including her own. Even Falls two children look like strangers every day.
She remembers her two teenage daughters by the backpacks they wear or their familiar clothing. She recognizes others by unusual clothing, a hairstyle or how they maintain eye contact while talking.
Fall, 40, a former Menifee resident now living with her family in San Diego, spoke about her condition and how she copes at the Murrieta Public Library on Tuesday. She was the guest speaker at a meeting hosted by the Friends of the Murrieta Library and attended by 25 people.
Fall has given public talks in recent years to students and adults at schools and colleges across Riverside and San Diego counties, and she speaks at medical conferences. She spreads a message of optimism and hope and seeks to educate others about brain injuries.
Everyone is going to fall down, Fall said. Youre going to get up. Everyones going to face a challenge. Everyone has that moment of tragedy, but we all have strength.
Fall said she had epileptic seizures when she was younger, including a major one at 22 that caused amnesia and wiped out 18 months of memories. She couldnt remember her husband or their baby and toddler, and had to learn to walk and talk again. At 27, Fall suffered a stroke while undergoing brain surgery for her seizures. The part of her brain that controls the ability to remember faces was wiped out.
Fall, an Iowa native, also shared how she volunteers with the Iowa Neurological Patient Registry, coordinated by researchers at the University of Iowa. She returns to Iowa City each summer to work with researchers seeking to advance medical knowledge about how the brain works and the effects of brain injuries. There is no cure or treatments for prosopagnosia.
Fall tells her story in her self-published 2014 memoir, BrainStorming: Functional Lessons from a Dysfunctional Brain. The book details her experiences with epilepsy, face blindness and the stroke, her challenges and how she copes.
Contact the writer: community@pressenterprise.com
The massive piece of space history known as ET-94, flanked by utility crews, engineers and a police escort, set sail on the streets of Marina del Rey early today on its tedious commute to the California Science Center.
Fans lined Fiji Way as the pumpkin-orange, last flight-ready NASA space shuttle fuel tank crept out of the Fishermans Village parking lot where it was unloaded from a barge Wednesday after a monthlong voyage from Louisiana.
Onlookers cheered as it pulled onto the road at the stroke of midnight and rushed to take selfies with the tank, which is three stories tall on its side.
Crews along the #ETComesHome route have to move traffic lights out of the way of the tank and back after it passes pic.twitter.com/l6KmPwSdLV Samantha V Bush (@SamanthaMVB) May 21, 2016
This is the rocket we grew up with, said Matt Griessler, an avionics intern at Hawthorne-based SpaceX who watched it begin its road trip hitched to a truck bed engineered to move its front and back ends independently. Its what made us want to be engineers.
The 66,000-pound aluminum tank was on schedule at 9 a.m., entering the city of Inglewood to cruise down Arbor Vitae Street and Manchester Boulevard before heading north on Vermont Avenue. Pajama-clad gawkers trailed alongside the mammoth equipment as it eked around corners with precision.
Jason Nezvadovitz, who works with Griessler at SpaceX, said its just a bit bigger than the rockets hes used to seeing at the office.
Its really cool to see the last external tank, Nezvadovitz said. This doesnt actually make it to space. But being in space is one thing and getting there is another. This gets the shuttle to space.
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Turns on a dolly with 42 wheels were carefully engineered by a team from heavy-equipment mover Emmert International and made possible by utility crews that moved traffic signals, streetlights, street signs and overhead power lines out of the way of the 15-story-tall tank.
This is rarer than the shuttle, said William Andrews, who drove from Pasadena to see the tank take to the streets. Without this, you couldnt put the shuttle vertically and display it. I saw the first landing of Columbia and, as far as I can remember, I was into the space program.
ET-94 will meet the Endeavour space shuttle, obtained by the science museum in 2012, for an upright display together in launch position next to two rocket boosters once the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center is built in 2019. Until then, they will occupy adjacent displays.
The tanks $3 million move on a barge from Louisiana and through Los Angeles was largely funded by Lynda Oschin, who paid for much of the Endeavours trip as well and is sponsoring the building of a new science center wing for the display in honor of her husband, Samuel Oschin, who hoped to inspire generations of children to love science.
This is going to be a one-of-a-kind exhibition in the world, said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. A space shuttle with all the real flight hardware. The California Science Center put the space shuttle Endeavour on display back in 2012 after it made its historic journey through Los Angeles. Already, theyve had 8.5 million visitors.
Endeavours trip from Los Angeles International Airport to the California Science Center took three days because of its massive wingspan. Hundreds of trees were uprooted in Los Angeles and Inglewood to make way for the shuttle.
Inglewood Mayor James Butts said the shuttles trip through Inglewood was the first in a series of positive turns for the troubled city.
That happened right after the city got out from under the threat of declaring bankruptcy, Butts said. It was the first international event that brought prominence to the city of Inglewood in our resurgence. After that, we reopened the Forum. The Forum is now the No. 2 concert venue in the country. That, followed by the return of the L.A. Rams.
Then, here we go again, bringing ET back to sit alongside the Endeavour. I feel like one of the most blessed people in the world to be involved with so many historic events that people will marvel at for generations.
Inglewood cut down 128 trees to make way for Endeavour but none was removed for ET-94. Instead, about 70 trees were trimmed, said the citys chief superintendent Harry Frisby Jr.
The biggest issue on this one is the traffic signals, Frisby said. We have 29 traffic signal intersections where theyll have to be picked up and turned at a 90-degree angle. Were going to be doing that about two hours prior to the procession and then immediately reinstalling as soon as it passes through.
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Aisha Randhawa had no idea that the assembly Friday morning at Garretson Elementary in Corona was for her.
Today I would like to recognize a student who loves to learn and who is a true scholar, fifth-grade teacher Maria Licea told the assembled students sitting in the schools quad. She is not only representing herself at the national spelling bee, but she is there to represent our school and each of you.
Aisha, 10, is one of six students representing Southern California in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which will take place Wednesday and Thursday in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.
Garretson has a dual-language immersion program, and Aisha, a fifth-grader, has been learning Spanish at the school for six years, which her father, Happy Randhawa, credits with helping Aisha win the regional spelling bee this year.
We know youre going to do awesome, and this is just the first of many, many good things thats going to happen to you, Principal Russ Schriver said before the classrooms at Garretson presented Aisha with posters and poems, urging her on to victory.
Aisha is one of 285 competitors at the 89th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee, which will be in National Harbor, Md., along with Daniel Chen of Chino Hills, Ethan Thomas Gomulka of San Bernardino; Kaylee Kim of Fort Irwin, Cooper Komatsu of Culver City and Samuel Littrell of Placentia.
I always take spelling tests and always get 100 percent, said Daniel, 13, a seventh-grader who attends Loving Savior of the Hills Lutheran School.
He knows there will be a big jump in difficulty from the regional to the national level. His goal is to make it to the semifinal round of 50 contestants, who will appear in live competition aired on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN3. But hes not setting himself up with any false hopes.
I just want to see what its like and how hard it is compared to regionals, Daniel said.
Sixth-grader Ethan, 11, has won every spelling bee he has been a part of since first grade. (He lost in kindergarten, misspelling toast, something his family has never let him forget.)
Ive never gotten a B in spelling, he said. The worst grade the sixth-grader has ever gotten in spelling was probably an A-.
This year was the first time San Bernardinos Del Rosa Christian School has participated in the regional system of bees that lead to the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
I was just so surprised to qualify for the nationals in his first regional. I was just in shock.
As it is his first time qualifying, Ethans keeping his ambitions modest:
My goal this year is to get past round two and into the top 150 contestants, he said. If he loses, I still have the week just to have fun and watch the rest of the competition.
Cooper, 13, an eighth-grader at Culver City Middle School, knows just how hard it is and resolves not to repeat the mistake he made at last years National Spelling Bee.
Although he advanced to the semifinals in 2015, he didnt score high enough on a multiple-choice spelling and vocabulary test to qualify for the championship finals. This time, his studies, which began in July, hit harder on definitions and Latin and Greek roots.
Coopers fascination with letters started early. Before turning 2, he began rearranging little magnetic letters on the refrigerator, according to his mother, Deborah Komatsu.
He would be sorting them, trying to crack the code, she said. By 31/2, Cooper was reading. Hes very good at pattern recognition. Thats how hes such a good speller.
By 5, he took up Scrabble, his favorite board game, and has become a formidable competitor. Last year, he and his teammate, Jem Burch, playing as Lucky 13, won the North American School Scrabble Championship tournament out of 85 teams.
As an eighth-grader, Cooper is in his last year of eligibility, and he wants to make it count. It came so fast, and Im a little nervous, he said. Its my last chance. But Im trying my hardest and best to make Culver City proud of me.
At Garretson Elementary, Aishas assembly ended with Survivors song Eye of the Tiger blaring over the loudspeakers, urging her on to meet the challenge of her rivals.
The 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee Preliminaries will be aired starting at 5 a.m. California time on ESPN3 on Wednesday, followed by finals broadcast on ESPN2 on Thursday at 7 a.m. and on ESPN at 5 p.m., both California time.
Staff writer Laurie Lucas contributed to this story.
Contact the writer: beau.yarbrough@langnews.comTwitter: @LBY3
The woman whose case ignited a petition and a protest at La Sierra University over the way administrators handle sexual assault cases, said the school failed to protect her from the student she said raped and abused her.
President Randal Wisbey has acknowledged shortcomings in providing adequate information to students about reporting such cases. He said he and other administrators are working to address the issue.
The Press-Enterprise does not name individuals who are the victims of sexual assault. The identity of the La Sierra student in this case was verified through internal campus documents.
In summer 2014, the female student began a relationship with a male La Sierra student. The Seventh-day Adventist university discourages premarital sexual activity between students. In October of that year, the woman said her then-boyfriend, the first boyfriend shed ever had, forced himself on her. Outside of the bedroom, she said, he was charming, charismatic and he convinced her that his actions were normal. What ensued, she said, was a months-long abusive relationship that she thought shed never escape.
They broke up the next summer.
At the beginning of the 2015 school year, she was struggling with what shed been through and sought help from Jody Cahill, a community relations representative for the universitys business school. Cahill, she said, encouraged her to file a rape report.
I couldnt do it for myself, the student said. The one thing (Cahill) told me was, Do it for other women.
She had learned that she was not the first woman the male student had abused.
Someone said, It can stop with you, she said. So I kind of just went along with that.
She filed a report with the campus Title IX office.
Passed in 1972, Title IX provides for gender equity on college campuses. That includes issues of sexual discrimination, harassment and assault. The Department of Education, which oversees implementation of Title IX, recommends investigations be completed in 60 days, but gives leeway for more complex cases to be dealt with in a reasonable time frame.
She filed her report in September. An outcome report was issued March 3.
In the interim, she said, the male student periodically harassed her, even though the school had given him a no-contact order that was supposed to keep him away from her. The order, according to internal documents, was issued Oct. 9.
At that time, both she and the male student were in a class together. The order directed the male student to sit on the opposite side of the classroom.
It didnt matter initially because she wasnt there. She had already stopped attending the class, she said, due to the stress of his presence.
On Oct. 12, Cahill brought the situation to the attention of Marjorie Robinson, the dean of students. Cahill expressed concern about a potential lawsuit.
In my opinion, we need to remove (the male student) from that class, Cahill wrote in an email. The female student, she wrote, feels we let her down by keeping him in the class. I remember you told her he would not be allowed to be in a class with her.
On Oct. 20, the woman was told the male student had been removed and she returned to class.
She said she was told that she and the male student should stay away from one another, but said she never saw or was told about the no-contact order and only found out about it when it was mentioned in the March 3 report.
It angered her.
He had a no-contact order, but he could still be in the room with me, she said of the initial classroom situation. It still constituted a hostile environment. I just felt, logically, it made no sense.
She said she also would have reported instances of the male student violating the order, had she known about it.
Joy Fehr, associate provost, is senior administrator for the La Sierra Title IX office.
Fehr said both parties are made aware when a no-contact order is issued. She said she could not comment on an individual case, but said she stood by her statement.
The woman student said the male student violated the order by laughing at her mockingly when he saw her on campus and in one instance, nudging her out of the way so he could talk to another student.
He taunts me and hes done this to other (former girlfriends) as well, she said.
Provost Steve Pawluk wrote a letter to the schools judicial committee in April, in response to its findings in the womans case. Pawluk acknowledged a history of problems involving the male student.
The record demonstrates that (the male student) was repeatedly warned, advised and remonstrated for his behavior toward various women, Pawluk wrote. The committee, he added, seemed to overlook the persistent harm that is being done to various females on campus by (the male students) behavioral pattern.
Despite that pattern, the student remains on campus.
Fehr said in an instance of actual rape a student could be expelled from the university.
And weve done that, she said, referring to a separate case.
A student rape during the current school year, she said, resulted in the offending student being removed from the campus. The student who was raped, she said, chose not to report the incident to police officials. Students on campus were not notified that the crime had taken place.
Under the Clery Act, even though a student declines to file a report with law enforcement, the campus is required to report the crime to a law enforcement agency. The Department of Educations Handbook for Campus Safety and Security Reporting says colleges and universities are required to issue a threat warning for any Clery-Act crime, of which rape is one, that is reported to law enforcement. Fehr said the reported rape took place off campus, so it was not subject to Clery reporting.
The incident did/does not pose a serious or continuing threat to students and employees, Fehr said in an emailed statement, explaining why no alert was issued. Nor did/does it involve an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or employees occurring on the campus.
As for the case of the woman who spent months in what she said was an abusive relationship, the campuss judicial committee found her complaint was not credible. In its March 3 report, the committee cited her delay in reporting her case as the primary reason for questioning her story.
Fehr said that does not conflict with recent statements she has made that there is no statute of limitations on reporting sex crimes to the Title IX office.
The committee also cited statements the student made that conflicted with what administration officials said, or recalled, and said she had never told close friends she had been assaulted.
The report states during their first sexual encounter, the female student told the male student she was not ready and that she was scared and even cried. But at the end of the same paragraph, the report says, She never told him to stop.
School officials said the report reflects what investigators were told.
The judicial committee imposed several sanctions on the male student. Those included, a letter of censure, extension of the no-contact order and a requirement to meet with the dean of students once a quarter.
The woman student appealed the decision, which led to Provost Pawluks letter. Pawluk asked the committee to reconsider the sanctions. It responded by imposing a three-day suspension on the student.
That and the drawn-out process she had been through helped spark the actions on campus by other students, who mounted a petition demanding changes in the way the school handles such cases. The group established a website, www.unsilenced.us, where it encouraged sexual assault survivors to post their stories. A dozen stories have been posted.
Administrators called an emergency town hall meeting on May 5 to address the situation. It drew 500 people and lasted three hours.
President Wisbey said it was a positive step.
It was a very open, a very productive meeting, Wisbey said. Since that time, weve taken these concerns seriously and were acting on them.
Despite such assurances, the students dont seem to be letting up. On Tuesday, they posted a new video online calling for school administrators to improve their response to reports of sexual assault and to be more supportive of those who are assaulted.
The woman who reported being raped said she would rather it all wasnt happening.
If I could redo all of this, she said. I wouldnt report it.
The stress of the experience, she said, has clouded her senior year at the school to the point where she hasnt been able to plan what she will do after she graduates in a few weeks.
You get abused and hurt in a relationship and you get abused and hurt again by the system, she said. You kind of sit there wondering, What did I do wrong? I dont want another person to have to go through that.
Contact the writer: mmuckenfuss@pressenterprise.com or 951-368-9595
When Zoe Berbena arrived in Hemet, her job search suffered from a lack of work experience.
Then she found out about the Riverside County Youth Ecology Corps and began working as an education intern at the San Jacinto Valley Regional Water Reclamation Facility.
This program has allowed me to advance myself into the person I want to be, said Berbena, 20.
The corps is conducted in partnership with Eastern Municipal Water District and the California Family Life Centers Empower Youth program.
The youths who participated followed Eastern Municipal workers in many capacities from office assistant to work in the field.
Angel Giron, another participant, wants to join the Army and knows it will be hard work.
While preparing himself academically by earning his high school equivalency, or GED, he is getting a mental and physical workout as part of a Youth Ecology Corps field crew. He is one of six young men who has spent the past 12 weeks doing a variety of jobs provided by Eastern Municipal Water District.
This is something I wanted to do for myself, said Giron, 20. Things happened when I was younger that affected me. I was a good kid, but I started hanging out with people I shouldnt have and I had no choice but to leave school.
The field crews take on projects that will give them work experience while helping the water district beautify and improve the communities it serves.
Angel enjoys working with his hands and being outdoors, said Mary Jo Ramirez, California Family Life Centers executive director. He has good team working and communication skills. He enjoys landscaping and was interested in learning more about water technology.
Eastern Municipal staff make sure to take every opportunity while working with the youth to show the bigger picture and how they can be part of the solution to future water issues, said Allan Freetage, Easterns executive assistant of interagency relations.
Sprucing up neighborhoods by painting fire hydrants there are 80,000 within the water districts boundaries is appreciated by customers.
(The youth) understand they are representing us when they are in public and they also learn the value of doing a good job and working together as a team, said Melanie Nieman, Easterns director of interagency relations. The program benefits us, too, because it gives us a unique perspective on what todays youth is like and challenges they face so we can better guide them.
Office assistants work in a variety of departments.
Zoe already had her high school diploma coming into the program but lacked work experience, Ramirez said. She has good time management skills, great customer service skills and is quite creative.
Water is such an important industry and there is such a wide variety of careers to fill any niche, said Kevin Pearson, Eastern Municipals public affairs officer.
Working up to 20 hours per week at minimum wage, Youth Ecology Corps members such as Berbena learn more than job skills. She said the experience has given her confidence in herself and working with children has made her want to pursue a teaching career.
Information: rivcoworkforce.com/Youth.aspx or emwd.org
Contact the writer: dianerhodes.writer@gmail.com
UPDATE 3: 3:30 p.m. Saturday, May 21
Both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton will visit the Inland region.
The Inland Empire is getting its first visit from a 2016 presidential candidate and members of the public will have a chance to attend.
Hillary Clinton will visit the UC Riverside campus on Tuesday, May 24, according to a campaign press release Saturday, May 21. The front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination will attend an organizing event at the Johnson Family Practice Center, the release read.
The center, formerly known as the Physical Education Gym, is an indoor athletic practice facility. Doors open for the event at 3:30 p.m., according to the Clinton campaign.
Members of the public interested in attending can RSVP at her website.
Her opponent, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, announced Saturday afternoon that he, too, would visit the Inland region.
The visit is part of a week-long swing through California that will also include stops in Los Angeles, Commerce, Orange County, Salinas and San Jose, according to the news release.
Clinton will be asking for voters support and urging them to vote on Election Day, the news release stated She plans to discuss why she is the best candidate to raise incomes for California families, to lower health care costs and improve education, and to break down the barriers that hold too many Americans back, the release stated.
James Grant, a UCR spokesman, saidofficials there dont know why Clintons campaign organizers chose the campus for the Tuesday event. But Grant said they are pleased.
Were very excited to have a potential future president, he said. Its a reflection of the importance of the Inland Empire as well as the importance of our campus.
Grant was uncertain how many people the gym can hold.
Security personnel from other campuses are being called in and will coordinate with the Secret Service, he said. He did not know if other local police agencies would be involved.<
Some UC Riverside students are already planning a protest. A Facebook page called Highlanders Against Hilary had seven hosts as of Saturday morning.
One host of the group suggested that protesters not wear any campaign gear that associate them with her opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
We can protest and oppose Hillary peacefully, without having to side ourselves with Bernie and make him look bad, said David Layson on the Facebook page.
Clinton, 68, is visiting California this month ahead of the states June 7 primary.
In fact, over the next few days, Southern California will become Campaign Central:
Hillary Clintons husband, former President Bill Clinton, has campaigned for his wife in the state and will appear at Ganesha High in Pomona on Saturday and in Sacramento and Stockton on Monday.
Clintons foe in the fiery race for the Democratic nomination, Sanders, will speak at Irvine Meadows Amphitheater on Sunday, in Santa Monica on Monday and in Anaheim on Tuesday.
And Republican nominee-to-be Donald Trump will appear at a high-end fundraiser in Los Angeles on Wednesday and could make other stops in the region.
An event to raise money for candidate Clinton will take place Saturday, May 21, at a private residence in Riverside. Headlining the event is California Secretary of State Alex Padilla. There has been no announcement that Clinton herself plans to attend.
Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state who was first lady in the 1990s and later a U.S. senator from New York, is currently fighting a two-front battle with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who continues to mount a determined challenge for the Democratic nomination.
Clinton led Sanders by 274 delegates as of this week and when superdelegates Democratic party leaders and elected officials are factored in, the lead grows to 760 delegates.
California will send 475 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention in July. Because those delegates are awarded proportionally, Clinton seems likely to get the 2,383 delegates required for the Democratic nomination.
In recent weeks, Clinton has turned her attention to fighting Trump. But as long as Sanders continues to mount a vigorous challenge and hes shown no signs of backing down Clinton has to at least make appearances in the Golden State.
Sanders, who spent a night this week in Palm Springs, has been crisscrossing California as well and drawing thousands to his rallies. Hell be in National City and Irvine on Saturday, the same day as his supporters will be knocking on doors at a series of events throughout the state, including Riverside.
A Field Poll released in April showed Clinton leading Sanders 47 to 41 percent. But Sanders trailed Clinton in that poll by double digits in January, and he fares especially well among younger voters and independents, who are allowed to vote in Californias Democratic primary.
Clinton draws her strength from older voters as well as African Americans and Latinos. A poll released in May and conducted for KABC/TV-7 and the Southern California News Group showed Clinton with a double-digit lead over Sanders in California.
The tone of the Democratic campaign has become more acrimonious in recent weeks, with vociferous Sanders supporters disrupting the Nevada Democratic Convention last weekend. The Nevada Democratic Party chairman received vulgar and threatening voicemails from Sanders supporters, and many establishment Democrats were upset with Sanders for not condemning their actions more forcefully.
The Sanders campaign, on the other hand, contends that the party is being unfair to Sanders and his backers, many of whom believe the system is rigged against their candidate.
While Clinton has portrayed herself as a pragmatic progressive, Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, gives impassioned stump speeches decrying income inequality and Wall Street greed and calling for universal health care and free college education. Clintons supporters dismiss Sanders ideas as lacking in detail and unrealistic.
Clinton will visit an Inland Empire that has become friendlier ground for Democrats in recent years. As a whole, the region is still more Republican than the rest of California, and GOP voters still outnumber Democrats in Riverside County.
That said, Inland Democrats won contested Assembly, state Senate and congressional seats in recent elections. And the Inland Latino population continues to grow, providing Democrats with a solid voting block.
Economically, the Inland Empire is less well-educated than other parts of California, and the region was hard hit by foreclosures and unemployment during the Great Recession. The economy has bounced back more slowly than coastal parts of the state, and many Inland workers drive an hour or more to jobs in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties.
In addition, San Bernardino became the latest flashpoint in the global war on terror in December 2015, when a husband and wife with radical Islamic beliefs killed 14 and wounded 22 in a mass shooting. They later died in a shootout with police.
Traditionally, California has been a popular fundraising stop for presidential hopefuls, but not a place to campaign. The states primary typically takes place well after the race for the GOP and Democratic nominations is pretty much decided.
Riverside County Republican Party Chairman Scott Mann said: The GOP opposes Secretary Clinton and all of the positions which she is campaigning for President.
By appearing on a college campus, she will be addressing many Bernie Sanders supporters and I doubt she will change many minds. We respect the right of free speech as one of our nations bedrock principles. Mrs. Clinton is simply exercising that right by campaigning here.
Its unlikely California will be in play for the November general election. The states 55 electoral votes havent gone to a Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988.
Staff writer Imran Ghori contributed to this report.
A ceremony was performed last Saturday to integrate some 27 African Americans into the Ghanaian society at Komfueku in the Shama District of the Western Region.
The 27, who are students of the Berea University College in the United States, were visiting their ancestry for the first time.
Dressed in beautiful Kente cloth and other colorful African prints of historical significance, each of them were given traditional Ghanaian names and handed over to a clan head at Komfueku. They were taken through other societal norms and initiations amidst drumming and dancing.
Too often we know so little of our African heritage, almost nothing. And the information we do know is incorrect. Weve listened to a lot of stories about the African continent in the states. The reception given us has shown the love and care of the African, Dr. Kathy Bullock told Citi News in an interview.
She added that Ghana is a beautiful land with lovely and hospitable people. The love and sense of belonging exhibited by the people of Komfueku and for that matter Ghana at large has given us the meaning and hope weve been yearning for. We are indeed happy to be home.
The Student leader who is studying African Studies and Arts in the university, Miss Rodgers, expressed satisfaction for the historic visit.
She said its a life changing experience. I now feel very complete. I feel like Im now in my own personal time of growth. You cannot know yourself until you know who you are. Our roots in the states are lost in translation, misinterpreted, and so many of us do not know who we are. Its good to visit our motherland and all African Americans must visit their roots.
Miss Rodgers told Citi News that more importantly, you need that sense of freedom so you can be creative and feel the way you need to be and become a leader. I love dancing but in the states if you are not dancing the way they do it, they look down at you. But here its been very fun, exciting and entertaining. We are one family and Im happy to be home.
The 27 were brought to Ghana through the collaborative effort of the Minister in charge at the St. John Methodist Church at Komfueku Rev. Kwame Wobir Nkrumah, the Assembly Member for the Komfueku-Ituma Electoral Area Percy Ahinakwa and the chiefs and people of Komfueku.
Rev. Wobir Nkrumah, who is also the Chaplain and the Guidance and Counseling Coordinator at the Shama Senior High School told Citi News that, it is what we can also do for humanity. We take them to the Elmina and Cape Coast Castles, and Assin Manso to learn and know the processes that led to their stay in the United States and other places of significance. We help them know their roots.
The Assembly Member for Komfueku-Ituma Electoral Area, Percy Ahinakwa said, we have been embarking on this move since 2012. When they come, they give support to the Komfueku community. They have since 2012 built a primary school for us. They are even planning other infrastructural projects. They also connect with their families here all the time when they go back to the states.
Source: citifmonline.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 Nigerian army says it has freed 97 women and girls from Boko Haram, including one of the more than 200 girls abducted from Chibok school.
However, Chibok campaigners say that while the girl in question was a pupil at the school, she was actually kidnapped from her home elsewhere.
This comes days after the first of the Chibok girls was freed.
The Islamist militant group has seized thousands of women and girls in northern Nigeria, rights groups say.
But it was the abduction of the girls from Chibok that gained international attention through the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, which was supported by US First Lady Michelle Obama and Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai.
The army has made several mistakes in its statements about the Chibok girls - in its initial statement after the first girl was found on Wednesday, it used the wrong name.
It has claimed to have freed more than 100 of them before later backtracking.
Source: BBC
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 authorities in Cameroon have denied entry to over 100 Formed Police Unit (FPU) of Ghana Police assigned to peacekeeping duties in South Sudan, according to reliable reports reaching The General Telegraph.
According to the reports, the over 100 police officers were arrested and deported by the Cameroonian officials on Wednesday on account of improper documentation.
Tension and frustration among members who were on the peacekeeping mission have reached its peak after they were allegedly deported by Cameroon on Wednesday.
The reports indicate that the over 100 police officers were stopped in Cameroon and grilled for over 4 hours before they were released.
It was also reported that some of the police officers who were on a chartered flight to Sudan for the peacekeeping were carrying AK47 and other equipment.
Sources within the Ghana Police Service say the frustrated police officers are angry at the way and manner the processes took place.
We were due to Sudan for the peacekeeping mission. We were grilled for over 4 hours before we were deported back to our country. We believe that our officials did not do the proper documentations. The fact actually is that we could not go to South Sudan because we lack proper documentation period, one angry police officer told this paper.
Director of Public Affairs of Ghana Police, Superintendent Cephas Arthur, when contacted confirmed the trip of his men to South Sudan on Wednesday but was unaware of their deportation.
He told this paper that, I am not sure of the arrest and deportation. Our Formed Police Unit travelled to South Sudan, but I am not sure of the deportation, he said.
However, deep sources within the intelligence agencies told this paper that the police were not arrested but were not given an opportunity to enter the country.
The source, however, confirmed that it was rather the officials of the Cameroon that denied Ghanaians entry.
The source said the flight did not land but immediately returned to Ghana.
They were on a peacekeeping mission to Sudan, and when they were approaching Cameroon, Cameroon denied use of [their]
Source: The General Telegraph
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 Government, through the Ministry of Health, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Kingdom of the Netherlands to accelerate early detection of Tuberculosis (TB).
Mr Alex Segbefia, the Minister of Health, signed for the Government, while Mr Marcel Lantinga, the Director of the Dutch company Oldelft Benelux, signed for the Netherlands for the commencement of the project; "Accelerating Tuberculosis Case Detection in Ghana."
Mr Segbefia said the current agreement would allow Delft Imaging Systems, a Dutch Company, to supply 52 digital imaging systems which consist of a combination of fixed units and mobile clinics, as well as accompanying information technology services.
He said the total project cost was 21.6 million euros, of which 7.56 million euros was covered by a Facility for Infrastructure Development (ORIO) grant from the Government of the Netherlands.
ORIO provides grants for public infrastructure development in developing countries in order to contribute to human and private sector development.
Mr Segbefia underscored the importance of timely diagnosis and prompt treatment of TB to ensure control and cure.
He said the project was, therefore, aimed at boosting the currently low TB detection rate where 63.000 people suffered from the disease annually.
According to the 2013 National TB Prevalence Survey, 264 out of every 100,000 Ghanaians were affected by the disease.
Mr Segbefia said: "This co-operation with the Netherlands will enable Ghana to increase its detection rate to 85 per cent and as such will mean a major improvement to the health of many Ghanaians."
Source: GNA
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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Many clients were yesterday stranded on the various court premises throughout the country as a nationwide strike declared by the Judicial Service Staff Association of Ghana (JUSAG) took effect.
There was virtually no activity at most of the courts as members of JUSAG failed to show up at work.
The leadership of JUSAG last Thursday declared an indefinite nationwide strike with effect from yesterday, over delays in the implementation of the consolidated salaries and emoluments of their members.
According to JUSAG, the withdrawal of services of members will continue until all their demands are met.
Accra
Emmanuel Ebo Hawkson, reports that many litigants were stranded at the courts in Accra.
A visit by the Daily Graphic to the Law Court Complex, Supreme Court Complex and the Accra District Magistrates Court Complex revealed very little activity.
Some of the litigants who spoke to the Daily Graphic expressed their frustration at the situation.
The security men were, however, at post to protect property at the various courts.
Bolgatanga
In the Bolgatanga municipality in the Upper East Region, Vincent Amenuveve reports that some clients who were given dates by their lawyers to report at the courts yesterday were disappointed as the gates to the court premises were locked.
Although there were two official vehicles parked in the courtyard, the court premises were deserted with only one security man on duty.
One of the clients, Mr Albert Achana, expressed regret at the situation and said "at least there should have been one official at post to give us another date to report because we have incurred some expenses as some of our lawyers travelled from Accra to attend to us".
Cape Coast
Judicial Service workers in Cape Coast strictly adhered to the directive from the association to embark on the strike, leaving the Judicial Service Complex in Cape Coast under lock, reports Shirley Asiedu-Addo.
There was nobody at the complex except a few men who were seen working on parts of the deteriorating edifice.
The National Vice-President of JUSAG, who is also a Registrar at a Circuit Court in Cape Coast, Ms Josephine Ehwireng, said the association was happy about the adherence of its members to the strike directive.
Tamale
Zadok Kwame Gyesi reports that members of JUSAG in Tamale were not left out of the nationwide industrial action declared by the leadership of the association.
At the Tamale High Court Complex, for instance, the main entrance to the premises was locked. The court premises were quiet with the usual human and vehicular traffic absent.
Sunyani
According to Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah, there was no work at the Sunyani High Court and other lower courts in Sunyani yesterday, following the strike declared by the leadership of JUSAG.
At about 10 a.m. when the Daily Graphic visited the High Court premises, there was no worker except a security man, Adam Sadique.
"Nobody has been here since morning due to the strike, " he stated.
He explained that some litigants who did not know about the JUSAG members strike came to the court in the morning but were disappointed.
One such lawyer, Mr Simon Gaga, told the Daily Graphic that "the courts are not sitting because of the strike".
Kumasi
Litigants, relatives of accused persons and some lawyers were stranded on the various court premises in the Kumasi metropolis, following the indefinite strike declared by members of JUSAG, report Donald Ato Dapatem & Kwadwo Baffoe Donkor.
A visit to the various courts showed that the gates to the courts had been locked and the premises were empty.
As usual, some of the people who went to the court as early as 7 a.m. were surprised when they were informed by some security officers on the premises, especially the Appeals Court and the Courts Complex, both at Adum, that the staff of the courts were on strike.
At the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) Circuit Court which is about 20 metres from the seat of the KMA, the notice board had been lowered and placed in front of the door to the courtroom, while the Asokwa Magistrates Court premises were deserted.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic, Ms Rebecca Ntiamoah-Baidoo, who had travelled from Tamale, said she was at the court around 8 a.m. to meet her lawyer and later mount the witness box to be cross-examined.
Mr Michael Dwomoh Appiah told the Daily Graphic that he was at the court for a hearing on a land case that had dragged for over four years and wondered when the strike would be over for the courts to start operating.
Source: Daily Graphic
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Abu Ramadan, the former National Youth Organiser of the Peoples National Convention (PNC) is likely to return to court following the decision by the Electoral Commission (EC) not to remove the NHIS names in the electoral register.
He will be praying the court to punish the EC for disregarding its (Supreme Court's) earlier ruling.
Abu Ramadan sued the Electoral Commission (EC) over the credibility of the current voters register. Subsequently, the Supreme Court ruled that the EC should remove 600,000 names of dead persons from the current voters register.
Apart from that, the EC is to delete the names of over 4 million people who registered inappropriately (with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card), and to also give the affected persons the opportunity to register again using appropriate identifications.
However, the EC says they will not remove the names of people who registered with the NHIS.
Speaking to Kwami Sefa Kayi in an interview on Fridays edition of Kokrokoo, Nana Asante Bediatuo, counsel for Abu Ramadan said what the EC is doing is tantamount to contempt of court because they are going against the ruling of the Supreme Court.
the SC ordered the EC to take steps immediately to delete or as its popularly known clean the current voters register to conform to the 1992 constitutionand so if they want to use this process, it is against the ruling. Its surprising what the EC is sayingthey have completely missed the point. Refusal to implement the orders of the court amounts to criminal prosecution. Under article 24, it constitutes a high crime not to obey the orders of the court. My client wants us to proceed to court to put the EC in line.
EC Boss To Be Jailed If...?
Meanwhile a private legal practitioner Samson Lardy Anyenini, says if Mr Abu Ramadan files the contempt of court case he has threatened against Ghanas Electoral Commission (EC) and eventually wins, the Chair of the Commission could be jailed for up to 10 years and subsequent to her imprisonment, get barred from holding an elective office for another 10 years, private legal practitioner.
In respect of the Supreme Court, when you have acted in disobeying the orders of the Supreme Court, it is an offence called high crime and high crime according to the constitution is a ground for removal or impeachment of the President or the Vice President if they are the ones who are disobeying the orders...But if it is not the president or the vice president and it is any officer like the EC the law says you are liable and so he [Abu Ramadan ] will be required to prove that the EC disobeyed the orders the EC.
What that means is that if the court makes that clarification that the orders included the removal of names of persons who registered with NHIS cards then the EC definitely will be punished, he told Class FM.
Source: Rebecca Addo Tetteh/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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Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper Kwesi Pratt says government will soon sell the people of Ghana when there are no more public companies to be sold.
He said none of public institutions sold by governments in the past have benefitted the people of the country, yet, more and more of the companies are being put on divestiture.
According to him, allowing the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to be managed by a private company will only burden the ordinary Ghanaian.
He said even more depressing was the fact that the announcement had to be made by the Vice-President of the Department of Compact Operations Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Kamran M. Khan at the United States Embassy and not by government.
This according him shows governments disrespect to the citizenry.
Speaking on Peace FMs morning show Kokrokoo Mr Pratt said even if releasing ECG on concession was a good decision, major policy issues are announced at the US embassy when there is a minister for power, vice president and a minister for communication.
I am ashamed, I never believed in my life that in Kwame Nkrumahs Ghana it is the US embassy that makes major policy announcements, he added.
The management of ECG is set to be released on concession to a private company.
Although the private company is not known, the MCCs Director of Compact Operations Kamran M. Khan told journalists at the US Embassy in Accra that it has received communication from the government to that effect.
The release of the company to a foreign investor, according to Kamran M. Khan is to ensure efficiency in the distribution of power in the country.
All assets of the company however, will not be sold. The concession will last for 20 years.
But Mr Pratt says privatisation of ECG is a betrayal to the promise government made earlier that it was not going to do so.
He said government should rather concentrate on making electricity available to consumers instead of selling it.
Member of Parliament for Manhyia in the Ashanti Region Matthew Opoku Prempeh said instead of releasing ECG to a private company, releasing sub stations belonging to the company to Ghanaian companies to manage is rather prudent.
He added that he would have preferred that ECG is listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) rather than being sold off to foreigners.
However, Deputy Power Minister John Jinapor in a quick rebuttal denied that ECG has been sold.
He said the concession was only to allow the company provide better service for its customers and improve efficiency.
He added that the announcement about the release of the ECG on concession was made by him and not the director of the MCC as has been reported.
He admitted that the release of ECG on concession is part of the prerequisites of the MCC tranche that will be released in December.
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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Families of Aussie victims killed in the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in 2014 have launched legal action against the Russian government, which could result in payouts reaching $10M per passenger.
MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made ground-to-air missile over Ukraine, resulting in the deaths of all 298 passengers. 27 Australian citizens were on board at the time.
The new claim, lodged with the European Court of Human Rights, alleges the Russian Federation and Vladimir Putin are also culpable for a series of (possibly calculated) fuck-ups in the investigation into the crash.
They also werent involved in the reconstruction of the cockpit, as demonstrated below.
Of course, theres still rampant speculation the flight was shot down by Russian forces in the first place, as the flight flew near contested territory between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
The crux of the claim: since Russia argued the downing of a separate flight carrying Russians over Sinai should result in financial compensation from whoever was responsible, theres no reason why families of MH17 victims shouldnt be treated the same way.
Families of victims from Malaysia and New Zealand are also involved.
Jerry Skinner, a lawyer involved with the new claim, told Fairfax my clients want accountability for the deed.
They want enough money to reflect that the Russians take this seriously and serve as a deterrent The issue [over MH17] is will the Russians acknowledge accountability? This is about justice and accountability, not about the biggest sum of money you can get.
Still, its estimated that if the claims covering all passengers were accumulated, the tally would reach an absolutely staggering $3 billion.
If Tony Abbotts shirtfronting escapades didnt result in justice for the innocent families involves, hopefully this claim will assign responsibility in an otherwise senseless tragedy.
Source: The Age.
Photo: Dean Mouhtaropolous / Getty.
Beyonce
Beyonce performs during the Formation World Tour at Levi's Stadium on Monday, May 16, 2016, in Santa Clara, California. (Photo by Daniela Vesco/Invision for Parkwood Entertainment/AP Images)
(Daniela Vesco)
Some Pittsburgh police officers say they will not volunteer at Beyonce's concert on May 31 because they don't want to support her, according to president Robert Swartzwelder of the Fraternal Order of the Police Lodge No. 1.
"There are police officers that have expressed that they do not want to support an artist that they don't like what she has to say," he said. "It's up to them what they want to do with their off duty time."
Private entities, such as Heinz Field, can ask the city of Pittsburgh to appoint off-duty police officers to provide security or direct traffic at their events for a price, Swartzwelder said. It is strictly voluntary for police officers to work at these events.
The City of Pittsburgh Bureau of Police sent a memorandum to officers which said the city might make between 29 to 35 officers work at the concert if they don't get enough volunteers, Swartzwelder said. He said this would be a violation of the city's contract with its police department, and the FOP would file an unfair labor practice complaint if it did so.
Swartzwelder had no further comment about the memorandum.
If the directive is not met, he said that police officers could face disciplinary action, which could include being reprimanded or losing their jobs.
Swartzwelder added that the officers' choice to not work the event does not make it a boycott, as working at the concert is not considered part of their regular duties.
The Miami Fraternal Order of Police released a statement earlier this year that called for police officers throughout the country to "boycott" the musician's performances because of her "anti-police message." The Miami FOP cited her Super Bowl 40 performance in February, which they said saluted the Black Panthers movement; and her music video for "Formation," which they said references the "hands up, don't shoot" phrase, a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Les Neri, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Pennsylvania State Lodge, said the Miami boycott won't stop its members from doing their jobs when Beyonce performs throughout the state. It only
.
Will the students in the central Pennsylvania region ever cease to impress?
The teens of Central Dauphin East High School impressed everyone with their fashion sense on prom night.
Everyone (and we mean everyone) looked perfect.
That being said, there were ten looks in particular that "wow-ed" us. The video above is a celebration of those fashion statements.
Want to see more CD East prom fashion? Click through the gallery below.
And be sure to go to pennlive.com/prom for all your prom needs, including tips for keeping your prom look perfect (even if it rains).
Nathan Dahm
In this Tuesday, May 17, 2016 photo, Oklahoma state Sen. Nathan Dahm, R-Broken Arrow, is pictured on the Senate floor in Oklahoma City. Dahm is the author of a bill that would make it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion. Gov. Mary Fallin on Friday vetoed the legislation, a measure that would have effectively outlawed the procedure in the state. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Oklahoma Republican Gov. Mary Fallin on Friday vetoed legislation that would make it a felony for doctors to perform an abortion, a measure that would have effectively outlawed the procedure in the state.
In vetoing the measure, Fallin said it was vague and would not withstand a legal challenge.
The bill's sponsor, Republican Sen. Nathan Dahm, said the measure was aimed at ultimately overturning the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
The bill would have made it a felony punishable by up to three years in prison for anyone who performs an abortion, including doctors. State law already makes it a felony for anyone who's not a doctor to perform an abortion, and Dahm's bill would have removed the exemption for physicians.
Lawmakers can still attempt a veto override, which requires a two-thirds majority in each chamber.
The bill, which abortion-rights group Center for Reproductive Rights said was the first of its kind in the nation, also would restrict any physician who performs an abortion from obtaining or renewing a license to practice medicine in Oklahoma. The Legislature passed the measure with no discussion or debate on Thursday.
Dahm said after its passage that he hoped his bill could lead to overturning Roe v. Wade.
"Since I believe life begins at conception, it should be protected, and I believe it's a core function of state government to defend that life from the beginning of conception," said Dahm, from Broken Arrow.
But abortion-rights supporters -- and the state's medical association -- have said the bill is unconstitutional. Sen. Ervin Yen, an Oklahoma City Republican and the only physician in the Senate, described the measure as "insane" and voted against it.
An accident has been cleared on Route 30 eastbound at Prospect Road in Lancaster County, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
The accident had closed a lane of traffic.
Residual delays were reported in the area just after the lane reopened.
For more traffic information, follow live traffic updates, accident reports and road closures below from PennDOT, Total Traffic Network and other Twitter sources.
Get a look at conditions on local roads -- via PennDOT traffic cameras -- anytime here on PennLive. For Pennsylvania Turnpike updates and possible travel delays visit the Turnpike website here.
Tweet us at @pennlive with any incidents you see on your commute or send a submission to submissions@pennlive.com.
Nacogdoches, TX (75965)
Today
Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High 69F. Winds WNW at 15 to 25 mph..
Tonight
Clear skies. Low 43F. Winds light and variable.
ID theft suspect.JPG
(Lower Allen Township police)
Police in Lower Allen Township are asking for help from the public to identify an identity thief.
On May 16, police say the woman "purchased cellular phones, jewelry, gift cards and other assorted merchandise" at the Capital City Mall using a fraudulent identity.
The woman, believed to be in her 50s, also tried to open store credit cards at a shopping mall in New Jersey using a Connecticut driver's license that contained another person's information.
Anyone with information about the woman is asked to contact police at 717-238-9676, Cumberland County Crime Stoppers at 1-855-628-8477 or by email at contact@cumberlandcrimestoppers.net.
HARRISBURG- Romeo, as it turned out, was more of a fighter than a lover.
The white male swan at Italian Lake named Romeo has been overly aggressive since his arrival in Harrisburg, city officials said Friday. He has bullied two smaller black swans, even preventing them from accessing food.
So the Friends of Italian Lake brought in two more swans this week, bringing the total number of swans spending the summer in Harrisburg to six. The neighborhood group is renting the swans as part of an effort to beautify the park near Third and Green streets.
To tamp down Romeo's territorial nature, the Halifax farmer who rented the swans suggested adding two more swans to the mix. The additional birds are larger, which will give Romeo "more to deal with," said Joyce Davis, the city spokeswoman.
The city launched a contest to name the swans shortly after their arrival last month. Mayor Eric Papenfuse chose the names of Romeo and Juliet for the white swans and Horace and Mira for the black swans (after Horace McFarland and Mira Loyd Dock, two founders of the City Beautiful movement.)
It's unclear if the city will seek to name the new swans.
FILE - In this Saturday, Aug. 1, 2015 file photo, shows Taliban leader Mullah Mansour. The U.S. conducted an airstrike Saturday, May 21, 2016, against the Taliban leader the Pentagon said, and a U.S. official said Mansour was believed to have been killed. Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the attack occurred in a remote region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. He said the U.S. was studying the results of the attack. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)
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GPL Results, Standings, and Schedule After Week 7
May 21, 2016 Mo Nuwwarah Editor
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 Montreal Nationals entered Week 7 four points back of the first-place New York Rounders in the Americas Conference, but by week's end they changed that in a big way as a big 15-point showing propelled them to first place and a six-point lead. It was mainly due to Mike McDonald, as the legendary tournament grinder nominated himself to sit in for a couple of six-max matches. He turned in a win and a second-place showing, coming only a heads-up loss to Scott Ball of the Las Vegas Moneymakers from sweeping the board. Then, Pascal Lefrancois fell to San Francisco Rush's Jonathan Jaffe but did salvage three points in a 2-1 loss.
The flip side of that surge by the Nationals was a down week from the Rounders, as they secured a conference-low eight points, contributing greatly to their slippage. Tyler Kenney took just two points away from a pair of six-max matches, finishing fourth and sixth. Jason Wheeler righted the ship somewhat with a 2-1 victory over Jake Cody of the Las Vegas Moneymakers.
Hong Kong Stars remain in fourth place in Eurasia Conference, but a 16-point week has them moving from 24 points back of the conference lead to just 13 points back. They trotted out Dong Guo, who has been on a nice little run since a 29th-place finish in the World Series of Poker Main Event in 2014, and he delivered in a pair of six-max matches. He was unable to secure a victory, but going runner-up to Alex Luneau and Chris Moorman netted him 10 points. Then, Weiyi Zhang topped Andrey Pateychuk for 2-1 for another six points.
As with Americas, the low-scoring team this week in Eurasia was actually the first-place squad, in this case the Moscow Wolverines. Igor Yaroshevsky was unable to make much headway in the six-max portion of the week as he booked a fourth and a sixth for a total of two points. Pateychuk didn't fare any better in his 2-1 loss to Zhang in the aforementioned match, bringing the team's total to five points. As a result, the Wolverines saw their lead in the conference shrink from 14 points to eight over the London Royals.
Week 7 Results
Place Player Team Points Match 1 6-Max 1 Alexandre Luneau Paris Aviators 7 2 Dong Guo Hong Kong Stars 5 3 Sorel Mizzi Berlin Bears 3 4 Igor Yaroshevsky Moscow Wolverines 2 5 Chris Moorman London Royals 1 6 Todd Brunson Rome Emperors 0 Match 2 6-Max Place Player Team Points 1 Chris Moorman London Royals 7 2 Dong Guo Hong Kong Stars 5 3 Alexandre Luneau Paris Aviators 3 4 Sorel Mizzi Berlin Bears 2 5 Todd Brunson Rome Emperors 1 6 Igor Yaroshevsky Moscow Wolverines Match 3 6-Max Place Player Team Points 1 Scott Ball Las Vegas Moneymakers 7 2 Mike McDonald Montreal Nationals 5 3 Fedor Holz L.A. Sunset 3 4 Tyler Kenney New York Rounders 2 5 Phil Galfond San Francisco Rush 1 6 Felipe Ramos Sao Paulo Mets 0 Match 4 6-Max Place Player Team Points 1 Mike McDonald Montreal Nationals 7 2 Fedor Holz L.A. Sunset 5 3 Phil Galfond San Francisco Rush 3 4 Felipe Ramos Sao Paulo Mets 2 5 Scott Ball Las Vegas Moneymakers 1 6 Tyler Kenney New York Rounders 0 Match 5 Heads-Up Player Team Wins Points Weiyi Zhang Hong Kong Stars 2 6 Andrey Pateychuk Moscow Wolverines 1 3 Match 6 Heads-Up Player Team Wins Points Dario Sammartino Rome Emperors 2 6 Igor Kurganov London Royals 1 3 Match 7 Heads-Up Player Team Wins Points Sorel Mizzi Berlin Bears 3 9 Davidi Kitai Paris Aviators 0 0 Match 8 Heads-Up Player Team Wins Points Jason Wheeler New York Rounders 2 6 Jake Cody Las Vegas Moneymakers 1 3 Match 9 Heads-Up Player Team Wins Points Olivier Busquet LA Sunset 1 3 Felipe Ramos Sao Paulo Mets 2 6 Match 10 Heads-Up Player Team Wins Points Pascal Lefrancois Montreal Nationals 1 3 Jonathan Jaffe San Francisco Rush 2 6
Standings
Place Team Points Wins Americas Conference 1 Montreal Nationals 87 8 2 New York Rounders 81 7 3 L.A. Sunset 79 6 4 Sao Paulo Metropolitans 70 5 5 Las Vegas Moneymakers 63 3 6 San Francisco Rush 61 6 Eurasia Conference Place Team Points Wins 1 Moscow Wolverines 87 8 2 London Royals 79 8 3 Paris Aviators 78 8 4 Hong Kong Stars 74 5 5 Berlin Bears 64 3 6 Rome Emperors 58 2
Next Week's Schedule
Date Time (ET) Match May 24 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 25 12 p.m. Paris Aviators vs. Hong Kong Stars 2:30 p.m. London Royals vs. Moscow Wolverines 5 p.m. Rome Emperors vs. Berlin Bears May 26 1 p.m. Sao Paulo Mets vs. San Francisco Rush 3:30 p.m. Montreal Nationals vs. Las Vegas Moneymakers 6 p.m. L.A. Sunset vs. New York Rounders
For full match replays or highlight videos, check out the official GPL website.
Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!
VIDEO: Dash Cam Captures Brutal Gun Grab Attack on Minnesota Officer
A jury has convicted a 25-year-old Brooklyn Park, MN, man of attacking a police officer.
Lance Carr was found guilty of first-degree assault in connection with a gun grab attack on Nov. 29, 2015.
Squad car video showed jurors in the trial the violent struggle between Carr and Brooklyn Park police officer Sean Hyman, KARE TV.
Police say last November Hyman was responding to a loud noise complaint. When Hyman arrived he talked to Carr and found out there was a felony warrant for his arrest. That's when the attack began.
The two struggled, Carr punched and strangled Hyman for more than three minutes. At one point, Hyman's gun went off, but no one was hurt. The assault happened in a residential area. People nearby heard the struggle and called 911. When other officers arrived they were able to take down Carr and arrest him.
Hyman was taken away on a stretcher. He missed about two weeks of work while recovering from his injuries.
VIDEO: Los Angeles Police Union Sues Chief Over "Improper Influence" in Disciplinary Process
The Los Angeles Police Protective League has filed a federal lawsuit against Police Chief Charlie Beck, who they allege has manipulated LAPDs officer-discipline process.
The police union asserts that Beck has exerted improper influence on police members of the departments Board of Rights, a three-person panel that decides disciplinary cases for officers, who usually face termination or lengthy suspensions.
Two command staff members and an independent civilian member are on the board, which the union says should be performing its duties in a fair and impartial manner, KTLA reports.
The union says the city charter section, which requires two command officers to be board members, is a violation of the 14th Amendment because the officers owe their rank to the chief. They are hoping the federal court agrees.
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While Friday Fox Follies could fill every weeks column with variations on the concept that Fox News is divisive and stupid, often there are bigger fish to fry. This week that includes how Donald Trump and Megyn Kelly: [is] A Marriage of Convenience, the fact that People Expect It: Media Downplay NY Times Report On Trumps Treatment Of Women. and/or how Fox Already Using Egyptian Air Disaster To Promote Donald Trump, just hours after it happened.
Yes, unfortunately this weeks FFF is Trump-centric, just like the Fox News Channel. Again.
But first: In last weeks Facebook Fibs & Trumps Taxes I pointed out the hypocrisy of Fox News whining that any news source was biased and added, [Y]ou can bet before next week is over Fox News will have convinced its unthinking audience that Facebook is not to be trusted.
I may have been wrong. Again.
Even before it happened you could Read What Fox News Dana Perino Plans to Tell Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook Bias Summit. When Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg met with conservatives over the trending bias spat, it appears the social media giant won the PR war.
In the Facebook bias scandal: New media giant deals with traditional media problem and, really, just How serious are Facebooks bias allegations? Some people say Fears of Facebook Bias Seem to Be Overblown, while others ask Is Facebooks newsfeed really biased against conservatives and, if not, should it be? Yet, After Trending Topics scandal, users still mostly trust Facebook; maybe because most of the press after the meeting was positive, such as Facebook, bias, and transparency: My trip to Silicon Valley.
Representing Fox News at the Facebook confab were Dana Perino and Tucker With an F Carlson, easily the whiniest partisan at the network, but, to be fair, other Fox partisans are not quite so whiny.
Immediately afterwards they gushed all about the meeting while using of all things the new Facebook Live feature. They only managed to make themselves look like Chicolinis. Watch:
Dana Perino Reveals What Happened At The Facebook
Meeting With Conservatives: Not Everything
Was Solved Yesterday But The Problem Is Solvable
Perino: Facebook recognizes its
trust problem with conservatives
Dana Perino: Conservatives, here are 5 reasons
why we should accept Facebooks olive branch
Later in the evening the same duo appeared with Megyn Kelly and pretty much said all the same things, while appearing only slightly less clueless. Watch:
I started writing Fox News criticism 7 years ago, covering Glenn Beck for NewsHounds. I cant believe I find myself agreeing with that crazy MoFo:
Facebook political bias? Glenn
Beck says hes seen no evidence of it
What Glenn Beck Gets Right
About Facebook and Bias
The truth about Facebook is this: It wants to be all things to all people. Therefore, it will serve all opinions on the political spectrum including in places around the world many Merkins cant even spell.
Fox News and Rupert Murdoch can only envy the reach Facebook has.
TRUMP TRUMPS KELLY: It was being billed as a cage match. It turned out to be a love fest as Megyn Kelly tried out for the part of The New Barbara Walters. The only thing she didnt ask was, If you were a tree.
Before the snoozefest:
Megyn Kelly: I Understand
Why Trump Got Mad
Megyn Kelly Slams Bill OReilly & Greta
Van Susteren For Not Supporting Her
It Was Frustrating: Megyn Kellys Husband
Opens Up on Riding Out Trump Storm
Foxs Megyn Kelly: The Goal Of
Upcoming Trump Interview
Is An Interesting, Compelling
Except it wasnt. It was Click Bait that never paid off. However, at the massive FFF viewing party, this got a huge laugh: Trump to Kelly: Youve been called a lot worse than bimbo, left unsaid was by me when I thought no one was listening.
Its nearly unanimous. This interview stunk up the joint:
Providing context is: The Charade Behind Megyn Kellys Trump Interview:
But this interview is an opportunity for media to put the full context of Kellys career on display as their recent series of laudatory profiles has failed to do. Kelly has a long history of misinformation campaigns and out-of-touch comments regarding race, LGBT issues, gender, reproductive rights, Islam, immigration, and climate change.
Shes used her prime-time Fox show to push falsehoods about the 2012 Benghazi attacks and Planned Parenthood, most recently asking whether a political hit job was at play in the grand jury indictment of two members of the group that released deceptively edited smear videos to attack the organization.
She regularly hosts Tony Perkins, the leader of an anti-LGBT hate group, and has shown a penchant for inflammatory rhetoric on race, ranging from claiming a 14-year-old black teenager who was the victim of a police officers use of excessive force was no saint, either to calling Black Lives Matter protesters beyond the bounds of decency.
As positive press highlights Kellys occasionally, yet highly entertaining, bucking of the conservative party line, they downplay the fact that her show is made up largely of the kind of stories youd find on many other Fox News shows. Even the writer of Vanity Fairs glowing cover story, after making those observations, eventually noted that Kellys talent for fearmongering may be even more insidious than Trumps own. She, after all, is considered by many to be the reasonable one at Fox.
Uh oh!!!
Someones feathers were ruffled:
Foxs Megyn Kelly Goes After Critics Of Her Softball Trump Interview On Megyn Kelly Presents Megyn Kelly Has A Hissy Over Response To Her Milquetoast Trump Interview Megyn Kelly Blames Media Bias For Criticism Of Her Megyn Kelly Presents
Providing more context: The Daily Show. Again.
Trevor Noah Rips Megyn Kelly:
Trump Was Nasty to You and
Youre Just Laughing It Off?
Watch:
Uh oh!!! Really ruffled.
Trevor Noah Hilariously Skewers
Megyn Kellys Interview With Donald
Trump (And She Cant Take It)
Megyn Kelly Hits Back Hard
on the Daily Show Segment
About Her Interview With Trump
That wasnt the only interview Kelly conducted in that train wreck of a show:
Dont Be Fooled By Megyn
Kellys Laverne Cox Interview
Laverne Cox Has A Lot To Say
About Anti-Trans Legislation But It
Was Cut From Megyn Kellys Interview
Dont feel sorry for Megyn Kelly. She will continue to fall up. Her contracts up for renewal and FFF was shocked to learn she already earns in the vicinity of $6 million a year. No word on whether shell be paid when Fox News Channels Megyn Kelly to deliver Albany Law School graduation ceremony address.
Does Kelly release her speeches?
TRUMP VS. THE TIMES: Right after FFF went to bed last week, The New York Times published an article on how Donald Trump has treated women over the years. Fox News went into overdrive minimizing the entire thing:
Truth be told, Fox News has a candidate to protect. Again.
Why Rupert Murdoch Decided to Back Donald Trump is an insightful (inciteful?) article by Gabriel Sherman, who has some of the best sources inside The Big House. Thats why we get headlines like:
Theres 5 more months for Fox News to play kingmaker. Again.
HATEGATE: In this weeks compendium of Islamophobia and Homophobia, a rare twofer for Foxs Gutfeld: Forget About Terror, We Have A President Who Is Declaring War On Bathrooms. Meanwhile, Fox Doctor Keith Ablow: Being Transgender Is Like Saying You Identify As Younger, while Foxs Brit Hume: Science Says Caitlyn Jenner Might Not Qualify As Being Transgendered and Foxs Krauthammer Claims Being Transgender Is Simply A Self Declaration And A Matter Of Your Choice. Inexplicably Hannity Proposes Liberal Bathroom Areas Where You Can Have All The Transgendered Back-And-Forth That You Want, not that theres anything wrong with that.
The hate doesnt end there:
Take That, Iroquois: Foxs Brian
Kilmeade Hypes Poll Finding
Some Native Americans Arent
Offended By Redskins Team Name
Hannitys Yell-At-A-Muslim Segment:
I Dont Want To Hear What You Have To Say Edition
LOOFAH LAD LAFFS: Bill OReilly said a lot of ridiculous things this week. Again. Many of them covering for Trump. Again.
Bill OReillys Trump-related hypocrisy reaches stratosphere Bill OReilly: Feminists Should Not Be Allowed To Report On Trump Because Trump Is The Antithesis Of Feminism Wife-Abuser Bill OReilly Thinks Feminist Reporters Should Not Cover Donald Trump BillO Says Feminists Shouldnt Be Allowed To Cover Trump OReilly Doubles Down: Its A Legitimate Point That You Cant Be A Feminist And Cover Donald Trump If We Follow Bill OReillys Logic, Only Trump Sycophants Can Cover Trump OReilly: Trump, Obama, Hillary, Sanders Are Not Evil, Dont Deserve Hatred Bill OReilly Blames Black Crime In Chicago On Obamas Passive Racism Bill OReilly and Kirsten Powers Yell Over One Another About Passive Racism Watch: Bill OReilly Suffers a Spectacular Stumble in Attempt to Sympathize with Victims of Chicago Gun Violence OReilly Suggests The Movie Animal House Should Dictate Policy On Transgender Rights Bill OReillys answer to trans restroom problem: Obama and Congress should watch Animal House
The Falafel King is the gift that keeps on giving.
THE THREE STOOGES ON THE CURVY COUCH: Fox & Friends excels at creating resentment among its audience. Even animals are not safe as Fox & Friends asks: Is making bison the national mammal part of the War on Bald Eagles?
How do you feel? Challengers been buffaloed, Doocy started off.
And when the subject turns to the amount of recognition the eagle gets from the Obama administration (apparently not enough), Kilmeade interjected: Isnt this the same administration that said its okay to start killing them?
Speaking of The Dooce, he was on the loose again. This never seems to go well.
Educated Voters Frustrate
Dooce On The Loose
Frenchman to Fox News:
Trump Is Crazy and Europe
Wants Hillary to Win
Watch Foxs Steve Doocy
Get Shot Down When Asking
A Passerby If The System
Is Rigged For Hillary
But, he doesnt have to go outside to look like an idiot:
Steve Doocy Validates TX Govs
Opposition To Unconstitutional
Transgender Student Guidelines
TRUE STORY: Steve Doocy looks like a dipsomaniac if you mute him.
BLAMIN BAMA:
Brit Hume: Obama Should Share
Credit For Economy With Dubya
Foxs Brit Hume Says Obama
Must Share Credit For Improving
The Economy With Bush Administration
Fox Guest: We Cant Raise Taxes
On The Rich Because Of This Horrible
Economy Under President Obama
Which is it? Horrible or worthy of sharing credit?
CLINTON CONTEST: No winner this week. If you see a postive story on Fox News of Hillary Clinton, you may already be a winner!!! This weeks losers:
Meghan McCain: Hillary Clinton Is Truly Evil Foxs Rove: Clinton Has Been Successful In Life When She Has Made Herself A Victim Fox Business Mocks Clintons Voice In KY Speech, Ignores Her $30 Billion Plan For Coal Country Lou Dobbs Claims Hillary Clintons Scant Contributions Qualify Her To Be On Staff Benghazi Chairman Contradicts Fox Report, Admits Military Could Not Have Saved Lives In Benghazi Attack Fox & Friends Compares Hillary Clinton To Netflixs House Of Cards
SUBHEAD: BLAMIN BILL:
Donald Trump Plays The
Rape Card Against Bill Clinton
Foxs Bolling: The Reason The
Economy Under Bill Clinton
Did So Well Is Because of Ronald
DUH-BATE: The only reason Fox News is pushing for a Democratic debate is it will be good for Donald Trump to have Clinton and Sanders attacking each other. Again.
Sadly they seem to be falling for it. Again.
Fox News Is Trying to Host a
Democratic Debate Before CA Primary
Bernie Sanders Campaign Agrees to
Do Fox News Democratic Debate
Fox News Tries To Close The
Deal By Offering Clinton And
Sanders Any Night For Debate
How many more months of this again?
CREDIT WHERE CREDITS DUE: Or even a dead clock finds a nut once in a while.
WATCH: Megyn Kelly Shreds Tx.
Lt. Governor Over His Bizarre
Remarks On Trans People
Fox Guest Rips Trump For
Calling Bill Clinton A Rapist
After Hanging Out With Him
Extra Special credit to whomever did this to Toddles Starnes:
My conservative page got blocked by Facebook
No word on whether he needed smelling salts, but you can bet there was pearl-clutching.
FOX BYTES: Foxs Newt Gingrich Wants To Test Airport Employees To See If They Practice Sharia On Fox & Friends: Chastity Advocate Dr. Meg Meeker Praises Trumps Parenting Watch Fox Business Get Schooled On The Benefits Of Overtime Expansion Dennis Miller tells Bill OReilly Its like ESPN-O-R-T-H Korea after Schilling Kim Guilfoyle Spars With Juan Williams: Youre Becoming Infamous and Ridiculous Gretchen Carlson Addresses #SweaterGate by Reading Peoples Comments About Her Clothes
Headly Westerfield also serves up bite-sized Fox News snark at Fox Follies and Fallacies, just another part of his totally Left Wing Facebook experience.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) A Maryland man who is a delegate for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has been indicted for illegally shipping explosives, owning a machine gun and producing child pornography, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday.
Caleb Bailey, 30, was indicted by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Wednesday. He was elected to be a delegate for Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and is still listed as one on the states board of elections website.
Joe Cluster, executive director of the Maryland Republican Party, confirmed Bailey had been indicted and told Reuters the party was asking Bailey to resign from the delegation.
I dont know too much about him beyond what Ive read, said Cluster, who declined to comment further.
Bailey had hundreds of illegal weapons stored in a bunker beneath his garage, including dozens of machine guns, smokeless grenades and gas canisters, along with ready-to-eat meals, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.
Telephone calls and emails seeking comment from Bailey, from the Trump campaign and from the Maryland board of elections were not returned on Thursday.
Trump has been working to unify the Republican party going into its presidential nominating convention in Cleveland in July.
In March, a New Hampshire man who co-chaired Trumps veterans coalition in the state was extradited to Nevada to face charges of helping organize the high-profile 2014 armed standoff with federal agents at the ranch of Cliven Bundy.
The four-count indictment against Bailey alleges that he used a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct to produce child pornography and illegally owned a machine gun.
Authorities became aware of Bailey after he tried to ship explosives and ammunition from Maryland to Wisconsin through the U.S. mail in February, said an affidavit filed by a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Some of the types of cartridges Bailey was sending to Wisconsin are no longer used by the U.S. military because they are too dangerous, the law enforcement official said, so shipping them was not only illegal, but posed a significant public risk.
The Wisconsin recipient is under investigation as well, according to the official.
Bailey attempted to ship five such packages in total, but one broke open at the post office, prompting the facility to call law enforcement, according to the affidavit.
(Reporting by Julia Harte and Ginger Gibson; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Leslie Adler)
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Rachel Maddow discusses the Sanders cash crunch ahead of the very expensive California Democratic primary.
Video:
As Maddow pointed out, despite raising $27 million in April, Sen. Sanders only has $5.8 million in cash on hand to fund a months worth of primaries including the most expensive primary in the country. In contrast, Hillary Clinton raised $2 million less than Sen. Sanders, but she has over $30 million in cash on hand.
After winning New York and Pennsylvania, the Clinton campaign cut down their primary spending and began setting cash aside for the general election. Sen. Sanders has been burning through money at a rapid rate in an attempt to catch up to Clinton.
Where is Bernies money going? For starters, those big rallies that Sanders supporters point to as a sign of his campaigns strength arent cheap. The Sanders campaign has spent millions of dollars on venues and the associated costs for these events. While the big rallies make for great visual scenes, the media has figured out that crowd size does not necessarily equal election results, so the Sanders campaign has seen diminishing returns on their big rally spending. The big rallies are also a great tool for firing up supporters, but the rallies have been most effective in making a difference at the polls in small states and open primaries and caucuses.
The Sanders campaign has also outspent Hillary Clinton on advertising. In nearly every contest for months, Sanders has outspent Clinton on advertising. Sanders outspent Clinton nearly 2 to 1 in New York on ads and lost by double-digits. Sanders outspent Clinton $4.6 million to $2.4 million in the April 26 races, and lost every state but one.
A large part of the Sanders strategy has been to a willingness to spend money, which is great. Millions of small donors gave to the Sanders campaign for exactly that purpose. The problem is that the return on investment has not been good regarding wins in critical states. After not winning in New York, fundraising dropped, but the campaign has continued to spend.
The result is that the Sanders campaign spent money to win small states like West Virginia, but they have little money left for very expensive California. Bernie Sanders has run an amazing campaign, but as he approaches the California finish line his finances are running on fumes.
One of the biggest indicators that the Democratic primary is over is that Bernie Sanders lacks the needed funds to mount a credible challenge to Hilary Clinton in California. Sanders has fought the good fight, but his cash crunch may wound his efforts to win California.
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Allies of Hillary Clinton say that she feels no pressure to debate Bernie Sanders in California because as far as they are concerned, the race is over.
The Hill reported:
Theres nothing to debate, said one longtime ally and confidante. Theres nothing new. You can run these debates on loop. The attacks are all the same. And we cannot tolerate his tired, old attacks that continue to disunite the party at a time when its supposed to be united. A former Clinton aide said Sanders should be allowed to finish campaigning in the primary but he should also give Clinton the space she needs to focus on the general without creating more friction. Its basically over, the former aide said. He needs to work on uniting the party, not scheduling another debate.
The talk of Sanders needing to work on uniting the party is a bit overblown. The party isnt as fractured as some think it is. Bernie Sanders has plenty of time to get his supporters behind the cause of beating Trump in November.
The bigger question is what would a California debate accomplish? I think it was a great idea when it was originally proposed because the debate could have been huge if Sen. Sanders still had any chance of catching up to Hillary Clinton. Now that Sanders has no chance of beating Clinton in pledged delegates or the popular vote, there is no reason for a debate in California.
Fox News was pushing hard to host the debate because they would have liked nothing more than to generate questions about Clintons emails and Benghazi, but there is a reason why it has been a decade plus since Fox hosted a Democratic debate. Sen. Sanders wants the debate because it would have provided his cash-strapped campaign with tons of free national media and an avenue to directly appeal to Californias voters, but it would have been out of character for Clinton to agree to this debate.
Hillary Clinton has moved on to planning for the general election, and there is no indication that she will take a step back into the primary and debate Bernie Sanders on Fox News in California.
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* The following is an opinion column by R Muse *
Throughout the short tenure of the Catholic Churchs Pope Francis, many people around the world have hailed his progressive actions. However, the Popes progressiveness has not always panned out like many adherents had hoped; such as truly embracing the LGBT community more than saying he is no-one to judge them.
One of the perpetual complaints about the Church is its continued prohibition on women becoming priests. A prohibition that is likely borne out of the apostle Pauls confusing stance on a womans role as a Christian. Paul is notorious for forbidding women to preach, teach, and pray in front of a man or little else of importance even though in Pauls writing in the New Testament women were not always relegated to the second-class status.
It was announced on Thursday that Pope Francis is taking a progressive step in the Church and although he is not issuing a Papal edict allowing women to enter the priesthood, he did signal that women may be allowed to serve as deacons. More on what deacons in the Church means later.
During a conference attended by religious women, the Holy Father announced that he might convene a commission to decide whether or not women could be Church deacons. As observers remarked, this is a big deal and could signal the Popes thinking that perhaps it is time for women to become priests. A Roman Catholic deacon is disallowed from consecrating the Holy Eucharist (communion), but they are allowed to preside over baptisms, weddings, funerals, teach and preach.
A Vatican press release following the conference may offer a clue to how the Pope is thinking, and how he may be intending to go farther than just reinstating women as deacons. The press release said in part,
Up to the 5th century, the Diaconate flourished in the western Church, but in the following centuries it experienced a slow decline, surviving only as an intermediate stage for candidates preparing for priestly ordination. Following the Second Vatican Council, the Church restored the role of permanent deacon, which is open to single and married men. Many experts believe that women should also be able to serve in this role, since there is ample evidence of female deacons in the first centuries, including one named Phoebe who is cited by Saint Paul.
Apparently, and this is curious indeed, the Pope is unclear about the women deacons role in the early Church so he intends on convening a commission to study their contributions. This didnt sit well with the Womens Ordination Conference (WOC) that noted decades of research on this topic has already been published by renowned feminist voices.
The womens Conference also contested the Popes claim that women deacons could not preach because they arent in Persona Christi. A claim the WOC flatly rejects as a flawed interpretation that a male body is a necessary condition of representing the Body of Christ.
The Christian bibles New Testament is rife with instances of women representing Christ in the Gospels, various Acts of the Apostles, and epistles from the apostle Paul to various congregations in Europe and the Mediterranean. For example, to demonstrate that he valued the lives of women every bit as much as men, in Luke 4:38-39 Jesus healed his disciple Peters mother in law; one wonders if Peter really appreciated the miracle, but thats another story.
Jesus also valued women more than the Catholic Church for their value in ministering to him, much less other Christians. In what is a very telling account, Luke 7:36-50 describes a dramatic scene where Jesus allows a women who was probably a prostitute to anoint him, even though there was a male Pharisee in the room. Jesus rebuked the male because he didnt get his teaching while the woman did. Also, later in Luke 10:38-42 two women important to Jesus are sitting with him in a room full of men and in atypical fashion for the time, Mary assumes the position of a rabbis usually male disciple by sitting at Jesus feet; not at the back of the room.
Even the apostle Paul, not any kind of feminist by anyones standards, wrote about entrusting women to carry out important ministerial tasks. For example, in the book of Acts alone there are several instances of the important roles women played in helping establish the early Christian church. In fact, the first Christian convert in Europe and a very important figure in the church at Philippi (Philippians) was not a man, but a woman named Lydia.
And the wife of Aquila, Priscilla, is renowned as one of the major catalysts in the growth of the Christian movement in several cities across the Mediterranean world. And in about the 21st chapter of Acts, Philips daughters were called prophetesses and were allowed to mediate Gods word to Gods people. It is something that does not occur in the Catholic Church; not as priestly mediators of Gods word or as deacons.
As noted in the Vaticans press release, according to the apostle Paul a woman named Phoebe was the deacon from the seaport city of Cenchrea, and a mediator of Gods word to Gods people. Phoebe was the woman the misogynist apostle Paul entrusted to deliver his letters to the Church in Rome that make up the New Testaments book of Romans.
What is interesting about Paul entrusting a woman to deliver his epistles is that the person, male or female, carrying the letter to the congregations typically was the person reading it aloud to the assemblage. As noted by Preston Sprinkle over at Patheos, it is very likely that the first person to ever read the book of Romans in the Catholic Church was not Paul, Peter, Augustine, Calvin, or Luther; it was a woman named Phoebe who was also a deacon.
According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), a deacon is one of three groups of ordained ministers in the Catholic Church. This little fact is what makes the Popes announcement so encouraging for progressive Catholics, and so damn disconcerting to the conservative wing resisting change and the idea of women as ministers.
This is particularly true because as the USCCB states; As ministers of the Word, deacons proclaim the Gospel, preach, and teach in the name of the Church. It is an interesting statement because one of the things the apostle Paul insisted on in 1st Timothy 2:12 was that, I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.
However, although the Catholic Church will not allow women to serve as priests, or deacons for that matter, the USCCB claims that as ministers of Sacrament, deacons baptize, lead the faithful in prayer, witness marriages, and conduct wake and funeral services. It is possible that the Pope is on the verge of forgoing the USCCBs assertion that it is not only what a deacon does, but who a deacon is that is important. Maybe the Pope has reached the juncture where it is the deacons gender that is not important, but what they do; so long as they are serving the best interests of the Church.
It is too soon to tell if the Pope is serious about reinstating women as deacons, or eventually allowing them to be ordained as priests. One certainly cannot get their hopes set too high because like the Popes apparent progressive embrace of the LGBT community, he did, in fact, allow the Vatican to state that Ireland voting to allow marriage equality was the defeat of humanity.
There is little doubt that there are no small number of Catholics, particularly conservative Catholics, who believe the Pope even considering women as priests or deacons is the defeat of humanity. But they shouldnt be too overly concerned. Many people around the world actually believed the Pope was progressive enough to embrace the LGBT community, but that turned out to be little more than empty talk.
h/t Hrafnkell Haraldsson
, , , , .
NORTHFIELD, Wis. Sandy Burton doesn't know what aquaponics means. She does know the impressively massive construction effort just off Interstate 94 in the Jackson County town of Northfield involves fish and plants.
"I just want to know what they are doing," Burton, of Osseo, Wis., said Friday from outside a convenience store in Northfield, about 10 miles southeast of Osseo. "The one building is huge, and I think they're growing fish."
The innovative business that may begin operating by the end of the year will incorporate raising Atlantic salmon and steelhead trout, with the nutrient-rich water from that process used to facilitate a nearby greenhouse for a variety of leafy greens.
Fish and produce from the two enterprises will carry the Superior Fresh label and eventually be marketed to retail outlets in an estimated 400-mile radius, said Brandon Gottsacker, chief operations officer for Superior Fresh.
Superior Fresh is a subsidiary of North Country Clear Waters. NCCW is owned by Todd and Karen Wanek of Arcadia. Todd Wanek is president and CEO of Ashley Furniture.
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"This has been a project in the making for about 4 years," Gottsacker said Friday. "It's a project our owners were excited about, exploring the opportunities around sustainable food production."
Gottsacker, a native of Eagle River, was attending UW-Stevens Point and was one of many hoping to work in fisheries with the state Department of Natural Resources when he became interested in aquaculture and "saw an opportunity to kind of be a leader in the industry."
Gottsacker, a distant relative of Karen Wanek, said he and the Waneks expressed joint interests in the fish industry and sustainable food products. He received training for about a year at the Freshwater Institute, a program of The Conservation Fund, where he worked with Steve Summerfelt.
"He is a world-renown expert on aquaculture and water recirculating technologies," Gottsacker said Friday. "It's all about trying to grow healthy food in a way that minimizes production impact on the environment."
Aquaponics combines conventional aquaculture (raising aquatic animals in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water).
Superior Fresh is on the leading edge of aquaponics, such to the point that Gottsacker did not allow photos inside the fish house and greenhouse.
"We have special filtration processes that take place that have never been seen in the industry," he said.
Plans call for the salmon and trout to be raised from egg to harvest in fiberglass tanks in a nearly 1-acre building, with the water from that process filtered and used for growing plants in the massive 2-acre greenhouse.
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Gottsacker said the process reclaims phosphorous, nitrates and nitrogen "that's in the water from the fish and using that nutrient-rich water to grow plants. The strategy is to create a premium food product from what other fish farmers think of as waste."
Those particular fish are being raised because of their health benefits. The vast majority of fish being raised at the site will be salmon.
"We have no numbers yet," Gottsacker responded when asked about the volume of fish expected to be raised and processed through the facility. "We just love the idea of raising a premum species, something that is healthy for you. These are about as healthy as you can get."
Regarding the greenhouse, he said the leafy greens were selected "because they are a high-turnover product, which has a fairly short lifespan, and it takes only 35 to 40 days to grow a head of lettuce, herbs and microgreens. There is a wide variety of species in that realm that we could grow.
"Our goal is to be as flexible as possible," Gottsacker added about the produce. "We're creating the ideal growing environment year around. We want to give retailers the opportunity to tell us what they need, what might be a shortage, and we can have it ready ahead of time.
"Our long-term goal is to provide a model that can feed a lot of people with premium, safe, organic produce year-round anywhere in the world and on very little water," he said.
When in full production, the business is expected to have between 25 and 30 full-time employees, including about five in the fish house.
"Any water that we don't have a use for in our facility goes to an irrigation pond," Gottsacker said. "And then this nutrient-rich, clean, clear water will go to an (adjacent 20-acre) alfalfa field."
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For biosecurity reasons, employees at one building will not work at the other, he said.
The site will also include a large cooler and freezer, and natural gas will eventually be extended to the site. Two wells on the property have been tested and are contaminant free, Gottsacker said.
"We've worked very closely with the DNR on this project," he said. "They seem to be excited about it, that this model is what they want to see. They are excited about technologies and how we are reusing water.
"We feel this is a good business model that has a lot of potential through the future because water issues continue to rise in the country and world," Gottsacker said. "The amount of water we're using in agriculture today could be an issue in the future."
Gottsacker said the Northfield project has drawn a lot of local attention, but he expects it could draw worldwide attention.
"The whole aquaponics idea has taken off recently, but there is no other facility that has taken it to this step," he said. "I think people will be amazed by what will be done here."
Gottsacker just smiled when asked how much the project will cost, admitting it was in the millions.
"We're excited about something like this coming in," said Richard Erickson, chairman of the town of Northfield. "Sand mines coming in haven't been too popular, but something like this is different and I think will be greatly appreciated and respected.
"They have been very open with us and given us all the information we've wanted," he added. "I hope this works for them. We can't wait to see how all this works."
The show, previously known as the Agri-News Farm Show, will be held March 7-8, 2023, at the Graham Arena Complex at the Olmsted County Fairgrounds. The show will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on March 7 and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on March 8.
Catholic Charities honors retiring leader Cunningham
Catholic Charities is hosting an open house to honor Valerie Strauss Cunningham from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday at Pax Christi Church Activity Center, Rochester.
Cunningham will retire this June after 41 years of service with Catholic Charities.
Starting as a social worker in Catholic Charities' Pregnancy, Parenting and Adoption Program in 1975, Cunningham advanced to become the coordinator of that program in 1991. She was appointed supervisor of the Clinical Counseling Program in 1996. She has served in those leadership roles ever since.
"Valerie has literally served hundreds of adoptive children and families and thousands of birth parents in her long and capable service with Catholic Charities," said Robert Tereba, executive director of Catholic Charities. "In that direct service role, she served with great compassion, competence, and dedication."
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Cowboy church service scheduled at Cherry Grove
Cherry Grove United Methodist Church will hold a Cowboy Church service at 6 p.m. June 5.
Cowboy church is nondenominational service which includes a mix of country, Southern gospel and bluegrass music.
Musicians are welcome. To join the performance, call Cindy Seabright, 272-1682 or seabright.cindy@gmail.com, one week prior to the service, held the first Sunday each month.
Cherry Grove UMC is at 18183 160th St. in rural Spring Valley.
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News items for Faith Focus are due by Monday prior to Saturday publication. You may email information to life@postbulletin.com or mail to Faith Focus, Life section, 18 First Ave. S.E., Rochester MN 55904. Be sure to include event locations and contact information.
The Oregon State Police Criminal Division continues to investigate a shooting that wounded a man Friday night near the south Jefferson exit on Interstate 5.
According to a news release, OSP troopers and emergency personnel responded at about 7:10 p.m. to the Tire Factory at 906 Old Salem Road in Albany after receiving a call reporting a person with a gunshot wound. They discovered an adult male whose injuries appeared to be non-life-threatening. He was taken to an area hospital for treatment.
When interviewed Friday evening, Linn County Sheriff Lt. Jeff Cone said the incident occurred at an unofficial park-and-ride near the south Jefferson off-ramp onto Interstate 5. He said officers were searching for a suspect but had little information on the suspect's vehicle. No arrests have been made.
According to reports, the victim threw his car into reverse after being wounded. His vehicle struck a passing truck with enough force to dislodge the pickup's driveline. The victim then drove south, eventually stopping in the Tire Factory parking lot.
The Oregon State Police was assisted by members of the Linn County Sheriff's Office, Albany Police Department, Marion County Sheriff's Office, Albany Fire Department and the Linn County District Attorney's Office.
This summer marks the 30th anniversary of a Chicago classic, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," and you can celebrate the milestone by playing hooky at some Chicago hotels.
The Palmer House Hilton's "Bueller's Chicago" package invites people to make like Matthew Broderick and re-create Ferris' day of big-city fun. After all, life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
You'll be armed with a script of sorts to follow in Ferris' footsteps, as well as a soundtrack in the form of a Spotify playlist, featuring The Beatles' "Twist and Shout" and Wayne Newton's "Danke Schoen," among other tunes.
Drop by some of the iconic locations highlighted in the 1986 film, such as Wrigley Field, Willis Tower (Sears Tower back then) and Alexander Calder's orange-red Flamingo sculpture in Federal Plaza. Other notable spots in the Loop include the site of the rollicking parade scene and the parking garage where Ferris leaves the Ferrari.
The package comes with two passes to the Art Institute of Chicago, where you're encouraged to re-create the contemplative pose struck by Ferris and his BFFs, Cameron and Sloane, and to post a photo of it on social media for the chance to win a prize.
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Make a dinner reservation under the name Abe Froman, Sausage King of Chicago, at Lockwood Restaurant in the Palmer House, 17 E. Monroe St., to receive special white-glove service. (Or seek out a French restaurant that serves extra large portions of snootiness along with those steak frites.)
Buffet breakfast for two at Lockwood is part of the package, priced starting at $258 a night and available through the end of the year by calling 312-726-7500.
Hotel Lincoln, 1816 N. Clark St., also is offering a "Save Ferris" package, priced from $299 to $499 per night with a two-night minimum. It includes overnight accommodations in the Lincoln Park hotel, two tickets to the Art Institute, two tickets to the Skydeck at Willis Tower, a pair of tickets to a Cubs game and a copy of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" on Blu-ray. The package is available through Sept. 20, blackout dates apply.
This weekend, May 20-22, is "Ferris Fest," with a weekend lineup that features special screenings of the movie at the John and Nancy Hughes Theater in Lake Forest, a filming locations bus tour and a planned restaging of the "Twist and Shout" parade that Sunday.
Get a glimpse of where it all began when you step inside a re-creation of Ferris's bedroom at Virgin Hotels Chicago, 203 N. Wabash. The room will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the fest, and the public can check it out for $10. Tickets and info at www.ferrisfest.com .
As the old saying goes, when you're dealt lemons, make lemonade. When you're dealt badlands, turn them into a tourist attraction.
That's why South Dakota is celebrating the 100th anniversary this year of the National Park Service, which administers the Badlands National Park and the state's several other national park lands
The Badlands, along with Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Jewel Cave National Monument, Wind Cave National Park, the Missouri National Recreational River, and the Minuteman National Historic Site, are tourist magnets for South Dakota. Tourism is a $2 billion a year industry in South Dakota and supports about 28,000 jobs significant numbers for a state with a population of only 850,000.
For that, South Dakota can thank three people: Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir and Stephen Mather.
It was Muir who pushed for the creation of national parks. The first, Yosemite, in California, was created in 1890. It was Roosevelt who, as president, designated millions of acres of America's natural lands and landmarks for preservation. Finally, it was Mather who campaigned for the establishment of the National Park Service in 1916, and who became the first director of the NPS.
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Tourist officials in South Dakota will be eternally grateful. After all, what else do you do with badlands?
Here's a look at South Dakota's National Park Service lands:
Badlands National Park. This is the first major attraction reached when traveling from Minnesota to the Black Hills. A region of eerie and colorful land formations left by wind and retreating waters, the Badlands is conveniently located along Interstate 94 near Wall. There is a roaming herd of Buffalo feeding on the grasslands, and you might catch a glimpse of bighorn sheep.
Jewel Cave National Monument , near Custer, includes the third-longest cave in the world 180 miles of mapped and surveyed passages. The cave was discovered in 1900 by two miners who noticed the calcite crystal formations sparkling like jewels in the light of their lanterns. Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the cave a national monument in 1908. Guided tours are available daily.
Wind Cave National Park is named for the winds that move in and out of the cave entrance due to differences in atmospheric pressure between the cave and the surface. There were early attempts to turn the cave into a commercial enterprise, but in 1903, Roosevelt signed the bill creating Wind Cave National Park. In 1912, a bison herd was established, and later elk and pronghorn were also moved to the park. Cave tours are offered daily. The park is located 65 miles south of Rapid City, near Hot Springs.
Mount Rushmore National Memorial , no matter how many time you've seen it, is always breathtaking. The way the sunlight plays upon the faces of presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt changes from hour to hour, creating new views. There is also a nighttime lighting ceremony. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum and 400 workers toiled on the mountainside from 1927 to 1941 to complete the monument. Mount Rushmore is located near Keystone, 23 miles southwest of Rapid City.
Minuteman Missile National Historic Site is located at the northeast entrance to the Badlands. Visitors can tour the underground silo and command center, which are left over from the Cold War, when these missiles were expected to provide protection from attack. This particular site was de-activated as part of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and was designated a National Historic Site in 1999.
T he Missouri National Recreational River is located on both sides of the wide Missouri in southeastern South Dakota and in adjacent Nebraska. The two sections of the park comprise a 105-mile stretch of the river, and offer visitors a chance to explore both natural historic sites. The river, of course, is associated with the journey of Lewis and Clark through this region in 1804 and 1806.
The pressure is on the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to quickly solve the problem of long lines at airport security checkpoints, or the airports and airlines will take matters into their own hands.
That's clear with the number of complaints that have been registered by airline officials and consumers alike, and with the likelihood that the situation will worsen soon with rising passenger volumes during the summer months.
At two of the largest airport operations in the U.S. in the New York area and at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport officials have told the TSA that if wait-time woes don't end, they may hire private security forces to replace TSA screeners.
The bluntest warning came from the Port Authority of New York, which operates John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty International airports. Officials wrote the TSA, "We can no longer tolerate the continuing inadequacy of the TSA passenger services."
Wait times at many of the nation's largest hub airports range from about 1-1/2 hours to sometimes 3 hours. At the world's busiest airport, in Atlanta, one recent day found the line for the main TSA checkpoint stretching into the airport's voluminous atrium before winding back on itself and into the domestic terminal's baggage claim, reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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The problems also have spread westward to major airports in Denver and Seattle, and advisories to passengers have been sent out suggesting they arrive as much as three hours before their boarding time.
And the situation which has been blamed on a shortage of TSA scanner personnel may get worse soon. A trade group, Airlines 4 America, says the number of passengers nationwide has climbed for the sixth consecutive year, and the wait for many travelers at TSA airport checkpoints has nearly doubled in just the last year. Passenger volumes are forecast this year to exceed 2015's peak by 3 percent. The number of TSA personnel has not kept pace.
At Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, for example, there are about 650 scanners, reports the Star Tribune. The number is about 75 fewer officers than three years ago. At the same time, passenger volume has jumped some 7 percent, or by about 2.8 million passengers annually, says the newspaper.
The TSA's main response to the problem is that the agency is shorthanded and continually asking Congress to appropriate more funds so that more screeners can be hired. But, they add, more screeners, even if authorized, cannot be an immediate help.
At MSP, the major tenant, Delta Air Lines, is offering to help out in the situation at no cost to the federal government.
Delta says it is willing at all of its major hubs to assign some staffers to help the TSA fulfill any airport tasks that don't require a badge-holding agent. This move would allow more TSA agents to help out at the checkpoints.
Delta says it also is purchasing a 5 percent stake in Clear, a biometric identification technology company that allows users to jump to the front of the TSA PreCheck line. Delta will soon be able to offer a discount to the airline's loyalty program members and to its diamond-level customers for free.
The TSA has been touting membership in its own programs, TSA PreCheck and Global Entry, as ways to expedite going through the screening process. Both programs require background checks and come with a fee.
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We signed on to the Global Entry program, which covers both foreign and domestic trips, and it's very effective. It was a breeze passing through customs and immigration checks at the very-busy Miami International Airport a few weeks ago coming home from a Post-Bulletin sponsored Cuba trip.
So our only advice: Get to the airport early.
A 76-year-old Rochester man has been charged after authorities say he assaulted a vulnerable adult the second time he's faced similar accusations.
Dale Clinton Hall, 2135 U.S. Highway 14, No. 4, was charged Friday in Olmsted County District Court with one count of felony fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct, a gross misdemeanor.
He was released on his own recognizance and is due back in court May 31.
The investigation began Monday afternoon, when the woman called law enforcement. She told police she'd been on a city bus that morning about 8:30 when a man later identified as Hall sat beside her and fondled her, said Capt. John Sherwin.
The woman is considered a vulnerable adult under Minnesota law.
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Hall was arrested at his home Thursday afternoon after the investigation led authorities to him.
Hall was charged in 2014 with one count of fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct after a mentally disabled woman accused him of assaulting her.
According to the criminal complaint, the victim told her social worker that a man later identified as Hall had touched her in the lobby of her apartment building. The social worker called police.
The woman, who has Down syndrome, told investigators that she asked Hall if he had any extra change so she could buy a soda. Hall allegedly started to touch her body; the woman ignored him and he walked away.
When investigators spoke with Hall, he said a girl had approached him in the lobby and asked for change. Hall said he told the girl he didn't have any, then walked away and went up to his apartment, never touching her.
The charge later was dismissed, court documents say, when the woman's family declined to move forward with the case.
AUSTIN A local church is honoring those who served in the military.
Grace Lutheran Church will honor veterans from all military branches on Sunday at 2001 6th Ave. SE in Austin.
Those who don't have a uniform are still welcomed and will be honored by the branch of service he or she served. If in the Veterans Color Guard, wear the summer uniform to the event.
IOWA CITY An inmate convicted of murder in 1984 will not get a new trial even though the prosecution relied on discredited FBI bullet-matching science, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday.
Jurors probably would have found Glendale More guilty even if inaccurate FBI testimony linking a bullet in his possession to the bullets that killed the victim would have been excluded, the court ruled in a 7-0 decision.
Justices said they were troubled by the invalid science and other prosecutorial misconduct, including the failure to disclose a reward to a juvenile offender who put More at the crime scene.
"Yet ... we cannot conclude that More's trial, though flawed, was fundamentally unfair in light of the entire record, which points in the direction of More's guilt," Justice Brent Appel wrote.
More is serving a life sentence for the 1983 slaying of his girlfriend, Wauneita Townsend, who was found shot to death in her car outside a Davenport car dealership. Now 73, More lives at the Fort Dodge Correctional Institution.
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He filed for post-conviction relief in 2007 after the FBI disavowed compositional bullet-lead analysis, which it had used in thousands of cases. The technique used chemistry to try to link bullets found at crime scenes to others in the possession of suspects, based on their elemental characteristics. The FBI stopped using the technique in 2005 after a scientific review concluded that it was unreliable.
At More's trial, prosecutors argued that bullets recovered from Townsend's head and car were a match for a bullet found in More's pocket days later. A nurse found the bullet on More at a psychiatric unit, where he was placed after exhibiting bizarre behavior in the hours after Townsend's death.
An FBI agent implied in testimony that all three bullets must have come from the same box of cartridges. A defense expert countered that the FBI's interpretation of the science was not supported by forensic chemists.
But a prosecutor told jurors in his closing argument that the FBI had been using the technique for a long time and the agent was confident when he testified "the bullets match."
In 2009, the FBI acknowledged the testimony in More's case "exceeds the limits of the science and cannot be supported."
Justice Appel wrote that the FBI's disavowal of the technique amounts to new evidence but that it probably wouldn't have changed the outcome. He cited strong circumstantial evidence against More, including that he was with Townsend minutes before her death at a grocery store and that she had been planning to leave him. More was struggling financially and was a beneficiary on Townsend's recently-acquired life insurance policy.
"More certainly had motive, he had the means, he was at the right place at the right time, and his behavior generally and repeatedly points in the direction of guilt," Appel wrote.
It was the third time courts have found fault with More's prosecution, but declined to order relief.
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The Iowa Court of Appeals ruled in 1985 that prosecutors violated the doctor-patient privilege by calling the nurse and a psychiatrist to testify, but that those were harmless errors.
The appeals court ruled in 1999 that prosecutors failed to disclose evidence that they offered a 13-year-old offender a $350 reward for his testimony, but that also was deemed harmless. The witness testified that he was at the dealership looking for a car to steal when he heard two gunshots and saw More trying to set Townsend's car on fire. The witness recanted his testimony years later, but a judge called the recantation "completely incredible."
Appel said those errors "undermine confidence in our system of justice."
With windy and dry conditions throughout the state, and no rain predicted until Monday, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is urging people to be cautious with fire.
"People should continue to check fire conditions to avoid having an unintended fire," said Linda Gormanson, wildfire prevention supervisor.
Campfires are currently allowed, but people should check daily for updated conditions or additional local restrictions in their city or county. Good judgment should prevail when considering using any fire source, including cooking grills, welding torches or other equipment.
Statewide DNR fire updates are posted daily at www.dnr.state.mn.us/forestry/fire/wildfire_update.html.
Lucas Eggers is like the ultimate tour guide.
His knowledge is unrivaled at the state level, after he proved his expertise for a second year, winning the state geography bee. The homeschooled 13-year-old has been fascinated by maps ever since he can remember.
But his mother's favorite part about the time he devotes to studying the world, is that he's fun to travel with. He's got knowledge of all the religious and cultural significance of areas which endangered species live in an area and where major religious pilgrimage sites are located.
"He's super fun to travel with," said his mother, Tiffany Eggers, recalling the first time the family took a family trip out of the country, to Japan. The then 5-year-old broke into "extemporaneous lectures" throughout the trip, explaining the cultural and religious significance of many of the country's sites.
The well-spoken 13-year-old will make his second visit to the National Geographic Bee this weekend, with a third appearance set for the National History Bee in June.
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"He's like a giant sponge," said his mother Tiffany, who's also his homeschool teacher. "He's always loved learning."
"Even early on, I always loved looking at maps and atlases and all that, so I think the competition, for me at least, is less about winning and more about just showing my knowledge and having a good time," Lucas said.
Lucas couldn't make it to last year's geography bee because he was studying abroad in France for six months. During the trip, he studied at a language-based school and became fluent in French and learned Spanish.
His mother said he really grew up during this time, through many of the experiences he had, learning things like perseverance and what it's like to be an outsider.
"I know he dreams of going so many places, I think he needs to make sure his work involve travel," said Tiffany. "I think his time in France helped him understand culture similarities and differences it also just helps you with different ways of looking at things."
Though he's far from entering the working world, once he does, Lucas said he'd like to work for the State Department or a UNESCO, at a world heritage site.
But in the mean time, his focus has been on other things, like creating his own political game, "Political Junkie," and releasing an album on iTunes, called Fructosity. Eggers also plays the piano, the ukelele and is trying to learn the guitar. In his spare time, he and a friend enjoy adding content to their YouTube channel, IllumiKnowledge .
After winning the school bee, all the winners take a test, and the top 100 scoring students head to the state bee, which is hosted at St. Cloud University. The top 10 compete and the competition gets whittled down to two, and then go head-to-head. At the national level next week, he'll compete against 54 other students.
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Lucas said that's one of the things he enjoys most in the competition, because they have a lot in common and all put in a lot of time to prepare themselves for the geography bee.
"It's about having fun and getting together and learning stuff, talking about tough topics," said his mom of the competitions.
But Lucas said despite all the hard work he has to put in, he's not necessarily shooting to make the top 10 at the national bee.
"I'm kind of just happy that I got to nationals," he said.
As the Memorial Day holiday weekend approaches, I have news to announce about how the Post-Bulletin will be produced on major holidays.
As of Memorial Day, May 30, we'll no longer publish a print edition on major holidays. This will allow just about all of our employees and carriers a chance to be home with family and friends on those holidays.
We'll have robust online coverage at Postbulletin.com through the long weekend, and the website will be open to all users, unmetered, on May 30. We'll also publish a larger, more news-packed edition in advance of holidays on Saturday, May 28, in this case.
This change will allow us to leverage our resources and improve what we do online during the holiday weekends, and again, it allows more P-B employees and our hundreds of carriers a chance to have a full holiday weekend. We'll do the same on July Fourth, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, and we'll remind you as we approach each holiday.
Our offices will be closed on Memorial Day. Customer service will be available as usual until 3 p.m. Saturday, May 28, by calling 507-285-7676. If you have news, call the newsroom anytime at 507-285-7700 or send email to news@postbulletin.com. Death notices and obituaries received by noon Monday will be posted that day.
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The Post-Bulletin is the largest news organization in southern Minnesota and has one of the most visited news websites in the state. We're committed to providing the news and information you count on 24/7, online and in print.
Thank you for your support. We couldn't do it without you.
Randy Chapman
Publisher, Post-Bulletin
RED WING Fixing Main Street in Red Wing was never going to be simple.
Soon after the Minnesota Department of Transportation began planning the project in 2013, it became obvious to the city and MnDOT that U.S. Highway 61 would be torn up for two years. The question, then, became how to do so without devastating the businesses on and adjacent to Main Street.
Patty Brown, executive director of the Red Wing Area Chamber of Commerce, said the initial word was that MnDOT might be able to finish it all in one long summer of construction lasting nearly five months. But the timeline would have been tight.
"They couldn't afford anything to mess with that schedule, or we'd have a ripped up road through the winter months," she said. "If they couldn't finish, what shape would that road be in?"
That sent MnDOT to the drawing board and the calendar to look at how to best finish the project while leaving Main Street businesses bent but not broken by the project.
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Jay Owens, city of Red Wing engineer, said MnDOT might have thought about a one-year project briefly, but when it became apparent that the utilities work along Main Street including decades-old water mains and pipes buried more than 20 feet below street level in some spots would require more effort than most projects, MnDOT immediately realized it needed to stretch out the time frame on the job.
The city also made sure to get input lots of input from local businesses to help them make it through the lean times of construction.
"Before last year, the chamber and the city went and talked to 60-70 businesses," said Arne Skyberg, who, along with his wife, Sara, owns and operates Uffda Shop, a Scandinavian gift shop on Main Street. "That bore the idea of two years, and it's been a godsend to have an undisrupted late summer and fall."
"The fall tourist season is the biggest tourist season," Brown said.
Once the city engineers and MnDOT understood the importance of keeping traffic flowing during construction, they worked with local businesses to create The Main Event committee, a collaboration of area businesses, organizations, community, and government leaders working to mitigate the effects of the reconstruction project.
Brown, who serves as chairwoman of the committee, said the committee helps keep the concerns of the businesses in the forefront as the construction project marches on. "We watch signage, traffic flow, pedestrian traffic. We're monitoring the businesses and making adjustments from feedback."
Owens said he's done TV and radio updates, the city has put out newsletters, and there are weekly meetings to update not only businesses but the city overall to the changes in traffic along Main Street.
"The businesses appreciated that," he said. "This is more communication than we've ever done on a construction project."
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Worth the effort
A few businesses have left Main Street, but all had been looking to leave even before construction began. The street project has not led to any closings, Brown said. While many businesses have experienced some downs during the construction, keeping two-way traffic open and providing good signage has helped.
Owens said, other than some landscaping work and other minor details, the project will be completed by Aug. 12.
"With the weather, we're probably a little bit ahead of schedule," he said. That is after 181 days of work during phase one in 2015 and a projected 132 work days in 2016. "To be done in August and be open for business for the busy tourist season, the leaf season in the fall, is very important."
At that point, the changes will have made the whole process worth it. "I think it will really improve traffic flow and pedestrian traffic because of the bump outs," Skyberg said. "Including the parking lane, pedestrians essentially had to cross seven lanes before, and now it'll be just five."
The changes include a double left turn lane off East Avenue onto Main Street, which will reduce congestion and improve safety, Owens said. The bump outs at the crosswalks will give pedestrians about 15 feet less of traffic to cross. A new HAWK High intensity activated crosswalk system will provide safe crossings while minimizing traffic slowdowns. All these changes will have nearly no net effect on parking along Main Street. "We relaid it out," Owens said. "We only lost one or two stalls a most."
The two-year reconstruction project on Main Street is just part of the change coming to the downtown and riverfront area. The Levee Road reconstruction, which is happening concurrently with the Main Street reconstruction, will include a new trail along the river and eventually connect to Old West Main Street via a bicycle and pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks. That project will also include trail connections from Levee Park to Bay Point Park.
In 2017, MnDOT will start construction on a new bridge for U.S. Highway 63 over the Mississippi River. The city will also expand the docks at Levee Park, allowing multiple river boats to dock at once. "When the riverboats aren't there, people can also tie up their boats and come into downtown for a sandwich or whatever," Owens said.
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Brown said the chamber will plan a celebration for some time in September when all the construction is finished. Skyberg said all those involved need to pat themselves on the back as well. "Doing it in two parts, in retrospect to me, was really a smart move," he said. "For us, the impact's been way less than we thought."
Leon Nesbitt, who runs Red Wing Confectionary with his wife and daughter, has seen his business slog through the construction, but sees better days ahead. "We think the results are going to be a real boon to the city," he said.
When Josh Majsterski decided to enter Northwest Liquors' homebrew contest last fall, he handed in three different beers: two India Pale Ales (IPAs) and an imperial stout.
He wasn't so sure about one of the IPAs. He thought it wasn't as fresh as it could be, and possibly not as tasty.
But he was in for a surprise.
"The one I wasn't happy with is actually the one that won," Majsterski said.
What the Rochester homebrewer won was the opportunity to head to Odell Brewing Co. in February and brew his 5-gallon batch of beer ( renamed Tipsy Tuxedo and branded with a penguin with a hop cone for a body ) on a 150-gallon system.
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Working with the large-scale equipment was a first for Majsterski, and he was stunned simply by the scale of ingredients.
"It was interesting seeing the buckets of hops versus a pack of hops," Majsterski said. "It was just kind of cool to see the difference of what I do compared to what they do."
After a nine-hour brew day, Majsterski's winning IPA was put into fermentors.
Even though there were some changes to the beer's recipe, it came out tasting quite similar to Majsterski's three-years-in-the-making IPA, though Odell's version is a little less bitter and filtered, making it clearer.
The flavor change is mostly due to Odell using its house yeast for fermentation, and some different hop varieties in order to make the big batch (Tipsy Tuxedo uses a large variety of hops). Even locally sourced honey was dumped in.
"I really do enjoy where it's at now," Majsterski said of his recipe. He said he thinks the Odell version is "80 percent" his beer.
Tipsy Tuxedo hit Odell brewery's taps, but four kegs were also sent to Rochester. Majsterski bought one keg to hold a release party with family and friends, while another made it to the Rochester Craft Beer Expo. Commercially, Tipsy Tuxedo was tapped Friday at Hy-Vee's West Circle Drive location (it is pouring from the Grain Belt tap), and will possibly make it to Pappy's Place at a date not yet announced.
Brewing the beer and then seeing it available in town is a highlight for Majsterski.
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"It's an awesome prize; it's way more than I ever expected it to be," he said, adding excitedly, "I'm on the Odell webpage. Tipsy Tuxedo. Minnesota homebrewer."
For those interested in giving Tipsy a taste, Majsterski said it has been pleasing people who say they don't like IPAs, mostly because it is so fruity instead of taking on bitter and resiny characteristics.
"You're going to taste a little bit of citrus from the Citra hops," Majsterski said. "Some people pick up on the honey tones, a little bit of floral characteristics."
As a brewer for nearly four years, it means a lot to Majsterski to win. Nearly 90 entries came in, so he beat out quite a few beers.
But while many award-winning brewers (Majsterski has also medalled at beer festivals such as Between the Bluffs Beer, Wine & Cheese Festival in La Crosse, Wis.) go on to open breweries, or aspire to do so, that's not on Majsterski's mind.
"There are great places in town," Majsterski said. "I don't know if we can handle yet another one."
Instead, Tipsy Tuxedo's brewer plans on sticking to his garage and keeping it a hobby.
But for now, Majsterski can claim to have had one of the best brewing experiences of any brewer in town.
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The Albany-based veterans group Vets Helping Vets HQ will present a May 25 talk at the Albany Public Library designed to help veterans and their families better understand the cultural and psychological challenges veterans face when returning to civilian life.
Retired counselor and veterans advocate Dr. Bob Harris will speak at the event. His three-hour presentation begins at 7 p.m.
Having served in the Vietnam War, Harris has come to focus on post-traumatic stress and survivor guilt, as well as a host of other veteran-related conditions.
The purpose of his talk, he says, is to give veterans and their loved ones the tools they need to better discuss the issues. Harris said this is easier said than done, noting that the military's culture and mission focus leave little room for introspection. Further, returning veterans experience a civilian population incapable of relating to their experiences.
Thats where the title, I Dont Want to Talk About It, came from, he said. Why talk about it and why accept thanks for their service?
Harris said survivor guilt is a large problem among veterans, as is post traumatic stress disorder, especially in an all-volunteer force, where patriotic duty is a driving force. For this reason, he says, not just combat veterans, but every service member can harbor feelings of having not done enough.
Cultural challenges for veterans can also exist beyond the battlefield experience, Harris said. He offers an example of veterans who enroll in universities.
They always sit in the back row and almost never speak in class, he says, and they get angry when they watch the 18- and 19-year-old students taking their education for granted. Theyre there to learn, but they also have trouble navigating the university environment.
Harris said veterans come from a culture where rank, qualifications and experience are displayed on uniforms, so the culture of hierarchy is clear and individual thought is discouraged. In college, by contrast, a professor wears casual clothes and might even wander around the room, asking students what they think. The result for veterans is a cultural shock for which many are not prepared.
Harris said some professors, such as Marshall Thomas at Cal State Long Beach, have designed entire courses around explaining the differences between military and civilian culture.
For its part, Harris said the military as well as the Veterans Administration have made efforts to better accommodate returning service members.
For example, where combat veterans are awarded the Combat Infantry Badge, more and more support personnel are participating in real battles. So the military has created the Combat Action Ribbon to acknowledge their service. This moves beyond the recognition; it also qualifies the service member for counseling sessions when he or she is discharged, as well as a disability rating by the VA. The rating, said Harris and other groups, should be more detailed and descriptive for each veteran.
While Harris felt the VA should give higher disability rating to returning combat veterans, he said the overall effort is a positive step from a culture that has in the past worked to avoid the issue altogether.
Parents who gathered for Tuesday's "listening session" at Clover Ridge Elementary School wanted assurances that Albany schools are working with all of a child's needs: emotional and behavioral as well as academic.
The session was the third of four organized by the district to gather public input, both on Oregon's public education system in general and Albany schools specifically.
The forums are a part of a statewide initiative, Oregon Rising, organized by the Oregon School Boards Association, the Oregon Education Association and the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators. The fourth session is 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 25, at South Albany High School.
About 50 people, including close to a dozen district representatives, gathered Tuesday at Clover Ridge to fill out the Oregon Rising survey and give their thoughts on Albany's educational system.
The survey offered at each forum also is open to the public online at www.surveymonkey.com/r/oregonrising1.
Several said they'd like to see the district provide students with hands-on, real-life learning opportunities, the kind that might spark interests but don't necessarily fit neatly into testing boxes or state benchmarks.
For instance, kindergarten teacher Margaret Phillips said, her students were so excited about a butterfly hatching project they couldn't wait to write about it. No one had to be coaxed to put words on paper.
Some parents said they're concerned about special needs students, particularly in crowded classrooms and especially in light of changes the district is considering.
Superintendent Jim Golden has said he's interested in shortening the summer break and instead scattering breaks throughout the school year. But one parent said she's concerned about lessening family time and said she'd actually make summer longer if she could, while Phillips said she doesn't see students being able to concentrate well when temperatures top 90.
Albany has recommendations from a district facilities committee and from a group of efficiency consultants to build new, larger elementary schools and close down some of the smaller ones. But if that happens, adequate space needs to be provided to avoid overpopulation in each class, parents warned.
One parent said he thought a social skills class, taught once per week, would benefit all students. Another asked for additional crisis intervention and counseling, with mental health and suicide prevention programs to intervene when students are feeling stressed or battling problems at home.
"To me, this is not dreaming big," the parent said. "This is essential."
Golden said he agreed and noted that Albany is working both with Samaritan Health and with the Trillium Family Service Center to form more counseling partnerships.
State funding is a continual challenge, whether it's for buildings, staff or teaching resources, Golden said. While not currently connected to any political effort, the Oregon Rising survey is meant to gather information to present to Oregon lawmakers about the priorities Oregonians have for their children's education.
Locally, Golden said, residents are encouraged to contact Rep. Andy Olson, R-Albany, and Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, with their desires for stronger educational programs.
ST. PAUL Minnesota lawmakers have a lengthy legislative wish list and not much time left to get it done.
The fate of tax cuts, transportation funding and construction spending was unclear as of late Friday. The uncertainty comes as lawmakers are facing a deadline of midnight Sunday to pass bills.
Legislative leaders announced a deal Friday on a $260 million package of tax cuts. But DFL Gov. Mark Dayton warned he won't sign off on the plan unless lawmakers send him a bill for new spending that he finds acceptable. The governor wants to spend money on prekindergarten, broadband and reducing racial economic disparities.
"They can spin it however they want, but I put them on notice: They are responsible if they are not willing to meet my requirement," Dayton said.
Olmsted County lobbyist Amy Caucutt has had a front-row seat to end-of-session lawmaking since 1990. Years of experience have taught her the major issues almost always get done at the last minute. Still, she said she's always surprised when things come together.
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"It's true not everything gets done, but the big issues doesn't get settled until the last night," Caucutt said.
Here's a look at some of the key issues that lawmakers are expected to be working on during the weekend.
Tax cuts
Legislative leaders took the first big step toward piecing together a global end-of-session deal by agreeing on a $260 million tax cut package. The proposal includes property tax cuts for businesses and farmers. There also are tax credits for veterans and people with student loan debt.
"There's a lot of really good tax relief that we think would be meaningful for Minnesotans," House Speaker Kurt Daudt said on TPT's Almanac.
Dayton said the tax bill sounds as if it's in the "ballpark of fiscal responsibility." But he won't agree to sign it until he sees lawmakers' supplemental budget proposal. And he warned that if that bill includes a tax credit for private education, it "kills the bill."
Rep. Kim Norton, DFL-Rochester, said the tax bill seems heavy on tax credits, which usually helps people with money to spend as opposed to those who are struggling financially. Still, she said the fact legislative leaders have been able to reach a deal on taxes is a good sign.
"It's good news that we are seeing movement," Norton said.
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Bonding bill
A $1.5 billion bonding bill failed to pass the DFL-led Senate earlier this month. On Thursday, a GOP-backed $800 million bonding bill failed. The roadblock as been the failure of these measures to win bipartisan support a must since a bonding bill needs a three/fifths supermajority to pass. House and Senate lawmakers are scrambling to craft a bonding bill that can make it to the governor's desk.
Millions of dollars are on the line for projects in communities across southeast Minnesota. Requests being considered for funding include $5 million to expand the customs facilities at Rochester International Airport, $3.6 million to repair the Lanesboro Dam and $1.5 million to expand The Reading Center/Dyslexia Institute of Minnesota just to name a few.
Sen. Dave Senjem, R-Rochester, is serving on the House-Senate conference committee charged with crafting a compromise bonding bill. He said he expects the final bonding bill will end up being about $950 million. Senjem said he was ready to pull an all-nighter to get it done.
"I believe we will have a bill ready for consideration for both bodies. Then it becomes a matter of bill passage. I think we'll have a good, solid bill," Senjem said.
New spending
Early childhood education, broadband expansion and reducing racial economic disparities these are just some of the initiatives vying for a piece of the state's budget surplus. Lawmakers passed a $42 billion two-year budget last session, but there's been plenty of debate this year about additional spending. Dayton has spelled out his "must have" list for spending, which includes $100 million for broadband expansion, $100 million to tackle racial inequity and $25 million for prekindergarten. Senate Democrats have pushed for more than $450 million in new spending, and House Republicans have proposed $3 million.
Transportation
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Dayton and Senate Democrats have supported raising the gas tax to help pay for needed upgrades. Republicans have been vehemently opposed to that idea, instead favoring a plan that relies on existing taxes, borrowing and surplus dollars. Some efforts toward finding a compromise have been made. Dayton put forward a plan that drops a gas tax, instead seeking a $400 million increase in license tab fees. He also opened the door to tapping $200 million of the general fund for transportation. Republicans countered by agreeing to a more modest $100 million increase in license tab fees.
The biggest obstacle to a deal in the final hours has proven to be transit. House Republicans have opposed funding metro-area transit especially the Southwest Light Rail Transit proposal. Democrats want transit to be part of the final mix. Dayton and Senate DFLers' proposals call for a half-cent sales tax increase in the metro area for transit.
Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, said she is optimistic lawmakers can pass a transportation funding package this session.
"My thought is that transportation is probably the hardest bill to negotiate," she said. "I think we will get a transportation bill."
This is a story of reconciliation. The war with Japan in the Pacific was a necessary and mas
A persistent theme of Bernie Sanders' insurgent Democratic campaign and, until recently Donald Trump's is that the political system is rigged against outsiders like them who challenge the political establishment.
Polls show most Americans agree. Trump's gripes were essentially personal, stemming from his campaign's failure to plan for the fact that each state had different rules and procedures.
Sanders' complaint is more generic, directed at party rules limiting participation in some states to registered Democrats and allocating 15 percent of the delegates to elected and party officials known as superdelegates.
His diminishing chance of winning depends largely on persuading those superdelegates to abandon their support of Hillary Clinton because many polls show him running better against Trump.
He's right that the Democratic rules give the party establishment extra clout. Democrats deliberately changed their system to grant their leading figures a role in picking their nominees, a reaction to their minimal role in the 1972 and 1980 nominating fights.
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That stemmed largely from the way Sen. George McGovern took advantage of new rules making the process more democratic and of opposition to the Vietnam War to win the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination. The new rules which he helped write forced elected and party officials to take sides, and many lost delegate races backing his rivals or running on unsuccessful "favorite son" slates. Their absence from the convention exacerbated party divisions and contributed to McGovern's weak showing.
After another divisive primary fight between President Jimmy Carter and Sen. Edward Kennedy in 1980, party and elected officials vowed to regain a place in the nominating process without having to choose a candidate in advance. A party panel initially allotted 20 percent of the votes to superdelegates, but a compromise lowered it to 15 percent, where it's generally stayed.
All Democrats in the House, Senate and governorships are delegates, as are former party chairs, past congressional leaders and the 450 members of the Democratic National Committee. Republicans don't have superdelegates, but guarantee seats to their 168 national committee members, about 6 percent of the total.
Theoretically, superdelegates are supposed to provide an independent voice to exercise leadership in the nominating contest. They have rarely inserted themselves, but their inclusion ensures greater integration of the party's presidential and congressional campaigns and brought greater success, winning or coming close in six of eight presidential elections by nominating more broadly acceptable candidates than McGovern.
Sanders' problem is two-fold. He probably won't win a majority of elected delegates. And the years he spent as an independent, opposing both Democratic and Republican candidates in Vermont, have hampered his campaign for superdelegates. Over the years, he has done far less for Democratic candidates than Clinton.
The Sanders forces have undercut their chances with aggressive social media campaigns, including some direct confrontations to persuade superdelegates to follow the popular vote. In Seattle, several were arrested after refusing to leave the office of Rep. Jim McDermott, a Clinton supporter from a strongly pro-Sanders district. In Nevada, the two sides clashed in a near-riot at the meeting to select delegates.
Since Clinton will likely hold majorities of both elected and superdelegates, the Sanders forces face an uphill fight at the Democratic Convention if they try to change the rules to open all primaries to independents or reduce the future role of superdelegates. Leaders of both parties strongly believe their own members should pick their nominees. The best the Sanders delegates might do is to force creation of yet another party commission to study these issues. Democrats love commissions.
Unsurprisingly, the Sanders forces never mention that caucuses are somewhat undemocratic because they generally attract fewer voters than primaries, presumably because a majority of Sanders' wins were in caucus states. Nebraska's non-binding presidential primary last week, won by Clinton, drew more than double the voters than the earlier caucuses to pick delegates, which Sanders won.
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Meanwhile, the potential for Republican convention fights has diminished since Ted Cruz conceded the nomination. But GOP leaders in many states placed Trump foes on key convention committees. That could create conflict over party rules or platform positions.
Both party's nominating systems are messy, but two things are clear. The courts have ruled the parties themselves are entitled to set their nominating rules. And despite the grousing, both likely nominees this year are the candidates who got the most votes.
Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News.
Congress is deciding how best to fund research into the outbreak of the Zika virus, which appears to have reached the point where it's going to be with us for the duration.
The virus has been linked to severe birth defects, including microcephaly, since it surfaced in Brazil about a year ago. President Obama has called for $1.9 billion in funding to fight the virus. The House of Representatives has a proposal for $622 million and the Senate is looking at a $1.1 billion proposal.
In the meantime, as National Public Radio reported this week, state and local health departments, along with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are feeling a financial pinch because the White House already has moved money from other programs into Zika research while it awaits a congressional appropriation.
The situation is eerily analogous to what happens every year with federal firefighting dollars: As each year's fire season burns hotter than the one before, agencies must transfer money meant for forest maintenance work into firefighting efforts. It's not a good long-term solution.
And you can count on this: Zika won't be the last infectious disease that will require an emergency response. So why not establish an emergency fund that can be called upon in a hurry when the next disease, whatever it may be, becomes a threat? Already, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has access to such a fund to speed aid to areas hit by natural disasters such as hurricanes and tornadoes.
Having such an emergency fund for disease outbreaks could remove the need to shortchange other important public health efforts. The idea makes so much sense that it seems unlikely that Congress will move on it any time soon. (After all, Congress has been fiddling around for years on a similar proposal to help pay for the nation's very biggest wildfires.) (mm)
Adair Village celebrates
Congraulations to Adair Village, which marks the 40th anniversary of its incorporation today with a Founders Day celebration scheduled for 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The event includes tours of the East Barracks, a surviving structure from the Camp Adair days that is being renovated for use as a historical interpretive center. Another building with a history, the old Palestine Church, will be open to the public as well.
The event also includes uniformed World War II re-enactors who will be on hand with informational displays and a variety of other activities as well not to mention free barbecue from noon to 2 p.m.
Adair residents have been doing a terrific job lately in reclaiming the area's vibrant history. Saturday's activities offer a great opportunity for the rest of us to catch up. (mm)
Medical pot and veterans
Give credit to U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon for his role in helping to pass a bit of legislation that could allow veterans access to medical marijuana.
The Department of Veterans Affairs specifically prohibits its medical providers from completing forms allowing a qualified veteran to participate in a state's medical marijuana program. That forces veterans interested in medical marijuana out of the VA system.
On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed a Blumenauer amendment stating that no money made available to the VA can be used to implement that prohibition, a move that has the effect of striking it down.
The amendment passed on a 233-189 vote, but it's worth noting that it had bipartisan support, including from Dana Rohrabacher, the California Republican who has emerged as a voice of sanity on marijuana issues.
The Senate has passed a similar amendment, but the bills now must be reconciled in a conference committee. (mm)
Let's examine what Bernie Sanders supporters did in his name this past weekend.
As the Nevada Democratic convention voted to award a majority of delegates to Hillary Clinton an accurate reflection of her victory in the state's February caucuses Sanders backers charged the stage, threw chairs and shouted vulgar epithets at speakers. Security agents had to protect the dais and ultimately clear the room.
Sanders supporters publicized the cellphone number of the party chairwoman, Roberta Lange, resulting in thousands of abusive text messages and threats:
"Praying to God someone shoots you in the FACE and blows your democracy-stealing head off!"
"Hey bitch. ... We know where you live. Where you work. Where you eat. Where your kids go to school/grandkids... Prepare for hell."
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Veteran Nevada reporter Jon Ralston transcribed some of the choice voicemail messages for the chairwoman, some with vulgar labels for women and their anatomy:
"I think people like you should be hung in a public execution. ... You are a sick, twisted piece of s--- and I hope you burn for this!"
"You f---ing stupid bitch! What the hell are you doing? You're a f---ing corrupt bitch!"
The day after the convention, Sanders supporters vandalized party headquarters with messages saying, among other things, "you are scum."
And the candidate's response to the violent and misogynistic behavior of his backers? Mostly defiance. Asked by reporters Tuesday about the convention chaos -- in which operatives from his national campaign participated -- Sanders walked away in the middle of the question.
Finally, mid-afternoon Tuesday, Sanders released a statement saying, "I condemn any and all forms of violence, including the personal harassment of individuals." But he blamed the Nevada party for preventing a "fair and transparent process," and he threatened Democrats: "If the Democratic Party is to be successful in November, it is imperative that all state parties treat our campaign supporters with fairness and the respect that they have earned."
It is no longer accurate to say Sanders is campaigning against Clinton, who has essentially locked up the nomination. The Vermont socialist is now running against the Democratic Party. And that's excellent news for one Donald J. Trump.
"The Sanders Campaign spent its time either ignoring or profiting from the chaos it did much to create," the Nevada Democratic Party wrote in a formal complaint to the Democratic National Committee. "Part of the approach by the Sanders campaign was to employ these easily incensed delegates as shock troops."
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The Nevada Democrats, warning of similar disruptions at the national convention in July, accused the Sanders campaign of "inciting disruption -- and, yes, violence."
A few weeks ago, I wrote that I wasn't concerned about Sanders remaining in the race until the very end, because he doesn't wish to see a President Trump and will ultimately throw his full support to Clinton. Sanders has, indeed, lightened up on Clinton and is instead trying to shape the Democrats' platform and direction. But his attacks on the party have released something just as damaging to the causes he professes to represent. Coupled with his refusal to raise money for the party, his increasingly harsh rhetoric could hurt Democrats up and down the ballot in November and beyond.
"We are taking on virtually the entire Democratic establishment," Sanders proclaims.
"The Democratic Party has to reach a fundamental conclusion: Are we on the side of working people or big-money interests?" he asks.
"The Democratic Party up to now has not been clear about which side they are on on the major issues facing this country," he announces.
This was Ralph Nader's argument in 2000: There isn't much difference between the two parties. It produced President George W. Bush. Sanders said at the start of his campaign that he wouldn't do what Nader did, because there is a difference between the parties.
Yet now his supporters, the Nevada Democratic Party says, are behind "physical threats and intimidation," "scuffles, screams from bullhorns, and profane insults" and "numerous medical emergencies among delegates pressed up against the dais."
This, even though they were wrong on the merits. Ralston writes that "the Sanders folks disregarded rules, then when shown the truth, attacked organizers and party officials as tools of a conspiracy to defraud the senator of what was never rightfully his in the first place."
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And this, despite only two additional delegates being at stake, as The Washington Post's Philip Bump points out not enough to make a difference in the race.
More to the point, no grievance justifies what happened in Nevada. Yet Sanders, recklessly, is fueling the fire.
Dana Milbank is a columnist for the Washington Post.
WASHINGTON Bernie Sanders is playing a dangerous game. If he and his campaign continue their scorched-earth attacks against the Democratic Party, they will succeed only in one thing: electing Donald Trump as president.
I say this as someone who shares much of Sanders' political philosophy; I too, for example, see health care as a basic right. He has run a remarkable and historically significant campaign, pulling the party to the left and pumping it full of new progressive vigor. His crowds are almost as big as Trump's and perhaps even more enthusiastic. Most important, he has brought legions of young people into the political process.
But he hasn't won the nomination.
Hillary Clinton has an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, earned by her performance in primaries and caucuses. In the aggregate, she leads Sanders by about 3 million votes. The will of the party is clear: More Democrats prefer Clinton over Sanders as their nominee.
Instead of accepting this obvious fact, the Sanders campaign is behaving like a 2-year-old who can't have ice cream for breakfast. All along, Sanders and his aides have claimed that the party establishment was unfairly tipping the scales in favor of Clinton. Now the Sanders people have gone further and are deliberately stoking anger and a sense of grievance -- less against Clinton than the party itself. This is reckless in the extreme, and it could put Trump in the White House.
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I do not believe I am being alarmist. The conventional wisdom holds that Trump's astronomically high disapproval numbers should make him unelectable. His misogyny turns off women; his bigoted immigration stance repels Hispanics; his shoot-from-the-lip temperament disturbs voters concerned about national security. On paper, this should be a cakewalk for any Democrat with a pulse.
In this election cycle, however, the conventional wisdom has been consistently wrong. It didn't see the Trump phenomenon coming. It thought Jeb Bush would be the GOP nominee, or maybe Marco Rubio. It viewed Sanders as nothing more than a fringe candidate. Most of the Nostradamuses of political commentary, let's face it, are on a serious losing streak.
The Real Clear Politics poll average has Clinton narrowly leading Trump, 45.8 percent to 42.5 percent; a Fox News poll released Wednesday actually showed Trump with a slight lead. At this point in a presidential year, general-election polls usually don't mean much. And yes, Democrats have a built-in Electoral College advantage. But it would be foolish not to plan for a tight contest in which every single vote counts.
Clinton is a better campaigner than many people give her credit for, but she has two major vulnerabilities that Trump will seek to exploit: Many people do not find her trustworthy, and she has been a leading member of the political establishment for decades.
Trump's central flaw is much more serious he is completely unfit for the job of president and could do great damage to the nation both domestically and internationally. But clearly many Americans are in an anti-establishment mood. The question is whether they are so disgusted with traditional politics and politicians that they will cross their fingers and take a flyer on Trump.
I hope not. But the Democratic nominee will be all that stands between Trump and the White House. It is possible to believe Clinton would be far from an ideal president and also believe she must be elected because Trump would be an unthinkable disaster.
Given this context, Sanders and his campaign are being shamefully irresponsible. Rather than accept defeat, they claim loudly that the party's nominating process was rigged against them. They display a degree of entitlement that they have not earned.
They rail against "unfair" and "undemocratic" party processes -- unless they work in Sanders' favor. So party conventions -- such as the one last weekend in Nevada, at which Sanders tried and failed to win a couple of extra delegates through parliamentary maneuvering -- are bad. But holding caucuses, which have limited participation, instead of primaries is good, because Sanders did very well in caucus states.
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Sanders has every right to continue his campaign until the nominee is officially chosen at the convention in Philadelphia. But if he means it when he says he will do everything in his power to keep Trump from being elected, he has to do more than just modulate his rhetoric against Clinton. He and his campaign must stop attacking the Democratic Party in a way that might discourage voters in the fall.
I mean right now. This is serious.
Eugene Robinson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post.
The Greater Rochester Arts and Cultural Trust is conducting a public art survey, which can be completed at http://goo.gl/forms/BE9J9yHbAU through June 1.
Public art displays already dot the city and region, but change is a constant. The trust is working on a master plan to help guide that change in Rochester.
What's your take? What pieces of public art do you value? What other public art possibilities would benefit Rochester and the surrounding communities?
Send your comments to letters@postbulletin.com. Limit your remarks to 200 words, and include the author's name and city of residence. The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. Tuesday. We'll publish these comments on the Opinions page, but anonymous remarks will not be published. Your Turn comments do not count toward the 30-day limit on letters to the editor.
A few days ago I wrote:
Once Clinton becomes the nominee, its likely that Democrats and left-leaning independents will coalesce around her candidacy. Probably not to the same extent that her supporters coalesced around Obama in 2008, but to a considerable degree.
In March, when Clinton was far ahead of Trump in the polls, I was even more convinced of her ability to win the support of Sanders voters.
But is my analysis correct? Throughout the campaign season, I have overestimated standard ideology as a force in this election. I believed that once Trumps non-conservatism was laid bare, he would falter in the primaries. It rarely happened.
I view Democrats/leftists as more single-minded and purposeful than Republicans/conservatives. On this view, there is a reasonable basis for believing that, even in this year of discontent with traditional politicians, ideological concerns will induce Sanders voters to coalesce around Clinton in the general election as Clinton supporters coalesced around Obama eight years ago. Many of them undoubtedly will.
However, we shouldnt overlook important differences between Clintons 2008 supporters and voters who this year feel the Bern. Clintons supporters tended to be older, conventional voters. They were traditional liberals who, once their candidate lost, could be expected to do the pragmatic thing support the remaining liberal in the race. I dont recall them throwing chairs or threatening people.
Sanders supporters tend to be young and unconventional. Their unconventionality is a point of pride; their pragmatism is subject to doubt.
Many arent Democrats and many others are not strongly connected to the party. Many, I suspect, are driven less by an ideological commitment to socialism, or even leftism, than by a profound sense that something is wrong.
Many Sanders supporters dont view the Democratic contest this year as between two good liberals, the way most Clinton supporters viewed the 2008 race. For them, the race pits an outsider hero who understands how insiders have gamed the system to the detriment of the country against the consummate insider and system-gamer (who, not coincidentally, has gamed the nomination process itself).
A goodly share of these voters might well eschew the issue-pragmatism that induced Hillarys backers to support Obama in 2008. Some will back Trump, an outsider in a sense who sounds some of Sanders themes more convincingly than Clinton can. Others will stay at home on election day.
This, at any rate, is the case for believing that Clinton will struggle mightily, and often unsuccessfully, to bring Sanders voters into the fold. The case now strikes me as plausible.
On it, I think, rests Donald Trumps hope of being elected president.
Conspirator turned FBI informant Abdirahman Bashir remained on the stand as the prosecution played three more hours of conversations with the defendants that he secretly recorded in February, March and April 2015. Judge Davis excused the jury for the weekend at 12:30.
During their opening statements, defense counsel portrayed the three defendants as innocents ensnared by the government. Defense counsel sought to create the impression that their clients interest in Syria was humanitarian and their efforts to join ISIS the fruit of a government plot. The recordings destroy this impression. The entrapment defense will not fly.
Based on the recordings played so far, I conclude that defendants ardently sought to join ISIS in Syria. They burned with the desire to leave the United States to get to ISIS. Their buddy Abdi Nur had made it. They remained in contact with him; they envied him.
The prosecution played a March 15 late evening recording of Bashir, convicted conspirator Zacharia Abdurahman and defendant Guled Omar speaking with Nur via Skype. Their excitement was palpable. They were giddy with joy. We gonna be with you soon, bro, in jannah [heaven] or dunya [this world], Abdurahman said.
The defendants wanted to wage jihad with ISIS. As much as they wanted to wage jihad with ISIS, they wanted to die waging jihad.
Omar reported with awe that Nur had distinguished himself sufficiently to have been chosen for a leadership position. In another conversation on March 26, however, Omar expressed annoyance with Nur. Nur told Omar that ISIS had hacked a database with the names and addresses of 16 pilots involved in airstrikes on Kobane that killed their friends who had joined ISIS.
Omar angrily recounted how Nur had sent him a link to the names and addresses of the pilots. How dare you, Omar says he responded.
I accidentally clicked the link, he says. Omar protested that his access to the link could easily be traced. Nur told Omar that those are the people whose hands our brothers blood is on. Nur wanted them to take action on the information. He thinks its a battlefield over here, Omar said. He thinks its as easy as it is over there.
Envisioning the final battle between Christians and Muslims, Omar asserts: Kuffar are getting it. Allah will not let America be a superpower for this long. Wallahi their time is coming. Thank you, President Obama.
On March 28 as they ate at a Karmel Mall restaurant in south Minneapolis, Omar opined: One thing I will agree with you on is that 2016 the world is going to change. Omar helpfully explained: After a Republican takes officeI know for a fact that when a Republican takes office in 2016, its a done deal.
Readers may recall that Abdi Warsame is another of the Minnesota men who has pleaded guilty. Like Bashir, Warsame also worked at the airport in 2013. In a conversation with Bashir and Omar recorded late in the evening of April 1, Warsame says he knows how to make a homemade rocket propelled grenade. Homemade rockets, he explains, can reach 2,000 feet. That means if we hit a plane its coming down, he helpfully notes. I have tubes at my house, he adds.
Omar disparages the FBI: All they know is to follow people in a freaking car. Wrong, bro.
In this conversation Warsame also recounts that Sheikh Hassan [Mohamud] the big one in St. Paul taught him how to pray on the battlefield during jihad. Sheikh Hassan is also a legal assistant working for an attorney who formerly represented defendant Mohamud Farah. Farah is now represented exclusively by Minneapolis attorney Murad Muhammad.
As Star Tribune reporter Stephen Montemayor observes regarding one of the late March recordings played yesterday morning, Warsame sought to quell Omars concerns over whether it was wise to again try to leave alongside others now under FBI surveillance. Warsame suggested that perhaps Allah would grant Omar success on what would be his fourth alleged attempt, since it signaled Omar was someone who keeps trying.
Bro, Im just trying to get there, bro, Omar said. Thats it. Just take me there.
In an April 3 recording of Abdurahman and Farah at Dar Al-Farooq Mosque in south Minneapolis, Farah mocked the deaths of American soldiers fighting in the Middle East. Young men killed fighting for ISIS are considered brainwashed but young men killed fighting for the U.S. military are heroes.
Thats Americamy son died for freedom, Abdurahman said in the audio.
My son died for freedom, he died for democracy, Farah said. Hes a hero.
A hero, Abdurahman said.
NOTE: KSTP News digital reporter Jennie Lissarague (on Twitter @JennieJoy) has the best account of the recordings in evidence. Her account of the recordings played yesterday is posted here. I turned to it for help above. Ive left out a lot to cut to the chase. Jennies summary is worth reading in its entirety.
Benedicta Daudu, a member of President Muhammadu Buharis Advisory Committee against Corruption, who is embroiled in an examination malpractice scandal, has resigned from the committee after a PREMIUM TIMES exclusive story.
In a text message to this newspaper on Saturday, the executive secretary of the committee, Bolaji Owasanoye, said the committee discussed the allegation against Mrs. Daudu, and she voluntarily stepped down from the committee until the matter is officially dealt with by the authorities of the University of Jos.
The Presidential Advisory Committee on Corruption has discussed the allegations against Dr Benedicta Daudu based on information in the public domain and Dr Benedicta Daudu has voluntarily stepped down from the committee until the matter is officially concluded by the university, he wrote.
PREMIUM TIMES had reported on Saturday how Mrs. Daudu, an associate professor of law and head of the Department of Jurisprudence and International Law of the Faculty of Law in University of Jos (UNIJOS), was allegedly caught cheating while writing an examination for a Masters degree in Research and Public Policy in the Faculty of Social Sciences of the same university.
The associate professor who has a Masters in Law, was working towards another master in Research and Public Policy.
The department accused her of sneaking in prepared answers, also referred to as chokes by students, during the examination for the Global Context in Public Policy course.
Sources said the matter was subsequently reported to the universitys examination committee but some students and faculty claimed there were attempts at cover ups by the university authorities.
The Peoples Democratic Party has fired its national chairman, Modu Sheriff, and has appointed an interim party executive led by a former governor of Kaduna State, Ahmed Makarfi.
A former Anambra governor, Ben Obi, was also appointed interim secretary of the party.
The committee will be place for three months.
The PDP took the decision on Saturday as part of efforts to resolve the crises the party is facing, party officials told PREMIUM TIMES.
Meanwhile, the partys scheduled national convention in Port Harcourt was cancelled, as a faction of the party conducted a parallel convention in Abuja same day.
The convention is not holding. Our leaders have been meeting since early in the morning and they finally resolved that the convention should be shelved until the court order issued is vacated, a delegate to the convention told PREMIUM TIMES.
He also said some of the leaders of the party expressed the view that efforts should be made to resolve all differences with the Jerry Gana group before a fresh national convention is held.
Our source added that the leadership which comprised of PDP governors and other eminent members of PDP agreed to name an interim committee to replace the National Working Committee, pending the election of new NWC members.
What we are hearing now is that former Governor Ahmed Makarfi and Senator Ben Obi have been chosen as interim chairman and secretary, our source said.
Another source present at the high-powered meeting that was convened at the office of Governor Nyesom Wike in Port Harcourt said members resolved to make Mr. Markafi the chairman of the caretaker committee while Mr. Obi would function as secretary of the party.
Governor Fayose said Sheriff should leave for a new caretaker chairman to take over, but Governor Wike said Sheriff should not be disgraced out of office just like that that they should let him be chairman of the caretaker. The governors rejected Mr. Wikes suggestion, the source said.
The source said there will be representatives of the six geopolitical zones in the caretaker committee, too.
Sheriff was not happy with the development. In fact, he had to storm out of the venue of the meeting, angrily, the source said.
He said the meeting was attended by most of the partys serving and former governors, senators and honourable members as well as some members of the board of trustees.
Editors Note: An earlier version of this report incorrectly identified Peter Obi as the caretaker committee secretary. That position is held by Ben Obi.
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on Saturday reversed an earlier decision to cancel its national convention on Saturday in Port Harcourt.
The party concluded the exercise, and formally announced the removal of its national officers and the appointment of a caretaker committee.
Former Gov. Babangida Aliyu of Niger State said that the chairman of the party, Modu Sheriff, who was removed Saturday, lacked the powers to cancel the convention.
He confirmed the sacking of Mr. Sheriff and all members of the partys national working committee as earlier reported by PREMIUM TIMES.
Mr. Aliyu also moved a motion to cancel the previous zoning arrangement of the party. The motion only upheld the zoning of the presidency to the northern part of the country.
The motion was seconded by Gov. Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State.
The chairman of the convention, Gov. Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, put the question and members agreed to it.
The party appointed a former governor of Kaduna State, Ahmed Makarfi, as the chairman of the caretaker committee, and named Ben Obi, a former senator, as secretary.
The committee will be in place for three months.
The PDP took the decision on Saturday as part of efforts to resolve the crises the party is facing, party officials told PREMIUM TIMES.
The decision was taken at a meeting at Gov. Wikes office, before it was announced at the convention venue.
A source present at the meeting narrated how other governors and senior party members rejected Mr. Wikes suggestion that Mr. Sheriff be allowed to head the caretaker committee.
Governor Fayose said Sheriff should leave for a new caretaker chairman to take over, but Governor Wike said Sheriff should not be disgraced out of office just like that that they should let him be chairman of the caretaker. The governors rejected Mr. Wikes suggestion, the source said.
Sheriff was not happy with the development. In fact, he had to storm out of the venue of the meeting, angrily, the source said.
The meeting was attended by most of the partys serving and former governors, senators and federal lawmakers as well as some members of the board of trustees
In April, majority of Nigerians expressed concerns with President Muhammadu Buharis broken campaign promises, his handling of Nigerias fuel crisis and economy, but the presidents overall approval rating for the month rose slightly to 31.7 per cent, from 31.2 per cent in March, a new poll says.
The monthly survey conducted by Governance Advancement Initiative for Nigeria, GAIN, says while respondents gave slightly higher positive outlook on economy and jobs, 71 per cent of respondents wanted the government to provide investments in the agricultural sector.
A majority of 55 per cent approved of Mr. Buharis foreign trips, which the government says is meant to attract investments.
The positive approval rating is the first since January. GAIN started its poll in December, 2015, tracking performance of governments at all levels in Nigeria.
In earlier months, the poll found that majority of respondents blamed former President Goodluck Jonathan, not Mr. Buhari, for Nigerias poor economy.
In March, the poll said more respondents blamed Mr. Buhari for not turning the economy around.
April has been an eventful month. Although the fuel scarcity problem has started to ease, the power sector continues to struggle, largely due to the vandalism of pipelines, said GAIN, jointly coordinated by Malcolm Fabiyi, a former visiting professor at the Lagos Business School, and Adeleke Otunuga, a management consultant.
The poll said respondents rated the Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, as top performing minister, replacing Agriculture Minister Audu Ogbeh who was at that spot in March.
The April GAIN survey was administered using electronic media. Six hundred and three complete responses were received, the coordinators said.
Poll Results
Key highlights
High performance rating for the Buhari government inched higher to 37.1%
Majority (55%) approve of President Buharis foreign trips
71% of respondents want government to provide investments in the agricultural sector
Respondents give slightly higher positive outlook on economy and jobs
Major reasons for Nigerians concerns with the Buhari Government are Petroleum scarcity (71%), Economy (68%), Power (64%) and Broken campaign promises (57%)
Nigerian Army maintains status as the most respected National Institution
Nigerian presidency remains 3rd rated National institution, behind Army and EFCC
Lai Mohammed (Information) rated top performing minister; Ibe Kachikwu climbs back to second place
Anti-Corruption war falls below 50% priority level for the second consecutive month as Nigerians remain disappointed by lack of convictions
83% express dissatisfaction with Governments handling of Fulani Herdsmen crisis
Summary
April has been an eventful month. Although the fuel scarcity problem has started to ease, the power sector continues to struggle, largely due to the vandalism of pipelines. As for the anticorruption war, April was another month of extended legal maneuverings in the courts and at the CCB tribunal, leaving Nigerians increasingly frustrated about the lack of results and convictions. President Buhari was able to chalk up some positive outcomes from his foreign travels, with a reported $6 Billion in investment commitments from his China visit. The month of April also saw the breaking of sensational news reports about a $115 million slush fund allegedly provided by the former Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke to rig the 2015 elections. Several Banking Chiefs were implicated in the laundering of the funds in the banking system. There was also a protracted budget crisis between the executive and legislative arms of government. All of these realities are reflected in the April polls.
Slight Uptick in Ratings for Buhari Government
As with previous polls, we provided respondents with a 5 point-scale response to this question. A positive performance rating in our terminology refers only to those respondents that reported either an Excellent or Good rating. Negative ratings comprises of respondents that selected Poor or Very Poor rating selections.
High approval ratings interpreted as the combination of Excellent (16.9%) and Good (20.2%) ratings rose from 31.2% in March compared to 37.1% in the April poll. Overall, the number of Nigerians giving President Buhari approval ratings of Excellent (16.9%), Good (20.2%) or Average (13.8%) increased from 44.6% in March to 50.9% in April.
Approval Ratings Confirmed by Simple Yes/No Methodology
For the second month running, we posed a question that solicited a simple Yes/No response from respondents on the overall approval of the job that the Buhari government was doing. Such binary options compel respondents who are in the Average portion of a 5-point scale to select one of the binary options. 54% of respondents gave the President a Yes rating compared to 47% in March.
As was expected, there was strong correspondence between the respondents who rated the performance of the Buhari government as Excellent, Good or Average on the five option performance rating question (50.9%) and those who gave a positive approval rating (54%) on the binary scale, Yes/No job approval question.
Respondents & Buhari Voters Give Reasons for Low Approval of Buhari Government
In order to understand the major reasons for respondents disapproval of the Buhari government, we provided eight (8) of the most commonly expressed criticisms of the Buhari government to respondents. Only respondents who had provided a rating of No when asked whether they approved of the job the President was doing were advanced to this question. Respondents were required to select as many of the options as they believed to be relevant. The disapproval reasons covered topics such as broken campaign promises, perceptions of religious insensitivity, slow pace of progress in securing convictions in the anti-corruption war, availability of petroleum products, power supply, security, economy, sectional preferences, etc.
The major reasons for respondents disapproval included the perceived worsening of economic conditions, worsening power situation, availability of petroleum products and favoritism to certain parts of the country.
Nigerians Speak Reasons for Disapproval of Buhari Government
Respondents were asked to provide written comments on two questions. The first set of written comments was open to all respondents on a question that required that they provide a ranking of priorities for the government. The second set of comments was limited to respondents who expressed disapproval of the Buhari government (46%). Both sets of comments were then combined and used to generate a word cloud.
The word cloud showed that the dominant themes for respondents were subjects like corruption, Fulani herdsmen attacks and the economy.
Word Cloud: Corruption, Fulani Herdsmen, Economy are Key Terms Used by Respondents
Security, Anticorruption, Power and the Economy remain the priority areas
Respondents were provided with a number of key segments and focus areas for the government and were required to provide a forced three tier ranking (High, Medium, Low) of their perceptions of the importance of each of the areas.
Under the High ranking response, security (Boko Haram Crisis) maintained its rating as the most important area of concern and/or interest by 54% of Nigerians. The top five (5) rated areas overall were Security (54%), Anti-Corruption (45%), Economy & Jobs (41%), Power (40%), and Education (36%).
For the second consecutive month, Anti-corruption fell below a High priority rating of 50%.
Anticorruption war maintains support, but concerns grow over abuse of rule of law
Support for the anti-corruption war ticked upwards slightly to 47.4% in April from 44% in March. There was a slight decrease in the number of respondents expressing concern about the potential abuse of the rule of law from 38.4% in the March poll to 33% in April.
The number of Nigerians indicating that the anticorruption war targets the Presidents political enemies decreased slightly from 35.1% in March to 31.7%. A smaller percentage of respondents (28.6%) indicated that they believed that the anticorruption war targeted mostly members of the opposition PDP in April, compared to 30.5% in the March poll.
Anticorruption and Security are the only bright spots for the Buhari Government
The government received low ratings from majority of respondents in seven of the nine areas surveyed. The worst ranked areas (Low ranking) were Power (72%), Availability of Petroleum Products (71%), Economy & Jobs (71%), Housing (70%), Transportation (62%), Education (60%) and Healthcare (58%).
Only two areas were above 50% in positive ratings when High and Medium ratings are combined, and these are Security (74%) and Anticorruption (69%).
Availability of Petroleum Products and Power Maintain Low Ratings
March was an especially difficult month for the Power Sector, with the incidence of zero power generation for a couple of hours on March 31st. Petrol scarcity also bit hardest in March. These resulted in significant ratings tumbles for these two areas in March.
There was a slight recovery in ratings for the availability of petroleum products, as the disapproval levels decreased from 83% in the March poll to 71% in April. Power remained at low ratings of 72% in the April poll.
Respondents Split on Responsibility for Economy
In April, 34% of respondents held the former Jonathan government completely responsible for the current state of the economy, while 33% thought the Buhari government was completely responsible for the economy. This marks a departure from the previous two months (February and March) when a majority of respondents expressed the view that the Buhari government was completely responsible for the state of the economy.
Since the difference between the number of respondents indicating that either Buhari or Jonathan are responsible for the economy ( 1%) is well within the polling margin of error (4%), no major conclusions can be reached on the issue of whether more or less respondents holds either government completely responsible for the economy.
Budget Crisis and Corruption Revelations Factor Into Respondents Views on Economy
When we reviewed the month to month variation in the responses on where complete responsibility for the poor state of Nigerian economy lies, we noted two major changes. These were: a) significant reduction in the percentage of respondents holding President Buhari responsible (8% reduction), and b) an even bigger increase in the percentage of respondents holding the National Assembly responsible for the state of the economy (13% increase).
While it is not clear what the exact reasons are for these changes, we note two points: First, the budgetary crisis that played out very publicly in April made Nigerians more aware of the role that the National Assembly plays in the fiscal process, hence the allocation of more responsibility to that arm of government. Secondly, public sentiments about the impact of previous governments on current economic outcomes tend to increase when information is made available on misdeeds from the past administration. April saw the release of copious information on slush funds for electoral rigging allegedly operated by Diezani Alison Madueke, at the behest of the Jonathan administration. The May poll results will provide us with some greater clarity about whether these observed changes are a passing fad.
Many Remain Troubled by the Economy, However Optimism about the Future Ticks up Slightly
Concerns about the economy decreased slightly from 51.9% in March to 47% in April, while optimism about the economy ticked up slightly from 24% in March to 27.9% in April. 23.3% of respondents indicated that they see encouraging signs for jobs and employment, up from 19.4% in March. 34.7% are of the view that nothing is being done by the government to create jobs, down from 36.5% in March. 36.9% of respondents indicated that they feel positive about the future, slightly up from 34.4% in March. Overall, respondents had a slightly more positive outlook in April than in March.
Lai takes Pole position in Ratings, Kachikwu settles into second place
Lai Mohammed was the top rated Minister in April. Ibe Kachikwu (Petroleum) climbed back up to second place after falling to fourth place in March. Audu Ogbeh (Agriculture) was the third ranked Minister, while Adebayo Shittu (Communication) placed fourth. In subsequent polls, respondents may be asked to state reasons for voting their ministers of choice.
Army maintains its position as the most respected national institution (55%)
As with our previous poll, Respondents were asked to rate the two (2) major political parties and ten (10) major governmental institutions, i.e., the Presidency, Senate, House of Representatives, Army, Police, Judiciary, the Central Bank and the three anti-corruption organs EFCC, ICPC and CCB.
We consider only Very High and High ratings in determining the comparative rankings for the various institutions. The Nigerian Army retained its ranking as the most highly rated governmental institution, with 55% of respondents rating it as high or very high an improvement over the 53% rating in March. The EFCC ranked second with 37% of respondents giving it high or very high ratings (compared to 33% in March). The Presidency ranked third with 34% ratings, an improvement over the 29% ratings from the March poll. The Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), which has been in the news lately, due to the trial of Senator Bukola Saraki ranked fourth with 26%. The Nigerian Senate and House of Reps ranked 11th and 10th with 7% and 11% high approval ratings respectively.
The APC was the highest ranked political party, with 17% high approval ratings compared to the PDPs 7%.
Buhari Government Maintains High Scores for Handling of Boko Haram Crisis
In April, 75% of respondents gave the Buhari government high ratings (very good and good) for its handling of the Boko Haram crisis, up slightly from 72% in March. Respondents gave very low ratings for the governments handling of the Biafra agitation (42%), Shiite Military clashes (40%) and Fulani Herdsmen attacks (17%).
Majority Continue to Blast Buhari Governments Handling of Fulani Herdsmen attacks
83% of respondents rated the governments handling of the Fulani herdsmen crisis as Poor or Very Poor. We note that since February 2016, more than 80% of respondents have consistently expressed significant disapproval of the Buhari governments handling of the Fulani Herdsmen crisis. We remain of the view that urgent measures are required to address the Fulani herdsmen crisis.
Majority Approve of Buharis Foreign Trips
President Buharis foreign trips, and their value, has been a subject of intense debate. We put this question to respondents for the first time. A slight majority of Nigerians (55%) indicated their approval of the Presidents foreign trips. We note that the Presidency vigorously touted the $6 Billion investment commitments that it secured from the China visit in April.
Majority Recommend Agricultural Sector for Investment
We asked respondents to provide their views on which sectors should be targeted with investments by government. 39% of respondents selected the agricultural sector as their top choice, while 71% of respondents included the agricultural sector amongst their top three selections.
Disaffection with Major Political Parties Grows
About 68% of respondents indicated that they did not belong to any political party. As with our previous polls, about three times more respondents indicated that they were supporters of the APC (24.4%) compared to the PDP (8.1%).
Unless the leadership of Nigerias main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, gets a ruling vacating the order of a Lagos High Court which stopped the party from conducting election into three positions in its executive, those seeking to abort Saturdays national convention will have the last laugh.
The Lagos High Court had on Monday given an order of interlocutory injunction stopping election into those offices following a suit reportedly filed by the trio of National Chairman, Ali Sheriff, National Secretary, Adewale Oladipo and National Auditor, Fatai Adeyanju.
They asked the court to give an order stopping election into their offices saying their tenure was yet to elapse.
Justice Ibrahim Buba asked the Independent National Electoral Commission not to monitor any election into the three offices pending the determination of the suit.
Although Mr. Sheriff denied being one of the litigants, INEC has since written to the PDP saying its officials would monitor the convention and all elections conducted there except those for the offices of the chairman, secretary and auditor in respect of the order.
The development consequently sent confusing signals among party members as to whether the convention slated to hold in the Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital will hold.
As of Friday, some members of the party were still unsure of attending the convention, the first since the defeat of the party in the 2015 presidential poll. This is also because an elective convention without election into those key offices would be a mere gathering.
If anything, the convocation of the convention was essentially to formalize the emergence of Mr. Sheriff as the national chairman, thus analysts tend to concur with the former Borno state governor that he could not have logically been a party to the suit.
Regardless, since his surprising emergence as the PDP chairman in February, Mr. Sheriff has successfully plotted his retention in the position.
He succeeded in persuading all the organs of the party to support his emergence. First, he successfully penetrated the zoning ad-hoc committee of the party headed by the governor of Akwa Ibom State, Udom Emmanuel, to propose in its report zoning the office of the national chairman to his home zone, north east.
Curiously, the national executive committee of the party, in its 70th meeting in April, approved the recommendation of the committee, paving the way for Mr. Sheriffs emergence.
Next was the North Ease zonal chapter of the PDP. At its congress held recently Jalingo, the capital city of Taraba state penultimate Saturday, the chapter adopted Mr. Sheriff as the sole candidate of the zone for the office of national chairman.
The zoning of the number one position of the party became an issue following its humiliating defeat by the All Progressives Congress in the March 28 2015, presidential election after 16 years in power at the centre.
Not a few had blamed the defeat on the decision of the PDP to alter the zoning arrangement in which the north was short changed by allowing former President Goodluck Jonathan, from the south-south zone, to pick the presidential ticket in 2011.
That year, there was intense disagreement in the party when Mr. Jonathan, who completed the tenure of former President Umaru YarAdua, sought to contest the election. Although he won, a seed of discord had been sown.
Even so, Mr. Jonathan went ahead to pick the ticket for the 2015 presidential contest in which he lost to President Muhammadu Buhari.
One crisis after another
The PDP did not just suffer defeat at the presidential election; the party also lost many states in which it had been in charge since the return to democracy in 1999.
By the time the results of the April 11, governorship elections were announced, the then opposition APC had succeeded in winning all but two states of Gombe and Taraba in Nigerias northern region. It lost the control of Kaduna, Adamawa, Niger, Benue, Plateau, Kebbi, Bauchi, Katsina and Jigawa States to the APC.
The humiliating defeat at both the presidential and some state elections led to the resignation of the then chairman, Adamu Muazu, from office.
Mr. Muazus deputy, Uche Secondus, took over pending the appointment of a chairman from the north east, where he comes from to complete his tenure.
However, Mr. Secondus and the NWC he led became reluctant to allow the emergence of a new chairman, prompting a former presidential aide, Ahmed Gulak, to go to court to ensure that Mr. Secondus left office.
Mr. Gulak, who was political adviser to Mr. Jonathan, got a favourable verdict from an FCT High Court which ordered Mr. Secondus to vacate office and hand over to either Mr. Gulak or any competent person from the north east.
Sensing that Mr. Secondus was not willing to respect the court order, Mr. Gulak and his group forced their way to the Wadata Plaza headquarters of the party to take over in line with the ruling of the court.
As is mostly the case, governors elected on the platform of the party quickly intervened and brought in Mr. Sheriff to conclude Mr. Muazus tenure. The former presidential aide said he had no ill-feeling about it.
He told PREMIUM TIMES, Firstly, I set out to achieve one thing and that is that the constitution must be obeyed by whoever is concerned in this party and my action and after the court judgement, the legal and political steps I took made the PDP to wake up and since then the PDP has never been the same again. There was the emergence of Ali Modu Sheriff from the north-east and that is part of what I went to court to achieve.
Secondly, the party was woken up from its slumber. That is another aspect. I did not set out to say that I must be the chairman of this party. I set out to say that somebody from the north-east must occupy that position. So by and large I have achieved my aim and somebody from the north-east has emerged and is leading the party.
But Mr. Sheriffs emergence as was met with resistance by a section of the PDP, notably, some members of the BoT, the PDP Ministers Forum and others. He was largely seen by those groups as a stranger to the party having joined it only last year. Mr. Sheriff was a senior members of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party, on which platform he ruled Borno State for eight years. He was also the chairman of its BoT.
However, everything appeared calm after Mr. Sheriff, reportedly proved himself capable of running the party.
Sources said the former Borno governor came at a time the party was facing serious financial difficulty and he did not waste time in using his personal funds the run the party and even pay staff salary.
Curiously, however, some founding fathers of the PDP felt that the decision to zone the office of national chairman to the north east was majorly to favour Mr. Sheriff even though the party had already agreed to produce its presidential candidate also from the north in line with the recommendation last year of a committee headed by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu.
The founding fathers led by a former Minister of Information, Jerry Gana, again regrouped and this time announced that the NEC meeting that confirmed the extension of tenure of office of the National Working Committee headed by Mr. Sheriff was illegal.
They subsequently, announced the sack of Mr. Sheriff from office.
However, Inuwa Bwala, an aide to national chairman, came down hard on the elders, especially Mr. Gana, saying, they were angry because Mr. Sheriff refused to do their bidding.
He also threatened that Mr. Gana would be taken to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for investigation after it emerged that he collected a loan of N500 million from a Bank in the name of the PDP.
Sensing serious threat to his quest for election as substantive chairman in Port Harcourt, Mr. Sheriff promptly disowned his media aide and apologized to the party elders.
However, it appears his apology did not go down well with the group as reports suggest they plan to hold a separate convention in Abuja also on Saturday.
Last Tuesday, the group, which styled itself Concerned PDP Stakeholders, met in Abuja to fine-tune its plan for a parallel convention.
It inaugurated a 56-member steering committee to organise the event and pilot the affairs of the party afterwards.
Among the members are Tunde Adeniran, Inna Ciroma, Wilberforce Juta, Ibrahim Bunu, Adamu Maina Waziri, Bala Mohammed, Taminu Turaki, Doyin Okupe and Remi Adiukwu.
Also in the group are Josephine Anenih, Ojo Maduekwe, ABC Nwosu, Ben Obi, John Odey, Sam Oyovbaire, Florence Ita-Giwa, Shittu Mohammed Kabiru, Grace Bent, Okwesilieze Nwodo and Anietie Okon.
Others are Lucky Igbinedion, Bonnie Haruna, Ibrahim Shema, Donald Duke, Attahiru Bafarawa, Mahmood Shinkafi, Abdulkadir Kure, Ahmed Makarfi, Achike Udenwa, Babangida Aliyu, Gbenga Daniel, all of who are former governors.
The list might have met their perfect match in the partys governors and federal lawmakers who are backing Mr. Sheriff in his quest to return as national chairman.
Analysts however say the conduct of two separate conventions might signal the beginning of the end of the party that had control the federal government for 16 years unless something is done quickly.
The Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, has warned the Federal Government to avoid what it described as a possible second civil war, by dismissing the plan to create grazing reserves for Fulani Herdsmen across the country.
The warning was given by the Primate of the Anglican Communion, Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh, while delivering a keynote address, with the theme: The poverty of riches, during the third session of the 9th synod of Anglican Bishops in Nigeria, Friday.
According to the church, the intended approach would mean an unwarranted special preference, which could only spell evil in time to come.
The church said the plan by the government may be misconceived as making Fulani Herdsmen indigenes of every part of the country.
He said that herdsmen have a notorious history of attacking their host communities, a development he said could escalate if they are allowed to graze in states across the federation.
The synod hereby states unequivocally that the move to create grazing reserves for Fulani herdsmen around the country does not have our support. This is because the move threatens to accord a set of people with unwarranted special preference, making them indigenes of all regions of the country, the church said.
There have been countless isolated cases of herdsmen brutality to their host communities. These notorious activities of herdsmen are capable of dragging the country into another civil war. The Fulani herdsmen are private businessmen who take away all proceeds of the business, not sharing with either their host communities or the government.
We wish to re-echo to the Federal Government, states and individuals involved, the recommendation already made earlier, that ranches should be built in their own localities for modern animal husbandry, Mr. Okoh stated.
He therefore called on the government to prevent an attempt to further stretch most states already battling with over population.
In some parts of Nigeria, people are already grappling with high population growth and land does not expand.
The synod calls on the National Assembly to drop the bill on grazing reserves as it is only heating up the polity and will do no good to the herdsmen, their host communities or the government, the church said.
He commended the efforts of government towards attracting foreign investors, but added that an investment-friendly environment remains a major prerequisite for achieving one of Nigerias greatest economic goals of today.
Factors that investors will need to thrive, are mostly security and power among others, the church stated.
A former deputy senate president, Ibrahim Mantu, has said that a group of founding fathers and elders of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, decided to organise a parallel national convention of the party in order to restore the party to the path of integrity.
The faction organised the convention on Saturday, simultaneously as another convention, led by the partys national chairman, Modu Sheriff, held in Port Harcourt.
Speaking at the opening of the factional convention which held in Abuja, Mr. Mantu said mindful of their roles as elders of the PDP, they reviewed recent events in the party and came to the painful conclusion that the culture of impunity, disdain for democratic norms and utter disregard for the constitution of the PDP which he said led to the defeat of the party in 2015 are rearing their ugly head again.
Mr. Mantu, who co-chaired the convention alongside a former Minister of Education, Tunde Adeniran, said the group disagreed with the extension of the tenure of the current National Working Committee.
He said the extension by the National Executive Committee was null and void because the NEC cannot grant any such extension under the PDP constitution.
Therefore, all actions of the Ali Modu Sheriff led executive including the purported congresses and convention in Port Harcourt are null and void and an exercise in illegality, he said.
He also said the action of the NEC in selecting Mr. Sheriff as chairman of the party was in gross violation of the established procedure for the selection.
Mr. Mantu said the selection of the chairman for the unexpired term of the North East zone started with nomination from the states in the zone, adding that Senator Sheriff was not nominated by any state caucus and hence not qualified to be selected.
The former deputy senator president said the decision by the PDP to go ahead with the Port Harcourt convention in disobedience of a valid court order stopping the convention signals a worrisome trend that would further weaken the party to the delight of fifth columnists working hard to truncate the historic role of the PDP to provide a viable and constructive opposition to a rudderless government.
A Court in Lagos had on Monday given an order of interlocutory injunction stopping the PDP convention until a suit instituted by some officials of the party is determined.
In line with that, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had told the PDP it would monitor the election at Port Harcourt convention, with the exception of the offices of Chairman, Secretary and Auditor due to the court order.
When it was time for the business of the day at the Abuja convention, Mr. Mantu announced that the convention was non-elective in line with the order of the court.
Those who attended the Abuja convention included former acting governors of Adamawa and Taraba states, Umaru Fintiri and Garba Umar, as well as former Ministers, Tanimu Turaki, Bala Mohammed and John Odey.
The Lagos State Government on Saturday said it would formally welcome President Muhammadu Buhari on a two-day working visit to the state on Monday.
This is contained in a statement issued by the states Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Steve Ayorinde, which was obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
Mr. Ayorinde said this would be President Buharis first official visit to the state since he assumed office about a year ago.
Mr. Ayorinde said the president, during the visit, would formally commission the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) Rescue Unit, at Cappa, near Oshodi, in the state.
He said the Rescue Unit was built by the state government to ensure prompt and swift response to emergency situations.
Mr. Ayorinde said the president would thereafter commission the newly-constructed Ago Palace Way in Okota, Isolo, after which he would pay homage to Oba Rilwan Akiolu of Lagos.
The Commissioner also said that President Buhari would later in the day be hosted to a reception at the Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos.
He said Mr Buhari would also commission and hand over security equipment and vehicles contributed by the state government to the security agencies, to strengthen security in the state.
The commissioner said that activities for the first day of the presidents visit would be rounded up with a state banquet in his honour at the Eko Hotels and Suites, Lagos.
He said that the president will on Tuesday participate as a special guest of honour at a breakfast session with Corporate Lagos, to be hosted by Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode, at the Lagos State House, Marina.
Mr. Ayorinde said after the breakfast session, President Buhari would have a short session with the public service at the State House, Ikeja.
He urged residents to bear with law enforcement agents and traffic control authorities who would effect road diversions in some of the routes that the presidents motorcade would pass through during the visit.
Mr. Ayorinde added that the governor was joyous over the landmark presidential visit to the state that contributed so much to his emergence as president. (NAN)
Attempts by workers at Radio Bayelsa on Saturday to shut down the station were resisted by the state Commissioner for Information, Jonathan Obuebite.
The organized labour on Thursday commenced an industrial action to compel the Bayelsa government to clear the backlog of four months salary owed workers in the state.
Members of Radio and Television Workers Union (RATAWU) had commenced moves to shut down the government-owned radio station but were dispersed by armed policemen who accompanied Mr. Obuebite.
Subsequently, the commissioner thwarted the efforts of the workers who had seized the transmitter and locked various sections of the facility. He put the station back on air.
However, the withdrawal of workers services took a toll on the services of the broadcast outfit, as regular programmes were suspended, and the station played only music for hours without break.
An official of Radio Bayelsa chapter of RATAWU had alleged that the workers scampered to safety as they were forcefully dispersed by stern looking policemen.
Reacting to the development, Hayford Lawson, General Manager of Radio Bayelsa, christened Glory FM, said the management insisted that workers had no right to totally shut down the station.
They insisted on taking us off air and we said that it is not going to happen, we opted to render skeletal services using senior management staff who are not affected by the strike under labour laws.
We have scaled down our operations and out of four news bulletins, we only have two and we shut down services by 6 pm, the Commissioner was here with us and did not molest the workers, there was nothing like that, Mr. Lawson said.
Gov Seriake Dickson had told workers in a broadcast that the state had no funds due to dwindling revenue from the federation account and vowed to invoke the no-work-no-pay rule.
NA elections: more than half of the candidates have a master's or higher
By Ha Phuong May 21, 2016 | 05:59 am PT
On May 22, Vietnamese citizens will cast their votes to elect delegates of the 14th National Assembly. 448 of 870 candidates running for a seat in the NA hold a master's or a PhD degree and over 60 percent are male.
Middle-aged candidates make up the majority.
Over 60 percent of the contenders are male.
Muong is the ethnic minority with the largest number of candidates, 24, followed by Khmer, 19, and Tay, 17.
Candidates with a bachelor's degree account for 43.8 percent, followed by master's and PhD degrees with 33.2 percent and 18.3 percent respectively.
Hanoi and HCMC are the leading places of candidacy, followed by Thanh Hoa and Nghe An.
The vast majority of candidates have been centrally nominated.
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.
Foreign enterprises accounted for about 65 percent and contributed nearly $70 billion to Vietnams total export and import value in the first four months.
Vietnams total trade turnover in the first four months of 2016 reached over $104.4 billion of which 64.9 percent were foreign contributions, according to Vietnam Customs statistics. This marks an increase of 2.5 percent compared to the same period last year, including a 6.5 percent rise in exports from the initial value of $53.1 billion and a 1.3 percent decrease in imports from the intial value of $51.34 billion.
FDI companies significantly contributed to Vietnam's exports and imports in the first four months of 2016. Photo by Bkav
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) companies have seen a 4.4 percent increase year on year with total trading turnover of $67.78 billion. This owes to strong export growth of 10.3 percent, which reached $37.23 billion in the first four months of 2016. Most FDI exports stemmed from commodity groups of telephone, mobile phone and their parts (up 22.7 percent); foot-wear (up 10.1 percent); machinery, equipment, tools and instruments (up 15.5 percent); and handbags, purses, suitcases, headgear and umbrellas (up 26.3 percent).
Domestic companies in contrast lagged behind as marked by a one percent slump in trade turnover to reach $36.67 billion, making up only 35.1 percent of total trade turnover. Domestic exports fell by 1.5 percent to be worth $15.88 billion, due primarily to sharp decline of crude oil export value by 51.7 percent.
Regarding goods imported to Vietnam, domestic companies imports decreased slightly by 0.5 percent compared to the same period last year while FDI counterparts cut their imports by 1.9 percent, down to $30.55 billion.
SHENZHEN, China, May 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Coolpad Group is announcing the global launch of its flagship smartphone Coolpad MAX.
Just 7.6mm thin and weighing 170g, Coolpad MAX is a premium device with a full metal body, curved edge glass screen (Corning Gorilla Glass 4), 5.5-inch FHD display, 13 MP rear camera, dual tone LED, quick charge 3.0, fingerprint reader, and advanced Qualcomm Snapdragon octa-core processor with 4GB RAM.
Coolpad MAX also houses the company's innovative Dual Space feature which enables users to separate their personal and professional lives without the need to use two different phones.
To protect both personal and professional information, Coolpad has installed encryption technology that ensures any data, contacts, photos, videos, and applications stored on the smartphone can be well protected without worrying about data leakage.
Coolpad has been recognized with many industry accolades, including a recent ranking of #342 on the annual China Fortune 500 companies list by FORTUNE 500 CHINA Magazine in 2013 and a ranking of 47 on the China top 100 Electronics & Info Enterprises list.
The company is committed to consistent future success, which it believes will come in the form of building a powerful global brand with the vision of 'Empowering everyone everywhere'.
About Coolpad
Established by Yulong Computer Telecommunication Scientific (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. ("Yulong Telecommunications") in April 1993, Coolpad is one of the top smartphone brands in the world. The IPO of Coolpad Group began on the Hong Kong stock market (HKEx) in 2004 (stock trade code: 2369) and with 6 R&D facilities worldwide, Coolpad Group continues to invest heavily in developing innovative products like smartphones.
With more than 20 years of experience in smartphone manufacturing, Coolpad devices are now available in a number of international markets including Europe, America and Africa.
Contact:
Yolanda Song
+86-13620934682
yolanda.song@yulong.com
SOURCE Yulong Computer Telecommunication Scientific (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.
BELIZE CITY, Belize, May 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
Axiory Global Ltd (Head office: No. 5 Cork Street, Belize City, Belize, CEO & Co-founder David Kasper, hereinafter, "Axiory") has begun to provide a new FX trading platform called cTrader for consumers from 20 May 2016.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160518/369143LOGO )
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160518/369144LOGO )
cTrader Reference Information
https://jp.axiory.com/jp/news/20160520.html
About cTrader
cTrader is an integrated FX trading application that was developed by Spotware Systems Ltd of London. It is a trading tool for foreign exchange margin transactions that has been adopted by around 20 brokerages worldwide.
cTrader is a trading platform for professionals with an intuitive GUI, advanced transaction functions and an almost perfect back end set-up integrated. It is an integrated trading tool made up of five applications: including cAlgo that enables the creation of automatic sales programs to carry out algorithms, cTrader for iOS/Android for mobile platforms, and cTrader for Web which is the first to be completely web-based and support HTML5 besides Windows applications.
Originally, cTrader was a trading application developed on the premise of ECN transactions, without going through trading desks. It supports many traders who seek a high level of transparency and fast access to the inter-bank market. At Axiory we have judged it possible to further support customer needs by matching cTrader with our company policies of fairness and transparency, and have provided an STP (no handling fee) method cTrader standard account and an ECN (with handling fee) method cTrader non-spread account.
At Axiory, we think it will be possible to expect increased transaction volumes and customer convenience, and more flexible options than ever before by offering the new cTrader service in addition to MetaTrader4 that has been available to date.
About Axiory Global Ltd
Axiory is an FX brokerage based in Belize and aimed at leading companies globally, providing high customer profits and convenience. It is an international financial services provider that offers automated trading platforms for global customers with the MultiTrader platform that has been independently developed since 2007.
Axiory Global Ltd is approved, authorised and regulated by the IFSC (International Financial Services Commission) as an international financial product brokerage in Belize. No. IFSC/60/255/TS/13
The Axiory group aims to continue providing highly transparent services, along with striving to develop user-friendly tools that respond to customer demands.
Risk Disclaimer:
Trading foreign exchange on margin carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. The high degree of leverage can work against you as well as for you. Before deciding to trade foreign exchange you should carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite. The possibility exists that you could sustain a loss of some or all of your initial investment and therefore you should not invest money that you cannot afford to lose. You should be aware of all the risks associated with foreign exchange trading, and seek advice from an independent financial advisor if you have any doubts.
Any opinions, news, research, analysis, prices, or other information contained on this website is provided as general market commentary, and does not constitute investment advice. Axiory Global Ltd. will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to, any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information.
SOURCE Axiory Global Ltd.
LAS VEGAS, May 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- American Leisure Holdings, Inc. (OTC: AMLH), announced today that it has completed a Share Exchange Agreement with Digital Airo Inc. (DIGA), which is now the operational company. The Share Exchange resulted in the Management of DIGA becoming the majority shareholders, now holding approximately 65% of the Issued and Outstanding stock in the company.
Mr. Eric Wroblewski and Mr. Scott Wroblewski have resigned their positions as Officers and Directors of the company and Mr. James McFadden was appointed the Chief Executive Officer and sole Officer and Director at this time. Mr. McFadden stated "we are excited to bring Digital Airo forward as the primary business proposition in the public arena and look forward to executing our plan to becoming a well-rounded online solution for communications in today's market."
Digital Airo will be the primary operating business that shall represent various technology and online related products and services. The detail of the transaction is further identified in the Information Statement that was posted on OTC Markets on May 13, 2016 and is incorporate herein by reference.
Mr. Wroblewski said that "we are pleased to have sourced and reached an agreement with Digital Airo so that we can offer our shareholders a business model that has the potential of rapidly growing with full scalability and multiples that can result in significant returns, should the business model come to fruition."
About Digital Airo:
The Company's new business model is operated by Digital Airo, Inc. under the brand name Registered Express, which is an Internet based global delivery of documents/files/media through its licensed proprietary system and network. The Company was founded upon the most reliable and advanced technologies in the industry combined with innovative business development, marketing and branding strategies. This simple, easy to use system with enhanced capabilities of security, notifications, and storage, exceeds all compliance and security standards. The Company's EDD (electronic document delivery) system is branded under the name Registered Express and is accessible at the web site www.registeredexpress.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release 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 and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause future results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. You should consider these factors in evaluating the statements herein, and not rely solely on such statements. The forward-looking statements in this release are made as of the date hereof and American Leisure Holdings, Inc. undertakes no obligation to update such statements.
SOURCE American Leisure Holdings, Inc.
AMHERST, Mass., May 21, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On May 22, Amherst College celebrates its own history: its 165th Commencement. On May 23, a day later, it will begin demolishing buildings and clearing the site for its $214 million Science Center. One of the buildings to be destroyed is the historic Little Red Schoolhouse, designed in 1937 by McKim, Mead & White, which has been described by The New York Times as "America's most famous architectural firm," and by National Public Radio as "These Architects Designed A Nation."
The principal architect of the Little Red Schoolhouse was James Kellum Smith, a McKim, Mead & White partner and graduate of Amherst College class of 1915. Sometimes called "one of America's foremost architects," Smith also designed the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, the 12th most visited museum in the world. Many books have been written about the legacy of the architectural firm, McKim, Mead, and White, designers of the Rhode Island State house and New York's beloved Penn Station which was demolished in 1963 leading to great remorse which gave birth to the U.S. Historic Preservation movement.
The Little Red Schoolhouse Preservation Committee (www.SaveLittleRed.org) issued the following statement:
Among the oldest purpose-built preschools in the country, the Little Red Schoolhouse is one of the earliest (1937) examples of a progressive laboratory school attached to a college. Wellesley College Professor of Education, Barbara Beatty, author of Preschool Education in America: The Culture of Young Children from the Colonial Era to the Present (Yale, 1997), states, "As a historian of early childhood education, I know that there is a venerable tradition of college nursery schools, purposed-built to be special spaces for young children. To demolish another of these historically important schools, the Little Red School House, would be a loss. We need to be reminded by the presence of structures especially built for children that we value children, and have valued children, more than symbolically, for many years, and pushed to increase how we care for children and their education."
The Little Red Schoolhouse's design harks back to the traditional one-room schoolhouse. At 2000 square feet, the Little Red Schoolhouse is believed be the smallest building to have been designed by McKim, Mead & White. Speaking about Amherst College's Little Red Schoolhouse, Dr. Jonathan Zimmerman, Professor of Education and History at NYU and Author of, Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory (Yale, 2009), said: "Designed by one of the leading architectural firms in the United States, [the schoolhouse] was an explicit effort to preserve an educational legacy that was on the wane. I don't know of any other school building that so brilliantly encompasses both the history of American primary schooling and the campaign to keep that history alive. Destroying the school would do more than knock down another piece of our past; it would mock the efforts of our forebears to maintain it. We are better than this."
The Columbia University Visitor Center website reports that its campus at Morningside Heights "comprises the largest single collection of McKim, Mead & White buildings in existence." Columbia's online building inventory lists 24 buildings designed by McKim, Mead & White. Amherst College currently has 27 structures designed in whole or in part by McKim, Mead & White.
Amherst College President Stanley King wrote of the Little Red Schoolhouse, "No building on the Amherst campus is better built." President King also recognized the importance of Little Red Schoolhouse as a symbol of college-town collaboration, writing, "The fact that the school is open to the children of the town as well as to the children of Amherst faculty is recognition of the fundamental fact that the College is tax-exempt in the town and may wisely therefore make some return to the town. These facts I think should always be borne in mind in considering the Day School in its relation to the College."
The Little Red Schoolhouse, beloved in the community of Amherst since more than 1700 preschoolers from the community and the college graduated from there, was granted a one year demolition delay on May 19, 2015 by the Amherst Historic Commission. The Commission determined the building to be of historic value meeting two historic criteria: 1) "exemplifies the cultural, political, economic, social or historic heritage of the community;" 2) "Embodies those distinguishing characteristics of an architectural type."
Despite pleas by members of the Little Red Schoolhouse Preservation Committee, Amherst College refuses to move the building, stating that such move would be too costly and that they have no use for the building. The Preservation Committee received quotes from companies experienced in moving brick or stone buildings saying that it would cost a minimum of $150,000 to move the building, not including the preparation of a new foundation and the preparation of the site for the move itself. Amherst College states that the cost will be much higher. Though representatives of Amherst College met numerous times with members of the Preservation Committee and were willing to donate the Schoolhouse to another entity in Amherst who could make appropriate use of it, the College stated that it would not provide any funds for a move and would not allow the building to be moved anywhere on its campus.
Though members of the Little Red Schoolhouse Preservation Committee requested the opportunity to meet directly with Amherst College President Biddy Martin about the Schoolhouse, she never agreed to meet with them. Carol Gray, a member of the Preservation Committee, said she believes Amherst College could move the building to a temporary site on campus while it considers a long term plan to repurpose the building. Gray states, "It's not too late for Amherst College to recognize and preserve our community's history rather than destroy it. It would be tragic and ironic if the College began destruction of Amherst's historic treasure, the Little Red Schoolhouse, the day after it celebrated its own history with its 165th commencement."
The Little Red Schoolhouse, donated by James Turner, Amherst College alumnus, came with its own endowment, approximately $400,000 at the time Amherst College closed the preschool in May 2013. The College absorbed the Little Red Schoolhouse's endowment into its own finances. As of 2015, Amherst College's endowment was 2.194 billion dollars. According to the College's website, in 2013, the projected cost of the new Science Center was $214 million and the cost of the new dorms was $60 million.
For more information about the Little Red Schoolhouse, see http://www.savelittlered.org/ or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Schoolhouse_(Amherst,_Massachusetts)
Contact: Carol Gray 413-297-1075 [email protected], or Bob Weiner 301-283-0821, cell 202-306-1200 [email protected]
SOURCE Robert Weiner Associates and The Little Red Schoolhouse Preservation Committee
Related Links
http://www.SaveLittleRed.org
BHCC President Pam Eddinger conducted the College's traditional "ritual of gratitude" in which graduates thank all who have helped them through college. She praised the graduating class, saying "I admire your courage, your resilience, your determination. Pass those good things on. Lead others. Our world has a long way to go until everyone is on that path you paved."
Introducing Walsh, Eddinger praised the Mayor as a powerful force in public higher education. "Mayor Walsh's priorities of economic equity and opportunity, data-driven government, holistic planning to prepare Boston for the future, and closing the achievement gap are aligned with the urban mission of the College," she said.
"Congratulations to the graduates of Bunker Hill Community College on achieving this significant milestone, which represents years of hard work on your journey towards success in the workplace, in life and in your future," said Mayor Martin J. Walsh. "Each of you may have taken a unique path to this degree, but what you have in common is that you earned it. You have shown the grit and determination we need to succeed as a city and as a country, and I wish you all the best in the exciting steps you take in fulfilling your next goal."
At the ceremony the College also recognized Walsh with the President's Distinguished Service Award, the highest honor the College confers on a member of the community. The College honored Mayor Walsh's work in increasing economic development and his commitment to economic inclusion, calling his work with The Equity Agenda, Imagine Boston 2030, Housing a Changing City, and the C40 Global Climate Leadership Group "visionary and inspiring."
Also honored at the event was Amparo Hernandez-Folch, a Professor in the Mathematics Department. She has served Bunker Hill Community College for 28 years. Although she retired from BHCC in December 2015, Professor Hernandez-Folch remains engaged at the College, serving BHCC and its students. "Her passion for community college education and dedication to the success of BHCC students leaves a lasting legacy," said William J. Walczak, Chair of the Bunker Hill Community College Board of Trustees. Hernandez-Folch received the Trustees' Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes extraordinary commitment and service to the College.
The mayor's speech was recorded on Facebook Live and can be viewed at www.facebook.com/BHCCBoston.
Media Contact:
Karen M. Norton, Executive Director of Integrated Marketing and Communications
Bunker Hill Community College, Boston, MA 02129
Phone: 617-228-2177; Email: [email protected]
Bunker Hill Community College is the largest community college in Massachusetts. The College enrolls more than 14,000 students on two campuses and at three satellite locations. BHCC is one of the most diverse institutions of higher education in Massachusetts. Sixty-four percent of the students are people of color and more than half of BHCC's students are women. The College also enrolls more than 850 international students who come from approximately 100 countries and speak more than 75 languages.
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160521/370607
SOURCE Bunker Hill Community College
Related Links
http://www.bhcc.mass.edu
DALLAS, May 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Available today, the fanpage.com lets users express their fandom by creating fanpages for their favorite team, celebrity, musical artist, comic series, video game, or whatever they're a fan of. As their Fanpages gain followers, likes, and shares, they climb the leaderboards, and compete to become the biggest fan, earning chances to win authentic memorabilia and once-in-a-lifetime fan experiences.
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160520/370495LOGO
Users first say what they are a fan of, and are then supplied with curated pictures and videos of their fandom, which they can add to their respective fanpages. Users are also able to take or upload images and videos from youtube, to add to their fanpages. Users can climb the leaderboards by gaining new followers, likes, and shares of their fanpages, competing to become the biggest fan.
"Fandoms are on the rise, and becoming more niche than ever. Fans are looking for ways to express their fandom, using apps like Instagram to create fanpages, but are unable to link them to their profile, or engage other fans with the content. In contrast, on facebook, fans can only follow fanpages that others have created about themselves. We surveyed fans from over 50 countries prior to development with 73% of fans saying they loved the idea, and would use the app. Our goal was to create a free and fun experience where fans could create, connect, and compete," said Billy Rodgers, Co-Founder, and CEO.
For Brands, Teams, Artists, and Influencers, Fanpage provides a way to identify, incent, and reward their biggest fans. With an official profile, influencers can launch contests offering discounts, special offers and prizes to their biggest fans. Fans then create and share fanpages about that specific fandom, vying to become the biggest fan. Upon launching the contest, Influencers can upload their own pass through advertisements, at no cost, which are shown on all fanpages created about their fandom. "The average person has 300 connections through social media. So if a brand or influencer had 1000 fans competing, the brand's message would be hand delivered to 300,000 people in the sweet spot of their target market, and by people they trust. It has the ability to turn Fan Armies into Armies of Social Brand Advocates," said Rodgers.
The fanpage mobile apps are free for download, and available worldwide. The company will be releasing native apps for both iPad and Android tablet devices later this year.
Please visit fanpage.com to learn more about fanpage, download the apps, watch their marketing video, or read their blog.
If you would like further information about fanpage.com, or to schedule an interview, please contact:
Billy Rodgers, CEO
Phone: (214) 734-8081
Email: [email protected]
This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com
SOURCE Fanpage, LLC
Related Links
https://fanpage.com
SANTEE, CA, May, 21 2016 /PRNewswire/ - The Santee community was revitalized today thanks to a new playground built at the Town Center Community Park West. In less than eight hours, more than 200 volunteers from Foresters FinancialTM, the City of Santee, and non-profit KaBOOM! created the new play space, which will serve more than 20,000 children and their families in the local community for years to come.
"We believe in enriching lives and building strong communities that's our purpose," said Tony Garcia, President and CEO, Foresters Financial. "Playgrounds are important to communities, providing a public space where children can play safely, families can spend quality time and the community can come together. An investment in a playground is an investment in community, and we are happy to provide the Santee community with a place that families can enjoy for years to come."
The design for the new playground is based on drawings created by neighborhood children at a special Design Day event held in March when community members met with organizers from KaBOOM! and Foresters Financial to design their dream playground. The drawings inspired the final playground design.
Foresters Financial, an international financial services provider, helps families reach their financial goals, protect themselves and make a lasting difference in their communities. This year, Foresters and KaBOOM! are proudly celebrating the 10 year anniversary of their partnership. Since 2006, Foresters has invested more than $11.5 million with KaBOOM! to build more than 130 playgrounds including 5 in San Diego across the US and Canada by the end of 2016. Over their 15-year lifespan, these playgrounds will provide more than 4.5 million children and their families with an opportunity to spend quality time together and enhance family well-being.
"We're pleased to collaborate with Foresters Financial and KaBOOM! to create this new playground at Town Center Community Park West," said Santee Community Services Director Bill Maertz. "This play area occupies an ideal location that attracts a high number of visitors. It will serve the community well by helping children stay active and healthy."
Green spaces and safe play structures where children and families can enjoy and spend time together are sparse in many high density communities. Playing outdoors is an important part of every child's healthy development and the creation of this new playground will allow thousands of children to play safely and be active in their community.
Foresters Financial is a KaBOOM! Founding Partner and National Partner. Since 1996, KaBOOM! has been dedicated to the bold goal of ensuring that all children get the balance of active play they need to become healthy and successful adults because #playmatters.
City of Santee
Incorporated in 1980, the City of Santee occupies 16.5 square miles and has a population of approximately 56,000 located 18 miles from the sparkling beaches of the Pacific Ocean. The city's Community Services Department operates eight public parks totaling more than 250 acres and nearly 4 miles of multi-use trails along the San Diego River. The KaBoom! playground is located at Town Center Community Park, Santee's busiest community park, which generates an annual attendance of 1 million visitors.
Foresters
Foresters Financial is an international financial services provider with more than three million clients and members in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. We provide life insurance, savings, retirement and investment solutions that help families achieve their financial goals and make a lasting difference in their lives and communities. For over 140 years, Foresters Financial has built a foundation of financial strength and a commitment of giving back to our clients and members and the communities where they live. For more information, visit foresters.com.
Foresters Financial and Foresters are trade names and trademarks of The Independent Order of Foresters (a fraternal benefit society, 789 Don Mills Road, Toronto, Canada M3C 1T9) and its subsidiaries. 413565F US (05/16)
KaBOOM!
KaBOOM! is the national non-profit dedicated to giving all kids particularly those growing up in poverty in America the childhood they deserve filled with balanced and active play, so they can thrive. Since 1996, KaBOOM! has collaborated with partners to build, open, or improve nearly 16,300 playgrounds, engaged more than one million volunteers, and served 8.1 million kids. KaBOOM! creates great places to play, inspires communities to promote and support play, and works to drive the national discussion about the importance of play in fostering healthy and productive lives. To learn why #playmatters and why cities are embracing #playability: visit kaboom.org or join the conversation at twitter.com/kaboom or facebook.com/kaboom.
SOURCE Foresters
Related Links
www.foresters.com
Recalling her first job at Hill Holliday as receptionist, "the face and voice" of the national ad agency, Kaplan said: "I remember thinking that sounds like something the CEO should be responsible for. And at that moment, I decided I would consider myself the CEO of the reception desk.
" I considered myself the CEO of every job I ever had, every account I ever ran, and every department I ever managed," she said of the various positions she held before ultimately landing as chair and CEO.
Emphasizing the importance of staying authentic, she offered nine strategies to "get where you want by being who you are." Among them:
Originality requires attention. "Digital natives you guys check their phones more than 150 times a day. Yet, we live in a world where there is a premium placed on the creation of original ideas generating original thought is virtually impossible while you're busy transacting with your head down. So just make sure you pull up every once in a while and pay attention to what's going on around you that can inspire you and fuel your creativity, because the ability to create something original out of absolutely nothing will serve you well in whatever career you choose."
"Digital natives you guys check their phones more than 150 times a day. Yet, we live in a world where there is a premium placed on the creation of original ideas generating original thought is virtually impossible while you're busy transacting with your head down. So just make sure you pull up every once in a while and pay attention to what's going on around you that can inspire you and fuel your creativity, because the ability to create something original out of absolutely nothing will serve you well in whatever career you choose." Embrace what makes you different. " Personal differences can be our competitive advantage in life. If you know who you are and you're comfortable with who you are, you can very easily turn perceived liabilities into assets."
" Personal differences can be our competitive advantage in life. If you know who you are and you're comfortable with who you are, you can very easily turn perceived liabilities into assets." No coasting. Working a few extra hours, for example, will help you pass by more experienced people. " it's all about deliberate practice and a hunger to succeed Successful people never coast because they know you only coast one way, and that's downhill."
Working a few extra hours, for example, will help you pass by more experienced people. " it's all about deliberate practice and a hunger to succeed Successful people never coast because they know you only coast one way, and that's downhill." Keep your eyes wide open. "My mother taught me to be a lifelong learner, to retain the natural curiosity that we all have as children. Successful people are inspired not by how much they know, but by how much they don't know They know they can always be better and do better I hire people based on their perspective, not their pedigree "
"My mother taught me to be a lifelong learner, to retain the natural curiosity that we all have as children. Successful people are inspired not by how much they know, but by how much they don't know They know they can always be better and do better I hire people based on their perspective, not their pedigree " Go where you're celebrated, not where you're tolerated. Find the right environment to succeed. "I tell people not to be afraid to make a change if they feel their unique talents and contributions aren't being appreciated or acknowledged."
Find the right environment to succeed. "I tell people not to be afraid to make a change if they feel their unique talents and contributions aren't being appreciated or acknowledged." Today's peacock is tomorrow's feather duster. "Truly successful people don't take themselves too seriously and they remain humble. When they get to the top, they don't forget where they came from."
"Truly successful people don't take themselves too seriously and they remain humble. When they get to the top, they don't forget where they came from." You've got to believe. "Successful people believe. They believe they don't have to become someone because they already are someone They wake up in the morning believing they can, and will, make a difference. And you know what? They do."
Kaplan received an honorary doctor of commercial science degree at the ceremony.
GRADUATE CEREMONY
Corey Thomas, president and CEO of Rapid7 security software firm, delivered the keynote address at the Graduate School of Business 41st commencement ceremony.
"Who are your heroes, and why?" Thomas asked graduates, and then shared how his ideal heroes shifted from "rebels and disrupters" to builders and connectors.
"My heroes changed the way the world worked, they challenged established powers, and they brought new innovations to life But what I learned is that true innovation comes from your ability to notice and see things in the world and imagine new ways to be in the world it's a struggle against yourself to learn to grow and expand."
Thomas challenged graduates to take learning beyond book smarts to create authentic connections. " learning is about more than facts and science, it's also about people: their motivations, their behaviors, their beliefs, their biases and even their desires the best innovators are those who expand their knowledge, but also their perspective, their senses and their connections."
Teamwork, he said, is necessary for success. "Bringing the vision to life is not a solitary journey. It's about the power and impact of teams, organizations and even societies."
He urged graduates to make positive impact by being builders of society. " These times require a different type of hero who is able to build, bind and bring together the best in people build and create the jobs and industries that we need to transform ourselves into a better future negotiate and engage with one another and the world to create a stronger, more united place. So I ask you today to be the new expansionary heroes we need and invent a better world."
Thomas received an honorary doctor of commercial science degree at the ceremony.
ABOUT THE GRADUATES
At the undergraduate ceremony, 1039 Bachelor of Science degrees and 18 Bachelor of Arts degrees were awarded to 1057 students. (Figures above include degrees and certificates conferred October 30, 2015, February 26, 2016, and May 21, 2016. Students may earn multiple degrees and certificates so may be counted more than once.)
At the Graduate School of Business ceremony, six doctoral degrees, 463 Master of Science degrees, 148 Master of Business Administration degrees, eight dual MS/MBA degrees, and 117 certificates were granted to 742 graduate students. (Figures above include degrees and certificates conferred October 30, 2015, February 26, 2016, and May 21, 2016. Students may earn multiple degrees and certificates so may be counted more than once.)
FACULTY AND STUDENT AWARDS
The Gregory H. Adamian Award for Excellence in Teaching for full-time faculty was presented to Trustee Professor Charles R. Hadlock, from the Department of Mathematical Sciences. The recipient of the Excellence in Scholarship Award was Gibbons Research Professor of Accounting Rani Hoitash. The Joseph M. Cronin Award for Excellence in Academic Advising was given to Christian Rubio, associate professor in the department of modern languages.
Student honorees included Maria Clarice Chua, winner of the Professor Robert J. Weafer Award for Undergraduate Academic Excellence. The Professor E. William Dandes Award for Graduate Academic Excellence went to three students: David Juhlin, Sara Marie Lorenz and Douglas Morgan Schmid.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Karen Kaplan is chairman and CEO at Hill Holliday, one of the country's top advertising agencies. She joined Hill Holliday as a receptionist, hoping to save enough money for law school. Three decades later, she's had just about every job there is to have at an agency, gaining valuable insight into how to approach each business challenge with a fresh perspective. A key player in Hill Holliday's significant growth as a national powerhouse with over $1 billion in annual billings, Kaplan is now chairman & CEO overseeing the agency's three brands: Hill Holliday, Erwin Penland, and Trilia Media. With an executive team composed of over half women, Kaplan is also one of the few agency chairmen in the country and has been recognized by several trade publications as one of the most influential women in advertising.
Kaplan's leadership has helped build an impressive list of premier clients including Bank of America, Chili's, Dunkin' Donuts, Johnson & Johnson, John Hancock, LG Home Appliances, Liberty Mutual, Merrill Lynch, Novartis, (RED), Smucker's Tempur-Sealy, and TJX. Karen has been a contributor to and featured in numerous publications including Ad Age, AdWeek, Forbes, Fortune, Huffington Post, and Inc. She serves on the boards of directors for the Ad Council and numerous civic and professional organizations; is a trustee of Fidelity Investments' Strategic Advisers Funds and a director of Michaels Stores. Kaplan received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Corey Thomas is president and CEO of Rapid7, one of Boston's leading security software firms. In the last year Thomas led his company through two acquisitions and an Initial Public Offering (IPO). He encourages a culture at Rapid7 that supports growth and innovation, and instills a strong focus on listening to customers, taking disciplined risks, and collaborating across the community to advance security awareness and impact. He believes Rapid7 and other security companies have a mission beyond simply selling security products -- to contribute in earnest to making the internet a safer place to do business and engage as consumers.
Thomas brings more than 16 years of experience in growing technology businesses, including leading consumer sales, marketing and business development as vice president at Parallels, a global leader in virtualization and automation solutions. He also held a number of leadership positions in the Microsoft Server and Tools division, launching the worldwide availability of SQL Server 2005 and steering product planning for Microsoft's data platform and storage strategy. Prior to that, he was a consultant at Deloitte Consulting focusing on internet technology strategy and operations for large multinational banks.
Thomas holds a Bachelor of Engineering in electrical engineering and computer science from Vanderbilt University, magna cum laude, and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School (Baker Scholar).
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160521/370608
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160521/370609
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130219/DC61345LOGO
SOURCE Bentley University
LOS ANGELES, May 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Texas has experienced relentless waves of thunderstorms this spring and residents continue to deal with devastating floods, damaging hail and strong winds. Mercury Insurance wants customers to know the company is ready to assist policyholders who have been impacted by these storms. Mercury's claims team stands ready to help customers whose vehicles have been damaged by floodwaters, hail and flying debris, or who have suffered a covered homeowners loss. Representatives are available to help with claims and arrange for rental cars or temporary housing.
"We want Mercury customers who have been impacted by these strong storms in Texas to know that we're ready to help them during this difficult time," says Randy Petro, Mercury chief claims officer. "Mercury's claims team can arrange temporary housing and provide assistance with living expenses if homeowners customers have been displaced, as well as arrange for a rental car if they suffered a covered loss."
Texans can help spread the word by following @MercuryIns on Twitter and Retweeting "Mercury policyholders impacted by the #Texas #floods call (800) 503-3724 to file a claim ASAP #floodsupdate."
Petro advises policyholders to follow a few simple procedures to help speed up claims.
When filing a claim
Contact Mercury immediately to report your loss.
Be prepared to provide your policy number.
Do not remove debris or damaged property that may be related to your claim.
Steps after filing a claim
Prepare a detailed inventory of destroyed or damaged property.
Offer photos or videos of your home and possessions to your adjuster, if these are available.
Keep copies of communications between you and your adjuster.
Keep records and receipts for additional living expenses that were incurred if you were forced to leave your home, and provide copies to your adjuster.
ABOUT MERCURY INSURANCE
Mercury Insurance (MCY) is a multiple-line insurance organization predominantly offering personal automobile, homeowners and commercial insurance through a network of independent agents in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia. Since 1962, Mercury has specialized in offering quality insurance at affordable prices. For more information visit www.mercuryinsurance.com or Facebook.com/MercuryInsurance and follow the company on Twitter.
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130521/LA18581LOGO
SOURCE Mercury Insurance
Related Links
http://www.mercuryinsurance.com
MOHAI's mission is to collect and preserve artifacts and stories of Seattle's diverse history, highlights the regional tradition of innovation and imagination. The trustees and staff of the museum are currently engaged in many activities to celebrate the region, consistent with MOHAI's vision, to make the Museum treasured locally and respected nationally as a vibrant resource where history inspires individuals to be their best, individually and collectively.
"As a Seattle resident, active member of the business community and the local Ethiopian community, which is one of the largest immigrant communities in Seattle, Shakespear Feyissa has a unique understanding of the city of Seattle and its unique role in the history of our nation and beyond," said MOHAI Trustee Al Young. "We are confident that he will make impactful contributions to our work as we pursue our mission of collecting and preserving artifacts and stories of MOHAI's history of innovation and imagination."
Feyissa joins 24 other active MOHAI board of trustee members with diverse professional backgrounds. Trustees' current and former affiliations include Amazon, America's Health Together, B2Launch, Defender Association, Enrico Products, Expedia, Integral Systems Inc., Marten Law, Muckleshoot Tribe, Nordic Cold Storage, Perkins Coie LLP, Planetary Power, Seneca Group, Skellenger Bender, Starbucks, The Boeing Company, Wells Fargo Bank, Vulcan Inc.
Feyissa is the principal partner at Law Offices of Shakespear N. Feyissa, where he practices law in areas such as civil litigation, personal injury, criminal law, employment discrimination, and immigration. He earned a Juris Doctorate (J.D.) from Seattle University School of Law and has a B.A. in Political Science, Social Sciences, and Minor in History. Prior to immigrating to the United States, Feyissa was born in Ethiopia and spent three years in Kenya. He remains an active human rights advocate and was recognized for his outstanding contribution for the respect of human rights in Ethiopia in 2007 at an event hosted by Amnesty International and Amnesty International USA at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
MOHAI believes that the preservation and exploration of Seattle's past is essential to making effective decisions for its future. From humble beginnings in 1911, MOHAI has grown into the largest private heritage organization in the State of Washington with a collection of over 4 million objects, documents, and photographs from the Puget Sound region's past. MOHAI uses these artifacts along with cutting edge, hands-on interactive experiences to make history come alive through the unforgettable stories of the men and women who built Seattle from wilderness to world city. In addition to museum exhibits, MOHAI hosts a variety of award-winning youth and adult public programs and consistently collaborates with community partners on local events and activities.
About MOHAI
MOHAI is dedicated to enriching lives through preserving, sharing, and teaching the diverse history of Seattle, the Puget Sound region, and the nation. As the largest private heritage organization in the State of Washington; the museum engages communities through interactive exhibits, online resources, and award-winning public and youth education programs. For more information about MOHAI, please visit www.mohai.org or call (206) 324-1126.
About Law Offices of Shakespear N. Feyissa
Law Offices of Shakespear N. Feyissa is a Seattle-based law firm that practices in civil litigation, personal injury, criminal law, employment discrimination, and immigration. The principal partner is Shakespear Feyissa, a resident of Seattle and recognized human rights activist. For more information visit www.shakespearlaw.com.
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160520/370565
SOURCE Law Offices of Shakespear N. Feyissa
The World Bank on Saturday said it was launching a $500 million, fast-disbursing insurance fund to combat deadly pandemics in poor countries, creating the world's first insurance market for pandemic risk.
Japan has committed the first $50 million towards the facility, which will combine funding from reinsurance markets with the proceeds of a new type of World Bank-issued high-yield pandemic "catastrophe" bond, the bank said.
In the event of a pandemic outbreak, the facility will release funds quickly to affected poor countries and qualified international first-responder agencies.
The genesis of the new facility was the slow international response to the Ebola outbreak in 2014, when it took months to muster meaningful funds for affected countries as death tolls mounted.
"The recent Ebola crisis in West Africa was a tragedy that we were simply not prepared for. It was a wake-up call to the world," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim told a media conference call.
"We can't change the speed of a hurricane or the magnitude of an earthquake, but we can change the trajectory of an outbreak. With enough money sent to the right place at the right time, we can save lives and protect economies," Kim added.
The so-called Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility will initially provide up to $500 million that can be disbursed quickly to fight a pandemic, with funds released once parametric triggers are met, based on the size, severity and spread of an outbreak.
The facility was developed in conjunction with the World Health Organization and reinsurers Swiss Re and Munich Re, which are acting as insurance providers. It will include catastrophe, or cat bonds, in which purchasers would lose principal if fund flows are triggered by a pandemic outbreak, the World Bank said.
But the insurance mechanism is limited to certain classes of infectious diseases most likely to cause major outbreaks, including several types of influenza, respiratory diseases such as SARS and MERS, and other deadly viruses including Ebola and Marburg.
Kim said the types of qualifying diseases had to be limited in order to secure the insurance policy, for which the World Bank will pay premiums.
The mosquito-borne Zika virus now spreading in Latin America is not included in the insurance scheme, but Kim said funds for Zika and other diseases that could lead to pandemics would be made available through a separate cash window, which is likely to be in the $100 million range.
Kim, who announced the facility at a Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank governors' meeting in Sendai, Japan, said he expected more contributions from G7 and other donors.
He said he hoped the new facility would spur development of a market for pandemic risk, similar to that for natural catastrophe risk since the 1990s.
The bank estimated that had the facility existed in mid-2014, an initial $100 million could have been mobilized as early as July of that year to severely limit the spread and severity of the Ebola epidemic.
Instead, it took three months for that scale of money to begin flowing, a period in which the number of Ebola cases increased ten-fold.
The disease eventually killed more than 11,300 people and has cost at least $10 billion - more than $7 billion in international aid and some $2.8 billion in gross domestic product losses in Guinea, Libera and Sierra Leone.
STONY BROOK, N.Y., May 20, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- At Stony Brook University's 56th commencement ceremony today at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium, 6,686 students had their degrees conferred joining more than 160,000 alumni from around the globe whose lives and work personify what Stony Brook embraces -- the relentless pursuit of excellence and commitment to make a real difference. Graduates span 67 countries, 41 states and range in age from 20 to 73.
Eric H. Holder, Jr., the 82nd Attorney General of the United States, and Soledad O'Brien, award-winning journalist and Long Island native, were at Stony Brook to receive their honorary degrees - a Doctor of Law and Doctor of Letters, respectively - and speak to their fellow Seawolves.
Holder, who was accepted by Stony Brook for undergrad but chose Columbia "because it was closer" to his family home in Queens, thanked the new graduates for allowing him to celebrate with them, and encouraged them to rededicate themselves for the fight for fairness and justice that should always be at the center of the American experience.
"There is always a way to serve," Holder said. "Find the time. Find the program. Find the cause. Find the way to improve our country and the lot of your fellow citizens. I am confident that you will meet your responsibilities, exceed your expectations, and help to transform our nation - and this world - for the better."
O'Brien also thanked the graduates for sharing the moment with her, reminisced about her time spent on campus when her father, Edward O'Brien, was a professor and spoke of the important role that the Class of 2016 has after graduation.
"Today you begin new and amazing things and you have the power to create change that impacts real people...it's not a responsibility to take lightly," said O'Brien. "Lean In, as Sheryl Sandberg likes to advise. That's not just a strategy for women in business...it's advice for everyone...I would add lean in and use your voice; lean in and make a change where it's needed; and lean in and invest your heart and soul in ideas and in people that others may not care for at all."
During his commencement speech, Stony Brook University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr. spoke of the value of a Stony Brook degree, noting that Stony Brook University is ranked the #1 public school in the Northeast for return on investment, with increased earnings of approximately $1 million for in- and out-of-state students. He emphasized the school's mission to provide the highest quality education and access to the best research facilities and faculty and expressed the promise to enhance the value of their education even after graduation.
He also spoke directly to the students and said, "We have great expectations for the Class of 2016. After all, the success of our alumni is one of the seminal ways by which we are defined as a University. Your successes, your accomplishments, your good works, are an integral part of how the world views us, and a fundamental measure of our effectiveness as a University. So class of 2016, we are pulling for you, I know you won't let us down."
President Stanley went on to highlight three personal student stories.
Ruchi Shah, a member Stony Brook University and Stony Brook School of Medicine. Ruchi is a 4.0 student, CEO of her own company working to market an all natural mosquito repellant designed to fight mosquito borne illnesses in third world countries, a nationally recognized cancer researcher and a journalist published on a national news network. Ruchi was also recently picked as one of Glamour magazine's 10 College Women of the Year.
Mike Bleidistel, a United Marine Corps veteran, received a Bachelor of Social Work. During his time at Stony Brook he joined Port Jefferson EMS as an EMT to continue to help those in need, and became a research assistant in the Stony Brook University Hospital Department of Psychiatry to advance knowledge and evidence-based practice in the field of medicine. Michael states that the top-tier education received at Stony Brook not only enabled him to thrive while serving the community and advancing knowledge, but also led to his acceptance into Drexel University College of Medicine.
Danielle Meyers, an EOP/AIM student, received a Bachelor of Social Work. Danielle has served as a Student Leader Intern with the Stony Brook University Freedom School for the past two years. Based on her academic and personal success, Danielle was identified by the state as a role model for other foster youth and was selected as a Youth Ambassador for the At Risk Youth College Access Challenge Grant Program.
"This year our students also brought smiles to sick children through programs like Project Sunshine and Camp Kesem, took alternative spring break outreach trips to repair flood damage in Colorado, to build habitat for humanity houses in Florida and to work in food banks in Tennessee. And in this election year, they partnered with the Vote Everywhere Project to register nearly 3,500 Stony Brook students to vote, more than any other Vote Everywhere college or university in the country!"
Meyers was also selected to be the student speaker by a committee of staff and faculty from a pool of submitted speeches provided through the annual senior speaker competition. During her speech, written in the form of a "spoken word" poem -- her specialty -- she reminded graduates, "that although we will all take on different career paths in life, what makes us all the same is that we have become graduates of one of the nation's top universities in the country. That alone brings us all together today despite our individuality." Meyers will continue her education at Stony Brook University's School of Social Welfare when she begins the Master of Social Work program in the fall.
Remarks were also delivered by U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Provost Dennis N. Assanis announced that Charles Bergin, Lindsay Bunger, Carolyn Kiriakos, Hongyu Li, Japbani Nanda, Ruchi Shah, Bryan Szeglin, Casey Vieni and Kevin Wagner are this year's recipients of the Ward Melville Valedictorian Award, the University's most distinguished undergraduate honor named for the first chairperson of the Council of Stony Brook University. The Ward Melville Valedictorian Award goes to the graduating senior or seniors who have attained the most outstanding academic record during four years at Stony Brook.
Provost Assanis also announced Elizabeth Hermitt and Jeffery Augugliaro as recipients of the H. Lee Dennison Valedictorian Award, named in honor of Suffolk County's first chief executive and presented to the graduating senior or seniors who entered Stony Brook as a transfer student, completed at least 60 credits of letter-grade work at Stony Brook and attained the most outstanding academic record in that work.
Finally, on behalf of the Class of 2016, Senior Class Representative Drazen Bacarra presented President Stanley with the Senior Class Gift of $4,454.63 for the Stony Brook University Children's Hospital. This gift adds to the $250,000 Stony Brook students have raised the past 10 years to support a variety of areas that touched their lives including their individual departments, colleges or to one of variety of other University priorities like the Student Scholarships.
About Stony Brook University
Part of the State University of New York system, Stony Brook University encompasses 200 buildings on 1,450 acres. Since welcoming its first incoming class in 1957, the University has grown tremendously, now with more than 25,000 students and 2,500 faculty. Its membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU) places Stony Brook among the top 62 research institutions in North America. U.S. News & World Report ranks Stony Brook among the top 100 universities in the nation and top 40 public universities, and Kiplinger names it one of the 35 best values in public colleges. One of four University Center campuses in the SUNY system, Stony Brook co-manages Brookhaven National Laboratory, putting it in an elite group of universities that run federal research and development laboratories. A global ranking by U.S. News & World Report places Stony Brook in the top 1 percent of institutions worldwide. It is one of only 10 universities nationwide recognized by the National Science Foundation for combining research with undergraduate education. As the largest single-site employer on Long Island, Stony Brook is a driving force of the regional economy, with an annual economic impact of $4.65 billion, generating nearly 60,000 jobs, and accounts for nearly 4 percent of all economic activity in Nassau and Suffolk counties, and roughly 7.5 percent of total jobs in Suffolk County.
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CONTACT: Alida Almonte, [email protected]
SOURCE Stony Brook University
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SAN DIEGO, May 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, more than 100 volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) worked together to clear trash from a stretch of the San Diego River in Mission Valley near Qualcomm Stadium. In less than six months, San Diego River Park Foundation volunteers removed more than 100,000 pounds of trash from the river.
The focal point of the massive clean-up was a highly polluted portion of the San Diego River that runs between I-805 and I-15 in Mission Valley, located next to the San Diego River Garden. According to surveying done by the San Diego River Park Foundation in April, this 3-mile section of the river contains more than 20 percent of all the trash currently polluting the entire river.
"Most San Diegans know where Qualcomm Stadium is," explained San Diego River Park Foundation Executive Director Rob Hutsel. "But many don't know that our historic San Diego River runs along it. Unfortunately, this section of our river needs attention and we are grateful to have the support of volunteers and SDG&E in our efforts to achieve a trash-free San Diego River. As we celebrate reaching an important milestone of 100,000 pounds of trash removed in 2016, we know our work is far from over."
More than 100 volunteers worked to remove debris at Saturday's milestone event, including SDG&E Director of Environmental Services, Scott Pearson. "As San Diego's energy company, we're proud to support the efforts of the San Diego River Park Foundation to preserve the region's resources and habitats so they can benefit and be enjoyed by future generations. I have an enormous amount of pride as I see our employees spend many Saturdays to volunteer at events like this that help to improve our community for future generations," said Pearson.
The "Clean & Green River Clean Up" is part of the San Diego River Park Foundation's annual River Days celebration, sponsored in part by SDG&E. The mission of River Days is to engage the community in exploring and celebrating the San Diego River. In coordination with 31 partner organizations, 43 free events were planned from Santa Ysabel to Ocean Beach from May 14 through May 22, including volunteer opportunities, hikes, bike rides, festivals, river clean-ups, educational tours and much more. Over 4,000 people will participate in River Days.
To volunteer or learn more about other River Days events, visit SDRiverDays.org
About The San Diego River Park Foundation
The San Diego River Park Foundation's mission is to engage people to work toward a better future for the historic San Diego River and the creation of a 52 mile river parkway from the mountains to the ocean. The River Park Foundation is a non-profit community-based organization founded in 2001. Visit sandiegoriver.org for more information.
About San Diego Gas & Electric
SDG&E is an innovative San Diego-based energy company that provides safe, reliable, clean energy to better the lives of the people it serves in San Diego and southern Orange counties. More than 4,300 employees work to provide the most reliable and clean energy in the West. The company has been recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for leadership in addressing climate change, was the first to meet California's goal of delivering 33 percent of energy from renewable sources, has fueled the adoption of electric vehicles and energy efficiency through unique customer programs, and supports more than 600 non-profit partners. SDG&E is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE), a Fortune 500 energy services holding company based in San Diego. For more information visit sdge.com/newsroom or connect with SDG&E on Twitter (@SDGE), Instagram (@SDGE) and Facebook.
SOURCE San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E)
Related Links
http://sdge.com
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Bhubaneswar, May 17 : A day after Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik blamed the opposition for stalling the assembly proceedings, the Congress and BJP on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) for "choking the voice of opposition".
The state government has committed "murder of democracy in broad daylight," they said.
Notably, the budget session of the Odisha assembly was on Monday adjourned sine die, four days ahead of the schedule.
The second phase of the session was almost washed out following disruptions on various issues, including chit fund scam.
"It is the duty of the state government to run the house. We participated on several issues. But, when the chit fund issue and transfer of money to BJD bank account were raised, the government resorted to stall the proceedings," said Leader of Opposition Narasingh Mishra, who belongs to the Congress.
He said even though the opposition had moved an adjournment motion to discuss the issue of about 20 lakh people being swindled by chit fund companies, the speaker did not allow the discussion.
The opposition had also raised the issue of implementation of the Odia language in official work, which was also rejected by the speaker, Mishra said.
He criticised Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for his lack of proficiency in Odia language and accused him of being autocratic.
"The chief minister does not believe in democracy. He believes in autocracy and Hitlerism. He comes to the House for five minutes. He does not even participate in discussions of his own department and only reads paper written by others," said Mishra.
The state unit of the BJP too came down heavily on the state government for not allowing its members to speak in the house and adjourning it sine die ahead of the schedule.
"The duty of the opposition is to seek clarification from the government on issues relating to the problems of the people of the state. We had sought replies from the chief minister on various issues. But he behaved like an escapist by not giving any answer to our questions," said state BJP president Basanta Panda.
"We would have certainly welcomed him had he given his reply in the assembly. Instead, he preferred to give his statement outside the assembly in an irresponsible manner, showing his sheer audacity," Panda added.
In his visit to Vietnam, the U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled drop by the 100-year-old Ngoc Hoang (Jade Emperor) Pagoda at the heart of Saigon on the afternoon of May 24.
When he arrives in Ho Chi Minh City, we will be visiting the Jade Pagoda to be able to pay tribute to and admire the cultural traditions of Vietnam, the White House said yesterday.
The Pagoda was built between 1892 and 1900 in honor of the supreme Taoist God (The Jade Emperor or King of Heaven (in Vietnamese: Ngoc Hoang).
It is one of the most spectacular and important shrines in the city, covering an area of 2,000 meters in Mai Thi Luu Street, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City.
It was recognized as National Cultural Heritage in 1994. Its alternative name is Phuoc Hai Pagoda.
Its roof is encrusted with elaborate tile work.
The pagoda is filled with statues of phantasmal divinities and grotesque heroes depicting characters from both Buddhist and Taoist lores. An interesting fact about the statues is that they are made from reinforced papier mache and wood.
The focal point inside is the one and only Jade Emperor, who sits surrounded by worshipping figures. The Jade Emperor is the one who decides who is allowed entry into the heavens and who is refused entry.
In the main hall, the Emperor Jade reigns supreme.
The ceramic figures of 12 women sit in two rows. Each woman exemplifies a human characteristic, either good or bad. Each figure represents a year in the 12-year Chinese calendar.
Presiding over the room is Kim Hoa Thanh Mau, the Chief of All Women.
The God of Prosperity
Visitors would pour a little oil into the candle to pray for health and happiness.
It is said that these little turtles have been living here for centuries, so long that no one remembers exactly when it first started.
The Jade Emperor Pagoda offers a calming sanctuary from the bustle of the busy streets.
Helsinki, May 19 : A new company called HMD has been allowed to produce mobile phones and tablets in the name of Nokia. The Finnish media called it a resurgence of Nokia brand.
Nokia announced on Wednesday that it licensed HMD to produce Nokia branded mobile phones and tablets. The new gadgets will use the Android system. The manufacturer will be Foxconn based in Taiwan.
HMD has its head office in Helsinki.
In a parallel move, Microsoft announced on Wednesday it sold its basic phone business for $350 million to HMD and FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of Foxconn.
HMD and Nokia Technologies have entered an agreement on cooperation with FIH.
Licensing the Nokia brand to a new producer became possible following the expiry of the restrictions set in the deal between Nokia and Microsoft in 2013.
Nokia remained the owner of the Nokia brand after it sold its handset business to Microsoft for 5.4 billion euros, but was forbidden to license it to outsiders until the end of 2015.
The new company HMD has made agreements both with Microsoft and Nokia about the use of the Nokia brand and some design rights. The agreement HMD signs with Nokia is exclusive and valid for 10 years.
The agreement with Microsoft has some conditions and only covers the use of the Nokia name in basic phones. Microsoft continues the production of the high-end Lumia smart phones, which will use Windows platforms.
Finnish media reported that several experienced executives with Nokia background were involved in the new HMD. The CEO of the company is Arto Nummela. He used to be in charge of marketing Microsoft phones in China.
The new Finnish company is planning to spend some 400 million euros to market the Nokia brand for the next three years.
Analysts have pondered on the attractiveness of the Nokia image on the mobile gadget market.
Hannu Rauhala from the Finnish OP Group told Finnish national radio Yle that the image of Nokia was still fairly strong in the "developing markets".
Rauhala also noted that licensing "gives good profit" to Nokia without business risks.
Thiruvananthapuram, May 20 : CPI-M leader Pinarayi Vijayan will be the new chief minister of Kerala, party sources said on Friday.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the State Secretariat of the Communist Party of India-Marxist here, also attended by general secretary Sitaram Yechury.
New Delhi, May 20 : India on Friday extended help and relief to Sri Lanka which is battling torrential rain and landslides that have claimed over 60 lives and affected around 450,000 people.
"The Indian Navy is sending two ships today (Friday), INS Sutlej and INS Sunanyna with Geminis (inflatable boats), OBMs (outboard motors), additional divers, tarpaulins, consumable stores, rations etc.," external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in his weekly media briefing here He said the home ministry held a meeting on Friday morning on coordinating an airlift with National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) cargo.
In the meeting, the officials assessed the quantity of relief material required.
All the material was scheduled to be collected in Delhi by 2 p.m. and a C-17 aircraft with crew and officials from NDMA and NDRF was scheduled to leave at 3 p.m., halt at Chennai to pick up additional material and head to Colombo.
"It will reach in the evening today carrying medical supplies, tarpaulins, tents, emergency lights, consumables stores, and mobile toilets," Swarup said.
The external affairs ministry is in constant touch with the Indian high commission in Colombo for any additional logistical support that might be required.
"Sri Lanka is a close neighbour and friend and India has always been the first responder in times of a crisis," the spokesperson said.
"As was the case during the tsunami that affected Sri Lanka in the past, this time also we will extend all necessary help and relief to Sri Lanka, as requested," he added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday condoled the deaths and said India stood by to help the government and people of Sri Lanka.
The island nation's central Kegalle district has reported the highest number of 34 deaths. Nearly 150 people are still buried under debris.
The landslide, which happened on Tuesday evening and buried three villages, is said to be the worst in Sri Lanka's history.
Srinagar, May 21 : Authorities on Saturday imposed restrictions in parts of summer capital Srinagar to prevent a separatist called rally.
"Restrictions have been imposed in areas falling under the jurisdiction of seven police stations in Srinagar city today. The police stations whose areas shall remain under restrictions include Khanyar, Nowhatta, M.R. Gunj, Rainawari, Safa Kadal, Maisuma and Nigeen," Farooq Ahmad Lone, district magistrate Srinagar told IANS.
"The restrictions are purely of prohibitory nature and have been imposed to maintain law and order in the city," Lone added.
Separatists including Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Syed Ali Geelani, Muhammad Yasin Malik and others have called for a public rally to the martyrs graveyard in Eidgah area of old city Srinagar on Saturday.
This has been done to commemorate the deaths of two senior separatist leaders killed by unidentified assassins.
While Mirwaiz Muhammad Farooq, father of Mirwaiz Umer, was killed in his uptown Nigeen residence on May 21, 1990, another senior separatist leader, Abdul Gani Lone was killed in the Eidgah martyrs graveyard in Srinagar on May, 21, 2002.
The separatist are blaming the Indian intelligence agencies for these murders while the government said these killings were the result of internecine rivalry between various armed separatist groups in Kashmir.
Contingents of police and paramilitary forces in full riot gear have been deployed in areas placed under restrictions to ensure that the separatists are prevented from creating a law and order situation in the city.
Saturday being a public holiday in the state because of Buddha Purnima, educational institutions, government offices, banks and post offices are closed in Jammu and Kashmir.
Mexico City, May 21 : Mexican druglord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman will be extradited to the US, the Foreign Affairs Ministry announced on Friday.
The ministry said it has notified Guzman, who was recently moved to a prison close to the US border, that it had approved an extradition request filed by a federal district court of Texas in the US, Xinhua reported.
"Today, Joaguin Guzman Loera ... was notified of the agreements with which the Mexican government grants his international extradition to the government of the United States to be tried by the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas," the ministry said.
Guzman was charged with "the crimes of criminal conspiracy, crimes against public health, organised crime, possession of arms, homicide and money laundering," according to the ministry.
Guzman has 30 days to appeal the decision, the minister said. Also, the US gave assurances that Guzman would face the death penalty, it added.
In addition, the ministry said, the head of Mexico's powerful Sinaloa Cartel is wanted by the US District Court for the Southern District of California on charges of importing, possessing and distributing cocaine.
With Guzman in US custody, Mexican officials would no longer have to worry about the drug capo attempting another prison escape.
The trafficker first broke out of a maximum security Mexican prison in 2001. He was recaptured in 2014, but managed to escape again in 2015 from a different maximum security facility, through a tunnel that led from his cell's shower stall to a safe house more than a kilometre away. He was recaptured in January, 2016.
New Delhi : Title: Bose: An Indian Samurai; Author: Maj Gen G.D. Bakshi; Publisher: Knowledge World; Pages: 384; Price: Rs.980.
As an iconic figure, Netaji Bose has a few parallels or peers anywhere. He continues to exercise such a mesmeric hold on the collective psyche of the nation that the air crash which allegedly killed him might have never happened.
But the latest take on the popular leader, "Bose: An Indian Samurai," authored by Maj Gen G.D. Bakshi, debunks the theory and assesses his role as a military leader, based on 10 years of exhaustive research.
Enough has been said and written about Bose as a political stalwart and as a radical. But it is only in the fitness of things that an experienced military commander like Gen Bakshi undertakes the task of highlighting the strategic role played by the Indian National Army (INA) in our independence.
In bitterly fought campaigns across Burma, Imphal and Kohima, the INA performed creditably and under tremendous odds with their Japanese counterparts. These two theatres have been described as the most significant of the historic World War II battles fought by the British, matching Stalingrad in sheer scale and ferocity.
Gen Bakshi attributes Bose's exemplary leadership with inspiring a fierce loyalty and patriotic fervour among his military cadres; so much so that they rose above their religious and linguistic identities to act as a single entity, motivated by national pride and a spirit of sacrifice.
A contention seconded by none other than one of Bose's closest military aides and later envoy to Canada, the late Colonel Mahoob Ahmed, in an interview with "The Illustrated Weekly of India". He emphatically declared that had he had 100 lives, he would have willingly sacrificed each of them for the sake of his beloved leader.
"An Indian Samurai" makes a number of startling revelations. Even with the stakes heavily loaded against the Japanese-INA forces in terms of numbers, firepower, logistics and supplies, they mounted attack after attack on the British, which unnerved them. These formations displayed extraordinary levels of battlefield resilience and morale. Though virtually decimated, these units suffered "no mass surrenders . . . no crumbling of morale," the author observes.
What is more, they retained their combat cohesion and managed to retreat to the Chindwin, only to undergo a twin assault from disease and starvation, which took a heavy toll.
In the viciously fought campaigns with the British, the INA lost 26,000 men out of its strength of 60,000. These martyrs became the role models for more than two million conscripts, who practically hailed from the same villages and formed the backbone of the British Army. Their loyalty could now no longer be taken for granted and became a decisive factor in the British quitting India.
Even though the Japanese reported that Bose had died in an air crash on August 18, 1945, the latest lot of declassified files released in March 2016 indicate that he had indeed made three radio broadcasts long after the date of his alleged crash, namely, on December 26, 1945, January 1, 1946 and in February 1946.
"The air crash theory is full of gaping holes, yet the Nehruvian government went to inordinate lengths to prove that Bose had indeed died in that air crash," writes Gen Bakshi.
(Shudip Talukdar can be contacted at shudip.t@ians.in)
New Delhi, May 21 : The Japanese find it "difficult" to operate in "jugaad-oriented India" (the culture of improvisation) but have found a financial route solution to this, says Indian-origin author Sanjeev Sinha, a long-time resident of the Pacific island nation where he is a director in the country arm of a prominent global consultancy.
"The top Japanese leadership, at the industrial as well as political level, strongly believes in the strategic importance of India, but as Japan is highly process- and meticulous planning-oriented, they find it very difficult to plan and manage a business in typically jugaad-oriented India. The solution lies in the long-term Japanese capital to facilitate the long-term strategic engagement, and building a strong human resource base with understanding of both sides to play the role of a bridge between the two styles," Sinha told IANS in an email interview from Tokyo.
To this end, Sinha, in his just-published second book, "Indo to Nihon ha Saikyou Combi" (India-Japan: The Most Powerful Combination), explains how the two countries can complement each other to be the most powerful combination in the world.
"While Japan has the (long-term low-cost and socially-responsible) capital and environmentally-friendly technology as much needed by India, India has the growth markets and global human resource as much needed by Japan," he said.
"Both the countries share respect for nature rooted in the Hindu culture in India and the Shinto system of Japan. Both India and Japan share the common philosophy of non-violence and non-materialistic self-contentment of Buddhism," added Sinha, a Tokyo-resident since 1996 who heads PWC Japan. His book has been published by Kodansha, Japan's largest publisher.
"Japan is a great role model for India for an economic growth with very low income disparity, while Indian community is a great role model for Japan in its pursuit of globalisation. And, most importantly, the deep trust in the two countries by each other as well as the rest of the world, makes it a global win-win-win combination," Sinha says in the book, which builds on his debut work, "Sugoi Indo" (Amazing India).
Are there any linkages between this book and the previous one?
"Amazing India" was about India, "especially how India produces global human resource like the CEOs of Google and Microsoft. That book presented India based on my personal story -- how coming from a lower middle class family in the small desert town of Barmer, with my father mostly posted in difficult remote locations and my mother a government primary school teacher in a small village, I rose to be highly respected among the top economic and academic circles of Japan", Sinha explained rather modestly.
Born in Barmer in 1973, Sinha was the first from the region to go to the prestigious IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) after his high school. After his integrated masters in physics and working with Indian conglomerate Godrej, he came to Japan to join GenTech for R&D in Artificial Intelligence in 1996, leading to some of the key technologies for current Automated Driving Systems.
Acquiring another masters in finance, Sinha built a career working with Goldman Sachs, Mizuho Securities, UBS and then as chief country representative for Tata Asset Management and Tata Realty and Infra, before ending up in his present position.
How then can Japan contribute to the Make in India and other initiatives of the government like Digital India and the Smart Cities project?
"Japan's strengths in high quality manufacturing needs no introduction. Japan can contribute to India with much of the world's best technology as well as the best practices for manufacturing industry," he said.
"More importantly, Japan also has huge investment capacity, which can be deployed in a holistic big picture not just for the factories but also for the related essential physical and social infrastructure, for example, transport, logistics, power, water and skill development," he added.
In the case of Digital India, "cyber security is a must where Japan stands out as a highly trusted country in India with the best technology and capital too. India and Japan already have a very strong cyber security agreement which must be put to use concretely," he said In Japan, he noted, "every city and village is Smart with one of the lowest carbon emissions in the world and well-maintained urban architecture with some of the world's best urban transport systems. Japan has also maintained a very good combination of tradition and technology, with renowned examples like Kyoto and Kanazawa".
As an advisor to Kyoto University, Sinha is also pursuing city-to-city collaboration between Kyoto and Varanasi.
In all this, he lamented that there was very little people-to-people contact between the two countries.
"While Japan and India have a deep rooted historical friendship and trust, there is a very little people-to-people exchange between the two countries with only about 30,000 Indians in Japan compared to approximately 3,000,000 in the US and 600,000 in a single city like Singapore.
"This has led to very little knowledge about each other and has created a chicken-and-egg problem in terms of people exchanges," he added.
Sinha's two books are meant to promote awareness about India in Japan and his third would be "about Japan and India-Japan relations with an Indian readership in mind so as to help Indian youth, policy-makers and industry to better understand and explore collaboration with Japan", he said.
(Vishnu Makhijani can be contacted at vishnu.makhijani@ians.in)
New York, May 21 : Just adopting a healthy lifestyle by refraining from drinking alcohol and smoking, maintaining a healthy body weight and exercising regularly can help you keep deadly cancer at bay, new research reaffirms.
About 20-40 percent of cancer cases could potentially be prevented through modifications to adopt a healthy lifestyle, the study found.
A large proportion of cancer cases and deaths can be prevented if people quit smoking, avoided heavy drinking, maintained a body mass index (BMI) between 18.5 and 27.5, and got moderate weekly exercise for at least 150 minutes or vigorous exercise for at least 75 minutes, the study said.
The research, published online in the journal JAMA Oncology, analysed data from two study groups of White individuals to examine the associations between a "healthy lifestyle pattern" and cancer incidence and death.
Mingyang Song and Edward Giovannucci from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, conducted the study that included 89,571 women and 46,399 men.
A "healthy lifestyle pattern" was defined as never or past smoking; no or moderate drinking of alcohol -- one or less drink a day for women, two or less drinks a day for men; BMI of at least 18.5 but lower than 27.5; and weekly aerobic physical activity of at least 150 minutes moderate intensity or 75 minutes vigorous intensity.
Individuals who met all four criteria were considered low risk and everyone else was high risk, the researchers advised.
The results revealed that 16,531 women and 11,731 had a healthy lifestyle pattern (low-risk group) and the remaining 73,040 women and 34,608 men were high risk.
The researcehrs estimated that about 20 percent to 40 percent of cancer cases and about half of cancer deaths could potentially be prevented through modifications to adopt the healthy lifestyle pattern of the low-risk group.
"These findings reinforce the predominate importance of lifestyle factors in determining cancer risk. Therefore, primary prevention should remain a priority for cancer control," the authors noted.
Lucknow, May 21 : A man suspected of being a cattle smuggler was shot dead on Saturday morning in Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, police said.
The incident took place at Barsana when some locals fired at a group of people allegedly smuggling cows.
The alleged smugglers fired back but one of them was killed on the spot. Another person was injured while the others managed to escape, the police said.
Villagers said over a dozen cows had gone missing in the past 15 days in the region.
Kolkata, May 21 : Gangetic West Bengal and this metropolis, swathes of which were inundated by overnight showers, will continue to receive rains in the next 24 hours as cyclonic storm "Roanu" skirts the state's coast and makes landfall in Bangladesh by next Friday, the Met office said on Saturday.
Roanu is likely to move along Bengal coast and cross Bangladesh coast close to Chittagong by Friday evening and inundate low-lying areas of coastal districts, said the Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC).
"The sky will remain cloudy with intermittent to heavy rain in some areas of coastal Bengal including in districts like Bankura, Birbhum, etc. Kolkata received around 23.7 mm of rain last night which is a moderate amount," an official at the RMC here said.
People had to wade through ankle-deep to knee-deep water in city pockets such as Burrabazar, Behala and Salt Lake as continuous drizzle over Friday night flooded the areas.
In the Sundarbans archipelago, flooding was reported at several islands, spanning both North and South 24-Parganas districts, as the depression hovered close to the Sagar Island.
The Met office has warned storm surges of about 1 to 1.5 metre would inundate low lying areas of coastal districts of Bengal on Saturday.
Fishermen have been asked not to venture into the seas for fishing as sea condition is likely to be "high to very high" along and off north Odisha and Bengal coasts during next 12 hours and likely to become rough to very rough in subsequent 12 hours, the Met office warned.
The Disaster Management Group of the Kolkata Police is on standby. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has informed the state chief secretary of the developments.
According to the IMD, the cyclonic storm "Roanu" over northwest Bay of Bengal moved east-northeastwards at a speed of 25 kmph during past six hours and lay centred at 5.30 am on May 21 over northwest Bay of Bengal near, about 130 km southeast of Sagar Island (West Bengal), 160 km southsouthwest of Khepupara (Bangladesh) and 320 km west-southwest of Chittagong (Bangladesh).
"The system is likely to move east-northeastwards skirting West Bengal coast and cross Bangladesh coast close to Chittagong by evening of today (May 21) as a cyclonic storm," the IMD said.
Private sector weather forecaster Skymet predicted Roanu to make a landfall over Bangladesh between evening of May 21 and early morning of May 22.
Vietnams Supreme Peoples Procuracy on May 20 filed charges against three Jetstar Pacifics tanker drivers for allegedly stealing jet fuel in Tan Son Nhat International Airport, according to Tien Phong Newspaper.
The drivers, Nguy Nhu Thanh, Do Van Hung and Le Van Hung, were charged of siphoning jet fuel from the low-cost carrier airlines airplanes which were parked overnight or for more than six hours at Tan Son Nhat in Ho Chi Minh City. The suspects often stole the fuel during maintenance checks between flights, when fuel is required to be pumped out in small amounts for testing, the daily said.
The three drivers have stolen nearly 8,200 liters of jet fuel between December 12, 2014 and January 28, 2015 and illegally gained about VND95 million ($4,200) from selling the fuel to Vu The Hung and Vu Van Dung. Hung and Dung then sold the volume to Tran Van Suu, who was later arrested by police.
Colombo, May 21 : A total of 540 prisoners were released on Saturday in Sri Lanka on a presidential pardon in view of Vesak, a holy day for Buddhists all over the world.
The country's prisons department said those released were serving time for minor offences and included those who had been imprisoned for their failure to pay the fines imposed by the courts, Xinhua news agency reported.
Those who are above 70 in age and who had been serving their sentences for more than 10 years were also included in the pardon, it said.
The department said no prisoners who had been sentenced for murder and robbery or for abusing children and women were released.
Kolkata, May 21 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladeshi and Bhutanese counterparts are among several high profile personalities to be invited for Mamata Banerjee's swearing-in here as West Bengal chief minister for a second term on May 27.
Among others on the guest list are Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav.
"A host of national and international leaders, including Modi and his Bangladheshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina and Bhutanese leader Tshering Tobgay are being invited for the ceremony," a Trinamool Congress leader said on Saturday.
Trinamool Congress supremo Banerjee, who on Friday staked claim to form the government in the state for the second term, said that unlike in 2011 when the oath-taking venue was the Raj Bhavan, the swearing in this time will be held at the Red Road (Indira Gandhi Sarani).
"The oath taking ceremony will be held at the Red Road so that more people can witness it," Banerjee said on Friday.
The Trinamool swept to power, bagging 211 of the 294 assembly seats.
Mumbai, May 21 : The Shiv Sena criticised ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the second consecutive day on Saturday, asking it "not to grab all credit" for the results of the assembly elections in five states.
The BJP could win only Assam, said the Shiv Sena, while the Left front bagged Kerala, Trinamool Congress swept West Bengal, AIADMK managed to retain Tamil Nadu and the Congress-DMK alliance accounted for Puducherry.
"It is erroneous to say that the people have wholeheartedly supported the performance of the BJP government at the centre in the past two years," the Sena said in a sharp editorial in its mouthpiece Saamana.
"If that was so, then besides Assam the people of the other four states should also have endorsed the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government, its vision, its policies."
That did not happen and the fact was that in each of the four other states -- Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry -- the parties fought the elections on their own independent local agendas which helped them emerge victorious, said the Shiv Sena.
"Tomorrow, if Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton win in America or if Nawaz Sharif returns to office in Pakistan, can it be attributed to the performance of the Modi government?" the Sena asked sarcastically.
The editorial criticised the BJP top brass for attributing the results of the elections to the good work of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
The Sena on Friday had said the BJP could not defeat the leaders of regional parties and even in Assam its victory came in alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP).
The BJP was content merely by "opening accounts" in West Bengal and Kerala, drawing a blank in Tamil Nadu despite its all-out efforts, and Congress returning to power in Puducherry, the Sena had said.
Though the 'Congress-mukt' India was a laudable objective, the election results proved the BJP failed to achieve this, said the Sena.
"If we discount Assam where it achieved full majority ('100 percent BJP') with AGP support, in the other four states, it did not even come up 'One Percent BJP,'" said the Sena.
"Yet the victory in Assam has invigorated the BJP like a new birth in the family after many years, but four other babies are also born in the neighbourhood," the Sena said, ridiculing the BJP's claims.
So the BJP could not claim credit in these four states (barring Assam) for making them 'Congress-mukt' as the performance of the regional parties and their leaders was fully supported by the people.
The Sena said history is witness that one cannot destroy the Congress even when it is down, citing the example of the four seat won by the Congress in the recent by-elections to Delhi's municipal bodies.
"You must watch out - the Congress's tail will continue to wag in some or the other part of the country; so, even when that party is completely down, it cannot be ruled out," the Sena warned.
Srinagar, May 21 : Two soldiers were injured on Saturday in an ongoing gunfight between the security forces and guerrillas holed up in north Kashmir's Kupwara district.
"Two Rashtriya Rifles (RR) soldiers were injured today (Saturday) in an encounter with holed-up guerrillas in Chak Drugmulla village," a senior police officer told IANS.
"A group of two to three guerrillas are holed up inside an abandoned house in the village that was surrounded by the RR, Central Reserve Police Force and police personnel.
"Heavy exchange of gunfire is going on. All exit routes have been sealed," he said.
New Delhi, May 21 : India on Saturday appreciated Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's gesture of apologising in the House of Commons in Ottawa for the infamous Komagata Maru incident of 1914.
"We welcome and deeply appreciate the gesture of Prime Minister of Canada to deliver a formal apology in the House of Commons for the Komagata Maru incident," external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in a statement.
"The Indian diaspora in Canada has contributed immensely to Canada's growth and development and acts as a bond between our two nations. Prime Minister Trudeau's gesture constitutes an acknowledgment of the positive role of the Indian diaspora," he said.
The Komagata Maru was a Japanese ship that was hired by a rich Malaysia-based Sikh, Baba Gurdit Singh, to bring 376 Indians, mostly Sikhs, to Canada to challenge the racist laws of the time in 1914.
Since both India and Canada were British dominions at that time, the Indians should have had the right to enter Canada. But the Canadian government of that time put in place various clauses in laws to bar Indians from entering Canada.
The Komagata Maru, which entered Vancouver harbour on May 23, 1914, was forcibly sent back to India after two months. On reaching Budge Budge in Calcutta in September 1914, the passengers were subjected to firing by British Indian police in which 19 of them were killed.
In his apology in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Trudeau said: "Canada's government was, without question, responsible for the laws that prevented these passengers from immigrating peacefully and securely. For that, and for every regrettable consequence that followed, we are sorry."
In his statement on Saturday, Swarup said that Trudeau's gesture reflected "Canada's commitment to the values of pluralism and multiculturalism, which India fully shares".
New Delhi, May 21 : Two ships and an aircraft carrying relief material from India have arrived in Sri Lanka which is battling torrential rain and landslides that have claimed over 60 lives and affected around 450,000 people, the external affairs ministry said on Saturday.
"Supporting an important neighbour. INS Sukanya and INS Sutlej arrive at Colombo Port with relief material for Sri Lanka," external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted.
In a separate tweet, he said that a C17 aircraft carrying personnel of the National Disaster Response Force (NDMA) and National Disaster Management Authority and relief material has also reached the Sri Lankan capital.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday condoled the deaths and said India stood by to help the government and people of Sri Lanka.
The island nation's central Kegalle district has reported the highest number of 34 deaths. Nearly 150 people are still buried under debris.
The landslide, which happened on Tuesday evening and buried three villages, is said to be the worst in Sri Lanka's history.
New Delhi, May 21 : A Congolese man who taught foreign languages here was beaten to death by three young men following a quarrel over the hiring of an auto-rickshaw, police said on Saturday. One of the alleged killers has been arrested.
Masonda Ketada Olivier, 29, bled to death after being beaten close to midnight on Friday near Kishangarh village in south Delhi. Some people who witnessed the altercation tried to save the African but failed.
Olivier was hit on the head with a stone, leading to his death, a police officer said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Ishwar Singh said Olivier tried to hire an auto-rickshaw to go to South Extension in south Delhi where he lived. He had been living in Delhi for some years.
As he was negotiating the fare, the three accused -- Mobin Azad Saifi, Mukesh and Prakash -- came by and insisted on travelling in the same auto-rickshaw. This triggered a quarrel.
"A brawl ensued and the victim was mercilessly beaten up. He was hit on his head with a stone, after which he started bleeding profusely."
Passers-by informed the police who shifted the victim to the Jaiprakash Narayan Trauma Centre where doctors declared him brought dead.
Police said Saifi, previously involved in a criminal case, had been arrested. Mukesh and Prakash were on the run.
The officer said Mukesh was involved in a cheating case. Prakash is a driver. "All the accused reside in (south Delhi's) Mehrauli and Chhatarpur areas."
The accused also roughed up four-five people who tried to save the victim.
Agartala/Aizawl, May 21 : Incessant downpour unleashed by cyclone 'Roanu' derailed normal life on Saturday in Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur and southern Assam.
"The cyclonic effect and rains will continue till Sunday before 'Roanu' hits Bangladesh," Tripura Metrological Department director Dilip Saha told IANS.
He said 'Roanu' was moving north-east at a speed of 45-50 km per hour. No major damage by the cyclone had so far been reported.
Disaster management authorities in Tripura, Mizoram and southern Assam said that low lying areas had been inundated, crops damaged and electric poles and trees uprooted.
Agartala recorded 110.6 mm rainfall in nine hours until 5.30 p.m.
Earlier, a Bangladesh report said at least six people had died overnight due to the cyclone's effect.
Mumbai, May 21 : Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan has shown support to British actor and his "Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India" co-star Paul Blackthorne's Save the Rhino Vietnam" initiative.
Blackthorne along with Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsey has started the initiative under which they are selling Save the Rhino Vietnam T-shirt to raise funds for NGO Save the Rhino International and generate awareness that 90 percent of rhino horns poached in Africa end up in Vietnam.
Aamir took to Twitter on Saturday to share a photograph of himself wearing the T-shirt.
In the caption, the "PK" star wrote: "Hey guys, our very own Captain Russel (Paul Blackthorne) from 'Lagaan' is doing some good work for a change!
"I think it would be great if we can all support him."
Cannes, May 21 : A newly launched government programme -- Film in Georgia -- to promote Georgia as a filming destination among filmmakers across the globe, was presented at the 69th Cannes Film Festival.
The government has already started an aggressive marketing campaign for the programme and among primary markets are India, US, China, France and Italy, read a statement.
The Georgian government recently organised the get together party where a lot of delegations found Georgia an attractive and comfortable location for film-shooting.
Bollywood, Hollywood and French producers were some of the film industry experts who visited Cannes to learn more about the initiative.
Indian producers Abbas and Mustan Burmawalla will shoot their new romantic thriller "Machine" in Georgia during 65 days in cooperation with the local Betterfly production company.
The filmmakers' camera will mostly capture the mountainous city of Mestia and the city of Batumi, the so-called "pearl" of the Black sea.
The U.S. President Barack Obama's official visit to Vietnam will begin in Hanoi on Monday, May 23, according to the White House's statement released yesterday.
In a series of bilateral meetings with Vietnam's heads of state, Obama will discuss a range of issues, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); the countries' commercial ties; regional security issues like maritime security, disaster response, and mutual commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes in the region; and emerging and growing people-to-people ties and cooperation in areas like education and entrepreneurship.
"The President will begin with an official arrival ceremony, and then he will be having a bilateral meeting with the President of Vietnam. Following that bilateral meeting, the two leaders will be having a press conference - a joint press conference together," the White House said.
The President is expected to meet with the new chairwoman of the National Assembly in Vietnam, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.
He will then be received at a state luncheon, followed by a bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister of Vietnam Nguyen Xuan Phuc.
Obama's concluding meeting of the day will be with the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
On May 24, the President will meet with members of Vietnam's civil society and give a speech to the Vietnamese people.
In Ho Chi Minh City, he will visit the Jade Pagoda followed by a meeting with young Vietnamese entrepreneurs, where he will discuss the benefits of TPP to both Vietnam and the U.S., and the TPP's prospects in promoting growth, job creation and also high standards of labor and the environment.
On May 25, the President will host a town hall with members of the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative.
"I think this visit is unusually long -- were spending three days in Vietnam, going to two cities, addressing the strategic, security, economic, and people-to-people relationship that were building, and we intend for this to be a truly impactful visit in the history of U.S.-Vietnamese relations," said the White House.
Upon completing his Vietnam trip, Obama will head to Japan for the G7 Summit.
Mumbai, May 21 : The AAP on Saturday claimed that Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse got several calls on his mobile from mafia don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar's Karachi residence.
Khadse promptly dismissed the allegation by AAP spokesperson Priti Sharma-Menon as "baseless" even as Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis asked Mumbai Police to investigate the matter.
"Maharashtra minister Eknath Khadse's number seen in Dawood Ibrahim's call logs. Its shocking. Khadse has to resign, otherwise a free and fair investigation cannot take place," Sharma-Menon said in a tweet and later at a media conference.
She alleged that Khadse received calls from Dawood between September 5, 2015 and April 5, 2016.
Khadse admitted that the number in question belonged to him but said it was not in service since the past one year.
Sharma-Menon told the media that the incident came to light after a Baroda-based techie Manish L. Bhangale, an ethical hacker, hacked into the call records of four phone number registered in the name of the don's wife Mehjabin Shaikh and detected four Indian numbers on which the don reportedly spoke.
Bhangale checked out the details of these numbers and found that one of these, an Idea mobile number, belonged to Khadse, Sharma-Menon alleged.
Panaji, May 21 : Fashion shows are important for a tourist destination like Goa and in the years to come the coastal state could emulate Paris as a global destination for fashion events, Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar said on Saturday.
"For a state like Goa, fashion shows are important. When we have accepted that we are a tourist destination... it is but natural that fashion shows, which also go hand in hand with tourism, become important," Parsekar said.
He was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the third edition of the India Beach Fashion Week, billed by the organisers as Asia's biggest resort-wear fashion event.
Parsekar said: "In the years to come, Goa could emulate Paris as a destination for fashion, encouraging the state tourism authorities to partner with fashion events."
The three-day India Beach Fashion Week opened with an experimental show by top Indian fashion designer Neeta Lulla.
Tehran, May 21 : Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive here on Sunday on a two-day official visit aimed at boosting economic ties between the two countries.
Modi is expected to sign a number of important economic documents, including a preferential trade agreement, Xinhua news agency quoted Iranian West Asian analyst Hassan Nourian, as saying on Saturday.
There will also be a pact on avoiding excessive taxation in bilateral trade, supporting mutual investments besides cultural and tourist accords.
Modi will be accompanied by a high-ranking delegation.
Nourian felt that the most important aspect of his visit would be India's investment in Chabahar port city and the construction of petrochemical and urea fertilizer plants in Iran.
In May 2014, India and Iran signed a MoU to jointly develop the port once the international sanctions against Iran were lifted.
Both sides agreed to allow India to lease two docks at the port for a period of 10 years, a move that was meant to cut New Delhi's crude oil and urea transportation costs by around 30 percent.
Chabahar is located in the Gulf of Oman on the border with Pakistan. The Indian move to develop Chabahar port will help New Delhi dodge Pakistan and establish a strategic connectivity to Afghanistan as well as Central Asia.
Concurrent with Modi's visit, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will also be in Tehran to sign a trilateral deal regarding Chabahar port.
Ghani made his first visit to Iran in March 2015 when the two countries stressed cooperation in executing bilateral and multilateral projects with regional countries, particularly India, to develop Chabahar port.
Under the agreement finalised in April, India will be allowed access to Afghanistan via the strategically located port. The Chabahar route will allow Indian goods to reach Kabul avoiding Pakistan territory.
Modi's visit would be an important marker in Iran and India's relations, Nourian said.
On Thursday, Iran held a meeting in Chabahar with the participation of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) member states aimed at urging investment in Tehran's development projects in the region.
Another important topic on the agenda of Modi's visit is the return of the Indians to one of the country's major gas fields, the Farzad B gas project and its development, Nourian said.
New Delhi, May 21 : Claiming that poor maintenance of electricity plants by discoms was responsible for power cuts, Delhi Power Minister Satyendra Jain on Saturday announced that consumers would be compensated for outages of more than two hours.
Jain said the government has asked DERC (Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission) to penalise the discoms for power cuts beyond two hours.
"The compensation amount will be reflected in the consumers' electricity bills. We will soon issue a notification in this regard, Jain told reporters here.
He said there was no power shortage in Delhi and that power cuts were happening due to poor maintenance of plants by the discoms.
"Even if the power demand goes up to 7,000 megawatt, we have made arrangements. The power cuts are happening because of local faults such as poor maintenance of power supply system."
"When power distribution was privatised, it was claimed that the electricity supply system will improve and bring in more money, which is clearly not happening," the minister said.
Jain also flayed private discoms for allegedly not investing enough money in upgrading their supply infrastructure.
"The DERC informed us that the discoms invest thousands of crores in improving their supply system. However, we don't see any improvement because complaints are coming in large numbers. Where is all the money going?" he asked.
Delhi has been reeling under a power crisis for the past few days.
On Friday, Delhi saw the peak power demand at 6,188 MW, the highest since the privatisation of power distribution in Delhi in 2002. The peak power demand had touched 5,846-MW in June last year.
Mumbai, May 21 : The Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday claimed that Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse got several calls on his mobile phone from Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar's Karachi residence in Pakistan.
The most senior minister in the government, Khadse promptly dismissed the allegation by AAP spokesperson Priti Sharma-Menon as "baseless" even as Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis ordered Mumbai Police to investigate the matter.
"Maharashtra minister Eknath Khadse's number seen in Dawood Ibrahim's call logs. Its shocking. Minister Eknath Khadse has to resign, otherwise a free and fair investigation can not take place," Sharma-Menon said in a tweet and later told reporters the same.
She alleged that Khadse received calls from Dawood between September 5, 2015 to April 5, 2016, but the minister refuted the allegation saying his number may have been "cloned" and misused.
"The information about Khadse's number being in Dawood's most frequently called numbers was submitted to the Prime Minister's Office on April 29, but it preferred to turn a blind eye," Sharma-Menon said.
In a statement, Khadse while admitting that the number in question belonged to him, said it was not in service for the last one year, and furnished a report to the effect from Idea Cellular to the Jalgaon Police earlier this week.
Sharma-Menon told mediapersons that the incident came to light after a Vadodara-based techie Manish L. Bhangale, an ethical hacker, hacked into the call records of four phone numbers registered in the name of the don's wife Mehjabin Shaikh and detected four Indian numbers on which the don reportedly spoke regularly.
Bhangale checked the details of these numbers to make the shocking discovery that one of these, an Idea mobile phone number, belonged to Khadse on which the call had come from the don's residence, Sharma-Menon alleged.
She questioned the minister's claims about the phone being out of service and said techie Bhangale provided evidence showing that Khadse's number was working till April 2016.
Earlier, she met Fadnavis to demand Khadse's sacking if Bhangale's documents were authentic and initiate a fair probe into the matter.
"Bhangale has refuted Khadse's claim that the number was not in operation... it may be true it was switched off after the story broke. On May 20, Bhangale sent me a recording of the Idea IVRS stating there is no bill for the current month for (Khadse's No. 9423073667), but the bill was generated on April 23 for Rs.683.22, and the last payment made was Rs.700," Sharma-Menon pointed out.
"This recording shows that when Khadse says the number is switched off since two years, he lies through his teeth," she charged.
Bhangale's hacking also revealed that Khadse had changed his damaged SIM card in April 2016 for which he was charged Rs.50 and it reflects in the bill, meaning the number was still operational, she added.
Explaining how the hacking was done, Sharma-Menon said that Dawood's wife, Mahjabeen's number (021-35871719) and address are available on the Internet and Bhangale exposed the call logs through the Pakistan Telecommunications Co. Ltd.
He met Vadodara Police with the data but no investigations were done and later he faxed the details to the PMO on April 29, with a willingness to help.
After Sharma-Menon's meeting with Fadnavis, Mumbai Police Commissioner D. Padsalgikar called techie Bhangale for details last Thursday, May 19.
"This is a very serious charge and the Maharashtra government must either authenticate or refute Bhangale's claim and share the findings with the people... Till then, Khadse should resign to ensure a free and fair probe," Sharma-Menon demanded, adding that the Jalgaon Superintendent of Police is "very close" to the minister due to some favours in the past.
London, May 21 : Ever wondered why your just-cleaned clothes don't smell as fresh as you had hoped? Researchers from a British university blame it on certain organic compounds which must be removed to make clothes smell good.
However, as consumers attempt to make eco-friendly choices, these compounds can't always be washed out on an eco-friendly 20 degrees Celsius cycle.
The researchers from Northumbria University identified six volatile organic compounds (VOCs) on dirty t-shirts and socks that contribute to the laundry's unpleasant smell.
"The need to conserve the environment by reducing the wash temperature and the use of biodegradable washing products has grown in importance in the new millennium, making this type of research more high profile," corresponding author of the study John Dean said.
According to the study, published recently in the Journal of Chromatography A, sweat from the underarm is odourless until it comes into contact with bacteria on the skin.
Corynebacterium and some Staphylococcus species produce the VOCs that cause clothes to smell.
After collecting samples -- t-shirts and socks -- from volunteers and grading them on a scale of 0 (no malodour) to 10 (malodorous) by smelling them, the team identified the six main VOCs contributing to the smell -- butyric acid, dimethyl disulfide, dimethyl trisulfide, 2-heptanone, 2-nonanone and 2-octanone.
They tested samples for VOCs after washing while they were still wet, and after drying.
"The work is fascinating as it links an everyday event -- the washing of clothes -- with cutting-edge research," said Dean.
"In this particular research project we applied a new and innovative analytical technique for the detection of volatile compounds found in laundry items. We hope this provides a way of analysing the effectiveness of different washing techniques," he added.
Mumbai, May 21 : Actor Om Puri has praised fellow actor Nana Patekar's initiatives to help the distressed farmers in the country, but said a lot more needs to be done for their welfare.
"People, in their personal capacity, have made a contribution, like Nana Patekar, and there are others as well. Nana not just provided financial help, he even embraced the farmers and shed tears with them, consoled them."
Puri said it is still like putting a drop into the ocean. "This should be thought about very seriously, not just by the government but also us people," Puri said at the trailer and poster launch of the film 'Project Marathwada'.
It was reported that Patekar had given financial help to more than 100 drought-affected families in Maharashtra in August last year and later set up his own foundation - Naam Foundation - for the cause. The foundation has been working hard for the cause since then.
Puri plays a farmer in Marathwada - one of the worst drought-affected areas - in the film. He threatens to commit suicide and catches the government's attention, after his son commits suicide due to financial troubles caused by drought.
About his preparation for the role, he said: "It's been 60 years of acting for me. We know about the farmers' issues as you read about the same in newspapers, see it on TV... you see farmers talking about it; so I didn't have to do any preparation. My only preparation was to grow my beard a bit."
He also advocated water conservation. "We should utilise water better. Where water is more, we should divert it and create small rivers, just like we're making roads to connect villages and cities."
'Project Marathwada' also stars Govind Namdeo, Dalip Tailp, Seema Biswas among others.
Rome, May 22 : Italy's Infrastructure Ministry has ordered a small town in the Lombardy Region to remove road signs asking those who won't respect Christian traditions to leave.
The signs stating that the town of Pontoglio adheres to "Western culture and deep Christian tradition" were erected several months ago.
They also informed readers that "those who will not respect the local culture and tradition are asked to leave," which caused a lot of controversy.
The Infrastructure Ministry eventually ruled that the signs had to be taken down within the next two weeks, explaining that they "didn't respect the Highway Code," which only allows road signs to contain information useful for driving and identifying locations, routes, and services, Giornale di Brescia reported.
Before erecting the signs in December, Pontoglio mayor, Alessandro Seghezzi, explained in a letter to the local council that his initiative was aimed at preserving the town's values and promoting security.
"Today we're living in a transitory period. It's our job to ensure that all comply with rules that govern civil life," he wrote.
Local councilor, Paolo Bocchi, supported the move, saying that there was "nothing racist about it."
"These are just the interpretations being made... this is purely information about our history, our tradition," he explained.
TelephoneJamaica.com encourages family and friends relationships, which should remain strong no matter the distance that may separate people as years go by. As a token of appreciation for all those great Jamaican families with members living on different continents, TelephoneJamaica.com lowers the rates for international calls to Jamaica by up to 40%.
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Eva's Village and 4 other mission partners receive proceeds from West Side Presbyterian Church's '10 x 10' Lenten Campaign. West Side Presbyterians generous donation will have a tremendous impact on the hundreds of men, women and children we serve each day, noted Marie Reger, Executive Director of Evas Village. Past News Releases RSS Evas Village Hosts New Event to...
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Evas Village Gala honored...
Evas Village was one of five mission partners chosen to receive a gift of over $20,000 from the West Side Presbyterian Churchs 10 x 10 Lenten Campaign. Nancy Simpson, Chair of Missions and Social Concerns at the Ridgewood church, explained that partners were selected because of their work with the homeless. Covenant House NJ, Family Promise of Bergen County, Youth Self Development, Paterson, & Pwoje Espwa Sud Orphanage, Haiti, were also chosen as mission partners. These are all places where West Siders have had hands-on experiences helping and feeding people, Ms. Simpson noted.
West Side Presbyterians generous donation will have a tremendous impact on the hundreds of men, women and children we serve each day, noted Marie Reger, Executive Director of Evas Village. In addition to supporting the Community Kitchen, the donation will support Evas 20 Food & Shelter, Medical & Recovery, and Education & Training programs. We are also grateful to members of the congregation who volunteer regularly in our Community Kitchen, Ms. Reger added. West Side Presbyterians congregation has supported Evas Village for more than two decades and has increased their commitment as donors and volunteers over the past several years.
Each mission partner was invited to speak to the congregation during the campaign. An Evas Village alumnus described how the food, shelter medical and recovery programs at Evas helped him find a path to recovery and a new life.
The congregation exceeded its goal, collecting more than $100,000 during the 40 days of Lent, between Ash Wednesday (February 10) and Easter (March 27). The amount represents 10% of the churchs income and re-establishes its tradition of tithing to serve those in need. Named 10 x 10, the drive celebrates the 10-year anniversary of West Sides sanctuary, rebuilt after a fire in 2002. Congregants were encouraged to participate by tithing donating 10% of their income to the campaign. Children were encouraged to collect change to help meet the goal.
More about West Side Presbyterian
Founded in 1912, West Side Presbyterian Church is a community dedicated to connecting with individuals, groups and families through innovative ministry that supports healthy emotional and spiritual growth. The church supports 10 local charitable organizations and an orphanage in Haiti through donations and volunteer service.
More about Evas Village
Founded by Msgr. Vincent E. Puma in 1982, Evas Community Kitchen began by serving 30 meals a day in Paterson to feed the hungry. In response to the related issues of poverty, addiction, mental illness and homelessness in the community, over the decades additional programs and services grew out of the Community Kitchen to become Evas Village, a non-profit, social service, anti-poverty organization that is one of the most comprehensive in New Jersey. For more than 30 years, Evas Village has carried out its mission to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, treat the addicted, and provide medical and dental care to the poor with respect for the human dignity of each individual. Today, Evas Village helps thousands of individuals rebuild their lives each year through 20 integrated programs addressing needs in the community for Food & Housing, Medical & Recovery Services, and Education & Training.
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One particularly difficult challenge which societies across the globe have in common is corruption. We are fighting a battle, all of us, for our states, for our countries, for our nation-state, said Secretary of State John Kerry at the recent Global Anti-Corruption Summit hosted by the UK.
Corruption writ large is as much of an enemy, because it destroys nation-states, as some of the extremists were fighting or some of the other challenges that we have faced.
Corruption is one of the world's greatest challenges. It is an abuse of power at multiple levels in both the public and private sectors, and it affects all of us. It destroys citizens trust of their governments, undermines economic development, erodes confidence in democratic institutions and prepares the way for trans-national criminal activities.
By crippling basic functions of the state, like security and justice, corruption creates a frustration and vacuum that violent extremists eagerly fill with false promises of a better deal. That helps explain how Daesh took root in Iraq and why the Taliban endures in Afghanistan, wrote Secretary of State Kerry in a blogpost just before the Summit began.
Until we prioritize the fight against corruption, these heinous groups will continue to prey on grievances and recruit new followers who feel disempowered, disrespected and convinced that the traditional system is rigged against them.
It is important to note that it takes a lot of courage to stand up against corruption. Thats because of the reality that even if many countries are increasing transparency and tightening banking laws, there will likely be at least one or two nations that may try to attract dirty money by maintaining secrecy in monetary transactions and relaxing their banking laws. So it is up to the rest of the world to ensure there is no safe harbor or impunity for corruption anywhere. It is therefore imperative that the global community governments, civil society, private sector, and the media - come together to carry forward the momentum built at the Summit and take concrete steps to prevent and fight corruption.
[Corruption] is a poison that erodes trust, robs citizens of their money and their future and stifles economic growth in the places that need it most, wrote Secretary of State Kerry. It is long past time for the international community to treat corruption with the seriousness and attention it deserves.
Regenera Global announces the first Regenerative Medicine Certification Course entitled, The Fundamentals of Telomere Biology: Principles and Applications, to be held June 23 at the Grand Lucayan in Freeport, Grand Bahamas, as part of the Regenerative Medicine 2.0: Redefining the Practice Conference. Information contained in this workshop, led by Michael Fossel, MD, PhD, an esteemed expert in Telomere Biology and author of The Telomerase Revolution, summarizes what is usually achieved in a graduate course.
Because regenerative medicine is changing the medical paradigm and progressing at such a rapid pace, it is difficult for busy healthcare professionals to remain current on the newest advancements impacting their patients. For this reason, Regenera Global, Inc. works to bridge the gap between the current progress in research and the clinical applications. A prime example of rapid advancement is in the field of telomere biology and the new understanding and ability to reset the age of cells within the human body.
A sound understanding of Telomere Biology is extremely relevant to the field of Regenerative Medicine, stated Dr. Luis Martinez, CEO of Regenera Global. Unfortunately, most practitioners are not well versed in the fundamentals of Telomere science. We at Regenera Global are proud to be offering this certification course, led by Dr. Michael Fossel, to teach physicians and researchers alike more about telomeres, aging, repair mechanisms, and how it all relates to cellular regeneration.
Michael Fossel, M.D., Ph.D., Founder and former Editor-in-Chief of Rejuvenation Research and Founder and President of Telocyte, was also a professor of clinical medicine for nearly 30 years. In addition to the Telomere Biology workshop, Dr. Fossel will present Telomerase therapeutics: Curing age-related disease and resetting cell aging at the Regenera Global conferences general session on Friday, June 24, 2016. Registration information for the conference and workshop may be found at http://regeneraglobal.com.
Philadelphia Injury & Accident Lawyers The peer-driven nominations, followed by independent research and peer evaluations of the Super Lawyers process, make the selections a significant achievement.
Distinguished Eastern Pennsylvania injury law firm Wapner, Newman, Wigrizer, Brecher & Miller, P.C., appreciates the recognition from Super Lawyers of its attorneys who exhibit excellence in practice. With just 5 percent of all lawyers in each state included on the annual Super Lawyers list and an even more competitive 2.5 percent on the annual Super Lawyers: Rising Star list, the firm acknowledges the value of having multiple attorneys selected some more than once in their careers.
Being chosen to these lists is validation that we are doing something right, observed Managing Partner Marc Brecher. It means our colleagues think highly of us and the way we champion plaintiffs rights. The peer-driven nominations, followed by independent research and peer evaluations of the Super Lawyers process, make the selections a significant achievement. We have a lot of talent in our firm and are pleased to have outside acknowledgment of that fact.
Setting the bar almost impossibly high, Partner Steven G. Wigrizer has been selected to Super Lawyers every year from 2004 to 2016. A past president of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association, chairman of the Philadelphia Bar Association Fees Dispute Committee, and hearing examiner for the Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board, he has also been routinely named a Top 100 Trial Lawyer in the country by the National Trial Lawyers Association and has been rated by Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review as excellent for his ethical standards and legal ability.
A role model for attorneys of all experience levels, Managing Partner Marc G. Brecher also has been selected to Super Lawyers for 2016. He has been designated a Super Lawyer since 2004 along with his partner Steven G. Wigrizer. Admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States, he has been serving on the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association since 2012. He has been routinely chosen by the National Trial Lawyers Association to the Top 100 Trial Lawyers list, and has the highest rating in legal ability and ethical standards from the Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review.
Partner Adam S. Getson joined the firm as an associate in April 2004 and achieved partner status in January 2014 due his hard work and dedication. He has been selected to Super Lawyers: Rising Star every year from 2012 to 2016, and has been recognized as one the National Trial Lawyers Associations Top 100. He serves as an Arbitrator for the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, and is an active volunteer for the Philadelphia Cares program.
Associate Samuel A. Anyan, Jr., has been selected to Super Lawyers: Rising Star in 2016. He has had this honor since 2012. Named a Lawyer on the Fast Track 2011 by the Legal Intelligencer publication and a former board member of the Barristers' Association of Philadelphia, he received his Juris Doctorate from Howard University School of Law and his LL.M. degree in trial advocacy from Temple University School of Law, graduating with honors.
Associate Jason S. Weiss has also been selected as a 2016 Super Lawyers: Rising Star, distinguished in Medical Malpractice as a Plaintiffs attorney. Since joining the firm in 2011, he has worked closely with Partner Steven G. Wigrizer, contributing to tremendous results on a range of cases. He received his Juris Doctorate from the Rutgers School of Law Camden, where he was a member of the Rutgers Law Journal.
About Wapner, Newman, Wigrizer, Brecher & Miller
For over 30 years, the law firm of Wapner, Newman, Wigrizer, Brecher & Miller has been helping victims of serious personal injury and wrongful death receive the justice and compensation they deserve. We believe the personal approach is the most powerful one to pursuing any claim and we give each client our complete attention. We serve personal injury victims throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey, with offices in Philadelphia, West Conshohocken, Allentown, and Marlton. For more information or to get help with a potential claim, call 1-800-LAW-6600 (1-800-529-6600).
This stockpile is a major find for our customers. Im delighted to be bringing pump bottles back as the exclusive distributor of ThePUMPER.
DriWash Solutions, a high-volume distributor of DRI WASH n GUARD Waterless Car Wash products, has located an inventory of the type of pump bottles previously associated with DRI WASH n GUARD Waterless Car Wash and is reintroducing them as a private label under the brand name ThePUMPER. DRI WASH n GUARDs parent company, DWG International, had discontinued the pump bottles in 2015, replacing them with trigger spray bottles. DriWash Solutions will be the exclusive distributor of ThePUMPER.
The original name in waterless car care, DRI WASH n GUARD was introduced in 1991. Its line of waterless car care products is sold solely through authorized dealers. A hallmark of the products has been their unique, refillable, self-pressurizing bottle. Pumping the cap would refill the bottle with compressed atmospheric air. Since 2015, the popular pump bottles have been virtually impossible to find. Until now.
John Skurka of DriWash Solutions has located and purchased a large quantity of NOS (New Old Stock) pump bottles manufactured for a competitor of DRI WASH n GUARD that went out of business. These pump bottles - the ones Skurka has purchased - were made by the same manufacturer as DWGs. The only difference is color. ThePUMPER bottles have a white base and cap (whereas DWGs pump bottles were black). Skurkas new branding features the word PUMPER in large, bold, all-caps type running vertically down the entire bottle. The word The is in bright blue, superimposed across the top of the P in PUMPER.
Said Skurka, Many of my customers have been missing the pump bottle. Now they will have a choice when purchasing from DriWash Solutions: ThePUMPER or trigger spray bottles.
Founded in 2003 in Brooktondale, New York (outside of Ithaca), DriWash Solutions is a successful, high-volume distributor of the full line of DRIWASH n GUARD Waterless Car Care products. These products are not available in stores and can only be purchased online from authorized dealers. The products clean, seal, and UV protect any vehicle, all without a drop of water. The result is a car, bike, RV, aircraft or motorcycle that looks washed and waxed the traditional way (with water and paste wax) but uses no water. Plus, the process is completed in a quarter of the time.
For more information:
John Skurka
DriWash Solutions
8 Brooktree Lane, Ithaca, NY 14850
Direct: 607.227.0130 (cell)
Toll free: 888.DRI.WASH
E-mail: jskurka(at)driwashsolutions(dot)com
http://www.driwashsolutions.com
To purchase: http://store.driwashsolutions.com/ or http://www.thepumper.co or http://www.amazon.com or http://www.ebay.com.
Rainbow Book by Fish & Tsang LLP "Everything we do at Fish & Tsang is to help our clients have a great experience, and to learn more about IP. We hope the Rainbow Book mobile app achieves that goal."
Today, Fish & Tsang LLP (F&T), an intellectual property law firm with offices in Orange County, CA and Silicon Valley, CA, launched a new mobile app for iOS and Android at the International Trademark Association (INTA) 138th Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida (http://www.inta.org).
The Rainbow Book by Fish & Tsang LLP (http://www.rainbowbookapp.com) translates common intellectual property (IP) terms into seven different languages including English, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, and German. The app is available for free download on the Apple App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android.
F&T first launched the Rainbow Book as a printed resource at INTA in 2014 in Hong Kong as a resource for international IP practitioners and owners with translations of common patent, trademark, and copyright terms.
The Rainbow Book is the brainchild of F&T Managing Partner Mei Tsang. I had the idea for the Rainbow Book during one of the earlier INTA meetings. I thought, what if all of the professionals had a handy guide that shows all the technical IP terms in different languages? Tsang said.
The translation and general design of the app was done in-house at F&T. Many on our team speak other languages, and our attorneys, agents, and paralegals, along with support from our foreign associates, contributed to the translation of the app. Tsang said. Additionally, our creative director, Steve Brown, who creates all of our FishArt patent art and provides the visual direction of the firm, designed the general look and feel of the app.
Tsang said that F&T has more plans for the Rainbow Book. There will be more languages, of course, and a reference guide. For example, you will not only get to know what the term utility patent is in Korean, but also learn the term length of a Korean patent, Tsang said.
Everything we do at Fish & Tsang is to help our clients have a great experience, and to learn more about IP. We hope the Rainbow Book mobile app achieves that goal, Tsang said.
About Fish & Tsang LLP
Fish & Tsang LLP is a full-service intellectual property law firm. F&T provides strategic legal services to help make clients dreams come true. F&Ts attorneys, agents, and paralegals have 128+ years combined intellectual property experience. The team at F&T has the technical background and experience to solve any IP problem. In addition to being legal experts, F&T employees are scientists, engineers, software developers, and branding experts. F&T is internationally focused and multi-lingual: most F&T employees speak more than one language.
Learn more about Fish & Tsang LLP at http://www.fishiplaw.com.
Thomas Moran (American, born England, 1837-1926), Mount Moran, Teton Range, 1903. Oil on canvas. 47 x 56 3/4 inches. On loan from the Stonehollow Collection. Yosemite was such a special place to Ansel Adams, and he just reveled in taking different people through it like Georgia OKeeffe. Thats evidenced by the expedition that were lucky enough to have the portfolio for, says Adam Duncan Harris.
As the United States celebrates the centennial the National Park Service the National Museum of Wildlife Art commemorates this important part of our cultural fabric with numerous park-themed exhibitions and events. The National Museum of Wildlife Arts compelling and beautiful summer exhibitions include: Grand Teton National Park in Art: Painting the Park from Thomas Moran to Today, opening May 13; Yellowstone National Park Through the Lens of Time: Photography by Bradly J. Boner and William Henry Jackson, opening May 21; Yosemite 1938: On the Trail with Ansel Adams and Georgia OKeeffe, opening June 10; and Vintage Park Posters, opening June 18.
Grand Teton National Park in Art: Painting the Park from Thomas Moran to Today (May 13September 6, 2016) is a collection of artworks from the National Museum of Wildlife Art, Grand Teton National Park, and select private collections. On display will be ten paintings by Thomas Moran that have been unavailable for public viewing for more than a decade. This exhibit places the past alongside the present, to highlight a continuum of artistic interpretations of the park as well as the impact that preservation itself has had on its pristine wilderness.
We are really excited to be collaborating with Grand Teton National Park on our Painting the Park exhibit, says Adam Duncan Harris, Ph.D., Petersen Curator of Art & Research at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. We feel very fortunate to be able to display original Moran watercolors as well as more contemporary works from their collection. There will be an exciting mix of paintings from the 1870s to as recently as 2015, including works by contemporary local artists."
Yellowstone National Park Through the Lens of Time: Photography by Bradly J. Boner and William Henry Jackson (May 21August 28, 2016) is a project by veteran photojournalist Bradly J. Boner. In it, he retraces the visual steps of William Henry Jackson, the pioneering photographer of the 1871 Hayden Survey, who documented what would become our nations first National Park.
Yosemite 1938: On the Trail with Ansel Adams and Georgia OKeeffe (June 10August 28, 2016) shows Adamss artistic expression of his beloved Yosemite landscape. Adamss photography introduced influential visitors to the deep wilderness of the region, and played a role in the conservation of countless public lands. Yosemite was such a special place to him, and he just reveled in taking different people through it like Georgia OKeeffe. Thats evidenced by the expedition that were lucky enough to have the portfolio for, says Adam Duncan Harris, Ph.D., Petersen Curator of Art & Research at the National Museum of Wildlife Art.
Between 1935 and 1943, to stir the publics imagination, the Works Progress Administrations Federal Art Project printed more than two million posters in 35,000 different designs, some of these intended to promote the National Park Service and the nations diverse array of magnificent parks. The exhibit Vintage Park Posters (June 18August 18, 2016) will feature a selection of original park posters, supplemented by modern reproductions.
Ken Burns, interviewed for the National Museum of Wildlife Arts annual publication Call of the Wild, says, The National Parks belong to everyone equally. They are places where we can go for inspiration, rejuvenation, to learn more about our history and our place in the world. Our relationship with the land is essential to understanding just who we are as a people. Burns also believes that the Museum provides similar inspiration for viewers of its collection: The National Museum of Wildlife Art can inspire art, but that art can inspire people to do important things like conservation, and species preservation.
This is a time of celebration for all organizations that treasure wildlife and its environs. The trustees, staff, sponsors, donors, and volunteers of the National Museum of Wildlife Art are dedicated to presenting, preserving, and growing unsurpassed collections for future generations as the Museum begins to celebrate the 30th Anniversary in 2017.
The National Museum of Wildlife Art, founded in 1987, is a world-class art museum holding more than 5,000 artworks representing wild animals from around the world. Featuring work by prominent artists such as Georgia OKeeffe, Andy Warhol, Robert Kuhn, John James Audubon, and Carl Rungius, the Museums unsurpassed permanent collection chronicles much of the history of wildlife in art, from 2500 B.C. to the present. Built into a hillside overlooking the National Elk Refuge, the Museum received the designation National Museum of Wildlife Art of the United States by order of Congress in 2008. Boasting a museum shop, interactive childrens gallery, cafe, and outdoor sculpture trail, the Museum is only two-and-a-half miles north of Jackson Town Square, and two miles from the gateway of Grand Teton National Park.
http://www.WildlifeArt.org
IMAGES: https://nmwa.sharefile.com/d-sa1858e979a741789
INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE ON REQUEST
Media Contact:
Jennifer Weydeveld, Director of Marketing
307-732-5450 direct; 505-231-1776 cell
jweydeveld(at)WildlifeArt.org
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) will host its 87th Annual National Convention from July 12 to July 16 at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C.
With the theme, Latinos at the Seat of Power, the 87th Annual National Convention and Exposition will address the most pressing issues in the Latino community. Given the importance of the 2016 election, LULAC thought it important to bring the concerns of the Latino community to Washington, D.C.
The LULAC convention includes seminars and workshops with expert panelists addressing the issues that most affect our communitiesincluding, immigration reform, education opportunities, healthcare, and veterans benefits.
Among those who will be attending the national convention are national candidates, Members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, local elected officials, and academic experts. LULAC is particularly proud to have Muriel Bowser, Mayor for the District of Columbia and Eleanor Holmes Norton, U.S. House of Representatives Delegate, attend the convention.
A separate track for LULAC youth will provide our emerging leaders with workshops on community service, leadership development, career opportunities and advocacy training.
A key component of the LULAC convention includes the Federal Training Institute (FTI)an intensive and structured career development program for government employees. This year the FTI will also host workshops for job seekers looking for opportunities in the federal government.
Another important component of the 2016 LULAC National Convention is the expo, which will feature over a hundred corporate partners, government agencies, colleges and universities, armed forces, and nonprofit organizations displaying their products and services while recruiting Latino employees. The expo is a family affair with free health services, daily prizes, giveaways and activities for all members of the family to enjoy.
As a special privilege, LULAC will have the honor of hosting the U.S. Postal Service in unveiling a stamp commemorating Jaime Escalante. The teacher from East Los Angeles inspired inner-city high school students to master calculus and was later inducted into the National Teachers Hall of Fame for his efforts.
The general public is invited to join members of the largest and oldest Hispanic organization as they gather to address critical issues impacting our community and our country. The LULAC convention in Washington, D.C. is expected to attract more than 20,000 participants.
LULAC appreciates the contributions from its sponsors that include: Target and Toyota as presenting sponsors; AT&T, Ford Motor Company, and Walmart as presidential sponsors; and Chevrolet, Dell, Inc., Macy's, MillerCoors, P&G, Univision Communications, Inc. and the U.S. Army as judicial sponsors. In addition, we are grateful for the support of Southwest Airlines, proud airline sponsor of LULAC.*
*All sponsors confirmed as of 5/19/2016
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The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is the nations largest and oldest civil rights volunteer-based organization that empowers Hispanic Americans and builds strong Latino communities. Headquartered in Washington, DC, with 1000 councils around the United States and Puerto Rico, LULACs programs, services and advocacy address the most important issues for Latinos, meeting critical needs of today and the future. For more information, visit http://www.LULAC.org.
Close ups of the historic 135-year-old Torah being restored at Calvary Hospital.
Last year, Calvary Hospital started restoring a historic Torah scroll, No. 515, from the town of Taus Domazlice. This scroll, technically a Holocaust survivor, is on permanent loan to Calvary from the Memorial Scrolls Trust in London. The scroll is housed at the Hospitals Bronx campus. The goal is to repair this Torah dating from 1880 so that it will once again be kosher for use in services and Jewish rituals.
Calvary will host the next letter writing event on Sunday, June 26.
Since it was founded in 1899, Calvary has always welcomed patients from diverse faiths and religions. The Hospital is grateful to the Charles R. and Winifred R. Weber Foundation for their early, generous support of the Torah Restoration project. To support this important initiative, please visit: http://www.calvaryhospital.org/torahrestoration.
The Hospitals outreach to the Jewish community, and the Torah Restoration, has been spearheaded by Dr. Michael J. Brescia, Executive Medical Director.
During World War II, the Nazis confiscated all the Jewish ritual items and sacred Torah Scrolls from Jewish communities of Bohemia and Moravia, then known as Czechoslovakia. This collection of Jewish cultural and religious artifacts bears witness to the horrors of the Holocaust.
In 1964, the Westminster Synagogue in London, England, agreed to receive 1,564 Torah Scrolls from Prague. They established the Memorial Scrolls Trust to restore the scrolls and distribute them to communities throughout the world. Torahs are currently on permanent loan to more than 1,400 congregations throughout the world; an estimated 1,000 in the U.S. alone. To learn more about the Trust, please visit: http://www.memorialscrollstrust.org.
Three Rabbis at Calvary care for hundreds of Jewish inpatients and home hospice patients each year. In addition to kosher food upon request, Jewish inpatients and their families can expect a daily visit from a Rabbi, food from an expanded Kosher Hospitality Room, dedicated Shabbos Lounge, Kabbalat Shabbat service, and celebrations of all major holidays.
About the Company:
For more than a century, Calvary Hospital has been the nations only fully-accredited, acute care specialty hospital devoted exclusively to providing palliative care to adult patients with advanced cancer and other life-limiting illnesses. More than 5,800 patients are cared for annually by Calvarys inpatient, outpatient, home care, hospice, and wound care services. Inpatient care is offered at our 200-bed facility in the Bronx and our 25-bed Brooklyn Satellite at Lutheran Medical Center. Calvary Hospice provides short-term inpatient care at The Dawn Greene Hospice, located at Mary Manning Walsh Home in Manhattan. To learn more or sign up for the e-newsletter, Calvary Life, please go to http://www.calvaryhospital.org.
Operational since May 20, 1990, Hubble represents a vast achievement in the fields of astronomy by the United States. Over 9,000 papers based on Hubble data have been published in peer-reviewed journals, placing the space based telescope at the same level with other big machines such as cyclotrons and particle accelerators in generating major advances in science.
It has been a fruitful 26 years.
Taking a look back at the difficulty in funding such a large scale project, one should know that an orbiting telescope was envisioned as long ago as 1946 when astronomer Lyman Spitzer wrote a paper Astronomical advantages of an extraterrestrial observatory. In it, he pointed out two main advantages a space-based observatory would have over terrestrial telescopes, both due to the lack of Earths atmosphere. First, the angular resolution would be improved by a factor of 10 because air turbulence, the cause of a stars twinkle, would be gone; and second, infrared and ultraviolet light could be recorded as well wavelengths normally absorbed by the atmosphere.
In 1970, buoyed by the successful Moon landings, NASA began looking at such a project in earnest and decided to ask for funding knowing that such an endeavor would be far more costly than any Earth-based telescope, up to $400 million. The U.S. Congress questioned many aspects of the proposed budget for the telescope and forced cuts in the budget for the initial planning stages, which at the time consisted of very detailed studies of potential instruments and hardware for the telescope.
In 1974 Congress stopped all funding for the American telescope project while records show they simultaneously increased foreign aid to Pakistan from $380 million to a nearly double $614 million. Due to intense efforts coordinated among astronomers directed at congressmen and senators, coupled with the a report from the National Academy of Sciences emphasizing the need for such a space telescope, the Senate begrudgingly agreed to fund $36 million in 1978 and some construction began.
By 1983 the telescope was given its name honoring the astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) who made one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century when he discovered that the universe is in a constant state of expansion.
That the primary telescope mirror was ground to the wrong specifications became obvious within weeks of the launch prompted many to dismiss the project as a failed attempt. Although the first images returned to earth appeared to be sharper than those of ground-based telescopes, Hubble failed to achieve a sharp focus and the image quality was far less than expected. An image of a point source such as a star was spread over one arc second 10 times more than the sought for resolution.
Blame rested on the Perkin-Elmer company, which it turns out did not review or supervise the mirror construction adequately. They also did not test the mirror to the required specifications correctly before it shipped from their Danbury, Connecticut plant in 1981. Perkin-Elmers own calculations and measurements revealed the primary mirrors surface discrepancies, but the company chose to withhold that data from NASA.
During a 10-day December 1993 visit by the Space Shuttle astronauts, repairs were made to the optical systems along with upgrades to the computers and solar arrays. On Jan. 13, 1994, NASA declared the mission a complete success and showed the first sharper images and resolving power of the instrument.
Over the last quarter century Hubble has made some truly astounding discoveries. These include measuring distances to Cepheid variable stars in the Virgo Cluster to an accuracy of 10 percent, allowing the age of the universe to be calculated more accurately than ever before. Pre- Hubble estimates ranged between 10 to 20 billion years but because of measurements taken it is now known to be 13.7 billion years since the Big Bang.
Hubble captured the impact spots on Jupiter from Comet ShoemakerLevy 9 along with lightning images from Saturn. Using high-resolution images provided by Hubble, astronomers now believe that all large galaxies contain black holes around which they slowly spin.
Other discoveries made with Hubble data include infant planetary disks in the Orion Nebula and evidence for the presence of extrasolar planets around Sun-like stars beyond our solar system. Many of the moons of Pluto were found using the pinpoint resolution of Hubble.
Last year researchers announced that measurements of aurora around Jupiters moon Ganymede revealed a subsurface ocean estimated to be 60 miles deep trapped below 90 miles of crust ice. Only last month, March 3, 2016, researchers using Hubble data announced the discovery of the farthest known galaxy to date a whopping 13.39E9 light years away.
Hubble is running smoothly now and orbits in an extremely thin upper atmosphere. Due to the infinitesimal but always present drag on the structure its orbit will decay over time if not re-boosted. Predictions show that a natural atmospheric reentry for Hubble will occur between 2030 and 2040.
Its a good thing there is still some time left for it to continue. The United States would have to embarrassingly ask Russian President Putin to service the mechanism at this point since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.
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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
UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS
There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur
EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol Armenia and Azerbaijan to do so without delay
An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".
UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT
The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022
Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully
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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
Delegation by Nancy Pelosi Accompanied by Alen Simonyan Visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex
Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi Arrives in Yerevan
Armenian Revytech, global technology leader SAP and financial services software specialist SAP Fioneer sign a cooperation agreement
With 120 million drams donated by Mikael Vardanyan, the defenders of the homeland will be treated in a new building
OSCE Chairman-in-Office and OSCE Secretary General call for immediate cessation of hostilities along Armenia-Azerbaijan border
Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh
USA Embassy Message for U.S. Citizens
ANCA Issues National Call to Action to Stop Taxpayer Funding of Aliyevs Aggression
Lets get this out of the way: Rikki Ducornet is the subject of Steely Dans 1974 hit Rikki Dont Lose That Number, which, regardless of your appreciation of smooth jazz rock, gives her bragging rights of a sort. Ducornet met Steely Dan songwriter Donald Fagen on the campus of Bard College, in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., where her father was a professor of sociology and her mother hosted a radio show. It was while growing up on that same campus, in the company of luminaries such as Gore Vidal, that Ducornet discovered the power of art as subversion, organizing a puppet show version of the McCarthy hearings with a group of children of local professors whom she affectionately calls the brats. Now, in Brightfellow (Coffee House, July), her ninth novel, she returns to the college campus of her youth for a tale of enchantment and fragile innocence.
Ducornets hero, Stub, is an isolated orphan who roams the college campus, guided only by his prodigious imagination. Living on meals stolen from the neighboring houses while posing as a Fulbright scholar named Charter Chase, Stub becomes fascinated by two beguiling figures: the reclusive and eccentric anthropologist Verner Vanderloon, and Asthma, a professors daughter who, with her playful nature and capacity for imagination, resembles no one so much as Ducornet herself. Of composing the book, the author recalls: I found myself going back to my childhood at Bard. It was beautiful to return in this way, with a character who is functionally homeless; it was a marvelous way to return and remember. I was finding that my memories of the place were vivid. That campus had provided me so many amazing experiences as a child, growing up in a place like that, with its music room, its extraordinary library. And yet Stub carries, like so many of Ducornets protagonistse.g., the photographer at the center of 1995s Phosphor in Dreamland of 1995, or even Lewis Carroll in her 1993 novel, The Jade Cabinetthe burden of strangeness. Speaking from Washington, where she was catsitting, Ducornet lamented: I think all of us are more or less burdened by our childhoods. There is a dark hole at the center of our culture and children tumble into it and are twisted out of shape. Maybe its just the existential difficulty of knowing that one has a finite amount of time, but I think its especially acute in a culture that doesnt value childhood or youth. Capitalistic society is not so interested in children except as consumers.
Brightfellow is the second installment in a loose trilogy on the betrayal of innocence that Ducornet began with her previous novel, Netsuke. Im deeply interested in trying to unpuzzle it, and I write books in which that problem is really tangible and somehow revealed. Her 2015 essay collection, The Deep Zoo, returned to themes of abandonment by meditating on legendary figures such as the Bavarian foundling Kaspar Hauser. I think its a profoundly important thing to inquire about as our species implodes, she says. The heart of the matter is the family, and society is a mirror of the family, after all.
Brightfellow was composed in Marfa, Tex., where Ducornet was on a grant from the Lannan Foundation, but its origin goes all the way back to the Bard biology lab. That was where Ducornet stumbled upon a cabinet of anomalies as a nine-year-old, discovering the gestation of the chicken and the human being. This revelation (an instance of what she calls deep zoo moments that animate a writers memory) spurred the sense of connection with nature that she returns to throughout her work. We come into the world having only recently been fish and reptiles and even plantsin our youngest state, we look something like fiddlehead ferns. I think the animal, the world of nature, is essential to our capacity to live, not only imaginatively and happily in the world, but as full human beings. Another of these deep zoo encounters, Houari Boumedienes 1965 coup in Algeria, which she witnessed while living in Constantine, in northeastern Algeria, will inform the next book in her trilogy.
The ongoing presence of the natural sciences in Ducornets work (many of her characters are explorers and anthropologists of one stripe or another) is perhaps unusual for a writer who dwells so often in realms of the phantasmagoric and uncannybut she would point out that nature is no less eccentric. The solace she takes in a world that contains the mysteries of whales and the impeccable design of tigers is matched by a longing for vanished fragrances, lost birdsong, and extinct species of butterflies. The pairing of wonder and loss in a disappearing world shows up perhaps most vividly in Brightfellows reclusive philosopher Verner Vanderloon, a stand-in for the real-world Easter Island expert Werner Wolf with a dash of Italo Calvino, whose invective to dare to dream very high dreams is Ducornets adage.
An engagement with the sometimes fickle quirks of evolution is perhaps Ducornets most striking contribution to the art of surrealism and the metafictional terrain of Calvino and Borges (the latter of whose books she has illustrated). As creatures that evolve, were wired to play so that we can evolve, she says, and this sense of play dictates the forms of her work, from the poetry she wrote throughout the 1970s to the tales she collected in The Complete Butchers Tales (1994) and The One Marvelous Thing (2008). In Brightfellow, Ducornet has Vanderloon write tellingly that mankind is divided into the ones who know how to play, are full of mirth and fellow feeling, and the ones who are killjoys and combustible. He goes on to describe play as a powerful form of magic; Ducornet considers play the key to creation and sustainability: A playful mind is a curious and inventive mind, always looking into the how and why of things and how they can be transformed or used in new ways. So, for example, theres a clear connection between play and the use of tools. Or communicating through rhyme or spontaneously inventing music, acting out with plays and puppet shows.
This brings Ducornet back to the pantomime of the McCarthy hearings, a playful response to a horrendous reality: That too is a thing that we lost in a way, these very literal games of war. Somehow we evolved into sentient beings out of other sentient beings, evolved with endless capacities, and yet remain unable to sustain a healthy relationship with one another and with the planet. And that failure takes on all kinds of forms, in infinite ways, but primarily in the abuse of authority. That tragedy haunts me and always has.
Given all this, a little strangeness may not be such a burden after all. Ducornet describes Brightfellows protagonist, Stub, as the product of all these tensions. As a devout reinterpreter of the world, he represents the best of Ducornets fiction, and the hope of creative, loving life through the experience of play.
Recent work by J.W. McCormack appears in Conjunctions, Bomb, and the New Republic.
Warren Adler is best known as the author of The War of the Roses, the 1981 million-copy bestseller about a divorcing couple that became a blockbuster film starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. His latest release, Torture Man, comes 35 years after the publication of his first bestselling book. What readers likely dont know about the prolific 88-year-old author is that since 1998, his 50-plus works of fiction have been self-published under his imprint Stonehouse Press.
Like Stonehouse Press, Adlers adjunct company Grey Eagle Films, which controls film rights to all his projects; Writers of the World, his online hub for new writers; and his social media program, with 200,000-plus Facebook fans, are all relatively new endeavors. Adler started his writing journey as the Washington correspondent for Armed Forces Press Service in the Pentagon during the Korean War. Following his military service, he founded his own PR agency, a career that evolved to see him take ownership of three radio stations and a television station before he turned his full attention to writing. After his blockbuster The War of the Roses and numerous successful follow-ups, Adlers entrepreneurial spirit drove him to take a chance that would change the course of his writing career. He decided to set up his own company to publish and market his books.
Adler owns the print and digital rights to his entire backlistsomething he says was easy to accomplish even as a bestselling author. This is because his initial contracts with traditional publishing houses allowed rights to revert back to the author once books were no longer in the warehouse. Even rights to his worldwide bestseller The War of the Roses, which was originally published by Warner Books, now belong to him. Perhaps more astonishing is that he engineered these rights reversions in the early 1990swell before e-books and the rise of self-publishing. Publishers hadnt the vision to see what was happening, he says. He saw it as an opportunity to control his own destiny as a writer. It was both psychological and entrepreneurial, Adler says of his decision. As a child of the Depression, Adler had seen his father struggle to find and hold a job, and he vowed never to be dependent on others for his living. All things considered, [self-publishing] does provide an enormous amount of freedom, which many might deem priceless, he says.
Adlers drive to self-publish came during an age when doing so was considered career suicide. Self-publishing in print was expensive and distribution near impossible. Digital publishing existed via myriad file types and hardware systems. Hypertexts were available on floppy disks. Niche business markets created digital content for distribution on CD-ROMwhich readers could read on Sonys Data Discman. Adlers foresight, however, has made him a pioneer of modern self-publishing. His gamble paid off. Ultimately, I got tired of waiting for calls that determined whether or not I could tell my stories, he says. His books are now published and distributed through RosettaBooks, and they continue to sellmore than 30 years after their initial publication, in some cases. He says hes surprised that his books are appealing to millennial audiencesbut this appeal is something hes worked hard to cultivate. His theatrical adaptation of War of the Roses is still performed internationally. Next on his agenda for 2016 is creating audiobooks for all of his titles.
Embracing technologies and finding new readers are important focuses for Adler. Hes interested in the idea of an authors legacy. Books that are forgotten by one generation can be revived by another, he notes. If an author plans well, books can be remarketed to audiences year after year, making them evergreen. But this discoverability depends both on technology and how the author manages his legacy. The continuation of my company and my sons production company will hopefully constitute the next phases of my career, which is to keep my authorial name alive beyond my lifetime, he says.
Adlers latest release, Torture Man, explores terrorism and a hostage situation from multiple viewpoints. As with all his new publications, Adler is marketing the book on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, YouTube, and with a book trailer. Its important to me to tie the topics I tackle in my novels to current events, he says. At 88, Im constantly in the creative ballgame and have no intention of stopping.
Readers Respond
At BEA, We Need Diverse Books organized a panel called Love and Loss in Childrens Literature. After reading our coverage of the event, author and media personality Jeff Rivera shared his thoughts on the topic in a comment on publishersweekly.com:
We need to focus on going directly to diverse consumers and converting nonreaders into readers. We need to focus on providing diverse avid readers the stories that they want to buy.
You do not need to stand in line and ask for permission to have your stories published by publishers in order to do that.
Even armed with their hundreds of millions of dollars, publishers are clueless about how to attract, create, or reach diverse audiences and have as good of a shot at it as any indie author with a little creativity.
Going directly to bookstores, libraries, online retailers, and schools is one way, but the real battlefield is prying eyeballs away from video games, social media, fantastic television, and movie theaters, or working in unison with these digital culprits to turn frenemies into friends, telling stories that can be told using all of these windows of opportunity, from paper to screen.
From the Newsletters
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Joanna Ebenstein, author of The Anatomical Venus (DAP) and founder of the Morbid Anatomy Museum, takes us through a photo-based history of the Anatomical Venus, a bizarre wax figure that was meant to teach anatomy.
Childrens Bookshelf
Matthew Quick, the author of The Silver Linings Playbook and the forthcoming YA novel Every Exquisite Thing (Little, Brown), discusses the differences between writing for teens and adults.
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The story behind The Pop-Up Art Book, a Kickstarter-funded pop-up book featuring work from six artists.
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Why local partnerships are very important to independent bookstores.
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Week Ahead
PW senior writer Andrew Albanese recaps BookExpo and BookCon and discusses Amazons plan to open more physical bookstores.
More to Come
This week the More to Come crew discusses the Toronto Comic Arts Festival and remembers the life and art of comics artist Darwyne Cooke, who died last weekend.
KidsCast
Jewell Parker Rhodes talks about her novel Towers Falling (Little, Brown), which follows a group of Brooklyn fifth graders learning about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, an event that took place before they were born.
PW Radio
English professor Matthew G. Kirschenbaum discusses his new book, Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing (Harvard/Belknap).
PW Star Watch 2016 Is Open for Nominations
Were looking for the next generation of publishing-industry leaders. Do you work with someone who is going to make a big impact on the business? Nominate that person for PW Star Watch, or you can nominate yourself. A panel of judges including PW staff, the Frankfurt Book Fair, and noted industry leaders will pick 50 up-and-coming stars and select five top honorees and a Superstar who will get an all-expense-paid trip to the 2016 Frankfurt Book Fair. Find out more.
The most-read review on publishersweekly.com last week was The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley (HMH).
At the International Digital Publishing Forums Digicon 16 conference, held May 10 at BEA in Chicago, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, was introduced as one of us by Bill McCoy, IDPFs executive director. Berners-Lee opened the conference by offering his vision of the future of Web publishing: a seamless integration of Web technology and content across print and virtually any device with a screen.
In a keynote speech titled Realizing the Vision of Publishing Technology Being Web Technology, Berners-Lee, who is also founder and director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), outlined the history of the Web as a publishing channelalbeit an anarchic, innovative, and disruptive oneand its future as an enabler for publishing technologies far beyond anything we can conceive of today.
Berners-Lee said that setting up a website is like setting up a bookstore, comparing the Web to the earlier launch of Project Gutenberg, the open-source e-book project founded in 1971. Berners-Lee went on to outline the development of the Web since its early days in the 1990swhen its users were mostly scientists, geeks, and people with lots of datato what is now a massive shift from static Web links to being a Web where every online page could be programmed like a computer.
W3Cs Open Web Platform fosters interoperability (the ability to run all kinds of content on all kinds of platforms) and, he said, the kind of coding you see in e-books may also be used in cars, on screens of all kinds, including yet-to-be-conceived-of technology that could turn the walls of a classroom or conference hall into screens that can display, say, the content on a smartwatch. Print books will be here forever, he said, but with Web technology, people will be able to take them everywhere. He added, This is challenging and exciting.
Berners-Lee is a fascinating thinker and speaker whose words often rush forward in clusters and seem to collide with one another in a linguistic mash-up, as he works to get all his thoughts out as quickly as possible. But in an interview with PW, he was able to articulate his thoughts on creating one of the most important technology tools of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Asked if he had foreseen the changes that the Web has had on the world, Berners-Lee says: Nobody could have expected todays world [of technology]. The Web allows you to do any crazy idea, and youre only limited by your own creativity. He adds that publishing and collaboration were part of his thinking when he invented the Web in 1989: There is a universality on the Web. It can be used for any genre. You can browse. Its flexible. It unleashes the shackles put on publishing by paper.
Asked about the Web and the rise of self-publishing, Berners-Lee cites the bloggers and bulletin boards launched in the early days of the Internet: They were a big part of the Web, so empowering the individual was always there. The Web levels the playing field, and yes, that means you also get a lot of junk. He also acknowledges that the Web challenges all business models, but it creates new ones.
We used to have shelves of technical manuals, but no more, Berners-Lee says. So the Web saved a lot of trees. But, in general, there are now other models to sell content through apps, subscriptions, and advertising-based models.
Asked about certain critics, such as Nicholas Carr, who claim the Internet is diminishing peoples attention span, Berners-Lee says: The Web changes how we think, but I dont think its making people stupid. The Web changes the things we have to do. We do things more quickly now. We dont have to memorize things anymore. There is a way for people to become experts more easily.
Berners-Lees talk came as members of IDPF, which creates digital publishing standards, and W3C, which creates Web standards, convened at BEA to discuss the merits of a possible merger of the two organizations.
McCoy provided an extended presentation to the membership, outlining the benefits of the mergeramong them accelerating the convergence of the Web and publishing technologies; new developments in the nature of authoring, curation and reading itself; and an acceleration of portable Web documents that can be read offline as well as online.
However, the proposed merger was met with some skepticism from OverDrive CEO Steve Potash, who founded the Open E-Book Forum, the predecessor to IDPF. Potash questioned whether IDPF members understood the consequences of the mergerspecifically that IDPF would cease to exist and its intellectual property would be owned by W3C.
The proposal was put before the membership to solicit feedback. No official date to vote on the merger has been set.
There were fewer attendees at this years BookCon, held May 14 in Chicago, compared to the two previous events in New York City, but publishers and readers alike gave the consumer show generally high marks. Executives at Reed Exhibitions, the organizer of BookCon as well as BookExpo America, which ran May 1113, reported that consumer attendance was 7,200. The two-day BookCon in New York in 2015 drew 18,000 attendees, and the first BookCon in 2014 attracted 10,000 readers over one day.
For publishers, the lower attendance was offset by a more-organized show that still drew very engaged, and eager, readers. Michelle Bayuk, marketing and publicity director for Quarto Publishing, said that she was braced for a chaotic day, given her experience at the first New York BookCon, but that things went smoothly this year.
PGWs Elise Cannon said she found attendees this year to be more interested in the books, rather than just looking for celebrity authors, as was often the case at the past two shows. She surmised that this is because the headliners in Chicago were actual authors, not celebrities such as Khloe Kardashian, a big draw in 2014. The shift in the author lineup led to a slightly older audience this year; young teenagers were in the majority in New York. According to Reed, 60% of consumers at BookCon were under 30, with 34% in the 2130 age bracket; 87% were female.
Publishers reported that they ran out of their most popular free items quickly. Todd Doughty, v-p and executive director of publicity for the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, said its signed copies of John Grishams The Litigators were gone in less than five minutes, and the same held true for the 10th-anniversary edition of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Galleys that went quickly included those of Carl Hiassens forthcoming novel Razor Girl and Nathan Hills The Nix. In addition, Knopf gave away hundreds of Knopf and Grisham tote bags, along with Knopf centenary T-shirts; all were gone by 1 p.m., Doughty said.
Jason Wells, director of publicity at Abrams, said its childrens titles sold like hot cakes, and that some adult titles also sold briskly at 50% off retail. The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Can I Sit on Your Lap While Youre Pooping sold very well, he added.
Chicago was the first BookCon for Trinity University Press, whose director, Tom Payton, was manning the booth. Payton said one highlight was when a middle-aged man came to the booth early in the day and said that it was the best stinking booth at BookCon, calling it a little adult center in a sea of young adult energy. Payton hasnt decided whether TUP will return to BookCon next year.
Also uncertain about whether it will go to BookCon in 2017 is Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, which was at the event for the first time in Chicago. V-p and director of marketing Jennifer Swihart said Consortium quickly gave out lots of free books from its publishers, but she wondered whether that approach is really engaging with readers. Of the eight Consortium publishers who took part in BookCon, two had a great experience, two did not like it at all, and four were ambivalent, she said, noting that one of the publishers who enjoyed BookCon used a contest to build its reader list during the show.
The biggest complaint from consumers, many of whom came from different parts of the country, was that BookCon wasnt long enough. Its very stressful, having it on one daya lot of the [panels] I want to go to overlap, said Marissa Rodriguez, a teen from Philadelphia.
While many publishers prefer the one-day format, they also hope BookCon will grow. Quartos Bayuk said, My marketing brain says expandhave BookCons all over the country. Eugenia Pakalik, director of sales and marketing at Norton, called the Chicago event great and added, Maybe someday, well have BookCons in several cities. Knopfs Doughty offered a suggestion to help draw more consumers: invite them to the adult and childrens author breakfasts. May BookCon grow, he said.
Update: An earlier version of this story contained an error in the title of Can I Sit on Your Lap While You're Pooping (Abrams) and has been corrected.
I dont think anyone thinks its a sacrilege. People know I do it; no one judges me. So says Clarkson Potter editor Amanda Englander of the fact, well known among her colleagues, that she uses the meal-kit company Plated. As the number of meal-kit companieswhich send consumers recipes, along with boxes of premeasured ingredientshas surged in the past few years, the debate rages on about whether they encourage a lesser form of cooking. For Englander, who is in the camp that believes using a meal kit is very much cooking, the experience has proven an inspiration in the kitchen, and at the office. At her urging, CP has just published a branded cookbook from Plated, marking the first traditionally released cookbook from a meal-kit company.
Plated, along with Blue Apron, stands as one of the earliest entrants in the meal-kit delivery market. As the New York Times pointed out in a recent story about the trend, there are now more than 100 meal-kit delivery companies, with Amazon among the latest to join the fray. The Times piece, Its Dinner in a Box. But Are Meal Delivery Kits Cooking?, looked at the sometimes-polarizing effect the companies have had in the culinary world. The main question: Does having a ready-to-fix meal delivered to your door kill the inspirational nature and soul of cooking?
Though its up for debate, Englander, who reached out to Plated about doing a cookbook, sees obvious appeal in the partnership. Plated: Weeknight Dinners, Weekend Feasts, and Everything in Between, written by two members of Plateds culinary team (Elana Karp and Suzanne Dumaine), will be heavily marketed to customers of the meal-kit delivery service. (RH said that Plated does not release its membership numbers.) Emails have already been sent to the companys customers advertising the $24.99 hardcover, which went on sale May 17. The cookbook will also appear on postcards included in Plated meal boxes, featured in company-sponsored sweepstakes, and promoted on Plateds social media platforms (such as Twitter and Instagram).
As it happens, Plated is not the first meal-kit company to test the waters with a cookbook. Blue Apron has self-published four titlesWinter, Autumn, Summer, and Springthat it sells, along with a host of other products, on its website. (Englander said she believes Blue Apron at one point shopped a manuscript to various publishers.)
When asked whether she is concerned that the book might have limited appeal beyond the Plated membership, Englander replied, Unless you know Plated, you wouldnt recognize this book is from them. And aside from books titlewhich, while branded, is also a general food-world termthere is nothing in the books packaging tying it to the company that inspired it.
The recipes in the book are mostly new. Englander estimated that 80% of the recipes in Plated are fresh, meaning that none are retreads from recipes the company has sent to its customers. Many, though, have been created relying on feedback that Plateds customers have provided. Englander explained that Plated users can comment on the recipes they receivevia emails or through ratings on the companys appsharing approval or disapproval.
Although Englander isnt convinced that a slew of meal-kit branded cookbooks will be coming soon, she recognizes the logical pairing of these companies and publishers. And, if this book works, Englander said CP will likely look to work with Plated again.
Shark Rotator Professional Lift-Away 3-in-1 Vacuum is rated 4.2 out of 5 by 343 .
Rated 5 out of 5 by Gee Bee from I've had this vaccum for about eight years . I have no complaints it has been a cleaning machine . I will stay if you don't ever clean your vaccum you can expect it will not last very long. I wash the foam filter and clean the brush roll etc. about four times a year . You have to keep it maintenance like anything else . Just now thinking of replacing it not sure just yet which one I'll try or when !!
Rated 5 out of 5 by Stan from Great vacuum! This vacuum is a real performer! We vacuumed our carpet with our old machine and then went over it again with the Rotator. It almost made me ill seeing what our old machine was leaving behind.
Rated 3 out of 5 by Thomas from Does a great job until the brush motor stops worki I have had three Shark vacuums over the past 12 years. The same thing happened to all three, the sweeper motor stops working. Believe it is a problem with the electrical connection because it works on and off until it finally just dies. Cant find anyone to repair. This has happened two several friends. I dont think Ill purchase any more Sharks because I believe they have a real issue with the sweeper motor connection. I was a Electrical Engineer and have tried fixing the three I purchased plus friends units. Very hard to diagnose.
Rated 5 out of 5 by fightingacne101 from This is the best This is the best vacuum weve ever had. We have 3 girls in our house, all with long and thick hair. This does the job and gets everything off the carpet and leaves it looking so clean. And its lightweight too which makes it easy to vacuum the whole house and not feel like you just got hit by a bus!
Rated 1 out of 5 by Sandhills of NC from Defective right out of the box. Never got to use the vacuum as the wand would not click into the console. Called shark's customer service and explained that we just opened the box and were trying to put it together and explained the issue with the wand and console. Shark customer service told my husband they would send a new wand and we only have to pay $20 shipping. Thought my husband was going to have a heart attack with that answer as we had not even used it yet as it was defective. He just told them we were going to send it back to QVC. Hopefully QVC won't try to sell it to someone else without testing it. First dealing with Shark's customer service and not impressed at all!
Rated 4 out of 5 by Kimmers14 from Love it!!! I love this vacuum. Mine though is about 6 years old and a piece where the hose sticks into the vacuum broke off Otherwise Id give it a five its been reliable, durable easy to clean. Went to replace the vacuum and oh how the price has gone up!!! Its ax good buy and I would recommend this sweeper
Rated 3 out of 5 by Smiley from Loved this but motor gave out I loved this vacuum but motor just gave out all of a sudden. I kept all filters and hoses clean! Was very surprised giving the cost!
"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
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IRIN, May 16, 2016
By Jared Ferrie
About 1,000 Afghans have fled their homes due to fighting each day since the beginning of the year, and aid workers cant reach many of them, the UN says.
Internal displacement due to conflict rose 40 percent from 2014 to 2015, and this year could see another increase. About 118,000 people fled their homes in the first four months of 2016, the UNs emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, said in a report yesterday.
Its been a rather alarming rise in the number of families displaced, Stacey Winston, an OCHA spokeswoman in the Afghan capital, Kabul, told IRIN.
The growing permanence of the Golan refugee camp in Afghanistans Khost province can be seen in the bazaar that has sprung up in the camp, seen here on 12 May 2015. (Photo: Catherine James/IRIN) The growing permanence of the Golan refugee camp in Afghanistans Khost province can be seen in the bazaar that has sprung up in the camp, seen here on 12 May 2015. (Photo: Catherine James/IRIN)
The northeastern province of Kunduz has been especially hard hit this year. So far, 22,400 people have been forced from their homes by fighting between the Taliban and government forces backed by international military.
Many of those displaced have been repeatedly forced from their homes.
The Taliban briefly took control of the provincial capital, Kunduz City, last October. In March, the insurgents surrounded the city, setting off improvised explosive devices that caused widespread destruction and sent 7,000 people fleeing into the homes of families and neighbours, OCHA said in its report. An assessment mission subsequently found as many as six families sheltering in one house.
On 15 April, the Taliban launched its spring offensive throughout the country, which was quickly followed by a counteroffensive by pro-government forces. Fighting has been raging in all seven districts of the province, with civilians caught in the crossfire, which has included the use of heavy artillery and airstrikes.
The situation is similar throughout much of the country. Of Afghanistans 34 provinces, 24 have recorded some level of forced displacement this year, and a quarter of those displaced are in areas that are difficult to access.
Afghanistans rugged terrain adds to the challenges for agencies trying to provide humanitarian aid.
Were facing a double-edged sword, said Winston. Were trying to reach people in remote areas, but also trying to reach people in conflict areas.
For example, aid agencies know that 10,500 people are displaced in Dehrawud District in Uruzgan Province, but they cant reach them. Agencies were initially able to conduct an assessment and found urgent health concerns, as well as food, water and shelter needs. But fighting has since blocked the road into the area, and displaced families have been stranded for weeks without help.
Likewise, the OCHA report notes, relief agencies have not managed to deliver aid to people displaced in districts outside of Kunduz City.
The situation doesnt look like its going to improve anytime soon. Government security forces backed by their international allies are struggling to fend off the Taliban and other groups, while growing numbers of civilians are trapped in the middle.
All this has prompted some soul-searching among humanitarian agencies. The OCHA report asks: In a year when the Taliban have gained more control of the countryside than ever before, is the UN and NGO part of the international aid community balanced to assist both sides of the conflict?
TOLOnews.com, May 20, 2016
By Mir Abed Joenda
Rahila, a young woman lies in a hospital in Kabul. She claims her husband and in-laws covered her and set her on fire. (Photo: TOLOnews.com) Rahila, a young woman lies in a hospital in Kabul. She claims her husband and in-laws covered her and set her on fire. (Photo: TOLOnews.com)
A woman in PD 1 district in Kabul city said on Friday her husband, his sister and her mother in-law poured fuel over her and set her on fire.
The victim, Rahila, said the incident took place on Thursday in the street in front of people.
Rahila, who is currently being treated at the Istiqlal hospital said: "My mother in-law covered me and my husband poured fuel over me and then they set me on fire. I was screaming and the residents came and put the fire out."
"She has second and third degree burns and the patient's current condition is satisfactory; but the patient also has respiratory burns," said Sayed Ishaq Tahiri, a doctor at the hospital.
Rahila's relatives said that after her first husband died, she married Samir - about eight months ago - but the marriage was fraught with domestic disputes and conflict over money.
"We want the government to set fire to the perpetrators, the same way they torched Rahila, so this does not happen again in future," said Nawab, Rahil's brother.
"They beat my mother just for money and they did this to my mother," said Shukrana, Rahila's daughter.
But Samir, who is Rahila's husband, has denied the accusation in a telephone interview with TOLOnews.
"My wife came and said she will sit fire to herself and me and during this conflict she poured fuel on herself and me and finally she set fire to herself and then ran and people thought I had torched her," said Rahila's husband, Samir.
Rahila's relatives said that all three accused by Rahila of the crime are still free. Kabul Police Criminal Investigation Department Head (CID) said that police are trying to find them in order to arrest them.
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Relatives have no news of Hrachya Harutyunyan
For already 3 months the relatives of Hrachya Harutyunyan, who is at present in Tambovs penitentiary institution in Russia, havent spoken to him. Formerly he kept in touch with us, but at present we are not in contact. I dont know what the reason is, maybe the phones were taken and he is not allowed to call, Victor Martirosyan, father-in-law of Hrachya Harutyunyan told A1+. He says that representatives of the embassy also visited Hrachya Harutyunyan, who has health problems, and registered that Hrachya Harutyunyan has spinal hernia, But they said that he could not undergo surgery. To remind, on July 13, 2013, near Podolsk, just outside of Moscow, the breaks of the truck Hrachya Harutyunyan was driving gave out, and the truck hit a bus, killing 18 passengers. More than 30 people were hospitalized. He was sentenced to 6 years and 9 months in prison. Negotiations are underway for extradition of Hrachya Harutyunyan to Armenia. The issue of transfer is not clear yet. Moscow promises and until now nothing has been done, summed up Victor Martirosyan.
SHARE FILE - In this April 11, 2015 file photo, Milana Vayntrub arrives at the TV Land Awards at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, Calif. The actress best known for her role as "Lily" in a series of AT&T commercials was a toddler when her parents fled Uzbekistan as refugees in 1989. Using the hashtag #CantDoNothing, the Los Angeles-based actress since has founded a movement encouraging people to donate their time, money or voices to aid the refugees. (Photo by Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP, File)
By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press
Milana Vayntrub plays giddy and goofy roles, but she was fidgety and troubled as she tried to relax on a recent vacation in Greece.
The actress best known for her role as the chirpy, blue-shirted "Lily" in a popular series of AT&T commercials was a toddler when her parents fled Uzbekistan as refugees in 1989. How was she supposed to just sit on the beach, she wondered, when migrants fleeing Syria were coming ashore a few miles away?
"It felt a little ridiculous that I could do something but would choose not to," she said.
Vayntrub, 29, deliberately missed her flight home so she could wrap refugee babies in blankets and make sandwiches for the new arrivals. Later, back in Los Angeles, she founded CantDoNothing.org, a nonprofit with a simple mission: Encourage people around the planet to do something anything to help.
"I'm asking everyone to find simple ways to share your time, your money, your voice to make a difference. Helping can be a lot of things," Vayntrub told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Her initiative, shared under the hashtag #CantDoNothing, has unleashed a buzz on social media, with people from around the planet sharing photos and videos of their acts of kindness and solidarity.
It's also highlighted Vayntrub's own harrowing journey from oppression to opportunity nearly three decades ago, and her emergence as a sort of accidental activist.
Although she's most recognizable for her advertising work as a quirky AT&T salesperson, she's gained a following for comedy films including "Junk" and "L!fe Happens," as well as Netflix's "Love," HBO's "Silicon Valley," Yahoo's "Other Space," and her YouTube channel, "LivePrudeGirls."
She's had to adapt her stand-up routine, though, since returning from Greece.
"All my life kvetches sounded so petty," she said. "Here, what's going on with the refugees doesn't really pop up in my feed. It's not in my daily life. But when you travel, you see it."
Using her iPhone, Vayntrub made a short video about her vacation-turned-mission. It shows dozens of bright orange life jackets littering the beaches of the Greek island of Lesbos, where refugees from Syria continue to make the perilous sea crossing to reach Europe.
From a distance, the jackets "look like a field of poppies a beautiful nature scene. Then you get closer and realize the humanity," she said. "That was the first real shock."
The video also shows Vayntrub greeting boats carrying refugees from Turkey as they come ashore. The U.N. refugee agency says more than 1 million people crossed the Mediterranean in 2015, most in unseaworthy boats, and nearly 200,000 have made the crossing so far this year.
Vayntrub was only 2 when her parents left their home in the former Soviet Union, so she has no memories of her own flight to an eventual new life in southern California. "But I do remember feeling like an outsider that everyone's from here, and I'm not," she said.
Providing the refugees with food, shelter and medical attention is critical. But Vayntrub who's planning to visit a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan next month also worries about the lack of educational and cultural opportunities for young migrants.
"I'm haunted by who these kids will be in 20 years with no exposure to literature or musical instruments. What kind of adult does that breed?" she said.
Responses to the #CantDoNothing movement have been varied and spirited. A YMCA in Richmond, Virginia, collected new and used baby carriers to send overseas. A school in Santa Monica, California, held a stuffed animal drive. A poet in Ontario, Canada, wrote free verse about the refugees' plight.
"I'm a much more grateful person now," Vayntrub said. "We're so lucky to take being alive for granted."
___
Online: http://cantdonothing.org
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Q. How does your faith address the use of pornography?
In the United Methodist Church, sexuality is considered a sacred gift and we are called to use it responsibly. The church does not view commercialization, exploitation or abuse of sexual activity in keeping with this call. However, pornography is just one of many ways we can exhibit brokenness, either in its use or creation. Always, the church's mission is to heal, not condemn.
Tara Macy, lay servant
First United Methodist Church, Redding
Pornography is a sad and terrible sin and, by its nature and physiology, highly addictive. It is by no means a "victimless crime." It leads easily, quickly and almost inevitably to seeking greater physical expressions of the lust that it is designed to inflame, and has destroyed countless marriages. And all of this is available for free to anyone, regardless of age, with the most meager of Internet familiarity and access to a computer, tablet or smartphone.
Pornography is a sexual sin that is "addressed" by the church in the same manner as any other sin, through the grace of God in Christ, since it is a sin that God can and will forgive as freely and completely as any other. It is sadly a problem within the church, as well as outside of it, and we address it through teaching, seeking repentance, and through the application of God's powerful, cleansing word.
The Rev. Gene Crow, pastor
Redding Reformed Fellowship
Traditional Judaism sees sexuality as intrinsic to marital love, and sexual intercourse is actually encouraged. There are many other restrictions on Sabbath activity, but intercourse is heartily endorsed. Lighting the oven is forbidden before sundown Friday, but Talmud recommends "aphrodisiac foods" for Sabbath meals. "Be fruitful and multiply" has to do with more than demography.
But Orthodoxy doesn't accept sex outside of marriage. Ritual is designed to enforce a holy life, so the thinking is that if you sanctify everything waking, parenting eating, work and, of course, marriage self-destructive practice would be irrelevant, automatically eliminated. Since pornography, which has the same root as prostitution, is supposed to induce sexual excitation artificial sex, it too would be irrelevant and superfluous to a holy marriage. Unlike some attitudes toward sin, it isn't necessarily subject to God's punishment, but would serve to distance one from God,
Art Tilles, social action chairman
Temple Beth Israel, Redding
Sex is great when it's within the boundaries of marriage.
Pornography is a scourge on a God-given pleasure meant to be something beautiful between a man and woman.
I believe that pretty much says how we Nazarenes feel regarding our faith and sexual promiscuity.
Jim White, lay leader
Weaverville Church of the Nazarene
Gurbani guides us that although a Sikh does not have sex or intimacy outside of marriage, one must also be cautious and mindful of controlling our sexual organs.
Sikhs argue that pornographic books and films, prostitution and lust leads to adultery. Pornography is said to encourage lust, known as kaam, which is a concept described as an unhealthy obsession for sex and sexual activity. Kaam is classed as one of the "Five Thieves," personality traits that are heavily discouraged for Sikhs, as they "can build barriers against Waheguroo in their lives."
Sikhism does not support pornography. These acts keep you away from not only spiritual life, but also affect your normal life.
The businessmen of the porn industry know that kaam is the main evil, which is in every human being they take support of this evil and makes you kaami. They earn money through kaam and can destroy your life.
Amarjit Singh
The Sikh Centre, Anderson
The definition of pornography is elusive. Even the Supreme Court did not clearly define the subject. Legal, moral and cultural issues are involved. The intent of both the creator and viewer of what would generally be considered pornographic material must be taken into consideration. None of these can be easily or objectively measured. Unity believes in self-responsibility and does not take a firm stand on subjects such as pornography. We believe that the body is a temple of God. We believe in the importance of caring for our body and presenting ourselves in such a way that we honor the God living within each one of us. We know the importance of not compromising our body in any way that diminishes the shining forth of the Christ light from within. We must each make wise choices that show respect for how we use and view our body and that of others.
Carolyn Warnemuende, spiritual director
Unity Church in Redding
The Centers for Spiritual Living have no specific rules or prohibitions about the use of pornography. The teaching would support the empowerment of the individual to make a decision based upon their own conscience.
The Centers for Spiritual Living teach and promote conscious living. This method asks each individual to examine, contemplate and determine for themselves an appropriate course of action for their own life. Personal decisions for conscious living are based upon respect for self and others, attunement to the sacred, living mindfully and in reverence for all of life. It's about practicing balance and sacred living.
The other sometimes challenging aspect of this is to practice non-judgment. I must support the God given right for others who may make decisions contrary to my conscience to do what is right from their own perspective.
The Rev. Lynn E. Fritz
Centers for Spiritual Living, Redding
Pornography is often a culturally defined issue. On our tours through Italy, Greece, France, Germany and Scandinavian countries, we found many examples of nakedness in both statuary and paintings. Most of these are reverenced as true art by the countries, although many show the effects of iconoclastic and prudish periods with vandalism and destruction. But the depiction of violent and beastial sex in a variety of mediums, especially online and in glossy magazines, appears to cross a cultural boundary that most would call beyond reason. Where the intent is simply to attract prurient interest or boost celebrity peeks, most would agree that this is, in fact, pornography with little or no redeeming merit. Still, it is a fine line drawn and varies from place to place. The human body is magnificent and is God's creation, and it certainly deserves every respect.
Deacon Mike Evans
Sacred Heart Church, Anderson
Next week's question: Is a pro-gun position incompatible with a pro-life position?
SHARE Scarcello was arrested on suspicion of distributing pornographic images of children.
Agents: Case is most disturbing we've ever seen
By Joe Szydlowski of the Redding Record Searchlight
An Anderson man and guardian of two children is in custody after authorities say they found violent child pornography on his computers and online chats in which he discussed torturing and eating children.
Jason Scarcello, 42, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of having and distributing pornographic videos and photos of children, said agents with the Homeland Security Investigations branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Scarcello's was one of 42 arrests made around the world in what authorities called one of the most disturbing cases of its kind they've seen. He is one of 12 arrested in the U.S.
"Just being able to finally SEE an actually (sic) child cooking would be a dream come true. I really am hoping that I can find some attainable targets up here," Scarcello wrote in one chat under a screen name, investigators said. They said he wrote that he'd like to try eating one child and he's "not worried about any of the potential kids."
Scarcello, who serves as a guardian to two children, had multiple CDs and DVDs depicting children being abused and, in some cases, dead, Special Agent Gene Kizenko said in a criminal complaint filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.
Agents say they still are investigating whether Scarcello ever assaulted any children.
The District Court website listed Matthew McCrary Scoble, of the Office of Federal Defenders, as the attorney for Jason Scarcello.
Scoble declined to comment on the case.
Agents say they were led to Scarcello after arresting others allegedly involved in an international child pornography ring. Participants used "peer to peer" networks to trade images and videos of child pornography using special keywords to identify the explicit material, Kizenko said.
Agents built their case by piecing together clues from Scarcello's IP address, his Yahoo! email account and tracking pornographic images shared by Scarcello, Michael Arnett, of Kansas City, and others, Kizenko said in his complaint. An IP address is the unique numeric code assigned to a computer when it is connected to the Internet.
Kizenko said Scarcello traded images over the Ares Network, both downloading and distributing images and video. Kizenko said agents found at least 37 unique files shared between December 2011 and June 2012 under an IP address registered to Scarcello, including two videos of prepubescent children being raped and one involving use of a sex toy on a child.
He said Scarcello also used chat rooms to discuss fantasies. He said Scarcello allegedly chatted online with Arnett about kidnapping, torturing, killing and eating children.
The chats took place between August 2011 and March 2012, Kizenko said.
In several chat logs included in the complaint, Scarcello allegedly asked Arnett about kidnapping children.
"One thing I always forget to ask you is what do you keep in your van, like what's a good 'hunting kit' and supplies do you have," Kizenko said Scarcello wrote under his screen name. He said Scarcello wrote about the ecstasy he'd expect from kidnapping a child, including the fear his victim would feel.
The pair also discussed cannibalism, Kizenko stated. Arnett asked Scarcello at one point if he would like to "take one to eat for real?" according to the complaint.
"I like to think so. My ideal of coarse would be to have a partner to do it with and learn from, but the reality of it is that I'd probably have to do it alone," Scarcello wrote, according to Kizenko's complaint. "I'd say my concerns of doing it are really only in the getting caught. I'm not concerned with what the child or it's parents think or feel. All of that 'boo hoo' BS belongs under the category of 'woulda coulda shoulda done something to prevent it.' "
Arnett also used the network to share a photograph he'd taken of two children, younger than 2, bound and gagged in a roasting pan, Kizenko said. Those children were later found alive.
The chats were found by authorities after they arrested Arnett in May.
Ross Feinstein, spokesman for ICE, said Arnett chatted online with Scarcello and one other individual, who also was arrested in another part of the United States, about cannibalism.
"I've been a part of this investigation for a while. Everything's horrific about it," he said. "The level of discussion of exploitation of children is the most disturbing I've ever seen."
On Wednesday agents showed up at Scarcello's single-story ranch house, Kizenko said. They searched the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which has a children's jungle gym on the side, he said.
One of the rooms was "obviously" set up for two children, he said. Agents found at least two computers and began searching them.
Kizenko said Scarcello, his wife and the two children showed up; his wife took the children inside while investigators questioned Scarcello.
At first Scarcello said a computer virus had brought up strange things on his computer, but then he admitted to possessing pornography, Kizenko said.
He said Scarcello acknowledged the username for Yahoo! chat that investigators had tracked was his.
He said Scarcello then led investigators to his bedroom and showed them two CD pouches.
A purple pouch with black trim was marked "Jason's downloaded CDs," "HANDS OFF," and "That means you, Hunny Bunny!" Kizenko said in the complaint.
Inside, officers found CDs and DVDs depicting prepubescent children having sex with adults, Kizenko said. He said Scarcello said "he preferred images and videos of girls, but could not say for certain if (he) had images or videos of boys."
Kizenko said Scarcello told agents he began downloading child pornography about one year ago, with the last time he did it about a month ago.
Kizenko said in the complaint that the photographs involved children being physically abused and in bondage, with some photos of dead children and autopsy photos of children.
Kizenko said Scarcello and his wife have two young children, who were either adopted or in foster care, younger than 10.
Roxanne Burke, a community relations representative for the Shasta County Health and Human Services Agency, Children's Services, declined to comment on the case.
In an emailed statement, she said all children fostered through Shasta County Children's Services can go into homes only if everyone 18 and older passes a criminal record check that includes fingerprints. Foster parents must also take a 27-hour course, and are screened through a process involving interviews and home visits.
The Scarcello investigation was part of an international child pornography probe that began in Boston, Feinstein said.
It began with the arrest of a hotel manager there, he said. Agents found a series of explicit pictures that stood out from the rest, because of a stuffed animal and newer clothing.
ICE agents tracked it to The Netherlands. A television spot involving the child's face was aired, and within two hours Dutch agents arrested Robert Mikelsons, a day care worker, and his boyfriend, Feinstein said.
He said Mikelsons had abused about 87 children, and agents tracked the photographs' distribution to Arnett.
Scarcello was the 11th of 12 arrested in the U.S., Feinstein said, while a church bus driver was No. 10.
Scarcello is being held without bail in the Sacramento County jail.
Hung Vu/Special to the Record Searchlight
Cori Newton cheers at the end of the national anthem in pouring rain Friday evening during Shasta College's outdoor graduation ceremony at Memorial Stadium.
SHARE Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight Caitlin Davis-Rivers graduated from Shasta College Friday. Davis-Rivers lived in 11 different foster homes before being adopted at 16. She said she often used the foster youth lab at the school. Hung Vu/Special to the Record Searchlight A rainbow appears in the eastern sky as Shasta College graduates wait their turn to get their diploma. Hung Vu/Special to the Record Searchlight Kayla Wigington (left) and Chantel Shepeard acknowledge their families and friends after receinving their diplomas on Friday evening at Shasta College. Hung Vu/Special to the Record Searchlight Dr. Helen Benjamin, chancellor of the Contra Costa Community College District, addresses the commencement audience at Shasta College on Friday. Related Photos Photo gallery: Shasta College graduation 2016
By Alayna Shulman of the Redding Record Searchlight
For Noel Pacheco, school has been hard but it's even harder for her to make people understand why.
Pacheco, 22, is a former foster child who because of severe trauma has virtually no memories from before she turned 14.
"Not really being able to remember those years, on top of constantly moving schools, my studies have always been really hard," Pacheco said. "It's a lot harder to explain" than a traditional disability.
But on Friday, Pacheco and several other former foster youths graduated from Shasta College out of a class of an estimated 1,075 instilling in them not just the sense of achievement any student gets from a degree but also a sense of optimism.
"It really brings hope to me, because if I can do it, I think anyone can, if they really try," said 20-year-old Caitlin Davis-Rivers, a former foster youth who plans to go to California State University, Chico in the fall. "It's a step to my future."
Bob De Paul is a counselor for Shasta College Inspiring and Fostering Independence (or "SCI*FI"), the school's emotional and sometimes financial support system for former foster youths. De Paul said four SCI*FI members graduated Friday, and it's a big deal for all of them.
"They have a lot of barriers," he said. "If you're a former foster youth, you're broke, you're on your own and struggling through school; you don't get together with the other college students and go to the lake and have these resources. ... The challenges that they have to go through to make this happen are phenomenal. I'm astounded every week at what they have to overcome."
Davis-Rivers who lived in 11 different homes before being adopted said part of the problem for many foster children is that they aren't taught to prioritize education.
"Up until my last placement, I wasn't really thinking about college, because I wasn't really a good student. No one really checked to make sure I was doing homework or anything," she said. "I think if a person doesn't feel good about themselves, and if a person doesn't care about their grades, then I think that they're not going to try."
For both Pacheco and Davis-Rivers, it was finding their "forever" family that eventually got them thinking about college.
"I didn't think I could, because of my memory block ... getting through high school was hard enough. But my foster mom ... she had pushed me and pushed me," Pacheco said. "She just has always been there for me and she's always told me that, you know, I was smart enough to do this and it was what I needed to do."
Pacheco's mother, Linda Rocke, said her daughter's struggles have also brought her a great sense of pride for overcoming them.
"She really has to work harder than most, but she does it," said Rocke of Cottonwood. "She knows that she has limitations, and she's learned to reach out and say, 'OK, I know I'm going to have trouble with this. Can you help me?' and yet be proud of her accomplishments. It's been hard for her, and it's been so rewarding."
SCI*FI also helped tremendously, Pacheco said.
"I think she would have quit (without it)," Rocke said.
Going forward, Pacheco hopes to use her two associate's degrees in human development and social science to get a job with the county possibly doing eligibility work or helping out with teen-violence prevention. Davis-Rivers, on the other hand, will pursue a master's degree to become a social worker and help other foster children.
"A lot of them say their social workers don't care, and I just want to change that, because people do care," Davis-Rivers said, noting that her own social worker as a child was her role model and made her passionate about the difference they can make. "I would really like to see them at least try to (go to college)."
Pacheco also wants to help current foster children, albeit in a more indirect way.
"As foster kids ... you go through your whole life with everyone having kind of a negative view of us," she said. "Most kids in foster care aren't there for their own choices. But because of the label, they still have that negative view, and so ... I want nothing more than to be the one who sheds a positive light on the foster youth label. We're always viewed so negatively: 'Oh, those are the bad kids; stay away from them.' But that's not the case. But people don't take the time, usually. I just want to show people we're different. We're actually good, and I want to help people."
Indeed, Rocke said she hopes Pacheco's story is inspiring to other foster children.
"More of them need to know they can do it," Rocke said. "That girl is not going to follow in family footsteps. She's going to own a home and just move ahead."
Horn
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Tehama County warns of rabies
A rabies warning has been issued by the Tehama County Health Services Agency.
The agency said several children were potentially exposed to the rabies virus after playing with two dead bats.
A majority of rabies cases are found in wild animals such as bats, raccoons, skunks and foxes. Domestic animals such as cats, dogs, and cattle account for a low percent of reported rabies cases.
The health department says parents should teach their children not to handle unfamiliar animals, wash any wound caused by an animal thoroughly with soap and water, and seek immediate medical attention if injured by a wild animal.
For more information, contact Tehama County Animal Services at 530-527-3439 or public health at 530-527-6824.
Motion rejected to dismiss case
A Shasta County Superior Court judge on Friday rejected a defense motion to dismiss a misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter case against a Cottonwood man involved in a fatal 2013 traffic wreck.
But it's not yet known when Darren Debs Horn, 31, may begin to stand trial on that vehicular manslaughter without negligence count.
Horn is already slated to begin standing trial June 21 on an unrelated and suspected DUI solo crash while driving on Interstate 5.
The vehicular manslaughter case is trailing behind that case.
Authorities have said Sandra Van Larson, 67, a former independent living specialist who once worked for the nonprofit Independent Living Services of Northern California, was killed Dec. 3, 2013, when Horn ran a red light at Highway 273 and Westwood Avenue.
Trial set in crash that killed girl
An Oct. 4 trial date was set Friday in Shasta County Superior Court for a Shasta Lake man involved in a suspected DUI crash that killed a 10-year-old Redding girl.
Charles Kevin Canfield Jr., who re-entered a not guilty plea, was ordered earlier this month at his preliminary hearing to stand trial on six criminal counts, including second-degree murder.
Canfield, 26, is accused of driving drunk in a Jan. 28 crash that killed Marley Johnson, a fifth-grader at Rother Elementary School.
In addition to second-degree murder, Canfield is charged with gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving under the influence causing injury, and hit-and-run causing death, among others.
He remains in the Shasta County Jail in lieu of $1 million bail.
Head-on crash leads to highway delay
A head-on crash shut down one eastbound lane of Highway 299 for several hours at Pine Street near Burney on Friday morning, the California Department of Transportation said.
The California Highway Patrol reported the crash just after 8 a.m. in the eastbound lane of the highway.
The extent of the injuries was being investigated, though firefighters requested medics and Caltrans reported at least one injury.
Windblown fire grew to 10 acres
Firefighters responded to a vegetation fire around 1 a.m. Friday that started as a result of an escaped debris burn at Buffalo and Aoudad drives in Millville.
Due to windy conditions, the fire spread quickly to 10 acres and destroyed a barbecue, generator and well, according to the California Department of Forestry Protection and Fire Protection.
Heater fills house with smoke
A heater spouting light smoke in a north Redding home prompted a family to leave the house Friday morning, according to Redding fire crews.
Firefighters went to Tamarack Drive, off Lake Boulevard in north Redding, for a report of a possible house fire.
Residents just after 8:20 a.m. reported the house was filling with smoke and they left.
Firefighters arrived minutes later and found nothing showing outside the home. They investigated and found the heater was the source of the smoke. No one was injured.
Museums will be open till midnight
In 2016 in Armenia the event Night of Museums will be held on May 21. It is held on the proposal of one of the oldest international organizations on the field of cultural heritage: that is the International Council of Museums (ICOM). Since 1977 on May 18 The International Museum Day brings together more than 30 thousand museums in 5 capitals of the world and calls for activities and takes initiatives in the framework of the proposed theme for the year. Every year a special theme events offered that allows you to emphasize the multifaceted activities of museums. This year's motto is "Museums and cultural landscapes." The "Night of Museums" was launched in 2005, with the supported ICOM, UNESCO and the Council of Europe. The purpose of this day is to enhance the role of museums in social and cultural life of society, to create an environment conducive to the popularization of the museum exhibits. This year about 112 active museums are involved in the spring action. On May 21 and on May 18 during the International Museum Day from 18:00pm till midnight museums will be open to all visitors. During these two days, the museums will open their doors and provide the public with diverse and special events, which will once again cast a retrospective look at the long history and cultural heritage of the Armenian people. It is noteworthy that the museums participants act with original initiatives trying to make the evening unforgettable and interesting for visitors. The purpose of the event is to re-emphasize the value of cultural heritage in the museum environment to synthesize different kinds of art and to provide a pleasant cultural environment. The list of events here
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The Little Sisters of the Poor got a big decision from the U.S. Supreme Court this week.
The eight sitting justices decided unanimously to express "no view on the merits" of questions raised by the Little Sisters in a case about religious liberty and required coverage of contraception in insurance policies. Instead, they sent those questions back to the lower courts for further briefing and resolution.
The move, characterized in some early headlines as "punting," made no explicit statement about the government's duty to preserve religious freedom versus its newfound need to provide unfettered access to free contraception.
As National Review writer and attorney David French explains, "When the court vacates the ruling you're challenging, that's a win."
So those Americans who still value their religious liberty and who have sustained a seemingly constant battering of their first freedom by the current administration should view Monday's ruling as a notable and, we can hope, enduring victory.
The case revolved around the Obamacare requirement that employers, including the Little Sisters, provide a wide array of contraceptive and abortifacient coverage (including the morning-after pill and surgical sterilization) in their health insurance plans.
For the Little Sisters and their co-plaintiffs, providing such coverage even by way of what the government described as an "accommodation" was a gross violation of their religious beliefs.
To make matters worse, failure to provide the required coverage would result in financial penalties so steep they would break almost any business, let alone a charity organization.
The government, the court said, "may not impose taxes or penalties" on the Little Sisters for failure to give relevant notice of refusal to provide the contested coverage, essentially removing the cudgel the administration was using to beat them into submission.
The court suggested that the parties should be able to find a means of seamlessly delivering contraceptives that doesn't violate the religious objections of the Little Sisters and their co-plaintiffs.
Indeed, the court's opinion explained how in a supplemental briefing the government conceded that such a resolution was possible, despite its earlier insistence that the existing "accommodation" was the only available option.
But make no mistake. This victory is one in many battles to come over the future of religious freedom in America.
Religious belief is under attack not only by an overly intrusive federal government but by an increasing level of misunderstanding, indifference and even hostility to religion from society at large.
The religious devout are often unfairly seen as ignorant; the devotion to their faith little more than a thin veil to disguise bigotry.
And with the growing number of nonreligious Americans, pools of potential allies are rapidly shrinking.
That is all the more reason for the Little Sisters and their sympathizers to cherish their hard-won victory.
Cynthia M. Allen is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Readers may send her email at cmallen@star-telegram.com.
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The cell phone next to my bed jolted me awake just before midnight with an ever familiar, ever hostile, alerting sound: "FIRE MUTUAL AID" read the app that we utilize in the Redding Fire Department. Took me a few moments to focus. My eyes aren't what they used to be. One engine, a battalion chief and our ladder truck were all heading to a fire in Anderson. Details unknown. Most often, this not-knowing is the worst part of this job.
Put the phone down and rolled over in bed. I was hoping it was just a routine call. A few moments later a repeat of the same alert. Another Redding engine now being requested to Anderson. I'm awake. Nothing routine about this call at all.
Called my battalion chief by phone no answer. Texted him for details again, no reply. Never a good sign. He is busy, no doubt. His focus is where it needs to be: on the fire operations and the safety of the crews. My mind is racing through scenarios never pretty ones. Contacted our training officer, who was already handling coverage for the empty stations in our city. He had few details other than it was believed to be a commercial structure fire in Anderson.
Texted the Anderson Fire Chief: "what's burning?" A reply came only seconds later: "my downtown." MY DOWNTOWN! Few replies could have moved me more than this one. After all, downtown districts are precious they are the soul of most communities in the North State. And, sadly, most downtowns have been shaped through the years by catastrophic fires, some even wiped entirely from existence. Significant damage to downtown district buildings often leaves more than just the corresponding devastating economic consequences; they tear at the heart and identity of the town itself. Not good at all.
No more time for rest. Our neighbors were in need and I was soon on my way to Anderson to lend any assistance that I could.
Arrived in quick order to witness a tremendous firefight underway. Alongside the Anderson firefighters were many others already engaged in the battle from CalFire, Shasta County, Cottonwood, Happy Valley, and of course, from our Redding Fire Department. All working in tandem with each other. This is how we roll in the California fire service fast and furious assistance no other function of government does it better across jurisdictional lines than we do.
The commercial building appeared old and well-involved with fire flames blowing out of every corner.
I check in with the Anderson fire chief, running the show as the incident commander. Inside his vehicle, he is coordinating the effort by radios and cell phones, while tracking the locations of all fire personnel in the event of an unforeseen catastrophe if a wall collapses, for instance, how many firefighters should we be searching for in the rubble? An ambulance crew was assigned to the incident in case of such event. Some of the tragic nature of this job sometimes. The Anderson city manager was also present. Another ominous sign of the potential devastation of this incident city managers are curious types, but don't typically come to routine fire incidents. Obviously, this incident is anything but routine.
This well-coordinated firefighting operation was holding the flames to one building, so far. That, and a single old masonry wall to the adjacent business. I surveyed the scene carefully but quickly. The next business was a thrift store with typical heavy fire loading inside lots to burn there. I returned to the incident commander with a report that he already knew if the fire breaches this wall, then we will lose the entire block. Although never spoken, both he and I knew what that meant for his town.
Into the early morning hours the operation continued. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water and dozens of gallons of firefighter sweat all mixed together to hold the fire and that single old masonry wall withstood one final challenge. In the end, the fire would be held to that one single building.
A wise old fire chief once told me that firefighting is all about 80 percent preparation and effort and 20 percent luck. I used to downplay the luck part as I could not grasp the helplessness of that factor. But, if you think about it, it bears some truth on the fireground, so many things can spontaneously go wrong. A single hot ember could randomly land in the perfectly wrong spot and a fire could grow exponentially. Perhaps that same ember could easily have drifted into eternal sleep in a puddle of water just one yard over. Such are the laws of randomness in this business. The luck part, perhaps.
On that Tuesday night and well into the following morning in Anderson, I believe I witnessed both of those forces in action. Tremendous effort with a dash or two of good luck.
And the outcome was indeed a relief. Although one old building was unfortunately destroyed, that stretch of the Anderson downtown will remain standing.
Well done all, simply, well done.
Gerry Gray is the chief of the Redding Fire Department and wrote this for his blog on Redding.com. Read more from Gray at http://firehouse.blogs.redding.com. Email him at ggray@cityofredding.org.
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A few weeks ago we lauded the Shasta County grand jury for telling the board of supervisors it needed to change a flawed ordinance that allowed elected officials to receive longevity bonuses.
The grand jury investigated the law after the Record Searchlight reported on it last year.
The supervisors agreed to change the law by adding a word "appointed" inadvertently dropped from the original 2008 ordinance that stipulated who was eligible to receive the extra money.
Last year, the supervisors voted to give Sheriff Tom Bosenko and Treasurer Lori Scott sizeable bonuses retroactive to 2009. Bosenko took home an extra $40,000, and Scott got around $36,000. The newly revised ordinance allows them to receive more bonuses through January 2019, when their current terms expire.
On Tuesday, supervisors Leonard Moty and David Kehoe said Bosenko and Scott should give the money back.
Moty said the situation was similar to taking a child to a store and the cashier gives the child too much money in change.
"You either say, 'No problem, they made a mistake, you keep the money' or perhaps you do the right thing and say, 'Son, they made a mistake, it's not your money. You should give it back.' I believe that is what our two officials should do.
Bosenko and Scott are both disinclined to give the money back, pointing out that the board of supervisors approved the bonuses after discussion in a public meeting.
"There were no errors by this board or the prior board on the longevity pay matter," Bosenko said.
Besides, Bosenko pointed out, a chunk of that bonus went to taxes. As anyone who has received a bonus can attest, Uncle Sam takes at least 20 percent (often much more). For Bosenko and Scott to pay back the money in full, they'd have to dip into their personal funds because the IRS sure isn't going to give back its share.
We have to side with Bosenko and Scott with this one.
Moty's analogy is close but doesn't quite fit. The supervisors didn't make an accounting error and accidentally overpay Bosenko and Scott. They knew exactly what they were doing when they approved the bonuses last year after public discussion.
Furthermore, the board in 2008 approved the original ordinance without the word "appointed." We're sure it slipped their notice, but that board must own its own decision. When it came back up in 2015 when Scott asked why she wasn't receiving the bonus, the board could have delayed making a decision, changed the ordinance and then decided whether to give the money anyway.
They may have thought their hands were tied for 2009-2015 because the law was in effect flaws and all during that time and felt compelled to give the bonuses for those years. But they could have quickly fixed the ordinance and declined to provide the bonuses going forward. They didn't.
Now, after being confronted by the Grand Jury, they've taken an action that won't go into effect for another two and a half years. That leaves Bosenko and Scott and a few other elected officials who will become eligible for the bonuses between now and 2019 in an odd spot. The board has acknowledged they shouldn't be getting the bonuses, but supervisors will grant them to the officials anyway.
Bosenko and Scott said they plan to continue to accept the bonuses. Bosenko said he doesn't think he legally can reject it, although county counsel says otherwise. Scott pledges to give her bonus to local charities.
Now, this is where we part ways with Bosenko and Scott. Well aware now that they never should have gotten the bonuses in the first place, they should graciously decline receiving any more as should any other elected official who will become eligible.
They both said they are proud to have served the residents of Shasta County for decades, that they consider it a great honor.
That honor needs to come with humility and the very highest standards.
In the case of officials take the money anyway, Moty has it right when he says: "I'm concerned that it is this kind of action that gives public employees a bad name."
Hey, hey, hey, hey! What's going on here? A Chicago Craigslist ad posted Friday afternoon is searching for "Saved by the Bell" look-alikes for a "fun promo event." If you've ever been told you look like a character from the show, someone's willing to pay you for it.
It can be assumed that the gig is connected to the Wicker Park pop-up diner Saved by the Max (1941 W. North Ave.) opening June 1, and organizer Derek Berry also posted the listing in a casting Facebook group. A Saved by the Max media representative couldn't confirm the post is for the pop-up but promised "all will be revealed soon."
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The post asks for one "Zack, Slater, Screech, Kelly, Jesse, Mr. Belding, and Tori." Actors are needed one or all of the following dates: May 29 and 30 (79 p.m.) and June 1 (510 p.m.), according to the post. Grab your best windbreakers and bleached jeans, jocks and preps.
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Ashwani Lohani said employees were wrongly blamed for woes of the organisation due to the merger that didn't happen
Air India chief Ashwani Lohani has said the way the "merger" was carried out between Indian Airlines and Air India led to a "chaotic situation" in the organisation while "lack" of leadership added to its woes for which common employees were wrongly blamed.
"A merger that really never happened and in the process resulted in a chaotic situation is at the back of all ills that we are currently witness to," Lohani said in a hard-hitting blogpost, where he accused people in the top slots of "gross failure" to look after the human resource while "cursing the organisation for its failure".
The Indian Railway Service officer, who in September last year took over the reins of the government-run airline that is struggling with huge debt and losses, also said though Air India is now "slowly getting back on track", a lot more needs to be done to bring back the glory of the 'Maharaja'.
"It makes me sad when the common employee is often blamed for the ills of the organisation, in this case too, whereas the real reason for the debacle lies elsewhere, in my opinion on the head honcho," Lohani said in the blog.
"An organisation is only as good or as bad as the head honcho, everything else is merely a symptom," the chairman and managing director of Air India said.
Coming out in support of the employees, he said, "How can an organisation that loses no opportunity in deriding its own men and making them unhappy, find faults with them for lack of deliverance is what I have always failed to fathom."
He also hit out at the bureaucratic procedures and the "procrastination that the company has of late come to specialise in".
"Earlier I always believed that the great Indian Railways was the mother of all bureaucracies, but not any longer. Here at the national carrier the ridiculousness of the process and the diehard belief therein has been carried to a mind boggling extent," he said in the blog.
"The mess is by no stretch of imagination a minor one, yet it has to and shall be sorted out...Turning around is not an attempt, it is a foregone conclusion, despite the plethora of handicaps and with this thought at the back of our minds, we are moving ahead," Lohani said.
"Air India is now slowly getting back on track, yet it is still miles to go before one can relax and watch the planes fly, albeit without the need to constantly worrying and fretting," he added.
Apple CEO Tim Cook met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday and launched an updated version of the the 'Narendra Modi Mobile App'.
IMAGE: Apple CEO Tim Cook and PM Modi share a light moment during their meeting on Saturday . Photograph: PIB
The App contains a new feature 'My Network' that will consist of thoughtful forums where App users can share their ideas, views and deliberate with a wide range of people.
Several daily tasks would also be put in this section at a very regular basis.
On his maiden visit to India, the Apple CEO also discussed with Modi issues regarding cyber-security and data encryption.
"Cook shared Apple Inc's future plans for India. He spoke of the possibilities of manufacturing and retailing in India. He appreciated the breadth of young talent in India and said the youth have significant skills which Apple would like to tap," an official statement said.
IMAGE: Apple CEO Tim Cook called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the potential for Apple products in India . Photograph: PIB
Thank you @tim_cook! Friends, welcome & happy volunteering. Your views & efforts are always enriching, Modi tweeted after meeting Cook. The PM shared a photo with the Apple CEO on his Twitter handle.
The head of the US-based Apple, which makes iconic iPhones and Mac computers, has already announced during this trip setting of an app development centre in Bengaluru and one for maps in Hyderabad.
During his meeting with Modi, Cook highlighted the immense potential for app development in the country. He also launched an updated version of the PM's mobile app at the meeting.
IMAGE: The Apple CEOs visit to India comes at a time when the tech giant is hit by slower growth in global sales . Photograph: PIB
Cook met Modi as part of an Asian tour aimed at boosting sales. While smartphone usage is surging as the middle class swells, most Indians still cant afford Apples iPhones and the company has only about 2% market share in a country where 100 million phones were sold last year.
He narrated to Prime Minister the experiences including a visit to Siddhivinayak temple in Mumbai and watching a cricket match in Kanpur.
Modi, appreciating Cook, said in India "seeing is believing" and added these experiences would definitely steer his business decisions.
IMAGE: Apple CEO Tim Cook instructs PM Modi on the use of the new features in the updated 'Narendra Modi App'. Photograph: PIB
The Apple CEOs visit to India comes at a time when the US technology giant is hit by slower growth in global sales of its flagship products and has his work cut out in a market that is growing fast.
Cupertino-based Apple runs on 93 per cent renewable energy and Cook spoke of plans to move Apple's entire supply chain to renewable energy.
IMAGE: Thank you Tim Cook! Friends, welcome & happy volunteering. Your views & efforts are always enriching, tweeted Modi after meeting the Apple CEO. Photograph: PIB
On Wednesday, Cook began his first official visit to India by offering prayers at Mumbais Siddhivinayak temple, where he also met Anant Ambani, the son of Reliance Industries chairperson Mukesh Ambani.
His meeting with PM Modi is the third and final leg of the 55-year-old Cook's visit to India, after Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kanpur.
Narendra Modi might on Saturday ask the Apple CEO to make in India instead of importing and selling refurbished phones
Even as the buzz gets louder of the government wanting Apple to manufacture in India, company CEO Tim Cook, on his first trip to the country, is likely to seek an assurance on intellectual property rights when he meets Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday.
This will be the third and final leg of the 55-year-old Cooks visit to India, after Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kanpur. But it is Cooks much-anticipated meeting with Modi on Saturday that is being tracked by all tech majors.
Industry executives who have been following the Apple CEOs visit so far surmise that IPR will be a discussion point even as Modi raises his pitch for Apple to make in India rather than import and sell refurbished phones, something the government is not in favour of.
The government has twice rejected Apples application to sell refurbished smartphones in the country. Cook, in his defence of the refurbished iPhone programme, is likely to raise the IPR point as a possible counter to making in India just yet even as the long-term plan of the company will be to shift manufacturing from China, which no longer enjoys significant cost and labour arbitrage, industry sources say.
When contacted, an Apple India spokesperson did not comment on the matter.
The government last week unveiled a National Intellectual Property Rights policy to promote creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. Companies in sectors like consumer goods, pharmaceuticals and electronics have repeatedly complained of counterfeiting and weak enforcement.
In 2015, India ranked 29 out of 30 countries in the International IP Index released by the Global Intellectual Property Centre of the US Chamber of Commerce. While China was ranked higher at 19 on the same list, it offers no consolation to Apple, say industry sources.
According to Neil Shah, an analyst from CyberMedia Research, local manufacturing of handsets lowers their cost by eight per cent.
The Modi government last July extended manufacturing sops under the Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme (M-SIPS) in an effort to boost local production. A slew of companies have since expressed their interest to make in India. Some of them, including Apple, are planning to set up their branded stores in the country.
In Apples case, the government is open to waiving local sourcing norms needed for those applying for a single-brand retail licence.
Overseas education consultant NNS Chandra shares advice on how to pick the right international education.
In an online chat with readers every Friday, overseas education consultant NNS Chandra offers advice on how to pick the right course and career abroad.
For those who missed the chat on May 20, here's the unedited transcript:
sam kas: My daughter will be completing IB diploma in Jun. She is a Commerce IB student.
We applied Symbiosis BBA. She is interested in BBA international marketing /business. Since Symbiosis doesn't have same, she will pursue BBA. On completion of BBA, can she do PG in IM/I business. If yes can you suggest university for the same.
NNS Chandra: Sam Kas -- Yes one can purse Masters after BBA. If you are looking at masters in North America BBA can be a challenge as it is doesn't add up to course credit requirement for masters in International business or management. But in Asia (India, some schools in Singapore, Hong Kong etc) requirements are relaxed.
Let me know where exactly you want to look and then I can suggest ideas for universities
MEGHNA CHAKRABORTY: I hold an MSc in Environmental Studies and Resource Management from TERI University New Delhi.
I studied PCB in +2. I am now looking for courses, master's or any course in economics that will help me gain opportunities in the environmental economics and policy field. Kindly guide me where all can I apply given my non-mathematics background.Thanking You.
NNS Chandra: My friend, unfortunately most of the courses (including mine) requires strong maths back ground:-)
So, if you are passionate for Environmental economics and policy you must brush up your maths! But I can recommend you and guide you to very policy focused courses. Required tons or reading.
E-mail me your full academic work so far and I can guide you through your interests.
Kartik Sharma: I wish to pursue US CPA course. Could you please share all the details that an Indian applicant should know? I hold undergraduate degrees in commerce and law and i am planning to appear in 2017.
NNS Chandra: Hi Kartik, getting qualified to write the exam to bet designated as CPA in USA needs over 150 credit hours, right?
Let us say your under grad degree should get you closer by 100-120 (if your course is a four year one).
I did not understand when you wrote appear in 2017, you mean you are doing masters in accounting now? An accounting masters should give you 30 credit minimum.
Process of application remains same for US citizens and international candidates. But depending on where you want to practice one must get clearance from state board or credentials evaluated.
Once application is accepted you must sit and prepare. For that you can register in private institutions and community colleges.
Some of my students come here for masters and simultaneously prepare for CPA designation exam. This will help them to over come the practice requirements and secure work VISA. Write to me. I might be able to guide you in your initial steps. All the best.
rayees-farooq: Hello I am a PhD student and I want to pursue my post doctorate in USA.
What should i do in order to ease my way to Post-doctorate in USA. Indeed, I got a good academic record with good number of publications and conferences.
NNS Chandra: Normally someone like myself, I mean a counsellor, would require full details -- academic work, publications, conferences, book chapters, teaching, research, etc to evaluate and recommend steps. In some case I might even strongly recommend improvements and additional training in literary work or training.
Each year I work with four to five post doc candidates and 50% are MDs
E-mail me your works, academic achievements I can get back in detail
Saarang: My brother holds MBA in Operations Management (Pune University) and wish to pursue PhD in Supply Chain Management from Canada? Kindly advise.
NNS Chandra: And I am sure he understands that PhD is a research degree in the sense of requiring general proficiency and distinctive attainment in a specific field.
The PhD candidate should demonstrate ability for independent investigation -- in a dissertation based upon original research or creative scholarship, and presented with marked literary skill.
How much research training he got? And his research topic/question should be key for securing doctoral candidate status.
Lead image used for representational purposes only. Image: Francisco Osorio/Creative Commons
Have questions for NNS Chandra? Post them here!
There is a chance that Mohammad Shahabuddin, as and when he is out of jail, will wield considerable influence on politics in Bihar... just like he did under an earlier dispensation, says Aditi Phadnis.
Mohammad Shahabuddin's appeal is pending in a higher court and thus "his politics should not be dismantled because the Bharatiya Janata Party desires so in the brazen absence of any legitimate political instrument."
At least that was how the Rashtriya Janata Dal justified the inclusion of Mohammad Shahabuddin (or Shahabu Bhaiyya, as he is called in Siwan district) in the RJD national executive two months ago.
A year ago, a Siwan court sentenced the former member of Parliament and three others to life imprisonment in a 2004 double murder case.
Satish Raj, 25, and Girish Raj, 20, sons of a businessman, were abducted and killed on August 16, 2004. They were drenched in acid before being killed. Rajesh Roshan, the third brother of those killed, escaped and was an eyewitness. He was gunned down in 2014, three days before he was to give testimony in court.
Shahabuddin is fighting at least half a dozen cases of attempted murder, including firing on a police officer and preventing him from carrying out his duties. He has been acquitted in 14 cases of heinous crime because the witnesses suddenly -- and overnight -- turned hostile.
Siwan borders Gopalganj, the village of Lalu Prasad's in-laws. Rabri Devi's brother Sadhu Yadav was elected to the Lok Sabha from this constituency.
It was Lalu Prasad who gently encouraged the growth and development of Shahabuddin in Siwan. Shahabuddin represented Jiradei in the Bihar legislative assembly before he became Prasad's official RJD candidate for the Siwan Lok Sabha seat in 1996.
If you live by the sword, you must be prepared to die by it. Prasad may have thought that in an area that has 20 per cent Muslims, it wasn't a bad idea to encourage the emergence of a strongman (bahubali -- the word defies translation).
Shahabuddin set himself up as Robin Hood.
Have a marriageable daughter but have no money to get her married? Enter Shahabu Bhaiyya.
Need medical assistance? Shahabu Bhaiyya will fund you and, if necessary, kidnap the doctor and bring him to your doorstep.
In return, Siwan was a tightly sewn-up town where you could not talk about Shahabuddin because you were never sure who was listening.
A reporter says he went in search of a story on Shahabuddin and while driving through Siwan stopped at a pan shop to ask the owner what he thought of the bahubali. The man just shook his head. Suddenly a bunch of muscular men drove up on motorcycles. They had to do nothing -- just stand there and look threatening.
As Shahabuddin's fame spread far and wide, Prasad began getting a bit tired of him. He was becoming just too ambitious. He needed Prasad's backing to rake in the Other Backward Classes vote.
On the other hand, he was becoming too intrusive: He even worked against Sadhu Yadav in the election to the legislative council. Shahabuddin won the Siwan Lok Sabha constituency in 1998, 1999 and 2004.
Suddenly things changed. The police got the green light to proceed against him. Shahabuddin's decline started during President's rule in 2005 when a young IAS officer, C K Anil, took over as Siwan district magistrate. With police muscle from Superintendent of Police Ratn Sanjay, the two officers pushed Shahabuddin into the waiting arms of jail.
His home was raided and on the basis of recoveries, case after case was slapped on him. These were in addition to the ones already pending against him.
Screws kept tightening on Shahabuddin with the Anil-Sanjay duo at the helm in Siwan. And by the time they were transferred, the government in Patna had changed.
Special courts were formed for speedy trial of the cases against him. By the time Nitish Kumar came in office, the state had reasserted its authority and Shahabuddin was the cameo for the kind of person the administration headed by Kumar was trying to put away.
And then, Nitish Kumar made up with Lalu Prasad, fought the election jointly and won. Lalu Prasad was once again a larger than life influence on the government.
Shahabuddin was given bail in the Satish Raj-Girish Raj murder case in March. The state tried, but could not prevent bail. He is still in jail because of other cases against him.
As and when he is out, will he become a pole of power once again?
Already, the widow of Rajdeo Ranjan, the journalist who was gunned down, has said that those who killed him had a connection with someone in jail.
Upendra Singh, who has links with Shahabuddin, has been detained for the last two days in connection with the Hindustan newspaper's Siwan bureau chief's murder. Singh is an active RJD member.
Is Bihar once again a case of the more things change, the more they remain the same?
IMAGE: Mohammad Shahabuddin, far right, then a Rashtriya Janata Dal MP, feeds sweets to RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav.
India's low passion, very cautious, relationship with Iran of the last 36 years awaits transformation, says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
Prime Minister Modi's visit cannot be a negotiating event; it is a symbolic one to strengthen the politico-diplomatic relationship.
IMAGE: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj greets Iran's External Affairs Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran, April 16, 2016. Photograph: MEA/Flickr
Informal observers always mention the inevitability of a strong India-Iran relationship due to historic civilisational linkages. However, it takes an effort to tango if a mutual relationship has to be progressed.
The natural relationship has had many constraints and restraints. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi proceeds for one of his very important foreign visits to Tehran, it is worth reviewing why this relationship has never been a low hanging fruit. It also needs new focus and energy of clear intent to make it happen.
Iran's Ambassador in India Gholamreza Ansari, shortly after the lifting of sanctions, spoke at a seminar, words which are likely to be quoted extensively for some years. 'In my three years as the Ambassador of Iran,' he said, 'I have often been advised to be patient on big India-Iran projects. Does India want to wait for centuries before capturing the right opportunities?' What was preventing the capturing of the right opportunities is important to know.
When the world was emerging from the Cold War era and a new order was just starting to take shape, Iran was 10 to 12 years into the post Revolution period. Its relationship with the international community and within the Islamic world was under severe strain. The India-Iran relationship was based more on the flow of India's energy needs and the emotional linkages of the Indian Shia community.
Iran somehow perceived India closer to Saddam Hussain's Iraq. The development of closer economic ties with the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries and the flow of Indian labour and managerial talent into them also had its effect in creating a stronger relationship with the Arab nations.
The flow of oil from Iran never touched the proportions of the potential there was because after the Islamic Revolution and during the Iran-Iraq War, Iran frequently failed to meet India's volume of requirements.
On India's part there was definitely a degree of hesitation to take the relationship to the levels of true potential because after 1991 the end of the Cold War signaled the collapse of the former Soviet Union. The strategic necessity for building a relationship with the United States always haunted India's desire to move closer to Iran.
The US had a deep hurt from the events of 1979 and the hostage crisis. That hurt has continued to play a role in the way that the US handled all affairs related to Iran. Especially after Iran embarked on the nuclear path the US ensured the full implementation of its own and United Nations sanctions which effectively blocked the feasibility of normal relationships between Iran and other nations.
The other nemesis of Iran has been Israel. Iran's animosity arose out of its desire to be seen as the one leading the pack to wreak revenge on Israel on behalf of the Palestinians. After the 1979 Revolution it began a hate campaign against Israel which makes it today, 36 years later still the chief campaigner.
In the interim, India and Israel developed a strong enduring relationship on the basis of shared strategic interests. India's dependence on Israel as a key supplier of military technology and hardware therefore forced it not to push for a warmer than normal relationship with Iran; relations remained essentially transactional.
However, the above is history and now new opportunities beckon.
The July 14, 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, normally called the Iran Nuclear Agreement, has lifted sanctions on Iran in return for comprehensive external control on its nuclear programme. It has opened up a stream of nations to seek business in a country which has largely been isolated from the international business world.
During the sanctions period India continued low key commerce with Iran and purchased oil at lower volumes due to major problems in the payment procedure. That low passion, very cautious relationship of the last 36 years is awaiting transformation and that is what the Iranian ambassador so appropriately mentioned in his speech.
IMAGE: The last time an Indian Prime Minister visited Tehran: Then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh meets Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hoseyni Khamenei on the sidelines of the 16th Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Tehran, August 29, 2012.
Prime Minister Modi's visit cannot be a negotiating event; it is a symbolic one to strengthen the politico-diplomatic relationship. However, it will be the culmination of some processes which have been going on in the background.
Everyone's eyes are on Chah Bahar port which lies in the Sistan Baluchistan area of southern Iran; we should know the geo-strategic and geo-economic reasons for this. Yet, as a starter it is good to be aware that this area has had a running low key insurgency for many years and the Islamic Republican Guard is deployed to counter it.
The prime minister's visit is being seen as a big ticket event on Chah Bahar because once embedded here the Indian commercial set-up can finally start looking towards Central Asia, 24 years after the first opportunities arose. Denied access to both Afghanistan and Central Asia by Pakistan these developments are also being closely watched by Islamabad.
A Transport and Transit Corridors (Chabahar) Agreement was finalised during the second meeting of experts in Delhi on April 11, 2016 and includes Afghanistan within its ambit. This will be a major strategic breakthrough and is to be inked during the visit.
Once materialised it is bound to enhance the Iran-India-Afghanistan relationship and help the latter in its fledgling trade ventures.
However, the fact that the infrastructure connecting Chah Bahar inwards and onto the intended areas is either nonexistent or in a poor state will mean that the real worth of the Agreement will take time to materialize.
There is a need for refurbishment and fresh construction of railway infrastructure and provision of rolling stock which is already underway. This will need stamina, staying power and much convincing for Iran's continued involvement even in the face of other viable and functional ports at Bandar Abbas and Bandar Khomeini.
Energy will compete with connectivity as the next big issue.
With funds in its hands after the de-freezing of its $100 billion in the US Iran should be looking towards participating in big ticket projects which will enhance the quantum of supply of natural gas to India.
The Iran Pakistan India $7.5 billion pipeline is as good as dead due to Pakistan's obstinacy. However, there are other projects on the drawing board such as an Iran Oman India undersea pipeline. The Farzad 2 gas fields are likely to be taken up by some Indian companies with a $5 billion to $10 billion investment.
Here again it is a question of competing technology from the US and other developed countries to exploit Iran's known reserves. Indian companies will have to give robust competition.
How will Pakistan and China see these developments in the light of the $46 billion investment that China is making in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor? The idea of isolating India and having an exclusive connect in the region for China is likely to fly in the face if the projects being contemplated fully fructify.
Perhaps more public sector support to India's private players may be needed. China will attempt to do everything to prevent this happening and through the proxy of Pakistan which has restive borders in the Chah Bahar region.
Lastly, an issue for the sidelines of the PM's visit which must be something India should constantly seek for its viability is the Iran-Israel relationship. There really are no potential mediators. Animosity and antagonism do not last forever. They too are contextual.
Perhaps, with contexts changing and the common adversary of all being ISIS (Daesh), Iran and Israel have no reason to be adversaries. The Hezbollah question will remain. However, even Israel should be happy to rid itself of the burden of constantly defending itself.
Perhaps the time for the idea has come and India can play the most positive role in this regard.
Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd) is currently associated with the Delhi Policy Group and the Vivekananda International Foundation.
The new Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic Front ministry, headed by party leader and Politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan, will be sworn in on May 25.
"We have planned to hold the function on May 25 in the evening at the Central stadium here," Chief Minister designate Vijayan told reporters after a brief meeting with CPI-M's senior most leader V S Achuthanandan at the latter's official residence at Cantonment house in Thiruvananthapuram.
The LDF would meet on Sunday to discuss matters related to ministry formation, Vijayan said when asked about the nature of the new ministry.
Kerala Chief Minister-designate Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday met the CPI-M's senior most leader 92-year-old V S Achuthanandan and spent some time with him.
Vijayan, accompanied by party state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, met Achuthanandan, the leader of the Opposition in the outgoing Kerala Assembly, at his official residence at Cantonment House and informed him that the LDF ministry would be sworn in on May 25 and invited him for the same.
Achuthanandan is understood to have told him that immediate efforts should be made to curtail the price rise of essential commodities and the new government should initiate steps for safety of women in the wake of the brutal murder of a Dalit law student in Perumbavoor.
The meeting, which came ahead of the proposed press meeting Achuthanandan had called at 11 am, assumes importance amid reports that the nonagenarian, LDF's main campaigner in the May 16 assembly polls, was reportedly unhappy at not being anointed as chief minister.
In a bid to scuttle such reports, CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury has yesterday met the press flanked by Achutanandan and Balakrishnan.
The party, in an attempt to placate Achutanandan, had yesterday compared him with Fidel Castro and had said he will continue to guide and inspire the front.
Political commentator N M Pearson said Achuthanandan is Pinarayi Vijayan's mentor and there is need to see the visit as the chief minister-designate seeking blessings from his mentor.
Vijayan also called on outgoing Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.
LDF romped to power with 92 seats pushing the Congress led United Democratic Front to 47 in the 140-member assembly and the Bharatiya Janata Party bagging a single seat.
Marking the second anniversary of his government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday released a song highlighting the measures taken by his government to improve the condition of the people in the last two years.
The song -- Mera desh badal raha, aage badh raha hai (My country is changing, moving forward), which is part of the governments plan of a string of events to mark the completion of two years of Modi government on May 26, was released on Twitter.
Officials said the song, in which adman Piyush Pandey also contributed, is one of the several activities the government is undertaking in this regard.
The lyrics of the song lists the measures taken by the government like Jan Dhan Yojana to Beti Bacho, Beti Padhao to show how they have brought an improvement in the condition of the people.
Apart from this, Union ministers are giving interviews to Doordarshan and other news organisations and also holding interactions with general public on social media websites.
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is coming out with the achievements of various departments and ministries, they said, adding that ministers and MPs will also travel to various parts of the country to disseminate information about the development activities undertaken by the government.
Image: Prime Minister Narendra Modi with BJP president Amit Shah at a meeting at the party office in New Delhi. Photograph: Vijay Verma/PTI Photo
Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh on Saturday pitched for handing over power to the youth in the organisation, saying there is "no option" as the party is "facing challenges" in the backdrop of its drubbing in the recent assembly polls.
Singh's remarks come in the backdrop of a renewed buzz in the Congress circles about Rahul Gandhi's sooner than later elevation as party president.
"Now, we have to hand over power to the youth and there is no option. When I spoke about major surgery, some people had objections. I was advised that to seek a surgery I may lose my job but I would be happy.
"But the power should go in the hands of youth and this is a necessity from the party's point of view," Singh said.
He was speaking at a function organised to mark 25th death anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi. The programme started with Vande Mataram and chants of Bharat Mata ki Jai.
Singh said youth forms a major chunk of the population and with benefits from the reservations over the years many have been elevated to the middle class. He also emphasised on the need to understand the "aspirations" of youth and the middle class.
Asserting that the party was facing "challenges", he said there was a need to take on them. Youths are believed to have played a major role in the victory of Narendra Modi in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
One of the criticism of Rahul Gandhi after the loss of the Congress in the general elections was that the party vice-president failed to enthuse the young voters.
Attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party, he said the it was wearing the "mask of nationalism", but its "real face" is like British policy of divide and rule.
"The BJP and Modi ji are trying to take credit these days, but the pillar of the modern India is Rajiv Gandhi. "Those who never participated in the freedom struggle are trying to wedge a divide in the society and are misguiding the youth and the country. Our fight is not against any person, but against an ideology. The RSS ideology is to divide," Singh said.
He also accused the BJP of "usurping" the legacy of leaders like Vallabhbhai Patel, B R Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi and Subash Chandra Bose.
"They wear the mask of nationalism, but their real face is like the British policy of divide and rule. They make use of religion in politics," Singh said, alleging that currently the "seeds of hatred, rumours are being spread through social media".
He said that the Congress party is often accused of appeasing the minorities, but the party will work to protect the interests of 16 crore minority population if there is any injustice.
The Congress general secretary said he is a strong votary of conducting polls in the Youth Congress and noted that it is important to expand this wing of the party.
At a time when the Congress is believed to be grappling with fund crunch, Singh said if Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal can charge Rs 500 for a selfie, then every youth Congress worker can contribute Rs 250 to the party once a year.
Smoke alerts were triggered inside the cabin of the ill-fated EgyptAir jet minutes before it plunged into the Mediterranean Sea with 66 people on board, according to new details emerging shortly after human remains, luggage and seats were found by searchers.
Smoke was detected in the toilet and the aircraft's electrics, just minutes before the signal was lost, according to data published on air industry website the Aviation Herald, which said it had received flight data filed through the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System from three independent channels.
The fresh details follow Egyptian military's recovery of debris, passengers' belongings, body parts, luggage and aircraft seats from the ill-fated EgyptAir Flight MS804, en route from Paris to Cairo, even as the crucial black box has not been found.
However, there has been no official confirmation of the data regarding smoke alerts by authorities, who have earlier hinted at a terror angle to the tragedy, in which no survivors the 66 passengers have been found.
The Herald said the system showed that at 02.26 local time on Thursday (05.56 IST) smoke was detected in the toilet of the Airbus A320. Just a minute later -- at 05:57 IST -- there was an avionics smoke alert.
The last ACARS message was at 05.59 IST, the air industry website said, and the contact with the plane was lost four minutes later, which was 02:33 local time.
ACARS is used to routinely download flight data to the airline operating the aircraft.
"(The data) doesn't tell us anything, whether it's an explosion because of a bomb or because of a mechanical fault, but immediately it narrows down the area that we're looking at," CNN aviation analyst Richard Quest said.
"We're now no longer worried about wings or what else might have happened, or other flight control surfaces," Quest added.
The discovery of the wreckage of EgyptAir Flight MS804 near Alexandria came as the navy continued to sweep the area looking for the plane's black box and bodies. The Egyptian presidency expressed its "deep sadness and extreme regret" over the deaths of the people on board the jet, in the first official recognition of the tragic crash of the missing plane.
The Airbus A320 "swerved and then plunged" into the Mediterranean, according to authorities. The plane, on its fifth journey of the day, was travelling at 37,000 feet when it disappeared from radar. It had made a stop in Tunisia before flying to Paris.
Two babies and one child were on board the plane carrying 56 passengers and crew of 10, according to EgyptAir.
Egypt has been leading the search effort, with support from France, Greece, Turkey and the UK. The US navy dispatched a P-3 Orion maritime surveillance aircraft from a base in Sicily.
Philip Baum, the editor of Aviation Security International Magazine, told the BBC that technical failure could not be ruled out.
"There was smoke reported in the aircraft lavatory, then smoke in the avionics bay, and over a period of three minutes the aircraft's systems shut down, so you know, that's starting to indicate that it probably wasn't a hijack, it probably wasn't a struggle in the cockpit, it's more likely a fire on board.
"Now whether that was a technical fire, a short circuit, or whether it was because a bomb went off on board, we don't know," he added.
Meanwhile, Greece's lead air accident investigator, Athanasios Binis, was that the "point of reference" was an area 130 miles south of the Greek island of Karpathos.
The location is now the centre of a major international air and sea operation to find the plane's black boxes.
"There are three reasons for a plane (to go down)," he said.
"Meteorological, technical and human. The first has now been ruled out because the weather was quite good. Whether a technical factor or human factor, either inside or outside the plane, is to blame remains to be seen. All possibilities are open," Binis was quoted as saying by the Guardian.
European Space Agency satellites spotted an oil slick in the area where the flight had vanished -- but the organisation said there was no guarantee it was from the plane.
The aircraft had lost contact with radar early Thursday above the Mediterranean Sea about 280 kms from the Egyptian seacoast at 02.30am (local time) as the flight was expected to arrive CairoAirport at 03.15 am (local time).
The tragedy had raised fears of a repeat of the bombing of a Russian passenger jet by the Islamic State over Egypt last October that killed all 224 people on board.
However, no group has claimed responsibility so far of the crash.
See what to expect in coming months along I-69 Finish Line corridor
As the leaves begin to fall and air temperatures begin to cool, the 2022 road construction season will soon slow down.
On May 16, 1996, Jane Hurley served breakfast to one guest at the newly formed Breakfast on Beech Street ministry.
On May 16, 2016, Hurley helped serve about 70 people who depend on the ministry for a hot breakfast and a sack lunch five days a week. Those on the receiving end are thankful for Hurley and the many others who make sure that BOBS is open for breakfast every morning.
'It's good,' Richard Perdue said, while eating pancakes and sausage Monday on BOBS 20th anniversary. 'I appreciate it.'
'God bless you, Jane,' someone shouted when Hurley was introduced.
It's people like Perdue, and their gratitude, that keep people like Hurley and 150 other volunteers coming. The food is served every weekday morning at First Christian Church, where the Breakfast on Beech Street has been held from the beginning.
The ministry is served by teams from six Abilene churches First Christian, First Central Presbyterian, First United Methodist, Highland Church of Christ, and the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest. Holy Family Catholic Church provides a team on fifth Tuesdays.
On Monday, four large chocolate chip cookies with 'BOBS Happy Anniversary 20 Years May 16, 2016' written on them in icing were served along with breakfast.
Several board members showed upon Monday, even though it wasn't their work day, to join the celebration. Twenty years is a long time for a ministry that relies solely on volunteers. But many have been aboard for years, with no plans to quit.
'We're the workers,' said Allen Daugherty, a volunteer since 1999 and chair of BOBS board, 'and we're still working.'
The breakfast ministry was the brainchild of the late Jack Henderson. He had seen a similar ministry while visiting his brother in Edmond, Oklahoma. Henderson was a member of First Christian Church and suggested a breakfast ministry begin there. The entrance to the fellowship hall where the breakfast is served faces Beech Street, so the 'BOBS' acronym was an easy choice.
Each morning starts the same, with a prayer such as the one led Monday by Connie Collier, who joined the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest team 19 years ago shortly after her daughter, Haley, joined.
'Be with all of those who eat today and go out on their own,' Collier prayed.
Monday's team from Heavenly Rest consisted of Collier, Tim and Debbie Lillick, Russell Sanders, Jody DePriest, Lisa Jones, and Tom Watson, or 'Mr. Pancake,' as he is known at BOBS. Each day, a different menu is served, with pancakes and sausage the meal for Mondays. Cereal always is available. Guests also can pick up a sack lunch, with two sandwiches, fruit, and a Bible verse inside.
Good humor is a plus so early in the morning. Team members begin arriving by about 5 a.m. to get everything ready for the 70 or so people who normally show up. Serving is from 6:30 to 7:15 a.m.
'We all get along very well,' said Lisa Jones as she spooned butter onto the plates.
'I have to keep them line,'team captain, Collier joined in.
It is obvious as soon as the hungry guests begin pouring in that the volunteers are invested in their work. They do much more than prepare and serve the food and clean up afterward. If someone needs a good listener, a volunteer listens. If someone needs a prayer, a volunteer prays.
Volunteers sometimes sit down and eat with the guests, said Jane Harvey, a volunteer and board member from First United Methodist Church.
'Whatever they need,' she said, 'we try to help.'
BREAKFAST ON BEECH STREET
What: Ministry provided by six Abilene churches
Where: First Christian Church, 1420 N. Third St.
When: 6:30-7:15 a.m. Monday-Friday
Whos eligible: Breakfast is served to anyone, with no eligibility requirements
BOBS participating churches and board representatives: Ann Hewett and Margaret Beasley, First Central Presbyterian; Jane Harvey and Mike Ammons, First United Methodist; Terry Stremmel and Tom Rose, Highland Church of Christ; Jody DePriest and Tom Watson, Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest; Allen Daugherty (board chairman) and Barbara Hart, First Christian Church. Holy Family Catholic Church team serves on fifth Tuesdays.
How to help: To volunteer or to learn more, call Allen Daugherty, 660-6949. Donations may be mailed to Box 5911, Abilene, 79608
Dyess Elementary students paid flag-waving tribute to our nation's first president Friday during the school's annual I Love America Day program.
This year's event, hosted by Dyess' fifth-graders, featured the theme 'America's Son: George Washington.' Area veterans and active-duty military personnel also are invited to attend the festivities.
Although students from all grades waved flags and sang patriotic songs, it was the fifth-graders who dressed in costumes, danced on stage and portrayed historical figures.
Emma Walker, who played Martha Washington, said the play helped her learn more about the nation's first commander in chief.
'I didn't know his mother's name,' Emma said. 'I didn't know he had a brother. I learned a lot of new things.'
Curtis Gibbs, who played George Washington, said he, too, learned a lot of the history surrounding his character while doing the play.
Other featured historical figures including Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Washington's half brother Lawrence Washington were featured in the play, which spoke of Washington's early life growing up in Virginia. The play also touched on Washington's time leading the Continental Army during the American Revolution and his time as president.
Students also recognized the country's rich military history by singing patriotic songs, presenting the flags of the different service branches and singing the anthem associated with each service.
The school also presented its annual parade, featuring the Abilene police and fire departments, the Batmobile and the various grade levels.
Taylor Moskalski, who joined Emma Walker in playing the role of Martha Washington, said she had a blast finally getting to partake in the fifth-grade presentation.
'I enjoyed it very much,' Taylor said. 'I've been waiting to do this since kindergarten.'
Pooja Ghalley
Cooper High School
Nominator Tim Danley wrote that Pooja Ghalley has the qualities that any university would seek in a prospective student and that 'her positive attitude and commitment to succeeding in life, including her educational goals, will be contagious.'
Pooja is a Star Student from Cooper High, where she ranks in the top 20 in her class, takes AP classes and is enrolled in the Holland Medical Early College High School program. With that, she is busy with the Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) program.
The Holland program 'requires much time and commitment, providing her with valuable hands-on experience,' Danley wrote.
He noted how well liked she is 'by her teachers and her peers.'
She has competed in UIL social studies, the English as a Second Language and Photography clubs. She has volunteered at Hendrick Medical Center, the Salvation Army's Angel Tree project, Global Samaritan Resources and Love and Care Ministries, as well the annual Big Country Balloon Fest.
To prepare herself for college, she has been a member of the Upward Bound program at Abilene Christian University. Pooja and her family came to Abilene from Nepal through the efforts of the International Rescue Committee.
'Pooja shows leadership and a keen interest in helping others,' wrote Jerita Howard, who has known Pooja for six years through church.
'She has been an engaging, resourceful and diligent young lady,' wrote director Karen Wilkerson. 'Pooja has a gregarious yet focused personality as well as a strong desire to achieve. I truly marvel at her conscientiousness in managing her academics. She loves to learn new things.'
Garolyn Jergins was already familiar with donating breast milk for premature infants when she heard about the Mother's Milk Bank of North Texas.
Jergins first heard about the group in 2012, when she had her first child and donated milk to a local 'depot.'
When it came to her second child, currently 11 months old, Jergins, 30, started donating excess milk again, but she had to mail it in to Mother's Milk for it to be used.
'I was mailing it to the North Texas office and they were processing everything there,' she said.
Cue Abilene Regional Medical Center, which recently partnered with MMBNT to create a new human milk depot on the hospital's third-floor mother/baby unit.
Mothers such as Jergins can now drop off frozen milk donations on Tuesdays and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Having a convenient drop off location in Abilene is vital to helping mothers who want to donate be able to do so conveniently, said Amy Trotter, community relations director with MMBNT.
'What they're doing is an absolutely selfless act of pumping and donating the extra milk that their own babies don't need,' she said. 'We want to make it as easy as possible so that it's easy for them to drop it off and have a location close to home.'
For Jergins, the new depot is a boon, helping her do something she strongly believes in a bit easier
'It's the only option for me,' she said. 'I can't imagine putting it (milk) down the drain or not giving it to someone who needed it.'
With the new depot, Jergins said that she knows her milk is going to 'someone who needs it and will really benefit from it' through a 'secure' and 'promising' source.
She donated four gallons, collected from January to early May. Between her two children, she estimated she has donated 35 gallons in all.
Brittany Thompson, clinical educator for women's and children's services at Abilene Regional Medical Center, said she decided the local depot was needed in response to breast milk sharing on social media and various websites.
'That's great if you truly know that person and trust their milk is clean,' she said. 'But there are also sites where people are just donating it. I felt it would just be safer for (mothers) to have a place to take it where we know who's donating it. We could give it to the right people and keep babies safe from getting contaminated milk.'
The way the program works is relatively simple.
MMBNT picks up donor milk from the ARMC depot, and then the frozen milk is logged into a sophisticated bar code and tracking system.
The milk is later thawed, analyzed, packed in tamper-resistant bottles, pasteurized and tested for bacteria.
'And then NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) babies all across the country can get the milk from the bank,' Thompson said.
A shield against illness
According to the Office of Women's Health with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the cells, hormones and antibodies in breast milk protect babies from illness.
Breast-fed babies have lower risks of illnesses including Type 2 diabetes, asthma, leukemia, childhood obesity, ear infections, eczema, diarrhea and vomiting, lower respiratory infections and sudden infant death syndrome.
Donor milk has become the standard of care for premature infants who have severe feeding problems, according to information from the MMBNT. Intestinal malformations and life-threatening complications, such as necrotizing enterocolitis, a disease that affects the gastrointestinal tract in preterm infants, are among the conditions that can be helped.
Potential donors are screened through medical histories and blood tests, Thompson said, making certain that potential donors' blood is free from pathogens.
Donated milk allows babies access to antibodies from 'all over the place,' a mix that can aid a fragile infant's immune system substantially, Thompson said.
'(The infant is) getting them from all these different moms that are mixed together,' she explained 'It's just going to build up their immune system so fast.'
Trotter said that donated milk is run through a nutritional analyzer, with batches put together to get specifically what a doctor wants for a child.
'We actually make what we call certain recipes,' she said. 'We have physicians who are ordering different calorie counts for different babies' needs. And so we mix the milk together because mother's milk is different throughout their lactation period.'
Hospitals call to order various nutritional mixtures 'throughout the day, every day,' Trotter said, frozen milk being shipped out through overnight delivery.
Seeking a new normal
Thompson admits that for some, the initial reaction to the idea of donating breast milk isn't positive.
'Really, my goal right now is to just educate the community that it's not dirty or nasty to donate,' she said.
The milk is pasteurized just like any you'd buy at a store, but the antibodies contained within and other positive benefits from using donated breast milk far outweigh anything one could ever buy, she said.
'I just want to normalize it,' Thompson said of the donation process. 'It's just so beneficial.'
Around 80 percent of MMBNT's donor milk is dispensed by physician prescription to more than 110 hospital NICUs. About 20 percent is dispensed by physician prescription to medically needy babies in homes.
In 2015, the organization dispensed a record of 552,761 ounces, or more than 4,300 gallons. The group has distributed 1.8 million ounces since opening in 2004, roughly 40,000 ounces of milk a month.
Potential donors have their lab work paid for by MMBTN, Thompson said, the group also providing bags to properly store milk.
For Jergins, the decision to use the new depot was easy.
'I knew it would be in good hands, that it would be taken care of well, that it would get to the families in need,' she said.
For those thinking about becoming donors, Jergins said she had personally found it a 'blessing.'
'We're sharing a surplus, sharing more than we need,' she said.
Mothers who are interested in becoming donors can start the process by calling MMBNT's toll-free number, 866-810-0071.
For questions about the depot at Abilene Regional Medical Center, call 325-428-2416.
Halloween events, fall festivals pack October in Abilene, Big Country
From family-friendly to frightful, there are plenty of opportunities to don the costumes and scare up some treats.
Sell your Adam Smith ties, everybody, and smash your busts of Ronald Reagan. It's all over.
Why? Because we have entered a new era of 'nationalism,' or 'patriotism,' or simply 'Trumpism,' and the GOP will never be a traditionally and ideologically conservative party ever again.
That seems to be the conclusion of a vast and growing number of prominent conservative commentators who are sure that Donald Trump has changed, or destroyed, conservatism forever. Type 'The Republican Party is Dead' or 'GOP R.I.P.' into a search engine and you'll get a sense of how far and wide this notion has spread.
Consider the inestimable Peggy Noonan, writing from the Olympian heights of The Wall Street Journal. She is increasingly adamant that Trump has ushered in a grand new era, a kind of Year Zero for the American right. The once-conservative masses no longer want to hear about liberty or freedom they want to be 'protected' by government, Noonan wrote in February.
As Trump solidified his power, Noonan set about to shoot the wounded. 'Those conservative writers and thinkers who have for nine months warned the base that Mr. Trump is not a conservative should consider the idea that a large portion of the Republican base no longer sees itself as conservative,' she wrote last month.
A week later, Noonan again castigated anti-Trump forces in Washington. She insinuated that the Beltway elitists opposed to Trump seek to rebuild a post-Trump GOP as 'a neoconservative, functionally open-borders, slash-the-entitlements party.'
That won't happen, she insists, because 'centers of gravity are shifting. The new Republican Party will not be rebuilt and re-formed in (the tony D.C. suburb) McLean, it will be rebuilt or re-formed in Massapequa (the Long Island suburb made famous by Joey Buttafuoco).'
Looking past the uncharacteristically weak and unfair snipes, this is somewhat amusing, given where Noonan works. The Wall Street Journal arguably America's best newspaper, by the way is editorially closer to 'open borders' than any other mainstream outlet. Its position on entitlements is even more stridently and more correctly in favor of major reform, as was Noonan not long ago. The term 'slash' is beneath her, given that this is the sort of irresponsible left-wing rhetoric she once decried.
Which gets me closer to my real point. A few years ago, Noonan lionized another populist movement.
'Here is a great virtue of the tea party: They know what time it is. It's getting late,' Noonan wrote. 'If we don't get the size and cost of government in line now, we won't be able to. We're teetering on the brink of some vast, dark new world states and cities on the brink of bankruptcy, the federal government too. The issue isn't 'big spending' anymore. It's ruinous spending that they fear will end America as we know it, as they promised it to their children.'
The point here isn't to criticize Noonan, of whom I am a fan (though I have profound disagreements with her of late). Again, she is hardly alone in claiming that Trump represents a welcome break from conservative ideas as we've known them ideas I once associated Noonan with.
We can debate whether the New Thinking is good or bad. But we can all agree that one of the lessons of the Trump moment is that the conventional wisdom can change in an instant.
And yet to listen to Trump's biggest media cheerleaders, most of them in that populist heartland of New York City, the new conventional wisdom will go on and on forever. As George Orwell noted, such assumptions stem from power-worship; that the winner of the moment will be invincible for all time.
For instance, in 2010, when Noonan was praising the free-market and constitutionalist tea party, our entitlement situation was worse, our immigration problems were no better, and Big Government was roughly the same (serious) threat it is today.
Yet now she rallies to the protectionist and Constitution-agnostic Trump, despite Trump's admission he will do nothing to fix entitlements or shrink government. The math on entitlements hasn't changed, just the mood.
Hence Trump's focus on a Muslim ban and a wall on the Mexican border. Whether or not those are good ideas (I think the former is insane, the latter sadly necessary), it seems rather silly to expect this agenda to permanently displace the ideas that have formed the backbone of the conservative movement for generations.
The mood will change again. It will be interesting to see whose ideas change with them.
Email Jonah Goldberg,a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior editor of National Review, at goldbergcolumn@gmail.com.
A near-fatal hunting accident did more than almost claim the life of Cole Watts it signaled a career course change.
Thanks to the accident there are fewer unwanted inhabitants bugging Big Country residents.
The Abilene native was accidentally shot while hunting on Nov. 30, 2014, in Colorado City. Watts spent nearly a month in intensive care, followed by six surgeries to repair damage when the bullet tore through his lower abdomen.
'When I got out of the hospital, I really couldn't do much,' said Watts, owner of Mosquito Joe of Abilene. 'I lost about 20 pounds, couldn't do any lifting, and couldn't walk for more than five minutes. I was stuck in a recliner at home, and started thinking about business and everything I've missed.'
Before the accident, Watts had been working with his father, Steve Watts, in their business More Clean of Texas which provides parking lot sweeping and pressure washing services, landscaping and exterior maintenance for commercial properties.
'I was looking for ways to expand the residential side to grow into that market,' said Watts. 'I discovered the Mosquito Joe franchise, and it piqued my interest because it seemed like a no-brainer to go kill mosquitoes.'
Mosquito Joe provides outdoor pest control treatments to residential and commercial customers. Watts said technicians are 'trained mosquito control experts.'
'I actually wondered why no one else was doing this,' he added. 'I didn't expect it to be a full-time job; I envisioned it as an offshoot of More Clean. When I flew to Virginia Beach in July 2015, I fell in love with their model, their team and the way they do business.'
In mid-August, Watts signed the franchise agreement, paid the $25,000 franchise fee, and entered planning mode, preparing to launch the business.
'We opened Mosquito Joe of Abilene on April 4,' he said. 'It has almost been a little overwhelming; the response has been great, and it is challenging to keep up with the calls.'
An office manager handles scheduling.
'We are already looking to hire more technicians to keep up with the workload,' Watts said. 'Hiring the right people is the toughest part of small business; it can have a huge impact on the team, as I want to be confident of them representing my brand they are the face of my business.'
With above average rainfall in the Abilene, San Angelo and Brownwood areas which Mosquito Joe covers the demand for treatment continues.
'One thing I tell my customers is that it is important to remember that our treatment is not a magic pill,' said Watts. 'This is a targeted spray, and we will spray all the bushes and trees to get at the mosquito eggs and larvae. Mosquitoes don't magically disappear for 21 days; they must land on the tree or bush, and customers are educated to know that they must give the treatment time to work.'
Watts said the chrysanthemum based chemical creates a 'blanket' on the property, getting rid of the mosquitoes 'biting you today.'
'It is a targeted spray on your property, whereas City spraying is public health focused,' he added. 'We treat for eggs and larvae make it to where they can't hatch.'
Thankful for his health, Watts said his goal is to help people out.
'By all rights, I shouldn't be alive,' he said. 'I want to focus on the future, and do what I can do to use the gift I was given to help other people.'
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Afghanistan says that Taliban leader Mullah Akthar Mansur has been killed in a U.S. drone attack inside Pakistan.
The National Directorate of Security on May 22 said Mansur was targeted on May 21 along with other militants aboard a vehicle in the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan.
Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said on Twitter that Mansur was killed early on May 21 after his car was hit by a drone strike in Dahl Bandin district, just over the border with Afghanistan.
The statements come after the Pentagon announced it carried out an air strike against Mansur in a remote region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the United States was studying the results of the attack, but a U.S. official not authorized to discuss the operation publicly said Mansur and a second male combatant accompanying him in a vehicle were probably killed.
The official said the attack was carried out by unmanned aircraft operated by U.S. Special Operations Forces. The official said the operation occurred near the town of Ahmad Wal in Balochistan, and was authorized by President Barack Obama.
The Associated Press quoted Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Rauf as saying Mansur was killed in a drone strike "in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area."
Other Taliban militants denied the reports as baseless.
"I have seen the reports," Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said. "We are seeking clarification."
Two Pakistani intelligence officials told AFP news agency that the drones struck near the city of Quetta, killing two people whose bodies were burned beyond recognition.
They did not confirm whether Mansur was among them but said the bodies had been moved to a hospital in Quetta.
'Opposed Peace Talks'
Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah said Mansur's death would have a positive impact on stalled peace negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
He said Mansur was "the main figure preventing the Taliban joining the peace process" in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have been waging an insurgency for 15 years.
"In the event of Mullah Mansur's killing, a new opportunity presents itself to those Taliban who are willing to end the war and bloodshed, return to the country from the foreigners' land, and join the Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace process," Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's office said in a statement.
Cook said Mansur had prohibited Taliban leaders from participating in peace talks with the Afghan government and had been "actively involved with planning attacks" across Afghanistan.
During a visit to Myanmar, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Mansur posed a "continuing imminent threat" to U.S. personnel in Afghanistan and to Afghans, and was "directly opposed to the peace negotiation and to the reconciliation process."
The air strike that targeted the Taliban leader "sends a clear message to the world that we will continue to stand with our Afghan partners as they work to build a more stable, united, secure, and prosperous Afghanistan," Kerry added.
He said both Afghan and Pakistani leaders were notified of the air strike, but he declined to elaborate on the timing of the notifications, which he said included a telephone call from him to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
It was the first ever known U.S. drone strike in Balochistan, where the Taliban leadership is believed to be based. Until now, nearly all U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan were carried out in the country's tribal areas, especially North and South Waziristan.
Members of the U.S. Congress lauded the attack.
Representative Adam Schiff (Democrat-California), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Mansur's death would be a huge blow to the Taliban, but not enough to allow the United States to disengage from the conflict.
"We must remain vigilant and well-resourced in the field, and must continue to help create the conditions for a political solution," Schiff said.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (Republican-Arizona) said he was glad Mansur "has met his just end," but urged stepped-up coalition attacks on the Taliban.
"Our troops are in Afghanistan today for the same reason they deployed there in 2001 -- to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for global terrorists," McCain said.
Mansur was declared the leader of the Taliban in July 2015, just days after the Afghan government confirmed that Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had died in the Pakistani port city of Karachi two years earlier.
But a leadership dispute immediately ensued with some Taliban commanders refusing to recognize Mansur.
The Taliban ruled Afghanistan according to a harsh interpretation of Islamic law until the group was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion following the September 11, 2001, attacks.
With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP
Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has invited Pope Francis to meet with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church for a peace summit in Minsk.
Lukashenka extended the invitation during a meeting with the pope on May 21 at the Vatican, saying that the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine required a new initiative that was "preferably also spiritual."
Lukashenka said he also wanted to invite Ukrainian religious leaders to the summit along with representatives of Judaism and Islam.
There was no immediate word on the Vatican's response to the invitation, and it was not immediately clear if Lukashenka's idea for the proposed summit was a gathering that would focus exclusively on Ukraine's conflict.
But the Vatican praised Minsk for serving as a base for peace negotiations between Ukraine's government and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Lukashenka was quoted after his talks with the pontiff as saying: "Everything is in God's hands. If he gives his blessing, then the supreme heads of the [Roman] Catholic and Orthodox churches will meet on Belarusian soil."
The pope's meeting with Lukashenka took place at the Vatican library shortly after the Belarusian president concluded trade talks in Rome on May 21 with Italian President Sergio Mattarella.
Lukashenka's visit to Italy comes as he tries to nurture recently improved ties with the West -- particularly with the European Union.
Brussels has been lifting economic sanctions that the EU imposed against Belarus in response to its harsh crackdown on opposition lawmakers, independent media, and civil society activists.
As Minsk has sought to improve ties with the West, Lukashenka increasingly has been coming under pressure from Russia -- which has seen its relations with the EU and the United States deteriorate over the Kremlin's occupation and illegal annexation of Crimea and Moscow's military support for pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine.
With reporting by dpa, TASS, and Interfax
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.
Later the same day, the chief of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, 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 de-escalation," 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 weighed in on Moscow's repeated allegation on October 24 , 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 [Russian] President [Vladimir] 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 Kyiv 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 the agency's 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
Iran's foreign minister has called on the United States to encourage investors to engage with Tehran.
Speaking at a news conference in Tehran a day after Western powers said they back legal business with Iran, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that "more serious and concrete actions must be taken" by the United States to spur investment in Iran.
Zarif said that "obstacles in the past decade on economic cooperation between Iran and other countries were created due to hostile American policies and sanctions."
International sanctions that were imposed against Iran over its nuclear program were lifted as a result of a nuclear deal signed in 2015 and implemented in January.
But the United States has maintained other sanctions that target Tehran's alleged sponsorship of armed factions in the Middles East and its ballistic missile program.
European banks that have subsidiaries in the United States have been slow to resume business with Iran amid concerns about being prosecuted in the United States for violating those U.S. sanctions.
Based on reporting by AFP, IRNA, and Press-TV
At least two Iraqis have been killed and dozens of others injured in clashes between security forces and protesters in Baghdad.
Iraqi officials said on May 21 that two people died of gunshot wounds suffered when security forces fired their guns in efforts to disperse a crowd that had breached the heavily armed Green Zone in central Baghdad on the night of May 20.
It added that 57 people were injured.
Hospital sources said earlier on May 21 that four people had been killed and 90 injured, Reuters reported.
Security officials also used tear gas, water cannons, and sound bombs against the thousands of protesters, who entered government buildings that included the office of Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi.
It was the second time in three weeks that demonstrators were able to break into the Green Zone, where parliament and many embassies are also located.
The protesters -- who included supporters of the powerful Shi'ite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr -- are angry about the government's failure to approve anticorruption reforms and improve security in the country.
Sadr later on May 20 issued a statement in support of the protesters and condemning the use of force against them by security forces.
But Abadi condemned the demonstrators in a late-night speech, saying that "the law must take its course with every transgressor."
Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP
Security forces have detained hundreds of journalists, activists, and demonstrators in various Kazakh cities amid a call by the opposition for nationwide demonstrations against changes to Kazakhstan's Land Code.
Dozens of reporters were detained in the capital, Astana, as well as in Almaty, Qaraghandy, Oral, Shymkent, and the western city of Atyrau in the government crackdown.
More than 1,000 activists and people in squares or on streets close to city squares were also apprehended by police.
Many of the journalists -- including several from Interfax and RFE/RL's Kazakh Service -- and people who were detained reported being released after being held by police for a few hours.
Some journalists said their video recordings and pictures had been erased by police while they were detained.
Kazakh Information and Communications Minister Dauren Abaev said on May 21 that he would "work to find out why [the journalists] were detained."
The websites of RFE/RL's Kazakh Service are blocked but access to the station's Facebook and YouTube sites was restored later on May 21 after offering only intermittent service since May 20.
WATCH: Amid a crackdown on protests against changes to Kazakhstan's Land Code, police in Oral detained RFE/RL correspondent Sanat Urnaliev on May 21. He was released after being held for eight hours. (RFE/RL's Kazakh Service)
Hundreds of people attempted in the morning to gather at the central Republic Square in Almaty -- the country's largest city -- but were either detained or forced away by police who had cordoned off the square and confronted the demonstrators on the streets leading to the square.
Others were chased down and detained by police while walking away from the squares.
A small rally did occur in the northern city of Pavlodar, where at least 35 people gathered in the city center. Opposition activist Serikbay Alibaev began to address the crowd but police intervened and dispersed the crowd.
Alibaev was detained by the police.
The government crackdown comes as opposition activists called for rallies to be held across the country to protest proposed changes to laws that would allow farmland to be sold and would allow foreign investors to lease parcels of land for agricultural use for up to 25 years.
Demonstrations broke out in late April -- mostly in western cities --- shortly after the government announced the proposed changes to the Land Code.
But the government quickly backtracked, saying any reforms to the Land Code would not occur until 2017.
Agriculture Minister Asylzhan Mamytbekov and Economy Minister Erbolat Dosaev both resigned within two days after the postponement of the land-reform plans were announced.
Security forces then began raiding the homes of activists and journalists, often seizing computers and other equipment.
In a statement on May 12, a panel of UN human rights experts called on the Kazakh government to "immediately end all forms of persecution and take effective measures to protect civil society."
In recent days, dozens of activists have been detained and had their homes searched before being handed 10 to 15 day sentences after being convicted of planning unsanctioned public rallies in the days before May 21.
In the western city of Atyrau, where the protests started last month when more than 1,000 people rallied, a court handed down 15-day jail sentences to activists Maks Bokaev and Talgat Ayanov at a hearing that lasted until the early hours of May 18, relatives said.
Posts on social-media sites were used as "evidence" against the two men.
Similar charges were brought against several activists in Almaty, where at least five people were sentenced to 15 days in custody in separate trials late on May 17 and May 18.
Bakhytzhan Toregozhina, the leader of the NGO Ar.Rukh.Khaq (Dignity, Spirit, Truth), was among those jailed in Almaty.
In Astana, activist Maksat Ilyasuly was sentenced to 10 days in custody late on May 17, his wife told RFE/RL.
Ilyasuly had recently quit a commission authorities set up to review the land-reform plans.
The government established the commission and invited some opposition figures to join it after Nazarbaev postponed implementation of the legislation until 2017 -- apparent attempts to appease its opponents and avert further protests.
The protests are a rare display of discontent in the oil-rich Central Asian nation, ruled since the Soviet era by authoritarian President Nursultan Nazarbaev.
Nazarbaevs government has used a combination of deadly force and restrictive legislation and arrests to clamp down on protests and other forms of dissent during his rule.
A rare protest in the southwestern towns of Zhanaozen and Shetpe in December 2011 ended tragically when police fatally shot at least 16 people during protests by oil workers and their supporters.
With reporting by Interfax
Tajikistan is conducting a referendum on amendments to the constitution on May 22. As is typical of Central Asian referendums, the May 22 poll is mainly about the executive branch of power. Almost every referendum in Central Asia has been about the executive branch of power and with one very notable exception, these referendums are usually about giving the executive branch more power.
Tajikistan's May 22 referendum concerns 41 proposed amendments to the constitution. The two most important would eliminate the term limit for incumbent President Emomali Rahmon and lower the age of eligibility to become president.
By my count, there have been 15 referendums in Central Asia, excluding the first referendum all five countries conducted in 1991 to approve sovereignty as the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Turkmenistan held the first referendum, in January 1994. The purpose was to approve a measure that extended President Saparmurat Niyazov's term in office until 2002. Niyazov won the 1992 presidential election. It would be the only election he ever ran in. In 1999 Niyazov was named leader for life and he stayed in office until he died in December 2006.
His successor, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, is currently working on constitutional amendments that would strike the maximum age for being president (70 years old). There is no presidential term limit in Turkmenistan's constitution. It is unclear if the impending constitutional amendments will be put to a referendum or simply approved by the compliant government.
After Turkmenistan's referendum, Uzbekistan conducted a referendum in March 1995 that prolonged President Islam Karimov's term in office until 2000. Next up -- Kazakhstan, where President Nursultan Nazarbaev had dissolved parliament in March 1995. In late April 1995, Kazakhstan conducted a referendum to prolong Nazarbaev's term in office until the end of 2000 (though he called a snap election for early 1999). A subsequent referendum in Kazakhstan in August 1995 removed some of parliament's powers and gave more power to the presidency.
Kyrgyzstan conducted the first of its referendums in January 1994. The purpose was to bolster President Askar Akaev, who was facing fierce resistance from the country's parliament. The simple question people voted on was "Do you confirm that the president of Kyrgyzstan who was democratically elected on October 12, 1991, for five years is the president of the Kyrgyz Republic with the right to act as head of state during his term in office?"
A referendum in October that same year made the unicameral parliament into a bicameral body and transferred some of parliament's powers to the executive branch. Referendums in February 1996, October 1998, and February 2003 served to further strengthen the office of the presidency and in the process so changed the constitution that it was decided Akaev's first two terms in office under the "old" constitution did not count and he was free to run for two more terms.
Tajikistan took this same path. President Rahmon was selected at a very small event in northern Tajikistan in November 1992 to be speaker of parliament. The country was falling into civil war at the time and, after it had gone through several presidents in just a few months, the office of the presidency had been abolished. Speaker of parliament was therefore the highest post in Tajikistan.
Rahmon was elected president on November 6, 1994. There were two votes that day -- one the presidential election, the other to approve a new constitution that reinstated the office of president.
I've always wondered what would have happened if Rahmon won the election but the constitution was rejected and there was no office of president. Quite impossible of course, but it pointed to the orchestration of elections to come.
Tajikistan's next referendum was in September 1999 and it was probably the most important referendum Tajikistan ever held. That one approved the legalization of religious political parties. It was necessary because the peace deal that ended Tajikistan's 1992-97 civil war stipulated that members of the opposition, the bulk of whom were from the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, would receive places in government.
That referendum also approved lengthening the presidential term in office from five to seven years and later, on that basis, President Rahmon did the same thing Kyrgyz President Akaev did -- declare that the first two presidential elections did not count as part of the two-term limit.
The last referendum in Tajikistan took place in June 2003 and changed a clause written into the constitution in 1999 that specified a one-term limit for the president, transforming that to a two-term limit. And on May 22 term limits for the "Leader of the Nation" (Rahmon) will be removed entirely. The minimum age of eligibility to be elected president will also drop from 35 to 30, which many interpret as a means for Rahmon to see his son Rustam Emomali, currently 29, become the next president.
Uzbekistan conducted one more referendum in 2002 to prolong Karimov's term and change the length of a presidential term from five years to seven, as well as introducing a bicameral parliament.
Karimov was, and technically still is, constitutionally bound to two terms in office. But when his second term expired in 2007 he simply ran again and Uzbek officials did not raise any objections. Uzbek officials remained quiet when Karimov was again reelected in 2015.
Kyrgyzstan's referendum in June 2010 is the sole exception to the trend established by these previous referendums. That referendum approved a new constitution that transformed Kyrgyzstan from a presidential system of government to a parliamentary system. It also reversed some of the changes made in Kyrgyzstan's referendum of October 2007, which had further concentrated power in the hands of then-President Kurmanbek Bakiev.
However, Tajikistan is taking the image of the Central Asian referendum back to its more traditional use on May 22.
Russia's counterterrorism agency says it has arrested four suspects in Ingushetia that it says are linked to the Islamic State (IS) militant group.
The National Counterterrorism Committee said on May 21 that the four were suspected of planning terrorist attacks against government officials, police, and Muslims who reject the IS militants' extremist views.
The four suspects -- all residents of Ingushetia -- were arrested during a raid in the region by security forces who also discovered self-made explosive devices, grenades, and assault rifles.
Based on reporting by AP and TASS
The Russian Defense Ministry has opened bids on a contract to repair and upgrade a Black Sea coastal artillery system that is adjacent to the Russia-occupied Crimea Peninsula.
The 130mm self-propelled Bereg artillery system is based near the village of Utash in Russia's southern Krasnodar region. It is operated by forces from Russia's Black Sea naval base at Novorossiisk.
The artillery vehicles are positioned where they can attack ships passing through the Kerch Strait that links the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov.
With a range of 20 kilometers, the Bereg artillery system is designed to destroy small and medium-sized warships as well as providing support for ground troops and countering an amphibious assault.
Worth an estimated 5 million rubles, the contract calls for repairs and upgrades to four of the wheeled vehicles that carry the coastal gun mounts, along with a command-and-control vehicle and combat support vehicles.
With reporting by TASS and Interfax
With Charlottesville as a leading model, the governors office will be directing more money toward expanding pretrial services to jurisdictions around the state starting in July.
Brian Moran, state secretary for public health and homeland security, announced Friday that Gov. Terry McAuliffe has increased funding for community corrections and pretrial services for the Department of Criminal Justice Services. In July, as much as $1.5 million total will be available to cities and counties around Virginia seeking to expand their pretrial and probation services network.
According to Moran, who made the announcement at the Region Ten Community Services Board in Charlottesville on Friday, an additional $2 million will be made available in the second year of the state budget.
I know Im preaching to the choir, but pretrial services and local probation programs are critical components in the commonwealths criminal justice system, Moran said. There are many decision points in our system that have potentially profound effects on the safety of the community and on individuals and families.
The increased funding is expected to help communities around the state explore alternatives to incarceration and implement risk assessments for recently arrested offenders. Moran pointed to the Virginia Pretrial Risk Assessment Instrument, a nationally used model, as a well-received method for determining the risk of those being considered for release and community supervision ahead of their trial date.
As a citizen, I want to be tough on crime, said Moran. But as a taxpayer, I recognize that jails and prisons are a resource best used for high-risk, violent and career criminals and those who cannot safely be supervised in the community.
By keeping low-risk offenders out of jail before their trial date and denying pretrial release for high-risk defendants with financial means, Moran said the state could continue to be a nationwide leader in reducing both victimization and the tax burden of increasingly populated jails. He added that the jailing of defendants prior to being found guilty of a crime can create undue hardships, including loss of a job, loss of housing and the disruption of families.
Keeping appropriate people under supervision in the community with targeted interventions offers significantly higher potential for changing criminal behaviors than does putting them in jails or prison, Moran said. Knowing who is high and low risk allows us to keep the right people in jail and appropriately mitigate the risk of those released to or supervised in the community.
To receive funding, localities around the state seeking to start new community corrections or pretrial service programs will apply for a grant through the Department of Criminal Justice Services. The department is aiming to release grant application guidelines early this summer, and have all applications in by August.
The proposals will then be considered by the Criminal Justice Services Board during its September meeting, which will subsequently award funding starting in October.
Speaking after the announcement, Moran said it will be up to citizens around the state to rally around and support the implementation of pretrial service programs in their communities if they so choose. He added that most communities currently using these types of programs have found them to be a very effective public safety tool, and cited Charlottesville as a prime example of that.
Charlottesville has led the way on a number of things and, certainly around pretrial and evidence-based decision making, has been a real leader and model for the state, he said.
Moran added that it was the efforts of people in Charlottesville, such as local Offender Aid and Restoration Executive Director Pat Smith, who first alerted the governors office that some Virginia localities were without the pretrial service programs they so craved.
It was the result of her advocacy and others that the governor put this in the budget, he said.
Two more men are accused of trying to prey on children after being snared in an online trap set by Stafford County Sheriffs Detective Darryl Wells, authorities said.
For years, Wells has been working undercover online in various social media chat rooms pretending to be a young child, usually a 13-year-old boy or girl. Adult males have frequently engaged the imaginary child online and often have made arrangements to meet the child, only to be surprised to learn that the child was actually Wells.
Allan Lewis Bentley, 65, of Doraville, Ga., was arrested earlier this month and charged with six counts of attempted indecent liberties with a child, six counts of using an electronic device to solicit a minor and 25 counts of distributing child pornography.
Sheriff's spokeswoman M.C. Morris Moncure said Bentley is accused of propositioning the child Wells was portraying online and sending pictures of other children that are pornographic.
Bentley is being held in Georgia pending extradition to Stafford to stand trial.
Christopher Samuel Hawthorne, 41, was arrested May 12 at his home in Springfield, Morris Moncure said. His home was searched and electronic devices were seized.
Hawthorne is also accused of making sexual propositions to the child being portrayed by Wells. He is charged in Stafford with two counts of attempted indecent liberties with a minor and four counts of using an electronic device to solicit a minor.
One salutary effect of Gov. Terry McAuliffes order restoring some civil rights to felons is that it has allowed Chuck Richardson to enter Richmonds race for mayor. In 1995 the former city councilman was busted for selling heroin. Another late entrance to the race: strip-club owner Mike Dickinson who thinks the NRA is Americas ISIS, says those who want answers about Benghazi are mentally ill, and puts the blame for strip clubs on wait for it God, for making women beautiful. Man, this is going to be a hoot.
Even with all the rain, theres been some sunshine: (1) A new grocery store will open in the Church Hill food desert; (2) voter registration in Virginia is way up; and (3) the Chesapeake Bay is in the healthiest condition it has enjoyed in years. Three cheers for three cheerful items, please.
And heres more good news: Reggie Gordon will follow Thad Williamson as head of the citys anti-poverty department. The CEO of Richmonds Red Cross Chapter will replace the U of R prof, who has been on leave. If every political transition resembled this one by replacing one high-quality public servant with another, we could all sleep more soundly.
Alas, thats a pipe dream. On yesterdays Op/Ed Page columnist Kathleen Parker wrote about a YouTube video titled, Hillary Clinton lying for 13 minutes straight. We watched it, and were frankly astounded: Howd they ever manage to cut it down to just 13 minutes?
The State Council of Higher Education gave George Mason the green light to rename its law school in honor of Antonin Scalia. Before the vote English professor David Kuebrich spoke for the faculty senate, which opposed the idea. He expressed concern about the schools links to the Koch brothers and their long-standing ties to libertarianism. The Scalia renaming was prompted by a different donor, but never mind. The larger point is that Keubrich and the rest of the faculty work at George Mason, which is named for a Founding Father and the chief author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. The school also began as an offshoot of U.Va., which was founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819. In other words, George Masons ties to libertarianism predate the Kochs by a couple of centuries.
Pay for police officers is lousy. Steve Sellers, who is retiring from his position as chief in Albemarle, gave everyone a hint at just how bad when he recently told The Daily Progress: I had a young lady tender her resignation yesterday, and shes going to work at Wegmans. Wegmans! They pay more than we do.
May 6 marked a dubious milestone: Under Barack Obama, who was given the Nobel Peace Prize about two and a half seconds after being sworn in as president, the United States has now been at war longer than under any other president including FDR, LBJ, and Richard Nixon.
How many pull-ups can you do? Probably not as many as Andrew Shapiro, a junior at Langley High in Fairfax. He recently set several world pull-up records, including 3,515 in six hours and 7,306 in 18 hours. We couldnt even watch that many.
Tim Kaine isnt saying that Republicans are blocking the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court by the nations first African-American president because theyre racist, mind you. Heavens no! But hes not not saying that, either especially on the 62nd anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. He just happened to use that occasion to warn the GOP that its behavior, while not necessarily racist, looks mighty racist-y to many of his neighbors, fellow parishioners, and constituents. And so hes concerned, you see. About the GOP. Because he cares, and wants only the best for it.
Daryl Hall, of Hall & Oates fame, has exactly the right response regarding charges of cultural appropriation the idea that members of one ethnic group should not borrow concepts from another ethnic group: That is the most naive attitude Ive ever heard in my life. That is so far in the past, I hope, for everyones sake. . . . We live in America. Thats our entire culture. Our culture is a blend. It isnt split up into groups. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool. Worse than a fool a dangerous fool.
Renault Kwid based electric small car has made its debut at the Auto Expo 2020.
Already launched in China, the new Renault Kwid electric hatchback is expected to be launched in India later this year. It has now been showcased at the 2020 Auto Expo to gauge customer interest. Once launched, Kwid electric will be the perfect rival to the upcoming Maruti WagonR electric.
Compared to the regular Kwid, the electric Kwid gets a new bumper design and full LED headlamps. It also receives a new grille, new LED tail lamps and redesigned rear bumper while front air intake and rear air outlets are just for design with no real function since it gets an EV powertrain.
In terms of charging, Renault is expected to offer the Kwid EV with multiple charging options, making charging possible via both domestic and public chargers. Charging updates will be seen on the instrument clustering indicating remaining battery charge, distance to empty and the nearest charging station.
The electric motor is developed in association with DongFeng of China and will have a driving range of 250 kms in the NEDC cycle. In compliance with new safety regulations, the Renault Kwid EV will also get more airbags, 4 disc brakes, a sun roof and rear parking sensors.
Renault India also awaits the Government policy on electric vehicle charging in India ahead of official launch of the Kwid EV in the country. The launch of this new electric vehicle in India follows electric vehicles being tested by other automakers.
The Maruti Suzuki WagonR EV is currently under test along with the electric version of the Mahindra KUV100. Tata is also expected to launch Tiago electric in the future, which is a potential rival to the Kwid EV.
At the moment, there is no word from Renault about a potential launch date for the EV in India. However, considering the recent developments and the increasing push from government to move towards EVs, it is safe to presume that the car will be in launched sooner than expected.
The new Toyota Fortuner facelift will be introduced for the 2021 model year in global markets
Toyota has been working on the facelifted avatar of its popular Fortuner 7-seater SUV for international markets. Expected to make a global debut for the 2021 model year, the new Toyota Fortuner facelifted was recently spied. Though the images were poor in quality, one could work out all the major design changes. To give a brief overview, the facelift sports a sharper front-end, new wheels and more features on the inside.
Alongside the spy shots, we had shared a render of the front profile as well. Now, IADesign or Indonesia Automotive Design (@ia.dsgn on Instagram) has created a new render of the 2020 Toyota Fortuner facelift, taking reference from its first pictures. The render has been done over the current-gen Fortuner in a more realistic environment.
As mention before, the front design has gone through a range of upgrades. The full-LED headlamps converge to a protruding nose. The radiator + intercooler grille has become more prominent thanks to its size and rectangular pellet pattern. IADesign has left the wheels untouched even though the facelift will get a new set of five-spokes. Do keep in mind that the render was done with just a few low-quality shots from odd angles. Hence, the final version could look much different if we go into detail.
Toyota Kirloskar Motor had recently confirmed that a limited-edition Fortuner variant was in the works. The announcement was made just a few days before the automaker introduced the SUVs Epic and Epic Black editions in South Africa. They feature a few cosmetic upgrades outside and some added equipment inside. Only one engine is available a 2.8-litre diesel making 174bhp and 450Nm while mated to a 6-speed automatic transmission. The powertrain is offered in both AWD and RWD formats.
In India, the Toyota Fortuner has been updated to BS6 emission specifications. Prices have remained mostly unchanged at a starting figure of about Rs 28 lakh ex-showroom. The segment-leading SUV comes with two engine choices: 2.7-litre NA petrol with 164bhp/245Nm and 2.8-litre diesel with 174bhp/450Nm. The petrol engine is available only in RWD format with either a 5-speed manual or 6-speed automatic. The diesel engine comes in both RWD and AWD format. In its 6-speed manual format, the diesel engine makes about 30Nm less.
Ahead of BS6 implementation in India, Toyota has discontinued a range of products including the Etios series and Corolla Altis. Furthermore, to help struggling dealerships amidst the ongoing lockdown, the company has also introduced a COVID-19 package.
Source
BS4 Camry Hybrid was first launched in India back in Jan 2019, at a price of Rs 36.95 lakhs, ex-sh
Toyota Camry D-segment sedan has been updated to the BS6 emission standards, and at Rs 37.88 lakh (ex-showroom), it is Rs 93,000 more expensive than the BS4 version. The niche product currently has no direct rival in our market except the Skoda Superb which is also expected to be upgraded to latest emission standards soon.
The Toyota Camry BS6 continues to be powered by the petrol hybrid powertrain which comprises a 2.5-liter petrol engine and an electric motor. The IC engine is tuned to produce 178 hp and 221 Nm of torque while the electric motor is rated at 120 hp and 202 Nm of torque. The combined power output of the hybrid system stands at 218 hp. The system is mated to a continuously variable transmission (CVT) with paddle shifters.
The hybrid powertrain is capable of allowing pure electric driving mode. In addition, the system offers three driving modes namely Eco, Normal and Power. There are no visual changes compared to the BS4 version. The Toyota Camry adopts a modern and youthful styling language with a touch of elegance. The interior design is characterized by an unconventional center console shape and dual-tone color theme.
The lone variant available in India comes packed up the gills with premium equipment including a comprehensive touchscreen infotainment system, three-zone automatic climate control, Head-Up Display, leather upholstery, touchscreen controls for the entertainment system on the rear arm rest, adjustable rear seats, powered rear sun shade, 8-way electrically adjustable front seats, sunroof, LED headlamps, 18-inch alloy wheels and so on.
The Toyota Camry is also loaded with 9 airbags, reverse parking camera, ABS with EBD and BA, VSC and traction control, hill start assist, park assist and Tire Pressure Monitoring System. The premium sedan is available in 7 colour options namely Platinum White (pearl), Silver (metallic), Attitude Black, Burning Black, Red Mica, Phantom Brown and Graphite (metallic).
At this price point, customers have access to entry level variants of luxury crossovers like BMW X1 and Audi Q3. With crossovers clearly ruling every price segment, products like Camry have a very limited takers.
The sedans strong selling points include very comfortable rear seats, ample interior space and a lengthy equipment list. In India, the Camry serves more as a brand shaper for Toyotas hybrid powertrain rather than as a volume spinner. In other news, Toyota has received approval from its partner Suzuki to sell a rebadged version of the Vitara Brezza compact crossover in India.
Saudi aggression, mercenaries still breach ceasefire in Yemen
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SANA'A, May 21 (Saba) The Saudi-led coalition's warplanes and its mercenaries continued to breach the UN-announced ceasefire in several provinces during the past 24 hours, a military official said Saturday.
The official told Saba that the Saudi war jets kept flying in the skies of the provinces of Sana'a, Jawf, Mareb, Sa'ada, Amran, Hajjah, Hodeidah and Mahweet.
The hostile warplanes waged six raids on al-Majaweha area in Nehm district and two others on Bani Hoshish district in Sana'a province, while Riyadh's mercenaries pounded the areas of Dhaboa'a, Mabda'a, al-Majaweha and al-Houl in Nehm with missiles, the official elaborated.
In Jawf, the war jets of the Saudi aggression launched two raids on the districts of al-Masloub and al-Ghail, while the hirelings pounded al-Maton district with artillery shells.
A military vehicle carrying 23-caliber machine gun belonging to the mercenaries was burned when the army and popular committees forces repelled their failed attempt to advance on Waqaz area in al-Masloub district.
In Taiz, the military said the Saudi-led coalition's warplanes flew in the sky of the province and over the coastal strip and the areas of al- Waze'yah, al-Hanshiyah and al-Barh and waged two raids on Mocha district.
He added a person was killed and five others were wounded in airstrike on al-Hardain area in Moza' district.
In addition, the hirelings bombed the areas of al-Hana and al-Madrab in al-Waze'yah district with medium weapons and pounded al-Shabka site in the district and al-Zahra'a neighborhood in Taiz city with artillery shells in conjunction with the intensive flying of spying planes.
According to the official, the aggression's war jets continued hovering in the sky of Mareb province and its mercenaries bombarded the army and committees locations in the areas of al-Malh and al-Mashjah in Serwah district.
In Hajjah, the warplanes flew intensively over the province and dropped a sound bomb on Mastaba district and petrol bombs on al-Mazraq area in Haradh district.
BA
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[21/May/2016]
Samoa has attracted the worlds attention this week because of a call by the National Council of Churches to ban Islam in Samoa. The call follows an indication from the government that it might amend the Constitution to formalise Christianity as the official religion for Samoa. But that led to a call to ban Islam from the N.C.C, which recently celebrated its 50th birthday. What do you think? Ilia L. Likou asked in todays Street Talk and this is what people said:
Patamea
I dont support this. There are so many factors we need to consider before we commit to this. We need to pray and ask if this is Gods will. The Constitution is sacred and it should be treated with respect. At the same time, as Christians, we have to respect other people like we expect them to respect us.
Vaitele Tai
Im interested in all religions. However, I agree that the Constitution should be changed to recognise Christianity as the official religion of Samoa. People are killing each other because of different religions. In Samoa, we are serving the One True God, He is the one who gave up his life so that those who trust him could be forgiven. Yes, Christianity is the one true religion and the Constitution must be changed.
Toamua
I dont have much to say about this topic. All I understand clearly is that the Bible is the Word of God and Jesus is the Son of God the savior of the world. No one else but through Him that we can find everlasting life. That is the truth and thats all we need to know.
Satuimalufilufi
This is ridiculous. Its arrogant call. Why is Christianity better than other religions? We must consider what it says in the Bible that Do not judge, or you too will be judged. Theres no need to change the Constitution.
Apia
I support the decision to change the Constitution. We are a Christian country and our laws should reflect that. I think all Samoans should get behind this change because we need to make the change very quickly. I dont have anything against other religions but we cannot be ignorant about what we see on the news about terrorism and other deadly acts in the name of other religions.
Malie
I support the change to ban other religions in Samoa. That is a very good decision. Were serving the One True God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead but of the living, so we dont need any other God. Thats the God all Christians worship.
Pope Francis is warning bishops that they must consult with the Vatican before approving new would-be religious orders or risk having their decisions overturned.
The revised law published Friday aims to ensure that new religious institutes meet all the criteria for religious orders, especially that they have a unique "charism" or founding spirit and that their members practice poverty, chastity and obedience.
Previously, bishops were required to consult with the Vatican about new orders but there were no consequences if they didn't. Now, their decisions can be invalidated.
Usually, orders begin as small "institutes of consecrated life" that are approved by a local bishop to operate in his diocese. Over time if they attract more members, they can apply to the Vatican to get pontifical recognition, like the Jesuits or Missionaries of Charity.
Kurt Martens, canon law professor at The Catholic University of America, said the new law aims to prevent "disasters from happening" when a bishop approves a new religious institute without doing the proper checks.
While Francis has been keen to decentralize church decision-making to bishops, Martens noted that the Holy See has a lot of experience to offer them. He said the new law seems to seek a "healthy balance."
While the new law concerns the early phases of church approval for new orders, it comes as the Vatican is grappling with a new scandal at the Peru-based Sodalitium Christianae Vitae community, which received diocesan approval in 1994 and pontifical recognition in 1997.
The Vatican recently named its former No. 2 official in charge of religious orders, Archbishop Joseph Tobin, to oversee reforms at Sodalitium after an internal ethics commission found that young recruits were victims of physical, psychological and sexual abuse, according to the Catholic News Agency.
The agency, whose executive director is a Sodalitium member, has said the commission found an internal culture of extreme "discipline and obedience to the founder" a parallel to another scandal at the Mexico-based Legion of Christ.
-AP
Its easy enough to see. Members of the private sector have a legitimate complaint that should be considered.
While its all good and dandy for the government to show off by declaring an unprecedented three-day public holiday to celebrate Independence Day this year, the reality is that someone has to fork out to pay for it.
Which is easy for Prime Minister Tuilaepa and his government because they can just reach into the public coffers and away they go. We all know the bitter truth. Whether they work or not, their salaries and mighty expensive ones that is too - are guaranteed.
Thats because you and I, the silent submissive taxpayers, are paying for them to have jolly good time. So of course they can afford to relax and go shopping.
But you cant say the same about the private sector.
Which is why youve got to feel for them. The so-called engine or the heart beat of economic growth is barely moving and yet it has been dealt another major blow so that by now, the poor thing is just about to give up.
For one of the biggest private employers in the country, Yazaki Eds Samoa, the upcoming holidays is likely to cost close to a million tala. General Manager, Funefeai Oliva Vaai, said they have estimated that each day would cost $300,000.
That does not include other costs carried by the company to accommodate 800 workers.
Its quite a big loss to our production time and also loss in sales, he said.
But thats not the only issue.
Our business calendar was based on information provided last year which was to have one declared public holiday, said Funefeai. But we have now been informed its another extra two days and its a surprise for us because we have already planned out our production.
It means that we have to work overtime, pay penalty rates, prepare extra meals and provide transportation for workers to go home (after work).
So who came up with this idea of having three public holidays? What were they thinking?
In announcing the decision, Prime Minister Tuilaepa seemed rather unconcerned. So much he did not even attempt to justify the rationale behind the decision.
No one wants to come back to work on Friday, he said.
Really? Are you serious? As if that is baffling enough, then listen to this:
Theres something called a commission holiday which we will use again. In Samoan, its a day for those that have worked hard in government to relax and do some shopping.
Right, what about people who do not work in government? What about people who actually have to earn their money?
Back to Funefeai, he said that at least Yazaki has the resources to absorb the losses, something he believes many smaller companies will struggle with.
And he has a point. Already the decision has been the source of much frustrations among the business community as the Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber of Commerce, Hobart Vaai, pointed out.
Based on that feedback it would be fair to note that in an already tight economy, a three day holiday announced at relatively short notice will be difficult for the private sector to cope with, he said.
The negative economic impacts across the private sector, particularly the retail sector are estimated to be significant.
Two days of celebrations to mark Independence appears to have been the practise in recent times. That would seem to be ample time to enjoy this special national occasion.
The C.E.O. pointed out that in a significantly shortened week, the private sector is legitimately concerned about the costs associated with having less than half a week of productivity.
Revenue opportunities are reduced and so too are opportunities to address ongoing costs, he said. The impact of a three days public holiday may have been softened with a longer notice period and sufficient time to plan ahead.
On this occasion, timely consultation would have been appropriate.
And here therein is the issue, which Mr. Vaai has hit on the nail. Public consultation is so vital in this day and age especially with these decisions. If the government is serious about recognising the value of the private sector, it should put its money where its mouth is.
Prime Minister Tuilaepa and his administration should stop acting like spoilt little brats and come down to earth to seek a second opinion before making these ridiculous decisions.
One of lifes oldest truths is that you do unto others as youd have them do unto you. Now can these high-flying government officials who declared these public holidays put themselves in the shoes of a struggling private businessperson for a minute?
Think of that businesswoman who can barely make ends meet? Think of her struggle in terms of debts to pay, compliance costs to meet, taxes owed and then the double salaries for three days if she chooses to work through?
What about that businessman who just received a foreclosure letter from the bank? Three unproductive days is without a doubt a recipe for disaster.
And yet thats precisely where we are heading with this decision by the government. Its insensitive, arrogant and it doesnt make any sense given the tight status of this countrys economy.
What do you think? Write and share your thoughts with us.
In the meantime, have a restful Sunday Samoa, God bless!
Dear Editor,
Political party system in our Parliament was created by former politicians who were determined to make the leading jobs become permanently theirs. This started to drive our parliament into a divided phase contrary to our traditions and culture.
The conclusion of our recent general election I believe, sent us all, a very clear message; that POLITICAL PARTY SYSTEM IS NOT FOR SAMOA.
Whether we have political parties or not, our country would still have a Parliament and will still develop in keeping with time and technology; and probably a lot better due to the absence of this division.
Number One: The election results once again indicated our people do not care about issues promised by any political party; for example, the attractive economic packages in the Oppositions manifesto, which ideally matched the characteristic/nature of our people to grab at any opportunity of financial benefit, had no bearing at all in the peoples vote.
Number Two: Citing the freedom of expression as the reason for a political party to put up multiple candidates in any one constituency, contradicts the principle of party system, suppresses the required chance for voters to really engage in political selection thus amounting to improper practices and corruption.
Number Three: Family connections, friendships, acquaintances continue to dominate the voters choice of politicians because extended family connection is a big part of our culture in all aspects. For example, even with public pre-election outcry (as well as the CCA and OPC reports) regarding the mismanagement of peoples money by some politicians and public servants, the Election Results undeniably prove the voters do not care about and are tolerant of these practices.
If we were to have another general election tomorrow, similar results would be achieved regardless of whatever party is in control of the government.
We have falsely interpreted these results as a show of political party support all these years when really, it is just the voters freedom of choice based on the traditional attitude and not a choice based on political party.
These evidences therefore, are more than sufficient to convince the government that it must now seriously look at returning the country to the original Electoral System with Universal Suffrage included, to be in line with modern democracy.
Politicians are free to open up in debates rather than been shut up by party affiliation.
Political Party politics in fact affects the pace of the overall infrastructural development of this country despite the fact our land area is small and we are just a small population of only 180,000 people.
Reverting to the original system will create a very open and level field to achieving fair parliamentary selection, saves lots of taxpayers money and more beneficially important, get rid of corruption and Election Petitions.
And talking of petition, the Electoral Law stipulates this for the purpose of pursuing justice, to ensure those guilty are punished if they are found quilty.
But then we make a mockery of the very law we made by interfering with it through the so-called aganuu/va-fealoaloai resulting in petition withdrawals.
This law has either not been prepared properly or we just do not care about breaking it.
We cannot make laws and break them as we please. We must be consistent with requirements of our laws.
If we revert to the old selection system, Parliament will focus more on its priority responsibility of law-making (Fonofaitulafono) by serious debating and no time wasted on party politics.
Pray for our country today please.
The Bell Of Masefau.
Savaii.
The annual conference of the Congregational Christian Church of Samoa came to an end on Friday when the assembly voted on key positions in the church.
The vote signaled the end of two weeks of meetings for the biggest denomination in Samoa, which saw hundreds of delegates flood to Malua for the annual pilgrim. Many of them came from as far as the United States, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and other places.
The conference started with the womens meetings. This was followed by the main conference which started last Monday.
The Elders Committees decision to stand down former Secretary General, Revered Afereti Uili meant a vote for a replacement had to be carried out for the meeting to proceed.
On Monday, Reverend Vavatau Taufao, who had previously been the Director of Education for the Church, won the vote with 383 votes as opposed to the other nominee, Reverend Talia Tapaleao who had 348 votes.
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, he said.
Never in my mind that I thought I would become a General Secretary at this time. But Im grateful and I am honoured.
With that out of the way, the General Assembly started and a number of development issues were on the agenda. These included finances, benefits, land and projects to improve spiritual lives.
In the middle of the meeting, a Court decision involving the Elders Committee saw the conference being put on hold for half a day as delegates gathered at Mulinuu. The decision favoured the church and there were tears of joy that day.
Back at Malua on Friday, a new Deputy Chairman was elected. He is Reverend Tunumoso Iosia of Falealili. The new Deputy Chairman is the former Secretary of the Elders Committee. He won a ballot against Reverend Palemia Tauiliili, securing 337 votes to 320.
The former Deputy Chairman, Reverend Elder Tautiaga Senara automatically became the Chairman of the Church, replacing pensioner, Reverend Elder Tavita Roma.
With that, the curtains fell on this years meeting.
This weekend, many of conference participants from overseas are returning home. For some of them, they are taking the opportunity to visit families and spend some time in Samoa before they leave until the next meeting in 2017.
The national conversation about making Christianity the official religion of Samoa is making other minority religions in the country nervous.
Thats why the call by the Secretary General of the National Council of Churches (N.C.C), Reverend Maauga Motu, to ban Islam has been received with such trepidation by non-Christians in Samoa.
Besides Islam, there are other religious minorities on the island.
One is the religion of Hinduism. The polytheistic religion has in fact more than one thousand followers across Samoa, with most of them coming from Fiji, where a big number of Hindus lives.
Among them is Prem Vadhya, a Hindu who has lived in Samoa for more than six years.
The man has, together with his boss started a successful and well-known business in Samoas capital city: Tifaimoana Motel and Indian Restaurant.
Mr. Vadhya, who works there as the Restaurant Manager, came from the India metropolis Mumbai to the Samoan archipelagic to serve the people all the culinary specials of his home country.
An endeavour, that can be seen as successful.
We have many happy customers here and I think our food is a very special thing here in Samoa, he said.
But with the possible ban of Mr. Vadhyas religion in Samoa, this six-year long friendship with the Samoan people could come to a sudden end.
If this situation come up and they really want to make me decide between living in Samoa or practising my religion, I might have to leave. Because, this is not the way I want to live, and I think nobody wants to become a servant in any kind of sense.
Mr. Vadhya pointed out that many other people would be forced to face a great loss.
I have friends and family here, and in the last six years of my life, Samoa has become my home. I know Samoa as a very friendly nation and I am sure they will not agree on such a change of the Constitution.
Asked about calls to ban Islam, the man from Mumbai said this is hard to fathom.
I do not understand this behaviour, because we are not the bad people here, he said.
We are working like everybody else and there is no fighting or trouble of any kind going on. It is also not our intention to change anybodys religion here. Everybody should believe in what he thinks is the best faith for him.
For me, god is inside the heart, and therefore the people who live next to you should be treated as human beings, no matter what they believe in.
This week, Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, reaffirmed his governments intention to amend the Constitution to make Christianity the official religion of Samoa.
But he wouldnt say whether the government would entertain a call by the National Council of Churches to ban other religions like Islam.
Tuilaepa said that Samoa must be cautious about embracing religions that promote violence and murderous rage as a form of worship.
Christianity, he said, does not do this. And this is why its important that the Constitution of Samoa is amended to reflect that Samoa is undoubtedly a Christian country.
The government will make the amendment to the Constitution to put it boldly in the Constitutions body that the official religion of Samoa is Christianity, he said.
The Preamble has no power so it must be embedded in the Constitutions body.
Looking at developments in other countries, Tuilaepa said the countrys leaders are monitoring global developments and they are alarmed at the amount of bloodshed by religions that encourage this as a form of worship.
He did not name any particular religion but he pointed to what is happening in the Middle East and terror attacks elsewhere near and far. According to the Prime Minister, there is nothing wrong with the Constitution but there is a clearly a need to make changes to reflect the situation of today.
Sealed with a donation of $3,000, a new partnership between Samoa Housing Corporation (S.H.C.) and Women in Business Inc (W.I.B.D.I.) has been formed.
The Chief Executive Officer of S.H.C, Matautia Rula Levi visited the W.I.B.D.I. office on Friday to show support and present the cheque personally.
This is a form of a partnership; we have selected Women in Business as one of our partners, she said.
As you may realize we have hosted the association for Development Finance Institution (D.F.I.) for the Asia and Pacific meeting last week and we did sign what we call a Samoa Declaration.
This declaration includes just a little over 6 resolutions; this is the greening of D.F.Is core work where we incorporate best practices in good governmental practices in the work that we do.
We deal with policies, procedures as well as advocating for climate change and how we can assist our people.
So this is a follow up of that, we have identified W.I.B.D.I and the work that they do for organic farming where they transform lives and create opportunities for our people.
These opportunities include incorporating traditional and modern practices of income generating activities with the environment in mind so that they can produce organic products.
Matautia applauded W.I.B.D.Is wide reach of villages they help.
I think 183 villages are involved with W.I.B.D.I. and that is a lot of villages within our country, she said.
We believe in the work that they do and we believe that the work that they do puts money in our clients so that they can repay their loans.
So its all in a form of good partnerships and helping each other out.
S.H.Cs assistance will also go towards helping W.I.B.D.I. complete their warehouse which will ultimately help the community in the near future.
I believe that they are in the process of building a warehouse whereby will help with the manufactured products, Matautia said.
These products do add value to the resources that we have and from that warehouse there will be a lot of youth employment, a lot of export products that will be created and so the ripple effect of this assistance will be huge.
I encourage other incorporations and ministries to work together with bodies like W.I.B.D.I. because we do believe in sustainability.
Sustainability is the right word when dealing with climate change resilience so this assistance will go a long way even though its only SAT$3,000.
We are excited about this partnership and we hope it will continue.
W.I.B.D.Is Associate Director Programmes Alberta Vitale expressed gratitude towards the assistance and partnership.
On behalf of W.I.B.D.I board and staff we would like to thank Samoa Housing for their huge assistance towards our fundraising, she said. We had a very successful event on Mothers Day Monday and we had a huge turn out from people in the wider community so thank you very much.
We also appreciate this corporation who has come a long way to assist us because this assistance does not stop here, it will go beyond that.
It will go back to feeding the farmers and everyone that is part of the programme; it will also go to assisting people with paying their loans and anything else that involves Samoa Housing.
On top of that, the work we are doing here in W.B.D.I. heavily involves a lot of farms around Samoa; we deal with all organic products certified to international standards.
The warehouse will assist them in producing value added products that will be able to be marketed locally and export markets as well.
So thank you very much S.H.C. for this assistance.
JUDGEMENT OF THE COURT
Introduction:
1. This is an appeal against a decision of Aitken J in which the plaintiffs claim against the Attorney General in his personal capacity was struck out. The case concerns the removal of a caveat in February 2014. The first defendant Mrs Drake, is sued for alleged professional negligence when acting for the plaintiff in an endeavour to maintain the caveat. The third defendant, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, is sued in relation to actions of the Registrar of Land in removing the caveat. These claims remain afoot.
2. A proceeding commenced in 2002 forms the background to this case. The plaintiff and her brother sued another brother, Molioo, alleging that he had acquired land by gift from their father through undue influence. The caveat was lodged to protect the plaintiffs claimed interest in the subject land. Coincidentally, the underlying claim, which was heard in the Supreme Court in 2003 but is still not finally resolved, is the subject of another judgment from the February 2016 session of the Court see Pune v the Administrators of the Estate of Molioo Noeluaga, CA 16/15, judgment 19 February 2016.
The background in brief
3. In 1989 the father mortgaged the land to Samoa Breweries. In July 1998, some 2 months before his death, the father transferred the land to his son, Molioo, by way of gift.
Molioo remortgaged the land to Samoa Breweries.
4. In 2002 Mrs Pune and her brother commenced a proceeding in which they challenged the transfer to their brother for undue influence. They also lodged a caveat to protect their alleged interest in the land. The claim was heard in 2003 and decision reserved.
5. In 2004 Molioo died. Subsequently, the mortgage he had granted to Samoa Breweries fell into arrears and, in 2013, the Brewery exercised its power of sale as mortgagee. The purchaser was Samoa Stationery and Books Ltd (SSBL). The Attorney-Generals wife owned and controlled this company. In December 2013, Samoa Breweries requested the Registrar of Lands to send a notice to the caveators advising them that in instrument (a transfer to SSBL) was awaiting registration and that the caveators needed to apply to (the) court to verify their caveat within the notice period. This triggered a number of actions to which we will refer in a moment.
6. Returning to the underlying proceeding, the trial judge issued what was labeled an interim decision in July 2014. It stated that the conveyance to Molioo by way of gift was fraudulent, but no reasons were given. Nor was relief ordered in favour of the plaintiffs because the judge required submissions concerning any Third party mortgage. Despite further steps taken by the plaintiffs, a final resolution of the land case has not eventuated. The decision of this Court (in CA 16/15) contains directions intended to assist in reaching a conclusion to the proceeding. But the appeal itself was adjourned to the next session of the Court.
7. This claim against the former Attorney-General, Ming Leung Wai, is based upon emails exchanged from December 2013 when Samoa Breweries sought removal of the caveat to February 2014 when the caveat was removed. Curiously the emails were not before Aitken J when she heard the strike-out application in October 2015. Instead, Mr Leung Wai provided an affidavit in which he deposed that at no point did I provide legal advice to, instruct or direct the Registrar of Lands or the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to remove caveat 837x. He then annexed an affidavit sworn by his Assistant Attorney-General and another affirmed by the Assistant Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry.
8. The annexed affidavits referred to the contents of a letter and various emails, but the documents themselves were not produced, save for an initiating letter dated 13 December 2013 from Samoa Breweries solicitor to the Registrar, requesting that the caveators be put on notice (see back at [5]). In particular, the Assistant Attorney-General deposed that Mr Leung Wai did not direct any officer of the Ministry to remove the caveat, although he did on 19 December 2013 request a Ministry officer to ensure notification was given to the caveators.
Further, she said that when the Ministry sought legal advice concerning whether the caveat had lapsed Mr Leung Wai disqualified himself from involvement on account of a conflict and delegated responsibility to her.
9. In similar vein, the Ministry witness affirmed that Mr Leung Wai did not direct anyone to remove the caveat and that she did not understand the email to be legal advice from Mr Leung Wai to the Ministry, but simply for the Ministry to initiate its usual notices to activate the processes which, ultimately, determine whether a caveat is maintained or activated. She added that subsequent legal advice provided to the Ministry was from Muriel Lui, the Assistant Attorney-General, not Mr Leung Wai because he had a conflict.
10. The manner in which this evidence was introduced in direct support of the strike out application was improper. The supporting affidavits made it plain that a number of emails were of importance. The best evidence was the emails themselves. Documents, if produced, speak for themselves. Here they were not produced. Instead two deponents gave secondary evidence as to the contents, and their interpretations, of the emails.
11. Unsurprisingly, the approach excited suspicion and uncertainty. Time was wasted in the Supreme Court with argument concerning what the emails may, or may not, convey. The task of the Judge was made more difficult than it needed to be had a normal straight-forward approach been taken. And, this occurred against the background of Aitken Js legally correct self-direction that in a strike out context facts pleaded by the plaintiff are to be accepted as capable of proof, unless there is undisputed evidence presented to the Court. To avoid dispute the first step required of the second defendant was that he table the contemporaneous documents upon which he sought to rely.
12. These issues prompted a response in this Court. Two days before the hearing we required production of the emails or that an affidavit be filed explaining why they could not be provided. Mr Leung Wai filed an affidavit annexing the emails as exhibits. This proved to be of considerable assistance to counsel on both sides and to the Court. Various concerns raised in the Notice of Appeal fell away and argument became more focused.
13. We also received an affidavit filed by the plaintiffs. It was sworn by a Samoan academic who has experience of not only her home countrys customary practices and expectations, but also those of other cultures, including New Zealand. She provided insights into how Samoan female subordinates in particular respond to requests from males in positions of power. We decided to receive this evidence because of its relevance to the interpretation of the email evidence while acknowledging that we, the New Zealand based judges, enjoyed the benefit and advantage of having Nelson J in our midst when evaluating these aspects.
The email evidence 14. The first email was from Herman Kruse, the Samoa Breweries solicitor, to the Ministry dated 12 December 2013. It contained this: Please accept our enclosed application pursuant to s57 of the Land Titles Registration Act 2008 for the removal of the caveat from the land above referenced. We would be grateful if you would initiate the usual notice to activate this process. The application was the letter of the same date which sketched the history of the matter (as in [3] to [5]). Including that the Brewery had sold the land to SSBL and wished to register a transfer to the purchaser.
15. At the same time Mr Kruse sent a cryptic email to Mr Leung Wai at his workplace saying with reference to the removal of the caveat "FYI". We infer that at least the email to the Ministry was copied to Mr Leung Wai.
16. On 15 December 2015 the CEO of the Ministry died, unexpectedly. This, it seems, was a cause of significant distraction to Ministry staff.
17. Seven days after Mr Kruse first wrote to the Registrar Mr Leung Wai sent the key email dated 19 December to a Ministry officer. It read: Dear Sala Please accept my condolences on the untimely passing away of your CEO. But I am emailing you for a favour please. We are trying to buy the land that Herman wrote to you about below but there is a caveat on it. I would appreciate it if you can assist with the matter by notifying the caveators soon as per Herman's request. Thank you and kind regards, Ming."
18. The next morning, 20 December, the recipient replied: Thank you for your sympathies Aumua I have copied Filisita here to attend to it as per your request. Later Mr Leung Wai acknowledged the reply and wished Sala a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 19. On 23 December a Ministry officer gave notice to SSBLs solicitor, Mrs Drake that an application for removal of the caveat had been lodged and that the caveators had 21 days within which to obtain an order of the court extending time or the caveat would lapse.
20. During January and early February 2014 there were a number of developments. Mrs Drake, that an application for removal of the caveat had been lodged and that the caveators had 21 days within which to obtain an order of the court extending time or the caveat would lapse.
21. In late January the Ministry wrote to Mrs Drake advising that the 21 day time period would expire on 3 February (we assume that time did not run while the Court was closed over the Christmas holiday period). On 4 February a Court order extending the caveat was made. Mrs Drake telephoned and advised the Ministry of this and confirmed the advice by a letter on 5 February.
22. Those developments spurned a further email exchange. On 7 February Mr Leung Wai wrote to the same female Ministry officer:
Hi Sita
I just met with Herman regarding his request for the removal of the caveat. It appears that legal assistance is required to be provided by my office to you. Since I clearly have a conflict of interest, I will delegate this matter to Muriel to handle. Can you please pass on the relevant file to Muriel asap? Thank you, Ming
23. Within the hour Sita replied:
Malo Aumua
Sorry for the late response to your email, regarding the above matter because we were trying to go through the process, we took started from December last year and found out that Herman emailed (the CEO) on 12 December and (the CEO) passed away on 13 December, and asked to give notice regarding section 57, but we sent the notice using section 55 and the request from you, sorry of misunderstanding because Fala just sent me the email and asked for my assistance for your request and I asked Fala straight away to prepare the letter to the caveator, thinking that the request was straight from you, section 55 was then used, so it can quickly go out and lapse if an Order has not yet been received I apologise Aumua for this, we will prepare these things to pass on to Muriel, Ruby (Drake) does not rest but writes every day and also they sent us an Order from the Court for the caveat to remain until further notice.
Have a nice day, Sita
(emphasis added as these words have been translated from Samoan)
24. Next, on 10 February Sita emailed Muriel the Assistant Attorney-General:
Ok, Muriel we are compiling stuff for the file, then we will contact you. Thanks
Sita
(emphasis added: translated)
On 11 February, Muriel replied:
Hi Sita,
Just following up on the file pls is it ready? Your urgent attention is needed.
Thanks
25. An hour later Sita emailed back:
Muriel 3.30pm would be nice for us to meet and hand over the file and good to talk as well so we are clear about the matter.
Thanks
Sita
(emphasis added: translated)
26. Finally, on 24 February the caveat was removed by the Ministry on the grounds that s55 of the Land Titles Registration Act 2008 applied and that a Court order was not served before the lapse of the 21 day time limit. The plaintiffs claim against all defendants that as a result they have lost valuable land, family graves have had to be relocated and houses demolished, and that they have been put to great expense. They seek punitive damages of $1 million tala and a similar amount in general damages. 27. We have set out the email exchanges in some detail because of their importance to the outcome of the strike out application, particularly those written by Mr Leung Wai himself. Whether he was guilty of misconduct of some kind sufficient to give rise to a cause of action of the kind alleged against him is the central issue. The emails had on the conduct of others.
28. We also note the claim against the Ministry includes causes of action for breach of statutory duty and contempt of a Court order. The plaintiffs allege that due to the favourable treatment of Mr Leung Wai, the Brewery, and/or SSBL, correct process was not followed.
The strike out principles
29. The principles are well settled and were not in dispute. The party seeking an order must show that the claim against it is certain to fail. The jurisdiction to strike out is to be used sparingly and only in a plain and obvious case. Where a cause of action is relevantly in a developing area of the law this may weigh further against making a strike out order. It may be appropriate in some cases for the court to extend to plaintiff the opportunity to amend or replead their case if an unpleaded cause of action appears to be available.
30. With regard to evidence, the facts pleaded in support of the claim are assumed to be capable of proof. But the court may receive affidavit evidence which, if undisputed and critical to some element of the causes of action, justify an order in favour of the applicant.
The claim against the second defendant
31. The amended statement of claim pleads one cause of action, breach of fiduciary duty, against the second defendant. However, Mrs Woodroffe in papers headed Proposed further amendments to statement of claim amplified the particulars relating to the fiduciary claim and indicated her intention to add causes of action for misfeasance in public office and breach of statutory duty.
32. We consider that the better course is to consider all actual and potential causes of action. Aitken J approached the application in a similarly broad manner.
33. Mr Lithgow supported the reasoning of the Judge below and challenged the actual and proposed claims arguing that they were bound to fail for a variety of reasons. One argument was common to all three, namely that Mr Leung Wai was not involved in any conduct which as a matter of law could found the suggested causes of action.
34. We shall consider this contention first. Not only does it go to the heart of the case, it is also an aspect in relation to which we have an advantage over the Judge at first instance. We have seen, and hear argument concerning, the content of the emails.
Evaluation of the conduct evidence.
35. Aitken J concluded:
[87] Nothing is the pleadings or the material before the Court suggests that the Second Defendant has done anything other than send this email. If the email contained a directionit was to do what the Third Defendant was already required to do as expeditiously as possible
We agree. However, having seen the email we now know there was no direction from Mr Leung Wai, rather he sought a favour please, namely he would appreciate it if the caveators were notified soon. This followed Mr Kruses application on 12 December to have the caveators put on notice of the need to obtain a Court order or the caveat would lapse.
36. Mr Leung Wais subsequent email of 7 February 2014 is of no relevance. By then the Ministry was in need of legal advice from his office and being conflicted, he put in place a process to avoid his personal involvement. Nor does Sitas immediate response to that email (para [23]) affect matter. It records how Ministry officers had responded to Mr Kruses application, which may be relevant to the claim against the Ministry, but not to Mr Leung Wais position. In short, he did no more than request that the Ministry do something it was already required by law to do. There was no actionable misconduct.
37. Is there any possibility that the situation may change at a substantive hearing as a result of cross-examination? Counsel did not suggest as much, and we are satisfied that there is no realistic possibility of this happening. We see this undisputed factual conclusion as fatal to the pleaded and proposed causes of action, as we will briefly explain.
38. The most that can be said of Mr Leung Wais conduct is that he was unwise to send the 19 December email particularly in the form of an office email and to people in the Ministry he obviously knew personally. The much better course would have been for him to have abstained from all involvement given his official position and obvious conflict of interest.
The relevance of the conduct finding to the claims
39. In the circumstances of this case a breach of fiduciary duty required proof that the Attorney-General was in a fiduciary position, and that he used that position to obtain a personal advantage. It is idle to suggest that Mr Leung Wai obtained a personal advantage by requesting that a statutory obligation already triggered by Mr Kruse be carried out soon. Hence there was no conduct capable of constituting a breach.
40. Aitken J was also persuaded that Mr Leung Wai was not shown to be a fiduciary in the circumstances of this case. She gave extensive reasons for this conclusion, with which we provisionally agree, although we need not express a concluded view. There is no need to do so. 4. If a misfeasance claim were added it would require proof: a. that being in public office Mr Leung Wai acted deliberately and unlawfully in the exercise of a duty; b. knowing that his conduct was unlawful and likely to cause injury; and c. damage was caused to the plaintiff: See Garrett v Attorney-General [1991] 2 NZLR 332 (CA). The relevant conduct here does not even come close to meeting the requirements of this cause of action.
42. Cases in which the tort of breach of statutory duty are considered often hinge on whether the statute relied upon both imposes a public duty and confers a private law remedy upon a section of the public in the event of the breach or non-performance of that duty. Here, Mrs Woodroffe relies on very general duties imposed by s19 of the Public Service Act 2004 to comply with a code of conduct which requires, for example, that officials act with honesty and impartiality, avoid conflicts of interest and not use their position to obtain a benefit for themselves or another. 43. Mr Leung Wais conduct, although unwise, was not in breach of any of these duties. We also seriously doubt that the statute is one intended to confer a private law remedy on a section of the public, but there is no need to consider that aspect.
Conclusion: 44. The appeal is dismissed and the strike out order made by Aitken J confirmed. The second defendant is entitled to costs in the sum of $3,000.00 with reasonable disbursements. The costs award reflects that to a degree the second respondent brought the appeal upon himself through the failure to produce the crucial email evidence at first instance.
45. We draw attention to the Courts observation in the adjournment decision in the related proceeding. CA 16/15, at [37] to [39]. These observations show that there is a pressing need for the two proceedings to be rationalized and carefully case managed.
Honourable Robert Fisher
Honourable Justice Panckhurst
Honourable Justice Nelson
The General Manager of the Electric Power Corporation (E.P.C), Tologata Tile Tuimalealiifano, has defended the Corporations decision to purchase a new fleet of vehicles costing $1.7million tala.
Questions have been raised about the timing of the purchase, especially since the Corporation recently made 62 employees redundant as part of cost cutting measures.
But Tologata said the Corporation is moving on with its developments and the new vehicles are essential to improve its services.
Even with the redundancy, it doesnt mean that we dont need vehicles, he said. We still need vehicles to provide that service to the country.
The vehicles, all brand new Ford Rangers, were commissioned earlier this week. Ten customised vehicles cost the Corporation $1.2million while five standard vehicles cost $400,000.
Let me tell you a little bit of history about the E.P.C vehicles, the last time we purchased vehicles was in 2010 and for five years weve been using those vehicles, he said.
So the fleet is aging and we needed to get rid of the old vehicles because it was costing us more on the operation and maintenance side. We also needed to improve the quality of our services to the public.
The General Manager said the cost of the vehicles came from E.P.Cs budget.
During the launch, the Chairman of the E.P.C Board, Ulumalautea John Ryan, urged the employees to look after the assets like their own.
These are very expensive assets and everyone needs to look after these assets, he said. I also urge those who will be using these vehicles that these vehicles are not toys, they are not racing cars.
The only people that should be driving these vehicles are the ones who have been authorised to drive them and have valid licenses.
We are not giving you these vehicles for you to learn how to drive in it, and we have high hopes that these vehicles will still be in good condition in the next ten years.
Its a message strongly supported by the General Manager.
The management is very strict on the use of vehicles at the moment, he said.
We also use the feedback from the public and there are several employees who have been terminated from E.P.C due to the abuse of vehicles.
So we will be taking extra care of all these vehicles and we will make sure that only those who are authorised to drive these vehicles will touch them.
Tologata went on to say the 10 customised vehicles would be allocated among different divsions of the Corporation.
Four of these customised vehicles will be for Vaitele, two of them will be for Savaii, two for our generator section and the other two is for our Quality Service in Sogi.
Tologata acknowledged the support from the Ford Samoa in supplying the vehicles.
We hope to continue this partnership not only with the purchasing of these vehicles but also we have to look at the maintenance of the vehicles, he said.
We also encourage the public to call us and let us know about any incidents where the drivers or employees are abusing the vehicles.
If there is any time anywhere when you see any vehicle being abused by any staff member, please do not hesitate to call us and we will deal with them.
The former Director General of the Ministry of Health, Palanitina Tupuimatagi Toelupe, is back.
This time, she is the new Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Services (N.H.S).
The appointment has been endorsed by Cabinet. Mrs. Toelupe takes over from former General Manager, Leota Laki Sio who stepped down to contest the General Election.
Speaking to the Sunday Samoan, Mrs. Toelupe said she was grateful and is humbled to be chosen to lead the National Health Services.
Im delighted and extremely grateful but I know the role is not easy. It comes with lots of challenges, she said.
I was with the Ministry of Health for nine years and Im looking forward to contributing to the development of Samoa through this Service and making a difference.
Mrs. Toelupe said she was grateful to the government and the N.H.S Board for having faith in her ability to perform the role.
Mrs. Toelupe served as Director General of the Ministry of Health from February 2005 to February 2014.
Her appointment as C.E.O. of N.H.S. was officially announced on 4 May 2016 and she will start on Monday. Mrs. Toelupe has two sons and is a proud grandmother of three young boys.
Singapore -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/20/2016 -- One of the best moving services of Singapore, The Office Mover offers specialized house, office and commercial moving service at affordable rates. The movers of The Office Mover in Singapore are highly trained and efficient, they have years of residential and commercial moving experience, so they are well-aware of how to handle all the items in a proper manner to ensure maximum safety of all the items.
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He further added that one of the major benefits one gets by working with international movers like The Office Mover, is that they have ample knowledge and skills on how to undertake a successful moving process. With their movers, one can be assured that they will move without a lot of stress. The Office Mover's staff has all the knowledge required to help their client pack, move and unpack their items when they reach their new destination.
These days there are several moving companies available in Singapore that promise to protect all the items during the moving process. But, not only do they break their promise by damaging the items, but they do not even compensate for the damages as well.
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EgyptAir has retracted its earlier statement that the wreckage of EgyptAir Flight 804 has been found.
In an interview today with CNN, the airline's Vice President Ahmed Adel said: "We stand corrected on finding the wreckage because what we identified is not part of our plane. So the search and rescue is still going on."
Adel was referring to the debris found in the Mediterranean Sea that they though belonged to the airline's Airbus A320 that had 66 people on board. The plane disappeared on Thursday morning during a flight from Paris to Cairo.
The flight seemed to be going smoothly until the aircraft entered the Egyptian airspace. At 2:27 a.m., just before the plane was about to exit the Greek airspace, the pilot could no longer be reached, according to authorities in Cairo. The Hellenic Civil Aviation said in previous interviews that the radar contact was lost a few seconds after the aircraft passed the Egyptian airspace.
The said flight left Paris at 11:09 p.m. on Wednesday, and should have arrived in Cairo after 3 hours. Half of the passengers are Egyptian nationals.
In a statement published in The Guardian, the Los Angeles international airport police said it they now beefing up the airport's security measures after what happened. The incident has been linked earlier with terrorism attacks.
Adam Schiff of the US House Intelligence Committee said there the probable cause is still unknown, but terrorism could be one. He said if terrorism was the cause, it raises the issue of the increased vulnerability of aircrafts to such attacks.
The governments of the United States and France, along with other countries, have already offered help in order to speed up the investigation of the crash. Several governments have also expressed their condolences, while the families of the crew and passengers still deal with uncertainty.
Scientists have found evidence that tsunamis once swept across the surface of Mars northern plains, deluging an area as big as Nevada, California and Oregon. The researchers believe that two meteorites hit the Red Planet that triggered a pair of super tsunamis.
Science Daily reports that the findings were printed in Scientific Reports, a publication of the journal Nature on May 19, 2016. It was led by Alexis Rodriguez of the Planetary Science Institute, Alberto Fairen, Cornell visiting scientist in astronomy and principal investigator at the Center for Astrobiology, Madrid and 12 other scholars.
The researchers said that the massive tsunamis forever disfigured the Martian landscape. This resulted in an evidence of cold, salty oceans that are conducive in sustaining life. Fairen explained that about 3.4 billion years ago, a big meteorite impact triggered the first tsunami wave. This wave was comprised of liquid water. He further said that it created widespread backwash channels to transport the water back to the ocean.
Meanwhile, Rodriguez said that a witness on Mars would have seen a huge, red wall of water moving very, very fast. He added that it would be pretty surreal, according to USA Today.
The second tsunami was triggered by another impact of the huge meteorite, according to the scientists. Fairen further explained that the ocean level receded from its original shoreline to form a secondary shoreline because the climate had become significantly colder.
This second tsunami molded rounded lobe of ice. Fairen said that these lobes froze the lands as they reached their maximum extent and the ice never went back to the ocean. This implies that the ocean was at least partially frozen at that time.
He added that their study gives solid evidence for the existence of very cold oceans on early Mars. These icy lobes preserved their well-defined boundaries and their flow-related shapes.
Rodriguez said that they have identified some areas swamped by the tsunamis where the ponded water appears to have positioned lacustrine sediments, including evaporates. He concluded that as a follow-up investigation they plan to characterize these terrains and evaluate their potential for future robotic or human in-situ exploration.
The Congress has reportedly told the White House to provide a realistic funding profile to investigate Jupiter's Moon Europa further. Recently, a new study by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has detected that the icy moon may have an Earth like chemical balance that can sustain life.
NASA has been cautious of sending a mission to Jupiter, in spite of the planetary science community's wishes, because of the associated high cost that could be over the tune of $1 billion. In addition, the NASA budget under the Obama government doesn't give priority to planetary science, and the space organization prefers keeping most of its robotic solar system expedition to Mars. NASA feels that since Mars is easier to reach, it wants to explore the Red Planet further for future missions involving humans.
However, according to a report, Congress is keener about planetary science. In fact John Culberson, who is the House Appropriations subcommittee chairman with jurisdiction over NASA's budget, is enthusiastic about exploring Europa. Additionally, even when the space organization didn't ask for Europa funds, Culberson was directing money to the researchers at JPL. NASA had asked for only a sum of $45 million for Europa funding between the 2013 and 2016 fiscal years, however Congress allocated $395 million. Furthermore, the space agency requested $49.6 million for Europa funding in the fiscal year 2017, but this week Culberson's committee released a house House appropriations bill that proposes $260 million for mission development and planning.
The congressman would like to send a lander to Europa's surface as a part of the mission, which would subsequently allow researchers to better observe the oceans below. In fact if the lander touches base near a fissure, then the ocean can be sampled too. However, the main difficulty of such a mission would be delivering both a lander and an orbital spacecraft on a single rocket as it would be challenging. Therefore, as a part of the new House bill the mission to Europa will be divided into two phases, first sending an orbiter which will analyze the harsh radiation environment near the moon and relay the data back to earth. Following the in depth study and assessment of the information, the researchers will decide which place on Europa's surface would be the best for landing the lander and it will be sent two year later, as the second part of the mission,
"We have increased funding for planetary programs and made sure we are going to complete the incredibly important mission to Europa that the planetary decadal survey mapped out because of the very high likelihood that life will be discovered in those oceans," John Culberson said."This will be a transformative moment in the history of humanity and the country." NASA had not officially approved a lander in its documents about the Europa mission, and has maintained that the mission would take place somewhere in the 2020s. However, the House bill is more specific and has given the time frames as 2022 for the orbiter launch and 2024 for the lander launch. Senior official from JPL have confirmed those dates are achievable. In addition, the bill states that NASA's budget for fiscal year 2018 will include a five year funding profile to back the two launches.
The recent successful test of hypersonic technology reportedly implies that a flight from London to New York can be made in 35 minutes, and such an event is closer to reality than one could imagine. A collaboration between US-Australian military research teams saw a scramjet attached to a rocket booster being sent to an altitude of 278 kilometers at Mach 7.5, which means seven times the speed of sound, as part of the Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation Program (HIFiRE).
Mach 2.5 is approximately the speed limit for gas-turbine engines, and anything above this means the pressure and temperature of air entering the engine is much too high for the turbo machinery inside. A speed of Mach 5 and above needs a different kind of engine like a supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet whose engines have no moving parts. Travel turns hypersonic when the high temperature makes the air molecules unstable and they start losing electrons, consequently the air becomes an electrically charged field at these speeds. The air moves through a sequence of channels at supersonic speeds until it slows down to a point where the fuel is more easily injected and ignited, releasing energy and thrust. The air moves even faster at hypersonic speed which makes it tough to slow down to the speed of sound, making specialist fuel and technologies necessary, as can be seen in engines that include the Pulse Detonation Engine (PDE)
"It is a game-changing technology and could revolutionize global air travel, providing cost-effective access to space," said Alex Zelinsky Australia's chief scientist. The test was one of the 10 trials conducted for the hypersonic travel technology at Woomera in South Australia. As per researchers, hypersonic technology could reduce travelling times significantly. A 5571 kilometers trip from London to New York, for instance, would take only about 35 minutes.
According to a hypersonics expert from the University of Queensland, a scramjet is actually a supersonic combustion engine that uses the atmosphere's oxygen as fuel, implying that the technology makes it faster and lighter than fuel propelled rockets. Subsequently, the hypersonic technology also indicates that it can be a good substitute for reaching satellites into space.
Incidentally, the development work for scramjets has been going on for decades, and the first breakthrough was experienced in May 2013 when the a 240 seconds flight over the Pacific was successfully made by the US Air Force Research Laboratory's Boeing X-51A WaveRider. The recent test was used as a marker for measuring heat on the vehicle's exterior in hypersonic flight. The next scheduled test will take place in 2017 and will see the scramjet engine flying on its own, separate from the rocket booster. The project is estimated to be completed by 2018. The recent project involving US space agency NASA, German space organization DLR and aerospace giant Boeing is reportedly attempting to introduce a new supersonic commercial aircraft.
Apple has opened its renovated store in San Francisco that is expected to lure more gadget shoppers.
The San Francisco store is considered one of the most successful stores of Apple. The makeover aims to give shoppers a feel of its headquarters, according to report by USA Today.
The new design features mostly sliding glass doors. It also has an "open forum" area where visitors can learn things about the current offerings of Apple. It is also a space for collaboration and socialization among its customers and visitors.
The store also features an area that will serve as a space for training developers, entrepreneurs, and small- and medium-sized business clients, according to a report of CNBC. It also boasts of a space for artists performances, which will be open for 24 hours. It also comes with a "genius space" where customers will be attended with their product issues under a canopy of trees.
During the launch in San Francisco, Apple Executives showed a sneak peak of the flagship store that will later on be adapted by other stores worldwide.
Angela Ahrendts, senior vide president of retail and online operations of Apple, told USA Today that this revamp is the "next generation of Apple retail." She added: "We are not just evolving our store design, but its purpose and greater role in the community as we educated and entertain visitors and serve our network of local entrepreneurs."
USA Today mentioned in its report that analysts consider this as a great innovation in the retail industry and space, which encourages consumers to hang out as if they are in a coffee shop. There will be more interaction and not just simply buying items and services, the report added.
The late Steve Jobs and makeover wizard Ron Johnson were behind the original Apple store, and has then set standards in retail space approach and design.
President Barack Obama has urged the Congress to pass the Zika funding bill after reports revealed that 279 pregnant women in the United States have been infected by the virus.
Health officials have recently confirmed that several pregnant women based in the United States and US territories have been found to be positive for the dreaded Zika virus, Reuters stated in its report.
The situation has alarmed President Obama and he immediately sought for funding to respond to the spreading virus.
In an interview with USA Today, he said: "This is something that is solvable. This is not something we need to panic about. But this is something we have to take seriously."
Obama made the call for additional funds after his meeting with public safety advisers on Friday. He told reporters that scientists are still in the process of identifying the scopes and effects of Zika virus, which is said to mainly bring birth defects to babies and miscarriages among women.
The Senate pledged US$1.1 billion for Zika. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has voted to re-channel about $622.1 million from the Ebola virus program. Lawmakers have yet to decide on the actual funding in the fight against Zika virus. Obama has expressed, however, that he would veto the plan of the House of Representatives.
The total number of reported cases of Zika in the United States and US territories is 544. Pregnant women are closely monitored given the risks that come with the virus.
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials said they will issue reports on a regular basis, weekly if possible.
CDC's Dr. Margaret Honei said this means there is a need to cast "a broad net to make sure we are monitoring all pregnant women who may be at risk for poor outcomes associated with Zika.
This month marks the 50 years since the beginning of China's infamous Cultural Revolution -- a decade-long struggle that left more than 1.5 million people dead and millions more injured, displaced, imprisoned or starving.
Newly released government archives have uncovered new details on this dark period of China's history. In today's Seeker Daily dispatch, we look at the history and legacy of the movement.
Despite government rhetoric of the time, the Cultural Revolution was essentially a massive and lethal power play by Chairman Mao Zedong to shore up power in China, and the Communist world at large.
China's neighbor and rival, the Soviet Union, was undergoing massive change as new leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced his predecessor, Joseph Stalin. Fearing a similar fate for himself, Mao launched a radical campaign to jump-start China's economy.
Dubbed The Great Leap Forward, the initiative redistributed land among China's rural peasants and organized workers into communes. This massive shift in the social order was a complete failure and nearly destroyed the nation's economy.
RELATED: How China Is Reviving The Silk Road
Desperate to maintain control, Mao organized a conference in May of 1966 in which he proclaimed that dangerous bourgeois elements had infiltrated Chinese society and government. These elements, Mao insisted, could only be purged through violent class struggle.
Thus began a reign of terror that would last for more than a decade. Schools were shut down entirely, with students recruited into violent paramilitary units called Red Guards.
Cities and urban centers, considered the primary threat by Mao, were torn apart. Tens of thousands of "intellectuals" were forcibly relocated to rural work farms. Millions suffered arbitrary imprisonment, abuse, torture and rape. The Cultural Revolution didn't officially end until Mao's death in 1976.
For the most part, these atrocities were kept secret for decades, as China was almost entirely closed to Western observers. Only in recent years have historians been able to plumb government archives and reveal the extent of the horrors.
Modern-day China continues to deal with power struggles and human rights issues, but nothing on the scale of the Cultural Revolution.
-- By Glenn McDonald Learn More:
New Yorker: The Cost of the Cultural Revolution, Fifty Years Later
NPR: Newly Released Documents Detail Traumas of China's Cultural Revolution
New York Times: 50 Years of Communism in China
History: Cultural Revolution
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San Francisco Mayor Ed Lees decision to replace Police Chief Greg Suhr brings up the questions of whether he acted soon enough or, conversely, if he should have waited until he had enough information about Thursdays fatal police shooting.
Whatever the answer, analysts said the mayor politically had no choice. And Lee and his staff hope that by replacing Suhr, the media and the community will shift its focus from the fate of a beleaguered police chief to the reforms the mayor is seeking in the Police Department.
Politically, it was necessary, said John J. Pitney Jr., a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College. The experience of other cities strongly suggests that without a firing the political pressure would become daunting. The mayor also undoubtedly considered the possibility of civil unrest, and that creates enormous problems of its own.
Over the past five months, Lee has struggled to bridge a cultural and political gulf that began with the fatal police shooting of Mario Woods in December and grew after officers shot and killed Luis Gongora, a homeless man, in April.
Interviews with dozens of residents Friday in two very different neighborhoods the Bayview, a poor and largely African American district where tensions ran high after two fatal police shootings since December, and the Castro, the far-wealthier gay enclave with a smaller minority population underscore the competing narratives Lee faced as he struggled with whether or not to keep Suhr.
Liz Hafalia/The Chronicle
Its just too much killing
In the Bayview, everyone interviewed said relations with the police were at a nadir. Few people knew many details of the officer-involved shootings, including the one near the neighborhood Thursday that prompted Lee to replace Suhr, but the simple fact that they kept happening made it clear to them that a change was needed.
Its just too much killing, said Charles Thompson, 68. The people theyre killing dont got guns or nothing.
Its depressing, this whole situation, said Sally Taylor, 63, a retired health care worker who was born and raised in the Bayview. She had mixed feelings about Lees decision but said he didnt have a choice, because of the pressure.
Noah Berger/Special to The Chronicle
The sentiment in the Castro was markedly different. As in the Bayview, most people interviewed in the Castro knew few details about the shootings. But in contrast, the Castro residents said that made them unqualified to judge whether Lee should have fired Suhr.
And those residents who did know more said it only underscored the general lack of knowledge. Chris Mahon, who has lived in the Castro 27 years, said Lee should have waited to replace Suhr until more details emerged about Thursdays fatal police shooting near the Bayview of 29-year-old Jessica Williams, a black woman. Officers suspected she was driving a stolen car.
How do you know until the real story comes out? Mahon said. Was this woman threatening? Was she really driving a stolen car? The story is not out yet.
Lee acknowledged in his news conference Thursday that the facts are still emerging. But his rhetoric was more reflective of the sentiments of Bayview residents. These officer-involved shootings, justified or not, have forced our city to open its eyes to questions of when and how police use lethal force, Lee said.
James Taylor, director of the African American studies program at the University of San Francisco, said Lee made the right call to fire Suhr. But he said the fact that Lee didnt cut ties with him sooner cost him political capital among minority communities.
Its sort of like he has closed the gate after the horse has long gotten out. He cannot take credit for demonstrating leadership in this particular incident, Taylor said. In terms of his political credibility in San Francisco, it hurts Lee, and its going to take him a long time to recover.
Shooting a turning point
Lee stood by Suhr, whom he appointed in 2011, through the two controversial earlier police shootings within the past six months and revelations that several officers had exchanged racist and homophobic text messages.
As recently as last week, he held an hour-long news conference to express full confidence in Suhrs ability to make changes in department policy to lessen the chances of officers resorting to lethal force. Thursdays fatal shooting immediately changed the calculus. Six hours after the shooting, Lee was before the cameras to announce that he had asked for and received Suhrs resignation.
Lees decision to appoint Toney Chaplin as acting chief, however, did not win him any points with progressive supervisors. Supervisor David Campos criticized the mayor for not acting sooner.
It was the right thing to do, but I think its not enough, Campos said Thursday. Part of the reason that we are in the mess we have been in is because I believe the mayor has failed to act decisively on this issue before.
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Campos himself supported Suhr until last week he changed his position after a blue-ribbon panel of judges assembled by District Attorney George Gascon released a preliminary report concluding the SFPD engages in stop and frisk tactics and does a poor job tracking officers misconduct.
I am glad the mayor asked for the chiefs resignation, but I wish it was done a lot sooner, Supervisor Eric Mar said. Its terrible it had to follow another death of an African American. ... Hopefully, he works with those of us who have been calling for systemic changes.
Supervisor John Avalos agreed: It took a long time, I wish he had done it sooner, but thats only part of what has to get done. What has to get done is implementing the reforms that are needed and making sure the rank and file are living up to the reforms that are being made.
Supervisor Scott Wiener, who represents the Castro, is the only supervisor to say that he disagreed with Lees decision to replace Suhr.
The mayors office, meanwhile, insists it has been focusing on changing policies but no one is listening.
Lee has proposed $11.3 million in additional funding for violence prevention programs and crisis-response teams, $4.4 million for antibias training for police officers and new equipment to emphasize de-escalation, including stun guns, and $1.8 million sor the civilian Office of Citizen Complaints could add five investigators to look into suspected cases of police misconduct.
Lees credibility at stake
David Sklansky, a professor at Stanford Law School, said part of Lees logic in replacing Suhr was trying to change the narrative and perceptions around the shootings of unarmed suspects.
There is a good reason to think that the department needs a chief who can make progress on that issue and be seen by the community as making progress on the issue, Sklansky said. My guess is thats what the mayor was focusing on and its sensible that he was focusing on that.
Lees credibility on that issue will depend a lot on what happens next, Sklansky said.
Emily Green is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: egreen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: emilytgreen
When a San Francisco police sergeant shot and killed a woman who allegedly tried to flee in a stolen car, the incident was unusual for the cascade of events it prompted, including the dramatic ouster of the police chief.
But when it comes to police shootings in the city, the scenario was familiar. From 2000 through 2015, almost a quarter of those shootings involved suspects in moving or stopped vehicles, according to a Chronicle analysis of San Francisco police data.
The details of those cases vary, and none led to criminal charges against officers. But long before Thursdays shooting, many police leaders and watchdogs in San Francisco and across the country have sought to stop cops from firing on vehicles and drivers except in very limited circumstances, such as when a driver is also using a gun.
This is exactly the type of situation we are trying to prevent, Suzy Loftus, president of the city Police Commission, said about the fatal shooting near the Bayview neighborhood that killed Jessica Williams, 29.
In many of the San Francisco cases reviewed by The Chronicle, the officers who fired said they were in danger of being run over. In at least two cases, however, officers shot at someone driving away from them.
Thursdays shooting happened after Williams, apparently unarmed, fled police and crashed into a truck, officials said. The sergeant fired a single shot. Police said there was no immediate indication that Williams had been driving toward officers when she was shot.
Asked Friday if the shooting was justified, acting Police Chief Toney Chaplin, who took over the force after Greg Suhr resigned Thursday afternoon, said he could not comment because the investigation had just begun.
The U.S. Department of Justice advises police against shooting at moving cars, and a growing number of local law enforcement agencies, including the New York Police Department, have restricted the practice.
San Franciscos current policy states that firing at the driver of a moving vehicle is inherently dangerous to officers and the public, allowing it only if the officer or others are in grave danger.
Under the policy, the driver must be threatening to use another deadly weapon, like a gun, or be about to run down the officer, who has no way to retreat. Theres also an exception for shooting at drivers who have already committed violence and appear to be bent on committing more if not apprehended or killed.
According to experts on police tactics, shooting at a moving vehicle can worsen an already dangerous situation. For instance, if a suspect is struck by bullets and loses control of a vehicle, people nearby may be hurt or killed.
District Attorney George Gascon, who proposed limiting such shootings while police chief of San Francisco from 2009 to 2011, said a moving vehicle can become an unguided missile if the officer hits the driver.
That creates safety concerns for everyone, including the officers, Gascon said.
The district attorneys office, which does parallel investigations of all officer-involved shootings in the city, noted that its particularly difficult to examine police shootings involving moving vehicles because physical evidence is often sparse.
Since 2000, San Francisco police officers have been in 95 shootings, including 40 that were fatal. In most of the 23 cases that involved vehicles, officers said the vehicles were advancing on them.
Thursdays shooting occurred after a Bayview Station sergeant and another officer spotted a woman in a car they believed had been stolen, according to police. The state Department of Motor Vehicles said Friday that the car, a 1994 Honda sedan, was last registered in February 2015 in Colusa County.
Williams drove away after officers tried to talk to her, officials said, but crashed into a parked utility truck about 100 feet away. She continued to disobey police instructions, and the sergeant then fired one shot and killed her as she sat in the car, said police, who added that no weapon was found on Williams.
The sergeant has not been identified.
Geoffrey Alpert, a professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina who specializes in police use of force, said high adrenaline is a factor in many vehicle-involved police shootings that may include chases and suspects disobeying orders.
They use more force ... than they would normally, Alpert said. The reason is adrenaline and they are not thinking as clearly as they would in a normal situation.
In the wake of several other controversial police shootings in San Francisco, the Police Commission is reviewing its policy on officers firing into cars. The current proposal would more severely limit officers, saying simply that they should not shoot unless the operator or occupant poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the public or an officer by means other than the vehicle.
It is essential, Loftus said, that we continue to focus on reforming the way SFPD is trained to use force.
Joaquin Palomino, Cynthia Dizikes and Vivian Ho are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jpalomino@sfchronicle.com, cdizikes@sfchronicle.com, vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: JoaquinPalomino, @cdizikes, @VivianHo
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The woman who was shot and killed by a San Francisco police sergeant Thursday morning after she allegedly attempted to flee officers in a suspected stolen car was identified Friday by the medical examiner as Jessica Williams, 29.
Williams, who the medical examiner said was from the Bay Area, died at San Francisco General Hospital.
Police said there was no immediate indication that the woman was armed or had been driving the car toward officers when she was shot.
Williams was shot one time, and despite the on-scene officers attempt to resuscitate her, she died Thursday at San Francisco General Hospital, the officials said.
Williams family has been notified of her death, the medical examiner said.
Thursdays shooting was what many community members and city authorities called the last straw in excessive force from police, more specifically against people of color, igniting a chain of events that ended with Police Chief Greg Suhrs forced resignation later in the day.
Mayor Ed Lee, who for weeks had brushed off calls from critics of Suhr to fire him, asked for the chiefs resignation during a lengthy meeting with him Thursday afternoon. Lee announced at a City Hall news conference about 5 p.m. Thursday that Suhr had tendered his resignation.
The officers involved in Thursday mornings shooting, a Bayview station sergeant and another officer, have not been identified by police officials. They were working a special enforcement project that seeks to recover stolen vehicles.
The officers tried to apprehend Williams after spotting her in a parked, stolen car about 9:45 a.m. at Elmira Street near Interstate 280, Suhr told reporters Thursday at the scene. But a witness said she sped away, making it only 100 feet before crashing into a parked utility truck.
The white sedan Williams was driving became wedged beneath the truck, police said. Williams was trying to dislodge the vehicle, by shifting it forward and in reverse, and was not complying with police orders, Suhr said, when the sergeant fired one shot, striking her.
Police removed Wiliiams from the car and began cardiopulmonary resuscitation before paramedics arrived at the scene and took her to the hospital, Suhr said.
There was no immediate indication that she was armed, police at the scene said, but added that they planned to search the vehicle for weapons.
Police said the investigation into the shooting of Williams is still in its early stages.
Kevin Schultz is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kschultz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: KevinEdSchultz
Bookstore for Sale.
Thats the surprise wording that now greets visitors to the website of Point Reyes Books, the popular store that has been a mainstay of Marin Countys literary community since 1969.
Steve Costa and Kate Levinson, who own the store, posted a letter on their site Thursday. After months of deep discernment on how we want to write our next chapter, they wrote, weve concluded that the bookstore can no longer be at the center, and weve made the difficult decision to sell the business.
The couple bought the store 14 years ago. Costa, 69, was an Oakland community organizer and Levinson, 66, was a psychotherapist and writer.
Though we were retail novices, they wrote, in the stores early years, we quickly found that we loved selling books with all of our hearts. Eventually we realized we also wanted to create a special community living room within our extraordinary West Marin physical landscape. We have tried to weave Point Reyes Books into the fabric of everyday life here making connections between people, supporting local nonprofit organizations, being part of the downtown business network, and nurturing new ideas. We are very proud of what weve been able to accomplish.
The many authors who have attended events at the store include Isabel Allende, Rick Bass, Michael Pollan, Robert Reich, Gary Snyder, Cheryl Strayed and Terry Tempest Williams. Weve hosted more than 800 author readings and conversations grounded in community, spirit, story, and place, Costa and Levinson wrote. Weve raised more than $550,000 for local nonprofits at benefit events. Weve co-published the West Marin Review literary journal and presented six inspiring Geography of Hope literary conferences.
Point Reyes Books is a small bookstore (roughly 12,000 new and used volumes) in a small community (Point Reyes Stations population was 848 in 2010), but the store regularly fills up with locals and tourists visiting Point Reyes National Seashore.
In 2011, Costa introduced a Community Supported Bookselling program, inspired by community-supported agriculture programs that deliver regular shipments of produce from local farms. The program offers a 5 percent discount on purchases to members who deposit at least $150 against future purchases. Costa said the program has more than 300 members and that eight to 10 other independent bookstores have adopted the plan.
As for their future, Costa and Levinson wrote, While were not totally sure whats next for us, we do know we want to have more time to be in nature with family and friends, and we want to put our energies toward building a better future world for all, including our three grandchildren.
Reached by phone, Costa said having the store has also been insulating. Weve been in this cocoon, he said. The world comes to us, but we want to explore other parts of the world outside West Marin.
Costa added that he and his wife wont rush the sale of the store. He said hes not making the bookstore sale price public.
We really want to take this in a thoughtful way, he said. Weve had this store for 14 years, and its a child of sorts to us. We want to hand it off to someone who has some real integrity.
John McMurtrie is the book editor of The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: jmcmurtrie@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @McMurtrieSF
Republican Donald Trump enters the California primary in early June having effectively won the partys nomination for president, thanks in part to his disdain for China and free trade agreements.
While those positions naturally play well in the Rust Belt, they seem a bad fit for California, whose economy is hugely dependent on international trade, with Asia in particular. And yet even before his conservative rivals bowed out of the race, Trump was the clear favorite of California Republicans.
How can this be?
Like everything else about his campaign, Trump defies common wisdom because of his deft ability to mash together disparate, complex issues into potent populist stew. For example, Trump has previously lumped China with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the sweeping free trade deal between the United States and 11 nations that do not include China. In fact, the partnership is meant to counter Chinese influence, and the Chinese government isnt happy about it.
Not that nuance really matters in this vitriolic presidential campaign. Trumps slogan, Make America Great Again, suggests the United States is in decline. And based on his anti-China rhetoric, the worlds second-largest economy is largely to blame.
Of course China is the bogeyman, said Kevin Klowden, executive director of the Milken Institutes California Center.
And not without some merit. In hindsight, the United States allowed China into the World Trade Organization without securing enough mechanisms to make sure that the nation opened its economy to outside investors, Klowden said.
A recent survey of American companies by the U.S. China Business Council said Chinas economic reforms have been too slow.
American executives confidence in their prospects in China continues to moderate, reflecting uncertainty about the direction of Chinese policies, limited progress on economic reforms, increased competition, and slowing growth, the council report said.
However, the United States has also reaped gains from its relationship with China. Bilateral trade between the U.S. and China reached $54.9 billion last year and is rapidly growing, according to the International Monetary Fund. The countrys abundant supply of inexpensive labor has produced cheap goods for American consumers.
Everyone has benefited from this low-cost manufacturing, Klowden said.
At the same time, Chinas population has finally started to accumulate enough wealth to start buying things in the United States, especially in California.
From 2005 to 2015, Chinese foreign direct investment in the state has grown from $100 million to $9 billion, according to a report by the Milken Institute.
Chinese demand for California goods from agricultural products to computing equipment has risen amid a growing perception that California provides excellent opportunities for return on investment, the report said.
Beyond California, however, the uneven gains from international trade have made American workers anxious, creating an opening for Trumps broadsides against China specifically and free trade in general.
The most important component of our China policy is leadership and strength at the negotiating table, according to Trumps campaign website. We have been too afraid to protect and advance American interests and to challenge China to live up to its obligations.
Ironically, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump says he opposes, could provide America more leverage over China than any domestic tariff or penalty imposed by the World Trade Organization. President Obama has made the agreement, which covers 40 percent of the worlds economy, the centerpiece of his plan to pivot to Asia. Theres a reason the agreement includes Japan, Australia and Vietnam, and not China. (Congress has yet to ratify the agreement.)
We kept China informed about (the pact), but our goal is not to have as many countries in it as possible, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman told a Stanford symposium this year. Asia is watching very carefully to see whether we can deliver on our promises.
If the agreement is not ratified, he said, It will raise questions among our allies whether we have the wherewithal to rebalance (our focus) to Asia.
While Froman said that trade pact is not specifically designed to put pressure on China, he hopes the deal will push China into finally concluding a long-delayed investment treaty between the two countries that could smooth out trade tensions.
We have made quite good progress, but we still have a ways to go, Froman said.
Should a President Trump start a trade war with China, as many fear, the results would obviously be bad for California. Last year, California exported $14.4 billion of goods to China, more than amy other state.
China and the U.S. have a complicated relationship, said Zhang Weiwei, the director of the Center for China Development Model Research at Fudan University in Shanghai, a think tank that maintains close ties to top Chinese leaders. We have a lot of common interests, but there is mistrust and misperceptions on both sides.
We must take a long view, and really think hard about how China and the U.S. can develop their relationship. We must look beyond short-term issues and look at the larger picture.
Unfortunately, emotion, not patience, seems to drive Trumps appeal these days.
Thomas Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: tlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: ByTomLee
Dogs at work. Turkeys on planes. Pigs and rabbits in college dorms.
If it seems like animals are roaming new territory these days, they are.
As more people with physical and mental disabilities become aware of their rights, theyre attempting to bring service and emotional support animals wherever they go. But a confusing patchwork of federal and state laws governs where they must be allowed. Different definitions and rules apply to these animals in housing, employment, aircraft and public places.
Business and property owners who ask the wrong questions or unlawfully deny access to a support or service animal risk discrimination lawsuits. Unaware or confused about the rules, some employers, landlords, airlines and businesses will simply say yes to requests when they could say no or vice versa.
This is a really gray area, said Kevin Kish, director of Californias Department of Fair Employment and Housing. Its one of the toughest areas of antidiscrimination out there.
Heres a look at how some of these laws apply in different circumstances.
Fair Housing Act: The federal Fair Housing Act applies to virtually all public and private housing providers, including property owners, landlords and condo associations. It prohibits discrimination on the basis of various protected classes, including disability. The Department of Housing and Urban Development enforces the act.
The department requires housing providers to reasonably accommodate a person with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, unless doing so would create an undue financial or administrative burden on the providers or would fundamentally alter their service. HUD has a summary of its regulations at http://1.usa.gov/1NMUNoU.
In a nutshell, if a landlord has a no-pets policy, and a tenant or prospective tenant asks to have an assistance animal, the landlord can ask two questions: Does the tenant have a disability that substantially limits a major life activity, and does the animal provide assistance or emotional support for that disability?
If the answer to either is no, the landlord does not have to allow the animal. If the answer to both is yes, the landlord must allow the animal unless that animal would pose a threat to the safety of others or cause major damage to others property.
If the persons disability is not obvious, the landlord cant demand specifics, but can ask for proof of the disability and need for the animal, which could come from a physician, psychiatrist, social worker or other mental health professional. The landlord cant ask what the disability is or demand a diagnosis.
If there is a connection between the disability and the animal, they have to allow it, said Ken Carroll, center director of HUDS San Francisco Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.
The landlord cannot charge a deposit for an assistance animal. HUD makes no distinction between mental or physical disabilities or different types of animals. The animal doesnt have to be licensed or trained.
California housing: The California Fair Employment and Housing Act is substantially similar to our law, Carroll said.
Kishs department has never issued regulations interpreting the housing part of the California act. Late next month, however, it is expected to propose regulations that would address the use of assistance animals, including support animals, in housing.
This year the California Association of Realtors spearheaded an Assembly bill that would have clarified under what conditions landlords must accept emotional support animals. But the bill, AB2760, was pulled this month amid fierce opposition from animal and disability rights groups, who said it discriminated against people with mental illnesses and conflicted with federal law.
Carroll said that about 40 percent of the complaints HUD receives are about disability discrimination, most from tenants who say their landlord is failing to reasonably accommodate them.
ADA in public places: The Americans with Disabilities Act applies to employers, state and local governments and public places but not in exactly the same way.
The law narrowly defines service animals as any dog that is trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a physical or mental disability. Emotional support animals do not qualify as service animals under the ADA, the California Unruh Civil Rights Act nor the Disabled Persons Act, said Alden Parker, an attorney with Fisher & Phillips who represents employers.
State and local governments, businesses and nonprofits generally must allow service dogs to accompany people with disabilities in any part of a facility open to the public, unless doing so interferes with legitimate safety requirements, or the dog is out of control. A separate provision gives trained miniature horses the same general privileges. The act does not say what services the dog or horse must perform, which leaves a lot of leeway, Parker said.
If the persons disability is not obvious, a business owner can ask if the animal is required because of a disability, and what work or task it has been trained to perform. The owner cannot ask what the disability is or require any proof that the animal has been trained.
They essentially have to take the person at face value, Parker said. Unless the person trips up and says, This is a comfort pet, or This is just my dog, the business cant exclude them.
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Parker said he represented a grocery store where someone came in with a dog. The dog was licking the product, and its owner was told to leave. The dog owner sued, claiming it was a service animal. But the case was dismissed because the owner did not show the dog was trained at the time of the visit or was there for the purpose of training, Parker said. The case is on appeal in Los Angeles County.
In another case, a miniature horse named Princess came into a retail establishment but was excluded because the employee didnt know it was allowed. Like most of these cases, this one was resolved confidentially, Parker said.
ADA at work: In the workplace, its different. Employers have an obligation under federal and state law to accommodate mental as well as physical disabilities. Therefore, an emotional support animal of almost any type could be a reasonable accommodation, Parker said. However, the employer has more latitude to determine if it is legitimately a support or service animal.
Unless the need is obvious, the employer could ask for verification from a medical provider that the employee has a disability and the animal can help with that condition, said Ann Menasche, senior attorney with Disability Rights California. I dont think you have a right to go into detail (about the condition) unless there is a real good reason, she said.
Airplanes: Under the ADA, airports are considered public places. But on airplanes, the Air Carriers Access Act applies. It says airlines must allow people with physical disabilities to board with a service dog. If a passenger with a mental disability asks to bring a support animal, the airline must allow it if the person provides a note less than 1 year old from a professional verifying the disability and the need for the animal, Menasche said.
People who need a note from a mental health provider can find them online.
The Dogtor, a service from Newport Beach (Orange County), refers clients interested in qualifying for an emotional support animal to state-licensed mental health professionals, said George Lewis, the firms general manager.
You fill out an online assessment, he said. That gets electronically transmitted to a mental health professional who reviews it and follows up with you. If they approve you, they will write a letter from their office.
The company charges $149 for a letter good for one year on airplanes, $159 for a one-year housing letter or $199 for both. The fee covers the referral and evaluation, the letter and a system that airlines or landlords can access 24/7 to verify the letters. It does not cover ongoing mental health services.
Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: kathpender
California Attorney General Kamala Harris stands out in a crowded field as the clear choice for the U.S. Senate. She has the depth, demeanor and political savvy to provide the nations most populous state with an energetic and effective representative in what has been called the worlds greatest deliberative body.
From her start in politics, Harris has always been a model of preparation. She readily dives into the nuances of public policy, and leaves no fact behind in explaining the rationale behind her positions and decisions. The attorney general always has kept a sharp and pragmatic focus on the issues of crime prevention and corrections rehabilitation, civil rights, adoption of data and technology to inform public policy, and the plight of children and families.
You dont have to care about children to care about children, is among her refrains. She likes to point out that 82 percent of state inmates were high school dropouts, and that the failures that send children on the wrong track are costly in everything from public safety to the lost tax base.
There is no question from her history in public life that Harris would be a fully engaged and innovative senator. As a district attorney, her office pioneered the Back on Track program to reduce recidivism among parolees. As attorney general, her persistence added tens of billions to a settlement with the big banks over home foreclosure abuses.
The downside to her immersion in policy is that it sometimes leaves her reluctant or timid, as some might suggest to take a clearly defined stance.
Harris prefers to put a positive spin on her sometimes maddening tendency to dodge difficult questions: At the Chronicle-KCRA debate last month, she quoted others as observing her as fearless yes. Reckless no.
Her fearlessness can be decidedly selective. At that same debate, she dodged a direct question on whether President Obama has done everything possible to prevent another terrorist attack. She has steered clear of police shooting controversies, even as the clamor has built for her office to investigate. Her position on the legalization of recreational marijuana has evolved slower than public opinion. Her principled refusal to defend a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage patently unconstitutional stands in stark contrast to her propensity to hide behind her Im-just-defending-my-client absence of a publicly expressed views on high-profile cases involving rigid teacher seniority rules and the closure of the San Onofre nuclear power plant.
Yet there are worse traits in public life than an abundance of caution. U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Democrat from Orange County, can match Harris deftness at dodging questions she would prefer not to answer, but lacks the attorney generals skill at navigating around controversy.
Sanchez, who has been running second behind Harris in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., can be both fearless and reckless. Her shoot-from-the-hip style can lead to a trail of trouble and apologies, such as when she suggested a Republican opponent of Vietnamese descent was trying to take this seat from us or when she was caught on cell phone video tapping her hand over her mouth in imitation of an American Indian war cry.
Sanchez has refused to back down from a comment that between 5 and 20 percent of Muslims want a caliphate and to go after what they consider Western norms our way of life. She has been unable to provide any credible substantiation for that allegation.
She has suggested her 20 years in Congress including the Armed Services and Homeland Security committees as the main argument for Democrats to choose her over Harris. That point might carry more weight if Sanchez had more to show for her tenure in terms of legislation or leadership roles.
Two of the Republicans in the race, Duf Sundheim and Tom Del Beccaro, have served as state party chairs. With the party registration at 28 percent, either would need to make significant inroads with independents and, most likely, Democrats to have any shot at the Senate.
Sundheim is the more likely to carry that crossover appeal. He has a genial personal style and and agenda that is generally supportive of gun control, reproductive freedom, the states landmark efforts to combat climate change and immigration reform that would provide a path to legal status.
Im a reformer; Im not a party guy, he told our editorial board. The drawback to Sundheim is that some of his positions are not fully formed, such as what steps he would be willing to take to stabilize Social Security for future generations.
Del Beccaro also insists that he is not a typical Republican. But in many ways, his positions possess the blinders that typify GOP intransigence on big issues such as climate change (hes skeptical of the science), Social Security (he thinks revenue from his proposed flat tax would allow the economy to grow out of the problem) and filling the Supreme Court vacancy (wants a national discussion with the next president in charge of the appointment).
Republican Ron Unz entered the race late and with the stated motivation of defending his 1998 voter-passed curtailment of bilingual education against a November ballot measure to undo it.
Kamala Harris gets our endorsement in the June 7 primary.
June 7 primary:
How it works
In the U.S. Senate primary, Californians registered with any party or no party at all can vote for any of the 34 candidates. The top two finishers will appear on the general election ballot.
However, in the presidential contest, under party rules, only registered Republicans can vote in the Republican primary. The Democratic, Libertarian and American Independent Party allow voters who have registered with no party preference to participate in one of their presidential primaries.
The state agency that for the past 50 years has controlled changes along San Francisco Bay has voted to take assertive new steps not to stop the bay from being filled, but to prepare for sea-level rise.
The unanimous vote Thursday by the Bay Conservation and Development Commission calls for a regional plan on how best to respond to climate change that the National Research Council estimates could cause average tides to climb nearly 6 feet by 2100. There would also be a nine-county study of where todays shoreline and the people who live or work along it might be most vulnerable to more extreme conditions.
I would hope that by the end of 2017 we have a plan approved, or a draft plan that were prepared to adopt, said Zack Wasserman, who chairs the 27-member commission. The benefit of dealing with sea-level rise is that its a slow-moving emergency. But if we dont start now, we wont have time to map out long-term adaptation strategies.
Yet even as BCDC took its strongest action on the issue, individual members were reluctant to take steps that might conjure fears among cities and counties of a top-down power grab. And some recommendations that were approved such as a call to explore new institutional arrangements to cut through bureaucracy when sea-level rise is involved didnt include specific actions to make them happen.
Right now were not suggesting any steps to explore these new things, said San Mateo County Supervisor Dave Pine, reassuring more nervous commissioners with reference to governmental changes. Certainly, were interested in collaborating with different groups and working together more effectively.
The seven recommendations that the commission endorsed a second vote will come this summer after the final language is crafted by BCDC staff follow a trio of public workshops this year where the agency asked everyone from business groups and open-space advocates to other agencies how the Bay Area could adjust to the likelihood that a changing climate will reshape the body of water at the center of the nine-county region.
When a similar effort was made in 2011, resistance from business and local government thwarted major reforms. This time around, the different constituencies agreed on the reality of the threat even if putting aside some of the specific remedies that might spark conflict.
A big challenge is to find money to follow through on larger response strategies. Thats why the call for a regional adaptation plan emphasizes the need for finding innovative financing options that will help with fixing vulnerable spots, such as gaps in berms along low-lying roadways. The proposed nine-county study modeled on a recent BCDC initiative with Alameda County also calls for a financing plan, since it is anticipated to cost at least $5 million.
The other recommendations that were approved include:
Spelling out more clearly how and when to allow adaptation measures, which might involve such steps as deep levees that double as open space or future wetlands. By current definition such efforts would be defined as filled land the very threat to the bay that led to the BCDCs creation.
Creating a data center, or some other gathering place, for the different studies being done by scientific groups and local government.
Leading the effort for regional information campaigns on the implications and science of sea level rise, with an emphasis on programs geared toward schools and youth programs.
If you start by educating the kids, who educate their parents, then maybe we wont get pushback that has stalled adaptation efforts in the past, said commission member Marie Gilmore.
Shortly before midnight Thursday in Nashville, Jake Smolinski was heading to bed when his phone buzzed. It was As general manager David Forst telling him to pack his bags.
I didnt know the injury Josh (Reddick) had, Smolinski, 27, said, so it was a surprise.
By Friday afternoon, he was at his Coliseum locker preparing to start at right field. Smolinski, who was batting .248 at Triple-A with three home runs and 15 RBIs, is accustomed to this quick turnaround: He has ping-ponged between the minors and majors the past two years.
Last season, after Oakland picked him up off waivers from Texas, he hit .226 with five home runs and 20 RBIs in 41 games. When Reddick was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a fractured left thumb, manager Bob Melvin figured the right-handed Smolinski would be an ideal fit Friday against Yankees lefty C.C. Sabathia.
We really like Jake, Melvin said. When you get him some consistent at-bats, like anybody, he seems like he does a lot better. But he can be very impactful. When hes swinging the bat well, hes got power. He hits the ball to all fields.
Reddick, who is scheduled to meet Monday with a hand specialist, could miss 4-6 weeks. Melvin is open to playing Billy Burns more in right. But if Smolinski impresses, he could warrant an extended look. Smolinski went 3-for-4 with a home run in Nashvilles 6-5 win Thursday over Sacramento.
Im not trying to replace Josh, Smolinski said of Reddick, who was batting .322 with five home runs and 18 RBIs. Im just trying to come in and do the best I can do, take it one day at a time. Thats all I can do.
Injury updates: The As are still waiting for Dr. James Andrews, who performed the July 28 surgery on right-hander Henderson Alvarezs right shoulder, to review Alvarezs latest MRI. The As expect to have a more concrete timetable Monday for Alvarezs return. Right-hander Liam Hendriks (elbow) played catch Thursday before receiving a cortisone injection. He will have some time off before trying to play catch again Tuesday. Outfielder Sam Fuld, who underwent surgery Wednesday on his right shoulder, is heading to Florida to recover for the next couple weeks. First baseman Mark Canha will have his season-ending hip surgery Tuesday. Catcher Josh Phegley (knee) will play at least four rehab games with Nashville, three at catcher and one at designated hitter. Right-hander R.J. Alvarez (shoulder) threw 10 pitches off a mound and will toss a full bullpen session Sunday. The As hope Alvarez will face hitters the following week.
As lineup: LF Crisp, CF Burns, SS Semien, 3B Valencia, LF Davis, 1B Butler, C Vogt, RF Smolinski, DH McBride, 2B Ladendorf.
Yank e es lineup: CF Ellsbury, LF Gardner, DH Beltran, C McCann, 1B Teixeira, 2B Castro, RF Hicks, SS Gregorius, 3B Torreyes.
Connor Letourneau is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cletourneau@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: Con_Chron
A structure fire at a three-story apartment building Saturday morning in Antioch displaced 25 residents of six units and caused at least two individuals to be treated for smoke inhalation.
The blaze was reported at 7:15 a.m. on the 3100 block of Lone Tree Way and was under control 35 minutes later, according to Robert Marshall, a spokesman and fire marshal for Contra Costa County Fire Protection District, which fought the fire along with the neighboring East Contra Costa Fire Protection District.
On his first full day as San Franciscos acting police chief, Toney Chaplin vowed to launch a top-to-bottom review of the department and to push forward with use-of-force reforms started by his predecessor, Greg Suhr, who resigned a day earlier after an officer shot and killed a woman.
Reforms, reforms, reforms, Chaplin said of his priority moving forward.
You know, the mission has to go on, the department has to move forward, and thats what Im going to do, he said at a news conference at the Ping Yuen housing development in Chinatown. Im going to steer the ship in the direction that we already started in.
Mayor Ed Lee named the 26-year Police Department veteran acting chief on Thursday, just hours after a police sergeant shot and killed 29-year-old Jessica Williams on Elmira Street near Interstate 280. Officials said she was driving a suspected stolen car and crashed while trying to flee police.
The 9:45 a.m. shooting remained under investigation Friday, and Chaplin had little new information to divulge to the public. He said the names of the two officers involved will be released next week and that he also plans to share details of the case with the community.
Acting chiefs ascent
Police have said there was no immediate indication that Williams was armed or had been driving the car toward officers when she was shot.
Asked whether the actions of the officers who shot Williams were justified, Chaplin said, I dont give justifications. I dont think we ever have until we have all the facts sitting in front of us, and I dont have that yet.
He said the shooting that elevated him to acting chief and Suhrs resignation were bookends of one of the most difficult days of my career.
It was hard because a young lady lost her life, some officers lives have been turned upside down as a result of that, and I watched a person who had dedicated over three decades of their life finally have to call it a career, Chaplin said.
Chaplin, 47, said he was surprised by Suhrs resignation, saying he received no warning. He declined to say whether it was the right decision for the mayor to ask for Suhrs resignation, following the third fatal police shooting in San Francisco in the past six months.
But Chaplin said he is the right person for the job, given his experience working with the minority communities where the shootings have occurred. In recent months hes been leading the departments efforts to implement reforms.
I know Im here with his (Suhrs) blessing. Im here with the blessing of the mayor, who saw enough in me to appoint me to this position. So I can tell you now, Im going to push these reforms forward. I think were on the right course, and were going to get to that finish line with these reforms.
National search
Lee said the city will conduct a national search for a new police chief. Chaplin, who was Suhrs deputy chief, said he hasnt thought about taking over the position permanently.
Im not looking that far down the road, he said. There is too much work that needs to be done right now, and Im not concerned about Toney Chaplin the individual. Right now Im looking at getting the department back on track so that we can do the work we need to do and stop things like were here for today from happening.
He said he wants to conduct an organizational assessment and develop an immediate strategic plan for the department. He said he will meet with Lee to inform him of the plan and then with the media to make the plan public in the near future.
Im going to do a top-to-bottom assessment of everything we do, and its going to be part of my review of the department, Chaplin said. That assessment will tell me if there are any changes we need to make immediately.
Cameras, policy changes
The rollout of body cameras and a reworking of the existing use-of-force policy were, Chaplin said, his most immediate two priorities.
He said body cameras would bring an extra set of eyes to incidents such as Thursdays officer-involved shooting. He said reworking the existing use-of-force policy would help prevent such incidents in the first place and called the action one of the biggest changes in the San Francisco Police Department in 30 years.
The acting police chief made his remarks in a small room at the Ping Yuen housing development in Chinatown, where police officers were investigating an April sexual assault on an elderly woman who lives there.
Kevin Schultz is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kschultz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: KevinEdSchultz
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As a housemaid in San Francisco more than a decade ago, Luz Sampedro made $10 for a full days work.
She was homeless, a single mother in her 30s raising a child, and living in the United States without documentation. Speaking up for fair pay didnt cross her mind.
Today, at age 45, Sampedro speaks up quite often. She is an advocate for domestic workers and an active member of Mujeres Unidas y Activas (Women United and Active), a community organization helping immigrant women and fighting for fair wages and human rights. She and the group are supporting a bill in the Legislature to ensure that Californias estimated 300,000 domestic workers receive overtime pay for extra work hours. The bill recently passed the state Senate and now awaits a vote in the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee.
California already has a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights to ensure overtime pay, but that law has a sunset provision and will expire next year. Now, domestic workers organizations are campaigning for the approval of SB1015, which would make the Bill of Rights permanent.
But there is a lot of work left to do, advocates for workers say. Many domestic workers and their employers are still unaware that overtime pay applies after a workers eighth or ninth hour of work in a day.
Many of the workers and employers dont even know the law exists, said Sylvia Lopez, a coordinator of Mujeres Unidas y Activas.
Fears of speaking out
Nannies, housekeepers, cooks, child care workers, personal assistants and caregivers working in private homes are entitled to the $10 minimum wage under state law, but a recent survey by Mujeres Unidas y Activas found that some domestic workers were being paid as little as $15 for an eight-hour shift.
We found many cases of domestic workers that, due to their legal status, were afraid of demanding fair wages because they needed the job and because they feared being fired, Lopez said.
Hina Shah, director of the Womens Employment Rights Clinic, a nonprofit organization that gives legal support to domestic workers, said workers should not fear denouncing abuses because they are protected from employer retaliation under the Trust Act, a bill signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2013.
Shah said that employers who threaten workers with calling immigration because of their legal status are subject to serious penalties, including losing their business license and fines of up to $10,000.
Still, the Bill of Rights has helped many workers gain fair pay and dignity, said Lindsay Imai Hong, leader of Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employers Network, a national network of employers of domestic workers.
According to the California Department of Industrial Relations, from July 1, when the Bill of Rights took effect, until April, 281 domestic workers wage complaints were either settled, resolved or closed because of plaintiffs lack of following up through the process.
Respecting workers
In the Bay Area, 570 households that employ domestic workers have pledged to pay them fair wages, Hong said. Statewide, 14,500 employers have also made this pledge, she said.
Sampedro said good compensation shows respect to the workers.
We have achieved to get many employers to respect our work, she said. Now many of them pay us 20 or 25 dollars (hourly). That is possible because we know our work is worth it, and we do it with professionalism.
But several home care companies argue that the Bill of Rights has hurt their business and ability to provide affordable services to their clients.
Opponents to making the Bill of Rights permanent include the California Association for Health Services at Home, an organization that represents more than 500 home health and home care agencies, and companies Care to Stay Home and Comfort Keepers.
Braden Oparowski, director of policy, advocacy and public affairs at the Association for Health Services, said the Bill of Rights has affected clients access to in-home caregivers becauseof a rise in costs caused in part by the bills overtime pay requirement.
The bill has disturbed continuity of care for the individuals that needed it most and severely limited scheduling flexibility for the workers, he said. Overtime pay is bringing up the cost of care for 24-hour care by hundreds of dollars a day.
Katie Joaquin, director of the California Domestic Workers Coalition, campaigned for the Bill of Rights and said the law needs to be extended so that employers and agencies will not just be able to see it pass by, come and go, but that is permanently in place.
Poor and unfinished law
When domestic workers initially asked for protections, they had a list of about 30 demands, including the guarantee of at least eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. But in the end, the Bill of Rights included only the right to overtime pay.
Maria Reyes, an organizer of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, called it a very poor and unfinished law.
Despite the advances made by the current law, there is still much to do, said state Sen. Connie Leyva, D-Chino (San Bernardino County), who introduced SB1015 to make the Bill of Rights permanent.
Leyva said SB1015 is the first step toward obtaining permanent protections for documented and undocumented domestic workers.
This article has been corrected since it appeared in print editions.
Marcos Martinez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mmartinez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: marcosmchacon
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A three-alarm fire tore through commercial structures in Oakland early Saturday, lighting up the night sky at MacArthur Boulevard and 73rd Avenue as more than 60 firefighters worked to subdue the blaze.
Crews responded to the fire about 1 a.m. and brought it under control at 6:40 a.m., according to Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Reed. The blaze destroyed three side-by-side structures that housed about a dozen stores, including MetroPCS, a tax business and a thrift store run by a church across the street, she said.
A San Francisco police officer, whose testimony last week about a search and arrest in December was undermined by video evidence, had been reprimanded by Chief Greg Suhr in October for wrongfully arresting a woman after refusing to provide her with a Spanish-speaking interpreter.
A lawyer for the Spanish-speaking woman said Officer Nicholas M. Buckleys behavior in both cases illustrated the chiefs failure to impose adequate discipline for police misconduct. Mayor Ed Lee forced Suhr to resign Thursday after the latest of three fatal shootings by his officers over the past several months.
Buckley testified in federal court May 12 about an incident in which he and other officers saw a man named Brandon Simpson walking quickly away from them, his hands tucked into his waistband, after police broke up an illegal dice game on a Tenderloin street corner Dec. 1. Buckley grabbed Simpson, wrestled him to the ground with the help of other officers, and arrested him for being a felon in possession of a handgun that had fallen to the ground.
But Simpsons lawyers presented a hotel surveillance video they had obtained showing their client walking slowly toward the officers, his hands at his sides, before he was tackled. The video prompted federal prosecutors to dismiss the charges, and led to a warning from U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer that courts must not allow a conviction based on perjured testimony.
Breyer ordered prosecutors to forward the video to Suhr. The Police Department has declined to comment on the case, and federal prosecutors have not said whether they plan to seek perjury charges against Buckley.
Five weeks before Simpsons arrest, Suhr had issued a written reprimand to Buckley in connection with another incident, the interrogation and arrest of Dora Mejia in her Mission District apartment in May 2014. The Police Department has two officers named Nicholas Buckley, but a badge number provided by the city attorneys office confirmed that the same officer was involved in both incidents.
In a lawsuit against the city, Mejia said her ex-partner had sexually assaulted her and then had called police and falsely accused her of attacking him. But when officers arrived, she said, they refused to provide her with a Spanish-language interpreter, told her to communicate in English the best she could, and showed no interest when she haltingly tried to describe the assault and past abuses.
When her ex-partner returned to the apartment, she said, police provided him with an interpreter by phone, listened to his account and then arrested her, leaving her three children with him. She was released from jail on bond in the early-morning hours, was not charged with a crime and has sued Suhr and the Police Department for damages.
In a report in September, the citys Office of Citizen Complaints found that the officers had arrested Mejia without cause and had also violated department policies requiring them to provide interpretive services that are needed by people they question. Police records show that Suhr reprimanded Buckley for neglect of duty and ordered him to undergo additional training.
San Francisco Police Commission guidelines for officer misconduct recommend that officers who arrest someone without probable cause should be fined, suspended or fired. Mejias lawyer, Angela Chan of Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus, said Thursday that Suhr should have suspended Buckley for his actions in Mejias case.
Hes not disciplining an officer for wrongful conduct, and this officer goes on to commit more wrongful conduct, Chan said.
Sgt. Michael Andraychak, a Police Department spokesman, said Suhr took appropriate action in the case.
Snow and ice in the Sierra set off road closures in both directions of Interstate 80 in Placer County Friday afternoon as officials said cars lost control and started spinning out on the slippery road.
The California Department of Transportation issued an advisory at 4:20 p.m. asking motorists in the area one mile east of Baxter to use alternate routes due to hazardous weather conditions.
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Bay Area tech companies believe they have a Millennial communication problem, and they're willing to go to great lengths to solve it.
In a recent report, the Wall Street Journal names a handful of large corporations several of which are in the Bay Area as organizations that employ what they are calling "Millennial experts" to help them better understand the goals and motivations of young workers born in the '80s and '90s, which now make up the largest age group of people currently in the workforce.
HANOVER, N.H. Computers are pretty good at stocking shelves and operating cars, but are not so great at writing poetry.
Scientists in a Dartmouth College competition reached that conclusion after designing artificial intelligence algorithms that could produce sonnets. Judges compared the results with poems written by humans to see if they could tell the difference.
In every instance, the judges were able to find the sonnet produced by a computer program.
The yearlong competition was a variation of the Turing Test, named for British computer scientist Alan Turing, who in 1950 proposed an experiment to determine whether computers could have humanlike intelligence. Results were announced last week.
A three-judge panel that included Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Menand was asked to read 10 submissions six produced by humans and four by two different algorithms. The machines were given nouns including wave, tourist and floor and programmed to produce a sonnet. The software packages didnt have the flow or narrative of a good poem.
Some also had idiosyncrasies of syntax and diction, uses of language that were just a little off, Menand said in an email interview.
Competition co-founder Dan Rockmore, a Dartmouth professor, said he was surprised at the computers poor showing. But he wasnt that surprised.
The judges were hunting for machines, so they are not looking at a Hallmark card and reading the poem inside, he added.
The results of the competition also included a short story segment and one involving computer and human DJs. Computer algorithms were not much better at writing short stories, failing to fool a panel of judges although one judge was tricked by one story.
The sets of music produced by DJs played behind a black curtain at Dartmouths Hood Museum of Art were more of a challenge, with dancers having a difficult time determining who produced the various sets. Two algorithm entries managed to confound about 40 percent of the dancers.
There have been several efforts to create computer programs that can generate music or text, including a novel this year in Japan written by humans and an artificial intelligence program. The Associated Press, for example, is using computer programs to automatically generate business earnings reports.
Michael Casey, a professor who also helped organize the Dartmouth competition, said the results demonstrated the challenges posed to machines when they try to mimic the arts though he wasnt giving up that one day a computerized Shakespeare would emerge.
All the nuance of a story, all the form and precision in a poem, can that be replicated by algorithm? Maybe, Casey said. By doing this once, we may be able to encourage whoever is out there working on this kind of thing to take part and maybe we will get better algorithms.
However, Sherry Turkle, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, who did not take part in the contest, questions the whole idea of trying to get a machine to write a poem.
Poetry needs to come from the experience of human meaning. That is what gives it life, she said in an email.
Rockmore and Casey countered that algorithms already are playing a role in choosing the books people read and the music they listen to. It would be just a matter of time before computers generate the actual content that is read but rather than a writer, the artist would be the programmer designing the algorithm.
What if you could write beautiful stories that made people happy at the snap of your fingers, Rockmore said. That would be a wonderful thing. It wouldnt mean humans werent writing great things, too. They are both different art forms.
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Good news for Ford fans: One of the automaker's most popular trucks could be returning to its lineup by the end of the decade.
Multiple auto blogs are reporting that the Ford Ranger is coming back. According to Car And Driver, the truck could be on dealer lots around the country by 2019.
A Ford representative said that the company does not comment on future products.
According to Ford's official site, the first model year for the Ranger was 1983 with a second-generation model introduced in 1993. It ended its 29-year run in 2012. The popular vehicle has continued on in international markets in various forms.
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It was initially brought into production to go up against the small trucks being manufactured by Japanese auto makers.
RELATED: Check out the 50 hottest cars of the past 100 years
Most auto blogs have said that Ford missed a golden opportunity around that time to keep some of the truck customers that GM and Toyota snagged with the Colorado, Canyon, and the Tacoma. Heck, even the Nissan Frontier has made inroads into that niche market.
"Car And Driver" also reports that the base price for the new Ranger will be around $25,000, making it competitive with those other truck models.
As has been previously reported, Ford will also bring back a newly revamped Bronco SUV by the beginning of the next decade. Broncos were discontinued in 1996 but have remained a cult favorite.
Once the Bronco arrives it just might prove to be competition for the best-selling Jeep Wrangler.
Police arrested and booked seven people who they believe were involved in a Rohnert Park home-invasion robbery late Friday night.
Two men with sweatshirts pulled over their faces broke through a sliding glass door to enter a home on the 7400 to 7600 block of Adrian Drive. As the thieves looted the house and made their way to a bedroom, a woman woke up to one of the robbers threatening her with a gun.
The woman was roused out of bed, and ordered to grab her purse. Later, she was told to go back to the bedroom, while the thieves continued to ransack the home. After the robbers were gone, the victim went to a neighbors house to call for help, with officers responding at around 11:44 p.m.
The officers found five of the suspects in two different ways. Cotati police , assisting Rohnert Park officers, received a call that men matching the descriptions given by the robbery victim were at East Sierra Avenue around the intersection of Chadwick Way in Cotati. There they found a Chevy van with items taken during the robbery inside, including the victims television, laptop and jewelry.
Police arrested the five people inside the van: 19-year-old Anissa Rose Roman, 20-year-old Robert Carlos Martinez, 20-year-old Jose Edgar Bautista, 18-year-old Esmeralda Bejar, all of Santa Rosa, and 18-year-old Maria Fernanda Herrera of Rohnert Park. Officers at the original robbery scene had also used an app on the victims iPhone to locate the device, also leading them to East Sierra Avenue.
Police searching the surrounding area spotted a bag and clothing next to an open gate on Chadwick Way in Cotati. Then, police began a search that involved Cotatis canine, Remo, a German shepherd and Belgian Malinois mix. Remo barked to alert police that there was something suspicious underneath a deck. Police found and arrested 18-year-old Alex Cardenas and 19-year-old Hector David Carranza-Pineda, both from Santa Rosa, who were hiding in that space. Police said they also found a BB handgun that had a fake light and silencer, which Cardenas had at his side.
All seven suspects were brought to Sonoma County Jail and booked on suspicion of robbery, kidnapping and conspiracy to commit a crime. Bail was set at $225,000 per individual suspect, said Rohnert Park police sergeant David Sutter.
Sutter said as of Saturday night, it did not appear that the suspects had been involved with robberies or similar crimes in the past and the victims house seemed to be chosen at random. He said the victim did not know any of the suspects before the robbery and that this home invasion was not part of a trend.
Wendy Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: wlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: thewendylee
People have been predicting the end of the world forever.
So far they have done so with a 100 percent inaccuracy rate.
WESTERVILLE, Ohio For Donald Trump to win the White House in November, hell need the votes of women like lifelong Republican Wendy Emery.
Yet the 52-year-old from the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, is struggling with the idea of voting for her partys presumptive presidential nominee.
Im just disappointed, really disappointed, she said while standing in her arts and crafts shop. She and her circle of friends are still in shock over Trumps success and wonder who is voting for him, because we dont know any of them.
Emerys negative impression was shared by most of the dozens of white, suburban women interviewed by the Associated Press this spring in politically important states. Their views are reflected in opinion polls, including a recent AP-GfK survey that found 70 percent of women have unfavorable opinions of Trump.
More for you Bernie Sanders attends downtown SF union rally
Democrat Hillary Clintons campaign sees that staggering figure as a tantalizing general election opening.
While white voters continue to abandon the Democratic Party, small gains with white women could help put likely nominee Clinton over the top if the November election is close. Democrats believe these women could open up opportunities for Clinton in North Carolina, where President Obama lost the state narrowly in 2012, and in Georgia, a Republican stronghold that Democrats hope to make competitive.
Patty Funderburg of Charlotte, N.C., voted for Republican nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, but says Trump wont get her vote. Hes not who Id want to represent our country, said the 54-year-old mother of three.
Trump insists hes going to do great with women. Hes accused Clinton of playing the womans card in her bid to become the first female commander in chief. Hes said he will link her aggressively to past indiscretions with women by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
Women want, above all else, they want security ... a strong military, they want to have strong borders, Trump told the AP recently.
Throughout the primary, Clinton has talked about policies important to many women: equal pay, expanded child care, paid family and medical leave, and more.
A super political action committee backing Clinton also released its first television advertisements last week featuring controversial statements Trump has made about women. Does Donald Trump really speak for you? the ad asks.
For many women, the answer appears to be no.
Hes just a jerk, said Elizabeth Andrus, a registered Republican in Delaware, Ohio.
Even some reluctant Trump supporters say they want him to dial it back and engage more seriously. Its time we get past all this showmanship and hear from him what he actually wants to do, said Renee Herman of Sunbury, Ohio.
Trumps best opening is that Clinton would also enter a general election campaign with the majority of Americans taking a dim view of her candidacy. Fifty-five percent of Americans have a negative view of Clinton, including 53 percent of women.
ST. LOUIS Jury selection started Friday in the murder-for-hire trial of Drew Peterson, the former suburban Chicago police officer accused of plotting to kill the prosecutor who put him behind bars in his third wifes death.
Peterson, 62, is serving a 38-year sentence at the maximum-security Menard Correctional Center in Illinois. Opening arguments are scheduled to start Monday, with the trial anticipated to last at least one week.
The Illinois Attorney Generals Office and the Randolph County states attorney are prosecuting the case against Peterson, who faces a sentence of up to 60 years if convicted of both solicitation of murder for hire along with solicitation of murder.
Peterson has pleaded not guilty to allegations that he enlisted another inmate between September 2013 and December 2014 to help plan the death of Will County States Attorney James Glasgow, who is among the states likely witnesses. Glasgow has previously declined to discuss the alleged threats.
The crux of the states case is expected to consist of wiretapped conversations between Peterson and a confidential informant. Prosecutors have not identified a prospective hit man.
A public defender representing Peterson unsuccessfully sought to bar the secretly recorded conversations, arguing that the Will County judge who authorized the wiretap improperly met with the jailed informant.
Even as he faces additional time in prison, Peterson is appealing his 2012 murder conviction to the Illinois Supreme Court.
A state appeals court ruled in November that evidence against Peterson was sufficient to show he killed Kathleen Savio, whose body was found in the bathtub of her suburban Chicago home in 2004.
Glasgow reopened the investigation into Savios death after the 2007 disappearance of Stacy Peterson, the ex-Bolingbrook sergeants 23-year-old fourth wife. Peterson, who remains a suspect in that case, has maintained his innocence. His defense attorneys previously contended that Stacy Peterson had left for another man and was alive. Peterson divorced Savio a year before her death.
1 Solar plane: A solar-powered airplane that landed in Tulsa, Okla., last week was headed to Ohio on Saturday on the latest leg of its around-the-world journey. The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 took off from Tulsa before 5 a.m. with a destination of Dayton International Airport. The flight was expected to take about 18 hours. On previous legs, the aircraft departed from Moffett Field in Mountain View on May 2 and landed in Phoenix 16 hours later. From there, it took off May 13 for the trip to Tulsa. The globe-circling voyage began in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
2 Power struggle: Lawyers for ailing media mogul Sumner Redstone are seeking to remove two members of the board of the trust that will eventually control his media empire, which includes CBS Corp. and Viacom Inc. Viacom Chief executive Philippe Dauman and George Abrams, a member of Viacoms board, were informed that they had been removed from the trust that will control Redstones companies after he dies or is declared incompetent. But Viacom, based in New York City, released a statement Saturday attacking the actions as inconsistent with Redstones wishes and contended they were being driven by Redstones daughter, Shari Redstone. It is clear that Shari Redstone has isolated her father and put his residence on lockdown, which provides clear evidence of her exercise of undue influence, the Viacom statement said.
Photo: VNA
The statement was issued following Chinas ban on all fishing activities in the sea from 12 degrees north latitude to the border of the waters of Chinas Fujian province and Guangdong province, including the Gulf of Tonkin and Scarborough Shoal.
The unilateral ban impacted the fishing activities of Vietnamese fishermen in their traditional fishing grounds and violated Vietnams sovereignty over the Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago.
The VFTU protested and dismissed the illegal ban, declaring it invalid for Vietnamese fishermen.
It urged fishermen to continue fishing and support each other at sea, asking them to remain calm and avoid conflicts to mitigate rising tensions in Vietnamese waters.
On May 17th, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Le Hai Binh has voiced the countrys opposition to Chinas fishing suspension in the sea areas, including Hoang Sa archipelago, under Vietnams sovereignty in the East Sea.
He added that Vietnam has sufficient legal foundations and historical evidence testifying to its sovereignty over Hoang Sa archipelago, as well as its legitimate rights over its sea areas, which are specified in line with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
That action by China has seriously violated Vietnams sovereignty over Hoang Sa archipelago, infringed Vietnams legitimate rights and interests in its sea areas, and run counter to the spirit and wording of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea, Binh emphasised./.
Photo: VNA
The annual consultation was chaired by Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son and the State Secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tone Skogen.
They informed each other about their respective countrys situation and discussed measures for enhancing bilateral relations as well as regional and international matters of shared concern.
The Norwegian side said it is impressed with Vietnams socio-economic development and increasing role in Southeast Asia, adding that Norway attaches importance to strengthening the friendship and effective cooperation with Vietnam.
The officials rejoiced at the progress in the two countries amity and multi-faceted partnership while agreeing to hold more all-level delegation exchanges, especially between senior officials.
Both sides will press on with implementing the agreements reached during the official visit to Vietnam by Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg in April 2015, particularly bolstering collaboration in marine economic activities such as shipbuilding, fishing and aquaculture, along with energy, oil and gas, green technology and information technology.
They concurred in continuing close coordination to promote negotiations on a free trade agreement between Vietnam and the European Free Trade Association, so as to boost bilateral trade and investment activities.
At the consultation, Vietnam acknowledged Norways ODA provision over the past years, stressing that the ODA has been used effectively and has greatly contributed to Vietnams socio-economic development and international integration.
Norway is ready to continue helping Vietnam build and implement action plans to realise the Sustainable Development Goals, including climate change response, forest protection and natural resources management, Tone Skogen said.
The two sides were unanimous to work for stronger cooperation in education, culture and tourism through scholarship granting, manpower training and cultural exchanges.
They also mulled over ways to tighten affiliation at multilateral forums and international organisations, including the United Nations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia - Europe Meeting (ASEM)./.
Inmates infected with valley fever at a federal prison in Central California can sue the government for damages even though the prison is run by a private contractor, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
Although the U.S. Bureau of Prisons is not involved in day-to-day operations at Taft Correctional Institution in Kern County, the bureau can be held responsible for placing the inmates there without warning them about an ongoing outbreak of the airborne illness, said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. A warning might have allowed them to request a transfer or take precautions, the court said.
Prisoners are often helpless to protect themselves from harm, and were particularly vulnerable to infection at the Taft prison, in an area with one of the highest known concentrations of the fungus that causes cocci, or valley fever, the court said. It said the Bureau of Prisons might also be legally responsible for failing to build a covered walkway that would have protected inmates from fungus-infected dust, and for the absence of a prison policy to prevent spread of the disease.
The ruling reinstated a suit by inmates Gregory Edison, diagnosed with valley fever in 2010, and Richard Nuwintore, diagnosed in 2011. As African Americans, they are particularly vulnerable to the disease, and contracted a potentially life-threatening form of it, the court said.
Edison is due to be released from prison this year, and Nuwintore has completed his sentence and returned to his home in the Bay Area, said Ian Wallach, an attorney for the men. He said both are still infected and depend on medication to stay alive.
The government agreed to take care of these people in exchange for their liberty, Wallach said. Although both men also sued the contractors who run the prison, Wallach said, the government is responsible for their assignment to the prison and the lack of a prevention policy.
Taft is the only federal prison managed by contractors, the court said. It was run by the GEO Group through 2007, and since then by Management & Training Corp.
Valley fever at the prison reached epidemic levels in 2003, continued to increase, and was diagnosed more often at Taft than at all other federal prisons combined, according to a wardens statement quoted by the court. A federal judge dismissed the two inmates suits against the government, saying the contractors were solely responsible under federal law. The appeals court disagreed.
The contractors have no power to assign prisoners or to protect any prisoners housed outside of Taft, Judge A. Wallace Tashima said in the 3-0 ruling. Cocci is a classic example of a hidden danger, and the United States had a duty to warn (incoming inmates) about it.
Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: egelko
DAKAR, Senegal The Zika virus that is believed to have infected more than 7,500 people in an island nation off the western coast of Africa is the same strain spreading through the Americas, the World Health Organization said Friday.
And as a result, already three babies have developed microcephaly the same devastating condition that has left babies in Brazil and elsewhere with undersized brains and skulls.
Zikas emergence near Africa raises new concerns because many of the nearby countries on the continent have very poor health infrastructure as was laid bare by the Ebola epidemic that ravished Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
The findings are of concern because it is further proof that the outbreak is spreading beyond South America and is on the doorstep of Africa, said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa.
Cape Verde, which reported its first Zika case in October, is a former Portuguese colony like Brazil, where the mosquito-borne virus emerged last year before spreading to nearly 60 countries.
Most infected people suffer no symptoms, but authorities in Brazil have seen a dramatic increase in severe brain-related birth defects in babies born to women infected with Zika during pregnancy. After studying evidence, health officials this year concluded Zika causes such birth defects.
WHO said Friday that health officials in the region should start warning pregnant women to take precautions against mosquito bites. Zika can also be spread sexually, and WHO has said that pregnant women should abstain from sex or practice safe sex with anyone who has recently returned from areas with outbreaks.
Doctors also believe Zika can cause a rare paralyzing condition called Guillain-Barre syndrome.
In another development, WHO this week called the spread of yellow fever in Africa a serious concern and advocated drastically expanding vaccinations to combat it. There is no treatment for yellow fever, which is related to dengue, Zika and West Nile viruses, and is spread by the same Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.
The outbreak, which began in December in Angola, has spread to three other countries, including China, and has claimed about 300 lives. In April, WHO warned that its emergency stock of yellow fever vaccine was close to exhaustion.
Now, Hung, a first secretary for educational affairs at the Vietnamese Embassy in Tokyo, can hardly wait to see the launch in September of a pilot project to offer Japanese lessons at three elementary schools in Hanoi.
It will be the first time that Japanese language education has been offered at the publicly run primary school level in Southeast Asia, according to Japanese officials.
The project follows the development of a Japanese language program the Vietnamese government introduced for middle and high school students in 2003. At present, English and French are the only foreign languages Vietnamese students can learn at elementary schools.
"I'm so excited about the project," Hung, 39, said in a recent interview. "I understand Vietnam's Ministry of Education and Training will consider expanding it at the request of other students and parents."
The ministry will run the project in partnership with the Japanese Embassy in Hanoi and the Japan Foundation, a government-backed institution dedicated to promoting international cultural exchange.
Bilateral educational exchanges will further deepen when Vietnam-Japan University, an institution backed by the government, business and academic sectors of the two countries, opens in September in Hanoi.
With an eye toward training people for the development of Vietnam and firmer relations with Japan, the organisers aim to develop the institution, which initially will operate graduate programs in English and Japanese, into a leading university in Asia.
Japan is the biggest aid donor for Vietnam and the fourth-largest trading partner after China, the United States and the Republic of Korea. About 1,400 Japanese companies were operating in Vietnam as of last year, according to Japanese government data.
The issues of educational exchanges and human resources development may be referred to when Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc meets Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during his visit to Japan in late May for an outreach meeting Abe will host on the sidelines of a Group of Seven summit in Mie Prefecture, central Japan.
Along with a desire to get jobs linked to Japan, admiration for Japanese people's diligence that made the country a major industrialized nation after its defeat in World War II and respect for their mental toughness in the recovery from the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis have prompted an increasing number of Vietnamese to study Japanese, according to Hung.
"The Japanese people's diligence has become a role model for us," he said, speaking in fluent Japanese. "And needless to say, Japanese animation and cartoons are very popular among Vietnamese schoolchildren."
Hung brushed up his Japanese and earned a doctorate in economics during his 2003-2009 study at Kagoshima University in southwestern Japan before teaching the language and Asian economics at his alma mater until last year.
A 2014 opinion poll on Japan in Vietnam and six other Southeast Asian countries showed that 67 percent of 293 Vietnamese people interested in learning Japanese cited a desire to visit Japan as a reason for studying the language.
The poll, conducted by research company Ipsos Hong Kong at the request of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, found in multiple answers that 62 percent said they like Japanese culture, 40 percent want to understand Japanese comics, animation and dramas, and 32 percent believe the language is useful for their jobs.
Recalling the 2003 launch of the Japanese language program for Vietnamese middle and high school students, Hung said, "We started from scratch."
The initiative, however, has developed to the scale at which as many as about 50 middle and high schools in major cities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh city and Da Nang are running Japanese classes.
"Such an expansion would not have been possible without the Japanese Embassy's help in training Vietnamese instructors of the Japanese language, as well as supply of teaching materials by the Japan Foundation," Hung said.
The elementary school project will similarly involve Vietnamese instructors who have experience and know-how in teaching at middle and high schools, with teaching materials to be provided by the Japan Foundation.
Including middle and high school students, there were about 46,000 people learning Japanese in Vietnam as of 2013 and more than 40,000 Vietnamese students are currently studying in Japan, according to Hung.
"The combined figure is the third highest among Japanese language learners in the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations after Indonesia and Thailand," he said. "And the number of Vietnamese students studying in Japan is larger than those studying in the United States and China."
This may reflect the fact that 46 percent of a total of 304 Vietnamese respondents to the 2014 poll cited Japan as "the most reliable country" out of 11 non-ASEAN countries in Asia, Europe and the United States. The rate, logged in a single answer, compared to eight percent for the United States and two percent for China./.
Wednesday, Bernie Sanders had lunch at the Chieftain, a cozy pub near The Chronicle that in days gone by served as a lunch spot for parched journalists. Earlier, Sanders had addressed a rally in San Jose; he had another scheduled in Vallejo that night. When he exited the Chieftain by a back door onto Howard Street, passersby shouted out his name.
A man who hailed Sanders as my hero asked the Democratic presidential hopeful to pose for a photo. There were more selfies with more fans who could not believe their luck at stumbling upon a potential president. No jacket, no tie, two pens in his shirt pocket, Sanders took his time heading toward the motorcade.
I had raced down Fifth Street to catch the scene. After all, how often do San Franciscans have a chance to see one of the three top remaining candidates in a presidential race mingling with strangers? Supporters didnt have to pay $250 to $27,000 for a ticket that would put them in a banquet hall with front-running Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Clinton also has held some rallies open to the public and free, but her modus operandi is hardly strictly grassroots.
In those few moments, it was easy to see why Sanders has caught on with young voters. As Sanders told Chronicle staff writer Joe Garofoli on Wednesday, If you want a candidate who is out working and speaking with people rather than hanging out raising money from millionaires, I think the choice is pretty clear.
The choice between Sanders and Clinton is stark: rumpled versus professionally styled. Poll-defying versus poll-tested, One of the poorer members of the U.S. Senate versus one half of a $111 million net-worth couple. Insurgency versus establishment. Enthusiasts versus operatives.
At The Chronicle editorial board this month, Sanders was personable, but disappointing on substance. And it has happened before.
On April 1, Sanders met with the New York Daily News editorial board. He stumbled over questions about how he would break up the big banks. How you go about doing it is having legislation passed, or giving the authority to the secretary of treasury to determine, under Dodd-Frank, that these banks are a danger to the economy over the problem of too-big-to-fail, he answered. Probed further, Sanders said he didnt know if the Federal Reserve had the authority to break up the banks, but he thought the administration can have that power. In other words, he had given little thought to the mechanics and had no plan to execute his big dream. He failed to demonstrate even the slightest understanding as to which agencies have the authority to do what he wants done, or how a bank breakup might affect the economy of (say just for the sake of argument) New York.
The Washington Posts Chris Cillizza described the meeting as a disaster, with the papers editorial board pressing Sanders for specifics and asking him to evaluate the consequences of his proposals, and Sanders, largely, dodging as he sought to scramble back to his talking points.
By the time Sanders made it to San Francisco, he was on notice that editorial boards expect more thoughtful answers. He had a more than a month to bone up on his signature issue. But when Chronicle Business Editor Owen Thomas asked Sanders if he would break up Wells Fargo, Sanders said he could not answer definitively. He moved to his talking points 3 out of 4 of the largest banks today are bigger than they were when we bailed them out because they were too big to fail railing against the revolving door. He asserted that Section 121 of Dodd-Frank gives his treasury secretary the power to determine which banks, if they failed, could cause systemic damage to our economy, and I would break them up. But according to Fortune magazine, that provision gives that authority to a large board on which the treasury secretary sits.
Is it just me? Or shouldnt a man who has been railing against the big banks from sea to shining sea know which banks are so big that he has to sic the government on them to pare them down to size? Sanders boasted that he would not name a treasury secretary who had worked at Goldman Sachs. The question is: Would he appoint someone who understands how Goldman Sachs works?
Likewise, Sanders had no real plan to work with Congress to push through the legislation to advance his revolutionary goals. He said he has learned it is impossible to work with Republicans. No worries. If voters send him to the White House, then there will be a political revolution that pressures Congress to work with him.
That tells me that if elected, Sanders is destined to fail.
He hits Clinton for being too close to Goldman Sachs and hes right. So how does he work with Democrats in Congress?
Ive talked to people who watched the video of Sanders meeting with The Chronicle editorial board. They have asked me why campaign staffers didnt do a better job of prepping the candidate. Actually, that should not be necessary. Sanders has been a member of Congress since 1991. Income inequality is his pet issue. He should not need staff to explain to him what banks are doing wrong and what the government can do to correct the imbalance.
Electing Sanders to fix what ails Wall Street would be like hiring me to fix your car.
Debra J. Saunders is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: dsaunders@sfchronicle.com Twitter: DebraJSaunders
TASMAN PENINSULA, Australia Drive over one narrow isthmus in Tasmania, and then another, and youll reach the last place on Earth where wild Tasmanian devils live apart from a contagious cancer that threatens the fearsome marsupials existence. Conservationists are doing everything they can to keep it that way.
Devil-proof barriers, flashing roadside alarms and infrared cameras are protecting the species from their two greatest threats: cancer and cars. There are even plans for a sort of trap door that would keep diseased devils from crossing a bridge to reach the Tasman Peninsula, on the east coast of the Australian island-state.
Saving the wild devils on the Tasman Peninsula is the Holy Grail of the whole thing can we save a natural, wild population of devils and isolate them? said John Hamilton, a major partner in the Peninsula Devil Conservation Project. And pretty much we have so far.
The muscle-bound, lumbering, bear-like predator-scavenger with a ferocious growl the inspiration for the Warner Bros. cartoon character Taz is endangered because of a mysterious disease that has slashed its numbers in Tasmanias wilderness by as much as 90 percent since it was discovered two decades ago.
The cancer cells are transferred by the devils powerful bite. And the aggressive marsupials do a lot of biting, whether squabbling over a wallaby carcass or even mating. Their facial wounds develop grotesque tumors that eventually prevent the infected devils from eating.
While disease-free devils bred in captivity live on nearby Maria Island and in zoos, the wild population is threatened across Tasmania, the species only home. The disease started in the northeast and is spreading west and south; the Tasman Peninsula offers the only feasible geographic bulwark. The size of the population there is unknown: Weve got dozens, but maybe not hundreds, Hamilton said.
Isolation has been the key to the Tasman populations survival.
The peninsula is attached by a narrow stretch of sand called Eaglehawk Neck to Forestier Peninsula. A lack of animal tracks on Eaglehawk Neck Beach suggests it forms a natural although not impenetrable barrier for the shy devils, who avoid open spaces.
Forestier Peninsula is attached to the Tasmanian mainland by another narrow tract of land near the town of Dunalley called East Bay Neck, which forms another buffer for disease-free devils.
The cancer reached Forestier Peninsula in 2012. Conservationists responded by capturing and removing every devil on Forestier. After a two-year quarantine, the first 39 devils bred in captivity were reintroduced in November last year.
A dozen quickly became roadkill. Hamilton said the captive-born devils were a bit naive, and zoologists agree that captive breeding is a setback for young devils development of hunting and survival skills.
The devils feed on wallabies, pademelons and possums killed by cars, and dont think to move the carcasses off the road. Devils devour entire carcasses, including fur, bones and teeth.
JERUSALEM Israels defense minister announced his resignation Friday, saying the governing party had been taken over by extremist and dangerous elements and that he no longer trusts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The departure of Moshe Yaalon one of the last moderate voices in the Likud Party deepens the rift in the Cabinet between the security establishment and the hard-line politicians.
Netanyahu reportedly intends to appoint former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to the post of defense minister. The 57-year-old Lieberman is one of Israels most polarizing politicians. Over three decades, he has at times been Netanyahus closest ally and at other times a fierce rival.
If Yaalon is replaced as expected by Lieberman, command of the Defense Ministry will transition from a general who led one of Israels most elite commando units and later was its chief of staff to a politician who held the rank of corporal, almost the lowest military rank. Liebermans limited military experience raises further questions about the appointment.
Yaalon told reporters that Israel is a healthy society with a sane majority that is tolerant of minorities and strives for a liberal and democratic society.
But to my great dismay, extremist and dangerous elements have taken over Israel, also over the Likud Party, and are shaking the house and threatening to hurt its inhabitants, he said. I fought with all my might against manifestations of extremism, violence and racism in Israeli society that threatens its sturdiness and is seeping into the army and already damaging it.
Tensions between Yaalon and Netanyahu escalated in March, when military leaders criticized a soldier who was caught on video fatally shooting an already-wounded Palestinian attacker. The solider is now on trial for manslaughter. While Yaalon has backed the military, Lieberman went to the court to offer his support to the soldier.
Netanyahu this week invited Liebermans ultranationalist Yisrael Beteinu Party to shore up his shaky parliamentary coalition and negotiation teams have been meeting to hammer out the details of their alliance.
Yaalons resignation solidifies the takeover of hard-liners in the party, especially in the Cabinet, which is dominated by those who oppose concessions to the Palestinians.
AKIU, Japan The Group of Seven major economies showed a united front on fighting terrorist financing and tax evasion in talks that ended Saturday, but shied away from coordinated action on policies to revive stalling growth.
An action plan issued after the talks by G7 finance ministers in northern Japan called for increased exchanges of information on financial intelligence and collaborating on targeted sanctions for terrorists financial networks, including freezing assets.
1 Drug lord extradition: Mexicos Foreign Relations Department ruled Friday that the extradition of convicted drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman to the United States can go forward. The process can still be appealed, meaning it could be weeks or months before the Sinaloa cartel leader may be sent to the U.S., where he is wanted in multiple jurisdictions on charges related to drug trafficking and organized crime. Guzman is currently in a prison on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, near the U.S. border.
2 Visa waiver: European Union nations agreed Friday to make it easier to suspend its visa waiver programs with some countries, just as Turkey is trying to secure visa-free travel for its citizens. EU interior and migration ministers sealed an agreement on the emergency brake system during talks in Brussels. The so-called suspension mechanism would come into play to ensure security and if a country fails to respect its obligations. It is aimed at new visa waiver programs that are in the works for Georgia, Ukraine, Kosovo and Turkey.
Shaw University aids students walk
When Danette Majette crossed the stage at the Raleigh Auditorium earlier this month as a 2016 magna cum laude graduate of Shaw University, nobody could see the post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that caused chronic pain, depression and anxiety following a retail job injury that almost kept her away. She knew she could not sit for long periods of time and would need to excuse herself to the restroom often, due to medications, so a commencement service was out of the question.
Even so, her friends, children and other family insisted she embrace the pomp and circumstance of the Mothers Day graduation ceremony. For, Majette, earning her degree was accomplishment enough, but to make her friends and family happy, would settle on receiving her diploma privately.
Once Shaws Vice President of Student Affairs, Dr. Stan Elliott, heard about Majettes inquiry, he made accommodations the former U.S. Marine and mother of two could not refuse.
We want to make sure the graduation experience at Shaw is a positive and memorable one for our graduates and their families, said Elliott. Graduation is the culmination of years of hard work that I dont want any student to miss because of any concern or disability. We would accommodate any student.
Majette, 46, had never mentioned her disability to professors or classmates. She never let anybody know she feared shed never finish her degree because a daily cocktail of eight medications left her sleepy, confused and generally out of it, she said.
I didnt want them to look at me as disabled because I felt like that would be cheating myself, Majette said. I wanted to be like anybody else, and I was.
To make commencement comfortable for Majette, Elliott scouted backstage at the Memorial Auditorium during graduation rehearsals to find dressing and waiting rooms with nearby bathrooms. On the big day, Majette waited in one close to the stage until her name was called.
She then peered from behind the stage curtains and walked up to Shaw University President Tashni-Ann Dubroy, who waited with her diploma in hand.
Initially, I didnt recognize Danette among the faces of the many graduates who walked across the stage, said Dubroy, but when I reached out to shake her hand and present her degree, she leaned in close and thanked me for making her big day happen without a hitch, said Dubroy.
Majette suffers from Thoracic Outlet Syndrome and Parsonage Turner Syndrome resulting from an injured nerve on her right side and two herniated discs that have robbed all function in her right arm. Its the result of an injury she got while lifting boxes as a Nordstrom manager in 2006 while living in Washington, DC.
Because Im in a lot of pain, I fell into a deep depression, I was suicidal and I have really bad anxiety, said Majette, who credits therapy as the reason Im here today.
A teen-age mother from a military family, Majette put college on hold and enlisted in the Marines. She ended her active-duty service in 1991 due to a health-related disability. The nerve injury brought Majette to Raleigh in 2009 to receive surgery and treatment at Duke University Medical Center. In 2014, having already earned associates degrees in human resources and business administration, Majette enrolled in Shaw on a GI Bill in order to receive an undergraduate degree in business administration.
Majette is already an award-winning author of three urban fiction novels published by Life Changing Books: I Should Have Seen it Coming (2004); Deep (2007) - voted an Essence Magazine Best Seller; and Good Girl Gone Bad (2009).
I just really didnt think I would be able to do it, but I made it, Majette said of going for her bachelors degree, noting she missed Sum Cum Laude status only by one point. All I can ever do is try. She credits her success to a really good support team that includes her son, Bryan Majette and his wife, both Marines living in California, and her daughter, Marketa Salley, and her wife, both U.S. Army soldiers.
Because of them I was scrambling around at the last minute, trying to find a dress to wear to my graduation, Majette quipped. But nobody can take that away. Im glad I did it. It was a very nice experience.
Moving forward, Majette said shes focused on fueling her energy to complete the childrens book and new novel shes writing, while ushering her 2009 novel into a feature film. She also plans to stay on as a volunteer with a work-study program she landed last semester with the Department of Commerce, working to help homeless veterans. It gives me the energy and the drive to keep pushing, she said.
FILM: "U Turn"; Director: Pawan Kumar; Cast: Shraddha Srinath, Roger Narayan, Radhika Chetan, Krishna, Aarna, Pavan, Naveen and Sudha Belwadi; Rating: **
Three years after his much-acclaimed micro-budget sci-fi romance, "Lucia", director Pawan Kumar returns with his Kannada film "U Turn", which is subtitled in English. Released under the Drishyam Films banner, this is a conveniently woven, head-scratching, super-natural thriller based on true events.
The tone of the narration is set by the inverted shot of a busy road in blue hue with the song "Karma" reverberating in the background. It is interesting as well as arresting.
Set in Bengaluru, the narration follows Rachna (Shraddha Srinath), a trainee journalist who is chasing a story related to motorists, who with scant respect for civic issues, shift the road dividers to take a "short-cut" U-turn on a busy bridge.
Inadvertently, while investigating the story, she gets roped into a murder case. The plot gets further murkier when it unravels that whoever she intended to interview, the guys who removed the road dividers, were killed either by accident or in what appears to be suicide.
How she stops this mayhem, in-between a romance track, forms the crux of the tale.
Shraddha Srinath as Rachna is earnest and fairly convincing. She is aptly supported by Dilip Raj as her colleague and love interest; and Roger Narayan as the helpful, investigating police officer G.K. Nayak along with the rest of the cast. They all are natural, sincere and deliver what is expected of them.
Technically, the film is well-mounted. With moderate production values, the competent craft contribution has elevated the viewing experience of this film.
Art directors Baadal Nanjundaswamy and Ravi SA's sets seem realistic and lived-in, the computer-generated effects merge seamlessly in the live-action frames captured by the cinematography team, who apart from capturing the drama, have managed to give some nice shots. Striking among them is one, when the camera zooms out to give an aerial view of the bridge.
The sound department's contribution too is noteworthy. Their dexterously designed sound notes are sharp and accurate. The audio and visuals are ingeniously layered and crisply chiselled by editor Suresh.
Writer-director Pawan Kumar is an astute storyteller, but as a writer, while toying with crucial elements defies logic thereby spoiling the charm of the narrative.
Unlike his earlier films, his direction lacks sincerity. While he delivers some remarkable jump-scares, his handling of the scenes is perfunctory. This is especially evident in the scene when after Rachna and Nayak have had a horrifying experience in their jeep, their expressions lack the intensity needed.
Also thrillers are defined by the mood they create and, unfortunately, "U Turn" falls flat in this department.
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'Pele: Birth of a Legend': Elementary yet Inspirational
WASHINGTON: Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton has asserted that she would secure her party's nomination even as the former Secretary of State is yet to reach the magic number of 2,383 delegates.
"I will be the nominee for my party. That is already done in effect. There is no way that I won't be," Clinton told CNN in an interview yesterday.
Clinton however is yet to reach the coveted figure of 2383 delegates required to become the nominee of the Democratic Party for the November presidential election and face Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
She currently has 2,293 delegates, while her sole primary rival Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont has 1533 delegates.
Sanders, however, has refused to leave the race and says that he would fight till the last vote in the primary election is cast till early June.
But political pundits believe that Clinton is on her way to become the first women to be nominated as a presidential candidate of a major U.S. party.
The Sanders campaign was quick to criticise Clinton for claiming to becoming the nominee even as she has not got enough delegates.
"In the past three weeks voters in Indiana, West Virginia and Oregon, respectfully disagreed with Secretary Clinton. We expect that the voters in remaining eight contests will also disagree," said Michael Briggs, spokesman of the Sanders' Campaign.
"And with almost every national and state poll showing Senator Sanders doing much, much better than Secretary Clinton against Donald Trump, it is clear that millions of Americans have growing doubts about the Clinton campaign," Briggs said.
But, in her interview to the CNN, Clinton exuded confidence that she would be the nominee of the party as the numbers and the math are on her side.
"I am confident. Well, in part from my own experience, you know?" she said on being asked where from she was getting the confidence.
"I went all the way to the end against then Senator Obama. I won nine out of the last 12 contests. Back in 2008, I won Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, so I know the intense feelings that arise, particularly among your supporters as you go toward the end.
"But, we both were following the same rules, just as both Senator Sanders and I are following the same rules," she explained.
"I'm three million votes ahead of him, and I have an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, and I am confident that just as I did with Senator Obama, where I said, you know what? It was really much closer than it is between me and Senator Sanders right," she asserted.
"I worked really hard to make the case, as I'm sure Senator Sanders will, that whatever differences we might have, they pale in comparison to the presumptive nominee of the Republican party. Name an issue you care about, domestic or international, and clearly we are much closer - Senator Sanders supporters and mine, than either of us is with Donald Trump," Clinton said.
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U.S. Has Very Special Relationship With India: Official
Source: PTI
WASHINGTON: The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a bipartisan legislative move to bolster defence ties with India and bring it at par with other NATO allies in terms of sale of defence equipment and technology transfer.
"It seeks to promote greater defence trade and encourage additional military cooperation between the United States and India," Congressman George Holding said on the floor of the House of Representatives in favour of the amendment in this regard in the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA)-2017.
The amendment (Enhancing Defence and Security Co-operation with India) was sponsored by Holding and Ami Bera (House India Caucus Chairs) and Chair and Ranking Member of House Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce and Elliot Engel, respectively.
"I believe that by requiring our government to take actions such as strengthening Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI) and encouraging combined military planning with India, we can make certain that the US-India defence relationship endures," Holding said.
"Mr Chairman, given the dynamic nature of the Indo-Pacific region and its importance to our own national security and future economic growth, now is the time to build on recent successes and propel the US-India strategic partnership forward," Holding said.
For the US, it encourages the executive branch to designate an official to focus on US-India defence cooperation, facilitate the transfer of defence technology, maintain a special office in the Pentagon dedicated exclusively to the US-India DTTI.
It urges the US government to enhance India's military capabilities in the context of combined military planning, and promote co-production and co-development opportunities.
For India, it encourages the government to authorise combined military planning with the US for missions of mutual interest such as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, counter piracy, and maritime domain awareness.
Senators Mark Warner and John Cornyn, the Senate India Caucus Chairs, introduced a similar Bill earlier this week in the Senate.
Senator Marco Rubio, the former Republican presidential candidate, became its co-sponsor this week.
It is only when it is passed by the Senate and the House as part of the NDAA-2017, it will head to the White House for US President Barack Obama to be signed into law.
The move has been welcomed by the US-India Business Council (USIBC).
"Now that we have bipartisan support from the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House India Caucus, we believe this amendment has a good chance of making its way into the House's version of the defence authorisation Bill," said USIBC president Mukesh Aghi.
Among other things, the House legislative approval requires the Secretary of Defence and Secretary of State to jointly take such actions as may be necessary to recognise India's status as a major defence partner of the US.
It calls for approving and facilitating the transfer of advanced technology, consistent with US conventional arms transfer policy, to support combined military planning with the Indian military for missions such as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, counter piracy, and maritime domain awareness missions.
"The Secretary of Defence and Secretary of State shall jointly, on an annual basis, conduct an assessment of the extent to which India possesses strategic operational capabilities to support military operations of mutual interest between the United States and India," it said.
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Donald Trump Beats Hillary Clinton In New Poll
Source: PTI
Driving to Skidmore College
New York City and points south:
Take the New York State Thruway (I-87) north to Exit 24. From the toll plaza, take Exit 1N to the Adirondack Northway (I-87) north.
Boston and points east:
Take the Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90) west to Exit B1. Proceed on I-90 to Exit 1N and the Adirondack Northway (I-87) north.
Buffalo and points west:
Take the New York State Thruway (I-90) east to Exit 24. From the toll plaza, take Exit 1N to the Adirondack Northway (I-87) north.
Montreal and points north:
Take the Adirondack Northway (I-87) south.
FROM THE NORTHWAY (INTERSTATE 87 north)
Scenic Route
Because this route offers a glimpse of lovely downtown Saratoga Springs, it is recommended for first-time visitors to campus.
Take Exit 14 (9P) toward Saratoga Springs. Union Avenue takes you past the thoroughbred track and many famous Victorian homes. Toward the end of Union Avenue you will pass the former site of Skidmore College before it moved to its current campus.
At the end of Union Avenue, turn right on Circular Street and then take your first left onto Spring Street, passing around Congress Park. When Spring Street ends at the top of the hill, turn right on Broadway, Saratoga's main street.
Follow Broadway through town. After the City Center/Hilton, keep straight to continue on North Broadway. Skidmore is at the end of North Broadway. The main entrance to Skidmore is on your left, with the Judith Pick Eissner Admissions Center at the end of the street on your right.
Express Route
The First-Year Experience in London
Former London FYE students at South Bank
Each fall, 36 students from Skidmore's incoming first-year class will have the opportunity to spend their first semester of college in London, one of the world's great cities. In addition to allowing students to enjoy the historical and cultural riches of England's capital, the First-Year Experience in London enables them to begin working toward their Skidmore degrees; helps prepare them for Skidmore's academic challenges and opportunities; and builds strong connections and friendships among the participants.
Students will study under the guidance of two Skidmore Faculty Coordinators who will oversee the academic program, serve as advisors and mentors for the students, and organize a variety of group cultural excursions and activities. The Faculty Coordinators will each teach a required Scribner Seminar. These courses have been specifically designed for the program and take full advantage of London's resources. Students will take additional classes at the IES Abroad London Center. All courses are considered Skidmore courses; grades will appear on the Skidmore transcript and will count toward the Skidmore GPA. A number of courses may also count toward core-curriculum requirements. At the conclusion of the program, students will join their classmates in Saratoga Springs for the spring semester.
How do I apply to be a London FYE student?
For information on how to apply to the London FYE program, please visit the London FYE Admissions webpage.
Questions
Questions regarding the London FYE program details, orientation or arrival day should be directed to Kendra Nelson, London FYE Program Manager in Skidmore's Off-Campus Study & Exchanges, at knelson1@skidmore.edu or +1-518-580-5355
Questions regarding the admissions process should be directed to Gabby Vuillaume, Assistant Director of Admissions at gvuillau@skidmore.edu or +1-518-580-8334.
Questions regarding Skidmore on campus housing for the spring semester following London should be directed to the staff of the Office of Residential Life at reslife@skidmore.edu.
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Questions remain over how commuters will access the Capital Metro light rail six months from construction beginning, with the Canberra Liberals maintaining the need to swap transport modes will make travel more difficult.
The ACT government has confirmed bus interchanges will operate at two of the 13 light rail stops and a new park and ride site will be built on the northern edge of Mitchell.
An artist's impression of what the Civic Plaza space could look like. The ACT government has confirmed the new public square would be built, but details on where park and ride or bus interchanges infrastructure will be are not clear.
As population growth leads to more congestion, those who are city bound and can park their car near a light rail stop instead of driving themselves would have their commute shortened.
Capital Metro Minister Simon Corbell emphasised light rail would have a consistent travel time of less than 25 minutes, compared to predicted on-road travel times of almost an hour by 2031 if no action was taken.
Five and a half months after Robert Jacob was last seen leaving a Canberra shopping centre, his family remains without answers about his whereabouts.
The family has issued a fresh plea to the public calling for information over the Lyons man's disappearance, calling for even the smallest piece of information that could help find him.
Robert Jacob was last seen on November 30. Credit:ACT Policing
The 56-year-old was last seen walking from Westfield Woden on November 30 last year, though there were sightings in the weeks following the missing persons report.
Mr Jacob's sister, Kim Hayes said phone calls from the police about apparent sightings had dried up in recent months, leading the family to appeal again to the public for information.
The ABC Grandstand commentary team made a couple of references to the somewhat less than overwhelming size of the Showground crowd. Eventually, in the final quarter, boundary reporter Shannon Byrne was asked for her opinion on the attendance figure, and she plumped for "late four's", presumably meaning a figure not too far short of the 5000 mark.
(Of course, Collingwood was up at the Gabba taking care of the other half of the equation.)
Last week, as part of an accidental but nonetheless devastatingly thorough program to make AFL teams in Queensland seem substantially non-viable, the GWS Giants hosted, and demolished, the Gold Coast Suns, at the former's Showground Stadium.
One thing nobody can say is that footy has lost its humour. It is beyond dispute that the AFL landscape retains an ability to generate laughter. Admittedly the humour may quite often be a long way from intentional, but that certainly doesn't mean it isn't there.
This was when your humble columnist flicked on the TV, was overwhelmed by a stunning vista of largely unpopulated red plastic seating, and at first assumed Shannon must have meant high 400s rather than 4000s.
In fairness, there was a definite clumping of people up at least one end, Shannon Byrne was there and I wasn't, but otherwise, if there weren't actual tumbleweeds rolling by on-screen, there weren't a lot of warm bodies evident in the stands either.
Anyway, humour generally begs a punch line, and the official crowd figure announced later that quarter was 8308. Look, perhaps there WERE that many people there. Maybe they were all packed in around the main fixed camera position huddled for warmth where television couldn't pick them up. Maybe the crowd composition included a freakish distribution of camouflage experts.
All that we can know for sure is that the official capacity for footy at that ground is 24,000, so if they had 8308, it would have been over one-third full. And then there's the way it looked on the home screen. Or, as a totally independent brother-in-law who happened to be present in the lounge room put it, in an awed tone of voice: "Mate, there's nobody THERE."
But, again, who knows? There may have been a schnitzel sandwich of extraordinary quality available in one of the food concessions behind the stands, and everybody went for one at once. There's simply no way of telling for sure.
The ACT government must revisit its use of the controversial lease variation charge in the territory as news this week shows it yet again failed to meet its revenue expectations.
Figures released less than a month out from the delivery of the ACT budget for 2016-17 show the tax has brought in only $4.4 million about $8 million short of what was predicted to be in the territory's coffers by this time.
The tax has not reached its predicted revenue since it replaced the "change of use" charge in 2011.
Over four years to June 2015 the tax raised $35 million less than half the $79 million forecast in the budget papers.
The budget forecasts $17.6 million for the next financial year and more than $18 million in each of the following two years but it is unlikely to get near this if the trend continues.
I cannot believe the arrogance of this ACT government, they just believe they do not have to answer to anyone. The taxpayers of Canberra, who pay the politicians their salaries, should be given a voice.
Their excuse for doing so the ecosystem and environment has to be questioned after hundreds of kangaroos were slaughtered in Belconnen, and surprise, surprise, an upmarket housing estate pops up on that land. That is now Lawson!
B.M. Cooke, Latham
It seems a bit strange for the Sunday Canberra Times editorial ("Prepare for protests as roo cull announced", May 15, 2016) to note, on the one hand, that "arguments abound within the scientific community over the classification of "abundance" and overpopulation of the animals" and then to end up accepting, as though it were a matter of fact, that "like it or not there is an abundance of kangaroos in Canberra".
There is absolutely no scientific evidence to support this statement. There are no base-line data from which to develop such a hypothesis and no subsequent data on kangaroo numbers.
It may be true that opponents of the slaughter would indeed "value the life of a living creature over the grass and land it is eroding", if the creature was, in fact, eroding the grass. But the science shows that kangaroos are not eroding the grass and land. Where they are permitted to thrive, eg across the border in Queanbeyan, they are maintaining the vegetation in precisely the diversity of landscape required by the other creatures, many of them threatened reptiles and insects, that live in the grass.
If the ACT government still believes there is an abundance of kangaroos in Canberra, why has it not at least tried to prove it by monitoring and evaluating the impacts of its kangaroo slaughtering policy, as required by its otherwise science-bereft Kangaroo Management Plan.
Most days, I wake disappointed to do so, disappointed that I haven't peacefully died in the night. I look at the clock, calculating how long until the first carer of the day arrives. As the noisy miner birds make their first attack on my cat, I know it's less than 40 minutes.
"You legs feel like stone!" she might exclaim, beginning to massage.
Some mornings are haunted by the ways to die outlined in Philip Nitschke's The Peaceful Pill Handbook. Grotesque images of how best to put your head in a plastic bag to successfully suffocate. The exact angle to put the tip of a rifle in the roof of my mouth. Mexican Nembutal that may not work. These images are as distressing as recollections of my grandfather's death at 50. He'd had MS more than half his life. Before they put him on the top floor of a hospital for incurables, they amputated both his legs at the thigh. Easier to look after adult incontinence without a pair of legs turned into crowbars. Soon after that, he went blind. Then buried at 50. It's not a track I want to follow. I'm 48. I have an advance directive attached to my will aiming to guard against such an unenviable fate.
In April 2007, I was in the audience for an SBS Insight documentary on voluntary euthanasia. A man whose glamorous mother, a Greta Garbo stand-in, had been a member of the original Hemlock Society, sat beside me, booing and hissing every utterance from Christopher Pyne, the then federal minister for the ageing.
I fell quiet. For I was, in fact, having the opposite reaction. So much so that the very next day found me penning a congratulatory note to Pyne for his anti-euthanasia stance. As anyone who knows my writing would know, I'm not, nor ever have been, of the same political persuasion as Pyne. I'm no friend of the fundamental religious right. Hadn't an Alan Jones/Fred Nile vendetta resulted in one of my books being struck off the HSC syllabus a while ago?
Excellent. She is a compelling presence on TV, and speaks with authority. For the first time, many of us get just how it was she was so influential in the Abbott government. Her steely intellect is presented with a "Don't argue" elan, and I for one would not be inclined to argue too strongly. The one spot she let herself down this week, however, was her ludicrous assertion on Paul Murray Live that the reason we at Fairfax Media had gone big on her comments attacking Turnbull, was not because it was a great story, but because and I am not making this up it was some kind of corporate payback because she was working for News Limited, not Fairfax Media who had also offered her a gig. As our own Latika Bourke pointed out on Twitter, none of our political journos would have known, or cared, that she had even been approached! And yet, she effectively floats to viewers the insulting idea that an editor took one of our journos aside and said words to the effect of, "She's gone to News, so here's the plan. When she talks of Malcolm Turnbull as 'Mr Harbourside Mansion' and all that, don't ignore it as we should do, but put it in headlines, OK'?" And then the journo, defying 185 years of Fairfax tradition, says, "OK boss, great idea, I'll do exactly that! And that will show her!" Please.
Joke of the week One day, The Lord says to Adam, "I've got some good news and some bad news." "Well," Adam replies, "give me the good news first." The Lord explains, "I've got two new organs for you. One is called a brain. It will allow you to create new things, solve problems and have intelligent conversations with Eve. The other organ I have for you is called a penis. It will give you great physical pleasure and allow you to reproduce your now intelligent lifeform and populate this planet. Eve will be very happy that you now have this organ to give her children." Adam, very excited, exclaims, "These are great gifts you have given to me. What could possibly be the bad news after such great tidings?"
The Lord looks upon Adam and says with great sorrow, "You will never be able to use these two gifts at the same time." True blue to the DNA Meantime, don't miss the premiere tonight, at 8.30 on SBS, of their excellent three-part documentary DNA Nation, featuring Ian Thorpe, Ernie Dingo and Julia Zemiro. The basic idea is to examine their DNA make-up, and then take them back to their genealogical roots in such far-flung places as Tanzania, the Arabian desert and Kyrgyzstan, to live as their ancestors lived thousands of years ago. Part of their promo was to examine your humble correspondent's DNA, and, as it turned out, I would not have gone back to anywhere so exotic, but straight to the British Isles as purely genealogically going back about 25,000 years, I am as British as they come. (I know.) I don't care. Hand me a sprig of wattle, and beneath the Southern Cross I'll stand.
Changing times TFF continues to get queries re when I am speaking at events for the Australian Republican Movement, which I chair. Having done Rooty Hill and Balmain last week, this Tuesday I'll be at the Lismore Workers Club from noon to 2pm, and Ballina RSL from 6pm to 8pm. Come along and chat. Entry free! They said it "As a Libyan said recently, 'We used to have one Gaddafi, now we have 50'." Pope Francis.
"In terms of Hillary Clinton, I have to say that if I was in America I would be voting for Hillary Clinton." Bill Shorten about dealing with America. "I wrestle with my conscience, run up bills and fight depression." John Laws, after another fall, on what he does for exercise. "I think, when you put life in perspective, it's about cracking memories, cracking dreams."
Jarryd Hayne as he tries to move from one previously lifelong dream, to another lifelong dream we've only just heard about from gridiron to Olympic rugby sevens in the blink of an eye. "Joke's on Canada. We elected the Kardashians." An unsympathetic Canadian about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife's problems managing their time and family. "We said we were going to be happy no matter what happened." Dami Im's pact with her parents before she sang in the Eurovision finals.
The story of Sydney has many dark chapters, but one of the darkest is the wave of gay-hate bashings and killings that took place from the late 1970s to 2000. Men were murdered in their homes in ferocious attacks. Some of Sydney's most picturesque coastal and neighbourhood parks were the sites of killings characterised by their brutality.
Equally as horrifying as the crimes, was the community indifference towards them and shocking instances of police failure to adequately investigate them. In 2005, senior deputy state coroner Jacqueline Milledge called the investigations into the 1989 deaths of Ross Warren and John Russell, which concluded they had fallen accidentally to their deaths over the cliffs between Bondi and Tamarama, as "grossly inadequate" and "shameful". She found Warren, Russell and another man, Gilles Mattaini, had probably been murdered by gay-bashing gangs.
Members of Operation Parabell are reviewing 88 deaths in Sydney, looking for possible connections to gay hate crime. Credit:Louise Kennerley
The Sun-Herald welcomes the establishment of Operation Parrabell as a chance to shed an antiseptic light on this dark period and, we hope, to pave the way for further investigation.
As we report today, the operation will review 88 NSW cases identified as possible gay-hate murders, including 30 unsolved cases, with a view to establishing a true picture of murders motivated by homophobia at the time. The process may not be perfect criminologist Stephen Thompson has questioned the FBI bias indicators the team is using and the final outcome may be contested, given the controversial nature of the subject.
The decision of the Australian Federal Police to investigate leaks from Malcolm Turnbull's National Broadband Network, raiding Labor Party offices in the midst of an election campaign, raises a myriad of concerns; over the timing, its actions and agreeing to investigate revelations that were palpably in the public interest in the first place.
Documents apparently leaked from inside NBN Co have revealed cost blowouts, delays and inefficiencies in the government's NBN rollout a rollout that was supposed to be cheaper, faster, and better than the full fibre-to-the-premises model mooted by Labor.
We have concerns about the inappropriate accessing of metadata.
One of these stories reported the Optus cable being relied upon by the "mixed media" model was in such poor repair that that it may need to be replaced. Another said the government faced a $640 million repair bill for Telstra's old copper network.
Yet another revealed the NBN was trialling a Labor-style fibre-to-the-premises roll out, and that it was surprisingly cheap and efficient.
A Post-it note art war has broken out on the office windows of advertising agency buildings on a New York City street. Two weeks later it has spread to Melbourne, Tokyo and Dublin.
The battle began early in May when an office worker in a Canal Street building used yellow Post-it notes to spell out "Hi" on a window.
Post-it notes art war in Canal Street, New York City. Credit:Chelsea Resnick/Instagram
The greeting sparked responses from ad agency workers in buildings across the street. First there were more words including "'SUP", "IF YR READING THIS ITS TOO LATE", "MARRY ME?" and HELLO FROM THE OTHER SIDE".
The internet is so full of advice on how to write that you could spend all your available writing time reading it. Much of it can be helpful. Much of it comes from very famous, successful writers: if they do not know how to do it, who does?
But I have had enough of Ten Tips to Make You a Better Writer. I think it is time for some anti-advice. What is out there is too prolix, too confusing, too contradictory. The aspiring writer cannot see the wood for the trees, which are often very spiky and jungly.
Kurt Vonnegut thinks his first rule of creative writing - do not use semicolons - should apply to everyone. Credit:Helayne Seidman/Washington Post
This is especially true for any creative writer working on fiction, memoir or poetry. Of course there are all sorts of practical tips you can pick up about the craft, and useful feedback to be gained from writing courses and workshops, but the last thing you need is someone telling you universal truths about what you should or should not do. You must discover that for yourself; which is not usually a quick or easy journey.
American novelist Danielle Dutton has written a telling piece, On Terrible Writing Advice from Famous Writers, which collects some unenlightening gems from down the ages. I particularly like Edgar Allan Poe's "include a beautiful woman with raven locks and porcelain skin, preferably quite young, and let her die tragically of some unknown ailment". (Sadly Poe never said this, it is a parody, but he did say, "The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world".)
Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore in Her directed by Spike Jonze. So when we meet, at a cafe near his loft in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, I'm primed for an awkward, or at least halting conversation. I know not to ask about his four-year marriage to fellow director Sofia Coppola, or his parents' divorce (a subject that came up a lot after his Wild Things implied that Max was angry and confused about his mum and dad splitting up). But in the event he turns out to be charming, thoughtful and inspiring in his enthusiasm. Jonze is coming to Australia to appear at the Vivid festival, in conversation with Vivid Ideas director Jess Scully. "My friend in Sydney tells me she's cool," he says, but that's as much thought as he's given it. "What should I talk about?" he asks. Film director Spike Jonze. He hasn't made a movie for three years, since Her, and isn't working on a script, but he rejects the notion that he is on hiatus, as this implies that feature length films are his day job and everything else is secondary, which isn't true. "I just make what I'm interested in making next," he says.
This might be Kanye West's twisted fantasy, a stop-motion animation in a Parisian bookstore, a dystopian vision of suburban adolescence scored by the Arcade Fire or an advert for adidas, Levi's or Nissan. Jonze is for hire, if his interest can be piqued. His latest short follows Late Show host Stephen Colbert on a journey across New York in the company of Grover from Sesame Street. "Play doesn't mean it's always fun. You can play with the deepest ideas": Spike Jonze. Credit:Dan Winters It's all play. Play doesn't mean it's always fun and frivolous. You can play with the deepest ideas. Play can be melancholy and surreal and dig into deeper things, as long as you're coming at it with a sense of exploration. A friend recently got a dog, so Jonze wrote a story about it as a gift. He also writes songs on his guitar just for himself, although he can't really play or sing. "It's the buzz of 'there was nothing, and now there's something'. It's the best feeling." His faith in the transformative power of creativity reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut, and a line in his essays that I've cherished since meeting him a decade ago: "The only way in which Americans can rise above their ordinariness is through enthusiastic intimacy with works of their own imaginations." Jonze nods. He met Vonnegut at a party once, and would love to have had more time to talk to him. "What was he like?" He wants to know.
Jonze has an undying love of dumb, funny stuff and a precocious, unfiltered imagination. He has often been described as child-like, particularly since Wild Things made manifest the desires and anxieties of a nine-year-old boy. "Spike is still half Max, probably, to this day," his co-writer Dave Eggers told GQ. "I think there's something about being creative where you don't censor yourself," Jonze says. "That freedom, I guess, can be described as childlike There's something beautiful when you see a kid that's that free to express themselves, and it's hard to hold on to." Aren't you still that free? It's an extraordinary privilege. "Certainly to be given millions of dollars to express myself is a very privileged But I think being privileged to express yourself sounds like someone is giving you permission to do it, and I think we all have permission to," he says. We bat this back and forth for a while until he agrees that yes, he is a lucky bastard. Jonze was 27 when MTV commissioned Jackass and started paying him to film Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Bam Margera and Chris Pontius jousting on BMX bikes, wrestling alligators, shooting themselves out of cannons and drenching each other in sewage. They stole ideas from Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin and Tom and Jerry most of all, and could hardly believe their good fortune. "They gave us money to make eight episodes, whatever we wanted, and we thought we were getting away with murder." Three seasons of television and four movies later, the franchise is still going, just, as its overgrown teenage stars hit their 40s and struggle to stay sober.
His latest role, the closest thing he has to a day job, is running Viceland, a cable TV network launched in February with an opening slate of programmes including Gaycation, following Ellen Page on journeys to LGBT holiday spots, an adventures-in-the-world-of-legal-marijuana show called Weediquette, and F--k, That's Delicious, starring rapper turned chef Action Bronson. Jonze's official title at Viceland is president, a designation he describes as "pretty crazy". Although he's only 46, he's a generation older than most of the talent. "Technically, kids are so sophisticated because they're taking in media from a young age. They're shooting and editing. I think there's a real sophistication to young film-makers because they've been doing it their whole lives," he says. He has often expressed admiration for artists that operate outside the corporate structure, from punks Fugazi, who booked their own shows and printed their own T-shirts rather than sign a record deal, to his friends the Beastie Boys, who spent their first big advance on a studio of their own. Is he ready to be a suit, I wonder, telling film-makers they have gone too far, or not far enough, or that their big ideas won't attract an audience? "As we get bigger [at Viceland], we need to have more structure. It can't be so chaotic that things can't get done but it has to have enough freedom to let creative ideas happen," he says, adding that "it's kind of ridiculous that somebody gave us this much money and carte blanche to do whatever we want." Vice supremo Shane Smith is building something self-consciously edgy, with content targeted at millennials, but he has the acquisitive ambitions of an old-fashioned media mogul. How long Jonze sticks around will depend on his tolerance for meetings, his ability to delegate, and whether he can still find time to express himself despite all the people clamouring for his attention.
One afternoon in Shanghai, he needed a shot showing Phoenix's point of view as his disembodied girlfriend lets him down gently. Cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema was otherwise engaged, so Jonze chose to do himself. For 20 minutes, he lay on the bed filming dust particles drifting and glinting in the light of magic hour. As he was shooting at 120 frames a second, to run in slow-motion; he would later have to scroll through 80 minutes of rushes. He only used nine seconds in the end, but it didn't matter. It was all play. Short and sweet Almost all of Spike Jonze's shorts are available to stream online. His skating videos are a good place to start, from Video Days, shot on Hi-8 and edited tape to tape to the full length Yeah Right!, which features invisible skateboards and a memorable cameo from Owen Wilson. The most recent, Pretty Sweet, opens with a long drone shot of skateboarders performing tricks with Busby Berkeley precision as a cannon shoots confetti into the air. His most memorable music videos include an equally choreographed dance number for Bjork (It's Oh So Quiet), a Happy Days pastiche he shot for Weezer (Buddy Holly), the hilarious homage to 1970s cop shows he made with the Beastie Boys (Sabotage), his infamous performance with a community breakdance troupe for Fatboy Slim (Praise You) and my favourite, Drop, an ingenious clip for hip-hop group The Pharcyde, shot backwards, that appears to defy the law of gravity.
Criminal is about a man with no empathy, no scruples, no emotion. After watching it, that felt like a description of the film-makers.
Mindless violence is one thing: cruel, stupid, random mindless violence against strangers for the enjoyment of a knuckle-dragging audience is another. When did movie violence become so nasty and pointless?
A long time back, if I am honest. I remember a leap around 1985, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was slicing the tops off people's heads and Sly Stallone went from punching faces to automatic weapons in Cobra (1986). Of course, Clint Eastwood killed with magnum force a lot earlier in Dirty Harry (1971), showing the way. One difference between then and now is that these were law and order movies: society was "out of control" and these lawmen acted as judge, jury and executioner. Keeping us safe against the scum, in their parlance.
The random violence in Criminal is shared around. Everyone is as nasty as each other: the scum now wear ties and work for governments. Kevin Costner is Jericho Stewart, who at least has an excuse. His daddy threw him out of a car when he was a baby, explains Tommy Lee Jones, playing Dr Franks, an experimental neuro-scientist. Jericho has no empathy, no emotions, no remorse, which is why he is banged up in maximum security. The doctor has found a way to transplant memories from a dead person to a live one.
This comes in useful when CIA agent Bill Pope (Ryan Reynolds) is tortured to death in London before he can impart the location of a super-hacker known as The Dutchman. Jan Stroop (Michael Pitt) has stolen the digital keys to US missile command, explains Gary Oldman, as the CIA London station chief Quaker Wells. He needs to know what Pope knew before he was killed by the henchmen of international anarchist gangster Xavier Heimdahl (Jordi Molla). That's why they connect Pope's lifeless body to Jericho's lifeless brain and zap them with an updated version of Dr Frankenstein's life-giving friend, electricity.
Here's a plausible description of how this script might have been put together, although it might not have been the writers who made these choices. The memory plot is older than Jason Bourne but he brought it back, big-time. The terrorists who want to steal missiles is standard James Bond, but serviceable if you come up a twist, like a protagonist with no emotions who gets those of another man. Add the luscious Gal Gadot as Pope's grieving wife and Jericho can now definitely feel something. It's more science fiction than usual for a thriller, but that worked in spectacular fashion in The Terminator.
PRINT MATTER
Adelaide artist Tracy Chaplin started her label Gretel Girl in 2010 as a blog journal. Each entry featured her simple sketches telling personal stories and soon began attracting wider interest. The first work she put on her website for sale, an old embroidery hoop framing appliqued vintage curtain fabric, was snapped up. She hasn't looked back since, drawing, sewing and crafting stories using vintage fabrics, plates, reclaimed wood and canvases to create affordable artworks. Frida Day of the Dead Tattoo Shirt illustrated tote bag, $38. Gretel Girl, gretelgirl.com.
Penny Evans shows her distinctive style in this ceramic dish, Gorrogarrah Binjdil Morning.
CLAY TIME
An Indigenous artist from Lismore, Penny Evans works in ceramic and mixed media on paper. Her ceramic designs reflect her Kamilaroi/Goomeroi heritage and refer to retro-style "Aboriginalia" souvenir ceramics from the 1950s and '60s. "My primary concerns are with the history and aftermath of colonisation," she says. Her distinctive, graphic style uses carving and sgraffito glazes, and each piece is unique. Gorrogarah Binjdil Morning ceramic platter #592, $185. Penny Evans Art, pennyevansart.com.
GREECE WITH SIMON REEVE
Series final
8.30pm, SBS
While never being anything less than accessible, Simon Reeve does a terrific job of these potted biographies of countries, and his visit to Greece is no exception. He's friendly and low-key but never shies away from the tough issues, and this final instalment includes the collapse of Greece's shipping industry, its obsession with armaments, and its exploitation of illegal immigrants. It's not all bad news though he appreciates the good as well as apprehending the not-so-much, and his illustration of the Greek spirit through an inexpensive item bought in most petrol stations is delightful.
Ellen Pompeo stars in Grey's Anatomy.
BOGANS
New series
9.30pm, 7Mate
Did you even know New Zealand had bogans? Me neither. But they're quick to distinguish themselves from the Australian variety and with good reason. Sure, they love mullets, tatts, booze and burnouts. But they're also witty, self-deprecating, and thoroughly good sorts. And perhaps the difference between them and us is best illustrated by the fact the bloke with the nickname Doc was gifted the moniker not because he's the local purveyor of pharmaceuticals, but because he actually has a PhD. And has written a book on bogan culture.
Halfway through the first season of Wayward Pines,we were all wondering where on earth it was all going. Then suddenly in the most startling way possible we all Went Somewhere. So even though right now we all feel like we've already had the Wayward Pines experience, there's also the tingling expectation that anything absolutely anything could be just around the corner. The very fact that this time around we know what's going on and the stranger in town does not, creates a new but equally creepy dynamic. What none of us knows yet is just how bad things are under the new, juvenile, Lord of the Flies regime. Matt Dillon is gone, of course. (Indeed, such was the slaughter at the end of season one, only a handful of familiar faces are returning.) Instead we have Jason Patric stepping in as the bewildered outsider, a gun surgeon with marital problems who makes the big, big mistake of sharing a drink with Terence Howard (Sheriff Arnold) while on holiday in Hawaii and wakes up deep in the future and in deep trouble. The whole WP universe has been nicely tweaked to feel same-but-different and by the end of this opening instalment, it's obvious we're off on a different journey altogether. Fasten your seatbelts.
DNA NATION
New series ***1/2
Sunday, May 22, 8.30pm, SBS
Australia's "special" broadcaster certainly brings something distinctive to our television landscape and not just endless documentaries about Hitler. Within the limits of its budget, it has enthusiastically embraced the notion of exploring niche and sometimes controversial aspects of Australian culture and even when the resultant programs don't quite hit their target they always start interesting and important conversations. There's a whole raft of reality-type series, for instance, that are uniquely SBS Living with the Enemy, Go Back to Where You Came From and that really shake up our comfortable ideas of who we are and what we believe. This latest documentary series is a much more sober affair, but at its heart are the same kinds of issues. Australia likes to celebrate its multiculturalism, but that whole notion is based on the idea of the coming-together of difference. DNA Nation poses the question: Are we really that different after all? You may have heard of "ancestry DNA" DNA mapping that traces not just your immediate progenitors but your history right back to the first human exodus out of Africa 200,000 years ago. Here Ernie Dingo, Julia Zemiro and Ian Thorpe volunteer to have their DNA tested, and then physically trace the journey of their ancestors over the next 70,000 years or so. So first stop is Tanzania, where they spend a few days with the Hadza hunter-gatherers a clan who are not only genetically closest to the original mother of us all, but, coincidentally or not, still live in much the same way as that mother did, thousands of centuries earlier. The three have been chosen well, not just for their diversity but because they are all intelligent, thoughtful and honest. The conversations the trip prompts are easily as interesting as the science being explored. Screening as the flagship in a month of programming exploring identity, the central question here is: How much of who we are is truly in our DNA?
GENIUS WITH STEPHEN HAWKING
The move would help keep vital projects delivering maternal and child health, schooling, clean water and sanitation up and running into the next financial year, Ms Plibersek said.
Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek says a Labor government would immediately restore the money cut under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's first budget earlier this month.
Labor has pledged to reverse the Coalition's latest $224 million cut to the foreign aid program but is making no promises about the many billions slashed under Tony Abbott's government.
The funding promise means Labor would deliver a total of $800 million more in aid over four years than the Coalition. Ms Plibersek says that would "start rebuilding" the program that has been cut by $11 billion under the Coalition.
"Since coming to government in 2013, the Liberals have gutted Australia's aid program. It is now the weakest in history," Ms Plibersek said.
"Sadly, the Liberals' cuts have been so deep that it is impossible to fix the aid program quickly."Labor has also promised an additional $450 million over three years to support the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and an extra $40 million a year to help Australian NGOs deliver frontline services.
The major parties once had a bipartisan commitment to increase aid to 0.5 per cent of gross national income, or more than $8 billion, by this financial year.
However, Labor slowed the increases when it was in government and Mr Abbott later made swingeing cuts. He also scrapped the dedicated aid agency AusAID.
Campaigning in inner Sydney and Melbourne, Di Natale and his industrial relations spokesman Adam Bandt (so far the only lower house Greens MP in the federal parliament) promised to introduce legislation to shore up penalty rates, with Di Natale styling himself the defender of "ordinary working people" and their "hard-earned, old-fashioned rights". Richard Di Natale and his wife, Lucy Quarterman, on their Deans Marsh property. Credit:Damien Pleming Having already made inroads on Labor's socially progressive left flank, the Greens looked as if they were going after the ALP's wage-earning heartland as well. Labor's campaign spokeswoman Penny Wong was quick to retort that "we are the party that has decades of history supporting and protecting the rights of working people". And Shorten struck back with the argument that if penalty rates were ruled on by parliament instead of the workplace umpire, that would make them vulnerable to rollbacks by Coalition governments. Greens candidate Jim Casey and rival Labor MP Anthony Albanese. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
More wounding to Di Natale was a Fairfax Media story several days later alleging he had failed to declare his farm correctly on the parliamentary interests register and that he and wife Lucy had underpaid a series of au pairs. Employment Minister Michaelia Cash leapt on the story to accuse the Greens of reaching "record levels" of hypocrisy. Di Natale has denied the thrust of the story, saying the working farm was declared as a business interest, and that the au pair's salary package (which included food and board) was negotiated according to advice from the agency they used when Lucy was still working two days a week (she has since taken a break from work). I welcome attacks because they make us stronger and more determined. Greens leader Richard Di Natale. "I think I said in my first ever speech, I welcome attacks like this because they make us stronger and more determined," he said defiantly on Friday. "What the old parties haven't understood is that the biggest barrier to the Greens vote going up is that most people don't have a deep understanding about the Greens: who we are and what our positions are on a number of key issues. When you are able to have that conversation with people either through the media, or face to face, you find as often as not that you end up with someone who is a new Greens voter."
Maintaining a profile is always the critical challenge for a small party and Greens elder statesman and former leader Bob Brown also insists that assaults on the Greens may not always play out the way the major parties intend. "Richard is proving a huge asset as leader of the Greens, and he and Adam Bandt can hold their own as quality spokespeople against any of the major figures in the Labor and Liberal parties," he told Fairfax Media this week. Brown will be making a temporary return to the campaign trail this election, his first formal appearance slated for June 4 in the seat of Higgins (held by Liberal frontbencher Kelly O'Dwyer) in support of the Greens' candidate Jason Ball. Kevin Rudd's former media chief Lachlan Harris, a veteran of several federal election campaigns, says Labor is deeply concerned that the Greens are becoming a "a more formidable political force" and he assesses the Greens' campaign operation as "smarter and more capable of taking tactical opportunities than they used to be". But he says if the Greens are getting more than their expected share of the spotlight, its also because the major parties' campaigns thus far have failed to catch fire. "The fact that the tactical plays of the minor parties are getting quite a bit of coverage tell me that the Greens are probably filling a bit of a vacuum. I have never seen a campaign, for the last 20 years, where there has been a lower level of interest in the community in the first few weeks," he says.
Harris also insists that Labor is deadly serious about preferring a fresh election to getting back into bed with the Greens as it did during the Gillard years in the event of a hung parliament. "If Labor positions itself in a coalition agreement then the Libs will outflank it to the right, the Greens to the left and it gets stranded in the middle with nothing. I would say there would be no circumstances where it would not be a better option to return to the polls." Despite this, the Coalition appears ready to run this line of attack right up to polling day. The tactic invites comparisons with Britain's 2015 general election and the way Prime Minister David Cameron constantly talked up the risk of a British Labour pact with the Scottish National Party in order to panic voters back into the conservative fold. But keeping the focus on the Greens may not be all upsides for the Liberal party either. Election analyst Antony Green says that in last year's NSW state election, the Greens polled surprisingly strongly in some of Sydney's wealthier suburbs, coming second after the coalition. Carried over into the federal sphere, this could translate into some leakage of Senate votes from both the Coalition and Labor. "All this oxygen that the Greens are getting could deliver them an increased Senate vote, and I don't think the Liberals think enough about that, they are just focused on winning the Treasury benches" insists one Greens strategist. "Don't forget that at the state election in NSW the Greens won a seat off the Nationals in Ballina, and off the Liberals in Prahran in the Victorian state election."
The Greens also hold two inner city seats after the 2015 NSW state election Balmain and Newtown both of which are now within the redrawn boundaries of Albanese's inner-city electorate in Sydney. Di Natale singled out Albanese's seat of Grayndler as a target on day one of the campaign, infuriating Labor's former deputy prime minister, who accuses the Greens of hypocrisy in seeking to oust him while stating they want a more progressive Australia. Labor stalwarts find it particularly hard to stomach what they see as the Greens "holier than thou" attitude on issues like asylum-seekers, which is a running sore for the ALP. "There is nothing quite so righteous as a politician that never has to govern," says Harris. Critics point out that the Greens can champion an asylum seeker policy advocating 50,000 entrants a year and freer-flowing regional processing while asserting that this would not re-start the boats because neither major party is going to adopt it and put it to the test. The Greens' ever-broadening policy agenda poses other pitfalls. Di Natale looked exposed on the fine detail of foreign policy this week when he addressed the Lowy Institute in Sydney. Having advocated that China's belligerence in the South China sea should be dealt with by way of an international tribunal ruling, he had no comeback to the questioner who pointed out that China had forcefully rejected such arbitration.
Communications Minister Mitch Fifield admits he knew about the police investigation into damaging National Broadband Network leaks but claims he did not tell Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
However, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says it's completely implausible Senator Fifield didn't inform Mr Turnbull or his staff, saying the government is either guilty of "gross incompetence" or lying.
In a statement on Saturday, Senator Fifield said senior management at the NBN referred the "commercially sensitive" document leaks to the Australian Federal Police after an internal review last year.
Not since the great missing bicycle incident of 2015 has there been quite so much intrigue about the goings on in the staff carpark at the ABC's Ultimo headquarters. While former foreign correspondent and Walkley-Award winning journalist Tim Palmer's expensive bicycle turned up after a thorough investigation, which included senior security staff trawling through CCTV footage of the staff-only carpark, PS can also solve another mystery of recent times: vanishing names from highly-prized car spaces. Michelle Guthrie has been quick to make her presence felt at ABC's Ultimo corridors. Credit:Peter Braig Under former managing director Mark Scott's reign, staff bestowed with a coveted car space had their names and positions emblazoned over the spot to ensure there was no confusion as to whose wheels belonged where. But PS hears that has all changed.
Since the arrival of new managing director Michelle Guthrie, those names and titles have been disappearing. "It's all part of her way of democratising the culture, that's her big thing," one slightly miffed insider told PS amid whispers that some senior executives were feeling less democratic about the changes than the new boss was. Indeed PS has heard that finding one of the favoured spots has become akin to an episode of the Hunger Games. Guthrie, a former Singapore-based Google executive, has certainly been making her presence felt around the ABC's Ultimo corridors, with PS's moles reporting her management style was somewhat different to Scott's. Indeed it is early days, though the ABC's first female managing director has already promised to make the public broadcaster more diverse with greater representation of women and multiculturalism.
It's not going to be much consolation to frustrated would-be first-home buyers, but repayments on the average new mortgage are $254 less than they were at Australia's borrowing peak in November.
Yes, the saving's partly courtesy of the May budget day rate cut, which is to be mostly passed through to home loan customers finder.com.au says the average fall will be 22 basis points to 4.9 per cent (prior to any discount you can negotiate).
The Great Australian Dream of property ownership is not dead, but it needs to shift away from the white picket fence. Credit:Jessica Shapiro
But it's also due to a rapid decline amid a lending crackdown and concern about prices in how much buyers are borrowing.
Just five months ago the average loan size across Australia was threatening to breach $400,000 on ABS figures ($392,700). Today it's $361,400, an 8 per cent drop.
Seventy-five firefighters have been instructed to wait, for their own safety, until a large fire burns down a factory in Sydney's south.
The firefighters, from 15 fire stations in the area, arrived at Haverick Meats on Green Street, Banksmeadow to try to control the blaze after it erupted about 8.30am on Saturday morning.
More than 40 workers evacuated the meat factory, which processed beef, lamb, pork and chicken for restaurant supply.
The fire started in an airconditioning unit and spread through the factory's refrigerated wall panelling.
Mr Hara is now six years out of acting school at the University of Technology, Queensland, and describes his favourite thing about the career as the connection it has with society.
"The art of storytelling, it's an ancient thing that's always been passed on and people always look for stories. So to be able to connect with people like that ... it's nice," he said. Mr Hara, who flew home from the United States specifically for his Home and Away audition, said the "iconic" show has been a springboard for a future in acting.
"I don't think it's a rite of passage, but in saying that it does give you a huge amount of experience and exposure that you can't really buy. It's definitely opened up doors for me."
Despite the lengthy list of Home and Away graduates who went on to become Hollywood sensations, including Heath Ledger, Chris Hemsworth and Naomi Watts, Mr Hara doesn't think the recipe for success is so straightforward.
"I don't think there's a right or wrong way to go into a profession like acting, there's always a risk for anyone who does it. For the most part everyone's in it because they love the art and everything else that comes along is just a byproduct," he said.
The state government needs to take over control of cooling tower inspections from local government in response to recent deadly outbreaks of legionnaires' disease, NSW Labor has said.
Labor's health spokesman Walt Secord said NSW Health should be made responsible for inspections to improve detection of contamination and monitoring.
Seventy per cent of NSW air cooling systems were failing to meet standards, according to the most recent NSW Health report in 2011. Mr Secord said inspections need to be increased.
The 52 cases of legionnaires' recorded in NSW this year include two deaths. There have been two outbreaks in the Sydney CBD, one in Dee Why and one in Burwood.
A man shot dead outside a house in Sydney's west on Thursday night is believed to have had previous links to an outlaw motorcycle gang.
Police have been scouring Coral Pea Court in Colyton to investigate the shooting of Adrian Buxton, 31, in what they believe was not a random attack.
Mr Buxton appeared to be taking the bins out when he was gunned down, while his wife and child were reportedly inside the house.
Residents on Coral Pea Court phoned triple zero to report hearing up to five gunshots ring out just after 9pm.
Families of Australian victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 downed by a missile over the Ukraine in July 2014 are seeking compensation of $10 million per passenger in what could result in one of the largest aviation disaster payouts in history.
The claim served by Sydney legal firm LHD Lawyers on May 9 to the European Court of Human Rights lays the blame squarely at the door of the Russians.
Proposed respondents to the claim are the Russian Federation and President Vladimir Putin. It argues that Russia recognises an attack on a passenger plane is an egregious act having offered "a $50 million reward in connection with the terrorist downing of an Egyptian Airline that killed a large number of Russian citizens".
There are 33 next of kin named in the application, eight from Australia, one from New Zealand and the remainder from Malaysia. There were 298 occupants on the plane which, lawyers say, could potentially take the compensation bill to almost $3 billion.
Police officers seized an assortment of drugs and weapons in Mackay yesterday after executing a search warrant.
Officers from the Mackay Property Taskforce raided a Wellington Street address, where they located drugs, drug paraphernalia, ammunition, firearms, stolen property and what was referred to as "military ordinance".
Police seized drugs and weapons in Mackay.
Specialist members from the Australian Defence Force travelled from Townsville to safely remove the items.
A 26-year-old Mackay man has been charged multiple offences including firearm and explosive possession as well as unlawful possession of drugs and weapons.
There is a famous scene from The Right Stuff, the movie about the first astronauts, where the entire world sits on the edge of its seat, waiting for word from John Glenn on his overheated re-entry to Earth, NASA control calling to him, time and again. Everybody waiting.
Such a scene played out on Friday night at Essex Heights Primary School in Mount Waverley. About 300 parents and children were hunched forward in the school hall, as a amateur radio operator in Queensland attempted to provide a hook-up between the International Space Station and 11 young students who were waiting to ask question of Flight Engineer Jeff Williams.
The audience watches on as Essex Heights Primary School students interview an astronaut on the International Space Station. Credit:Wayne Taylor
"Calling MA 1SS, MA 1SS ... this is five Zulu ... copy here."
After a couple of callouts, there came the same burst of static that in 1960s television news reports delivered a novel thrill to a world-wide audience whose mind was blown at the very idea that this rather ugly sound was coming down from space. The world soon became jaded but here there was some of that old-time excitement and emotion.
Police are hunting thieves who broke into a home in Heathridge and then set it on fire.
It's believed the robbers targeted the Balanus Way home between 11am and 11.15am on Friday morning.
Police are hunting for robbers who set fire to this Heathridge home. Credit:WA Police
They stole several electronic devices and an engagement ring before setting fire to items in one of the rooms.
The damage bill is estimated at $100,000.
London/Washington: US presidential candidate Donald Trump claims British Prime Minister David Cameron has asked him to visit, but a UK spokesman says no invitation has been extended.
The apparent crossed signals were the latest sign of tension between the presumptive US Republican Party candidate and the leader of a major US ally, who has criticised Mr Trump's call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.
Mr Trump, in an interview with MSNBC on Friday in the US, said Mr Cameron extended the invitation to visit 10 Downing St two days ago and that he "might do it". He gave no other details.
A spokesman for Mr Cameron's office said it was a longstanding practice for the Prime Minister to meet the Republican and Democrat presidential nominees if they visited Britain.
An Egyptian plane searches in the Mediterranean Sea for crashed EgyptAir flight 804. Credit:AP The Egyptian army spokesman, Brigadier General Mohammed Samir, said in an interview Friday that "there is no doubt" that the debris came from the EgyptAir plane. The discovery of the remains and wreckage appeared to dash any lingering hopes of finding survivors. Among the dozen or so countries whose citizens were on the flight, Egypt suffered the greatest loss, with 30 people on board. The tragedy added grief to a sense of disbelief over a recent string of disasters, including the Russian airliner that was brought down shortly after it left the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in October, dealing a crippling blow to the country's tourism. An EgyptAir flag outside the temporary EgyptAir Crisis Centre at Cairo International Airport. Credit:Getty Images The Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority has provided what a spokesman called a definitive timeline on the disaster. The agency reported that the flight was proceeding normally at 1:48am. Cairo time Thursday, when Greek traffic controllers last spoke with the pilot, who seemed in good spirits.
At 2.27am, when the plane was passing from Greek to Egyptian-supervised airspace, the controllers in Athens tried and failed repeatedly to reach the pilots by radio. Even attempts on an emergency frequency failed. The Imam of al Thawrah Mosque, Samir Abdel Bary, gives condolences to film director Osman Abu Laban, centre, who lost four relatives in the EgyptAir plane crash, at al Thawrah Mosque in Cairo. Credit:AP At the same time, technical data was being transmitted from the plane through an automatic system aboard the plane called the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS. Modern jetliners use to provide status updates to maintenance and operational centres on the ground. Representatives of Airbus and the Federal Aviation Administration said they could not confirm the authenticity of the technical signals. Dina El-Fouly, a spokeswoman for EgyptAir, declined to comment on the apparently leaked data. "We cannot say anything, because we have already launched a committee to investigate the crash," she said. "It hasn't told us anything until now." The data, first reported on AVHerald.com, is written tersely in abbreviations and codes. Robert W. Mann, a former commercial airline pilot and an industry analyst, said the jargon in the messages told a compelling, albeit incomplete, story.
At 2.26am, a message indicated that the right cockpit window has been opened. This could have been done to vent smoke, Mann said, or something else could have cause the breach. Over the next two minutes, there were two smoke indications, one in a bathroom and another in the avionics bay, the part of the plane where much of its electronic equipment is housed. Mann cautioned that these messages did not necessarily mean there was a fire. The messages could also have been triggered by rapid decompression of the aircraft, which can produce condensation that the plane's sensors could mistake for smoke. Finally at 2.29, there were two more alerts having to do with the plane's flight control computer systems. "The last two are troubling," Mann said. "You are starting to really see things rapidly degrade."
First, there was a problem with the autoflight control computer. The jet would have been flying near its maximum speed and elevation at that time. That is the most efficient way for jetliners to fly, and it is completely safe, Mann said, but pilots prefer to rely on autopilot systems in those conditions because if they were to ever lose control of the plane, it could be hard to regain. That is why pilots sometimes call those conditions the "coffin corner," he said. The last message had to do with the spoiler elevator controller, which essentially controls the flaps responsible for controlling the pitch and roll of the airplane. A computer controlling the flaps failed as well. "It looks to me like you have a progressive flight control system failure," Mann said. It appeared to take place over the course of two minutes, which might seem like an eternity on that plane, but is relatively fast. This was also the moment that the plane left Greek airspace, and at 2:29:40 a.m., Greek controllers lost sight of the aircraft on radar. It was just inside Egyptian airspace, about halfway between Crete and Egypt. "If that is correct, then it has landed on a feature we call the Mediterranean Ridge," said William B.F. Ryan, a scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University who has studied the Mediterranean Sea floor.
The ridge has been pushed upward by the African plate of the Earth's crust sliding under the Aegean Sea, deforming and crumbling the sea floor, Ryan said. "You get a complex play of echoes that was nicknamed cobblestone, showing the sea floor is very bumpy," he said. The water there is about three kilometres deep, and picking out wreckage at the bottom from among the bumps, which are perhaps 15 to 30 metres in size, could be somewhat complex, he said. But if the plane's "black box" flight recorders are sending out ultrasonic locator signals, it should be possible to locate them fairly soon. Still, it may take time to organise the search and recovery of the wreckage, using specialised robots, sophisticated sonar and deep-water equipment. "The club of organisations that have the capability to work efficiently at that depth is fairly small," said David Gallo, a scientist who helped lead the search in 2009 for debris from Air France Flight 447, which crashed in the South Atlantic on a flight to Paris from Rio de Janeiro, killing 228 aboard. It took two years before the black boxes from that flight were recovered. Egypt was joined in the sea and air search effort Friday by teams from Britain, Cyprus, France, Greece and Italy. In addition, French and British investigators and one expert from Airbus, the plane's manufacturer, joined a team of Egyptian investigators to inspect the airplane parts as they were discovered. Through that painstaking effort, and the hoped-for recovery of the plane's flight data recorders, they hope to determine whether the crash was caused by an act of terrorism or sabotage, or by mechanical or human failure.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt expressed his condolences Friday to the families of victims. El-Sissi, "with utmost sadness and regret, mourns the victims on board the EgyptAir flight who were killed," his office said in a statement. As the debris was found, more details began to emerge about the passengers on the flight. The British news media reported that the only Briton on the plane was Richard Osman, 40, a father of two whose young daughter was born less than a month ago. Alastair Osman told ITV News that his brother, described as a workaholic and fitness enthusiast, grew up in Wales and worked in the gold-mining industry. The son of an Egyptian doctor, he lived with his French-born wife in Jersey, an island in the English Channel. Osman Abu Laban, a Lebanese film director who lives in Egypt, lost four members of his extended family in the crash. In a post on his Facebook page, Abu Laban announced funeral prayers Friday afternoon at a Cairo mosque for his aunt and uncle, their son and the son's wife. "Oh God, be merciful to them, forgive them and make their abode the highest heaven," Abu Laban wrote.
PHILIPSBURG:--- In view of the coming Elections 2016 in St. Maarten, the Concordia Political Alliance party reached out to Benjamin & Parker Certified Risk Auditors after conducting a scan in the consultancy market in the Region, with the objective to develop a new concept to achieve the simplification of the local taxation method effectively. Benjamin & Parker is a consultancy company versed in High Impact Risk Management and their team consists of Certified professionals of Panama, Colombia, The Netherlands, Ecuador, The USA and the Dutch Caribbean in various financial areas . The firm accepted the challenge to dissect the current methodology, create an innovative fiscal concept that will emphasize efficiency to relief the Tax Office burden while zooming in on the actual business culture to mitigate tax evasion practices, with focus on consciousness and awareness of the SXM citizen to declare their income in a simplified manner.
Benjamin & Parkers fields of expertise are Corporate Cost Savings, Efficiency enhancement and progressive Revenue evolution, which are the master keys to the existing problems in the local taxation cycle.
The management of BP indicated that times have changed and the tax system must be adapted starting by eliminating the Dutch Taxation culture to improve the social economic platform by making St. Maarten financially attractive for local and foreign investors. The representative of Benjamin & Parker stressed that adapting the Taxation system with business culture promotes employment and employment generates tax revenues.
St Maarten has been confronting the following taxation problems:
-Bulk taxations are forced on the business community and the citizens without considering the economic impact hereof.
-Increase of unemployment and returning graduates fall in the unemployment pool or faced with lower paying jobs.
-Tax bills cycle is circuitous.
The CPA party Leader Mr. Jeffrey Richardson, as a responsible politician, contacted Benjamin & Parker Head Office expressing his concerns, about the ongoing tax inconveniences after CPA assessed the root of the existing inconsistencies and found it necessary to step to the plate to relief the tax burden on both ends, the Tax Office and the Tax paying community by presenting an Efficient Tax simplification.
The Benjamin & Parkers assessment aims to secure accountability of funds, outline the current waste within the Tax collection cycle and describe the remedial actions to trigger and promote Government income by simplifying the taxation method, in conformity with good governance and efficiency guidelines.
Mr. Jeffrey Richardson and BP Latin American Regional Director Mr. Terence Jandroep CRA are not strangers to each other, considering they were classmates 3 decades ago and graduated together in 1985 in Business Economics.
The combination of ideas, expertise and thorough scanning of the systematic taxation circuit, are the basis for the analysis that will be presented first to the press, and thereafter made public to the voting community of Sint Maarten.
Knowledge of what we do wrong is the key to believe in ourselves again.
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[](http://www.wasatchit.com/sql2005/index.html) Microsoft has ended official support for MS SQL 2005 as of April 12, 2016. Database software has improved over the last 10 years, and new organizational tools and faster speeds are prominent improvements. Since 2011, support has been limited, but now as it is cut off, those still running [MS SQL 2005](http://www.wasatchit.com/sql2005/index.html) will need to upgrade.
Without upgrading, users can expect that their databases will become non-functional in time. Upgrading to SQL 2014 may require hardware upgrades and data cleanup, among other things. Microsoft has an upgrade advisor tool that comes with the SQL 2014 Feature Pack, but database managers and businesses may need a human guide to help them make the upgrade a smooth process.
Justin Fleming, VP of Operations at Wasatch IT said, As with all Microsoft products there is a shelf life and SQL is no different, we have all been expecting the end of life for SQL 2005 for a few years now. It is surprising to me to see and hear how many companies are still using SQL 2005. Without additional patches or support from Microsoft the vulnerabilities in SQL 2005 will continue to grow and grow. It is certainly concerning that so much of a companys critical data is stored in SQL databases and could be vulnerable to corruption because of unsupported software. Our recommendation at Wasatch IT is to make sure our customers and vendors have updated their software to supported versions of SQL, and with the 2016 general release coming on June 1st, we strongly recommend that if you havent started a migration plan to get off SQL2005, now is the time! We are happy to help with any questions on licensing or how to upgrade your current systems.
Advantages to MS SQL Server 2014 over MS SQL 2005
SQL Server 2014 isnt Microsofts first upgrade to SQL. Microsoft had an upgrade in 2008 and again in 2012 but 2014 offers some significant upgrades, especially from the 2005 version. Enhanced security, programmability, reporting, data analysis, more integrations, and a simplified avenue to the cloud are just a few upgrades amongst many included with SQL 2014. One of notable improved organizational tools in 2014 is Delayed Durability a feature that reduces latency and delays.
About Wasatch IT
Wasatch IT, located in Murray, has been providing contract support for the Salt Lake and Utah Valley areas since 2002. They offer services in managed services, networking, computer security, software licensing, and virtualization. Wasatch IT was awarded the Utah 100 award by Utah Governor Gary Herbert for four years straight, from 2009-2012. For more information, contact Wasatch IT at 888-275-8850 or visit their website at http://www.wasatchit.com.
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While walking through Swansea Market, Sir Karl Jenkins came across a cockle seller and old friend who, while making conversation, asked him in true local fashion if he was "still with the music?"
The expression tickled the Penclawdd-born composer, so much so that he chose it as the title for his new autobiography, which he'll be talking about at this year's Hay Festival on Sunday, June 5.
We've met up to talk about the book, as well as his appearance at the Welsh arts and literature festival in Hay-on-Wye, but the big question that I need to clear up first and foremost is how to address the first Welsh composer to receive a knighthood.
In all our previous meetings he was plain old Dr Karl Jenkins CBE is it now Sir Karl to everyone?
"I tell people to just call me Karl in social situations, but it is quite nice being Sir Karl as well," he admits with a chuckle.
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"I'm an unlikely person to receive a birthday honour, and it was a privilege and an honour. As a cross cultural composer I've never been a part of the musical establishment and I'm very thankful."
It was also a stroke of good fortune that the letter informing him of the honour arrived on his doorstep before he'd put the finishing touches to Still with the Music.
"The obvious reason that I wrote the book was because I was asked to do it, but it was also because I was 70 and, luckily, the knighthood was announced as well," he says of the decision to preserve his life story in print, a fascinating tale which spans a varied musical career taking in jazz and advertising music before finding global acclaim as a composer.
"It's quite an interesting story because I've been a musical tourist, while making a living at the same time," he says.
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He also writes about his time growing up in the area including our local cockle pickers, which included members of his own family.
"I was raised in Penclawdd, and at the time the cockle industry was quite thriving. There were always horses and carts up and down the roads, it was part of the village scene, part of the village's culture."
Before he heads to the Welsh 'town of books' next month, Sir Karl is deep in the recording process of an important and timely new piece of music which commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster.
One of the most tragic mining-relating catastrophes the world has seen, on October 21, 1966, 116 children and 28 adults lost their lives after a colliery waste tip collapsed and devastated a Welsh community.
A horrific day which Karl can still clearly recall.
"I remember it vividly," he tells me.
"I was 22, in my first term at the Royal Academy in London. I started in September, and it happened in October.
"On the day itself I was following the news on TV, and I remember many people went there to help, to see what they could do in a physical way. It was a disaster waiting to happen, and the landscape of the valleys was changed forever.
"It was a universal disaster, especially because of the number of children who perished."
As such, you might assume that the music marking the event would be quite sombre in tone, but as he explains, it also offers a ray hope.
"The main part is a celebration of childhood, it's moving from the dark to the light," he says.
"It's 35 minutes long, and the first 15 minutes deals with the tragedy. It will be performed at the Wales Millennium Centre on October 8, and Deutsche Grammophon will be releasing the recording later."
Some of Wales' most celebrated artists will be taking part including harpist Catrin Finch, brass specialist David Childs, Swansea soprano Elin Manahan Thomas and operatic superstar Bryn Terfel. The evening will also feature new written work, read by various artists along with special performances from the community given by The Ynysowen Male Choir and school choirs from Ynysowen Community Primary School and Ysgol Rhyd y Grug.
"It's the perfect fit to commemorate a Welsh event," he says of the assembled Welsh musical super team.
"It was a huge honour and a privilege to be asked. Everyone involved has been moved by it.
"It's been commissioned for S4C, but that hasn't compromised the music. The libretto was written by poet Mererid Hopwood, using a mix of English and Welsh with a Latin mass."
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And if all that wasn't enough to keep him busy, Sir Karl, who is predominantly based in London now, also has a few local engagements lined up as well.
"I'll be at Swansea Jazz Festival on June 17," he says of the annual musical celebration of which he is a patron, and which he'll be enjoying as a punter, rather than a musician, this year.
"I'm coming down for two days and I'll help out if I can. They use my name as a figurehead, but I'll be there as a fan like everyone else. And I'll be doing an 'Evening with' night at the Gower Festival on July 8," he says of the event at Burry Green Chapel.
Tokyo, May 21,2016 (SPS) - Senator Satsuki Eda and Algerian Ambassador to Japan H.E. Mohamed El Amine Bencherif and SJJA members held Friday a meeting to celebrate the Saharawi 43 anniversary of the outbreak of armed struggle, at the Members office building of House of Councilors of Japan.
Senator Satsuki Eda is the founder of SJPFA (Saharawi Japan Parliamentarians Friendship Association). He was the 27th President of House of Councilors, the 87th Minister of Justice, and the 16th Minister for the Environment.
In 1991 when MINURSO was created, Senator Eda Satsuki founded SJPFA.
In 1991, H.E. Algerian Ambassador worked in the Saharawi Refugee camps as the Vice President of the Algerian Humanitarian Aid for Saharawis.
The Senator and the Ambassador are working for MINURSO since it was established. Both of them support MINURSO and the United Nations activity to achieve the peace and self determination for the independence of the Western Sahara.
The United Nations Security Council and the United Nations Secretary General should reopen the Negotiation between the 2 parties before the end of July, insisted the Senator.
They should do it before the limit of 90 days, as soon as possible. Even in 1 week should be, emphasized the Ambassador.
All participants agreed that the Japanese government should contribute to the United Nations Security Councils to implement the Referendum and to resume of the mutual negotiation as a member state of the United Nations Security Council.
The meeting sent directly their proposal to Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (SPS)
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Rhodes (Greece), 20 May 2016 (SPS) - The Department of Mediterranean Studies of the University of Aegean organised the seventh Mare Nostrum Conference on the island of Rhodes, Greece, on 18-20 May 2016, under the title Wider Middle East and North Africa: War, Refugees, Civilisation.
During the conference, Ms Paraskevi Maragou delivered a paper titled Western Sahara today in which she presented an introduction on the history of the region as a Non Self-Governing Territory and the struggle of its people for self-determination. The paper also approached the recent developments and the positions of the main international actors.
It is an open case, already more than 40 years old. It has two additional features that one would expect to constantly keep it in the centre of the international attention. It belongs to the Arab world and is also the last colony in Africa emphasised Ms Maragou in her paper, adding that in a world of contradictions and hypocrisy, the case of Western Sahara conquers new records on every occasion.
In her comment on Moroccos participation in the Mediterranean dialogue, Ms Maragou made it clear that Moroccos illegal, military occupation of Western Sahara and its continuous abuses of human rights of the Sahrawi people do not entitle it to be party to any kind of partnership with the Mediterranean Europe. Besides, she added, Morocco is an absolute monarchy, where the king remains the absolute master of all powers. His continuous intransigence on the Western Sahara issue creates the conditions for an uncontrolled explosion.
It should be recalled that Mare Nostrum Conference was organised with the support of the Centre for Studies of the Mediterranean and Middle East Politics and Culture and had the participation of more than 250 speakers and more than 1000 participants. (SPS)
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Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak has said that the Russian Federation has still a desire to occupy Ukraine.
"We clearly see that the Russian Federation is strengthening its military groups on the border with Ukraine. They seek to additionally deploy its troops on the border with Ukraine. This is evidence that the Russian Federation has not abandoned its desire to occupy Ukraine, Poltorak told reporters in Kyiv on Saturday.
The minister said that everyone who lives in Ukraine must not forget about a threat that has not disappeared.
"[The threat] still exists. I think that it will exist We can influence this by no means: the actions of Russia and statements of the Russian defense minister. However, we can jointly make correct decision and plan our work to be ready to the contingency actions. The Defense Ministry and the General Staff are working seriously to be able to respond to intimidation," Poltorak said.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will make a working visit to Turkey on May 22 and May 23 to participate in the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul.
The press service of the head of state reported that Poroshenko will speak at the plenary session and take part in a roundtable devoted to the role of political leadership in preventing and ending conflicts.
The visit program includes bilateral meetings of the Ukrainian president with heads of states and governments participating in the summit.
For the first time the United Nations has convened the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul. The summit has been prepared for three years. The summit aims at initiating a set of concrete actions and commitments aimed at enabling countries and communities to better prepare for and respond to crises.
D escending to land at Lukla, one of the worlds most dangerous and spectacularly situated airports, the heart begins to pound.
The 40-minute flight from Nepals capital, Kathmandu, into the airport which acts as a gateway to the Everest region provides the first awe-inspiring glimpses of the Himalayas as long as you remember to sit on the left.
For those of us unaccustomed to such exhilarating descents, the journey can be a source of nervousness. But as our plane lands on the short, sloped runway any fears are overcome by a palpable sense of excitement - shared by my fellow passengers - at the prospect of arriving in the heart of the worlds biggest mountain range.
Once there, sunlight streams over wooded slopes, and snowy summits peak their heads high above, almost indistinguishable from the blue skies with which they seem at one.
A plane lands at the breathtaking Lukla airport in Nepal
Here I was, then, joining my first trekking trip, and heading to base camp of the almost mythically beautiful Ama Dablam.
My visit came at the end of a tough 12 months for Nepal. Last Aprils devastating earthquake, in which almost 9,000 people were killed, was followed by a fuel blockade on the Indian border that further compounded the difficulties of this impoverished country.
Its bustling capital, Kathmandu, saw some of its most beautiful architecture destroyed, with the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Boudhanath Stupa among several historic sites to have suffered severe damage.
But visit today, and the country is filled with confidence about the future.
As Roland Hunter, managing director of Tooting-based trekking firm The Mountain Company, with which I travelled, says: There is a feeling of optimism in the air.
There is no doubt that 2015 was a tough year for this country, as shortly after the earthquake there was the fuel blockade which slowed up reconstruction plans.
But luckily the earthquake didn't damage too much of the tourist infrastructure; most hotels in Kathmandu survived and the lodges in Everest region were quickly repaired.
Mr Hunters optimism is hardly surprising. Kathmandu remains a fascinating, culturally rich city packed with unforgettable sights, while Bhaktapur, about eight miles east of the capital, is home to wondrous 15th century architecture.
The path back from Ama Dablam base camp, where stunning views greet trekkers
But it is the Himalayas which locals hope hold the key to the countrys future prosperity - and seeing them for the first time goes a long way to explaining why.
Soon after setting out on our 11 day trek led by our unfathomably knowledgeable and wonderfully personable guide Gopal Lama the views start showing themselves.
Soaring snow-capped peaks appear around corners as we follow a dusty path through pine forests and along the banks of roaring glacial rivers.
Within a couple of days, we reach the relative throng of Namche Bazaar the Sagarmatha National Parks most bustling town, sitting on a steep mountain side at a dizzying height of 3,445metres.
Children play in the towns narrow alleys as trekkers wander around shops, sampling local goods and stocking up on warm clothes and supplies as the temperature drops with the altitude.
It is from here that the scale of the area begins to sink in. From viewpoints nearby, we catch our first glimpses of Mount Everest unclimbed last year as the earthquake struck peaking above its neighbouring summits.
It prompts a pause for thought; despite our current altitude being the equivalent to the Shard stacked 11 times on top of itself, Everests summit remains a staggering 3.3 vertical miles above.
Little wonder, then, that the mountain known among locals as Chomolungma - holds a conspicuous spiritual grip over the whole area. The majority of the trekkers we meet in the welcoming tea house lodges which provide our accommodation during the trek, are heading for Everest Base Camp, and locals remain filled with a palpable awe of the mountain.
The trip to the base of the top of the world takes a minimum two-and-a-half weeks assuming sensible acclimatisation time is allowed for and unsurprisingly attracts parties from around the world. During the trekking seasons of spring and autumn, the camp turns into a small town, home to anything up to 600 trekkers and climbers and even offering Wifi and hot shower facilities.
Trekkers and porters cross the Hilary Bridge in the Sagarmatha National Park
Gopal, our guide, explains the appeal: Youre visiting the highest mountain in the world, and the whole region has spectacular scenery.
For those with a little less time to spare, the surrounding scenery provides almost endless trekking options through small villages and meandering along spectacular mountain paths.
After setting out from the bustle of Namche Bazaar having allowed two nights for acclimatisation we head along the breathtakingly beautiful routes to the even higher villages of Deboche and Pangboche.
So spectacular is the scenery that the peaks look almost computer generated. Jagged rocks and brilliant white snow are visible all around, with the looming, giant faces of Lhotse and Everest on the horizon for much of the journey. The scale continues to stagger and impress as the walk progresses still failing to wear off even after days spent at altitude.
As our walk to Ama Dablam continues, the path climbs higher still under pine trees to provide welcome shade from the sun which packs a punch even at this altitude and crosses stunning gorges along dizzying suspension bridges adorned with hundreds of prayer flags on either side.
The route to the peak of our ascent, unsurprisingly, offers up the pick of the views as cloud streams off the peaks of Everest and Nupste against brilliant blue skies.
Hitting the heights: Ama Dablam base camp, at an altitude of 4,570m
Ama Dablams base camp itself - though shrouded in cloud by the time of our arrival provides a solace away from the Everest highway and a timely reminder of the remoteness of these majestic mountains, even at the height of the tourist season.
But as the trek continues, it is the culture and the people which leave arguably the most enduring impression. Colourful monasteries, home to Buddhist monks dedicating their lives to their religion, provide welcome rest-stops and fascinating, beautiful insights into the areas rich heritage.
Still more warming during the cold evenings is the company of the porters and guides who make these trips possible.
As Gopal explains, speaking from first-hand experience: People visit for the mountains and come back for the people.
I, for one, would return to this wondrous region again for that very reason alone.
Visiting Nepal and the Everest region
The Mountain Company offers a wide selection of treks around Nepal and the Himalayas from around 995.
Robin de Peyer joined the Ama Dablam base camp expedition. Click here for more information on the trek, including pricing and dates.
Getting to Nepal
Robin de Peyer flew courtesy of Jet Airways. The airline offers flights from London Heathrow to Kathmandu via Delhi from 426.65 per person in Economy Class including taxes.
Jet Airways flies daily from Heathrow to Kathmandu, with one stop in India, on a daily basis. The airline also offers flights from other UK airports via Amsterdam.
For more information and to book visit www.jetairways.com or call 0808 101 1199.
For flights from Kathmandu to Lukla, visit http://www.taraair.com.
A n east London teenager who slashed a policeman's face with a knife before brutally stabbing him in the stomach, leaving the officer fighting for life, has been locked up for nine years.
The 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, also knifed PC Guy Sinnott in the leg after the policeman confronted a group of teens in Grove Road, Bow, on November 15 last year.
PC Sinnott, who had been called to deal with youths riding a moped in the area, suffered potentially life-threatening injuries in the attack.
The Old Bailey heard how the policeman had initially attempted to search the teenager, then aged just 16.
But, following a struggle, the youth reached inside his bag and pulled out a four-inch blade, slicing it down the officer's face.
The officer grabbed hold of the weapon and threw it out of reach before he realised he was bleeding.
PC Sinnott, who was nearing retirement, was rushed to hospital, undergoing emergency surgery throughout the night and was kept there for several weeks.
Yesterday, the teenager was handed a sentence of nine years and four months after being convicted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
Speaking afterwards, Detective Constable Chris Soole from Tower Hamlets said: "This was a serious incident involving a young man who attacked a police officer while he was performing his duties.
"Thankfully PC Sinnott later made a full recovery with the support of colleagues, family and friends"
D etectives think a mother who disappeared with her 14-year-old son one year ago during a legal battle over his future could be hiding out in London.
Moses John is at the centre of a family court case and police say he needs to be found as a matter of urgency.
The youngster and his mother, Pauline Watson, 46, disappeared from their home in Northamptonshire 12 months ago and could be in London, social services officials said.
Detective Sergeant Nickie Deeks, who works for Northamptonshire Police, said: "I am appealing for Moses and his mum, or anyone who knowns where they are, to contact us and let us know they are safe and well.
Nickie Deeks: The pair could be in London / Northamptonshire County Council/PA Wire
"We have carried out extensive inquiries in the last 12 months - conducting interviews, searches and online checks."
She added: "These inquiries have primarily focused on part of London where we believe they could be living."
A spokesman for Northamptonshire County Council, which has responsibility for Moses' welfare, went on: "We would like to make contact with them as a matter of urgency to make sure they are both safe and well."
The spokesman said Moses' mother was thought to have links to areas of London including Croydon, Islington, Merton, Sutton, Southwark and Lambeth.
C hief Inspector Roy Smith and his colleague are patrolling the streets of Lambeth in an unmarked car on a Saturday night.
It is a relatively large and diverse borough, and the types of crimes reflect this each area has its own unique problems, from phone-snatching on the South Bank and sex assaults near the big clubs in Vauxhall, to drunken violence in Clapham High Street.
And, Ch Insp Smith says, Lambeth is one of the most violent boroughs in London along with Tower Hamlets, Newham and Hackney - in terms of recorded crimes.
Its every day. There have been 13 stabbings and three drive-by shootings in the last two weeks, he explains, adding that knives are seized on the streets of Lambeth on a daily basis usually from teenagers.
Throughout the course of their shift calls come in for everything from no-damage road accidents to suspected murders.
The first few calls are not dramatic; a shooting which turns out to be a hoax and a man refusing to leave the pub.
But before the team had even set out there were 47 unanswered calls on the log and there were simply not enough police resources to attend.
A large proportion of what we do is just keeping a lid on things, he explains.
On patrol: Ch Supt Roy Smith, left, on patrol earlier in the month, with PC Dunlavey / Roy Smith
Another big part of policing is instinct, he says, explaining how the slightest hand movement can give away the fact that someone is carrying drugs, a slight change in posture at the sight of a squad car can expose someone up to no good.
And as though he had orchestrated it, Ch Insp Smith points out a small silver car with two men in that doesnt look quite right.
He follows the car, and soon it starts weaving between lanes, trying to get away. A police ANPR check reveals the driver has good reason to escape he is wanted for robbery.
Chf Insp Smith tails him, and when it becomes clear that the car is unlikely to stop, he pulls in front of a set of traffic lights, perpendicular to the road, blocking its path.
The driver is arrested, and booked into custody.
Explaining why he chose to follow the car, Ch Insp Smith says: The driver didnt have his seatbelt on, the passenger was slouched down.
It was just a gut feeling, and that gut feeling was right.
Every day you drive into something, a car accident, or someone shouting in the street, he adds.
Not being able to switch that off its one of the hardest things and most damaging to peoples home lives.
Police attending a call in Lambeth during the course of the night
You cant walk away from a lot of stuff. It is your duty to go and sort stuff out.
And as the night progresses, the police radio gets busier.
A man who is wanted over four separate crimes has been spotted, but is evading police. Squad cars block off every exit to the housing estate he has run into, and dogs are on their way to flush him out.
Hes on the railway tracks the helicopter is scrambled. He stands on a railway bridge shouting at the dozen-or-so police officers below before finally coming down.
As the clock strikes midnight, the calls come in thick and fast.
A car is stopped and searched for drugs two of the men inside have contraband on them, and one admits the cannabis has been concealed in his rectal cavity - he will have to be strip-searched.
There is a robbery on another housing estate, the victim has been set upon by a group of men, and is bleeding from his mouth and nose.
There is a stabbing a man has gone into a takeaway armed with a weapon and knifed a member of staff in the head.
Someone has been glassed in the face in a pub; a nine-year-old child has gone missing; a man has smashed the windows of a bus and is trying to gain entry to the driver's cab; a patient in a mental health unit has attempted to take their own life and police assistance is required.
We could have double the number of cops in Lambeth and it still wouldnt be enough, Ch Insp Smith says.
HMIC [Her Majestys Inspectorate of Constabulary] described this as the most challenging policing environment in Western Europe.
There are some difficult places to police.
And we get called to everything when there are no social workers available, no mental health workers, who do you call? The police, because we cant say no.
U sing the word 'luvvies' to describe actors is as bad as blurting out racial slurs including the 'N-word', Tom Conti has claimed.
The 74-year-old made the astonishing assertion as a war of words between actors living in north London and a local Labour councillor escalated.
It is the latest in a series of bitter exchanges over opposition to supermarkets in affluent areas of Camden.
Councillor Theo Blackwell branded opponents to plans "livid luvvies" in a letter to the Camden New Journal in which he accused campaigners of trying to block developments including the Cycle Superhighway through Regent's Park.
Mr Conti, who has appeared in Shirley Valentine and Miranda, was among campaigners who spoke out against a Sainsbury's opening in Belsize Park.
But in a swipe at Mr Blackwell, he told the Daily Mail that using the word 'luvvies' is "as abusive as 'Y*d' or 'n*****'".
He added: "Its pejorative, denigrative and demeaning. I know a number of actors and certainly the actors with whom I have mixed over my entire life have been very bright people.".
Mr Conti also won the backing of actress Dame Janet Suzman, who wrote to the Camden New Journal in response to Mr Blackwell's letter: "I am tempted to say less of the apoplectic apparatchik as an apt riposte to his rather low livid luvvie put down.
"As residents, whatever our profession, we have a right to voice an opinion."
T he first photos of wreckage from the EgyptAir crash, showing mangled pieces of the plane, have been published by the Egyptian military.
In images published today, the airline's logo can be seen on a number of pieces of wreckage, which seem to show parts of the plane's fuselage along with life jackets and parts of seats.
According to officials, the items were found on Friday by military planes searching for the missing aircraft.
The photos showed a yellow life vest from the flight, along with twisted blue metal panels.
Debris recovered from the plane's crash site / AP
There were also images of tattered fabrics, foam from the plane seats and what appeared to be a pink bag.
Search crews found debris in the Mediterranean / AP
Flight MS804 crashed while over the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday, killing all 66 people on board.
Debris recovered from the crashed EgyptAir plane / AP
Search crews had found human remains, seats and luggage from the crashed aircraft yesterday.
Debris recovered from the plane's crash site / AP
But they were still hunting for the airliner's black boxes, to try and piece together information on what caused the disaster, thought by many to be a terrorist attack
Officials have revealed smoke was detected on board the plane after reports a fire broke out in the plane's toilet.
EgyptAir crash - Smoke detected in toilet and electrics
Egyptian authorities have said they believe terrorism is a more likely explanation than equipment failure, and some aviation experts have said the erratic flight suggests a bomb blast or a struggle in the cockpit.
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said he and other officials - including representatives of Paris Aeroport, the French prosecutor, EgyptAir, and the Egyptian ambassador to Paris - had met with about 100 family members to express their "profound compassion" over the crash.
Following the meeting, he said: "All the hypotheses are being examined - none are being favoured."
French air accident investigators are already in Cairo, he said.
U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt has said that weak administrative institutions in Donbas had helped for expansion of the conflict.
The war was started in Donbas, not in Kharkiv, Odesa or Dnipropetrovsk, he said. It is not because Kremlin did not seek to implement the Novorossiya project, but because administrative management in Donbas was weak there, the diplomat said at the International Conference "Ukraine EU: Turning Challenges into Opportunities" in Kyiv on Friday.
He said that the Ukrainian state was very weak and Russia got benefits from this.
Pyatt said that the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement is a road map, GPS-navigation on the way to the democratic state that would counteract Russian aggression.
Ukraine can do everything and the country has shown this. Ukraine has created the new police, the country shows resistance to the challenges it encounters, the diplomat said.
B ritish tourists planning to enjoy a few drinks during a European city break should head to Prague for the cheapest tipples, research has found.
The Czech capital was ranked number one out of 16 popular destinations across the continent based on the price of a dozen drinks.
Post Office Travel Money found that the bar bill costs Britons 29 in Prague, including 1.26 for a bottle of beer, 1.57 for a glass of wine and 1.73 for a shot of tequila.
The same 12 drinks cost more than twice as much in the Spanish coastal city of Marbella, which came bottom of the list at 72.
European travel destinations, ranked by the cost of a round of 12 drinks 1. Prague, Czech Republic (29) 2. Budapest, Hungary (30) 3. Krakow, Poland (34) 4. Riga, Latvia (50) 5. Tallinn, Estonia (53) 6. Palma, Majorca (57) 7. Berlin, Germany (58) 8. Amsterdam, Netherlands (58) 9. Barcelona, Spain (61) 10. London, UK (61) 11. Rome, Italy (62) 12. Dublin, Ireland (63) 13. Paris, France (63) 14. Ibiza Town, Ibiza (66) 15. Bruges, Belgium (66) 16. Marbella, Spain (72)
Eastern European cities dominated the top of the rankings with Budapest at number two (30) followed by Krakow (34), Riga (50) and Tallinn (53).
Palma on the island of Majorca emerged as the cheapest in Western Europe at 57, while London was at number 10 (61).
The totals were calculated by taking the average price for each drink at several restaurants, bars and nightclubs in each city.
Andrew Brown of Post Office Travel Money said: "Our research shows that the cost of a special celebration evening out can vary dramatically, depending on your choice of drink and which city you visit.
"Check out prices before booking a city break because some advance homework can help to ensure the bar bill doesn't bust the celebration budget."
Research published by travel organisation Abta last October found that city breaks have overtaken beach holidays as the most popular type of trip for UK holidaymakers, with around half the population taking a city break each year.
Ukrainian FM to take part in EaP ministerial meeting on May 23
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said that on May 23 he will take part in the EU's Eastern Partnership (EaP) ministerial meeting.
"We are trying to build a unique element of cooperation with the EU. I will speak about this on Monday at the EaP ministerial meeting," he said at the International Conference "Ukraine EU: Turning Challenges into Opportunities" in Kyiv on Friday.
Klimkin said that the EU should be attracted to the reforms on Ukraine's way to the European integration. He said that to make the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) success is a top priority.
"We need to achieve visa-free regime this year," he said.
Democratic world must support Ukraine in protecting its sovereignty and territorial integrity, Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine, Ambassador Jan Tombinski has said.
"Solidarity and support of the democratic world must help Ukraine to protect its sovereignty and territory and to create the system allowing using a potential of Ukraine's biggest national wealth its citizens - in full," he said at the Europe Day in Ukraine celebration ceremony in Kyiv on Saturday.
He recalled that the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement for which Ukraine is paying a large price now, sets the further course of reforms.
Deputy Ukrainian Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze expressed confidence that Ukraine would see visa waiving with the EU in 2016.
She said that Europe Day in Ukraine is celebrated for the 14th year.
"This confirms that we are not only geographically close to Europe, but we are also close mentally this year," she said.
Ukrainian military servicemen in eastern Ukraine continue protecting Ukraine's European choice. They protect not only Ukraine, but the eastern border of Europe human rights, dignity and human lives, she said.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has expressed its resolute protest over the continuation of persecution of Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia, in particular, over the jury's conviction of Ukrainian citizens Mykola Karpiuk and Stanyslav Klykh, who have been illegally detained by Russia.
"Today's illegal decision was made after a long show trial in the case of Ukrainians and it was based on groundless and falsified materials of prosecutors received after they were very severely tortured and psychologically pressed. The verdict again confirmed the political character of the case against the Ukrainian citizens," the ministry said in a statement published on May 19.
The ministry said that it was in vain to hope for the verdict of acquittal, as it was issued under external pressure by the prosecutors. Any evidence proving that Ukrainians had not been implicated in the crimes was ignored.
"The Foreign Ministry strongly urges the Russian side before the sentence in the case of Ukrainian political prisoners to end this show trial, release and urgently return Mykola Karpiuk and Stanyslav Klykh to Ukraine," the ministry said.
Earlier on May 19, lawyer Mark Feygin said that the jury trial in the city of Grozny (the Russian Federation) found Ukrainian citizens Karpiuk and Klykh guilty of allegedly committing crimes during the Chechen war. The lawyer said that Karpiuk would be sentenced to life imprisonment.
"This is a large problem for him to be transferred to Ukraine under the convention," he added.
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ST. LOUIS Fifty-five years to the day after he and other Freedom Riders were beaten by an angry mob of segregationists outside a Montgomery, Ala., bus station, civil rights leader John Lewis stood on a stage at Washington University and told this years graduating class to go out and be disruptive.
He prefaced his advice with memories of his childhood growing up on a rural farm in Alabama where he saw signs advertising whites only.
When he asked his family about the signs, they told him: Thats the way it is. Dont get in the way; dont get in trouble.
But as an adult, he couldnt abide by that advice, he said.
I got in the way. I got in trouble: good trouble, necessary trouble, he said, as the crowd of 3,000 graduates and several thousand more onlookers applauded.
You must leave here and go out and get in the way, he told them. When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you must have the courage to stand up, to speak up and find a way to get in the way.
Lewis, has been a U.S. congressman representing Georgias 5th district for nearly three decades. But he is perhaps best known for his participation in Bloody Sunday in Selma, Ala., in 1965.
Lewis, along with hundreds of others, was beaten by Alabama state troopers as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge as part of what was supposed to be a peaceful march from Selma to Montgomery.
Photographs and news film of the attack helped speed along passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Throughout the multiple beatings, freedom rides and other protests, Lewis was arrested more than 40 times on his way to becoming one of the most celebrated civil rights leaders in American history.
He also referenced the lunch counter sit-ins at segregated restaurants.
By sitting down, we were standing up for the very best of the American tradition, he said.
The lesson for graduates was twofold: stay focused and do the right thing.
We didnt give up, we didnt give in, we didnt lose faith. We kept our eyes on the prize, Lewis said. As students, as graduates, you must keep your eyes on the prize. You have a moral obligation, a mission and a mandate to do your part.
Lewis later told the graduates not to make excuses, especially when it comes to exercising their right to vote.
Lewis spoke about the literacy tests used during Jim Crow to stop African-Americans from voting. Questions ranged from the impossible to the absurd, he said, with people being denied voting rights if they couldnt say how many bubbles a bar of soap produces or how many jellybeans were in a jar.
Your vote is precious; its almost sacred, he said. It is the most powerful, nonviolent instrument or tool we have in a democratic society, and we must use it.
Lewis also peppered his 20-minute speech with touches of humor. He spoke of his childhood and how it was his responsibility to care for the chickens his family raised.
He told the story of assembling the chickens in the yard, pretending he was the minister and they were the congregation.
They tended to listen to me much better than some of my colleagues listen to me in the Congress, he said. As a matter of fact, some of those chickens were a little more productive at least they laid eggs.
He concluded his speech with another childhood memory of his siblings and cousins huddled up inside his aunts shaky house during a powerful storm.
When the wind appeared to be lifting one corner of the house into the air, Lewis said his aunt had the children walk to that corner of the house to keep it on the ground.
He called it walking with the wind, which is also the name of his 1998 memoir.
We were walking with the wind, but we never ever left the house, Lewis said, making a metaphor in which the graduates are his siblings and the house is society.
We all live in the same house, we all must be part of the effort to hold down our little house, he said. When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just do something about it. Say something. Have the courage. Have the backbone. Get in the way. Walk with the wind. Its all going to work out.
It doesnt matter if were black or white, Latino or Asian-American or Native American, he continued. It doesnt matter whether were straight or gay, bisexual, transgender. We are one people, we are one family, we are one house. We must learn to live together.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will present Ukraine's Strategic Defense Bulletin passed on Friday at a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) at the NATO Summit in Warsaw (Poland), Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak has said.
"As for the Strategic Defense Bulletin yesterday passed at the NSDC meeting I would like to say that the Bulletin is a document involving work of many teams. Famous companies took part in its designing. They gave us advices and studied our experience NATO Office advisors, including NATO analysts in Brussels took part in drafting it. They jointly with our group worked every day for around six months. We have drawn up a high-quality document with all goals determined," Poltorak told reporters after a ceremony at which the new head of the National Defense University named after Ivan Cherniakhovsky on Solomianska Square in Kyiv was introduced to the staff on Saturday.
He said that the document will be presented at the NATO Summit in Warsaw. A meeting of the Ukraine-NATO commission at the level of Heads of State and Government will be held in Warsaw.
Illinois congressional candidate C.J. Baricevic is getting the majority of his campaign funding, almost a quarter-million dollars worth, from attorneys most of whom ply their trade in the Belleville-based court system headed by Baricevics powerful father, 20th Judicial Circuit Chief Judge John Baricevic.
In the latest intersection of law, politics and family within the Metro Easts famously insular legal community, a Post-Dispatch analysis found that C.J. Baricevic has received more than $246,000 well over half his total of individual itemized contributions from lawyers and others associated with more than 70 law firms. Virtually all of them have filed or defended cases in the circuit where Baricevics father is the chief judge.
One of those firms alone has donated more than $37,000 to the Democratic candidate through its lawyers and employees in recent months, the newspaper found, with even its secretaries giving the top allowable contribution of $2,700 each.
C.J. Baricevic asserted that his support from attorneys doesnt stem from his fathers status as chief judge, but from his own status as a fellow lawyer. He is a partner in the Belleville firm Chatham & Baricevic.
My peers are donating to me, which is flattering, said Baricevic. A lot of these people encouraged me. ... Without their support, I probably wouldnt have run in the first place.
His father, Judge Baricevic, vehemently disputed any connection between his position as chief judge and his sons strong support from attorneys. He said the chief judges official authority to assign cases to other judges was in practice carried out by people under him.
Call any lawyer, call any judge. I do not interfere with the normal process of assigning cases to other judges, he said last week. You wont find one lawyer who will make that accusation, because its unfounded.
No one has alleged that Judge Baricevic has improperly meddled in case assignments. But critics say the lawyer-donors unusual generosity toward his son raises the question of whether those attorneys feel pressure to give.
Common sense would tell you if you give money to the chief judges son, hes going to like you, and if you dont, he wont, said Belleville City Clerk Dallas Cook, a Republican who is running for 20th Judicial Circuit clerk and is suing to get Judge Baricevic removed from a judicial ballot this year in an unrelated election dispute.
Its always been tyrannical rule here by Democrats, said Cook. This is just up another notch.
C.J. Baricevic, 31, is attempting to unseat U.S. Rep Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, the freshman GOP incumbent. The 12th Congressional District takes in St. Clair County, parts of Madison County and much of deep southwestern Illinois.
Baricevic maintains that the real story in the campaign is that he is raising most of his money from individual donations, while Bost relies heavily on Republican Party money and PACs.
Federal election records show Bost has raised more than $700,000 from those sources, comprising almost half his total campaign income. Baricevic has raised only about $70,000 in PAC and party money, less than 15 percent of his total.
The big money is all going to Mike Bost, all the big PAC contributions, said Baricevic. He said that pattern proved Bost was a D.C. insider.
John Baricevic, 68, has been on the bench for more than a decade in the 20th Judicial Circuit, which encompasses St. Clair, Monroe, Perry, Randolph and Washington counties.
For decades, the elder Baricevic has been a major figure in St. Clair Countys powerful Democratic political culture. Prior to joining the bench, he was county board chairman and, before that, states attorney. In 2012, Judge Baricevic publicly considered running for the congressional seat his son now seeks.
St. Clair County, along with neighboring Madison County, has long been a national magnet for plaintiffs in asbestos-related litigation. Baricevic himself hears felony criminal cases, but as chief judge, he has administrative authority over the flow of all the cases in the circuit.
UNUSUAL LEVEL OF SUPPORT
Even in a Metro East legal community with a long history of supporting Democrats, the level of support for C.J. Baricevics campaign is unusual.
The last Democrat to hold the seat, former Rep. Bill Enyart, D-Belleville, won election in 2012 with about the same amount in individual itemized funding as Baricevic currently has. But only about $182,000 worth of Enyarts individual donations came from lawyers, comprising less than 40 percent of his total, the newspapers analysis found. Thats against Baricevics $246,682 in attorney-related money, or 55 percent of his total.
The highest-donating law firm among Baricevics contributors, Keefe, Keefe & Unsell of Belleville, gave at least $37,600, partly though top-level donations through four attorneys and one spouse.
In addition, three of the firms secretaries, two legal assistants and a receptionist each donated the top allowable contribution of $2,700 an unusual level of giving for people who arent in higher-paying occupations. Those six donations all were made on the same day in March, according to C.J. Baricevics campaign records.
None of that in itself violates federal election law, as long as the money actually originates with the employees and wasnt given to them by an employer for the purpose of making the donation, according to a Federal Election Commission spokesman.
Phone and email messages seeking comment from the donors at the Keefe firm werent returned last week.
A partner at another of the top-donating firms, Cook, Ysursa, Bartholomew, Brauer & Shevlin of Belleville, dismissed the suggestion that lawyers in Judge Baricevics circuit feel any pressure, implied or otherwise, to make political donations to his son.
Thats absolutely untrue, said the partner, Bernard Ysursa. Weve given to all Democratic candidates and we support them and well continue to do so.
Ysursa and his partners have donated a total of $10,850 to C.J. Baricevic, records show. Thats significantly more than they gave to former Rep. Enyart in 2014, though its slightly less than they gave to Enyart in 2012.
In Illinois judicial circuits, the chief judge has general administrative authority in his or her circuit, including the authority to assign cases to other judges, according to an official description provided by the states court system.
Judge Baricevic said that in practice, those assignments are carried out by an administrator who works for me, but that I dont tell her who to assign cases to.
Asked why he believes his son has such unusually high support from attorneys in the circuit, Baricevic argued that he has a broad base of support.
Your theory of influence is absolutely inappropriate and a waste of your readers time, he said. Its not accurate.
A spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is trying to hold the seat against C.J. Baricevics challenge, said the newspapers findings raised questions of potential conflicts of interest between his fathers power in the courtroom and the lawyers funding his campaign.
It is clear that C.J. Baricevic has far more support in the trial lawyer community than he does among the majority of 12th District voters, NRCC Spokesman Zach Hunter said in a written statement.
A CONTROVERSIAL CIRCUIT
The 20th Judicial Circuit is no stranger to controversy.
In 2013, St. Clair County Associate Judge Joseph Christ died of a cocaine overdose at a hunting lodge owned by the family of fellow St. Clair County Judge Mike Cook. Cook ultimately was sentenced to two years in federal prison on heroin and weapons charges.
This year, Baricevic and two other 20th Circuit judges who were facing a scheduled retention vote opted instead to announce their resignations, then run for those vacant seats as new candidates. Since retention of a sitting judge requires an extraordinary majority 60 percent of the vote while a regular judicial election requires only a plurality, the move will make it easier for the three judges to remain on the bench.
Both the judicial and congressional elections are scheduled Nov. 8.
Dallas Cook, the Belleville city clerk, has sued to prevent the judges from completing what he alleges is a scheme to sidestep the state constitution. The suit is pending. (Cook isnt related to Judge Mike Cook.)
The area that is now the Illinois 12th Congressional District was Democratic for generations, then flipped to the Republicans with Bosts election in 2014. Flipping it back this year was considered a key to national Democrats long-shot hopes of winning back the U.S. House. Its hard to see how Democrats get anywhere near a House majority without winning this seat, Nathan Gonzales, co-publisher of the Rothenberg-Gonzales Political Report, told the Post-Dispatch last year.
C.J. Baricevic wasnt the national Democrats choice for the race, with detractors citing his youth, political inexperience and lack of adequate fundraising. But the party failed to recruit anyone else, and Baricevic will be on the November ballot.
Walker Moskop and Chuck Raasch of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
I can assure you the only thing Spire cares about is profits over people. Their executives sat in silence and stared at us as we told them if they raised their rates again, people would suffer.
Poroshenko confident Ukraine to be EU member in future, Ukrainian to become one of EU official languages
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has expressed confidence that in the future Ukrainian citizens will be presented in European institutions and Ukrainian language will be one of the official languages of the European Union (EU).
"We are aiming for Ukraine to be the real story of success. I am sure that it will happen so. I am sure that once best Ukrainian citizens would take their places in the European Parliament, European Commission and European institutions. This will be the day when Ukraine will take a rightful place among EU member countries," the president said in Kyiv on Saturday during the flag-raising ceremony near the presidential administration on the occasion of Europe Day in Ukraine.
The president expressed confidence that Ukrainian language will become one of the official languages of the European Union.
"I believe in united Europe, our common house. I believe in the united, strong and democratic Ukraine. I believe in peace," he said.
For the 14th straight year, hundreds of law enforcement officers from throughout the state will stake out Dunkin Donuts rooftops to benefit Special Olympics Illinois, beginning at 5 a.m. May 20, according to a press release.
Police officers are scheduled to cover 234 Dunkin Donuts rooftops to raise awareness and donations for the Law Enforcement Torch Run to benefit Special Olympics Illinois. With approximately 25 more Dunkin Donuts locations participating this year, officers hope to top last years donation total of $540,000.
Local Special Olympics athletes and their families will join police officers and rise to the occasion to show their support at the following locations:
Troy: 819 Edwardsville Rd.
Fairview Heights: 6008 N. Illinois Rd.
In honor of the Special Olympics athletes and police officers supporting the rooftop event, Dunkin Donuts will donate $15,000 to the Torch Run fund.
In addition, each guest who visits a Cop on a Rooftop location that day and makes a donation to the Torch Run will receive a free donut coupon. Guests donating at least $10 will receive a Law Enforcement Torch Run travel mug (while supplies last) and a coupon for free medium coffee. Other items, such as Torch Run T-shirts and raffle tickets, will be sold for various donation amounts. Additional activities will vary by Dunkin Donuts location.
Dunkin Donuts also has created a special glazed red and white donut ring depicting Special Olympics Illinois colors. The donut, called The Champion, will be available at select Dunkin Donuts locations on May 20.
I think Cop on a Rooftop is a neat fundraiser to show support for Special Olympics and gain attention for cops being on the roof, said Special Olympics athlete Bree Bogucki, who will join police officers at the Dunkin Donuts in Cary, Ill., that day. Also, it means that I get donuts.
"Cop on a Rooftop is an event we look forward to every year," said Aziz Nathani, a multi-unit franchisee whose restaurants are among the hundreds of Dunkin' Donuts that have hosted the event over the years. Its a fun and unique way to support Special Olympics athletes and their families and call attention to the kind of good will police officers bring to our communities every day. We are truly honored to participate."
For a list of all participating locations, go to www.facebook.com/DunkinChicago or www.facebook.com/SpecialOlympicsIllinois.
If youre interested in learning more about Special Olympics Illinois, volunteering or providing financial support to help make Special Olympics programs possible, visit soill.org.
Poroshenko: Ukraine to overcome two challenges on way to EU to fight Russian aggression, conduct reforms
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that Ukraine is to cope with two challenges on the way to the European Union (EU): to fight Russian aggression and conduct reforms.
"We are to overcome two key challenges to realize this goal. First is effective counteraction to Russian aggression. We have built the Ukrainian army in two years with the help of volunteers and each Ukrainian citizen," he said in Kyiv on Saturday during the flag-raising ceremony near the presidential administration on the occasion of Europe Day in Ukraine.
The second challenge is conducting key, systemic and comprehensive reforms.
"Reforms that would change Ukraine, reforms that would build Europe in Ukraine, restore justice and make Ukraine the extremely effective state," he said.
Poroshenko said that the road map for these reforms is the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement and the Visa Liberalisation Action Plan (VLAP) that Ukraine has implemented.
"Reforms are changes to the Constitution in part of rule of law, judicial reform. This is the step for establishing justice. Reforms are powerful anti-corruption steps," the president said.
TORONTO, ON -- (Marketwired) -- 05/21/16 -- Golden Leaf Holdings Ltd. ("GLH" or the "Company") (CSE: GLH) announces today the resignation of Philip van den Berg, a current Board of Director, effective May 20, 2016. Mr. van den Berg will continue to work with the Company on various strategic projects. GLH's Board of Directors has commenced a process to identify a replacement for Mr. van den Berg.
"I want to thank Philip on behalf of our management and Board of Directors for his contributions to GLH and its shareholders. Philip played a key role in the company over the past year and helped support our strategy of long-term value creation," said Don Robinson, Chief Executive Officer of GLH.
About Golden Leaf Holdings:
Golden Leaf Holdings Ltd. is one of the largest cannabis oil and solution providers in North America. It's a leading cannabis products company in Oregon built around recognized brands. GLH leverages a strong management team with cannabis and food industry experience to complement its expertise in extracting, refining and selling cannabis oil.
Disclaimer: This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the Company's future business operation, expectations of gross sales, the opinions or beliefs of management, and future business goals. Generally, forward looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to general business, economic and competitive uncertainties, regulatory risks including risks related to the expected timing of the early roll out of oils and edibles, market risks, risks inherent in manufacturing operations and other risks of the cannabis industry. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause 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. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is provided herein for the purpose of presenting information about management's current expectations relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such information may not be appropriate for other purpose. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.
For further information, please contact:Golden Leaf Holdings Ltd. Investor Relations:John AirdT: 416.725.6458E: [email protected]
Source: Golden Leaf Holdings Inc.
SAN JOSE (Reuters) - A Salvadoran woman suspected of being infected with the Zika virus has given birth in Costa Rica to a baby girl that tested positive for microcephaly, a rare birth defect, authorities said on Friday.
Costa Rican health officials said the woman entered the country from her native El Salvador in April.
If confirmed, the case would mark the sixth instance of microcephaly linked to a Zika infection in Central America and the first in Costa Rica.
According to the World Health Organization, there is a strong scientific consensus that Zika can cause microcephaly as well as Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that can result in paralysis, though conclusive proof may take months or years.
Microcephaly is defined by unusually small heads and can result in developmental problems.
Brazil has confirmed about 1,200 cases of microcephaly and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections.
(Reporting by Enrique Andres Pretel; Editing by Tom Brown)
By Elzio Barreto and Denny Thomas
HONG KONG (Reuters) - An advisory council to the Hong Kong government will unveil a series of recommendations to attract green finance investments to the city next week, the chairman of the council told Reuters.
"Green finance is absolutely new in Hong Kong and I think not many people are doing it in Asia and that is why we feel we should seize the opportunity," said Laura Cha, chairman of Hong Kong's Financial Services Development Council (FSDC).
China has vowed to make "green finance" a top priority of the Group of 20 nations as chair of the group this year.
The country needs at least 2 trillion yuan ($305.6 billion) a year over the next five years in green investments to promote environmentally-friendly investments and reduce the effects of pollution from its rapid industrial growth over the past three decades.
"China is on the chair of G20 and they are very keen on green finance among other things. The September summit under G20, you would expect some action," she said, adding the recommendations will likely be published on May 24.
The FSDC, whose members include asset managers, banks, securities firms, consultancies and law firms, is also considering forming a group to discuss recommendations to develop the city's financial technology, or fintech, industry as it grows in importance, Cha said.
Unlike China or India, where a large portion of the population remains without access to bank accounts or financial services, Hong Kong is a mature market that is "well served," so fintech rules in the city would have to consider that, she said.
"We are absolutely not moving fast enough" on fintech, Cha added. "This is an area of development that is a very key element of the financial industry that we cannot ignore."
The FSDC was set up by Hong Kong's government in 2013 to examine how the city could maintain its status as a major Asian financial hub amid competition from regional rivals. It has issued recommendations to bolster the city's position as an international center for trading of China's currency, lure more initial public offerings and real estate investment trusts (REITs), among others.
($1 = 6.5448 Chinese yuan)
(Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
Riot police officers detain a demonstrator during a protest against President Nursultan Nazarbayev's government and an unpopular land reform it has proposed, in Almaty, Kazakhstan, May 21, 2016. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov
By Olzhas Auyezov
ALMATY/ASTANA (Reuters) - Kazakh police broke up anti-government protests across the country on Saturday, detaining dozens of protesters and cordoning off the main squares of major cities.
Opponents of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has been in power since 1989, had called for rallies in all major cities, extending a series of demonstrations that started last month in response to plans to privatise large tracts of farmland.
The protests, which have become an outlet for expressing general discontent with the government, are the Central Asian nation's biggest for more than a decade and continued on Saturday despite pre-emptive detentions of many activists and warnings from the authorities.
At least 100 protesters gathered at one police checkpoint that blocked access to Almaty's main square. Similar-sized groups tried to enter the square at other points, some sang the national anthem.
Reuters witnesses saw police, some in full riot gear, chase protesters down the street, detaining them one-by-one and putting them into buses.
"Why are you just sitting here?" one protester, a young woman in tears, cried out at a group of onlookers.
Police also briefly detained two Reuters reporters but released them after driving them a short distance in a police van.
In the capital Astana, a Reuters correspondent saw police, who also cordoned off the site of the planned protest, detain a few people including journalists.
Raul Uporov, a reporter based in the city of Uralsk in western Kazakhstan, told Reuters by telephone he had been detained by police at the protest. Local newspaper Uralksaya Nedelya, for which Uporov works, posted photographs of another police cordon at the city's central square.
Azamat Maitanov, a reporter from Atyrau, told Reuters by telephone that police had used a similar tactic there too, while Nasha Gazeta newspaper based in Kostanai in northern Kazakhstan reported several people had been detained in that city.
Although relatively small so far, with the biggest no more than a few thousand strong, the recent protests have become the most visible and geographically broad display of discontent against the president's rule since the early 2000s.
The unrest follows a sharp economic slowdown and the depreciation of the national tenge currency by about 45 percent last year as the price of oil, Kazakhstan's main export plunged.
Kazakh authorities had warned that the planned rallies were "illegal" and that police would react.
"Law enforcement bodies are obliged to prevent any violations and immediately take the necessary legal measures including criminal prosecution," Prosecutor General Zhakip Asanov had said in a statement on Friday.
Earlier this week, police and courts detained dozens of activists in several cities who had planned to take part in Saturday's protests. On Saturday, the Interior Ministry declined to say how many people police had detained across the country.
Police also said on Friday they had found caches of Molotov cocktails, gasoline and iron rods near the protest site in Almaty - the kinds of improvised weapons used in protests in fellow ex-Soviet nation Ukraine which toppled its leadership.
(Reporting by Mariya Gordeyeva, Raushan Nurshayeva and Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
Hundreds of people turned up to support the March for Moko event in Auckland.
Reformed thugs joined bereaved mothers, patched gang members, and young children to pay special tribute to the short life of a young boy who has come to symbolise domestic violence in New Zealand.
March for Moko events brought together people from all sides of the domestic violence spectrum on Sunday, as thousands turned out to demand better protection of New Zealand's children after the horrific death of Moko Rangitoheriri.
The Auckland march began at 1pm in Aotea Square.
SUPPLIED A 600 strong crowd attended the March for Moko event in Nelson on the steps of Nelson Cathedral.
Around 1000 people gathered in support of Moko and other child victims of domestic violence.
READ MORE:
* Faces of Innocents
* Duncan Garner: A little boy is dead now who will march for Moko?
* Pair plead guilty to Taupo boy's manslaughter
* How the Moko Rangitoheriri case unfolded
* Moko Rangitoheriri's mum speaks for the first time since the toddler's death
Many of the marchers were mums who had brought their kids along. But there was also a Mongrel Mob member and patched members of the Bikers Against Child Abuse Auckland chapter.
STACY SQUIRES/FAIRFAX NZ Christchurch remembers Moko.
The demonstrators carried small fragile hands made of blue paper on popsicle sticks. A little boy had a placard that read, "Don't hurt us."
They heard speeches from advocates including organiser Karis Vesey, Labour Party spokesperson for children Jacinda Ardern, and stopping domestic violence advocate Vic Tamati.
"I feel like what we're here for today is to call for that change, to create a New Zealand where we don't have every second day a child admitted to hospital with injuries that have been inflicted upon them," Ardern said.
ROSS GIBLIN\Dominion post About 200 people turned out in Lower Hutt to call for an end to New Zealanders killing their children.
Tamati, a former perpetrator of domestic violence, talked about the hurt he had inflicted on those around him. Those people included his mother, his wife, his children, neighbours, family relations.
He went for help in 1992, and realised everything he knew about being a man was wrong.
"I grew up in the darkness. I thought bashing up was okay. ... I was so, so wrong."
ROSS GIBLIN/FAIRFAX NZ People gather in Lower Hutt for the first of six national marches against child abuse planned for Sunday.
He said it was a man's job to stand up to domestic violence, not perpetrate it.
Tamati asked the men in the crowd to take up his challenge: declaring New Zealand a family violence-free zone.
The marches began at 11am on Sunday in Lower Hutt, where about 200 people turned out to call for an end to the killing of our children.
ROSS GIBLIN/FAIRFAX NZ About 200 people gathered in Lower Hutt for the first of six "marches for Moko" against child abuse.
A soft rain began to fall as organiser Anaru Moke told marchers "we all know why we are here", which was down to New Zealand's "heartbreaking" child abuse statistics.
Another organiser, Tash Lajpold, said Moko's tale "broke each of our hearts".
Star Olsen, who was at the hui, said: "I knew I had to say something that was in the pit of my stomach".
SUPPLIED Taupo boy Moko Rangitoheriri, 3, was beaten to death by his caregivers.
"The hardest word for a lot of Maori males to say is sorry."
Anaru Moke, a tattooed Mongrel Mob member, was a victim of violence as a child.
"I was bashed myself, who wasn't? You know, we went through a hard life, me and my brothers and sisters.
SUPPLIED In Nelson, Annette Milligan, Willow Duffy and Liz Crawshaw with their flowers to remember Moko. The blue mark on Willow's hand is a stop sign, saying 'stop' to family violence and child abuse.
"I do not want that for the future of my kids or my loved ones."
He said he was now breaking the cycle for his own 11 children, some of whom were at the hui.
"I'm not here to represent the bros, the Mob. I'm here as a father, I'm here as a grandfather, and I'm also here as a New Zealander."
MATT SHAND / FAIRFAX NZ Tania Shailer, 26 and David William Haerewa, 43, are awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to Moko's manslaughter.
In Christchurch over 1000 people showed up to march from Cranmer Square to Hagley Park to honour Moko's life.
Guest speakers included Poto Williams, community advocate Ariana Wilson and the mother of a woman who had been killed by a former partner.
Cheryl Tovizi lost her daughter Alexsis Tovizi in 2010 when Nikki Roper strangled her to death.
"She left behind a precious three year old boy who wishes he could bring his mum back from heaven," she said.
"We need to learn to read the signs and to speak up. It is up to us to do something and to do something now.
Nicola Dally-Paki told Story how her daughter pleaded with their caregivers to take Moko Rangitoheriri to see a doctor after he had been abused.
"Not one more baby should die at the hands of the people who are supposed to be looking them."
Separate events are being held in Whangarei, Auckland, Hamilton and Nelson.
David Haerewa and Tania Shailer kicked, slapped, stomped on Moko and rubbed faeces in his face in the weeks before his death. The pair pleaded guilty to his manslaughter and will be sentenced in July.
Hundreds of people are expected to march all over the country to remember the boy with a cheeky grin.
The child was so badly beaten, his mother struggled to recognise him when she had to identify his body.
In Nelson around 600 people turned out for the I will march for Moko Nelson event,surpassing organiser's' expectations by three times.
The event was organised by the Nelson Tasman Te Rito network of family violence intervention agencies.
People of all ages took part, from older people to families with children, the youngest probably being 9-week old Hezekiah who came with his parents Liam and Dakota Wesney Hurtado.
There was a one minute silence for Moko, speeches, a march and the laying of flowers on the steps of Nelson Cathedral.
Trish Reid, who came with her family, said; "I am here to make a stand, I am here so no children are treated badly, and for the justice system to hold people to account.'
Speakers included Willow Duffy of the child abuse education charity Safeguarding Children Initiative, whose message was that it was the responsibility of communities to protect the children around them.
"We need to ask the why question: why is that child always hungry, or always dirty, or frightened of a family member?
"Don't ask 'what if I am wrong'. Ask 'what if I am right?'"
The most moving speech of the day came from Jessica Tuhua, 9, who talked about how she felt about the death of Moko.
"Dear Moko, you brave boy. What they did to you was despicable.
"No one deserves to be treated the way you were. I can't feel your pain but I know it was hard for you. I hate to think of what has happened, but it is important to write about it, and honour you."
The event was organised by a group called A.S.K - Angels Saving Kids. The mothers said they wanted to encourage people to ask when they were concerned about a child or family and ask for help.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister ordered a report into whether law changes were needed after Moko's killers had their murder charges downgraded to manslaughter.
Adams confirmed she had asked for a report from officials on whether Moko's case highlighted any systemic issues with the law around murder and manslaughter.
Despite the outcry of the manslaughter charges, Prime Minister John Key said a review of sentencing in child abuse cases was not needed.
Hone Ropata, played by Temuera Morrison, and Carrie Burton, played by Lisa Crittenden, in episode one of Shortland Street, which screened on May 25, 1992.
It was to be New Zealand's biggest-ever drama project. At a cost of $10 million, 230 episodes of a new drama were to be made.
The programme was called Shortland Street and those 230 episodes were made, as were thousands more.
On June 2 this year, the 6000th episode will screen and Wednesday next week marks 24 years since the first episode screened.
Supplied Chris Warner, played by Michael Galvin , in the first episode of Shortland Street
On and off, for those past 24 years, doctor Chris Warner, played by Michael Galvin, has been there.
We met him that first episode, which screened on May 25, 1992, perving at a jazzercise class before making out with the yellow and black, lycra-glad instructor, despite - in her words - the fact she had "just done a 50-minute cardio-funk".
Speaking from set this week, he remembered auditioning "along with every single actor in Auckland, if not New Zealand", then getting called back for a second audition, which he turned up to hungover.
The previous night's drinking helped - it deepened his voice and made him more relaxed.
Then there was the nervous wait tor a call, which came when he was doing a play at the Mercury Theatre in Auckland.
"I just flopped down on the floor in relief. People thought somebody had died."
Then there was the early filming - starting with week three then working back, so that by the time season one was filmed the actors knew what they were doing.
"In the end it didn't matter because it just got slammed regardless."
Most of the cast and crew gathered in the studio in Browns Bay in Auckland to watch the first episode as it went to air.
"A lot of drinking and yelling and cheering and we all thought it was great."
All these years later - and that season gets trolleyed out often - he doesn't think it has dated too badly, even if the pace is a little slow and it is all a little quiet.
But on May 25, 1992, after watching season one in Browns Bay, they hit the the town and realised the public reaction was not so kind.
"People were abusing us and jeering at us."
They would, on the whole, come around.
Maxine Fleming, now a producer on the show, was a writer in the early days and still remembers sitting down with her one-year-old daughter, partner, and friends in her Grey Lynn home and popping some champagne to watch the first episode.
"To be honest, I probably cringed a little along with the rest of New Zealand."
New Zealanders were not used to seeing a medical show each night, especially one with Kiwi accents and the first responses were far from positive.
Each week the cast and crew would turn up half-expecting to be fired, but after a year ratings started to improve and jobs became more secure.
Ahead of the opening night, hopes were raised in newspapers that the show would still be running in "three, four, maybe five years".
Producer Caterina De Nave explained the show's mix of sex and social issues that would attract an audience of teenagers and women in their early twenties.
"The social issues are important parts of it and I think it will be controversial at times. The scripts cover things like Aids, abortion, and sex abuse.
"It is based on the idea that New Zealanders like dramas about relationships and are interested in social issues."
In all those hours that Shortland Street has screened at 7 o'clock each weeknight, the show's most famous moment happened nine minutes into episode one.
A pregnant woman is brought in but Hone Ropata - played by Temuera Morrison - is the only doctor on hand, though his employment is yet to begin.
He wants to deliver the baby. Nurse Carrie Burton, played by Lisa Crittenden, has other ideas.
"You are not in Guatemala now Dr Ropata," she said.
"If something goes wrong we could all be in trouble."
De Nave would later reveal that the line was almost removed from the original script because it was "so ridiculous".
"But we left it in at the last minute, and the rest, as they say, is history."
Fleming, from set in Auckland, this week said ratings were going well and there was no reason the show would not go thorough to another 6000 episodes.
"I could be watching it from the old folks' home."
Classic moments on the street:
1992: The very first episode spawns the most famous line in the show's history: "You're not in Guatemala now, Dr Ropata," spoken by Nurse Carrie to Dr Hone Ropata.
1994: Steve and TP are killed when the car they were travelling in crashes and explodes, following an argument between Steve and Chris Warner, as TP's partner Sam looks on.
1999: Mackenzie blows up the clinic in an effort to kill Oscar and escape with the money he was embezzling from the hospital.
1995: Carmen is injured and hospitalised after a truck crashes into the hospital; she dies of a brain aneurysm mere moments after declaring her love for Guy.
2008: Joey jumps to his death from the roof of a storage building, after Kieran realises he is the Ferndale Strangler, bringing one of the most successful story arcs in the show's history to a close.
An Australian law firm has filed a compensation claim against Russia and President Vladimir Putin in the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of families of victims of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, shot down on July 17, 2014 over the territories that are not under control of the Ukrainian government, Reuters has said with reference to Australian media reports.
The jetliner crashed in Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board, including 28 Australians. Australia's Fairfax media reported on Saturday 33 next of kin were of victims named in an application by Sydney law firm LHD Lawyers, representing people from Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia.
The application was filed on May 9 and names the Russian Federation and Putin as respondents and seeks $10 million in compensation per passenger, the report said.
Reuters could not immediately reach LHD Lawyers for comment.
The Dutch Safety Board, which was not empowered to address questions of responsibility, did not point the finger at any group or party for launching the missile.
The Boeing 777 plane of Malaysia Airlines en route from Amsterdam to Kuala-Lumpur crashed on July 17, 2014 in the eastern part of Donetsk region near the village of Hrabove. The jet had 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board, all of whom died.
The Dutch Safety Board on October 13, 2015 published a report on the MH17 crash. It says, in particular, that the airliner was shot down by a Buk surface-to-air missile.
More than $40,000 has been donated to murdered woman's Blessie Gotingco's family since they announced they want to hold the Government accountable.
The family say they want to bring a civil suit against the Department of Corrections to hold them responsible for the "mismanagement and non-monitoring of evil" over the killer who took her life.
Antonio Gotingco, Blessie's husband, said he would follow murderer Tony Robertson "to the gates of hell", during an interview on Newshub's 'The Nation'.
Peter Meecham A family's grief - Antonio Gotingco comforted by his tearful son at the memorial service holding the ashes of his wife, Blessie Gotingco in June last year.
"Anybody who put that criminal in our neighbourhood has blood on their hands ... If this had happened in other countries ... people resign."
A Give A Little page - Justice for Blessie - was launched on Friday evening for the family's cause and about 1300 people had donated $40,800 by 10am on Saturday.
READ MORE:
* Blessie Gotingco killer Tony Robertson loses appeal bid
* The full story of Blessie Gotingco's killer revealed [interactive]
* Blessie's killer could have been locked up for good
* Blessie Gotingco's family call for public inquiry into her killer's release
DAVID WHITE/ FAIRFAX NZ A handcuffed Tony Roberston arrives with a heavy prison guard foe his Appeal in the Blessie Gotingco murder case
In an open letter to New Zealand, the Gotingcos called for the support of New Zealanders as they raised money to undertake their own review of the case. If the review showed they have legal grounds, they would file a civil case against Corrections. Gotingco, 56, was raped and murdered returning to her Birkdale, Auckland, home on May 24 2014.
Her killer Tony Douglas Robertson ran her down in his car before throwing her into the vehicle and driving to his nearby house.
He then raped Blessie Gotingco, stabbed her to death and dumped her body in the Birkenhead Cemetery.
Supplied Blessie Gotingco, murdered while walking home after work on May 24 2014. Gotingco, a mother of three, had migrated to Auckland from the Philippines with her husband Antonio.
Robertson was released from prison five months earlier for abducting and indecently assaulting a child and was subject to an extended supervision order which included 24-hour GPS tracking.
Antonio Gotingco said in the open letter that the release of Robertson was "like putting a snake in a hen house".
"We lost our beautiful Blessie at the hands of an evil person who was supposed to be under strict monitoring in the community by authorities to whom we have entrusted our lives for protection," he said.
CHRIS SKELTON/FAIRFAX MEDIA Tony Robertson appears for sentencing over the murder of Blessie Gotingco.
"The Government, particularly the Department of Corrections has given a new meaning to ineptitude and stupidity. The Government sounded the death knell for Blessie by failing miserably to deliver the primary role of governance which is to ensure its citizens are safe and secure from the scum of society.
"Its decision to put a sadistic, unreformed criminal in our neighbourhood sealed the fate of our much-loved Blessie. It was like putting a snake in a hen house".
Antonio Gotingco said Corrections never properly monitored Robertson and that it was only a matter of time before he would commit another crime.
"And yet they continue to add insult to our injury by claiming that they have exceeded standards in their management of this hardened criminal. For us, hearing these pronouncements is like rubbing salt to our raw wounds".
He said while it was the family's hope that no other family would experience the tragedy they went through, there was no guarantee "unless we get our acts together".
"We are now facing the biggest challenge of our life by considering filing a civil case against the Department of Corrections for the wrongful death of my wife, our beloved Blessie. It's tough enough, and the Government is not providing us with legal assistance - a sad irony considering that they are all too happy paying for the legal expenses of Blessie's murderer."
He called for the help of New Zealanders to stand by them by donating towards the costs they would face.
"We [are] counting on your help, even if it is only $1, it will help us expose the sham that is the management of sex offenders in New Zealand. We need to put a stop to this vicious cycle of ineptness and stupidity in the justice system. We firmly believe that a civil case against the Department of Corrections is our only option and a worthy course of action.
"Together let us show them the power to the people. Never again! We all deserve better".
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko asked Germany, which is currently holding the OSCE chairmanship, to speed up preparations for considering a proposal on deploying an armed mission in Donbas in a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.
The Ukrainian presidential press service reported on Saturday that Poroshenko, Hollande, and Merkel shared the view that, despite the ceasefire agreements reached before Easter, the situation in Donbas remains complicated.
"The president of Ukraine in this context also mentioned the importance of deploying an armed police mission in Donbas. The president urged Germany, as the country currently holding the OSCE chairmanship, to speed up the development of relevant proposals," the presidential press service said.
Poroshenko also insisted that militants must observe the ceasefire and OSCE monitors must be provided with access to all border sections to halt Russian arms supplies to the occupied part of Donbas.
The Ukrainian, German, and French leaders agreed that security remains the main precondition for continuing the political process and that it is important to continue the dialogue to free all hostages, it said.
"During the conversation, the parties also coordinated their positions on extending the sanctions against Russia in the run-up to the G7 summit in Japan," it said.
Poroshenko also called on France and Germany to speed up internal EU procedures to grant Ukrainians visa-free travel.
Talking rubbish is part of our garbage problem View(s):
Plans to write about the recently concluded Anti-Corruption Summit that British Prime Minister David Cameron laid out at Lancaster House as his personal contribution to ridding the world of this cancer as he called it, went astray.
If Mr. Cameron thought that in one day he and US Secretary of State John Kerry who had similar thoughts on corruption, could persuade a scattering of foreign leaders and others gathered there to end the scourge to which their own countries had contributed and do so even now, it sure sounded like boundless optimism.
As much as I would have liked to dwell on the proposal of a few well-meaning participants that governments open up to public view their tender activities (no pun intended) and let a concerned citizenry scrutinise all of their governments procurement processes, it would have been treated by corrupt politicians and some of their equally corrupt officials as an unfortunate joke.
It is true that Rome was not built in a day. But if anyone seriously thinks that politicians, business leaders and officials who have for decades employed corrupt means to stash away national assets abroad and thrive on this, are going to be transmogrified into sainthood because some western leaders have had a sudden desire to cleanse their now tortured souls, it is surely a heap of bovine rubbish.
Since there is no prospect of our own megapolis (mega police as one official website called it) being built soon or Camerons cornucopia of moral purity gestating in a year or two, it seemed pertinent to turn to more topical and interesting political happenings back in Colombo.
They always have elements of the farcical so that when crazy economics and the weather together put a damper on daily life, there are always the words and deeds of our politicians to inject some mirth to enliven those dreary evenings.
If ever a vote is taken on which politician provides most belly laughs then I know who would get my vote. True there will be several vying for the top spot though Wimal Weerawansas outbursts are now infrequent and the il professori has retreated to try and repair his reputation.
But without any hesitation my choice is Udaya Gammanpila, one time member of the JHU and now with some nondescript group with not many members to boast of some say. Judging by the time he spends almost daily addressing media conferences one would not be entirely wrong in thinking that he has plenty of time on his hands. There is hardly a day one does not read about Gammanpila scattering pearls of wisdom with such abandon on any subject you might name that some might wonder whether he runs a pearl manufactory.
The last time I was in Colombo a friend who really knew his Shakespeare said even the Bard had a place for a Malvolio. Why drag Shakespeare into this, especially when the subject I have in mind is Udaya Gammanpilas latest thoughts on Colombos garbage problem.
Speaking to the media last week he claimed that the roads in Colombo were flooded because the Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development had failed to manage the garbage issue.
He demanded that the Megapolis Minister implement a sound garbage management system in Colombo without talking of megapolis all the time. Now if the Megapolis Minister does not talk of the megapolis, a sort of project not undertaken before, what on earth is he expected to talk about?
The trouble with local politics is that there are too many ministers and deputies talking of matters that do not come under their purview resulting in one contradicting the other and inconsistencies piling up that does neither the government nor the public any good. Anybody listening to Colombos cacophonous politics would not be wrong in thinking yahapalanaya means open- mouthed governance.
When Gammanpila talks of the Megapolis Minister everybody and his kussi amma know who he is referring to Champika Ranawaka his current bete noire and one-time leader. That is until Gammanpila broke away from the JHU over political differences. It had to do with supporting twiddledee or twiddledum.
So Gammanpila piling it on Ranawaka like the garbage accumulating at Meethotamulla and elsewhere will come as no surprise to the average man and woman who are crazy enough to give much thought to our political gimmickry helped along by an accommodating media.
Udaya the Loquacious (like Ivan the Terrible or John the Careless) as he would probably go down in history (if minor footnotes dot the written works) laments the fact that Ranawakas ministry which is only nine months old if my counting is correct, has not so far produced a sound garbage management system.
Gammanpila is correct when he says garbage collection-or non-collection which is what it is all about is a major problem in our capital city and its environs. But then we do not need Gammanpila to sound the alarm as though it is only yesterday the tigers arrived at the gate.
The fact is that the haphazard collection of garbage if it is collected at all has been a perennial problem as householders in several parts of Colombo will testify to without demur.
If people were really frank they would admit that the problem lies wholly or partly with politicians in the capital city and elsewhere, particularly those who represent second and third tier elected bodies such as provincial and municipal council and pradeshiya sabhas.
Cynics would say that it is those like Gammanpila who are part of the problem. If politicians stopped talking rubbish as most of them are prone to do and often on subjects they are hardly familiar with, there will be less garbage accumulating. But it is not only cynics who think thus. There are plenty of ordinary folk who are fed up of the promises made by politicians seeking their vote which end up in the rubbish dump once they get themselves elected.
At the same press conference Gammanpila paid his pooja to Gotabaya Rajapaksa for his garbage management system and what he called the golden era of urban beautification. That is partly true. Gotabaya brought down walls, created walkways and planted trees. But he failed to solve the garbage problem though there was more visible cleaning activity along the roads and streets.
That golden era has now turned sharply to dross as mountains of garbage collect, flies proliferate and the Colombo Municipal Council and its workers seem to care little about dengue or rubbish. There was once a private company contracted to keep the city clean. Whether the same enthusiasm is shown today is very much in doubt.
One can understand Gammanpila wanting to shore up Gotabayas performance as Gota the Beautifier. But he fails to mention what happened to the great garbage management system Gotabaya introduced and who dismantled it.
As far as my memory goes and that is from the 1970s until I left in late 1989Colombo streets such as Jawatte Road, parts of Havelock Road, Park Road and elsewhere were water-logged making some of them almost impassable during heavy rains.
Gotas time, as some call it, not only saw the city come alive leading to something called the Top Ten calling Colombo one of the cleanest cities in Southeast Asia which was a load of rubbish as I wrote in this column in December last year, but there was much construction work.
How some of the builders and property owners got planning permission is another story. But this spate of buildings sprouting like mushrooms was partly responsible for drainage problems that also led to the flooding of our streets and residential areas. Who was responsible for this mess?
Udaya Gammanpila has a short memory convenient or otherwise. Perhaps he has forgotten the promises he made as chairman of the Central Environmental Authority in an interview with an English daily exactly eight years ago this month. The interview carried the headline Pilisaru to make Sri Lankas garbage disappear by 2012. Pilisaru was a garbage management scheme initiated by Gammanpila under the theme Towards garbage free Sri Lanka by 2012. The 2008 budget allocated five billion rupees for the garbage management programme.
Listing five reasons why garbage management has failed Gammanpila said there was no political leadership and that is the most important thing. Who were these political leaders he was referring to in 2008? Six years later with Pilisaru probably abandoned Gammanpila and the garbage is still with us.
I read the other day that flood waters from the Diyawanna Oya had found its way into parliament. It would be wise if our politicians considered this purgatorial water that would wash away the millions of words of rubbish that have emanated from there over the years.
Some believe that if the exuberance of our parliamentary orators is reduced by half would it go a long way to solve our rubbish problem. Im not so certain. Would half be enough?
The need for a Disaster Prevention Ministry View(s):
The floods and the landslides in most parts of the country have put a literal dampener on celebrations to mark Vesak, the month that is significant to Buddhists throughout the world. None celebrate the occasion with such gusto as the Sri Lankans.
Natures forces are a grim reminder that humanity is at the mercy of such external factors and man can make it worse. In the midst of grandiose plans for a Megapolis in the Western province, thousands of families have been flooded out of their homes or marooned by swirling waters after just two days of incessant rains and some showers thereafter. The death toll is still rising.
Many man-made reasons are attributed to the flooding and landslides, not least haphazard development, bad urban planning, corruption within local councils and the pressure of population on available land.
That the Met Department gave only a half-hearted warning on Friday May 13 and nothing on Saturday of an impending disaster reflects as poorly on it as the unpreparedness of the Disaster Management Centre (which has a separate Ministry for the subject with Cabinet status) to get their act together in forewarning the people. Our Business Times section comments on how badly they performed and calls them a disaster by themselves. Not long ago, the Institute of Engineers wanted the Centre to change its direction to a Disaster Preparedness Centre, i.e. to a place that takes preventive measures rather than post-disaster measures, but Government leaders are too busy with the politics of the day to prioritise these matters and take necessary measures.
Fortunately, the Armed Services were there to be deployed in the midst of yet another political debate whether the country should on May 18 celebrate the end of a long-drawn-out armed separatist campaign seven years ago with a military display, or whether it should be a day of remembrance for all those who died in the near 30-year insurgency. The multifaceted role this countrys Armed Services play stands testimony to their usefulness in times of emergencies, even though some want them to be mere museum pieces.
The Home Affairs Minister is reported to have called upon public servants to assist the flood-stricken people disregarding government circulars and the Establishment Code. Easier said than done, however much such statements may appeal to the people. Public servants are reticent in taking the initiative these days fearing a backlash in the form of what they see is a persecution of some of their colleagues for using their discretion and going beyond the rule book in recent years. Corruption is one thing, but to ask public servants to ignore government circulars and use their discretion is a dangerous strategy to adopt and the public servants do so to their own peril.
In the medium and long term, global warming and climate change watchers predict irregular weather patterns, floods and droughts. Nothing can be taken for granted and once the waters recede, as they will, Government agencies and political leaders will go back to sleep. Calling for international aid is an easy way out for a country now accustomed to begging for assistance in whatever shape or form, irrespective of national pride; but donor assistance also has a fatigue factor to reckon with.
Keeping fingers crossed hoping nothing will happen again is not a viable option.
The immediate task is clearly to roll up the trousers and provide relief to the thousands affected by the floods. Amid the gloom however, there was a ray of shining light: the willingness of people to come to the aid of those affected by the floods. Ordinary people rallied to contribute to the relief effort, donating dry rations, cooked food, clothing and bottles of water, for which there was an urgent need. One hopes the aid is channelled properly and is not short-term. Even as the sun strains to shine, the affected will need assistance as they return to their houses or whats left of them and try to rebuild their lives.
May all beings be happy
As the Buddhist world celebrates the month of Vesak, no other country probably does so with such gusto as Sri Lanka the Dhammadvipa the Land of the Dhamma. Monks, scholars, writers and lay preachers will inundate the people with What the Buddha taught over the Vesak period, one of which is; May all beings be free from suffering; free from sickness; be well and happy. The emphasis is on all beings, which therefore includes animals. How much of that Dhamma is being practised in this Land of the Dhamma is a hotly debated issue once again.
The debate comes in the backdrop of a Cabinet directive to the Ministries of Local Government and Health to come up with proposals on how to tackle the difficulties arising from the stray dog menace, which includes the spread of rabies. The animal welfare lobby has come out strongly in protest. The Government has assured them that the No-kill policy of their predecessors in office will continue, but the pro-animal activists say that is not enough. They want the stray dogs to remain where they are, on the streets, but under a WHO formula of CNVR (Catch-Neuter-Vaccinate-Release).
Some years ago, the Japanese ambassador in Sri Lanka drew reference to these stray dogs and argued this was due to the humaneness of the Sri Lankan people. Unfortunately, some of them have broken legs due to the wickedness of some human beings. A few decades ago, then Health Minister Gamani Jayasuriya, troubled by a WHO directive to eliminate stray dogs from the streets with the rise of rabies, sought counsel from his President. He was told that holding public office required a Minister to act in the public interest. Over the years, the WHO too has changed its approach to this issue and adopts the CNVR approach instead.
The Government seems both hamstrung by finances and ham-fisted by officialdom when dealing with the stray dog issue. A shelter run by the local council in Anuradhapura was described as a veritable hell due to both these reasons and eventually had to be shut down. On the other hand, a privately-run shelter in Ahangama is a roaring success; so why shouldnt the Government assist those volunteer organisations like it assists schools and orphanages.
There is a worldwide campaign gathering momentum on the Rights of Animals. The anti-whaling campaign has been going on for years spearheaded by the Greenpeace activists. Last year, there were major successes around the world. Circuses with performing animals had to take off these acts in some countries. A ban on animals being used in laboratories is gathering speed. A bid to reverse the ban on fox hunting in Britain was defeated as thousands petitioned and there are even questions being asked about elephants taking part in peraheras. There is a global watch on the torture of animals, including the caging of birds and animals, in chicken coops and fish tanks and endangered animals being shot in Africa by poachers and wealthy foreigners so that they can hang their trophies on the verandahs. In Sri Lanka, the slaughter of animals at Munneswaran was stopped by a court order and in Nepals Gandhimal Temple where thousands of animals are beheaded every five years in a gruesome animal sacrifice exercise, the temples Trust has declared that the next time in 2019, it will be a celebration of life, not the destruction of animal life.
That animals have been trapped in the ongoing floods cannot be forgotten. If Sri Lanka includes the Rights of Animals in its proposed new Constitution it will be probably the first country in the world to do so. But first, we must accelerate the passage of the proposed Animal Welfare Bill that is struggling for years to be enacted into law. The world is seeing brutish wars, but elsewhere, it is also starting to be a kinder place.
As floods cause havoc, monsoon from tomorrow Death toll and number of displaced people rise; assistance from friendly countries flows in View(s): View(s):
The havoc caused by rains, floods and landslides pushed the death toll to 73 last night with 127 people reported missing, the Disaster Management Centre said. However, Police and rescue workers said that the figures would be much higher as search and rescue operations in affected areas continued.
Among the developments last evening was the evacuation of residents in plantation areas in the Nuwara Eliya and Kandy districts where fears of landslides were high. Police said residents in areas vulnerable to landslides were being brought to safer locations.
Fears of heavy rains again caused concerns for rescue workers, most of them security forces and police personnel last night.
The combined effects of a tail-end inter-monsoonal season and the onset of the south west monsoon will lead to heavy rains from tomorrow (Monday), Meteorology Department Director Sarath Premlal, warned yesterday.
His warning came as a major rescue effort was under way to evacuate those marooned and provide shelter and care for more than 375,600 affected by the rains, the resultant floods and landslides. The vast majority of them are in 497 welfare centres spread throughout the country. The figures are increasing by the hour; an official of the Disaster Management Centre said.
A Task Force of Security Forces personnel and those from the Civil Security Division will launch operations in the coming days to re-settle the displaced people, Disaster Management Ministry Secretary S.S. Niyanwala said. He said Grama Seva Niladharis were helping in assessing the extent of the damage caused.
The ministry secretary said the Government had released Rs. 92 million to District Secretaries and a further Rs. 55 million was on standby. Major General (retired) L.P.R. Mark said that floods and landslides had damaged 474 houses totally and 3,674 partially.
There were also those who were cashing in on the human tragedy. Senior Police Superintendent Ajith Rohana said at least 15 suspects had been arrested while trying to loot abandoned houses. He said Police countrywide had been instructed to take prompt action against those responsible for such inhuman acts.
Several friendly countries have responded to Sri Lankas appeal for emergency assistance. The first to arrive was an Indian Air Force C-17 transport aircraft with relief supplies including blankets, water purification tablets, mobile toilets, medical equipment and tents. Two Indian naval vessels carrying more supplies including boats were due in Colombo last night.
The United States has donated $ 50,000 (Rs. 7.2 million). A US Embassy statement said a further one million dollars would be given under a three-year programme to provide potable water and other relief items for disaster victims. Japan has donated water purifiers, water cans, mobile generator units, blankets and sleeping bags. Australia donated $ 500,000 while the Chinese Red Cross provided $ 50,000. Nepal contributed $ 100,000.
Meanwhile, a third landslide was reported in Aranayake in the Kegalle District yesterday. Government Agent Abeywickrema Wanigasuriya said an estimated 3,000 people had left their houses. In the other two landslides in the same district, Military Spokesperson Jayanath Jayaweera said, more than 200 soldiers were still continuing their search for victims. A total of 41 bodies have been unearthed from the two landslides so far in the villages of Bulathkohupitiya and Thelangapitiya.
India non-committal on Sampur request View(s):
Sri Lanka and India are locked in a tug-of-war over the controversial coal-fired joint venture power generation project at Sampur near Trincomalee.
Worldwide tenders for the supply of coal to start the project were due to be called as early as the end of this month.
Sri Lanka is now seeking to replace the proposed coal plant with an LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) plant. A request for this switch-over was made last week by President Maithripala Sirisena when he had talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a dinner-meeting during a stop-over in New Delhi on his return from an anti-corruption summit in London.
Pointing out that the use of coal-power was becoming obsolete worldwide and that Sri Lanka wanted to move away from coal as an energy source, President Sirisena appealed for a change in the status of the Indian-backed Sampur project. Premier Modi had remained non-committal over the request. Though sections of the media claimed Premier Modi has accepted the request, the Sunday Times has learnt he did not express a view except to hear the Sampur: Lanka wants LNG, India coal Sri Lankan President making the appeal.
Indian officials and diplomats have contended that the 500 megawatt power project, for which an agreement has already been signed, should go ahead. They contend that they are amenable to listening to Sri Lankas position on the matter, but there would be an escalation of cost and extension of the time duration to complete the project should they switch to LNG. They content that India itself was moving towards LNG and they would find it difficult to justify opposing Sri Lankas request on environmental grounds.
A Joint Venture Company (JVC) of both India and Sri Lanka state concerns with equal equity will undertake the task. While the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) is the local partner, the Indian side is represented by the National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd. (NTPC).
Government sources concede that Sri Lankas move now to change the production process to LNG would necessitate the revision of the agreement. They said it would be possible only with the concurrence of the Government of India as it was already a done deal.
Indian official contended this week that India had incurred considerable expenditure in planning the coal-fired power project. They said this was done with the full concurrence of the Government of Sri Lanka. To change it while it was about to be implemented is no easy task. It would mean that we have to re-start the process by evaluating how LNG would have to replace coal. That is a long-drawn process and will take time.
Locally, the Sri Lankan Government leaders, including Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, have made clear they want to opt for LNG and not go ahead with coal as part of the energy mix for the future. This position has been strongly backed by Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader Rajavarothayam Sampanthan and Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) leader Rauff Hakeem mainly on environmental grounds as the proposed coal fired plant is situated in the vicinity of their constituencies in the Eastern Province.
The former Sri Lankan Government yielded to the Indian-backed coal plant in Sampur despite protests from environmental groups as a quid-pro-quo to allowing the Chinese to build the Norochcholai coal plant in the North West coast. Meanwhile, a delegation from the Indian Petroleum Ministry was in Colombo this week. They met Petroleum Minister Chandima Weerakody, Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama.
The discussions revolved around joint venture projects between the LIOC (Lanka Indian Oil Company) and the CPC (Ceylon Petroleum Corporation) to manage the 100 oil tank farm around Trincomalee, only 15 of which are now being used by the CPC. The land on which the World War II British built oil storage tanks are situated belongs to the Lands Ministry.
The Indian Petroleum Ministry has purchased assets in several countries, including the United States and Australia, especially in the field of gas for the countrys energy needs in the future.
U.S. present in talks on Donbas not physically, but ideologically - official
The format for settling the situation in eastern Ukraine with the participation of European countries the Normandy Four is unlikely to be expanded. The United States is present in informal consultations, Deputy Ukrainian Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze has said.
"I do not see how to change the official [Normandy] format in the near term. I wish the United States was there. I am glad that the United States is present in informal consultations," she told reporters in Kyiv on Saturday.
She said that the United States is present at the talks "not physically, but ideologically."
"We are permanently holding consultations with the United States in bilateral and multilateral formats, with participation of European countries," she added.
Jayanthi makes history on Everest peak View(s):
Womens rights activist Jayanthi Kuru-Utumpala made history as the first Sri Lankan to reach the worlds highest peak of Mount Everest at an awesome 29,029 feet yesterday, the International Mountain Guides website confirmed. She had left Camp 4, one of the base camps in the mountain around 9 pm on Friday with her fellow Sri Lankan and climbing partner Johann Peries.
Johann made it to beyond Camp 4 and Jayanthi along with her Nepalese Sherpa or guide, Fura Gyalzen, continued to the summit. This was a strenuous overnight trek through the Everests Death Zone that was lit by the full moon, her support group in Colombo said in a statement.
The Camp 4 commonly known as the Death Zone is the Jayanthi makes history on Everest peak
region above 26,000ft where climbers face many challenges to survive including extremely low temperatures and there is only about a third of the amount of oxygen as there is at sea level. All of them are now descending and the winds remain light. Some of the team members will descend to Camp 2 today and some will stop at Camp 4, the website said in its Mt. Everest Expedition Coverage.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe congratulated the courageous mountaineers.The premier said he and the country were happy and proud of them.
The mountain top history making Jayanthi Kuru-Utumpala was earlier a journalist and work for some time at our sister paper the Daily Mirror. During the past few weeks, the Sunday Times Magazine monitored the progress of Jayanthi and Johann based on reports received online from their base camp.
Opposition turbulence rocks SriLankans House debate View(s):
A two-day debate on the loss-making national carrier SriLankan Airlines (SLA) was held in Parliament this week. The motion was introduced to the House by UNP Kurunegala District MP Nalin Bandara and seconded by UNP National List MP Ashu Marasinghe. Several MPs spoke during the debate. Following are some of the views expressed by them.
Nalin Bandara Jayamaha:
SLA was a profit-making institution when it was managed by Emirates Airlines but today, it is running at a loss going into millions of rupees. With the money infused into SLA by the State, many more highways, ports, airports and irrigation projects could have been undertaken. The reason is that the Airline was turned into a family business. There was a gross abuse of the Airlines resources. It was highly politicised and turned into an institution to suit the whims and fancies of one family.
The Government has brought an adjournment motion so it can expose the corruption, which we welcome but, we would also like to know exactly how this Government intends to overcome this situation and what its future would be.
JVP MP Sunil Handunnetti:
We are aware that it was waste, misappropriation and mismanagement that led to massive losses. This Government has a responsibility to ensure those ills are not repeated.
This Government, when it came into power, said it has learnt from its past mistakes and that, the privatisation policy it followed in the past will not be pursued. It will safeguard government institutions and make them into profit-making bodies. However, there is growing suspicion that this Government is paving the way to privatise SLA. The Government says it must absorb the losses and hand over the management to a private company. But that means it will be the people who will have to bear the losses. The Treasury is the tax paying people of this country. This is not the answer to the problem.
UPFA MP Bandula Gunawardena:
This Government is using this debate as a feeler, before it goes ahead and privatises SLA. In the past weeks, this Government has spent millions of rupees putting advertisements in the papers that the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration has left the country in debt running into billions, and which is why new taxes have to be levied. This Government has made a bogeyman of loans, but the reality is that all governments have had to take loans to run the country. This Government talks of corruption in the past, but the biggest fraud in recent times happened with the Central Bank Bond issue, but the whole thing has been brushed under the carpet.
It is those in the UNP who were opposed to the management of SLA being handed over to Emirates by the then Government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga. The UNP members even went to the Bribery Commission against this deal. It was called the biggest betrayal after the Kandyan convention. But today, all this has been forgotten and now, the UNP members are praising this deal.
Minister of Megapolis Champika Ranawaka:
If you look at the losses suffered by the Airline, it is clear that SLA is heading towards bankruptcy. We also know these losses will have to be absorbed by the Government and the people.
Due to family bandy-ism and poor management, today, every citizen of this country is indebted to the tune of Rs 23,000 just to offset the losses of the Airline, and there is no way to hide this ugly truth with beautiful words.
UPFA MP Udaya Gammanpila:
There are several falsehoods being told by Government members, inside and outside Parliament, regarding SLA. One is that, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa got angry with the Emirates management and took over the Airline. The then agreement with Emirates was signed in 1998. It came up for renewal in 2008, and among those who were campaigning for the government to take it back is the present Prime Minister. So the Government listened to the public and decided not to renew the contract, and run the Airline as a State institution.
There is also a myth that, under Emirates, it was running at a profit and then began to lose profits after the government took over. Even before that the Airline suffered losses. When the government took over in 2008, oil prices worldwide was rising and there was a global economic meltdown, and internationally, all airlines were running at a loss, not only SLA.
Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake:
We will not privatise SLA, but are looking for ways to address the losses it has incurred. SLA made profits of Rs 4,428 million in 2008, the year in which the management agreement with Emirates Airlines ended, and has lost Rs 184 billion since then. In 2008, Emirates sold their 40% shares to the government and since then, SLA has turned into a loss-making airline.
Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake:We will not privatise SLA, but are looking for ways to address the losses it has incurred. SLA made profits of Rs 4,428 million in 2008, the year in which the management agreement with Emirates Airlines ended, and has lost Rs 184 billion since then. In 2008, Emirates sold their 40% shares to the government and since then, SLA has turned into a loss-making airline.
Shock in South Asia as Maldives severs ties with Iran By Ameen Izzadeen View(s): View(s):
The Maldives decision to sever diplomatic ties with Iran on Tuesday has sent shockwaves across South Asia, but Teheran has chosen to snub the Indian Ocean nation by maintaining diplomatic silence.
Neither the Foreign Ministry in Teheran nor the Iranian embassy in Colombo has commented on the Maldivess move, which many analysts see as being linked to President Abdulla Yameens decision to back Saudi Arabia in its cold war with regional rival Iran.
Iranian embassy officials here remained tightlipped when asked to comment while a Maldivian High Commission official said he had nothing to say other than what the Maldivian Foreign Ministry had already said. The Maldivian Foreign Ministry in a statement on Tuesday said Iranian policies in West Asia were detrimental to peace and security in the region and it was severing ties with Teheran because stability in the Gulf was also linked to stability, peace and security of the Maldives.
The Islamic Summit held last month in Turkey called on Iran to pursue a policy based on the principle of good neighbourliness, non-interference in domestic affairs, respect for their independence and territorial sovereignty, [and] resolving differences by peaceful means in accordance with OIC and the UN Charters, the statement said.
In response, angry Iranians on social media commented that the Maldivian move did not hurt Iran the least and Teheran did not have to make a hue and cry over an insignificant action of a Saudi client state.
Questioning the move, former Maldivian President Mohammed Nasheed, who is in London for medical treatment, in a twitter message said, Severing ties with Iran is concerning. #Maldives Govts decision brings contentious issues to our region, risking Indian Ocean stability.
Mr. Nasheeds Maldivian Democratic Party, expressing deep concern, said, This kind of irrational adventurism in foreign policy decisions will have serious negative repercussions on the security of the Maldives.
It was only last month, Irans ambassador Mohammed Zaeri Amirani, who is concurrently accredited to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, presented his credentials to President Yameen.
An April 24 report posted on the Maldivian Presidents website said President Yameen congratulated Ambassador Amirani on the start of his term and expressed hope and confidence that relations between the Maldives and Iran would continue to strengthen in the future.
The two countries established diplomatic relations in 1975, but neither has its diplomatic mission in the others country.
The about-turn in less than three weeks after this ceremony has raised diplomatic eyebrows in South Asia.
In January this year, Bahrain, Sudan and Djibouti severed ties with Iran, following Saudi Arabias decision to end diplomatic relations with Iran after crowds angry over the execution of prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in Saudi Arabia attacked the Saudi embassy in Teheran.
Several other Saudi allies scaled down their diplomatic relations with Iran. Saudi Arabia, which opened its embassy in the Maldives last year, has recently stepped up financial assistance to the Maldives. Apart from investments, it has pledged to fund a US$ 50 million military housing project in the archipelago. Mr. Yameens government has also sought US$ 100 million from Riyadh for an expansion of its main airport.
Backed by Saudi Arabia and China, the Yameen administration has of late been adopting more assertive diplomacy in dealing with even its South Asian neighbours. In October last year, it found courage to tell off Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj that Maldives would not tolerate foreign interference in domestic issues. Ms. Swaraja had expressed New Delhis concern over the arrest of former President Nasheed.
In November last year, the Maldives was unusually uncooperative when Sri Lankas Foreign Ministry sought information regarding the arrest of a Sri Lankan accused of plotting to kill President Yameen.
SL receives foreign assistance consequent to urgent Govt. appeals View(s):
International assistance for victims of floods and landslides started to arrive in the country on Saturday, following an urgent Government appeal for foreign aid. India, Australia, Japan the United States and Nepal were among the first to answer the call for foreign assistance.
Two Indian naval vessels, INS Sutlej and INS Sunanyna arrived yesterday carrying inflatable boats, outboard motors, tarpaulins, milk powder, safety matches, candles and medical supplies.
An Indian Air Force C-117 aircraft carrying medical supplies, tarpaulins, tents, emergency lights consumable stores and mobile toilets also landed yesterday. In addition to the relief materials onboard, the aircraft was also carrying officials from Indias National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), who will aid rescue efforts in the country, Indias Ministry of External Affairs noted.
Speaking at the handover ceremony held onboard INS Sunanya at the Colombo Port yesterday, Indias High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Y.K. Sinha revealed the two vessels were carrying 25 tonnes of relief material, while the C-117 aircraft that landed at Katunayake was also ferrying 15 tonnes of supplies.
Mr. Sinha expressed Indias deepest sympathies and solidarity to the Government and people of Sri Lanka in this hour of tragedy.
Two aircraft ferrying emergency relief goods worth Rs 32 million from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) warehouse in Singapore, also arrived at the Bandaranaike International Airport last morning. The items handed over included blankets, sleeping pads, mobile water purifiers, water tanks, mobile generator units and water purification tablets. The ceremonial handover took place in the presence of Japanese Ambassador Kenichi Suganuma, and Minister of Disaster Management Anura Priyadharshana Yapa.
Japan will also send two JICA experts on disaster management, who were due to arrive in the country last night. They will hold discussions with the emergency team of the Ministry of Disaster Management on how to expedite the rescue efforts and to reduce further landslide risks, the Japanese Embassy in Colombo said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the Australian government is also contributing $500,000 to UNICEF for humanitarian assistance to the victims. This includes the provision of clean water and sanitation for children in shelters, the Australian government stated.
The Australian government also commended Sri Lankan authorities for their effective response to this natural disaster under difficult circumstances.
The US government provided Rs 7.2 million (US$ 50,000) for immediate disaster assistance for non-food items such as blankets, mattresses, clothing and hygiene kits.
In addition, the United States Embassy in Colombo, in coordination with the United States Agency for International Developments Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, is expediting plans to support a new, three-year programme totaling approximately LKR 144 million (US$ 1 million) to provide safe, disaster-resilient, drinking water to populations who are highly vulnerable to flooding and droughts. This new programme would build additional resiliencies and help address the need for reliable access to potable water during natural disasters, the US Embassy in Colombo said in a statement.
Expressing its deep sorrow on the loss of human lives and property in Sri Lanka, the government of Nepal has extended assistance of US$ 100,000 for relief operations in the country.
The Red Cross Society of China, through the Chinese Embassy in Colombo, donated US$ 50,000 to the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society (SLRCS) supporting Sri Lankas relief and rebuilding efforts on the present disaster of flooding and landslides islandwide.
The aid came consequent to a briefing of Heads of Diplomatic Missions and International Organisations based in Colombo, on the flood and landslide situation in the country, by Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, Ministers Anura Priyadharshana Yapa and Dr. Rajitha Senaratne .
Special reports Floods View(s):
Kelani crisis largely man-made
By Anushiya Sathisraja
Shrinking open spaces, illegal constructions, the lack of proper waste disposal and inefficient drainage systems contributed to the worst flooding in 27 years in Colombo and its suburbs, a senior official of the Irrigation Department said.
People filling up lowlands for construction and choked stormwater drains and other water conduits deepened the crisis.
Clogged drainage and canals in and around the city are blocking the flow of water to the river and sea, Irrigation Department Acting Director-General T.P. Alwis said. The reason for this is that the canal beds are much lower than the sea or river level, and as a result, the water does not drain out, he said.
A major contributory factor to the flooding has been the filling in of marshlands for development purposes.
Mr. Alwis said flooding in Kelaniya worsened this year primarily due to a drop in the citys ability to absorb water because most of the marsh or wetlands in and around Kelaniya had been filled for building houses or other construction.
The flooding around Colombo had been extraordinarily severe despite the water level of the Kelani River reaching 7.3 feet compared to 7.8 feet during the 1989 floods.
In 1989, more than 60,000 persons were affected in the Colombo district while islandwide 300,000 were displaced and more than 300 killed. Most of the deaths were reported from the Bulathkohupitiya area, which was hit by a landslide, killing 244 people. This time, more than 185,000 people are suffering from flooding in the Colombo district, with three deaths reported.
The water levels of the major tanks are high, the Irrigation Department said.
Some 53 major reservoirs are spilling while 73 are 82 per cent full. Mr Alwis said the spill gates of 20 big tanks have been opened, and after 2014 this is the first time all irrigation tanks have a large water supply.
According to the latest update onFriday from the Disaster Management Centre (DMC), 64 deaths have been reported islandwide and 131 declared missing from the landslide in Aranayake. More than 425, 000 people belonging to 100,000 families have been displaced with nearly 320,000 people living in shelters due to the devastation caused by floods, landslides and heavy winds in 22 of the districts.
From the highlands of Kandy and Nuwara Eliya to the lowlands of Hambantota and Batticaloa, the severe weather conditions left a trail of devastation across 16 of the countrys 25 administrative districts.
In the Gampaha district some 321, 350 people (75, 035 families) have been hit by the overflowing of the Kelani river.
The DMC also confirmed that 1,900 persons in Aranayake and another 2,221 in Bulathkohupitiya are suffering hardship caused by landslides. In the Kegalle district 28,909 persons are affected (see separate story).
Among the other areas hit are Ratnapura, with 3,858 people needing assistance, Central Province (5,007 people) ,Northern Province (37,001) and Puttalam (24,874).
Kegalle, Kalutara, Badulla, Moneragala, Kandy, Ratnapura, Kurunegala Nuwara Eliya and Matale, remain at high risk of landslides, cut slopes and rock falls.
Similar to the causes leading to the floods, made-made actions were attributed to the increasing landslides and rock falls.
The National Building Research Organisation (NBRO), the organisation focused on minimising landslides, struggles with no powers, a senior NBRO official said.
NBRO Landslide and Research Head R.M.S. Bandara said bad land use practices and water management and non-engineered constructions were the leading man-made causes of landslides.
There are constructions in landslide-prone areas that lack proper retaining structures, and added to that are cutting failures. Most people in areas of risk are unaware that rainwater management is essential is preventing landslide and related disasters. It is essential to divert rainwater to the nearest stream or waterway,, Mr. Bandara emphasised.
Agriculture, road development, local government, environment, railways, education, police, and disaster management authorities should co-ordinate to ensure the safety of the public and prevent landslides.
Apart from issuing clearance certificates, handing over rain gauges, landslide hazard zone mapping, creating awareness programmes and research, the NBRO has no powers to take legal action against those who do not obtain the NBRO certificate for constructions, carry out haphazard steepening of slopes or fail to follow proper water management and land use.
Mr. Bandara said residents should report to the District Secretarys offices if they notice any abnormalities such as rock slides, unusual seepage of water and bulges on slopes.
With the increase of landslides and floods worsening experts have called for better methods in minimising landslides.
Professor Kapila Dahanayake, a geologist from University of Peradeniya, said a mechanism should also be introduced, with the advice of irrigation officials, to harvest floodwater at higher levels without letting almost 80 per cent of it drain out to the sea.
Concrete columns should be used so that filling the land is avoided while increasing the number of culverts, both to allow the free flow of water, Prof. Dahanayake said.
The Meteorology Departments Director of Forecasting, Sarath Premalal, said that after 13 years this weeks rainfall, measuring 450mm, was the highest recorded in the country since the previous maximum of 700mm.
Strong windy conditions over the country and in the sea areas around the island will continue during next few days due to the meeting of wind feeding to the system. There is a high possibility to sudden increase of rain in the south-western part of the country. Very heavy rainfall of 100-150mm is also expected in some areas.
Issues of responsibility muddy the waters By Sandun Jayawardana
Colombos flooding problem is far more complex than an issue of drainage maintainance, says the chairman of the Land Reclamation and Development Corporation, W.M.A.S. Iddawela.
He said it was easy to claim that the floods in Colombo increased in severity due to poor maintenance of drainage systems, as some were alleging.
The issue is far more complex and must be looked at from a professional level, he stressed.
For example, Mr. Iddawela said, the Land Reclamation and Development Corporation was in charge of 44km of the canal system in Colombo. Responsibilities regarding much of the drainage system, on the other hand, lay with the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC).
A collective of several agencies including the Department of Irrigation, Urban Development Authority (UDA) and Coast Conservation Department must co-operate to maintain the regions flood management system, he said.
While the Kelani River bursting its banks greatly contributed to the severe flooding, irregular constructions had heaped enormous pressure on the environment, Mr. Iddawela said. The situation had become unsustainable, he argued.
He cited the Werassa Ganga Development Project, which saw the development of the Bellanwila walking track and surrounding region, as an example of good construction. The project had helped put an end to frequent floods in the Kesbewa and Piliyandala areas. The project is a testament to how sustainable construction can help mitigate flood disasters, Mr. Iddawela said.
He said under the World Bank-funded Metro Colombo Urban Development Project, a stronger storm drainage system for Kolonnawa, which has experienced some of the worst flooding to hit Colombo, would be built.
Mr. Iddawela revealed Colombo needed a minimum of 1,000 acres of lowland to safely facilitate water retention in order to avert future flooding in the region. We have, however, just 600 acres, he said. In order to secure the region we have to take steps to find 400 more acres of lowland. That will take a minimum of two to three years.
He said it was essential to identify all low-lying areas where construction has taken place because they were vulnerable to flooding.
A major problem is the lack of pumping stations along the Kelani River to pump out excess water, another official working for the corporation said, pointing out that people living along the flood plains and next to canals have been hit hardest by the flooding, precipitated by heavy rains from May 15-16 that caused a sharp rise in water levels of the Kelani River.
We have called for tenders on setting up several pumping stations and hope they will be completed by late this year or early next year, the official, a Deputy General Manager (DGM) of the corporation, said.
She said agencies needed to discuss to what extent climate change was causing such destruction.
Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) Commissioner V.K.A. Anura rejected accusations that the drainage systems under CMC control had not been properly maintained.
The bottom line is that we have not received this much of rain in Colombo since 2002. We were simply overwhelmed by the deluge, he said. Mr. Anura likened what happened to having a barrel of water poured on the ground at once instead of a tap being turned on.
The Municipal Commissioner conceded the drainage system in Colombo was extremely old and in need of urgent renovation. He said several projects were underway to improve the system but these would take up to two years to complete.
Department of Irrigation Director of Irrigation (Assets Management and Disaster Management) H.M. Junaid said heavy rainfall in areas upstream such as in Deraniyagala, Kithulgala and Hanwella had contributed to the rise in water levels along the Kelani River.
He said the main concern for authorities was that the water level in the river was continuing to fluctuate as heavy rains in these areas continued.
While many of the affected who lived next to the river had been living in illegal constructions, Mr. Junaid said he did not believe that illegal constructions or the dumping of garbage had played a decisive role in this particular flood. The rains were simply too much, he said.
The Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development has ambitious plans set out to control flooding in Colombo.
Tenders are to be called soon to construct two underground tunnels to take rainwater to the sea as a long-term solution, Ministry Secretary Nihal Rupasinghe said. He pointed out there were currently only four main outlets to discharge Colombos rainwater. These are located at Wellawatta, Dehiwela, Nagalagam Street and Mutwal.
When the water level of the Kelani River rises to this extent, however, these outlets cannot cope with the volume of water. Flooding also forces authorities to stop discharging water from Nagalagam Street, which is an outlet to the Kelani River.
Mr. Rupasinghe estimated it would take roughly another two-and-a-half years for the tunnel system to be put in place to control the rainwater more effectively. He stressed improvements to the drainage system was being done in the meantime in areas such as Kolonnawa and Grandpass.
Terror of new landslides as villagers dig with bare hands for loved ones By S. Rubatheesan in Aranayaka Mud and desolation lie heavy across the torn landscape View(s): View(s):
The weeping sound of an abandoned dog echoed through the mountains in Elangapitiya village in Aranayaka, where mud five feet deep covered three villages.
A group of villagers who had fled to safety and returned to find their former homes had disappeared without trace started to dig into the mud with bare hands and sticks, hoping to find people buried alive in the place where the dog was barking.
As the search continued, rain started to pour and a loud sound was heard from the mountain as more mud began to slide down the hill, propelled along by the rain. Villagers and onlookers ran, fearing for their lives.
It was like the terror of the previous night.
S.M. Ranjani remembers what her son told her when everybody was running for their lives that day. Pick up the little brother and run quickly, I will take another route, he had said.
So far, he has not returned; he and his father are counted as missing. The boy was due to sit for ordinary Level (OL) examinations this December.
Around 4.45 in the evening, I heard a huge sound. I thought it was an airplane flying above us across the mountains. All the houses in our neighbourhood were swept away by the muddy water, she said, describing the tragedy she had witnessed.
The inhabitants of the hamlets swept away by two landslides within minutes are linked by family ties across the three villages. One woman, S.P. Nilanthi, cannot believe that four members in her family have gone missing along with several close relatives living in other two adjacent grama sevaka divisions. Others are in hospital with severe injuries.
When I heard the sound and screaming we started to run, I did not even look back at what was coming after us, she recalls the moment when she joined neighbours to run for their lives.
A.I.J. Munasinghe, 32, serving in the Air Force, had ironically moved to his sisters house here early this year from a nearby village following a warning issued by the National Building Research Organisation (NBRO) of a possible landslide in his own area. He now finds himself homeless.
He lost nine members in his family. Some of his relatives saw people buried alive when the landslide occurred in the evening. I have lost almost everything in my life, he said.
My son has been crying for his bicycle we bought for him on his birthday, I told him that in the middle of all these tragedies, I am happy to have them alive, he said.
These were some of the tragic stories the survivors explained.
At last count, 132 people are still missing, while 19 bodies have been recovered. Burials are being held.
The villagers claim they had no previous warnings about the possible landslides.
The area was identified as landslide-prone area from the early nineties, Deputy Director (Geology) at Geological Survey and Mines Bureau Dr. C.H.E.R. Siriwardana said.
I remember that this area was affected by one of the worst landslides in the country, he said.
Explaining the geographical formation of the area, particularly in Aranayake area, he said when heavy rains pour, the top soil layers soften into mud and prone to earthslips.
Dr. Siriwardana said since the area had been identified as being prone to landslides, government authorities had been planning to relocate the inhabitants and prevent a disaster like this.
Just hours later after the disaster in Aranayaka, the adjoining village of Bulathkohupitiya in the same district was hit.
Initial reports were that 16 people were missing. Military search operations in Bulathkohupitiya were called off on Friday after 14 bodies were recovered. It was concluded that the other two bodies could not be recovered due to the depth of the mud and continuing rain.
When the landslide covered six line-rooms of Kalupahana Estate around 10.30pm on Tuesday nobody, not even the police, came to the spot until the next morning.
Inhabitants of the other line-rooms called the police hotline repeatedly and were told the police would reach them within half an hour. The next morning the police came with the military.
Derikanth Kathiresan, a construction worker employed in Saudi Arabia, came to know his whole family of seven had been buried alive in that landslide. One of his relatives told The Sunday Times the estate management had failed to provide alternative land for the families living in the line-rooms following warnings from the authorities of possible landslides.
The plantation workers said three years ago they had informed the planation administration that the line-rooms were not inhabitable. The Divisional Secretariat had notified the management of landslide risks after carrying out soil tests.
The Group Manager of Kelaniwelli Plantation company which administers Kalupahana Estate, Eranda Welikala, told this paper the estate management had not been issued with any landslide warning by the NBRO.
Following this weeks loss of 16 lives more than 230 people from 80 families were relocated to safer places by the administration as a temporary measure.
When asked why the administration had failed to move families from the line-rooms earlier, Mr. Welikala said management had not expected this kind of disaster as there has been no such disasters in the plantations 100-year-old history.
We will take necessary actions to make sure this kind of tragedy will never happen again, he said.
With the recovery process continuing in Aranayaka in pouring rain, the whole of Kegalle district has become a mourning zone, counting the missing ones and funerals for those who have been identified by relatives. Most tragically, in some instances there is no-one left of a family left to identify dead loved ones.
Six Ukrainian soldiers have been injured in the Donetsk region in the past 24 hours as a result of enemy shelling, said Andriy Lysenko, a military spokesman for the Ukrainian presidential administration.
"Over the past 24 hours, as a result of hostilities, none of the Ukrainian troops has died, six have been injured. All these casualties were sustained by the ATO [anti-terrorist operation] forces on the Donetsk track as a result of enemy shelling," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Saturday.
More than $40,000 has been donated to murdered womans Blessie Gotingcos family since they announced they want to hold the Government accountable.
The family say they want to bring a civil suit against the Department of Corrections to hold them responsible for the "mismanagement and non-monitoring of evil" over the killer who took her life.
Western Bay of Plenty has become one of the most unaffordable places to live, second only to Auckland.
Taurangas increasing popularity making it a victim of its own success.
The stretched rental market is now hitting full time workers with many struggling to find a home, forced to live in holiday parks and garages.
"Rotorua, Taupo and at the moment even Napier as well - out of town is the only option to get a place," Tari Morgan told media about Bay of Plentys exploding housing market.
Silver Birch Holiday Park manager Tony Makai added he has guests who have stayed for as long as five months, after they were originally only booked for a couple of weeks.
Eves Real Estate chief executive Ross Stanway told media Auckland buyers want a stake in the Tauranga market as investors or because the return on investment is better than Auckland.
The city is classed as "severely unaffordable" by the International Housing Affordability Survey.
Taurangas council is only too aware of the increasing problem.
"In many ways weve become the victim of our success, but were working hard to provide the planning regulations and the freedom to free up land for housing," deputy mayor Kelvin Clout says.
"The other thing that were doing is reviewing our planning and regulations so that we can enable intensification of land so were allowing smaller houses on smaller sections."
A second person has died after a serious crash yesterday on State Highway 2, south of Tauranga.
Police confirmed the second person died of their injuries last night. But were not releasing the names of the two who died in the crash.
China's central leadership called on Friday for more standardized law enforcement so that the people can feel justice in all law enforcement practices and in every case.
The call comes amid a series of cases that have occurred nationwide and involve allegations of abuse of police power.
A meeting on Friday of the Leading Group for Overall Reform, presided over by President Xi Jinping, required the establishment of a professional police force with standardized law enforcement practices.
The management of law enforcement should be "systematic" and procedures should be documented or recorded, to ensure that police power is used properly, according to a statement released after the meeting.
"Relevant authorities should strive to let the public feel social justice and fairness in every single law enforcement and every single case," the statement said.
The recent case of Lei Yang, 29, who died in police custody after a vice raid on May 7 in Beijing, has prompted questions by the public about whether the police used excessive force.
Prosecutors in Beijing are investigating the case to see if there was any police misconduct involved. No conclusion has been reached.
Yang Weidong, a law professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said that the latest requirement from the top leadership is very timely, since police abuse and brutality do exist.
"Some police officers are rude or even torture suspects in interrogations, while some don't inform suspects' family members in a timely manner," Yang said.
Zhao Li, a criminal lawyer in Beijing, said that many law enforcement officers, especially police, do not follow standardized practices.
Fatal Old Liverpool Road crash
A woman died early Saturday morning after her car collided with another vehicle on Old Liverpool Road in Salina.
(Onondaga County Sheriff's Office)
SALINA, N.Y. -- A woman died early Saturday morning after her car collided with another vehicle in Salina.
A woman in her 60s was driving east on Old Liverpool Road near Greenpoint Avenue around 12:40 a.m. when her Lincoln Continental crossed into the westbound lane and struck and oncoming Mercedes Benz, said Detective Jon Seeber, of the Onondaga County Sheriff's Office.
When deputies and Liverpool Fire Department firefighters arrived, the woman was unconcious, Seeber said. She was extricated from her crumpled car and rushed by Rural/Metro Ambulance to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse.
The woman was pronounced dead at the hospital, Seeber said. Her name will be released after deputies notify her family, he said.
Saad Sobhy, 59, of Liverpool, the driver of the Mercedes Benz, suffered minor injuries and refused treatment, Seeber said.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
The accident shut down Old Liverpool Road for hours between Saltmakers Road and The Hearth at Greenpoint, an assisted living facility located at 150 Old Liverpool Road.
Volunteers are the backbone of Komen Race for the Cure
To the Syracuse Community,
May 14 marked the 22nd edition of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. As executive director of the local affiliate, I am overwhelmed each year with the support our race receives from the entire Syracuse community. This year was no different!
Scores of committee members work year round and over 200 volunteers work tirelessly on race day to insure both a great experience for participants and a productive fundraising effort to raise needed funds to promote our mission locally. They are the backbone of our race and we simply couldn't be successful without them.
So a sincere thank you to all who participated, donated, sponsored and worked to produce another successful event.
Syracuse is truly a remarkable community!
Kate Flannery
Executive Director
CNY Affiliate
Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure
Food pantries bursting with donations thanks to postal patrons
To the Editor:
It's been a good couple of weeks for food pantries. On Friday, May 6, over 300 people (mostly volunteers) from food pantries and soup kitchens attended a conference sponsored by the Central New York Food Bank to learn how to better serve our friends in need.
On Saturday, May 14, the Post Office and the inter-religious food consortium coordinated with food pantries to put on a massive food drive. Our pantry was the fortunate recipient of a good month's worth of food. We are very grateful to the Post Office workers for the yeoman's work they did in collecting the food. We are equally grateful for the wonderful donations of food that we received from postal patrons. We could see the love packed into those packages. They will really help our friends in need.
Thank you and may God bless you all.
Paul Wrobel
Sacred Heart Basilica Food Pantry
Syracuse
Wheeler: Thanks for electing me to FM school board
To the Editor:
Please know that my heart is overflowing with gratitude for so many of you who did so much to assist us in the recent successful campaign for the Fayetteville-Manlius Board of Education. Several of you signed my petition, some of you wrote letters of endorsement on my behalf, many allowed us to place signs on your lawns, scores of you encouraged me and hundreds of you voted for me. I am especially grateful to my beloved husband, my wonderful children and their spouses (near and far!) our granddaughters, and my faithful siblings as they have all been tireless as my cheerleaders, sounding boards, and worker bees! Thank you one and all.
Serving on our board of education is a serious commitment; please be assured that I take this sacred trust very seriously. I pledge to all of you in the community, whether or not you voted for me, that the students in our district will remain my North Star. I congratulate the other re-elected members, Elena Romano and Kim Swanson, and look forward to our collaboration as we meet the challenges ahead.
As an FM graduate and lifelong member of the FM community, I take great pride in our school system and intend to do all in my power to help to maintain the vision and excellence we all expect. Please know I will always be open to community feedback or questions.
Daryll Fitch Wheeler
Fayetteville
Maxwell library thanks West Genesee voters for passing budget
To the Editor:
We'd like to send a huge "thank you" to West Genesee Central School District voters, from the trustees, staff and director of Maxwell Memorial Library. Please stop in to visit and check out books, movies, and more, available to you daily.
Your tax dollars have transferred from the town tax to the school district tax, and we are putting them to good use. On top of renovations taking place throughout the year, we have more books, movies and audiobooks than ever, including multiple copies of the latest releases and best-sellers you want. We now offer high-demand book and movie titles in our Rapid Reads and Fast Flicks collections -- they are on the shelves, not on a holds list, and can be checked out on a first-come, first-served basis -- to patrons visiting Maxwell in person.
We continue to offer substantive story times, music, and crafts and maker activities to children of all ages and their parents and grandparents. Our technology specialists can help you use your computers, tablets, and other devices for free. And because of your votes, we can upgrade our website, add social media, increase and continually train our knowledgeable staff and add new technology.
We look forward to the challenge of finding more and better ways to serve you this coming year. Let us know your thoughts on how Maxwell can make your lives better.
See you in the stacks!
Mary Jo Copeland
President
Maxwell Memorial Library Board of Trustees
Katy Benson
Director
Maxwell Memorial Library
Bishop Ludden Jr./Sr. High School students celebrated at their junior/senior prom Friday evening at Traditions at the Links in East Syracuse. The event's theme was "Casino Night."
Above is our gallery of photos from the event.
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Baku, Azerbaijan, May 21
Trend:
Armenian armed forces have 29 times violated the ceasefire with Azerbaijan on the line of contact over the past 24 hours, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said May 21.
Armenian army was using large-caliber machine guns.
Azerbaijani positions, located in the Munjuglu village of the Tovuz district was shelled from the positions located in the Aygedzor village of Armenia's Berd district.
Moreover, Azerbaijani positions took fire from the positions located in the Namirli village of the Aghdam district, Kuropatkino village and nameless heights of the Khojavand district.
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.
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By Paul Ivice, Special to Treasure Coast Newspapers
TREASURE COAST INDUSTRIES
JOB GAIN/LOSS*
Education, health services: 1,800
Leisure, hospitality: 1,000
Government: 1,000
Professional services: 600
Mining, construction: 500
Other services: 400
Retail trade: 300
Transportation, utilities: 100
Information: 100
Financial activities: 100
Wholesale trade: 0
Manufacturing: -600
*Compared with a year ago: 5,300
UNEMPLOYMENT RATES
MARTIN COUNTY
% April this year: 4.4
% previous month: 4.6
% April last year: 4.9
ST. LUCIE COUNTY
% April this year: 5.0
% previous month: 5.2
% April last year: 5.9
INDIAN RIVER COUNTY
% April this year: 5.5
% previous month: 5.5
% April last year: 6.2
FLORIDA SEASONALLY ADJUSTED
% April this year: 4.8
% previous month: 4.9
% April last year: 5.5
What it shows: As is typical for the Treasure Coast in April, the unemployment rate ticked downward not because more people had jobs, but because seasonal employees left the workforce.
Though rounded to 5.0 percent, the three-county region's combined unemployment rate was actually below 4.98 percent in April, compared with 6.1 percent a year earlier. That reflected an estimated 13,083 Treasure Coast residents who were unemployed and actively seeking work in April, about 50 fewer than the previous month. The number of people with jobs dropped by about 1,700 as more than 2,200 people left the workforce in April, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor's monthly telephone survey. Florida's unemployment rate dropped to 4.8 percent in April, the state's lowest rate in more than eight years.
Noteworthy: The Port St. Lucie Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses Martin and St. Lucie counties, led all metro areas in the state in annual job growth rate in the information (8.3 percent) and government (5.1 percent) sectors. Indian River County had the third-fastest annual job growth rate in mining, logging and construction (9.4 percent) among Florida's metro areas. Gov. Rick Scott said Florida businesses created 28,900 private-sector jobs across the state during April.
Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, gives a speech with his wife, Rebecca by his side Nov. 4. 2014, at the Stuart Coffee Company. Negron was re-elected to state Senate District 32, defeating Bruno Moore. (FILE PHOTO)
By Isadora Rangel of TCPalm
Rebecca Negron has received more money from Tallahassee interests than from her potential Treasure Coast constituents.
That wouldn't be so unusual if she was running for the Florida Legislature, but the Stuart Republican is running for Congress. So what support can donors expect from her?
The answer may lie in husband Joe Negron, one of the state's most powerful politicians, who will be Senate president for 2017-18. In that capacity, he will help make policy and budget decisions that affect businesses as well as the entire state. He will set legislative priorities, influence which bills get heard on the floor and negotiate with the House and Gov. Rick Scott on major issues.
"I think it's likely (donors) are looking to gain some access and influence with the incoming Senate president," said Ben Wilcox, research director at government watchdog group Integrity Florida. "People who want that access and influence are usually willing to give to any candidate who will help them gain that."
Rebecca Negron, a Martin County School Board member since 2012, said raising money is hard and being Joe Negron's wife hasn't helped her. She's the third best fundraiser among the eight Republicans running to replace U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, who's running for the U.S. Senate. There also are three Democrats in the U.S. House District 18 race.
"A lot of these people that are supporting me I know, I've known them over the years," she said. "I'm going to make decisions based on what's best for our community."
Six of her top 10 donors are employees and executives at these companies and lobbying firms that directly benefit, or would have benefitted, from the Florida Legislature's bills and budget allocations:
MCNA Dental: The Fort Lauderdale company for years pushed to change how the state provides dental services under Medicaid. Joe Negron sponsored a law this year that requires the state to commission a study to look at access to dental services under Medicaid's current system, in which the state contracts with HMOs to provide all types of health care, including dental. The new law requires the Legislature to decide next year, when he presides over the Senate, whether to contract directly with companies such as MCNA to provide dental services separate from other care. MCNA also is one of Joe Negron's top donors.
The GEO Group: One of the nation's two largest for-profit prison companies contracts with the state to run correctional facilities. The company is a prolific donor to lawmakers across the country, including Joe Negron and Gov. Rick Scott. It pushed in 2011 and 2012 to privatize prisons and work camps in South Florida, a proposal Joe Negron voted for in 2012 but eventually failed. The GEO Group, which is registered to lobby Congress, also contracts with federal agencies to run facilities across the nation.
Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies: Port St. Lucie's financially strapped research institute has relied on state money Joe Negron helped push to fund its drug discovery program. Although the institute received $6 million in 2013 and 2014 combined, Scott vetoed a total of $3 million the Legislature added to the state budget in 2015 and 2016. Torrey Pines' founder Richard Houghten and his wife, Pamela, also are donors to Joe Negron's campaigns and political committee.
Southern Wine & Spirits: The wine, liquor and beer distributor is a prolific donor to the state Legislature, including Joe Negron and also lobbies Congress. Alcohol distributors have been fighting the growth of craft breweries across the country and pushed for a 2014 Florida bill to require small breweries to buy their own product back from distributors before selling to customers. The bill, which also legalized 64-ounce beer jugs called growlers, cleared the Senate with Joe Negron's vote but eventually died.
Ballard Partners: One of Tallahassee's top lobbying firms, Brian Ballard and his team represent All Aboard Florida's affiliates and helped pass a law to expedite state permitting for passenger trains. The firm also represents Martin County, which is fighting the high-speed trains. The county told Ballard not to lobby on its behalf regarding the trains in April 2015.
Palm Beach Kennel Club: The dog track would be allowed to have slot machines under a $3 billion deal the state negotiated with the Seminoles last year. The Legislature didn't approve the deal this year and it could come back for consideration when Joe Negron heads the Senate.
Rebecca Negron's top 10 donors
$152,181: Retirees, homemakers, self-employed
$75,400: MCNA Dental
$30,150: The GEO Group
$16,200: ICI Homes
$11,600: Torrey Pines Institute of Molecular Studies
$10,000: Southern Wine and Spirits
$9,400: Ballard Partners lobbying firm
$7,800: Maggie's List, a political committee that supports Republican women running for federal offices
$7,500: Palm Beach Kennel Club
$6,900: Communications International
Note: Grouped by companies for which donors work
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By Paul Ivice, Special to Treasure Coast Newspapers
PORT ST. LUCIE As the Treasure Coast citrus industry struggles with lower production because of the greening disease, other agriculture growers are stepping in, St. Lucie County Property Appraiser Ken Pruitt said Friday.
Speaking at the eighth annual Treasure Coast Business Summit at the Port St. Lucie Civic Center, Pruitt said $110 million worth of agricultural land in St. Lucie County has been purchased in the past few months by huge conglomerates.
"These folks, some of the larger ones who have purchased these lands, I've spoken with them," Pruitt said. "And they're doing row crops, mainly corn feed, and where they're from is Iowa and Minnesota."
Pruitt said he asked one of the conglomerates' representatives why they are coming to Florida.
"He said that in Iowa they have one bountiful crop a year," Pruitt said he was told. "In Florida we can have three. Not as bountiful as that one, but still have three crops because of the weather.
"Just because citrus is having a challenging time, do not for a moment think that agriculture is going away by any stretch of the imagination," Pruitt said. "They're buying tractors and equipment. It is amazing the amount of money the agriculture community puts in."
He said the vegetable growers still are experimenting with their plans for these farms.
"If these folks from Iowa and Minnesota succeed, like I'm pretty sure they will because they have a lot of money behind them, hang on," Pruitt said. "Not only will our real estate (increase in value), but also our agriculture community and everybody just get a good hold because the best is still to come."
Doug Bournique, executive vice president of the Indian River Citrus League, said later Friday he has heard about vegetable growers buying or leasing acreage where citrus trees recently stood.
"This is purely driven by the need to have production 24/7/365," Bournique said, noting vegetable farming might be temporary because growers could quickly replant citrus trees if a solution to greening is found.
"It's a trend we're seeing," Bournique said. "We haven't figured out greening yet, so more and more citrus growers are selling or leasing their land."
Bournique said growers from drought-stricken California also are looking for farmland in the region.
He said the flat land with access to good water in southwest St. Lucie and Martin counties with year-round growing seasons is relatively inexpensive compared with land prices in the Midwest or California.
He said most of the vegetable growers are looking for land south of State Road 70, including Okeechobee Road in Fort Pierce, to be safely below State Road 60, which he said historically has been considered the "freeze line."
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 21
By Elmira Tariverdiyeva - Trend:
The Israeli Defense Minister nominee Avigdor Lieberman is no stranger to Azerbaijan, Ariel Cohen, PhD, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and director of the Center for Energy, Natural Resources and Geopolitics at the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, told Trend May 21.
"A Moldovan-born Russian speaker, he is popular in Baku and other capitals of their former Soviet Union - a region he understands well," said Cohen.
The expert said that having Lieberman, who is now the second most important politician of Israel, in the defense minister's office in Tel-Aviv will ensure the successful cooperation between the defense establishments of Israel and Azerbaijan, including the military - industrial projects.
Such cooperation is very much in the interest of both parties, he added.
"Avigdor Lieberman's policy, supported by Prime Minister Netanyahu, is that of geopolitical diversification for Israel. That includes improving ties with Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union, which he knows very well," said Cohen adding that in the last decade Israel also vastly improved ties with India, China, and even the Arab world.
The expert also noted that lacking natural resources, and existing for almost seven decades through conflicts and hostile environment, Israel is an overall economic success story, which is also a good model for Azerbaijan.
"The Israeli experience demonstrates that creating a diversified economy which is based on a highly educated workforce, modern industry and services is the key to the country's social and economic success - something Azerbaijan may examine," said Cohen and added that having a friend like Lieberman in a key position in the Israeli cabinet will help.
Avigdor Lieberman accepted the offer of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take the post of defense minister in the new coalition government with the participation of the "Israel our Home" party, Israel's cursorinfo.co.il news agency reported earlier.
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By Arek Sarkissian, USA TODAY NETWORK, Naples Daily News
TALLAHASSEE Outgoing Enterprise Florida President Bill Johnson circumvented agency policy by issuing no-bid contracts to a confidant for part-time consulting and speechwriting work to the tune of $158,000, according to documents obtained by the Naples Daily News.
Johnson offered his former PortMiami spokeswoman, Paula Musto, with two contracts and one extension one in March 2015 for $68,750 and a second in August for $75,000, extended in March of this year for $99,999. That falls just shy of Enterprise Florida policy that requires contracts more than $100,000 to be scrutinized by the Enterprise Florida board of directors, according to documents obtained by the Daily News through a series of public records requests. Musto works 25 hours a week; her contract expires June 30.
Johnson also bypassed his agency's competitive bid policy by claiming Musto's contract fell under exemptions that include work for artistic services, academic program reviews, lectures, financial auditing, legal services and health consultation, documents state.
As of April, Musto billed Enterprise Florida $157,896 for her services. Enterprise Florida could not produce the invoices her contract requires she submits for payment, where she's required to detail the work she performed.
The scope of Musto's work for the part-time contract job included developing marketing strategies and preparing speeches and presentations.
Musto said she helped Johnson recruit marketing veteran Joseph S. Hice as Enterprise Florida's senior vice president and chief marketing officer.
"My work with Bill (Johnson) was broader than speeches and presentations," Musto wrote in an email. "I filled in the gap until (Johnson) recruited Chief Marketing Officer Joe Hice. He took over much of what I did."
Hice was hired by Enterprise Florida in October. Efforts to reach him Friday via cellphone were unsuccessful.
Efforts to reach Johnson via cellphone, email and through his spokesman also were not successful.
When asked by the Daily News about Musto, Enterprise Florida Vice Chairman Alan Becker said he knew she was working for the agency but was not aware of her contract.
"I'm aware of the individual doing the work but I'm not entirely sure about the contracts," Becker said. "I would have to actually look at the documents to see what they are."
Enterprise Florida is chaired by Gov. Rick Scott. His spokeswoman, Jackie Schutz, said the governor does not monitor the agency's employees or its contracts.
Hearing about Musto's contract from the Daily News drew sharp criticism from incoming House Speaker Richard Corcoran. He said Musto's contract proved House Republicans rightly rejected Scott's request of $250 million toward an incentive fund Enterprise Florida uses to lure companies to the state. Scott's request was one of his top two priorities during this year's legislative session and sent the agency spiraling toward a cost-savings review.
"This report shows that Florida House Republicans did the right thing earlier this year by refusing to waste $250 million on an agency that is out of control," Corcoran said. "Florida House Republicans plan to aggressively eliminate corporate welfare and take on the culture of exclusion that sees government rewarding the politically connected with taxpayer money at the expense of average citizens."
The Daily News learned about Musto's contract during a cost-savings review that Scott ordered in March on the same day Johnson announced he would leave Enterprise Florida on June 24. At the time Scott ordered the review he wrote in a memo to Enterprise Florida board members that $23.5 million of the agency's budget was paid by taxpayers and only $1.8 million was covered by private donations. This ratio is far from the equal public-private partnership concept designed in 1996 under the administration of Gov. Lawton Chiles.
Scott tapped former Florida Department of Children and Families Secretary David Wilkins to identify areas of the Enterprise Florida budget that would yield $6 million in savings. Wilkins revealed his review before the Enterprise Florida board of directors during its quarterly meeting in Naples on May 11, which included the elimination of 27 positions.
Wilkins' review also found Enterprise Florida could save $450,000 by cutting or consolidating program services contracts, which is the area of the agency that pays Musto.
Both Musto and Johnson also were collecting payments from the Florida Retirement System through their Miami-Dade positions, which is allowed under state law. Musto retired from her county position in 2014 and receives $4,772 a month. Johnson had entered the FRS Deferred Retirement Option Program in July 2010 while he was with Miami-Dade, and he finished in June 2015, receiving a lump payout of $914,915. He now receives a monthly payment of $14,254, according to information provided by the Florida Depart-ment of Management Services.
Johnson's severance package will pay him $132,500 half his $265,000 salary when he leaves next month, just six days shy of being eligible for $100,000 in bonuses
The Cambridge City group of Amnesty International has condemned the response of the British government to the killing of Giulio Regeni, the Cambridge PhD student whose body was found in Egypt bearing marks of torture.
The remarks were delivered in the Friends Meeting House on Jesus Lane, in a room whose walls were adorned with placards reading Truth for Giulio, along with the Italian translation, Verita per Giulio, and with the names of journalists currently imprisoned without trial in Egypt.
The meeting included five speakers: Nadine Haddad, a researcher for Amnesty International; Daniel Zeichner, MP for Cambridge; Keith Bowie, from the National Union of Journalists (NUJ); Priscilla Mensah, president of CUSU; and Waseem Yaqoob, a member of the Cambridge research staff and representative from the Universities and Colleges Union.
The most vocal critic of the government was Zeichner, who professed himself quite shocked by the inadequacy of the governments response. He spoke of raising the issue in a debate in Parliament six weeks ago and receiving a promise from Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Tobias Ellwood that he would shortly visit Egypt to discuss the matter with its government. That visit, Zeichner said, never took place.
He said that it was a disrespect to Regeni that the government is not taking it more seriously, calling its response profoundly disappointing.
Asked by an audience member whether the government was acting slowly as a result of normal democratic procedures or due to a will to stall, Zeichner replied that he did not know, but described the response he had received as evasive and suggested that there are strong reasons for being suspicious. He asserted that the government has a moral duty and a political duty to handle the Regeni case more actively.
The other speakers made their own criticisms of the governments response to the Regeni case. Bowie condemned the government response as absolutely woeful, and Mensah said that it was full of contradictions. Haddad spoke extensively about the political barriers to effective Italian and British interventions in the investigation, highlighting investments of large firms in those countries, including British Petroleum, British Gas, and Vodafone, and also their reliance on Egypt to stabilise neighbouring Libya.
There were strong words also for the Egyptian government, which Haddad castigated for its great reluctance to investigate Regenis death and accused of trying to bury the story. Zeichner criticised Egypts treatment of prisoners and its failure to pursue a path towards democracy, and alleged that the current regime is more oppressive than that of Hosni Mubarak, the former president of Egypt who was overthrown in 2011. Yaqoob condemned the Egyptian governments narrative of brutality, cover-up and contradiction.
Haddads speech mostly concerned the use of torture of Egypt and how it relates to cases like Regenis. At one particularly moving moment, she said It has been over one hundred days since Giulio died, and yet we still do not know exactly what happened to him. She placed the case in the context of Egypts current conditions, in which each month there are 90-100 enforced disappearances, whereby the state refuses to acknowledge the arrest or abduction of an individual by their agents. She announced that next month Amnesty will produce a report on the use of torture in Egypt.
Bowie stated that Regenis fate was symptomatic of current conditions in Egypt, which has also been cracking down on journalists. He announced that the NUJ has adopted a national policy of seeking justice for Giulio Regeni, and will begin to lobby parliamentarians.
Mensah also made a similar announcement, saying that CUSU has committed itself to the policy of supporting all attempts in Cambridge to secure justice for Regeni. She argued that Regenis case has implications for academic freedom, saying this about students in the UK going out into the world and having the right to study and being safeguarded while doing so.
She also linked the government response to the investigation to its controversial Prevent strategy and policies regarding the admission of foreign students to UK universities, arguing that the government is becoming increasingly unfriendly towards difference in higher education and suggesting that it is almost as if because Giulio was not British, the government was less concerned with protecting him.
All five speakers exhorted attendees of the meeting to keep the Regeni case in the public eye through protests, events, and lobbying. Zeichner expressed optimism that progress would be made in uncovering the circumstances surrounding Regenis death, urging the audience to keep up the campaigning, keep up the pressure in order to drag the truth from the Egyptian government.
One audience member expressed his disapproval for the response of the university, calling the failure of its Vice-Chancellor Leszek Borysiewicz to make a vocal condemnation of Egypts authorities very disappointing. Borysiewicz cancelled a planned visit to Egypt earlier in the year, but has made no public comment on the investigation.
The Hyperloop the high-speed transportation concept Elon Musk has promoted heavily is edging closer to becoming a reality.
Russia plans to develop a Hyperloop network for freight transportation, the countrys transport minister announced Friday.
MIT last week unveiled its Hyperloop Pod, a prototype of its award-winning design concept intended for human travelers.
Hyperloop One recently announced US$80 million in Series B financing and demonstrated its groundbreaking technology. When completed, its system will be able to transport passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in half an hour.
During a live test in the Nevada desert, engineers successfully tested a propulsion system that accelerated a metal sled up to 116 miles per hour in 1.1 seconds. The company plans a second-phase demonstration by the end of the year.
Hyperloop One is participating in privately funded feasibility studies to determine whether there are benefits to Hyperloop routes in Finland and Sweden. The firm also is partnering with FS Links to show the potential of a Stockholm-to-Helsinki route.
In addition, it is teaming with Arctural Sustainable Cargo to develop a sustainable cargo transport plan for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Musks Vision
Formerly known as Hyperloop Technologies, Hyperloop One is developing the technology originally envisioned by Musk and others as a way to compete with domestic airline and car travel. Hyperloop tech theoretically can move passengers at hypersonic speeds between major cities in the U.S. and around the world.
The companys latest round of financing came from existing investors Sherpa Ventures, EightVC, ZhenFund and Caspian Venture Partners, as well as new investors 137 Ventures, Fast Digital, Western Technology Investment, SNCF, the French national rail company and GE Ventures.
Hyperloop One also announced a series of development partners, including construction firm AECOM, underground construction company Amberg Group, design firm Arup, architectural firm Bjarke Ingels Group, Deutsche Bahn Engineering and Consulting, consulting firm Systra and tax consulting firm KPMG.
Musk, who began championing the development of the Hyperloop technology several years ago, has tapped into a consumer market that is ready to move beyond the days when the car is the dominant form of transportation, said Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives.
I think what Musk is doing is really showing how flat-footed our country has been in terms of transit innovation, he told TechNewsWorld.
The Hyperloop One team has managed to connect with the functional as well as the emotional side of the brain, said Vishwas Shankar, mobility research manager at Frost & Sullivan, who met with the companys executives at the recent SAE 2016 World Congress in Detroit.
With the ability to reach speeds exceeding modern passenger flights, this new technology could be the answer to air travel people are seeking, he told TechNewsWorld.
Also, from an overall ecosystem standpoint, the current U.S. government is trying to crack down on pollution from different modes of transportation, noted Shankar, and Hyperloop mode is positioned to offer better CO2 levels compared to air travel.
Rival Technology
Meanwhile, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has announced a base technology for its passive magnetic levitation system, originally developed by physicistRichard Post and Lawrence Livermore Labs, as part of the Inductrack system.
HTT has been working with Lawrence Livermore over the past year to develop and test systems using the passive magnetic levitation technology, and the company has obtained an exclusive license to the system from the lab.
The passive magnetic levitation system is a safer and less expensive technology than active magnetic levitation systems like maglev, according to HTT.
Levitation occurs only through movement, explained Bibop Gresta, chief operating officer of HTT. Therefore, if any power failure should take place, the Hyperloop pods would continue to levitate and would touch the ground only after decelerating to minimal speeds.
In January, HTT applied for permits to construct a passenger track in Quay Valley, California, near the Interstate 5 Freeway. The company plans to begin construction during the quarter ending June 30.
It plans to have first optimizations of the track in 2017, and to open the facility to the public by 2018.
HTT earlier this year signed an agreement with the Slovakian government to build a local Hyperloop system that it said would lead to the first such track in Europe.
A trip between Bratislava and Kosice, which are about 400 kilometers (250 miles) apart, could be shortened to 25 minutes, compared to a typical 4 1/2 hour drive.
Over the past couple of years we've seen companies like Microsoft, Apple and Samsung try to convince customers that their large-screened tablets are just as good as laptops for everyday use. Some of the products they've come up with, like the Surface Pro line and the iPad Pro, have been reasonably successful, though not to the same extent as the best laptops.
Having used a number of these products, I still firmly believe that a good laptop (like the Dell XPS 13) is a more versatile tool for a user on the go. Often you'll get better performance, larger displays, and significantly better typing experiences from a laptop. However I know many people that swear by their Surface Pros, citing its superior portability and the excellent stylus experience.
So what do you think? Is a tablet or laptop better for everyday use/while on the go? Or is there a really compelling hybrid that truly gives the best of both worlds? Let us know in the comments below.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Mexican diplomat Patricia Espinosa Cantellano as new UN climate chief on May 18.
Ban specifically gave the position of Executive Secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to Cantellano after consulting the members of the Conference of Parties to the Convention.
Getting To Know The New U.N. Climate Chief
Before her new appointment, Cantellano was the Mexican Ambassador to Germany, for the second time since 2013, while her first stint for the position was from 2001 to 2002.
From 2006 to 2012, Cantellano also served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mexico. She has had more than three decades of solid and top-notch experience in the fields of international relations, specifically in climate change dealings, global control, sustainable development, gender equity and human rights protection.
One of her most notable positions is being the head of the 16th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, which resulted in the Cancun Agreements sets of decisions made by the international community about climate change.
Cantellano has also been tasked to represent Mexico in different international organizations and multilateral groups in New York, Geneva and Vienna. Such positions have given her the opportunity to lead global efforts that aim to address climate change and its impacts.
Continuing Plans
The 57-year-old will succeed Costa Rica's Christiana Figueres, who stepped down after six years of service.
Cantellano plans to continue what Figueres has started, linking actions to halt climate change in all facets of development in the upcoming years.
Like her predecessor, Cantellano believes that governments need to solidify current pledges to curb greenhouse gas emissions to slow down the increase in temperatures connected with rising sea levels, floods and droughts.
Moreover, she thinks that the Paris agreement's goal of maintaining temperature up to 1.5 degrees Celsius still has no certainty.
"I think it's possible but very difficult, not reachable with the commitments we have on the table," she says.
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Federal officials released stricter guidelines Thursday for human exposure to this industrial chemical, which has been touching water for decades due to its prevalence in consumer products.
Perfluorooctanoic acid, more popularly known as PFOA, has been detected in the tap water of many towns near industrial sites where it is manufactured.
A related concern is perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), which is used in firefighting foam.
Tighter guidelines issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for these chemicals came after years of mounting pressure from public groups and health experts. The new set limits were driven by recent scientific findings linking PFOA and PFOS to conditions such as testicular and kidney cancers and birth defects.
New Advisory Limit
These advisories will help local water systems and state, tribal and local officials take the appropriate steps to address PFOA and PFOS if needed, said Joel Beauvais, deputy assistant administrator for EPAs Office of Water.
According to the agency, long-term exposure to the chemicals at above 70 parts per trillion (ppt) concentrations could negatively impact health a level that is significantly lower than its prior advisory based on short-term chemical exposure of 400 ppt.
The new guidance states that waters systems with PFOA and PFOS concentrations of above 70 ppt should immediately notify local residents and consult with drinking water agencies in their state.
The EPA emphasized that public notification is important in the case of pregnant or breastfeeding women, given the chemicals impact on developing fetuses and infants being nursed with formula that uses tap water.
As a result, more communities will qualify as having water at contaminated levels above recommended threshold.
The survey, however, did not include many smaller neighborhoods situated near sites using the chemicals for decades.
Testing in places where there are plastic-manufacturing plants such as Petersburgh in New York, and North Bennington in Vermont recently yielded PFOA concentrations of approximately 100 ppt in the drinking water. A second wave of testing in North Bennington had readings reaching 2,730 ppt, or almost 40 times the new advisory limit.
"No Safe Level Of Exposure"
The Environmental Working Group welcomed the new EPA guidelines but deemed them inadequate.
[N]ew evidence suggests that there may be no safe level of exposure, the group announced in a statement, adding that the advisory limit is not legally enforceable. EPA has said it could be 2019 or beyond before the agency even decides whether to start the process of setting a legal limit.
Beauvais maintained that they have made significant headways in addressing the presence of the toxic chemicals in water.
PFOA and PFOS have been voluntarily phased out by some U.S. chemical firms in recent years, with eight more major companies committing to eliminate their use of the former by end of last year.
For a long time, these chemicals were widely used in clothing, carpets and furniture fabrics, food packaging, and other materials to make them resistant to water and stains. Prior to phasing them out, DuPont used PFOA to make Teflon while 3Ms Scotchguard contained PFOS.
Since then, according to EWG, EPA-mandated tests have found these two chemicals as well as others in the drinking water of over 6.5 million people from 27 U.S. states.
Both substances contaminate almost all Americans blood and are transferrable from the mother to the unborn baby, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated.
Photo: Steve Johnson | Flickr
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Female World War II pilots can now be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
On May 20, President Barack Obama signed a law clarifying the eligibility of these women for such honorable burial.
In the past, Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) were denied the honor of having their remains interred in the said famous cemetery.
The White House said the move of the president is necessary to give honor to the survivors of the Greatest Generation, including the first pilots, who were on active duty during WWII.
Daines' Bill
U.S. Senator Steve Daines authored the bill to allow female WWII pilots to be qualified for burial at the said cemetery.
On May 11, the Senate unanimously approved the bill, which in turn was sent to the U.S. Congress.
The next day, the bill was passed on to the president's desk for signing, without opposition from the House of Representatives.
"This is a wrong that needed to be made right and I'm proud to be part of restoring benefits to our WWII women pilots who trained right here in Montana," said Daines, adding that the signature of the president will allow the female pilots to attain the honor that has always been due to them.
A Look Back At History
WASPs were trained to relieve male pilots in noncombat missions. They were given veteran distinction in 1977 and were then considered eligible for interment at Arlington National Cemetery in 2002.
In 2015, however, Army Secretary John McHugh took back the said policy and cancelled the eligibility of the female pilots. The reason was conflict in space availability.
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News on Google's Project Ara modular smartphone first broke out in late 2013, with the device envisioned to allow users to switch around components of the smartphone. Project Ara will have a basic phone structure, and users will be able to add and remove modules such as batteries, keyboards and sensors.
Until now, the device is not yet ready to be launched into the market, and with Google stated in August last year that Project Ara would arrive in 2016 instead of the original plan of 2015. The delay in its release has given way for other manufacturers to launch their own modular smartphones, with the LG G5 currently being the most prominent one, and fans might be wondering if Project Ara will ever see the light of day.
The bad news is that Project Ara has been further delayed. The good news, however, is that the project is still in full swing, with developer units ready to be released this fall and a consumer launch pegged for next year.
The information was revealed in the session held by Google's Advanced Technology and Products division at the annual I/O conference. During the session, ATAP revealed the latest prototypes that have been created for Project Ara, which look simpler and more beautiful compared to the prototypes that have been seen in the past. The modules also feature different finishes and textures, which would allow users to customize their Project Ara devices in both functionality and aesthetics.
The prototype has six slots for users to swap modules into, with the modules kept in place through a new latch system. The modules connect to the device through the Greybus software of Google, which allows the modules to instantly connect with Android. This gives Project Ara the feature of hot-swapping modules, which means users do not need to power down the device to remove and attach different components. To detach a module, users can issue voice commands through the Ara app or through OK Google.
For the first iteration of the device, Google has decided to place Project Ara's processor in its frame instead of turning it into a module. While this prevents the capability to further upgrade the processor through a swapping of modules, the decision simplifies a lot of things so that Google would be able to hit the launch dates it has stated.
A spokeswoman for Google said feedback from both developers and consumers have been valuable to the Project Ara team in making necessary changes to the smartphone, including the installation of more technology in the device's frame to free up space for more modules.
Rick Osterloh, Google's hardware chief, said the company could make the base device by itself, though it could also decide to tap a hardware partner for the manufacturing process such as how the company has worked with its Nexus smartphones.
No price has yet been set for the device, though users eagerly waiting for Project Ara's release would most likely focus on its release date. If all goes as planned, the modular smartphone will be in the hands of consumers next year.
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Call it the pizzly or grolar bear: a new type of bear has been spotted a few times in the Arctic region, no thanks to the unusual effects of climate change.
A bear shot in northern Canada posted on the owners Facebook page is raising curiosity as it is believed to be of a grizzly-polar bear hybrid, a seemingly inevitable consequence of the growing interactions between the two species.
According to hunter Didji Ishalook, he initially thought he imaged a small polar bear near Arviat on the Hudson Bay only to find out later on that it was a "half-breed," as confirmed by a number of bear experts.
"It looks like a polar bear but it's got brown paws and big claws like a grizzly. And the shape of a grizzly head," he said in a report in The Guardian.
Sightings of this hybrid species in recent years coincide with the warming of the Arctic at twice the rate of the average worldwide. It appears that grizzly bears in Alaska and Canada are moving north as their original homes warm, bringing them close to polar bears living on the coastline.
Polar bears are confronted by the same warming trends, spending more time on land as Arctic ice decreases. They are losing body weight and declining in population in the process as they are unable to hunt their usual prey.
Bear biologist Chris Servheen of the University of Montana said there had been very rare sightings of this hybrid bear species in the past, partly due to the little interaction made between them and humans. But the ones that had been seen, he added, share similarities in looks with both parents.
"[They] are usually lighter in color," he told ABC News. "They often have dark, darker fur rings around their eyes. Their paws can often be dark too or at least around the toes."
The claws, he added, are typically longer than polar bears' because grizzlies have much longer ones. The fur is generally a bit darker than a polar bear's as well.
Servheen is among the scientists who today believe climate change has a hand over the increased contact between the two different species. At present, however, little is still known about their offspring's behavior, as both species try to avoid and stay away from humans.
"[I] suspect that's something that we won't know anything about for a long time," he said.
Temperatures continue to climb, with the world recently breaking monthly heat records for 12 consecutive months. Based on satellite data, the ring of ice surrounding the North Pole this past January was the smallest it had been in that month since measurements began.
Experts worry that Arctic summers could be iceless within this same century and the long-term prognosis could favor the pizzly more than the polar bear, which relies on sea ice and could suffer with its disappearance.
The U.S. and Canada do not see eye to eye on polar bears' classification as a threatened species. It has been difficult obtaining the exact number of these bears in the 19 Arctic sub-populations, with some groups likely growing in the past decades.
A broad scientific consensus remains: the changing climate is challenging their existence, entailing the need for greater protections.
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Baku, Azerbaijan, May 21
Trend:
Azerbaijan's State Customs Committee (SCC) and Senegal's General Administration of Customs signed an agreement on mutual aid in the field of strengthening the capacity of customs officials, the SCC press service said.
From the Azerbaijani side the document was signed by the Chairman of the SCC, customs service Lieutenant-General Aydin Aliyev and from the Senegalese side by the Director General of the General Customs Administration Papa Ousmane Gueye.
The SCC delegation led by Aydin Aliyev was on a visit to Senegal at the invitation of the country's General Administration of Customs.
Issues of development of cooperation between the two countries' customs services were discussed during the meeting.
Papa Ousmane Gueye said that the Senegalese side is interested in studying the experience of Azerbaijani colleagues and cooperation in all areas of customs.
Aydin Aliyev, in his turn, noted that along with the diplomatic relations between the two countries, bilateral relations in economic and other spheres also began to form.
The SCC's chairman also recalled that the first visit of Senegal's official delegation to Azerbaijan was in 2014.
The Azerbaijani delegation also held a meeting in the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Planning of Senegal, where they discussed the prospects of trade and economic cooperation.
Lawsuit claims Facebook is Scanning and Storing Private Messages in a Searchable Database
Facebook is in trouble with the law again, this time for scanning private messages meant for users only. A Facebook user has teamed up with others to to file lawsuit against Facebook in a US court. Lead plaintiff Matthew Campbells lawsuit alleges that the social networking giant may have violated federal privacy laws by scanning private messages.
The plaintiffs have alleged through the lawsuit that Facebook routinely scans private messages. While the company does that to scan for URLs for malware protection and industry-standard searches for child pornography, the lawsuit claims that Facebook also uses this data for advertising and other purposes.
Campbell and his team also alleged that Facebook also saves the scanned results in a database which is stored in searchable form. Campbell claims that Facebook is violating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the California Invasion of Privacy Act by doing so.
The lawsuit was filed in 2013 however since the hearing was held recently, the same was certified by a US judge for class action suit. In the lawsuit, Campbell alleged that Facebook misrepresented the privacy of its messages. He said it scanned messages from one user to another in search of URLs to third-party sites, and used the information to drive up the number of Facebook likes on third-party pages.
At a hearing in March, Campbell sought certification of a class of all natural-person Facebook users located within the United States who have sent, or received from a Facebook user, private messages that included URLs in their content (and from which Facebook generated a URL attachment), from within two years before the filing of this action up through the date of the certification of the class.
Facebook has responded that the company scans private data in bulk and maintains this data in anonymized form. The social network has said that the data from the private messages is stored and retrieved in a way which is more akin to The New York Times publishing a list of bestselling booksthe anonymized and aggregated data is used to indicate the popularity of information.
The records [] may be put to any use, for any reason, by any Facebook employee, at any time. Plaintiffs
The plaintiffs have apparently gained access to Facebooks source code and have claimed that the technical analysis performed contradicts Facebooks response. Research done on behalf of plaintiffs shows that each URL sent in a private message is stored in a database which shows both the data, time, and the user IDs of the sender and the recipient. The analysis further provides information that a Facebook employee could search this database to identify anyone who sent or received a URL-added private message. While the social networking site is no longer using private messaging data to boost Like counts, the plaintiffs claimed Facebook hasnt stopped collecting URLs from private message
Facebook lawyers have called this analysis as speculative and have sought dismissal of the lawsuit.
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Baku, Azerbaijan, May 21
Trend:
Kazakh police are impeding an unauthorized rally in the center of Almaty, RIA Novosti agency reported May 21.
Hundreds of people gathered at the intersection of Abay and Furmanov streets and then the police started to detain the most active people, said the agency.
The agency also reported that dozens of people were detained and detentions are also taking place in other parts of the city. Police don't detain journalists, who work in the streets in Almaty.
In Kazakhstan's several cities initiative groups have submitted applications to the authorities for permission to hold rallies on May 21 to protest against the adoption of the amendments to the Land Code, which envisages expanding lease opportunities of agricultural lands by foreigners. All applications were rejected, but some activists called on supporters to hold rallies without permission of authorities.
Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev imposed on May 5 a moratorium on the four rules of the Land Code, which caused a wide public resonance, and ordered to form a commission on land reform, which included the leaders and activists of civil society institutions.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, May 21
By Demir Azizov- Trend:
Foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's (SCO) member countries will discuss on May 23-24 the preparation for the meeting of the heads of the SCO member states, Anvar Nasirov, Uzbek deputy foreign minister, told reporters at the briefing.
The meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers is the final stage of preparation for the meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State, said Nasirov.
He noted that the ministers have to approve the draft agenda of the upcoming summit, as well as documents that are to be submitted for the signing by the heads of states.
The Tashkent Declaration dedicated to the SCO's 15th anniversary, approaches of the states to the prospects of its development, as well as the SCO's position on the current international and regional situation, solving relevant security issues are on the meeting's agenda.
Meanwhile, foreign ministers of the SCO member states will also consider the progress in admission procedure of India and Pakistan to the organization.
Moreover, the meeting will discuss the issues of strengthening stability and security in Central Asia, the expansion of SCO's contacts with other international organizations and states, as well as the wide attraction of the SCO observer states and the SCO dialogue partners to the practical cooperation within the organization.
Foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as the SCO Secretary General Rashid Alimov and the Director of the Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure of the SCO (RATS SCO) Eugene Sysoev have already officially confirmed their participation in the meeting.
The SCO members are China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Afghanistan, Iran, Mongolia and Belarus are the SCO observer-countries, while Turkey, Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka, Armenia, Cambodia and Nepal are dialogue partners.
A procedure was launched at the SCO summit in Ufa in July 2015 for admission of India and Pakistan to the organization.
Uzbekistan overtook from Russia the SCO chairmanship at the organization's summit in Ufa.
Vietnams dairy giant Vinamilk removed its 49 percent limit for foreign ownership after a shareholders' meeting Saturday, amid plans to divest its huge government stake.
The scrapping was backed by the two biggest shareholders the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC), a sovereign fund which is holding a 45 percent stake, and F&N Dairy Investment, which is controlled by Thai beer tycoon Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, with an 11 percent stake.
A specific roadmap on the expansion of foreign ownership has not been revealed. SCIC has not given a timeframe for the sale of the government stake either.
Questioned about the risk of losing the Vietnamese brand, one of the most valuable in the country, Vinamilks CEO Mai Kieu Lien said she does not think it should be a concern.
Foreigners invest in Vinamilk because of the brand. So I don't think there is anyone who will buy into Vinamilk to get rid of the brand, especially when it is the number one dairy brand of Vietnam, Lien said, as cited by Tuoi Tre.
The company is valued at $7.85 billion and its brand is at around $1.5 billion, she said.
Vinamilk reported revenue of VND40.22 trillion ($1.8 billion) last year, up 14 percent from 2014, and net profit of VND7.77 trillion ($348 million), up 28 percent.
The company is expecting a 11 percent rise in revenue and 6 percent in profit this year.
An employee loads products on to shelves at a Vinamilk's shop in Hanoi. Photo: Reuters
Soon after revealing plans to expand its overseas operations, Vietnamese dairy giant Vinamilk has said it will close its representative office in Cambodia next week when its license expires.
It was not immediately clear what the company plans to do with a US$23-million dairy plant it runs in that country in collaboration with Cambodias Angkor Dairy Products Company Limited.
Vinamilk owns a 51 percent stake in the plant, which was licensed in January last year and had a revenue target of around $35 million in the first year, Vietnam News Agency reported.
The company, officially known as Vietnam Dairy Products JSC, has two other overseas plants in New Zealand and the US, and a subsidiary in Poland.
It exported baby formula, soymilk and UHT milk products to 42 countries worth $242 million last year, up 77 percent from 2014.
Earlier this week Vinamilk had invited trade counselors at Vietnamese embassies around the world to discuss its plans to boost dairy exports to new markets.
At least Africa and Myanmar have been identified as target markets for 2016.
It also revealed plans to boost sales in the Middle East, where it recently closed a $12.5 million deal to export formula.
The most recognizable brand in Vietnam with a brand value of $1.13 billion, Vinamilk is now one of the country's biggest magnets for foreign portfolio investors, after the government announced plans to divest its entire 45.1 percent stake in it.
Security officers at Ho Chi Minh Citys Tan Son Nhat Airport on Friday night arrested a 76-year-old Vietnamese woman who allegedly tried to carry drugs onto her flight to Sydney.
The passenger was seized while she was checking in for the 8:30 p.m. Vietnam Airlines flight, authorities said.
Security officers found her two jars of fish paste suspicious and decided to check them. The jars weighed around one kilogram in total.
They reportedly found methamphetamine in the jars.
Further details and her identity have not been disclosed. The case is being investigated.
Three batches of beverage products made by URC Vietnam will have to be withdrawn from the market, officials said Friday. File photo
Officials have once again found high lead content in a number of products, after various conflicting test results
The Ministry of Health has ordered a recall of three batches of products made by URC Vietnam, a unit of the Philippine producer Universal Robina, after tests found higher lead content than permitted limits.
URC Vietnam will have to pull all affected products from a batch of green tea C2 manufactured on February 2 and two batches of energy drink Rong Do on November 10 and February 19, Nguyen Van Nhien, chief inspector from the ministry, said Friday.
Nhien also announced latest test results showing that the products from these batches have lead content from 0.053 to 0.085 mg/l, above the permitted limit of 0.05 mg/l.
Further investigations are ongoing, he said, adding that the latest tests were conducted during several checks by health inspectors at two URC facilities in Vietnam.
The National Institute for Food Control (NIFC), another agency managed by the ministry, earlier rejected accusations that it took bribes and compromised tests on the two beverage products in question.
We are willing to cooperate with relevant agencies to find out the motives of those behind these rumors," said Le Thi Hong Hao, director of the agency.
Earlier some posts on social media cited an "insider" accusing two officers from the institute of receiving VND1 billion (US$44,730) from URC Vietnam to modify test results for C2 and Rong Do.
The products were cleared even after they had been found to have higher lead content than the permitted limit of 0.05 mg/l, according to the posts.
NIFC later confirmed that the products met safety standards.
In a separate move, the Vietnam Food Administration (VFA) on May 13 also announced that in 10 random samples of C2 and Rong Do, the levels of lead were all within the normal range.
Ho Chi Minh City police Thursday said they are investigating an alleged burglary by a 12th-grade student who broke into his schools office and took away VND1.37 billion (US$61,000).
Nguyen Trong Nhan, 18, told them that he hatched the burglary plot last week after knowing that his school, Binh Hung Hoa in Binh Tan District, would organize a meeting with parents last Sunday.
On Sunday morning he mingled with the parents and sneaked into the office room with some tools including an electric welding machine and a crowbar.
Nhan reportedly waited there until that night and, after everyone had left, broke the safe and took away the money.
School managers discovered the burglary the next morning.
But security cameras revealed that Nhan was the culprit.
They found the money hidden in his house and returned it to the school, the police said.
Favorite beach destinations Da Nang, Khanh Hoa and Phu Quoc performed very well in the past five years, together accounting for 30 percent of all tourist arrivals to Vietnam, according to a Savills report.
The three places, famous for their long beautiful beaches and sunny weather most of the year, have seen an average annual increase of 23 percent in the number of foreign tourists, the real estate services provider said in the new edition of its annual Asian Cities Report.
The report highlighted the arrival of international hoteliers, an improved visa policy and investment into key infrastructure as drivers for the growth.
Vietnam has waived visa requirements for short trips taken by tourists from key European markets and recently passed a new rule allowing US visitors to stay up to one year, with multiple entries.
Savills' report said in the last decade, more than 70 percent of international visitors to Vietnam spent their holidays along the coast.
Most of these visitors hailed from temperate climates like China, Europe and the US who visited central and southern coastal cities with year-round warm weather.
An increase in the number of tourists from prosperous markets have led to more demand for rated accommodation, especially upscale hotels.
In 2015, five-star rooms increased 37 percent to more than 24,000 units, 30 percent of which were in Da Nang, Phu Quoc and Khanh Hoa. The last of the trio is known for its resort town Nha Trang, very famous among Chinese and Russian tourists.
According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, the country attracted nearly 8 million foreign visitors in 2015.
The number of international visitors reached 3.25 million in the first four months this year, up 18 percent over the same period last year.
For Da Nang, Quang Nam and Thua Thien-Hue there is no neighbor rivalry.
The city and the provinces in central Vietnam have decided to bring their tourism industries together under a new campaign branded "The Essence of Vietnam."
The new campaign will cross-promote key attractions and services of all the three places. Quang Nam is home to the ancient town Hoi An and Thua Thien-Hue is known for the former citadel Hue, both among the most beloved destinations to local and foreign tourists alike. Da Nang, the largest city in the central region, is well-known for its beaches and a hillside resort. The project is supported by the EU-funded Environmentally and Socially Responsible Tourism Capacity Development Program (EU-ESRT).
A statement on the programs website said its research found that many visitors to Vietnams central coast do not just stay in one place during their holiday, but also visit one or two other destinations at the same time.
The campaign is still in its first stage, with a website being developed to help tourists plan their trip to the region. It will include information about places to see, things to do, food to eat and itineraries to inspire, as well as essential travel information such as visa regulations for international visitors, weather and transport.
The country as a whole is still promoting its tourism under the "Timeless Charm" brand.
It has been two months since Vietnam started waiving visa for tourists from Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain.
But Ung Phuong Dung, director of Indochina Services Travel Group, told Saigon Times Online that around half of her clients from these five European countries still need a visa.
They want to stay in Vietnam for at least three weeks, but the exemption period is only 15 days, she said.
Dung is one of many tour operators who pointed out that the new visa policy, while helpful, has failed to give Vietnam's tourism industry a really strong boost , the news website reported.
Tran Trong Kien, CEO of travel and hospitality group Thien Minh, was quoted as saying it often takes more than 15 days to explore all major Vietnam's destinations, meaning that many tourists still have to apply for a visa anyway.
Some tourists who enter Vietnam and then visit neighboring countries also have to apply for a visa if they want to return to Vietnam within 30 days from their exit, he said.
The government wants to simplify procedures to welcome tourists, but the waiver's duration is "too short," thus making them feel that "Vietnam does not really open its door to international visitors," Kien said.
Delayed effects
Many other travel companies said tourists from distant markets such as Europe often make travel plans half or one year in advance, meaning that the visa waiver rule will not really show its effects until next year.
They also said that nobody can be sure about the future of the one-year policy, which means they can not really plan far ahead.
More than 5 million foreigners visited Vietnam in the January-August period, down 7.5 percent year-on-year, according to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT).
Of all the five European countries newly added to Vietnam's visa waiver list, Spain was the biggest success, with a 8.5 percent increase in the number of visitors.
Arrivals from Germany and Italy slightly increased by 1 percent and 4.4 percent, respectively, while those from France and the UK declined 4.6 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively.
Tour operators also complained that tourism authorities have yet to fulfill their promise about big promotion campaigns and national sales programs in order to help increase the visa waiver policy's effects.
Without making tourists in the target markets aware of the visa waiver rule, Vietnam will not be able to attract more tourists as it hopes, an unnamed representative of a travel company in Ho Chi Minh City said.
Kien of Thien Minh Group also stressed that practical marketing programs are especially necessary, considering the policy's limited time.
He advised the authorities to bring promotion campaigns to Vietnam's neighboring countries such as Singapore and Thailand, where many Europeans are living.
With short distances thus easy and cheap trips, these European immigrants will likely benefit from the visa waiver policy the most, according to Kien.
EgyptAir Flight 804 sent automatic radio messages about smoke in the front portion of the cabin in the moments before controllers lost contact with the plane over the Mediterranean Sea, French accident investigator BEA said Saturday.
The Airbus planes so-called Acars transmissions were relayed from the plane to ground, a BEA spokesman said, without giving further details.
The messages will give investigators more information about events before the Airbus A320 went down early Thursday with 66 people on board. Pilots sent no emergency signal, and their final contact with controllers revealed no signs of distress. The Egyptian government has said a terrorist attack is a more likely cause of the crash than a technical failure.
Egyptian authorities said they discovered debris, body parts and personal belongings in the Mediterranean from passengers of the doomed plane, all but quashing any hope of finding survivors.
Trade publication Aviation Herald reported on Friday that at least two smoke alerts were triggered moments before controllers lost contact. Smoke was reported in the lavatory and avionics areas, the publication said, while CNN reported the time stamps of the alerts match the approximate time the aircraft went missing.
The search by Egyptian forces and supporting countries continues, the airline said in a statement. Among other pieces discovered were luggage and aircraft seats. No reference was made to the search for the cockpit-voice and flight-data recorders, which could offer valuable information about what downed the plane on its flight from Paris to Cairo.
Egyptian military search the Mediterranean on May 19. Source: Egyptian Defense Ministry/AP Photo.
Salvage teams from Greece and Egypt have been joined by French investigators to find more debris as authorities seek to piece together what happened to the Airbus single-aisle jet. The flight lost contact in the middle of the night in the wider area of the Strabo trench in the so-called Hellenic Arc in the sea south of Greece, where waters are as much as 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) deep. The debris was discovered about 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Alexandria, authorities said earlier.
Officials arent ruling out any possible cause for the disappearance, including a deliberate act or malfunction, though Egyptian Minister of Aviation Sherif Fathy said the possibility of a terrorist attack is higher than a technical failure. Flying at cruising altitude through clear skies, the Airbus jet made sudden movements before swooping into a steep descent and losing contact with air-traffic control, according to Greek radar reports.
Sea-search crews will focus on retrieving the flight and data recorders, so-called black boxes that store key flight metrics and voices and sounds from the cockpit that can help investigators pinpoint the cause of a crash. The condition of the debris and the way it is scattered may also offer early clues about the possible cause, with a wide field of small pieces pointing to a mid-air breakup of the plane, while large chunks might suggest the aircraft hit the water largely intact.
Black boxes
Retrieving the black boxes from the ocean bed can be an arduous process, particularly in great depths. It took salvage crews several years to locate and then pull up the devices from the doomed Air France AF447 flight that went down in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. The missing Malaysian Air MH370 still hasnt been found two years after it disappeared, with only some small pieces from the plane washed up thousands of miles from where crews continue to comb the sea bed.
The boxes, which are fortified and painted bright orange to facilitate their retrieval, typically emit a ping for several weeks to lead salvage crews to their location.
Several factors come into play when searching for wreckage in an ocean. Sea currents, weather and the speed at which the jet hits the water are some issues to be taken into consideration, said Ken Mathews, a former accident investigator whos worked with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board as well as its U.K. and New Zealand peers.
If they narrow down the likely area, then its only a matter of time, Mathews said. The Mediterranean is not a vast area, or so deep as an ocean.
Investigators focused on the last minutes of the flight, which took off at 11:09 p.m. in Paris with 56 passengers, 7 crew and 3 security personnel. The aircraft, a modern single-aisle jet manufactured in 2003, was traveling at cruising altitude before disappearing from radar off the Egyptian coast. French air safety investigator BEA will dispatch three experts, accompanied by Airbus technical adviser, to help with the search and retrieve the cockpit-voice and flight-data recorders.
While the cause of the incident hasnt been identified, mid-air emergencies are rare, especially for a relatively new plane. The weather in the area of the sea close to Egypt was also good, with no winds or clouds, the Hellenic National Meteorological Service in Greece said. The sudden disappearance of an airliner at cruising altitude and with no distress call from the pilot at least raises questions of foul play, said Paul Hayes, director of air safety at London-based Ascend, an aviation consultancy.
It is our duty to know everything about the causes, French President Francois Hollande said at a press conference Thursday. As soon as we know the truth, well have to draw all conclusions, be it an accident or any other hypothesis, including terrorism.
Police officers remove protesters from a gate to the US Marine base at Nago on Japan's southern island of Okinawa
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday expressed "outrage" after the arrest of a US military base employee linked to the suspicious death of a woman on Okinawa, a week before a high-profile visit to Japan by President Barack Obama.
The southern island was the site of a brutal World War II battle but is now considered a strategic linchpin by hosting numerous US military bases that support the two countries' decades-long security alliance.
"I feel extremely strong outrage," Abe told reporters at his office, calling on the US to take action.
Okinawan police arrested Kenneth Franklin Shinzato for allegedly disposing of the woman's body in a weed-covered area in southern Okinawa, a spokesman told AFP, without elaborating.
Local media said the man, a US citizen and former US Marine, lives in southern Okinawa and works at the US Kadena Air Base.
Police reportedly suspect that the victim, identified as 20-year-old Rina Shimabukuro and who had been missing since late April, was murdered.
Obama is due in Japan next week for a two-day summit of Group of Seven countries which concludes on Friday, before venturing the same day Hiroshima -- becoming the only sitting US president to visit the world's first atomic bombed city.
The Hiroshima visit by Obama, who has a record of calling for global denuclearisation, has been well received in Japan but the issue of the heavy US military presence on Okinawa has long been a periodic thorn in the side of relations.
More than half of the 47,000 US military personnel in the country are stationed there, and rapes and other crimes by service personnel have sparked local protests in the past.
In 1995 the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old girl by three US servicemen sparked massive protests, prompting Washington to pledge efforts to strengthen troop discipline to prevent such crimes and reduce the US footprint on the island.
But continued crimes by American personnel remain a potent rallying point for Okinawans and others in Japan who oppose the presence of the bases on the crowded island, where pacifist sentiment runs high.
Chief Cabinet Secretary and top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga described the recent murder as "abominable" but when asked if Abe would raise it with Obama he said only that the agenda for their talks was still being finalised.
Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida late Thursday summoned US ambassador Caroline Kennedy to lodge a protest, calling the case "very cruel and atrocious".
Kennedy pledged to "cooperate fully with the Okinawa police and Japanese government and redouble our efforts to make sure that this never happens again".
Okinawan Governor Takeshi Onaga, an outspoken critic of the US presence, told reporters Thursday the incident happened "because there are US bases" on the island.
In Washington, officials also spoke out against the incident, with State Department spokesman John Kirby calling it "obviously an outrage."
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 21
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iraqis have promised to remove ban on import of Iranian cement, Abdolreza Sheikhan, secretary of Iran's Cement Industry Employers Association said.
Following several meetings between Iranian and Iraqi officials, Baghdad promised to give priority to Iranian exports, once general ban on cement import is removed, Sheikhan said, Fars news agency reported May 21.
He further said that Iraq has banned cement import due to security problems in the country and oil price fall, adding Iraq's cement demand currently is met by its domestic production.
Sheikhan earlier said that Iran's cement and clinker exports witnessed a 20 percent fall in last fiscal year (ended March 20) and stood at 15 million tons.
Earlier Iraq's market was sharing 60 percent of Iran's cement export, Sheikhan said, adding last year Baghdad increased custom tariff for each ton of Iran's cement from four to $13.
Iran currently exports cement to some 24 countries including Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Georgia, Oman, India, and China.
Last year, Sheikhan warned that Iran is gradually losing its domestic and foreign cement markets.
"Cement supply and demand is not balanced in the market and this has created problems for producers," he said.
The Finance Department's move into a state-of-the-art building on the approaches to Parliament House will save the public purse $55 million across 20 years, it has claimed.
There was surprise in February when two Labor senators learnt the long-term cost of the move would be $376 million, nearly double the $195 million figure they were given during the cross-party committee review last year.
The shiny new Department of Finance building on Canberra Avenue. Credit:Rohan Thomson
A Finance spokesman outlined the savings on Friday, saying they were the result of reduced lease and operating costs at the new One Canberra Avenue site in Forrest.
"This does not include further savings from efficiencies that will be generated," he said.
West Coast Eagles midfielder Andrew Gaff appeared to be in a serious condition after an ugly head-high contact with Port Adelaide's Tom Jonas midway through the third quarter at Adelaide Oval.
Jonas struck him to the side of the head with his right elbow, and Gaff seemed to be knocked out before crashing to the ground.
Andrew Gaff is stretchered off. Credit:Getty Images
Port has another tribunal matter to confront with star midfielder Robbie Gray reported by field umpire Shane McInerney for allegedly tripping West Coast's Mark LeCras early in the last quarter.
As Gaff lay motionless, a near all-in brawl started, and the onfield ambulance came onto the ground. West Coast medical staff worked frantically on Gaff, and placed a neck brace on him.
The third development is the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. This event executed without the explicit approval of the United Nations Security Council and against the advice of America's main European allies, and most Arab and Muslim leaders was successful in its military aim, as it toppled Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and personalised state. However, it also destroyed the Iraqi state in the process, and proved to be an utter failure in its goal of transforming Iraq into a stable, secure and prosperous democracy. One of the critical outcomes of the bogged-down occupation was that it changed Iraq from being a relatively strong dictatorial state with suppressed societies into a weak state with strong societies.
The US policy approach was based on a very naive (as former American defence secretary Robert Gates has said) understanding of the complexities of the situation in Iraq and its neighbourhood. It generated a massive political and strategic vacuum, which, together with the American process of imposed democratisation, enabled Iraq's Shiite majority and two substantial Sunni and Kurdish minorities to seek to fill the vacuum along their hitherto suppressed but differentiated sectarian and ethnic lines. As civil war raged and America lacked a viable strategy to deal with it, the arena opened up for various extremist groups, most importantly al-Qaeda and its affiliated Islamic State of Iraq as a precursor to Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or ISIS), to emerge as significant players.
When the US finally pulled out by the end of 2011, it left behind a broken Iraq under a corrupt and incompetent Shiite-dominated government. Given Iraq's cross-border sectarian and ethnic ties with its rival neighbours, Iran and Saudi Arabia in particular, the country also became a zone of proxy conflict. With Iran gaining the upper hand and in effect marginalising Saudi and US influence, the Saudis and their allies found it expedient to support or be lenient towards any anti-Iranian Sunni force. Meanwhile, despite opposition by Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis, as well as by Iraq's neighbours, Turkey in particular, the US and Israeli-backed Iraqi Kurds succeeded in establishing an extensive, autonomous, almost bordering on independent, region in northern Iraq. Under these circumstances, the rise of Islamic State, which was finally declared in mid-2014, was inevitable.
The fourth development is the so-called Arab Spring. The pro-democracy popular uprisings, starting in late 2010, rapidly forced dictatorial rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen out of office. It also sparked bloody conflicts in Syria and Bahrain, and threatened the conservative Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia. The US and its Western allies initially showed sympathy for the uprisings, but once the Egyptian establishment and the Saudis took the lead in mounting a counter-revolution to restore the status quo, they capitulated for no other than economic and strategic motivations. The Arab Spring quickly turned into a winter of despair and soul searching for its instigators, as Egypt returned to authoritarianism, and Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Syria plunged into zones of conflict within conflicts.
It's one of the great paradoxes of showbiz: we love an able-bodied actor who plays a disabled character, but we're not so keen on actors with genuine disabilities.
Nowhere is this more evident than at the Academy Awards, where the choices in the acting categories have earned them the dubious nickname of the "gimp awards".
"Oh man, if you are an actor and you have a role that has a disability you are guaranteed to win an award somewhere," says Sofya Gollan, the chronically deaf writer-director of Gimpsey, a terrific short film screening at St Kilda Film Festival that is both about disability and stars an actor with a disability, 19-year-old Bridie McKim.
"Audiences find it deeply comforting when an actor they know and love plays a role with a disability, then they get up [at the end of it], shake off the role and become a normal person," says Gollan, who graduated as an actor from NIDA in 1992 but found work in the mainstream not easy to come by.
"I said to myself 15 years ago," says Iggy Pop. "'Treat yourself like a precious antique!' That's the best you can do."
Iggy, 69, is in Cannes with director Jim Jarmusch, who has made a riveting documentary about the Stooges, his lifelong favourite band, called Gimme Danger. Iggy's raucous energy is apparently undiminished, even if his ravaged face makes Mount Rushmore look dewy-fresh by comparison. He was wrestling with a question from an earnest young Ukrainian about the continuing revolutionary relevance of rock music. He was also wrestling with being addressed repeatedly as "Mr Pop".
Iggy Pop and the Stooges performing in Melbourne. Credit:Mal Fairclough
"I was on the beach the other day," he continues, "and some big yob from Serbia, 20 years old, comes up to me." He puts on quite a creditable Balkan accent. 'Yeah, I like your music! It's good. Of course I listen to techno, but we like your old stuff too!' What are you gonna do? You're gonna be polite and then when the guy walks away, you're gonna say 'oh, f---- you, Igor!'"
He hoots with laughter. Right now, he adds, he is wondering whether to walk the red carpet in his usual performance outfit: pants, no shirt, dog collar. That should certainly test the famously arbitrary security guards' fashion tolerance.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 21
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran plans to participate in the oil and gas exploration project in Uzbekistan, Hamid Bord, managing director of Iran's Oil Exploration Operations Company (OEOC), said.
Iran seeks to participate in international tenders of oil and gas exploration projects in various countries particularly in Central Asia and certain Persian Gulf states, Bord said, Iran's Mehr news agency reported May 18.
The OEOC has established an office in Uzbekistan, the Iranian official said, adding the company will actively participate in the country's new oil and gas exploration tenders.
He further said that many oil and gas exploration projects in different countries especially in the Middle East have been halted due to sharp fall of oil prices.
Bord also added that the OEOC is capable of offering various oil and gas exploration services including two-dimensional and three-dimensional seismic projects as well as exploratory data processing.
The company seeks to enhance capabilities of its onshore and offshore logistic fleet, in order to have broader presence in international exploration projects, he noted.
Earlier Mohammad Iravani, chairman of Board of Petroleum and gas Drilling Assembly Companies of Iran said that Iranian companies will take part in tenders regarding drilling and exploration projects in Central Asia, Iraq, and Turkmenistan.
He noted that Iranian firms have participated in the biggest oil and gas exploration project in Pakistan after wining the related tender.
Previously, Iranian deputy oil minister Amir Hossein Zamaninia said that the country plans to buy new shares of oil and gas fields abroad and to participate in oil and gas projects across the world.
It is the building at the centre of Brisbane's heritage trading scheme, which has allowed developers to get around strict planning rules in the CBD.
The heritage-listed National Bank building on the corner of Queen and Creek streets in Brisbane's CBD has stood since the 1880s, but its value spreads beyond 308 Queen Street.
The National Bank building's heritage value has been leveraged to allow larger buildings elsewhere. Credit:Michelle Smith
Developers have been able to carve up the site's non-heritage development potential that is, the development rights the owners would have had it not been heritage-listed to other sites in the CBD.
That has allowed the controversial high-rise development at 443 Queen Street, adjacent to Customs House, to be approved despite it not conforming to the City Centre Neighbourhood Plan.
It took almost six decades for the Democratic Labour Party to get a woman elected to Parliament, and only 18 months for her to reignite one of Spring Street's most divisive debates.
But Rachel Carling-Jenkins made it clear from the start that she wouldn't be a bystander: not when it comes to abortion law; not when it involves an unborn child; and not when she genuinely believes in a cause.
DLP crossbencher Rachel Carling-Jenkins at Parliament House. Credit:Eddie Jim
As the crossbench MP declared in her maiden speech after the 2014 state election: "We now look back at slavery and are appalled at the treatment slaves received and horrified at the very idea that one person could own another. In the decades to come, I pray that we will look back at this era, appalled at the babies we killed and horrified at the very idea that we would enslave women in prostitution."
"Under my watch, there will not be silence on these issues," she vowed.
A police van was rammed and a senior constable taken to hospital after the driver of a ute refused to back down in Scoresby early on Saturday morning.
Two K9 police units were patrolling an industrial estate on Lakeview Drive around 2am when they spotted a suspicious utility. The driver sped off, ending up in a no through road.
Police were patrolling in Scoresby when they spotted the ute. Credit:Georgia Matts
Police cordoned the vehicle with both vans, but the driver then allegedly rammed one of the police vehicles.
The two policemen smashed a window of the ute, deployed capsicum spray and removed the passenger. But the driver sped off in the ute, leaving his mate in the hands of police.
Members of the Rebels Motorcycle Club descended on Federation Square in Melbourne's CBD on Saturday night to protest what they say is unfair treatment by the federal government and media.
Dean Martin, whose brother Shane Martin returned to his New Zealand homeland after losing his residency status, said club members feared anyone could be next.
The Rebels Motorcycle Club protest at Federation square. Credit:Jesse Marlow
Shane Martin, the father of Richmond Tigers player Dustin Martin, left voluntarily after Immigration Minister Peter Dutton revoked his residency status.
Mr Dutton said he had failed to meet the minimum character requirements to remain in Australia.
Thirteen-year-old Maddison Wentworth had been counting down the days until her school's field day activities, friends and family said, ready for games such as sack races, softball tosses and water-balloon fights.
"She was excited about field day," her mother, Leslie Wentworth, told NBC news affiliate WVTM.
Maddison Wentworth died in a game of tug-of-war. Credit:Twitter: @FoxNews
"She had $10 that burned a hole in her pocket to spend."
But during a tug-of-war game on Thursday, Maddison slumped to the ground. School nurses rushed to her side, performing CPR. She was taken to a nearby hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Baghdad: Iraqi security forces fired tear gas, water cannons and live ammunition as protesters stormed Baghdad's centre of government on Friday, escalating weekly protests against the slow pace of change under Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi.
At least four people were killed and 90 injured as riot police attempted to dislodge the anti-corruption protesters, hospital sources said.
Iraqi riot police spray water and tear gas at the protesters. Credit:AP
Chanting "our Army, the country is wounded, don't side with corruption," demonstrators forced their way into the Green Zone, the secure complex in the heart of the capital that has housed Iraq's government buildings, parliament and embassies since 2003.
Washington: The US military has conducted an air strike against Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, the Pentagon said on Saturday.
In a statement, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said that the attack on Mansour took place on Saturday "in a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region".
Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed on the order of US President Barack Obama.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military operation, said that President Barack Obama had authorised the operation, in which several drone aircraft had launched a strike on a vehicle in a remote area near Ahmad Wal, a town in western Pakistan.
The official said that Mansour, who emerged as the Taliban leader in 2015, was "likely killed".
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 21
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran and New Zealand signed a deal to boost agricultural cooperation, IRNA news agency reported May 21.
The document was signed by Iranian Agricultural Minister Mahmoud Hojjati and visiting Foreign Minister of New Zealand Murray McCully in Tehran.
Under the signed document the two sides will support exchanges between farmers and producers and mutual investments in order to access to target markets in various agricultural products.
On the sidelines of the signing ceremony, Hojjati said that the two countries can cooperate in the fields of education, research and science as well as application of new agricultural technologies.
The top New Zealander diplomat arrived in Tehran May 21 to discuss a range of Middle East regional security issues and trade and economic relations between the two countries.
Earlier the day he met with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Zarif, McCully said he has made the trip to Iran due to his commitment to boosting the relations between the two countries.
He further expressed the hope that through political and economic negotiations, new opportunities would be provided for the two countries to strengthen Tehran-Wellington ties.
WICHITA, Kan., May 20, 2016 -- The Federal Aviation Administration today deemed the B-29 known as Doc airworthy by officially presenting the restoration crew with an FAA airworthiness certificate.
The airworthiness certificate is the most notable milestone yet for the team working to restore the historic B-29. It also comes three days before the 16th anniversary of Doc arriving in Wichita on May 23, 2000 to begin its restoration journey.
"It's been nearly 60 years since Doc has flown and 16 years since this majestic warbird arrived in Wichita to be restored, and now we are another major milestone closer to a return to flight," said Jim Murphy, Doc's Friends Restoration Program Manager. "Today, we celebrate this major milestone and honor the hundreds of thousands of hours of volunteer work that has gone into restoring our B-29. From the team who saved Doc from rusting away in the Mojave Desert in California, to the dedicated volunteers who have been working tirelessly on the restoration project since Doc was brought to Wichita 16 years ago, today is a great day."
With the FAA airworthiness certificate in hand, the restoration team will soon submit an official request to the U.S. Air Force and Pentagon to be granted access to use the non-joint-use runway at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kan., for test flight operations. Upon approval, the restoration crew can use the runway for high-speed taxi tests and other ground testing needed prior to first flight.
"The dream of getting Doc back into the air to serve as a flying memorial and museum to honor the men and women who served our nation in these airplanes, and those who built and maintained the fleet, just took a major step toward reality," said Jeff Turner, Doc's Friends Chairman. "It's because of Tony Mazzolini and hundreds of volunteers who have touched Doc along the way that we have reached this milestone. On behalf of the entire Doc's Friends board, I thank you for all you have done."
As for the scheduling of ground testing and eventually first flight, information will be provided online at www.b-29doc.com and via releases delivered to the media. Those who are interested are encouraged to sign up to receive instant updates from the restoration crew as they are released by visiting www.b-29doc.com/signup.
On the web:
Twitter: www.twitter.com/DocsFriends
Facebook: www.facebook.com/DocsFriends
About Doc's Friends
Doc's Friends is a 501c3 non-profit board managing the restoration of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress known as Doc. The group was formed in 2013 and is led by retired Spirit AeroSystems CEO Jeff Turner along with other Wichita business leaders; Charlie Chandler, Jack Pelton, Steve Clark, Lynn Nichols, Brad Gorsuch, Vic McMullen, Ron Ryan, Tim Buchanan, Jeff Peier, Esq., and Tom Bertels. Doc's Friends is committed to returning this World War II warbird to the air to honor previous generations, educate current and future generations and connect the world to the rich heritage of aviation.
Hitachi Automotive Systems' Electric Parking Brake is Used on the New Mazda CX-9 SUV
IN CONTEXT Hitachi Automotive Systems
TOKYO, May, 20 2016; Hitachi Automotive Systems, Ltd. today announced that its electric parking brake is being used on Mazda Motor Corporation's new three-row midsize crossover SUV, the Mazda CX-9, to be sold in North America and other locations.
In recent years, in the case of cable-operated mechanical parking brakes that are applied manually by using a lever or pressing down on a pedal, there has been an increase in vehicle contact accidents due to drivers forgetting to apply the brake or not applying it adequately on inclines and the like. This has led to an increasing focus on electrically operated parking brakes that can prevent such human errors by applying the brake automatically, and to a growing number of vehicles being equipped with such brakes. Hitachi Automotive Systems has been manufacturing brake systems since 1939, and has fused the brake technology it has honed over the years in the brake business with its electronics technology to develop an electrically operated parking brake, powered by a compact electric motor, that generates a braking force that is automatically released when the vehicle starts off. The new Mazda CX-9, which is a high-end model in Mazda's new generation product line, uses a highly evaluated light, compact, quiet and highly efficient thrust generating mechanism independently developed by Hitachi Automotive Systems.
This electric parking brake is also being used on Mazda's improved version of the CX-5 that was launched in January 2015, marking the first time Mazda employed an electric parking brake on a crossover SUV.
The appropriate braking force ensured by the electric parking brake, combined with the automatic release function, improves vehicle safety. Also, in addition to the reduction in the size and weight of the caliper and motor, the burden of operation on the driver is reduced when stopping and starting on inclines, and the increase in design freedom around the center console made possible by eliminating the conventional manual brake lever provides enhanced comfort.
Hitachi Automotive Systems will continue to strengthen the development of automotive equipment for vehicle safety and the environment, to contribute to the realization of an automotive society that is safe, secure and comfortable, and environmentally friendly.
About Hitachi, Ltd.
Hitachi, Ltd. , headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, delivers innovations that answer society's challenges with our talented team and proven experience in global markets. The company's consolidated revenues for fiscal 2014 (ended March 31, 2015) totaled 9,761 billion yen ($81.3 billion). Hitachi is focusing more than ever on the Social Innovation Business, which includes power & infrastructure systems, information & telecommunication systems, construction machinery, high functional materials & components, automotive systems, healthcare and others. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at www.hitachi.com.
WASHINGTON, May 20, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) will be deployed to its full size Thursday, May 26, 2016, and begin its two-year technology demonstration attached to the International Space Station. NASA Television will provide coverage of the expansion beginning at 5:30 a.m. EDT.
Events begin Tuesday, May 24 when engineers and team members from NASA and Bigelow Aerospace answer questions about the module's expansion during a 4 p.m. Facebook Live event and at 5 p.m. on Reddit.com. Anyone may submit questions during these events at:
https://www.facebook.com/NASA/
and
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/
After the May 26 module expansion, NASA will host a 10 a.m. media teleconference to discuss expansion operations and look ahead to next steps. The briefing will include Jason Crusan, NASA's director of Advanced Exploration Systems, and Robert Bigelow, president of Bigelow Aerospace.
To participate in the teleconference, media must contact Tabatha Thompson at 202-358-1100 or tabatha.t.thompson@nasa.gov by 4 p.m. Wednesday, May 25, for dial-in information.
NASA astronaut Jeff Williams will lead Thursday's operations to expand the module. Designers need daylight and video communication to closely monitor the process starting at 6:10 a.m. Thursday.
Space station astronauts will first enter the habitat Thursday, June 2, through the station's Tranquility module, and re-enter the module several times a year throughout the two-year test period to retrieve sensor data and assess conditions inside the module.
Expandable habitats are designed to take up less room on a spacecraft, but provide greater volume for living and working in space once expanded. This first test of an expandable module will allow investigators to gauge how well the habitat performs and specifically, how well it protects against solar radiation, space debris and the temperature extremes of space.
BEAM launched April 8 aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, and is an example of NASA's increased commitment to partnering with industry to enable the growth of the commercial use of space. The BEAM project is co-sponsored by NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems Division and Bigelow Aerospace.
The International Space Station serves as the world's leading laboratory for conducting cutting-edge microgravity research and is the primary platform for technology development and testing in space to enable human and robotic exploration of destinations beyond low-Earth orbit, including asteroids and Mars.
For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv
Get more information about the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module at:
http://www.nasa.gov/beam
Learn more about the International Space Station at:
http://www.nasa.gov/station
To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nasa-televises-hosts-events-for-deployment-of-first-expandable-habitat-on-international-space-station-300272671.html
SOURCE NASA
CONTACT: Tabatha Thompson, Headquarters, Washington, 202-358-1100, tabatha.t.thompson@nasa.gov; Dan Huot, Johnson Space Center, Houston, 281-483-5111, daniel.g.huot@nasa.gov
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2016 Buick Cascada Premium Review by John Heilig +VIDEO
THE AUTO PAGE
By John Heilig
Senior Editor
Mid-Atlantic Bureau
The Auto Channel
REVIEWED MODEL: 2016 Buick Cascada Premium
ENGINE: 1.6-liter turbocharged I-4
TRANSMISSION: 6-speed automatic
HORSEPOWER/TORQUE: 200 hp @ 5,500 rpm/221 lb.-ft. @ 2,200-4,000 rpm
WHEELBASE: 106.1 in.
LENGTH X WIDTH X HEIGHT: 184.4 x 72.4 x 56.8 in.
TIRES: P245/40R20
CARGO: 9.8/13.4 cu. ft. (top down/up)
ECONOMY: 20 mpg city/27 mpg highway/26.0 mpg test
FUEL TANKL: 14.3 gal.
CURB WEIGHT: 3,979 lbs.
COMPETITIVE CLASS: Audi A3, Lexus IS, VW Beetle convertibles
STICKER: $36,065
BOTTOM LINE: The first Buick convertible in 25 years is a solid convertible with outstanding styling, decent power and ride quality, but did it have to be built in Poland?
It was almost stereotypical. So many people came up to me when I was with the Buick Cascada and asked the question you hear in commercials, Is that really a Buick? or It sure doesnt look like a Buick.
No, the Cascada doesnt look like your standard Buick, and is a true break from the norm. Rather than a stodgy (no comments; we drive one) four-door sedan with a waterfall grille, this is a sleek, two-door convertible, something Buick hasnt built in 25 years. Interior design also flows and there are lighted highlights to accent the internal design.
Actually, the Cascada is closer to my old MGA roadster in many ways than it is to the standard Buick. Besides the two doors, it is slightly underpowered, yet compensates for the power issue with better-than-average handling.
Honestly, the Cascada has decent power from its 1.6-liter turbocharged four, although at times the engine does appear to be straining. We drove the Cascada on Interstates and local roads, and there were times on the Interstates where it seemed to be working its little heart out.
While the transmission is smooth, we looked for a manual mode when we felt we were hurting for power. There arent paddle shifters, but you can use the console-mounted shifter for manual mode. On the reverse side, we had very good fuel economy, and filling the tank, which we didnt have to do often, wasnt a big strain on the credit card statement.
Ride quality is good, if slightly firm. Despite similarities to the suspension in the LaCrosse, the Cascada seemed hard. It wasnt harsh, however, and overall ride quality is good. Handling is also good. The Cascada has a longish wheelbase at 106.1 inches, yet it has a tight turning circle. On one instance in particular, we found ourselves needing to make quick turnarounds in cul-de-sacs and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
The front seats are comfortable and offer good side support. The fronts. like the backs, are upholstered in heat reflective material to make getting in and out of the Cascada in hot weather with the top down less painful. The rear seats also offer decent side support. We put two teenage boys back there with no complaints about the lack of leg room or comfort issues.
Despite the low profile with the top up, there is adequate headroom in the front and back. Yes, the trunk is small. With the top down, it intrudes into the trunk and cargo capacity is a mere 9.8 cubic feet. With the top up, the bag that holds the top can be moved out of the way and cargo capacity increases to 13.4 cubic feet. Even with the top down we were able to put flexible luggage in the back, or four full grocery bags.
The top raises and lowers easily with a small lever on the center console. Theres also a button within the lowering lever that drops all four windows at once. Cascade has a nice profile, top up or down.
There is a clear instrument panel with the customary gauges. The fuel and water temperature gauges are semi-circular, but with the information part on the lower half, making them upside down from standard. I constantly thought I was low on fuel when I was just mis-reading the gauge. The infotainment screen is clear, but there are too many buttons (24) beneath it for various functions. There are also 15 HVAC buttons or knobs. This is far too many.
Cascada is small, and therefore internal storage is at a premium. theres a small cubby at the base of the center stack that also has USB and AUX outlets. The doors have small pockets but there is room for water bottles. And the center console/arm rest is small. My only real complaint is that I couldnt find an internal trunk release, so I had to use the fob to open the trunk.
Overall, the Buick Cascada is a beautiful two-door convertible that should compete well with the other vehicles in its class. If it is a harbinger of Buick designs of the future, I cant wait.
(c) 2016 The Auto Page Syndicate
France does not put forward any versions of the causes of the EgyptAir MS804 flight crash after reports on smoke aboard the plane before it disappeared from radar screens, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Saturday.
Earlier in the day, France's Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for civil aviation safety (BEA) confirmed that there was smoke detected aboard the plane that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea earlier this week.
"All hypotheses are being examined with no single one being favoured," SkyNews quoted Ayrault as saying at a press conference.
Ayrault said that the primary goal was to conduct a search operation to discover parts of the plane and its flight recorders.
On Thursday, the EgyptAir Airbus A320 plane, carrying a total of 66 people, disappeared from radar screens over the Mediterranean Sea, 10 miles into Egyptian airspace. The plane was headed from Paris to Cairo.
EgyptAir has said via Twitter that the Egyptian Armed Forces have discovered the wreckage and personal items from flight MS804 295 kilometers (183 miles) from the coast of Alexandria.
Despite several reports that the EgyptAir plane's wreckage has been found, the airline has said that the investigators are still searching for the remains of the missing plane.
Countries including Greece, France, the United States and Egypt are involved in the search operations.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/05/2016 (2349 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Premier Brian Pallister dropped in on Morris Friday morning but he is hoping for no more dropped cell calls along one of the provinces most crucial transportation arteries, Highway 75.
Bell and MTS announced Friday morning they will be building three new wireless towers along Highway 75 to address concerns about gaps in coverage that have been expressed by residents, businesses and travellers.
Specifically, the improvements are aimed at creating better cellular service on Highway 75 between Ste Agathe and Morris, between Morris and Highway 14 and also between Provincial Road 201 and Emerson.
GRANT BURR | THE CARILLON MTS senior vice-president Patricia Solman, Bell Canada group president Wade Oostermann, AMM president Chris Goertzen and Premier Brian Pallister look over the map of improved cellular service delivery along Highway 75, unveiled at a Friday morning announcement in Morris.
Bell announced a $3.9 billion bid to acquire MTS earlier this month. It has committed $1 billion in infrastructure investment in Manitoba once the deal closes. Costs of this investment werent made available.
The premier described his role in the announcement as a cheerleader for the private sector investment.
It positions us better as a province that is ready to compete, ready to trade, ready to go, he said, lauding the investment as one that creates better, faster service and levels the playing field with other provinces.
Im extremely optimistic that further announcements will follow, he said.
At the same time, he acknowledged challenges in expanding service in rural Manitoba.
Theres economies of scale and there are realities. All Manitobans know what they are. I come from rural Manitoba. I understand the changes in population and the scarcity of population demographics are things that have stood in the way of development obviously over a long time, he said.
He argued, however, more than just a strong business case needs consideration when expanded cell service is discussed.
I would make the case, on the basis of public safety, that we need to expand our access to cell coverage around the province in a number of other areas where economies of scale, in terms of residential or commercial numbers, may not make a compelling case, I think theres another case to made and its the case for service and availability of service for public safety purposes.
Pallister stressed continued partnerships, in areas like the RMs of Piney, Stuartburn and Emerson-Franklin, will be key in moving such future projects forward and said investment of provincial tax dollars was an option.
Thats certainly on the table, he said. Ive enjoyed and will continue to enjoy great relationships with our partners at the municipal leveland with our federal counterparts as well, from all parties, to make sure that we make improvements to what I consider to be a very real and very important priority, which is giving access, cell phone and Internet access to people who are not necessarily from major centres like such as Winnipeg and Toronto.
He conceded the trade off for all Manitobans may be higher fees for cell phone service.
You get what you pay for, Pallister said. Weve had cheaper limited service. Now we get better service. I would not be surprised if the prices went up somewhat because weve been paying some of the cheapest prices in, frankly, most of the country of Canada but we havent been getting the service.
Bells group president Wade Oosterman agreed with the premiers assessment that public safety is an important factor to consider.
You cant help but improve safety when you improve coverage where none existed before, he said. Does Bell as a company care about safety? Yes, of course we do. Does MTS throughout its history? Yes, of course it does as well. Together I think the partnership will improve accessibility for people so, by definition, were improving safety.
Oosterman was quizzed whether Bell would offer service in an area where there was no business case and operate at a loss.
It is very rare to find an area where there is no business case because it is not just the community that lives there, he said, adding that the amount of travellers and commercial activity were worth consideration too.
Provencher MP Ted Falk called the announcement a big win for the Southeast for its impact along Highway 75 and its benefit to areas like Dominion City as well.
Falk held out hope this investment is a sign of things to come. He pointed the success they had already in lobbying MTS for cell phone service improvements near the community of Piney last year.
The folks in Piney have much better service than they used to but theres still a few gaps that need to be filled in Provencher, notably in that Sprague area, Woodridge, Badger, we need a little bit better coverage in that area, he said. Theres some areas in the Whiteshell, Seven Sisters, that still need better coverage as well. I am optimistic that the acquisition that Bell has made is going to be positive for Manitoba and positive for Provencher.
Association of Manitoba Municipalities president, Steinbach mayor Chris Goertzen, was also on hand, praising the investment while offering encouragement for more.
Future investments in Manitoba wireless networks are also essential to the economic development and safety of our communities. We are looking forward to the increased possibilities and potential of Bell and MTS combinations and of the further benefits they will deliver to our communities, he said.
Twice, in the space of a month, thousands of Iraqi protesters stormed the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, overrunning the offices of the prime minister and his cabinet. Unlike the demonstration three weeks ago, which saw Iraqi security forces essentially wave people over concrete blast walls and past checkpoints, allowing them to ransack parliament and other state institutions and stage an overnight sit-in at the parade grounds, today the authorities fired tear gas and live ammunition, as can be heard in videos uploaded to social media.
Photos circulating on Twitter resemble scenes out of Syria: young Arab men walking about bandaged, their clothing soaked in blood. Earlier reports suggest that as many as 250 were wounded and at least three people have been killed in the melee. Iraqs military instituted a curfew Friday night throughout the capital.
The stated reason for the raid?
The continued failure of a dysfunctional elected government led by U.S.-backed Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to implement a raft of political reforms and root out the systemic corruption devouring the state from within and threatening its ability to continue the fight against ISIS. These, at least, are the on-paper demands of the protesters, most of whom are loyal to Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Be patient heroic Iraqi people, al-Sadr said Friday, as he denounced the shooting of unarmed protesters. Your peaceful revolution will end with victory.
Once a bane of the U.S. military during the occupation of Iraq, and a warlord whom the Pentagon once came within minutes of killing for his role in orchestrating American combat deaths, al-Sadr is now the undisputed kingmaker of Iraqi politics, a demagogue with a gift for manipulating a national media and opportunistically capitalizing on national crises, attributes which invited half-serious comparisons to another rising political juggernaut.
Just like Trump, he is not entirely illegitimate, said Ali Khedery, once the longest continuously serving U.S. diplomat in Iraq. Sadr represents millions of people and those millions of people have voted for him and his bloc repeatedly since 2003. His family has a long and very important history in Iraq, particularly over the past century.
The clerics relatives helped lead the 1920 revolution against British colonialism, and his father, Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, was a grand ayatollah and once one of the most venerated Shia religious figures in Saddams Iraq (he was assassinated by the regime in 1999 in his native Najaf). Al-Sadrs father-in-law Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr was the founder of the ruling Shia Islamist Dawa party, also executed by Saddam. So, yes, Moqtada has a reputation among Iraqs national political elite as a sort of a whacky person and not the most mentally stable of figures, Khedery said. Yes, he was responsible for forming the Mahdi Army and killing countless American and Iraqi troops and Iraqi civilians. But the Sadr family has always tapped into the poor, largely rural Shia Islamist masses.
And those masses have plainly had enough.
One protester, Mohammed Riyadh, who was hit with tear gas, told The Daily Beast, Those who shot on protestersI dont consider them security forces but criminals who wanted to stop a peaceful protest through violent means.
A woman demonstrator who asked not to be named said she saw security personnel hitting a kid that was just 10 years old.
Thirteen years of lawlessness, sectarian bloodletting and terrorism following a deeply unpopular military occupation have coincided with successive waves of Iraqi leaders who are increasingly seen as little more than factotums of interfering outside powers, namely the United States or Iran. U.S. policy has been single-mindedly wedded to backing individual actors, be it al-Abadi or the man he replaced, Nouri al-Maliki. The second, who was greeted at the White House by President Obama as a partner in making Iraq sovereign, secure, and self-reliant, governed with authoritarian excess, manipulated an election in 2010, and then proceeded to alienate Sunnis by means of legal persecution on trumped-up terrorism charges or acts of state violence. The first, while a seeming improvement on his predecessor, is simply too weak and ineffectual to deliver on his promised reforms. That al-Abadis office has now been raided twice by an angry mob has underscored that stark reality more persuasively than any State Department talking point.
But is al-Sadr looking to make Iraq great again, or is he just a cynical machiavellian looking to exploit failed statehood for his own outsize political ambitions? I dont think he gives a damn about reforms, a U.S. military official told The Daily Beast. Sadrists are as corrupt as hell, too. The popular anger is for reform across the country and beyond this movement. The Sadrists will follow what Moqtada says. If he says: We need a dictator whos very corrupt. They will say, Allahu Akhbar, we need a dictator who is corrupt.
Khedery, however, welcomes the protests as a natural corrective on top-down political sclerosis. Im very pleased by these events because I believe Iraq needs regime change to end the systemic sectarianism and the endemic corruption thats baked into the DNA of the post-2003 order. Not the foolish, ill-informed, hubristic foreign-backed regime change of 2003, but regime change from within, which will, one way or another, install leaders of the country that represent the Iraqi people. If they fail in meeting expectations, theyll likely face the same untimely demise as their predecessors. Revolution is a time-honored tradition in Baghdad. Most of todays Iraqi elites, Khedery added, lack the qualifications to run anything much bigger than a household. Theyre also inveterate crooks presiding over a national economy that can no longer compensate for runaway graft with unusually high global oil prices.
In this context, al-Sadr has positioned himself as one of the few true Iraqi nationalists with enough authentic grassroots support to take on a Western superpower and an interfering regional theocracy. It helps that rival Shia factions, most of them beholden to or essentially run by Irans Revolutionary Guards Corps, have waged a quiet war against his reincarnated Mahdi Army, now known as the Peace Brigades, who fanned out across Baghdad on Friday to try to protect the Green Zone demonstrators. Many were allegedly assaulted by Iranian-backed militias. In some of the last occasions where they have been bombed, it was found out that other Shia militias, such as the Badr Corps, were behind it, not ISIS, said Omar al-Shahery, the former deputy director general of Iraqs defense intelligence, who now lives in Pittsburgh. Theyve been taking fire from both sides and theyve been used in the past by Iranian-backed Shia groups and al Qaeda. They dont want to be propped up for use against the Sunnis.
Many Sadrists also blame the central government for failing to protect their communities from whoevers killing them.
On May 12, the so-called caliphate claimed responsibility for a devastating car bomb attack that killed 64 and injured 87 in a crowded marketplace in al-Sadrs home turf of Sadr City, Baghdad. Its hardly a coincidence this target was chosen. Apart from being motivated by a genocidal loathing of all Shia Muslims, ISIS also grasps the inherent divisions between and amongst those forces arrayed against it. Hitting the Sadrists means seeing them direct their ire not only against the terrorists but against al-Abadis administration. The outcome of an intra-Shia political war is exactly what ISIS would be going for, a U.S. military official told The Daily Beast. It fits their purposes quite well.
Mazin al-Mazini, a Sadrist MP, agreed. There is a hand that wants to fuel sedition between Iraqis and ISIS is part of it, he said. These last explosions are nothing but evidence of its trying to take away attention from its multiple defeats on the ground.
So is al-Abadis government on the verge of collapse, an outcome that could seriously undermine the broader coalition war against ISIS?
The Pentagon said Friday evening that it isnt terribly concerned that the tenure of this prime minister in jeopardy, despite his offices being overrun twice in one month, now with deadly consequence. Washington is also seemingly bolstered by the curfew initiated and the deployment of Iraqs military around Baghdad. Besides, one official said, if not Haider al-Abadi in the drivers seat, then who? Its not clear who would replace him.
One Iraqi diplomat, however, thinks its foolish to predict anything other than unpredictability when it comes to this Middle Eastern country. At the end of the day, the elected officials are not functioning. Parliament, the prime ministers office arent functioning. Anyone who tells you they have a good idea or knows whats going to happen in a couple weeks, the diplomat said, is full of shit.
With additional reporting by Nancy Youssef and Abdulla Hawez
Welsh actor Sir Anthony HopkinsOscar-winning lion of the screen, three-time BAFTA winner, two-time Emmy winner, the erstwhile Hannibal Lecter, and a bona fide knight of the British Empire to bootwalked out on the theater life over four decades ago in a blaze of glory, quitting his star turn as Macbeth in the middle of his run at the National Theatre.
The legendary Laurence Olivier had given the former bakers son from Glamorgan his break by inviting him into the theater company housed at the Old Vic, the London institution long synonymous with William Shakespeare. But Hopkins, then a younger man, and one who still drank heavily, was restlessa word he still uses to describe himselfand he fled, leaving the stage in his rearview as he dove into movies and gravitated toward Hollywood.
So its no accident that Hopkins comes full circle in Starzs The Dresser, a powerful new adaptation of Ronald Harwoods 1980 backstage play about an aging actor mulling his life and relationships one night during a performance of Shakespeares King Lear.
In it he plays Sir, a once-legendary thespian reduced to performing the classics on a regional tour with his hardscrabble company during WWII. Outside, the Blitz is wreaking havoc on London and death hangs in the air. The wailing of sirens pierce the theater walls as bombs rain dust and debris down on performers. But within this theater, on this night, the show must go on.
Even if its star is nowhere to be found.
I knew that kind of dedication that Sir had to his art, and to playing Lear, was something that was a powerful drive in his life, Hopkins told The Daily Beast. And I wanted to figure it out for myself because I left the theater many years ago and did films, and some films are good and some are not so good. Youre accused of selling out and throwing your career away.
Director Richard Eyre (Iris, Notes on a Scandal) opens his version, based on Harwoods original play, on a note of impending panic. Sir is missing, last seen stomping on his own hat in publica sure sign of madness, senility, or worse, that he wont be able to performleaving his longtime dresser Norman (Ian McKellen) to reassure everyone not to worry.
I hadnt worked with Ian before, but Ive known him over fifty years! Hopkins said of McKellen, whod been with him in the National Theatre all those years ago. In The Dresser, they masterfully push and pull against one another as the volatile but brilliant star and his devoted assistant, an inspired pairing that unites the two stage and screen icons for the first time. I got the idea, I asked my agent, Is it possible to do The Dresser as a movie? Would Ian do it? He said yes, and its been a highlight of many years in this business to work with McKellen. Hes a great actor.
The film also demanded that Hopkins, now 78, essentially play two roles. As Sir, he veers from feeble and disoriented to melancholic and pensive backstage, a man suddenly weighing a lifetime of relationships and regrets. But when Sir dons his makeup and crown and roars onstage to play King Lear for the 227th time, Hopkins rages with tremendous fury that captivates his audienceand, he says, stirred something deep within him.
It seemed a good test for me, to see if I still had the strength and the power to do those classic pieces like King Lear, he explained. And I felt like during the production and the filming that I did have all that energy left, and that I hadnt lost itin fact, it had grown in the years, the muscle and the power to do those sorts of scenes and performance so much so that when I was doing King Lear onstage in the theater for the film, Richard Eyre and [producer] Colin Callender said, You should do Lear again.
I did it once years ago, but I was too young, mused Hopkins. Well, I was okay. But now Im at the right age to do it. So Im going to do it in London, probably early next year! Im really looking forward to it, because now I know the man. Now I know how to play it.
Hopkins as Sir as Lear delivers a commanding performance of the storm scene, in which Lear wanders into the night after entrusting his kingdom to the wrong daughters.
He goes out in his banishment in a storm and its unleashed a storm inside him, and he discovers in a moment, he says, Gods given me that patience, said Hopkins. And in that moment, doing it onstage in The DresserGive me that patienceI suddenly stopped. Its patience. My impatience has destroyed my life.
It comes out of the very center of his soul, asking God for patience because impatience that has destroyed him and caused a civil war. Its just a human frailty, were all impatient for something. But with Lear, its monumental. But then through that he finds the grace of insanity and the grace of God, or whatever you want to call it. He becomes awake.
Hopkins, who was Oscar-nominated for his portrayal of embattled United States President Richard Nixon in Oliver Stones Nixon, says modern politicsparticularly during the current race to the White Housecould learn something from Shakespeares great tragedies.
Shakespeare was such a contemporary. What his genius was, 500 years ago, was digging down into the depths of human passion, of human frailty, of human faultand that power and ego are two of the greatest killers, he said. You look at somebody like President Nixon, who was a brave man but through emotional wreckage in his own life was destroyed by his own vanity, his own egotism, his own paranoia, and destroyed his own presidency. Its enormous!
Its in modern politics today, and in decisions everyone makes in life, he continued. We can either make it lead them on to revenge and to teach people lessons, or we can say maybe theres a better way through this and understand that everyone is fighting a great battle. Lears mistake is he has no patience for anybody. He wants to be right, which is part of human nature. People want to be right. They dont want to be wrong. They want to be perfect. We want to be the best, but of course thats not possible.
Not that Hopkins, who has dual citizenship and lives in Malibu, has been glued to his television during the run-up to the election. I cant watch cable news because its all shouting on the screen! he laughs, and I just dont have any time for it.
Hopkins famously fanned out on Breaking Bad in a letter to Bryan Cranston after binge-watching the AMC series in a matter of weeks. That was one of my favorites! he said.
But hed really rather spend his days by the ocean, pursuing other passions. I dont really watch anything. Im too busy painting or writing music. I play the pianothats my hobby.
That hobby is more like a lifelong side career; hes had his symphonic compositions performed all over the world and once hit #75 on the UK singles chart with his 1986 spoken word tune Distant Star.
I play the piano every day, Hopkins enthused. I play Gershwin and Chopin, people like that. But I havent written for a few years. And I sell paintings in Las Vegas and Hawaii and Aspen and Texas, places like that. People say, What do you paint? Well I dont know! I just paint and hope for the best and it seems to work out.
Hopkins, who once dated Martha Stewart and has a daughter from his first marriage, has long described himself as a sort of loner, despite the natural affability and playfulness that comes easily in conversation. Hes been married to Stella Arroyave since 2003, and once, a few years back, described his perfect night as Staying in and watching Mob Wives on TV.
I dont hang out with the acting business, he explained, and the friends I have are my wifes friends. Spanish women, from Colombia, Mexico I hang out with them. But I dont have any friends of my own. I dont hang out with actors. Its just in my nature.
Im friendly! Im okay, Hopkins assured me. My wife says, Why dont you have any friends? I dont know, Ive got enough going on in my life without hanging out with actors all the time or hanging out with anyone very much.
I love working and Im not lonely, Im not a recluse, but I am very much my own person. He paused, searching for the words as if he finds himself explaining this all the time to folks who cant fathom his solitude. I dont need people much.
Hopkins says he might soon pick up writing the memoir he started years ago. Or maybe not.
You know, I have a good life, laughed Hopkins. So acting isnt the end of it all.
Late in All the Way, Lyndon B. Johnson (Bryan Cranston)celebrating his reelection to the Oval Office after a grueling 1964 campaign against conservative Republican challenger Barry Goldwaterintones to himself, Youre goddamn right its my party. And I had to drag it into the light kicking and screaming every inch of the way. Cuz this is how new things are born. That belief, in the painful, bloody process of creating something great, has by this point been shaped by his own experience losing his first three children during delivery with wife Lady Bird Johnson (Melissa Leo). And its been reaffirmed by his struggle to enact the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a contentious piece of legislation whose ratification is the prime subject of Jay Roachs solid (if a tad stodgy) historical character study.
All the Way is based on Robert Schenkkans 2014 play that won Cranston a Best Actor Tony, and one can feel the staginess of its construction throughout, from its confined interior dramatic spaces to its clean narrative bifurcationwith its first half centered on Johnsons efforts to gain votes for the landmark law, and the second focused on his attempts to maintain support from angry racist Southerners in the lead-up to the 64 Democratic National Convention. Thats also true with regard to Cranstons performance, which has an outsized blustery showiness that seems pitched not only to TV audiences, but to the back rows of the Broadway theater.
Nonetheless, one can rarely sense that Cranston is acting, so fully does he inhabit his exceedingly well-written role. As imagined by Schenkkan (who penned this self-adaptation), Johnson is a man whothrust unwittingly into the spotlight by the sudden assassination of JFK, whose blood-stained Texas motorcade car is the actions somber opening imageis simultaneously noble, brave, self-serving, insecure, and nasty. Convinced that the Civil Rights Act is the right thing to do, even as he guts it of its voting-rights component for shrewd tactical reasons (much to the chagrin of Anthony Mackies Martin Luther King Jr. and his comrades), this Johnson is both a bleeding-heart believer in equality under the law, and a self-interested politician determined to retain power at all costs.
As glimpsed in his interactions with others, including his loyal wife, hes also a callous prick prone to terrifying verbal abuse.
When Johnson tries to convince a fellow Georgian Democrat to keep Southern allies from abandoning the 64 Atlantic City, New Jersey, conventiona spat caused by Johnson and Kings decision to send two delegates to the event from the newly formed Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)Johnson segues on a dime between uplifting orator and belligerent bully. After a particular bit of vitriolic censure from her husband, Leos Lady Bird says of him, Hes hard on everybody, especially himself, and the sentiment comes across as a feeble apology from a psychologically battered wife, as well as true, since Johnson routinely expresses paranoia, doubt, and outright disgust at himself over his dubious ability to accomplish his groundbreaking goals.
Cranston brings Johnson to life with a bevy of Southern-twanged Big Statements (ex: Theres no place for nice in a knife fight) as his commander-in-chief berates his eventual VP Hubert Humphrey (Bradley Whitford), spars with beloved mentor-turned-Civil Rights opponent Senator Richard Russell, Jr. (Frank Langella), and works closely with advisor Walter Jenkins (Todd Weeks), the last of whom he loves like a son and yet abandons when the mans homosexuality is exposed late in his reelection run. Even without Roachs grating habit of shooting the proceedings in too-tight close-ups, Cranston delivers a titanic fill-the-screen turn, capturing the mans bombast and sincerity in equal measure. In the process, he dwarfs his castmates; those that enter into Johnsons sphere come across as simply well-drawn two-dimensional figures, including J. Edgar Hoover, here embodied by Stephen Root as a pursed-lip, wide-eyed creep whose disgust over Kings supposed moral hypocrisy (a preacher cheating on his wife!) resonates with bitter irony given the FBI bigwigs own personal secrets.
Politics is war, period, states Johnson, yet All the Way is less a portrait of a battle than of an individual leader. As evidenced by climactic cross-cutting between the two mens speeches, Mackies King is meant to function as Johnsons counterweight equal. The script, however, relegates himunavoidablyto second fiddle. Mackie doesnt stress Kings Southern verbal inflections too hard, and he puffs out his chest to suggest the civil rights icons physical (and moral) heft. Nonetheless, Schenkkans script treats Kings own skirmishes with African-American activists like requisite, albeit complementaryand second-tiermaterial.
Executive produced by Steven Spielberg, All the Way recalls Lincoln in its depiction of the hostile backroom wheeling and dealing required to push progressive lawsand a nationforward, and the link between the two works is underlined in the formers first scene, during which Johnson proclaims, Im going to out-Lincoln Lincoln! Though it presents a captivating look at the nuts and bolts of high-stakes politicking, it suffers in such inevitable comparisons, in part because Roachs direction is so stifling that the film feels small at the very moments it should be grand. Its not quite fair to expect Roach (known for Meet the Parents and The Campaign, as well as political works like this, Trumbo and 2012s Sarah Palin-centric Game Change) to boast Spielbergs canny way with light, shadow, and framing. Still, his flat visuals and ho-hum staging do much to make All the Way seem like it belongs on the small screen.
Like Lincoln, Roachs film aims to capture the essence of a world leader at a historically critical juncture. Alas, by occasionally having Johnson speak with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (Bo Foxworth) about the escalating conflict in Vietnam, it merely manages to hint at the less inspiring aspects of the presidents tenure. Given the limited parameters of this project, such a tack makes sense, and yet it also lends All the Way a somewhat blinkered view of its subject, holding him up high while only suggesting the reasons that his legacymarked by both noble domestic triumphs and more problematic international quagmiresremains so complicated.
Fulfilling professional obligations can be stressful and awkward. Just ask Charlize Theron and Sean Penn, whose new film The Last Face premiered in competition at Cannes yesterday and received withering reviews from critics around the globe after the initial press screening. Not only did the duo have to endure gleeful Twitter denunciations of their movie, but the onetime engaged exes had little choicefor promotional purposes, at leastto sit several inches away from each other at the post-screening press conference.
In early 2015, the press reported that a Theron-Penn engagement was in the works. By June, the couple had split up, an event that precipitated a certain brouhaha in the gossip world. Before long, since Theron apparently cut off communication with Penn and decided not to respond to his phone calls and emails, The New York Times published a sober think piece on the subject of ghosting: a verb that refers to ending a romantic relationship by cutting off all contact and ignoring the former partners attempts to reach out.
At the dirge-like Cannes press conference, softball questions from the international media notwithstanding, Penn and Theron looked warily at each other across the conference table. He dutifully praised her performance and she spoke with apparently sincere enthusiasm about the self-sacrifice of the NGO workers depicted in the film.
But it couldnt have been easy.
Its true that theres something more than a little sadistic about subjecting a director and his star to the glaring spotlight of Cannes after critics have gone in for the kill. You cant just go off and skulk in a corner, but are obliged to hold your head high despite the critics and social medias endemic snarkiness. Yet The Last Face is so inept and dull that I, and perhaps my colleagues as well, kept mulling over the prospect of more provocative questions that, given the festivals injunction to forbid queries concerning personal matters unrelated to the film at hand (a journalist was scolded at the press conference for Pedro Almodovars Julieta when he asked the Spanish director about his connection to the Panama Papers) would certainly not have been tolerated.
Instead of parsing the fine points of Penns misbegotten epic on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Africa, it would certainly have been more amusing to discover if Theron still denies accusations that she ghosted her intrepid director. Or, in a similar vein, the drowsy journalists trying to rouse themselves from the effort of muddling through the incoherent plot points of The Last Face would certainly have perked up if someone had asked Sean Penn to comment on Mexican soap opera star Kate del Castillos accusation that he lied about certain details regarding their journey to interview the drug lord El Chapo in his now-notorious Rolling Stone piece.
Assessed purely on its own merits as a message movie, The Last Face confirms the cliche that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. From the opening credits, the press corps started cackling at the movies wacky altruismparticularly an introductory title that compares the horrors of war-ravaged South Sudan to the brutality of impossible love shared between a man and a woman.
Erin Dignams clunky script is preoccupied with the rocky romance between Dr. Miguel Leon (Javier Bardem), a doctor in an aid organization which resembles Doctors Without Borders, and his colleague, Dr. Wren Petersen (Theron). As they deal with the maimed victims of war in African refugee camps, their passion ebbs and flowsand Therons fatuous voice-over cajoles the audience what to think of their lamour fou during every juncture of the proceedings.
A considerable amount of inadvertent comedy is generated by the fact that the peaks and valleys of Miguel and Wrens affair eclipses the plight of the refugees, whose suffering theyre supposedly helping to alleviate. Wren, whose South African father was known as a heroic physician, is acutely aware of her white privilege. (Its nice to see Theron have an opportunity to use her own South African accent in a film, even if, weirdly enough, she reverted to her usual bland Californian-sounding cadences during the press conference.)
But the movie itself wallows in white privilege.
The Last Face, and many aspects of Penns high profile activism, personify the pitfalls of what the novelist Teju Cole terms the White Savior Industrial Complex. During relief efforts after the 2010 Haitian earthquake, Penn seemed to regard himself as a White Knight riding in on a horse to save hapless Third World victims. Similarly, The Last Face enshrines European benevolence while African armed rebels are depicted as anonymous savagesas unpleasant as it is to use such a word in conjunction with the noble sentiments of a so-called liberal humanitarian, actor, and director.
Still, it was difficult not to feel sorry for Penn as he squirmed at Cannes in the wake of seemingly unanimous pans of his film, as well as the guarded stares of his ex-fiancee.
The EgyptAir jet which crashed in the Mediterranean on Thursday sent a series of warnings indicating that smoke had been detected on board, shortly before it disappeared off radar screens, French investigators said on Saturday.
A spokesman for France's BEA air accident investigation agency said the signals did not indicate what caused the smoke or fire on board the plane, which plunged into the sea with 66 people on board as it was heading from Paris to Cairo.
But they offered the first clues as to what unfolded in the moments before the crash.
One aviation source said that a fire on board would likely have generated multiple warning signals, while a sudden explosion may not have generated any - though officials stress that no scenario, including explosion, is being ruled out.
Egypt said its navy had found human remains, wreckage and the personal belongings of passengers floating in the Mediterranean about 290 km (180 miles) north of Alexandria.
The army published pictures on Saturday on its official Facebook page of the recovered items, which included blue and white debris with EgyptAir markings, seat fabric with designs in the airline's colors, and a yellow lifejacket.
Analysis of the debris and recovery of the plane's twin flight recorders are likely to be key to determining the cause of the crash - the third blow since October to Egypt's travel industry, still reeling from political unrest following the 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak.
A suspected Islamic State bombing brought down a Russian airliner after it took off from Sharm el-Sheikh airport in late October, killing all 224 people on board, and an EgyptAir plane was hijacked in March by a man wearing a fake suicide belt.
A message purporting to come from Islamic State urged attacks on the United States and Europe in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan beginning in early June. "Ramadan, the month of conquest. Get prepared...so that you make it a month of calamity on the non-believers anywhere," said the message posted on Twitter accounts that usually publish Islamic State statements.
It made no claim of responsibility for the Egyptair crash.
The October crash devastated Egyptian tourism, a main source of foreign exchange for a country of 80 million people, and another similar incident would crush hopes of it recovering.
Egypt's tourism revenue in the first three months of the year plunged by two thirds to $500 million from a year earlier.
HUNT FOR BLACK BOXES
The signals from the plane "do not allow in any way to say what may have caused smoke or fire on board the aircraft", said a spokesman for the French BEA agency, which is assisting an official Egyptian investigation.
He added that the priority now was to find the two flight recorders, known as black boxes, containing cockpit voice recordings and data readings, from the Airbus A320 which vanished from radar early on Thursday.
Egyptian said it was too soon to reach any conclusions about the cause of the crash.
Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi told reporters an additional challenge in the hunt for the black boxes was the depth of the Mediterranean in the area under search. "What I understand is that it is 3,000 (meters)," he said.
That would place the black box locator beacons, which last for 30 days, on the edge of their detectable range from the surface based on the type of acoustic equipment typically used during the first stages of a search, according to a report into the 2009 crash of an Air France jet in the Atlantic.
Ben Carson has the ability to say everything he shouldnt at exactly the wrong time.
Since the former neurosurgeon has taken up the role of working on Donald Trumps vice presidential team, he has suggested that the candidate may pick a Democratic running mate, dropped she-who-must-not-be-named Sarah Palin as a potential pick and earlier generally questioned a number of the presumptive nominees habits from his Twitter use to lack of pragmatism.
So he was off the VP team in a hurry.
Last week, Armstrong Williams (his business manager and close confidant), told The Daily Beast that Carson left the team of his own volition. Carson had bigger and more important things to do, according to Williams, like preparing Trump for his meeting with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.
But three sources close to the Trump campaign said Carson didnt leave on his own. He was pushed.
According to sources close to Trumps campaign, Carson was demoted after Trump specifically wanted him to head up the VP selection team. He submitted names that he thought would be valuable picks and inevitably lost his top spot days later. Carson allegedly called Trump afterwards and was angry that the situation played out like this.
In the absence of a person to head up the operation, embattled campaign manager Corey Lewandowski stepped in and took over the spot, as first reported by The Washington Post. The Daily Beast has confirmed that Lewandowski is still in charge of the process.
The list of names Carson later provided to The Washington Postwhich included Palin, Marco Rubio, and John Kasichwas apparently just taken from various conversations within the campaign and is in no way confirmed. One source claimed that Carson mentioned the list in order to get retaliation for Lewandowski taking his position.
In a recent interview with The Daily Beast, Williams denied that there was any internal fracas.
Well thats part of what Lewandowski would want you to believe but theres no truth to that, Williams said of the takeover.
When asked about any possible rocky relationship with Barry Bennett, now a Trump adviser and Carsons former campaign manager, Williams said there were no issues there either.
Dr. Carson does not work for Barry Bennett, Williams said. He doesnt talk to him.
And Williams doesnt either, not since December at least when Bennett exited the campaign after internal disagreements with the business manager who he claimed was causing issues with the struggling presidential bid.
Despite multiple people familiar with the matter confirming that a conversation took place to demote Carson, Williams asserted that the relationship between the real estate mogul and the doctor was going swimmingly.
Dr. Carson and Mr. Trump have a wonderful understanding, Williams said. Sometimes I along with Trumps top people are not always aware of what they are strategizing. [Carson] doesnt always share with me. Thats a good thing.
Williams has not always been an entirely reliable source of information about the goings-on inside the Trump campaign however. When he told The Daily Beast that Carson was off the VP team, a Trump campaign source told CNN that he had fucked it up.
Even though Lewandowski may have taken over for Carson, Williams asserted that there was no bad blood. At least as far as he knows.
I dont know why somebody would want to make it appear that there is some rift, Williams said. On Dr. Carsons part, there is no rift. He continues to talk to Mr. Trump.
Yup, everything is fine.
While conservative lawmakers continue to deny the basic acceptance and civil rights of the LGBT community, as epitomized by North Carolinas bathroom bill and recent employment protections that were shot down at the last minuteits interesting to note that some of them have a stronger connection to that community than theyd ever publicly acknowledge.
Some of these same lawmakers arent practicing what they preach, and, as is often the case, their secret sex lives fail to align with their party line.
Enter the Darling of K Street, Brittany Bendz.
Bendz is a transgender porn star escortand MIT gradwhose reputation for guarding her clients identities has made her a huge hit with politicians, lawyers, and other members of the United States government. She is their dirty little secret; the skeleton in the closet of squeaky clean, happily married men elected to power.
Thanks to its revolving door of influential lobbyists and politicians, K Street symbolizes the ultimate trifecta: power, money, and sex. This is where S&M temptress Bendz made a name for herself dominating Washington, D.C.s affluent, turning the tables on politicians who ask for it (not so surprising when you consider that D.C. is the kinkiest place in the nation.)
Selling sex on-camera or off makes little difference to this real-life Baroness, who felt that becoming a purveyor of intimacy was simply an extension of her career in porn. However, she wont see just anyonein these privately paid encounters, Bendz prefers to cater to a white-collar clientele, from bankers to congressmen.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, 28-year-old Brittany Bendz opens up about her private affairs with the political elite.
How did you become a Baroness?
Thats inherited. Its passed down, but theyre somewhat archaic titles. When I applied to the association that regulates it, I was surprised they recognized my gender change. I thought for sure they wouldnt. It was almost a lark for me to do, but they were fine with it.
Do you ever meet with politicians in D.C.?
I have three congressmen, people from the World Bank, people from the Pentagon. I think Ive penetrated every major institution except for the White House.
How did you meet the congressmen?
When I got those guys they didnt know I was trans. They didnt respond to an ad I had up, I found them out in D.C., just going around in bars finding lonely guys who could use a little company.
How did the congressmen react when they discovered you were trans?
Two of the three are from red states and one of them is pretty kinky. It turned him on even more. One of my other congressmen was disappointed but I think so enthralled with my overwhelming sexuality that it made the issue not too important. Like, Well, I wish you had an innie instead of an outie but, you know, well make do. Im very proud to say theyve all walked away with a big smile on their face.
So are you converting Republican congressmen?
[Laughs] Oh, no as a matter of fact, I heard one of them the other day arguing against the transgender bathroom issue.
Given your relationship with the congressman, how did you feel about that?
I expect them to tow their party line. I did send him a text like, Wow, youre getting kind of ballsy, arent you? and hes like, Yeah Im sorry its just what they need me to say. I was like, I know its alright. I dont really see them leaving their wives for me.
What do you think your advantage or edge is?
When it comes to actually drawing the customer or the viewer in and taking him there, a lot of [porn stars] fail miserably and thats my edge. I know Im not the prettiest girl out there but Im certainly the most deviant.
I heard you specialize in S&M. Is that something your more conservative patrons ask for?
Definitely. One of the congressmen I see really loves it.
Does that surprise you?
It doesnt surprise me at all. Its very much a corollary to the very powerful man paradigm that theyre all trying to work within. Theyre in these jobs that have tremendous pressure and they have expectations of them not just professionally, but socially and personally. Theres no outlet for themfor their sexual devianceso they seek me out.
The reason why I think trans girls and BDSM have become bedfellows, if youll pardon the pun, is that the core aspect of BDSM is humiliation. Whats more humiliating than being forced to suck a cock? Right? Especially if youre someone like that, especially if youre a member of Congress or on a committee... you might feel the need to be really filthy and humiliated.
Are the politicians you see concerned with secrecy?
Of course. They know the cornerstone of my business is discretion. I have a reputation; I dont go around and name names. Im an established provider/purveyor and that inherent trust appeals to them.
Youre involved in the private world of some very powerful people. Have you ever been surprised by what you overhear?
A lot of them dont like to talk business. Ive tried to, not to pry information out of them but men usually like to talk about their jobs but no, most of these guys are tight-lipped. I ask how work was and they say something like, Oh its fine, why dont you come here and take my pants off?
Any kinky requests from political patrons?
Most of them like a basic whipping and being tied down. Stuff that comes up a lot is sensual domination. I get into my boots and my thigh-highs and force them to suck me off. Then it might graduate into more of an escort session, like kissing and petting with more intimacy.
Have the services you provide earned you any nicknames?
Im known as the Darling of K Street lawyers love me. I used to think that was just something my clients told me, that they like my intelligence and when I engage in conversation with them. I used to think it was BS but men really do respond to intelligenceat least in D.C.
You list yourself as having graduated from MIT, so why go this route and choose this line of work?
For other women, escorting and porn is a way to make money, but for trans women, not only is it a way to make money its also validation. When youre making serious moneyeither from porn or escortingthen you really feel it, and you know your sexuality is so pleasing its valued.
LONDON Where did the idea originate of indoctrinating scores of young men into committing themselves to targeted, suicidal killings?
Given the barbarism of the ancient world, that might be too specific a question to answer, but there is no doubt about where a particular kind of Islamic death cult begannor about the fact that it gave the world a universal term for what was a new kind of terror, delivered without warning. This was not Al Qaeda or ISIS, but their distant forebears, zealots from a sect named the Ismailis. When they appeared in the 10th century they became known as the hashshashin, Arabic for those who take hashish. Or, in a word that passed into our language, assassins.
They were sent to the major cities of the time with precise orders to kill. They took their time, often as long as a year. They studied the daily routines of their targets. They took on new identities, adopted disguises. The hardest targets to reach were those at the topin a few cases, the very top. They had to get close enough to touch. Once the killing was done there was little chance of escape.
Their campaign lasted for a century and a half. It was conducted with high efficiency and depended on maintaining a remarkable level of secrecy about where it was basedevery one of the killers came from the same base. Many attempts to locate it were unsuccessful. The Ismailis felt forever invulnerable at the top of a remote mountain accessed by a single, secret path.
Only in the 1930s was the location of the base established beyond doubt.
In a way, the person who made the discovery was as single-minded and exceptional as the Ismailis. She was Freya Stark, one of that group of obsessive British explorers who suffered from desert lustthe ecstasy that came from binging on the hard-won intoxication of some of the Middle Easts most remote landscapes. Stark came a generation after that of Gertrude Bell, the Arabist scholar who, in 1921, arbitrarily decided the borders of a new nation, Iraq, [ Gertrude of Arabia, 06.17.14 ] and of Lawrence of Arabia.
Stark has never had anywhere near the same renown as Bell or Lawrence, and had no taste for their kind of political meddling. Yet she ventured where few Westerners had ever been and had a novelists eye and ear for characters. Through sheer persistence she brought back the first widely read account of the eyrie where terrorism as we know it was conceived.
Stark had a British father and an Italian mother and spent most of her childhood in Italy, often ill and lacking focus. Then, on her ninth birthday, she was given a copy of One Thousand and One Nights. From that point she was hooked on the Mysterious Orient.
In 1931, at the age of 38, fluent in Arabic and Persian, Stark had already made three trips into remote and dangerous regions of western Persia. Now she set her sights on a place named Alamut, the Eagles Nest, in the largely unmapped mountains that divided the Iranian plateau from the Caspian Sea.
Alamut was, by legend, the Ismailis secret fortress. The sect and their leader were featured briefly in Marco Polos account of his travels, as The Old Man of The Mountains, but even in the early 20th century its location was unclear.
Stark knew the outline of the Assassins story. Ten centuries earlier Persia was under the rule of the Seljuks, part of a repressive Sunni empire. The Ismailis were a breakaway hard core Shia sect who believed in a kind of communist utopianism. They were waiting for the coming of The Promised One who would liberate the world from oppression. (When Persia became the primary Shia power in the 16th century the Ismailis played no part and remained a fringe heretical sect, surviving today, passively, under the leadership of the Aga Khan. Ironically, it is now Al Qaeda and ISIS acting as Sunni enforcers, with the same fanaticism as the Assassins, who visit terror on the Shia as apostates.)
And so, while they were waiting, they devised and executed a novel program of terrorism.
A single, anonymous killer was assigned a target and could, using patience and intelligence, reach and destroy some of the highest-placed officers of the Seljuk courtone assassin even killed a sultan and another a powerful vizier. There were, of course, no suicide belts. These assassins had to get up close and knife their victims. If they diedbefore or after the strikethey were promised a place in paradise.
If taken alive they were invariably tortured to death. But (waterboarding anybody?) any names they revealed under torture, supposedly of comrades, were actually those of enemies, frequently achievingby proxyanother of their murderous objectives.
If they survived and made it back to Alamut they were treated as heroes for the rest of their lives. And smoked as much hash as they liked.
It proved to be a very effective exercise in asymmetric power. And, as today, in propaganda terms it was a force multiplier: as the killings steadily increased whole cities and their ruling regimes lived in fear of the sudden flash of a long knife from beneath a cloak. The Assassins didnt bring down any regime, but they exacted the costs to societies we recognize: of contagious fear and the indiscriminate suspicions that come with it, as well as the diversion of resources required for security.
What made the cult appear to be invincible was that nobody seemed able to fix the location of its leadership, which for a considerable time was in the hands of one man, Sheikh al-Jabalmaster of the mountainsor Marco Polos Old Man. Numerous expeditions set out for the mountains, but none found the right one.
When Stark returned to Persia in 1931 to search for Alamut the country, under the control of Reza Shah, was in the early throes of being converted to a secular republic on the model of Kemal Ataturks Turkey, but in many ways it remained a 19th century tribal society. The idea of a woman giving out orders to men was close to blasphemy, and in this case it was a white woman with the attitude and voice of an English governess. Undaunted, she set out with a small escort of guides and helpers she had recruited locally (none of whom had met a European before).
The reason for the elusiveness of Alamut soon became clear. In her account of the journey in The Valleys of the Assassins, a book published 80 years ago (it was her first and it established her as a great traveler) she wrote:
Six people would each give me a different name for the selfsame hill: when in doubt they invented or borrowed one from somewhere else to please me.
This explained the difficulty of locating Alamut, which is neither village nor castle but the main valley.
Gradually ascending from the plain toward the foothills, with supplies carried on a few mules (unlike the elaborate caravans required by Gertrude Bell), she passed through country that alternated between barrenness and almost voluptuous oases with freshwater streams and orchards. Of her companions Stark wrote: They were wild and simple and peaceful. They had not yet reached the point of sophistication where the miraculous is separated from everyday life, and were ready to believe anything in the vast and strange world.
It took more than a week to get to the mountains. All the way Stark made meticulous notes on the geography, preparing the first scientific map of the region. (Her cartography later won her an award from the Royal Geographical Society). Over the previous 50 years a handful of less scientific Western travelers had preceded her, but Starks skills made her own luck and, suddenly, the payoff came:
The entrance to the valley was so well hidden that previous expeditions had missed it. We climbed from boulder to boulder over the face of the cliff.it was stifling enough now: the round white stones of the river bed and the red earth walls radiated heat upon us.
There were more days of tough climbing until the seat of Sheikh al-Jabal came into sight.
The Rock of the Assassins stands out like a ship, broadside on, from a concave mountainside that guards it on the northI contemplated it with the feelings due to an object that has the power to make one travel so far.
In the reverse view from the mountain the Ismailis regarded the rest of the worldat least that part of it that they knewas vulnerable and deserving of their wrath. They had attempted to foment revolution but the peasants failed to rise to their bidding. But any established power, no matter how mighty and how distant, was a legitimate target for their kind of contract killing. In their eyes assassination had a sacramental quality.
When Stark finally reached the redoubt her sense of achievement was chilled by the elemental harshness.
The great Rock looks a grim place. On every side the natural walls fall away in precipices; and from the highest point, 10,000 feet at least, one can see the great half-circle of the eastern mountains covered with snow, nameless on my map.
In finally meeting their end the Ismailis were to experience another of those salutary lessons in geopolitical wisdom that each century seems fated to relearn: beware of unintended consequences.
In the 13th century a French envoy reached the Mongol court at Karakorum, deep in Mongolia. He was amazed to find security measures of an almost paranoid desperation. He was told that more than 40 Assassins, in various disguises, had been dispatched to eliminate the Great Khan Mongke (descendant of Genghis Khan).
The Mongols treated this not simply as a threat but an impertinent insult. It was time for boots on the ground (or, rather, boots in the saddle). In 1255 Mongke ordered his brother Hulegu to take a Mongol army and wipe out the Assassins once and for all. It took all the Mongol tenacity and skill to breach the mountain redoubt and, when they did they left nothing alive.
As she departed the mountain and got back to the foothills, Stark reflected: The Mongols came, and their slant-eyed armies must have camped in these meadows through the winter months until the Rock capitulated and the devastating horde went by, and the heretical library was burnt and lost for ever.
Not only did the Mongols wipe out the Assassins; they went on to subjugate the whole of Persia, and eventually rolled on over the whole of eastern Europe, being stopped only in Germany.
Starks epiphany would inform the rest of her life.
This is a great moment, when you see, however distant, the goal of your wandering. The thing which has been living in your imagination suddenly becomes a part of the tangible world. It matters not how many ranges, rivers or parching dusty ways may lie between you: it is yours now for ever.
In her case, ever was a long time. She carried on traveling until she was 92, building a shelf-full of books, and died in Italy in 1993, at age 100. Like the rest of the world, she then had every reason to believe that the aberration of the Assassins was safely interred on that mountaintop along with all other medieval barbarities. She was not alone in that belief.
Its the nose, really. The thin bridge and bulbous tip, the way it flares out suddenly at the nostrils. And the eyes, too, differing in color but conveying a similar spirit within their puffy pistachio shapesplayful and mischievous, as if laughing at a rumor that isnt totally outside the realm of possibility.
For 24 years, on certain corners of the Internet and in the flimsy pages of certain supermarket tabloids, Bill Clinton and Danney Williams have been pictured side-by-side as proof of the conspiracy that theyre father and son.
Plausible enough, knowing what we know about ol Bubba.
As the de facto Republican nominee and fan of conspiracies of all stripes, it seems a safe bet that Donald Trump will go beyond the standard oppo research when making his case against Hillary Clinton, whom hes likely to face in the general election. With this in mind, its worth revisiting the many tall tales about the Clintonssome of which ring true, even while lacking substantiating evidenceto see if theres a there there.
Mostly, the mainstream media has ignored the maybe-story of Danney Williamsif were going by those papers, after all, Hillarys adopted alien baby should be graduating from college.
But I wondered what would happen if I tried to report it out. Is the problem, as Clinton critics allege, that reporters dont pay attention to stories like that of Danney Williams? Or is the problem people like Danney Williams?
The story, laid out in great detail in the anti-Clinton opus The Clintons War on Women, goes like this: Clinton, then the governor of Arkansas, was out for a jog one day in 1984 in Little Rock when he met Bobbie Ann Williams (sometimes spelled Bobbi or Bobby), a 24-year-old prostitute, at a housing project. A few days later, Clinton jogged by again, but this time he solicited Williams for sex behind some bushes for $200.
Over the course of several months, they engaged in similar behavior more than a dozen timesmostly alone but also with additional female partnersoften at Clintons moms house out in the country or at a downtown Little Rock Holiday Inn, where Clinton rented rooms under the name William Clay.
Eventually, Williams became pregnant. Her suspicion that Clinton was the father was confirmed when the baby was born on Dec. 7, 1985, white as could be. He had been the only white man shed slept with the month the baby was conceived. She named her son Danney Lee Williams Jr., as a way to, perhaps perversely, honor her husband.
Not long after Danney was born, Bobbie went to prison, and her sister, Lucille Bolton, took care of him. It was Bolton who tried to force then-Governor Clinton to acknowledge his son, making trips to the governors mansion and trying, to no avail, to fight her way through the army of staffers that cocooned him therein.
Meanwhile, an activist and sweet potato pie barron in Little Rock was taking to the streets to spread the word about Clintons son. Robert Say McIntosh produced a flier that read, The Hottest Thing Going: Bill Clintons Dick Will Keep Him From Running for President of the United States of America. Ostensibly, he was trying to raise money for the boy, but he succeeded in raising eyebrows.
On Feb. 18, 1992, the tale went from hometown rumor to saucy national story when it was published by The Globe, the weekly tabloid. When I told him that he was the father of my baby, he just laughed, Williams told The Globe, according to The Clintons War On Women. He rubbed my big belly and said, Girl, that cant be my baby. But I knew it was. I just had this kind of womans feeling that this was his child.
The Globe claimed Williams and Bolton had taken lie detector tests and both had passed, a common tabloid refrain. But despite the cinematic appeal, the story quickly faded away. Itd be six years before it cropped back up again in the news, thanks to the Internet.
But in the meantime, what appeared like a fictionalized account of the saga made its way into Primary Colors, the 1996 book published anonymously by the journalist Joe Klein. In the book, a candidate much like Clinton fathers a child with the teenage daughter of a restaurant owner.
When I asked Klein if that had bit of fiction had been inspired by the real life rumor, he was taken aback. Primary Colors was a novel. It wasnt journalism. It was fiction, he said. The black love childwhich turned out to be a false rumor in the bookwas something I made up out of whole cloth. Never heard about the Clinton rumor youre pursuing.
In 1998, Boltonthe woman who raised Clintons alleged love childstarted talking to Newsmax, the conservative website founded that year by Christopher Ruddy, a former New York Post reporter. Newsmax reported that George Stephanopoulos, the Clintons one-time communications director, had used threatening tactics to kill the story. When I asked Stephanopoulos about this in 2016, he referred me to a spokesperson for ABC, who asked me to provide the text of the Newsmax report. Neither Stephanopoulos or his spokesperson ever responded.
Bolton claimed to have talked to Hillary herself and she said she wanted Clinton to take a DNA test. In January 1999, the Drudge Report ran with the news that Star magazine, another tabloid, claimed itd conducted one, using the analysis of Clintons DNA published by Kenneth Starr in the impeachment report and samples theyd taken from Danney, by then 13, and Bobbie.
The story of Bobbie Ann Williams and her child Danney hit world media and rocked the White House this week after it was revealed that STAR MAGAZINE and ace investigative reporter Richard Gooding have exclusively signed Williams and his family to a paternity showdown, Drudge said.
Jay Leno took the opportunity to needle Clinton in his monologue. Allegedly there might be a 13-year-old Bill Clinton in Arkansas, he said. Well, we already have a 16-year-old Bill Clinton in the Oval Office.
A few days later, several mainstream media outletsthe New York Daily News and The Mirror (U.K.), The Washington Timescleared Clinton with headlines like CLINTON NO JEFFERSON, LOVE CHILD NOT HIS and CLINTON IS NOT DAD OF HOOKERS BOY, 13. But those who believe the conspiracy werent put off, since, as Slate concluded at the time, itd be impossible to determine if Clinton was Danneys father based only on the imprecise data provided by the FBI and Starr.
Williams wouldnt resurface again until 2013, when The Globe conducted another interview with him. Then 27, with a large crucifix tattooed on his bicep, the resemblance to Clinton was much as it had been when he was a toddler: easiest to see while squinting, and best from certain angles.
I read he doesnt have long to live and I want to meet him face to face before he dies, Williams said. I just want to shake his hand and say Hi Dad, before he dies. Id like to have a relationship with Chelsea, too. Shes my half-sister.
On social media, he collected a few thousand followers. He called himself the #ClintonKid. He posted a video on YouTube, to thank yall for supporting me and following meand I am real, he said in a deep, sleepy voice, and I am Danney Williams, thank you.
Anti-Clinton activists were happy to engage, of course.
Some linked to StormFront, the premiere white pride website for people who cant spell, where an article had been published, titled, Clintons Fanaticism for Race-Mixing Linked to His Having a Black Son.
Others were content to tweet about how Hillary had banished Danney from the governors mansion. On May 13, @TheSaintsWatch, a Donald Trump supporter, tweeted, Did #HandCuffHillary discard Bill Clintons illegitimate black son? Whos Danny Williams? stay tuned folks. #MAGA
Much of these flames have been stoked, naturally, by the authors of The Clintons War on Women, Roger Stonea longtime Trump adviserand Robert Morrow, a full-time conspiracy theorist.
In February, I sat down in Des Moines with Morrow, who admitted he had never met Danney, to talk about the story. They made it up! he said of Star magazines DNA test. Its Clinton-disinfo. Its a planted storya fake planted story. There was no DNA test. Prove it! Where? Danney dont know about it. Star magazine didnt know about. Stone talks to the current people who own those magazines [and] they say, what are you talking about?
I began reaching out to Danney to arrange an interview. At the very least, I wanted to know what it was like to grow up in the tabloids, with those closest to you telling you youre the illegitimate son of the leader of the free world. If nothing else it must make for interesting cocktail party fodder. But mostly, I wanted to see what would happen if I treated this like any other story rather than a carnival sideshow fit only for the supermarket checkout aisle.
On Facebook message, Danney asked for my contact information and said hed reach out soon.
About a month went by, during which time Danney told me that his step-dad passed away. Its painful, he said, because he stepped up to be my father when my father chose to run. I wont be available today to due to (sic) this unfortunate event.
He never did call, though he provided the name of his attorney: George Gates. Every lawyer by that name who I reached, however, had never heard Danneys namethough one of them was extremely amused.
Then, Danney agreed to provide Gatess phone numberbut this time Danney referred to him as Gio Gates.
He serves as my media agent, so all media contact has to go through him, Danney said.
Gates never returned multiple calls and voicemails.
I was able to establish, via public records, that Robert Say McIntosh, Bobbie Ann Williams, and Lucille Bolton do exist.
But calls to McIntoshs sweet potato pie restaurant, Say McIntosh Restaurant on West 7th Street in Little Rock, went unanswered.
As did calls to every number listed for Williams and Bolton.
Thanks to video footage and an active social media life, it was at least clear that Danney, like he said on YouTube, is Danney Williams. The woman who answered the phone at his high school, McCellan Magnet in Little Rock, confirmed his attendance and even said she recalled hearing that Clintons kid went to the school. She couldnt provide names of any of Danneys teachers or classmates, however. She said itd been too long.
The Arkansas Department of Health informed me that to view Danneys birth certificate, Id need to mail in his written consent. Danney didnt reply when I asked if hed provide that.
And thats as far as I got. Danney Williams, as he says, is real. Everything past that remains in the rabbitholethe provenance of the supermarket tabloids and professional rumor peddlers.
As marijuana legalization expands across the U.S., the war on drugs inches closer to its long-awaited end. Hanging in the balance: those arrested or incarcerated for the drug, casualties of a war thats been overwhelmingly waged in communities of color.
Its one that, despite marijuana being legal in more than half the nation, is far from over. According to a report from the Colorado Department of Public Safety and Health, there was a 58 percent increase in marijuana arrests among black adolescents from 2012-2014. Among white adolescents, during the same time frame, arrests dropped eight percent.
While the federal government works to stop lawmakers from impeding on the freedoms of citizens in states where pot is legal, Oakland, California is looking to fix the damage thats already done.
This week the cityknown for uprooting the status quointroduced a groundbreaking measure thats been deemed drug war reparations.
Known officially as the Equity Permit Program its an ordinance that allocates half of its dispensary permits to people whove served time for marijuana violations in the last ten years, or lived in one of several zones with the highest number of arrests for the drug.
Written by councilwoman Desley Brooks, the equity programat its coreis shattering the notion that marijuana violators are criminals. Instead, it offers them a front row ticket to a billion dollar industry fueled by the drug that once put them behind bars.
Social justice activists, while enthused by the idea, say the ordinance has problemssome of which, like a lack of financial assistance, may hinder the applicants ability to succeed. But its issues aside, the ordinance is nothing short of revolutionary, a piece of legislation which suggests that those struck down by pot should be the first its legalization lifts up. Oaklands unanimous vote of approval is, if nothing else, a sign that those whove suffered from prohibition may soon be getting a green payback.
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Before the equity program was passed unanimously by this week, the council listened to 47 testimonials from residents and business owners in Oakland who wanted to share their thoughts on the project. The war on drugs has criminalized black and brown communities, one speaker named George Galvis said. Now that (marijuana) is becoming legalized theres a whole line of white men that are about to get rich.
Others, like Jake Sassaman from the Cannabis Regulatory Commission called it a travesty that would devastate the city. You really have imposed an impossible minefield for us to navigate, with zero chance of success, in the name of equity, he said.
Please forgive me, but dont, because this is some bullshit, another man said. Theres no equity in this Weve been getting arrested for selling nickel bags of weed since the 60s, and we cant get in the door when its legalized? Thats some bullshit.
His comments, as well as Sassamans, reflect larger issues with the ordinancemany of which are valid. For one, it only includes a handful of the citys 57 police beats, excluding neighborhoods that were heavily impacted by marijuana prohibition. It also fails to recognize that formerly incarcerated men or women applying will likelygiven the difficulty of obtaining a job in the U.S. with a criminal recordneed financial assistance.
A representative for Supernova Women, a space for women of color in cannabis, thanked the council for initiating the conversation but stressed the need for fee waivers, broadening of police beats, and protection of existing businesses. We want Oakland to stand as a model for owners of color, she said. And we want you to know your audience is national, not just this city.
In pushing the ordinance, Councilwoman Brooks stressed the need to open up the marijuana industry to everyone. If youre serious about equity, show us youre willing to share this big pie, said Brooks.
If current numbers are any indication, its a big pie indeed. According to ArcView Market Research, the legal cannabis market grew 17 percent in 2015 and is projected to grow 25 percent this year. If it does, the market will be worth upwards of $6.5 billionwhich could surpass $20 million by 2020.
For those whove suffered at the hands of marijuana prohibition, it could be life-changing. As illustrated by the districts chosen in Oakland, all predominantly African-American, the vast majority are minorities. The American Civil Liberties Union explored the topic in a report titled The War on Marijuana in Black and White.
In it, the researchers found black men 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession, despite using it in equalor lessnumbers than whites. Those arrested for even minor marijuana crimes face criminal records that staying with them forevermaking difficult to obtain a job, apply for public housing, or qualify for financial aid.
For the legalization effort to forget these people, byproducts of a system that even the federal government admitted is misguided, would be senseless.
[The war on marijuana] has needlessly ensnared hundreds of thousands of people in the criminal justice system, had a staggeringly disproportionate impact on African-Americans, and comes at a tremendous human and financial cost, says the ACLU. The price paid by those arrested and convicted of marijuana possession can be significant and linger for years, if not a lifetime.
Not if Oakland has anything to do with it.
The image is striking, no wonder it became famous. This exquisite woman catches your eye, one of those high-cheeked beauties men were raised to revere and women were raised to emulatethen envy. She soaks regally in a bathtub, her shoulder luridly exposed, the tub shielding the rest of her body. The scene is intimate, familiar, yet alluring: you see soap dishes, washcloths, faucets, a bathmat, the usual white grouting.
But you start processing anomalies. Amid this seemingly middle-class, mid-20th century setting, theres an aristocratic surprise: a small nude marble sculpture supervising the bather. It gets weirder. Eddies of dirt have blackened some of the bathmat, and the culprit is clear. This delicate model was wearing two combat boots standing in the foreground, with mud caked on their heels.
To the womans right, an official portrait of Adolf Hitler slouches on the bathtubs ledge, providing the punchline. Lee Miller, a former model and ace wartime photographer, is in Adolf Hitlers bathtub, in Munich on April 30, 1945, the day he killed himself.
As investigators examine recovered wreckage of the EgyptAir plane for evidence of a bomb, they are commencing a ritual first performed 83 years ago after a United Airlines plane went down on a flight from Newark to Chicago.
FBI reports on the Oct. 10, 1933 crash outside Chesterton, Indiana record witnesses hearing an explosion such as heard in a quarry or blowing stumps. The tail section of the plane was found a half mile from the main body.
At the unprecedented prospect that a bomb had bought down an airliner, the FBI took the case. Celebrated G-Man Melvin Purvis set aside his hunt for Public Enemy Number One, John Dillinger.
Souvenir hunters had spirited away some of the wreckage, but enough remained for Purvis and his fellow agents to decide that there had been a powerful blast in the area of the blanket compartment adjoining the lavatory at the back of the plane.
The blankets had been singed and there were shredded metal fragments. The lavatory door had been pierced from the inside by a flurry of metal fragments. The lavatory floor had been blown downward and the crew luggage below had been pierced by shrapnel hot enough to char the edges of the holes.
But there had been no flame in the tail section, as would be expected if the explosion had been caused by fuel vapors. The fire had been in the front section, after the plane crashed and the fuel tanks ruptured.
The pilot had been thrown clear before the main fuselage was engulfed. He was killed by trauma, but suffered only minor burns.
The co-pilot and the lone flight attendant had been incinerated, along with the two passengers who had also been trapped inside.
The remaining two of the four passengers aboard in this pioneering period of transcontinental travel were found with the tail section, also dead from trauma, but suffering no burns at all. Their ear drums had been ruptured by the same percussive pressure that had made the lavatorys toilet bowl convex.
Weather and turbulence were ruled out as factors because two other planes flew that same route with no trouble over that same location within that very hour, one shortly before the crash, the other just 15 minutes after.
The flying conditions were ideal, an FBI report says.
The FBI report notes that those aboard the second plane saw the glare of the fire in flying over.
The agents turned the forensic aspects of the case over to the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory at Northwestern University. The lab determined that the United Airlines flight had indeed been the first airliner ever brought down by a bomb.
Examination of the evidence leaves no doubt that prior to the crashing of the plane there was a violent explosion in the rear portion of the plane, the labs final report said. This explosion was produced by a high explosive of the type of nitroglycerin-dynamite of high percentage strength, TNT, or some similar substance.
The report continued, The fact that the explosive was the high explosive type rather than the low explosive type is proven by the numerous holes made by projectiles traveling at very high velocity, such as would be propelled by the shattering force of high explosive, rather than by the push of a low explosive. Gasoline-air moistures are definitely of the low explosive type.
The FBI sought to determine who had planted this first airliner bomb. There had been strife between United Airlines and the fledgling pilots union that September, but the trouble had been settled 10 days before the crash. There was talk that some Chicago gangsters might have been seeking revenge for the authorities having used United to fly two of their buddies to Leavenworth prison, but that was also discounted.
One of the passengers, a 45-year-old onetime grocer from Chicago named Emil Smith, had been seen holding a package wrapped in brown paper. And he had purchased life insurance shortly before boarding. He was nonetheless ruled out as a suspect.
There were reports that his package might have contained some high explosive, however, the investigation conducted by the division of investigations disclosed nothing to indicate that Smith had any connection with the explosion, and was a man of good reputation, an FBI report concludes.
The FBI also ruled out a 24-year-old passenger from Massachusetts named Dorothy Dwyer. But, while investigating her, the agents did record a first instance of the particularly cruel twist that serendipity so often adds to tragedy in airliner bombings.
Dwyer had been on her way to get married in Reno, Nevada when a late ferry caused her to miss the scheduled first leg of her flight from Boston. She caught the next plane only to miss a connection in Newark due to a tire puncture. She made the subsequent flight, the 4:30 p.m., stopping at Cleveland before proceeding on toward Chicago.
Investigators would later find a customer satisfaction card that had been filled out by another passenger, Chicago real estate manager Fred Schendorf. Usual practice would have had flight attendant Alice Scribner distribute the cards to the passengers 25 minutes prior to landing. Schendorf had written that he was very satisfied.
That suggested to the FBI that all must have been well in the moments before the bomb detonated, killing seven, including Schendorf and Scribner and poor Dwyer, now a bride never to be because of compounded bad luck.
The FBI reports note that her grieving fiance flew to Chicago from Reno. He chose to escort her body home aboard a Massachusetts bound train.
The FBI reports also document the first instances of life saving serendipity in an airplane bombing. A businessman tried to get a reservation on the 6 p.m. flight only to be told it was full. He made a reservation on the ill-fated 4:30 p.m. flight and would have been aboard, but got a call just as he was leaving for the airport that a seat had opened up on the later flight.
Another businessman had been about to catch the 4:30 p.m. flight when his office instructed him to change his itinerary and head for another city.
A doctor was scheduled to catch the 4:30 p.m. flight, but he had some last minute business and they decided to catch the next flight. They were aboard the plane that flew over the fiery wreckage.
[The girlfriend] states there was no other reason for the change made, and considered it just luck for them, an FBI report says.
As the plane investigation was continued by Special Agent J.J. Keating, the more celebrated Purvis resumed the hunt for Dillinger. Purvis caught up with Public Enemy Number One as he came out of a movie theater with the now famous Lady in Red on July 22, 1934.
The killing of Dillinger became part of FBI lore. The bombing of the United Airlines plane was all but forgotten as FBI director J. Edgar Hoover ordered the case formally closed on Sept. 27, 1935.
That long ago case remained unsolved as word came this week of the EgyptAir crash. This latest disaster was assumed by many to be the work of another kind of public enemy, one that has us now thinking bomb whenever a plane goes down.
With word that smoke alerts had been triggered minutes before the EgyptAir plane went down this week, some experts began questioning early declarations that the disaster had been the work of terrorists.
The answer will come as investigators once again perform the ritual that began 83 years ago.
Either way, serendipity will no doubt prove once again to have been as deadly to the unlucky as it was life-saving to the lucky.
BOGOTA, Colombia As peace negotiators here close in on ending the hemispheres longest-running conflict, it must be clear to the FARC rebel secretariat that they can no longer compete in the global marketplace for people willing to kill untold numbers of civilians for political gain. Though their fiftysomething leaders may be far from obsolete, a bigger challenge lies ahead for their country: How can it incorporate the terror groups demobilized rank-and-file into society? Who will employ them?
No HR manager anywhere can ever ensure that a new worker doesnt come to the office and (true story!) punch his bosss lights out on a whim. Among conflict-resolution professionals, theres plenty of research and theories out there on post-war struggles in workplaces around the world.
But to find the most recent, relevant, and effective of mass reintegration projects for those fresh from a decades-long fight, the best example may be in Colombia itself.
After all, its been here before.
Between 2003 and 2006, the feared right-wing AUC paramilitary group demobilized, after decades of extortion, assassinations, massacres, drug-trafficking, and kidnappings that arose out of the narcos chaos of the 1980s. In all, some 30,000 fighters who had been profiting from the cartels lawlessness disarmed and re-entered society. Unemployment among their ranks remains stubbornly high.
Colombia hasnt forgotten the lessons learned from that, said Adam Isacson, senior associate for regional security policy at the Washington Office on Latin America, a D.C.-based NGO that focuses on human rights and economic justice issues. Youve got a lot of the same institutions with some of the same people in place, these people cut their teeth on that experience.
This time around, its 8,000-plus hardened FARC combatants who could all hit the job market at the same time if a peace accord gets inkedand comes at a time when the price of oil, Colombias most crucial economic lifeline, has collapsed and the peso is severely weakened.
Its not to say that these guerrillas arent hard workers; daily 20-mile hikes and jungle survival require business-like dedication. But because so many would likely be placed in construction work and other manual labor roles, Colombias companies are already worrying not only about their finances, but about the security, reputational, and morale problems theyll encounter if they choose to hire these ex-combatantsparticularly if they land at the very same locations that were once guerrilla targets.
Among Colombian firms, there are two levels to the debate: that of the necessary socialization of the guerrillas and their economic incentives to do soand that of the governments obligation to prove theres a financial benefit to companies of taking on that risk.
Of course, longtime opponents are skeptical the fighters will ever truly lay down their arms. Peace negotiators have been burned before. One example: The United Nations Sierra Leone pact disarmed more 70,000 combatants in 2004, but as many as 2,000 are believed to have been re-recruited for wars in the neighboring Liberia and Cote dIvoire. Considering that many recent conflicts started with a small number of combatantsoften several hundredeven small failures have potentially broad ramifications.
That may be why one former Colombian army colonel who now works as a security consultant (and who preferred to go unnamed) said he fears the group will turn over their weapons to friendly nearby governments, then regroup in their traditional strongholdsall within the terms of a peace accord.
This way they may retain their control of these territories, continue to cultivate coca plantations to ensure their income, and return to arms if everything does not work out as planned, he continued, voicing a concern common among members of the armed forces.
That may seem to be reason enough for multinationals to be hesitant to directly invest in Colombia. Yet some are blazing a trail in on optimism about the talks. One example: In January, Canadian real-estate and infrastructure firm Brookfield purchased the governments majority stake in power generator Isagen for nearly $2 billion. With hydroelectric projects in Narino, Antioquia, and Tolimaall close to FARC hotbedsBrookfield is clearly showing confidence in a new future for the troubled region, and year to year, investment is only growing.
Yet its less known how new outsiders will fare when working in zones known to be rife with so-called Bacrimthe bandas criminales, or criminal gangs that grew from the remnants of old paramilitaries. In late March, one such group, known as the Urabenos (or Usaga Clan), declared an armed strike in at least five regions of northern Colombia, requiring all transport companies and businesses to cease work and all citizens to remain indoors. For 24 hours, the departmentsthe local term for provinces of Antioquia, Choco, Cordoba, Cesar, and Bolivar were brought to a standstill, revealing the extent of the Urabenos hidden authority.
There are, of course, conflicting views as to what might occur to former FARC combatants absorbed into Colombias workforce and how their opponents may respond.
Companies themselves may become targets if they employ ex-combatants, the former army colonel suggested. They will have to negotiate with the paramilitaries.
If you were a victim of this armed group and never received similar opportunities, youd be pretty bitter, WOLAs Isacson said.
So if a final peace agreement is signed this year, one expects the Colombia government to start offering increased potential benefits to companies willing to step up and aid the reintegration process.
Companies should already be informed of the existing legal measures which favor them such as tax exemptions regarding the employment of ex-combatants, said Alvaro Villarraga Sarmiento, director of Truth Agreements at the National Center for Historical Memory in Bogota. These people will have received the preparation and training required, he continued.
Though the proposed March 23 deadline for a final agreement is now pasta six-month limit set by President Juan Manuel Santos when he met with FARC Commander in Chief Rodrigo Londono Echeverri, alias Timochenko, in Havanathe negotiations have come a long way since their commencement in November 2012. With the issues of agrarian reform, political participation, justice and illicit drugs bested, Santos has every right to be optimistic. (And just last weekend, FARC announced plans to release some 170 child-soldiers from its ranks.) Quite a few national companies, including supermarkets, banks, and even a national airline, have declared their intentions to employ former guerrillasalthough not enough, according to WOLAs Isacson.
Ex-FARCers may face some competition, too: Colombias second guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional), has agreed to parallel but separate peace talks, possibly adding 1,500 or so additional ex-combatants to the labor mix.
While there may not be an exact manual available to Colombias companies in order to prepare themselves for the arrival of former guerrillas in the workplace, they can work to show the government that they are ready and equipped.
Companies that start planning for this early, and design post-conflict plans, will be able able to show the government and the public a willingness to support the peace process, and at the same time improve their reputations, said Benjamin Hockman, associate director at Control Risks, a London-based risk consultancy that works in Bogota.
The situation presented in Colombia is now for companies to identify suitable employment opportunities for demobilized guerrillas and to balance things justly so that ex-combatants are not perceived as being favored over ordinary citizens, he said. Its about rising to the challenges to harness immediate and long-term commercial opportunities.
While many guerrilla wars stretch on indefinitely, it seems that the FARCs, which began in 1964, is coming to an end. There will be future difficulties but an agreement now would at the very least ensure that some of the original motives for a lifetime of waging a war from the jungle might be addressed.
Whatever the case, companies will need to insist that the government is doing the most it can to socialize these former fighters. And companies themselves are going to have to lay down clear rules from the beginning that certain behavior will not be permitted.
The hardest work starts once a final peace agreement is signed.
Mexico approved the extradition of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the United States on Friday after receiving guarantees he would not face the death penalty, and the kinkgpin's lawyers vowed to block the move, Reuters reported.
Juan Pablo Badillo, one of Guzman's lawyers, told Reuters he would file "many" legal challenges in the coming days, which could delay the drug lord's eventual extradition for weeks.
Guzman, head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, was the world's most wanted drug kingpin until his capture in January, six months after he broke out of a high-security penitentiary in central Mexico through a mile-long tunnel.
Mexico's foreign ministry said he would face charges including drug trafficking, money laundering and murder in US federal courts in California and Texas.
Asked whether he would file legal challenges on behalf of Guzman, Badillo said: "Of course. Five, 10, whatever is necessary."
Guzman's escape last year was a major embarrassment to President Enrique Pena Nieto, who entered office amid a bloody war between the government and drug cartels launched by his predecessor.
Pena Nieto dialed back cooperation with the United States after taking office in 2013, but soon after Guzman's recapture in January he said he had taken steps to ensure the kingpin would be extradited as soon as possible.
Earlier this month, Guzman was moved from a jail in central Mexico to a prison in Ciudad Juarez on the US border, seen as a step closer to extradition.
Mexican authorities say they tracked Guzman down after he sought to make a movie about his life and met with Mexican actress Kate del Castillo and Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn, who published an interview with the drug boss in Rolling Stone.
Whisky inspired by 16 stillmen and a dog
This week Glenturret Distillery unveiled its latest limited edition malt whisky celebrating the brand's 240 year heritage. A photo dating from 1905 and featuring 16 stillmen with a collie dog has provided the inspiration for the bottling and the Fly's 16 Masters Edition label.
The 16 stillmen formed the backbone to Glenturret Distillery and the dog, Fly, belonged to the distillery manager who lived in a house on the distillery premises in Crieff, Perthshire.
Glenturret prides itself on its original, artisanal whisky making. The mashing is still done by hand, as it would have been done in 1905. The year 1905 is also significant because it was the year that the first legal definition of whisky was declared by a magistrate's court in London.
The Glenturret Fly's 16 Masters Edition, which will go on sale to the public today - World Whisky Day, is a 16-year-old single malt. Only 1,740 bottles will be available priced at 95 each.
Stuart Cassells, the driving force behind Glenturret Distillery's return to the limelight which has included the establishment of the brand's core range of three malts as well as the series of popular limited edition releases, comments: "1905 was a momentous year. Albert Einstein first set out his theory of relativity and Arthur Conan Dolyle first published The Return of Sherlock Holmes. The same year, we saw a London magistrate's court saying that whisky should consist of spirit distilled in a pot still derived from malted barley - a momentous occasion for the industry.'
"Closer to home, our 16 stillmen were captured for prosperity in this photo, found by chance at the back of a cupboard and now hanging proudly on our walls at the distillery. We think Fly's 16 Masters Edition encapsulates not only the spirit of whisky but the spirit of The Glenturret's hand-made heritage. We're looking forward to seeing the bottles fly' off the shelves accordingly!"
21 May 2016 - Felicity Murray The Drinks Report, editor
A Turkish soldier was martyred Saturday in a clash with PKK terrorists in the Semdinli district of Hakkari province, the military said.
In a statement, the Turkish General Staff said the soldier was martyred in a clash at the base area of Mirgesav mountain at 3.05 p.m. (1205GMT).
The PKK - listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and the EU - resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in July 2015.
Since then, more than 450 Turkish security personnel have been martyred and over 4,500 PKK terrorists killed.
New Burlington Area Homeless Shelter director carrying mission forward
The new executive director of the Burlington Area Homeless Shelter says she's excited for her new role and here to serve the community.
Zhang Dejiang (front), Chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee speaks during the closing session of the NPC in the Great Hall of the People on March 16, 2016 in Beijing. (Photo : Getty Images)
Chinas third highest official said on Wednesday that Beijing is aware of problems in Hong Kong and would respect the citys autonomy as protesters hit the streets to oppose the mainlands attempts to curtail local freedoms.
"The argument that the Central Government is trying to turn Hong Kong into mainland (China), or to turn 'one country, two systems' into 'one country, one system' is totally baseless," Zhang Dejiang said during an evening banquet held in his honor.
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Zhang's unexpectedly forthcoming remarks come at a time of mounting political tensions in Hong Kong, as tens of thousands of people mounted a massive but ultimately unsuccessful push to pressure Beijing to grant full democracy during the "Occupy Central" street demonstrations in late 2014.
Thousands of police were deployed across Hong Kong, preventing protesters from coming in close proximity to Zhang as he visited a science park and a harbor front exhibition center where he addressed an economic summit.
Zhang conceded that a small minority of people in Hong Kong are pushing for its independence, but said China would "unswervingly" maintain the current "one country, two systems" model of governance for the city, which guarantees a high degree of autonomy in Hong Kong since it switched from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
Zhang also addressed the rising trend of radical activists forming political groups and staging disruptive protests to call for greater Hong Kong nationalism and even independence from China, an issue that may soon see more mainstream attention once city-wide legislative council elections are held later in September this year.
Hong Kong independence is strongly opposed by Beijing, which fears any separatist or sweeping democratic demands spilling into the mainland may occur under its rule.
Zhang stressed the rule of law as a "core value" and if that were compromised, "how do we continue the prosperity and stability?"
"I hope the SAR government and the judiciary would firmly fulfill the solemn duty to safeguard the rule of law," he said.
A feature of Zhang's visit has also been repeated pledges of a more engaged government actively listening to public concerns about Hong Kong's relationship with China.
"For the problems that are being exposed now, some are new and some have been around for years and there won't be an immediate solution. But we can't question, feel hesitant, or even deny 'one country, two systems' because of that," Zhang said.
Despite a massive police presence, small, scattered groups of protesters marched on the streets at various locations demanding Beijing to respect the city's freedoms.
Massive yellow banners were unfurled demanding full democracy and universal suffrage, while others have held up black banners calling for China to stop its "dictatorial rule" and to "stop interfering with Hong Kong affairs."
A few others have burned a portrait of Zhang and demanded for him to "get the hell out of Hong Kong."
"We want an end to the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship," Avery Ng Man-yuen, chairman of the League of Social Democrats, told the South China Morning Post on Thursday. "People here are very dissatisfied with the government."
Some pro-Beijing groups, however, slammed the pro-democracy activists for jeopardizing Hong Kong's economic interests by opposing the mainland, and held up blue banners with the words: "Oppose splitting up Hong Kong."
Zhang, head of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and Beijing's point person on Hong Kong affairs, left Hong Kong on Thursday afternoon.
MILFORD When he learned that his father needs a kidney, John Krusinski set out to find him one, using a combination of old and new technologies.
First, the 24 year-old painted his truck with a message seeking a donor, including his e-mail address and his cell phone number, along with his fathers blood type.
When that didnt work right away, he put a photo of the truck and message on his Facebook page, and tweeted it with the hashtag #helpjohnsdad. Thats when things exploded.
By Friday morning there were nearly 600 Facebook shares and 40 comments, many of them offers to be tested as a donor.
Ive gotten calls from Tennessee, Florida and Texas from people interested in donating a kidney, Krusinski said. When it was (only) on the truck, I got maybe one or two responses.
A dedicated Boston Red Sox fan, the Milford native even tweeted the photo of his painted truck to the teams Twitter account, asking that they retweet it.
The normal wait for a donated kidney is three to four years, he said, but the family is on a tight timeline.
If its at all possible, were hoping my dad can have the surgery and recover in time for my sisters wedding in September, Krusinski said.
The normal recovery time from kidney transplant surgery is two to six weeks, according to the website donatelife.net. Right now there are more than 120,000 people waiting for a kidney, the web site says.
In the meantime, Richard Krusinski, 58, a heating, venting and air conditioning technician, is preparing to start dialysis after his kidney disease suddenly worsened recently. Both John and one of his two sisters have arranged to be tested as kidney donors for their father, who is on the transplant list at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Richard Krusinski said his son didnt warn him about the social media campaign, or even the message on his pickup truck. It was a complete surprise, but I am so proud of John for the thought he put into it, he said.
I hope it finds the right match but if it cant help me, maybe it can help someone else who needs a kidney, the Milford resident said.
NORWALK Following allegations of child abuse at High Road School, the Board of Education chairman acknowledged that the district has failed to oversee its students at the school for years.
We send them off to the school and the school sends us bills for the tuition and we sign the check. But weve never had any system process of monitoring how the kids are doing with their out-placements, said school board Chairman Michael Lyons.
Norwalk Public Schools has no policy or position to ensure the special education students sent to private schools, or out-placed students, are being treated well or even, in this case, humanely.
This gaping hole in the public schools system became apparent during this weeks school board meeting when the public comments session took a dark, frightening turn. Three mothers took the stand, boldly claiming that their children were coming home with scratches and bruises inflicted by High Road School teachers and staff.
It started off as a good experience there was no problems at first, said Nancy Michel, a Norwalk mother whose 8-year-old attends High Road.
Then around mid-December, I started noticing a difference. It was becoming a problem putting her on the bus at school. As soon as shed see the school bus shed start screaming Thats a bad school, they hurt kids. I dont want to go there.
Michels daughter, Nachelle Jones, came home from school with scratches on her face last Friday. Last month, Michel said, it was bruises on her thighs. And for months, shes had trouble breathing.
For the past eight years, the school district has conducted study after study of its special education system, but to no effect. The latest study found that the Norwalk special education system had worsened since it last review in 2012.
The state Department of Children and Families is now investigating the allegations. Norwalk police also said they received two separate complaints on Sunday, May 15, each alleging that a student had been assaulted at the High Road School.
Investigators from the Special Victims Unit are now looking into the allegations. The investigations are being handled in conjunction with both state and non-profit child protective agencies, police said. Due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, no other information is being released at this time.
On June 6, the Board of Education plans to pass its Special Education Fund, a plan that involves hiring a staff person to oversee Norwalks out-placed students.
High Road School of Norwalk, and its larger corporation Specialized Education Services Inc., continues to refrain from commenting.
Restraint and Seclusion
Its to the point my daughter has been restrained so much, every time she inhales it hurts her, said Michel.
Restraint is largely considered holding down a student with physical force, often involving locking arms and legs in place.
State law prohibits schools to use restraint for behavior management purposes, or because a child is noncompliant.
Its a very, very disturbing thing for a human being to witness everybody is being traumatized during a restraint, said Mickey Kramer, associate child advocate for the states Office of the Child Advocate.
As of a state law passed last September, restraint is only permitted during emergencies. It defines emergencies as any time a child is in danger of harming themselves or others.
Seclusion, or isolating a child by putting them in empty rooms, also follows the same policy.
The law was sparked by an alarming report released by the Office of the Child Advocate in 2015:
Each year, more than 2,500 students in Connecticut are restrained or put in seclusion for more than 30,000 times. And between 2013-2014, over 1700 reported incidents of restraint and seclusions lasted 40 minutes, with 716 lasting more than an hour.
Its statistics like these that make the Norwalk parents claims more and more believable.
Regina Russell, another mother, said her child would get secluded up to four hours during the school day.
I saw the padded room, it seems like a jail said Russell. Thats not therapeutic, thats abuse.
And so their kids come home, they say, with bruises and scratches.
What we hear sometimes is a difference of opinion of what constitutes an emergency. Our restraint and seclusion report talks about what an emergency truly is which is really imminent danger, Kramer said.
And Kramer said her office knows that many people simply dont report.
If theres three (students), are there 30 more? asked Kramer. I dont know. But thats what we need to find out.
Taking action
After the parents spoke publicly about the alleged physical abuse of their children, the district and the state took action.
Joseph Russo, interim director of special education for Norwalk schools, has initiated an on-site investigation of High Road School, said school board Chairman Michael Lyons. If the Norwalk Police Department received a police report last Sunday, as parent Nancy Michel said, then theyre investigating, too.
On the state level, the Office of the Child Advocate, said Kramer, has initiated its own investigation, and has urged the Department of Education to do the same. She said the Connecticut Bureau of Special Education was also being contacted.
I think the problem is that the school system has relied on parents to let us know if theres a problem with the education the child is getting, said Lyons.
The High Road schools are part of a national corporation, with just 10 schools in Connecticut alone. The schools are private but state-approved and regularly subjected to review. The one in Norwalk serves 47 students across Fairfield County the local students are paid for by the district.
Right now, it seems these three mothers, and one more unnamed parent, are the only ones coming forward. The states Office of the Child Advocate and the Connecticut Department of Education said they had no ongoing investigations into High Road prior to the latest allegations. Kramer said Friday morning the Office hadnt received any complaints against the High Road School of Norwalk in recent history.
Irresponsible of how this situation works out, its the kind of thing I dont think would have happened if we had an actual monitoring process in place, said Lyons.
But that could soon change with the new Special Education Fund.
In the meantime, Lyons said parents of children suspected of abuse should contact Superintendent Steven Adamowski to aid the school districts investigation into High Road.
Eight-year-old Jones wrote a letter last month to her grandmother, who showed it to Michel.
It begins: My name is Nachelle Jones. I am 8 years old. I do not like the people at my school because they hurt me.
Donovan, a 10 year old boy is a fun-loving young man whos life turned upside down when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Through his months of treatments and hospitalizations, dreaming about making a ninja superhero movie lifted his spirits and helped him get through the hard times.
Soon after his treatment was over, volunteers from Make-A-Wish arranged for his dream to become a reality.
Visitors watch a Kuka robot perform precise movements at a technology trade fair on March 16, 2015 in Hanover, Germany. (Photo : Getty Images)
Chinese home appliance maker Midea Group made an offer on Wednesday to buy German factory robot manufacturer Kuka AG, in the latest attempt by a Chinese investor to acquire cutting-edge industrial technology crucial for Chinas ambitions to become a high-end manufacturing powerhouse.
The 115-euro-per-share offer values Kuka at around 4.5 billion euros ($5.07 billion) and represents a premium of 36 percent to Kuka's share price of 84.41 euros at close on Tuesday, according to Reuters. Shares in Kuka rose by more than 30 percent on the news.
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A Midea spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that the firm intends to keep the company listed and has no plans for a complete takeover. However, since the company is seeking a stake of more than 30 percent, it is required to make an offer for all outstanding shares.
Based in the southern Bavarian city of Augsburg, Kuka is one of the world's largest producers of industrial robots and a symbol of post-war Germany's drive to upgrade its manufacturing sector to master the industrial Internet.
The deal also marks the latest in a series of German industrial groups to be targeted by Chinese buyers as China's burgeoning economy attempts to shift from a low-cost factory location to a high-tech industrial hub.
"KUKA is in excellent condition today and we are committed to investing in KUKA's employees, brand, intellectual property and facilities to further support the company's development," Midea Chairman and Chief Executive Paul Fang said in a statement.
Midea said it aims to expand Kuka's know-how in robotics for general industry and logistics and provide better access to Chinese markets.
"One of the leading rationales for the deal is rising labor costs. This means efficiency becomes more important for growing our business and for the Chinese economy as a whole," said Andy Gu, vice president for Midea's international business.
"We want to keep Kuka's separate identity as a German company," he added. "Where we can help Kuka is mostly in China. Kuka management has plans to grow in China. Given our meaningful footprint in China, we can help them accelerate growth in terms of our customer base and supply chain."
An ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Berlin will not intervene in the purchase, as German companies are also investing in Chinese and other foreign companies.
"We live in a free market economy and expose ourselves to global competition," said Michael Fuchs, deputy leader of Merkel's CDU/CSU parliamentary group in Germany's lower house.
In terms of direct investment in property, plants and equipment, Germany's private sector has invested nearly 60 billion euros in China, dwarfing the 2 billion euros that Chinese firms spent in Germany, according to the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
Jost Wuebbecke of Berlin-based think tank Merics said Chinese foreign direct investment in Germany is welcome in principle, but Kuka is an exception because of its role in the country's industrial sector.
"From a German point of view it's not necessarily an advantage to share the technology because of Germany's very considerable lead in this area," Wuebbecke said.
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Linkedin Ina Parlina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, May 20 2016
The Attorney Generals Office (AGO) has hinted that it may drop an investigation into the new chairman of the powerful Golkar Party, Setya Novanto, for allegedly conspiring to acquire shares in gold and copper mining company Freeport Indonesia as uncovered in a controversial taped conversation. Meanwhile, a hearing instigated by Setya continues at the Constitutional Court.
Setya is challenging provisions on electronic evidence and conspiracy in the 2008 Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law, the 2001 Corruption Law and the Criminal Code (KUHP). The ITE Law allows electronic recordings and documents to be used as valid evidence, while the Corruption Law and the KUHP cover conspiracy in criminal and corruption acts.
Setya has argued in his petition that such electronic recordings should be deemed as being illegally obtained and rejected as legal evidence. He has demanded that the court give an additional interpretation to the provision that electronic documents or recordings can only be considered valid evidence if obtained at the request of a law enforcement agency. He has also called on the court to give a better explanation in the conspiracy provision.
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Linkedin Megawaty Khie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, May 20 2016
Sensors are everywhere and connectivity is now practically ubiquitous. The internet of things (IoT) is the key driver of digital transformation, so what is on the horizon for 2016?
Sensors are everywhere in heating systems, pedometers, cars, pumps, traffic lights, engines. This is partly because the price of these tiny electronic transmitters has fallen by 80 percent over the past four years.
Connectivity is practically ubiquitous, and companies are expecting increasingly big things from the big data these sensors generate.
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Pekanbaru Fri, May 20 2016
Prosecutors have demanded two years prison for Frans Katihokang, the operations manager of oil palm plantation company PT Langgam Inti Hibrindo (PT LIH), for his alleged involvement in lighting forest fires in Langgam district in Pelalawan, Riau.
Pangkalan Kerinci prosecutor Novri said the defendant had failed to properly mitigate the fires that later razed half of the companys 533 hectares of plantations.
The defendant violated Article 99 and Article 115 of the Environmental Management and Protection Law, he said at a hearing at the Pangkalan Kerinci District Court.
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Linkedin Agus Maryono (The Jakarta Post) Cilacap Fri, May 20 2016
The fact that Nusakambangan prison island is Indonesias only maximum security prison has not prevented it from being the target of illegal drug distribution.
So far, prison guards have not been able to solve this problem, with officials from the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) having in the past two months arrested inmates whose urine tests came back positive for drug use.
Nusakambangan prison guards are now attempting to cut drug distribution lines running into the prison. In the past three days, they have not only searched through goods and belongings of all visitors entering the prison, but also had them undergo urine testing. The tests have been held at Wijayapura ferry port before visitors sail to Nusakambangan Island.
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Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Sat, May 21, 2016
Hundreds of democracy activists on Saturday commemorated the 18th anniversary of reform by expressing their concern over the return of militarism to society.
The activists spokeswoman, Nining Elitos, said the event was held because the activists had learned of the systematic use of the military to repress people by those in power, while the government had also failed to improve peoples welfare.
Democracy and peoples movements are repressed, Nining said on the sidelines of the demonstration, as reported by tempo.co.
She gave several examples of the militarys role in dealing with peoples affairs, such as in evictions, labor demonstrations and raids on booksellers.
About 500 people gathered on Jl. MH Thamrin near the National Monument (Monas) park at 11:15 a.m. on Saturday before moving along Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat, expressing their aspirations in front of the Defense Ministry and the Office of the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister and ending outside the State Palace.
The activists dubbed the event the Voice of Democracy to remind all parties about the demands of protesting students who tried in 1998 to force then president Soeharto to end his 32-year regime, along with eliminating corruption, collusion and nepotism (KKN) and putting a stop to the militarys role in politics and public life.
Among the organizations that supported the event were the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), Indonesia Legal Aid Institute (LBHI), Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), Union of Journalists for Diversity, Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy, the Reform Committee, Impartial, the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development and the International People's Tribunal on 1965 (IPT '65).
Soeharto was forced to step down from his 32-year rule on May 21, 1998, after the nationwide protests by university students who also managed to occupy the House of Representatives complex. He was replaced by then vice president BJ Habibie. (bbn)
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Linkedin Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post) Bandung, West Java Sat, May 21, 2016
In absence of the States assurance for freedom of expression, the nation has continuously witnessed repressive acts against academic freedom within university campuses across the country.
While it was the police who halted a number of such academic events in Yogyakarta, lately, similar repression was observed in West Java. The only difference in the latter was that the hard-line group, the Islam Defenders Front (FPI), played the role of oppressor.
Just on Thursday, the social and political sciences department of Padjajaran University (Unpad) in Sumedang, near West Javas capital of Bandung, decided to cancel its seminar, entitled Marxisme sebagai Ilmu Pengetahuan (Marxism as science) following intimidation by the FPI.
Activist Firman Ekoputra from the Rumah Kiri organization, Unpad political scholar M. Rolip Saptamaji and Unpad political science lecturer Carolina Paskarina were initially scheduled to speak at the seminar.
It was the second repressive act in only a week by the FPI against freedom of academic expression in the province. On May 10, the hardliners dispersed Sekolah Marx (School of Marx), an event discussing Marxism conducted by the Daunjati student press group of the Indonesian Art and Culture Institute (ISBI).
The FPI demanded Daunjati end the event, but the press group continued with proceedings until last Wednesday, albeit with compromises.
Student Council spokesperson of Unpads social and political sciences department Muhammad Ariq Andarmesa said the FPI had come to the university, demanding that the university cancel the seminar.
The academic affairs division of my department then asked the students to cancel the event, citing security reasons, Ariq told The Jakarta Post in an interview on Thursday.
He also received various anonymous phone calls, including one claimed to be from police intelligence, telling Ariq to beware as tension with communists was simmering.
This proves the campus, once heralded as an autonomous institution free from outside pressures, is powerless in dealing with threats to its academic freedom, Ariq said.
The department head, Widya Setiabudi, said recommending the student council delay the seminar was aimed to deal with the simmering tension.
We wanted to cool down the situation. In the end, we just postponed the event, Widya said, adding that Marxism was a common subject of campus discussion, given that it was part of the social and political studies course.
However, Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister Muhammad Nasir told the Post on Thursday that Marxism was banned in all campuses in the country.
It cannot be taught as a university subject. Every campus has to abide by the law, Nasir said, adding that Marxism was not in line with core values that embody the belief in God principle, outlined in the Constitution.
The ministrys director-general for academic and student affairs, Intan Achmad, said he was unaware that Marxism had become a subject at the university.
Meanwhile, National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar said it was the polices job to handle communist-related events, not the FPIs.
The FPI should not act as vigilantes toward any event related to communism, Boy told the Post on Thursday.
Separately, Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM) researcher Andi Mutaqqien said Article 219 of the Criminal Code, which stipulates that advocating communism is a crime, was open to interpretation.
Not every seminar on communism intends to advocate the ideology, Andi said.
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Linkedin ELAINE KURTENBACH, AP Business Writer AKIU, Japan (Associated Press) Akiu, Japan Sat, May 21, 2016
The Group of Seven major economies showed a united front on fighting terrorist financing and tax evasion in talks that ended Saturday, but shied away from coordinated action on policies to revive stalling growth.
An "action plan" issued after the talks by G7 finance ministers and central bank governors at a hot springs hotel in northern Japan called for increased exchanges of information on financial intelligence, reducing the level of cross-border transactions subject to disclosure and collaborating on targeted sanctions for terrorists' financial networks, including freezing assets.
"There's a moment for reflecting, for putting forward ideas, for comparing them, and then comes the moment for action. This is where we are today," said France's finance minister, Michel Sapin, whose country has suffered devastating attacks in the past few years.
The talks in Akiu, to be followed by a G7 summit in central Japan's Ise region next week, started out with a brainstorming session on how best to use monetary policy, government spending and longer-term reforms to help support growth.
But they ended with countries stressing the need for varying strategies for boosting growth.
Most of the governments of the G7 favor more pro-active government spending to help support flagging growth and spur demand, while Germany has remained more conservative on fiscal matters, regarding structural reforms as crucial.
US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the lack of coordinated action, in the absence of a crisis, was natural, given the varying conditions and resources in each country.
"We each have unique challenges that have to be addressed, so it's not one-size-fits-all," Lew said. "Different times require different responses. We're not in 2008 or 2009."
Lew did express concern, however, over Japan's plan to raise its sales tax, to 10 percent from the current 8 percent, in April 2017.
"Each of us needs to take policy actions that given the conditions in our country are most likely to produce more demand and more growth," Lew said, adding that while the decision is up to Japan, "We'd be quite concerned about taking steps that would put a drag on the economy."
Aso, who has said the tax hike will go ahead unless there is a major crisis or disaster, also acknowledged differences with the UA over such issues as exchange rates.
"I met with Secretary Lew and we didn't have a heated discussion. We had a normal conversation," Aso said. "We have to say what we think to each other because that's our jobs. It's normal to exchange views and that helps ensure things will not go awry because issues become too emotional."
Lew stressed that he hoped G7 members would honor commitments made during recent discussions in China by the wider Group of 20 major economies, where members pledged to not manipulate exchange rates to their own advantage.
A recent rise in the value of the Japanese yen against the US dollar is adding to pressures on Japanese companies who had reaped record profits as the yen weakened in recent years, fattening earnings brought back to Japan in yen terms. While reiterating a pledge not to engage in "competitive devaluations," Aso has chafed at recent moves in the yen's value, hinting at the possibility of intervention if they become too "disorderly."
"Instability and disorderly movements can have ... implications for financial stability," he said.
The talks also touched on nonfinancial risks to growth, such as the refugee crisis, terrorism and a looming referendum in Britain over whether or not to leave the European Union. Such a move is viewed as likely to cause major disruptions both in Europe and in global financial markets.
The World Bank, whose president, Jim Yong Kim, is attending the talks, took the opportunity to launch a financing mechanism for insuring risks from pandemics. Japan pledged the first $50 million to fund the $500 million initiative.
The talks also explored ways to improve the "integrity" of global financial flows, especially following the release of the so-called "Panama Papers," which disclosed details of offshore companies set up for wealthy individuals and companies by the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. Companies registered in tax havens are often used for legitimate business purposes, but also can facilitate tax evasion and money laundering.
"In a positive sense, the Panama Papers have acted as a sort of tail wind" for efforts to crack down on tax avoidance, Aso said.
Sapin, the French finance minister, said the group also made progress on how to help Greece resolve its dire troubles over its debt, most of which is owed to European creditors.
"Until everything is decided, we can't consider it done, but I think all the elements for an agreement are today on the table," Sapin said. "The observation we can make is that Greece is keeping its obligations."
Apart from Japan and the U.S., the G7 countries include Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy. (bbn)
Associated Press writer Emily Wang contributed to this report.
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Linkedin thejakartapost.com (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 21, 2016
The Golkar Party has hinted it may support Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama in the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election.
The signals are in that direction [supporting Ahok]. But the talks have not finished yet, Golkar politician Nurul Arifin said in Jakarta on Friday, as reported by kompas.com.
She said her party would assess the peoples aspirations before deciding on the candidate it would support ahead of the 2017 election.
The possibility of Golkar supporting Ahok became apparent following the election of Setya Novanto as party chairman at a recent Golkar congress in Bali.
Previously, Setya has praised Ahoks performance, saying the governor had made a number of breakthroughs to solve problems in the capital. He said his party may support Ahok to seek reelection next year.
Golkar always supports the one who is the best, Setya added.
Ahok, who has declared himself an independent candidate, also claimed he had won support from Golkars youth organizations. Currently, the incumbent is supported by the NasDem Party and the Hanura Party.
Nurul admitted that her party had sought input from various parties on supporting Ahok due to positive responses to the performance of the former East Belitung regent.
According to a recent Cyrus Network survey, Ahok is the most popular candidate at present. In comparison to other gubernatorial hopefuls, Ahoks popularity was typically over 60 percent. The exceptions where when comparing the Jakarta governor to Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil or Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini, when Ahok garnered 57.1 percent and 57.9 percent, respectively.
Golkar wants to stand behind Ahok if people tend to have positive responses to his administration, Nurul added. (bbn)
China Calls on US to Immediately Stop Flying Spy Plane Near Hainan
U.S. fighter jets are put on standby at a U.S. aircraft carrier near the South China Sea. (Photo : Reuters)
Following the confirmed encounter with a U.S. Navy EP-3 spy plane near Hainan Island earlier this week, China has called on the United States on Thursday, May 19, to "immediately stop close-in reconnaissance actions in the area.
China Daily reported that spy flights conducted in the past have resulted in clashes, which also affected the relationship between the two countries.
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The report said that the collision in 2001 between a Chinese PLA Navy J-8 fighter jet and a U.S. Navy EP-3 spy plane near Hainan Island had resulted in the death of Chinese pilot Wang Wei.
A Reuters report quoted a Pentagon statement released on Wednesday, May 18, which claimed that the two Chinese fighter jets made an "unsafe" intercept of a U.S. military reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea on Tuesday, May 17.
"We have information from the departments concerned, and what the U.S. side has said is untrue," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said on Thursday, May 19.
According to Hong, the two Chinese military airplanes "followed and monitored it in accordance with laws and regulations" and "maintained a safe distance" from it, referring to the U.S. plane that conducted a close-in reconnaissance on Tuesday, May 17.
"China's operations subscribed to professional and security standards," he added.
"The U.S. military warships and aircraft have conducted close-in reconnaissance with high frequency for a long time, posing a serious threat to China's maritime and airspace security," Hong said.
U.S. military presence in the South China Sea is seen to continue in the future to keep political pressure on China and enhance U.S. strategy in the region, observers said.
While it is part of the U.S. to keep tension in the region, it is a natural reaction for Chinese forces to verify and identify approaching U.S. planes and warships, according to Zhang Junshe, a senior researcher at the PLA Naval Military Studies Research Institute.
"But the U.S. has preferred blaming its provoked targets before the targets publicly react, and the U.S. aircraft pilots tend to impose belligerence," Zhang said. "Such spy flights are one of the root causes of danger."
Meanwhile, Zhao Xiaozhuo, a researcher at the Center on China-America Defense Relations at the PLA Academy of Military Science, said it would take a long time for the two countries to tackle the security issues.
"The U.S. toughness militarily is backed by domestic public opinion and congressional voices," Zhao noted.
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Linkedin Tassia Sipahutar (The Jakarta Post) Sochi, Russia Sat, May 21, 2016
Business partnership between Indonesia and Russia marks a new high with companies from both countries on track to seal a business deal worth total of US$15.8 billion on oil refinery and power plant projects.
Indonesias and Russias oil and gas giants Pertamina and Rosneft will sign a $13.8 billion deal to develop Tuban refinery in East Java, which is crucial in the countrys drive to reduce reliance on oil imports.
There is a strong interest from both countries to grow the partnership, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a joint press conference after meeting with President Joko Jokowi Widodo in Sochi, Russia, mulling a potential free trade zone.
He also unveiled an investment interest from Russias Inter RAO for 1.8 gigawatt power plant projects worth $2.8 billion. Russias transportation and infrastructure firm JSC Russian Railways (RZD) is also interested in developing a passenger rail track in East Kalimantan, according to Indonesian government officials.
Putin met with Jokowi ahead of the two-day ASEAN-Russia Summit that begins on Thursday.
We agreed to boost Russias investment in Indonesia, in the sectors of maritime, infrastructure such as railway and port in Kalimantan, oil, energy and electricity, said Jokowi.
Russias investment in Indonesia at the end of 2015 stood merely at $1 million, out of the total $29.27 billion foreign direct investment coming into the country. The figure is also lower than the $3.6 million investment in 2014.
On Friday, Jokowi and an Indonesian delegation met with Rosneft, which controls more than 40 percent of Russias oil production, marking a new beginning for both countries business relations, as well as for the Tuban block and Pertamina. The official business agreement will be signed on Thursday in Jakarta.
Pertamina previously held a beauty contest that included Saudi Arabias Aramco, Kuwaits Petroleum International, Chinas Sinopec, Indias Indian Oil and a consortium consisting of Thailands PTT Global Chemical Public Company and Thai Oil.
With a new refinery to be developed with Rosneft, Pertamina seeks to produce around 300,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd). The firms will establish a joint venture (JV) for the partnership, with Pertamina holding a 55 percent stake and Rosneft controlling the remaining 45 percent.
The President wants the joint venture to be created before yearend and to establish a storage at the site. Rosneft said that it was committed to making Tuban a regional hub, State-Owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno told a group of journalists after the meeting.
Construction of the refinery is expected to begin in late 2017 or early 2018. Rosneft will be given a 40-year land development permit that can be extended for additional 10 years.
In addition to the refinery construction, next weeks agreement will also pave the way for Pertamina to work on Rosnefts oil fields in Russia.
They are committed to enable Pertamina participate in two to three oil fields, preferably in the eastern part, so that we can ship the oil more easily to Indonesia and realize our strategic petroleum reserves plan, Rini said.
The oil fields, she added, should have reserves of minimum 200 million barrels to allow daily production of 35,000 barrels.
In the meeting with Rosnefts top executives , Jokowi was accompanied by Rini, Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution, Trade Minister Thomas Lembong, Pertamina president director Dwi Soetjipto and Indonesian Ambassador to Russia M. Wahid Supriyadi.
Business Council for Cooperation with Indonesia (RBIC) executive director Mikhail Kouritsyin and Russian Ambassador to Indonesia Mikhail Galuzin were present as well.
Meanwhile, the Indonesian government will assign railway operator PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) to look into the possibilities of establishing a passenger rail track in East Kalimantan province, in partnership with Russian transportation and infrastructure firm JSC Russian Railways (RZD).
Russian Railways has secured a specific permit to develop a rail track in the province, with the original intent to transport coal. However, as coal price remains low, the company is now looking to shift the track use to transporting passengers instead.
But such a change requires a different permit, which is a general permit. We need time to look into this, Rini said, after attending a meeting with Russian Railways on Thursday.
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Linkedin Tassia Sipahutar (The Jakarta Post) The Jakarta Post/Sochi, Russia Sat, May 21, 2016
Indonesias attempts to upgrade its military deterrence are on track, as progress is seen in talks for the purchase of advanced Russian defense equipment and the joint production of ammunition and arms.
During a meeting between Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Jokowi presented the countrys shopping list, which includes Kilo-class submarines and Sukhois Su-35 multi-role jet fighters.
Indonesia also has plans for the construction of a maintenance center for the purchased weaponry systems and the joint production of ammunition and other weapons in Indonesia.
We are in talks to purchase the submarines, but, of course, there are requirements we still need to address, said Indonesian Ambassador to Russia M. Wahid Supriyadi, adding that there would be follow-up talks between Indonesian Defense Ministry officials and their Russian counterparts.
The diesel-electric Kilo class is an attack submarine primarily designed for anti-ship and anti-submarine operations in relatively shallow waters.
Feverish economic growth in Asia has made the security of sea lanes a vital matter, and regional naval powers are in a race to expand their undersea missile capabilities through the purchase of advanced submarines.
Despite being the worlds biggest archipelago, Indonesia has only two outdated submarines in operation. It is expecting to soon receive three more from South Korea, but with inferior technology to those of the Kilo class.
Since 2007, Indonesia has been in talks with Russia to buy at least two Kilo-class vessels, but progress has been slow until the recent meeting between Jokowi and Putin in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, ahead of the ongoing third ASEANRussian summit.
The head of Russias arms export agency, Alexander Fomin, said Russia would like to produce military munition in Indonesia, including shells, Reuters reported.
He added that Indonesia was interested in Russian submarines and jets. However, Russia has rivals, such as the US and China.
Russia, the worlds second-largest arms exporter after the US, plans to sell arms worth US$14 billion this year, according to Reuters. Russias total portfolio of arms orders currently stands at more than $50 billion.
The talks between Jokowi and Putin were proceeded by the signing of Memorandum of Understanding between Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi and her counterpart Sergei Lavrov at the Bocharov Ruchei, the Russian presidents official residence, late on Wednesday.
The agreement facilitates the exchange of intelligence data, collaboration in science and technology, and the establishment of joint industrial facilities.
We have agreed to widen contacts between defense ministries and security agencies, Putin said at a joint briefing with Jokowi.
The signed MoU is a follow-up to the 2003 comprehensive strategic partnership agreement between Indonesia and Russia.
It is to accommodate the needs of our military. It seems that their needs are in line with what Russia has, said Retno, adding that Russia had always been responsive to Indonesia.
Amid economic sanctions imposed by Western countries, Russias expansion in its ties with Indonesia provides a sign of relief.
The cooperation has also lifted Russias leverage, as it receives acceptance from Indonesia, a major Asian country, said Tirta Mursitama, head of the department of international relations at Bina Nusantara University.
From a geopolitical perspective, Indonesia and Russia are trying to lift their bargaining power at the global and regional levels with this defense cooperation.
Aside from defense issues, Jokowi also discussed trade and investment matters with Putin and held oneon-one meetings with executives of several companies, such as infrastructure and transportation firm Russian Railways and investment firm Vi Holding Group.
Data from the Indonesian Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) reveal that most Russian investment is in the mining sector.
Its realized investments reached a paltry $1.01 million last year, which Retno said was below the potential Indonesia and Russia had.
Weve suggested that Russia diversify its investment in Indonesia, and they seem to be interested, said Retno.
HASYIM WIDHIARTO CONTRIBUTED TO THIS STORY
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Linkedin Hamza Hendawi and Raphael Satter (Associated Press) Cairo Sat, May 21, 2016
Smoke was detected in multiple places on EgyptAir flight 804 moments before it plummeted into the Mediterranean, but the cause of the crash that killed all 66 on board remains unclear, the French air accident investigation agency said on Saturday.
Agency spokesman Sebastien Barthe told The Associated Press in Paris that the plane's automatic detection system sent messages indicating smoke a few minutes before the plane disappeared from radar while flying over the east Mediterranean early on Thursday morning.
The messages, he explained, "generally mean the start of a fire," but he added: "We are drawing no conclusions from this. Everything else is pure conjecture."
The industry publication Aviation Herald also reported that sensors detected smoke in the plane's lavatory, suggesting a fire onboard.
Looking for clues to whether terrorists may have brought down the Airbus A320, investigators have been poring over the passenger list and questioned ground crew members at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, from which the plane took off.
The Airbus A320 had been cruising normally in clear skies on a nighttime flight to Cairo early Thursday when it suddenly lurched left, then right, spun all the way around and plummeted 38,000 feet (11,582.4 meters) into the sea, never issuing a distress signal.
Search crews, meanwhile, are scouring for further wreckage of the aircraft. Experts said answers will come only with an examination of the wreckage and the plane's cockpit voice and flight data recorders, commonly known as black boxes.
Planes and vessels from Egypt and five other countries Greece, Britain, France, the United States and Cyprus continued searching a wide area of the eastern Mediterranean on Saturday, a day after the Egyptian army found debris from the passenger jet in the sea 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of the Egyptian port city of Alexandria.
The waters in the area are 8,000 to 10,000 feet deep (2,440 to 3,050 meters), and the pings from the black boxes can be detected up to a depth of 20,000 feet (6 kilometers).
Egyptian authorities said they believe terrorism is a more likely explanation than equipment failure, and some aviation experts have said the erratic flight suggests a bomb blast or a struggle in the cockpit. But so far no hard evidence has emerged.
No militant group has claimed to have brought down the aircraft. That is a contrast to the downing of a Russian jet in October over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula that killed all 224 on board. In that case, the Islamic State group's branch in Sinai issued a claim of responsibility within hours. On Friday, IS issued a statement on clashes with the Egyptian military in Sinai, but said nothing about the plane crash.
Three European security officials said on Friday that the passenger manifest for Flight 804 contained no names on terrorism watch lists. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation. The manifest was leaked online and has not been verified by the airline.
Further checks are being conducted on relatives of the passengers.
French aviation investigators have begun to check and question all baggage handlers, maintenance workers, gate agents and other ground crew members at Charles de Gaulle Airport who had a direct or indirect link to the plane before it took off, according to a French judicial official. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
In Paris, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault was meeting Saturday with family members of the passengers and crew aboard the EgyptAir flight.
Ayrault, who is being joined by diplomats and investigators, said Friday the meeting at the Foreign Ministry would be aimed at giving family members as much information as possible.
"The whole truth, nothing but the truth," he was quoted as saying by broadcaster BFMTV. "We owe it to the families." (bbn)
Satter and Associated Press writer Angela Charlton contributed to this report from Paris.
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Linkedin Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 21, 2016
Wregas Bhanutedja is a 23-year-old director who recently became the first-ever Indonesian to win a Cannes Film Festival award with his short movie Prenjak/In The Year Of The Monkey.
Teaming up with his high-school buddies and girlfriend, Wregas came out on top at the prestigious festival with the Leica Cine Discovery prize an award from the Critics' Week category granted to new talents in short movies.
"We believed that what we did this year would be big. This Year of the Fire Monkey is our year," said Wregas, adding that he and his friends were born in 1992, which was also a Year of the Monkey.
According to the Chinese shio (zodiac), people born in a Year of the Monkey will succeed in this Year of the Fire Monkey.
So who is Wregas, this new rising talent?
For Indonesian cinema followers, Wregas is not a new face as he has been involved in several silver-screen movies, like Sokola Rimba (Jungle School) and Ada Apa Dengan Cinta 2 (What's Up With Cinta 2) both created by the prominent and dynamic producer-director duo of Mira Lesmana and Riri Reza.
Before working on big movies, Wregas, along with his magical ideas, garnered prizes in several local and international competitions for his short movies, which often carry deep messages in their lighthearted plots.
His short movie Lembusura, for example, made him the youngest director at the 2015 Berlinale Film Festival with a story inspired by the Javanese legend of the Mount Kelud eruption, better known as Lembu Sura.
"I had been wondering when I could walk the red carpet at a prestigious film festival. Surprisingly, I finally made it last year when I was still 22 years old," Wregas told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
Several months after the Berlin festival, Wregas walked another red carpet for the 2015 Hong Kong International Film Festival because of Lembusura.
His name registered again at the 2016 Hong Kong Festival for two short movies, Lembusura and The Floating Chopin. The latter is a short he made during a vacation in Yogyakarta with his girlfriend Ersya Ruswandono, who is also a young moviemaker.
Wregas, a graduate of the Jakarta Arts Institutes (IKJ) School of Film and Television, took his first steps in moviemaking when he was just a 12th grader, creating his first short movie entitled Dagen Van Java, dedicated to his junior high school SMP Stella Duce 1 in Dagen, Yogyakarta.
He explored his potential as a moviemaker more deeply when he attended boys high school SMA Kolese De Britto in Yogyakarta, where he joined extracurricular activities in cinematography. There, he created several short movies and began to enter competitions.
Also during high school, he began connecting with friends who were enthusiastic about movies, arts and literature.
Six years later, in early 2016, Wregas and some of his high-school buddies decided to establish a creative community space in Sosrowijayan, Yogyakarta, called Studio Batu, where they eventually had the idea of interpreting a Yogyakarta cultural practice dating back to the 1980s through Prenjak which is also the Indonesian name for bar-winged prinia birds.
On the art space's wall, they wrote Cannes in bold lettering before they proceeded with the shoot, which only took two days due to their tight work and study schedules.
Three days before the registration closed, the Prenjak team submitted the project to the 2016 Cannes Film Festival with the hope that the movie would at least be screened at the event.
Hence, the announcement on Thursday of Prenjaks win certainly created butterflies in the stomachs of all Studio Batu members, who at the time were separated across various cities and countries.
The win has encouraged them to create more work together, despite their different jobs and study commitments. They plan to make longer films in the future.
Prenjak was one of two Indonesian films at Cannes this year.
The 12-minute short movie centers around widow Diah, who offers a single matchstick for Rp 10,000 (73 US cents) to a man named Jarwo during her lunch break at work. At the same time, Diah offers a more interesting deal, in which Jarwo would have the opportunity to take a peek at Diah's body by lightning up the match in a dark place.
Her offers are meant simply to make money.
"Why is Diah so desperate for money? Well, you will have to find out the answer by yourself by watching the film," said Wregas.
The other Indonesian movie represented at the festival was a dramatic thriller entitled Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts the only movie from Southeast Asia in the LAtelier Cinefondation category.
LAtelier is a program under Cinefondation that aims to connect young moviemakers, producers and international distributors.
The movie, directed by Mouly Surya, features a woman in Sumba who decapitates a man and takes his head on a journey after he and his friends rob her home. (dmr)
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Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Sat, May 21, 2016
In view of public displays of radicalism in the name of Islam, the countrys second largest Muslim organization, Muhammadiyah, has declared such extreme ways of expressing religiosity to be against Islamic teachings and that the organization did not support any such practices.
Having radical thinking is all right. What makes it dangerous is when one applies it to violent acts and causes harm to people, Muhammadiyah deputy chairman Muhadjir Effendy said at the organizations headquarters on Friday.
Muhammadiyah, Muhadjir claimed, guaranteed that none of the preachers and mosques under its supervision would propagate any inflammatory sermons that would expose Muslims to extremism and terrorism.
We are sure that our preachers can differentiate between radical Islam and the real Islam. So, they will not deliver provocative sermons that preach radical thinking, Muhadjir said.
Indonesia is the largest Muslim majority country in the world, but as claimed by the chief of the National Counterterrorism Agency, Comr. Gen. Tito Karnavian, Indonesia is also a country that is the capital of terrorism in Southeast Asia, pointing to the Indonesian Islamic Group (NII) as one of the regions first groups to spread radical propaganda and the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist organization.
Muhadjir said young generations had to be informed about the radical thinking of militant groups to make them understand and avoid it when they grow older.
Schools are the proper place to teach about [the countrys ideology] and inform students about radicalism so that they wont even think about being terrorists because I see that most of the terrorists reject the countrys principles and ideology, Muhadijr said.
He added that since the beginning, Muhammadiyah had declared itself as an Islam-based organization that supports Indonesias ideology and the unitary state of Indonesia.
Next week, Muhammadiyah would hold an event called Konvensi Nasional Indonesia Berkemajuan (National Convention on Indonesian Advancement) at the Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta University, Yogyakarta on May 23 and 24.
The events participants are to discuss radicalism in politics and the law on the second day of the convention, which would have various speakers from religious and non-religious backgrounds.
Earlier in April, Sarwani, an exmember of NII, said that terrorists had targeted the younger generation, who mostly are students from well-recognized universities in the country. He added that some suicide bombers are university students.
Sarwani said recruiters would indoctrinate students to fight for a new ideology for the country, in specific reference to Islamic sharia.
The rector of Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta University, Bambang Cipto, said he felt honored that his university would be the host of the convention.
I hope the convention will produce positive results for the country as it is expected to provide input to the country in many fields, such as politics and culture, Bambang said. (wnd)
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Linkedin thejakartapost.com (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 21, 2016
In response to low-cost airline operator Lion Air Group filing a complaint about the Transportation Ministrys alleged improper sanctions against it, the ministry will not be making a fuss, a top official has said.
No worries, Jonan said in Jakarta on Friday. He said that Lion had every right to judge decisions and lodge complaints to the police.
Everyone has the right, he said as quoted by tribunnews.com.
Jonan has also reportedly replaced Soekarno-Hatta International Airport head Muzaffar Ismail with Herson. Muzaffar was in charge of the investigation into the mishandling of passengers from Lion Air flight JT161 from Singapore.
Pak Muzaffar has been replaced by Pak Herson, a former Medan airport head, said the ministrys spokesman, Hemi Pramuraharjo, as quoted by kompas.com. Muzaffar will take Hersons post at the Kualanamu Airport in Medan, North Sumatra.
Hemi was reluctant to disclose the reason behind the replacement, saying the decision was made by Minister Jonan. This is all the ministers call, Hemi said.
The Transportation Ministry has imposed two sanctions on Lion Air for two separate incidents within a matter of days, namely freezing its ground-handling permit at Soekarno Hatta International Airport and prohibiting it from opening new routes for six months.
The ministry stated that the sanctions were given to allow the airline time to improve its management, as recently Lion has experienced massive delays at various airports along with delivering passengers to the wrong terminal.
However, Lion Air is of the view that the hasty move to impose sanctions was not done in accordance with proper procedure.
In response to the sanctions, the airline will take legal action by reporting the ministrys director general of air transportation Suprasetyo to the National Police on Monday for abuse of authority, and also file an official rejection letter with regard to the sanctions.
The new turn of events will put prospective air passengers in limbo, as uncertainty arises over the immediate future of the airline that still dominates the domestic market.
The [sanctions] did not come through the proper process, such as issuing a warning first. So we think that we are the victim of a small conspiracy that could affect our service to passengers, Lion Air general affairs director Edward Sirait said.
The has airline pledged to operate normally, despite the frozen ground-handling permit, and stated that it would internally review its ground service.
As Lions ground-handling company at Soekarno Hatta International Airport is actually part of the Lion Group, the company stated that it would use a legal loophole to shift employees affected by the sanctions to other operations under the same company group.
That is actually permitted, because it is allowed for in the air operation certificate [AOC], Edward said.
Lion Air currently serves 183 flight routes both domestically and internationally, with a total of 500 daily flights.
Lion Air is part of the Lion Air Group, together with Wings Air, Batik Air and Malindo Air, based in Malaysia, and Thai Lion Air, based in Thailand.
It is owned by businessman and politician Rusdi Kirana, the countrys 12th richest person according to Forbes. Rusdi currently serves as deputy chairman of the National Awakening Party (PKB), a party that supports President Joko Jokowi Widodos administration.
Lions track record over the years has been marred by various incidents, delays and cases of mismanagement that have cost the airline various permits. However, it has not affected demand for the carrier, with a dominating 45 percent market share being owned by the Lion Air Group. (dmr)
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Linkedin thejakartapost.com (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 21, 2016
Resolving the 1965 tragedy is the government's first priority as the long-neglected case has grabbed the negative attention of the international community.
"This is our first priority as the case has been an international issue. Moreover, in the Netherlands, there were Indonesians and foreigners who tried to arbitrate over Indonesia. So don't let the country be bullied once again by the international world about this," Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said in Jakarta on Friday.
In April, the government sponsored a two-day symposium in which the organizers invited various parties to speak out about their versions of the 1965 tragedy, which was marked by the purge of at least 500,000 members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and its sympathizers and supporters.
The organizers of the event had submitted recommendations to the government on how to resolve the problem.
However, several retired generals have shown dissatisfaction over the event, planning to hold their own symposium on June 1 and 2 as they feel the event failed to provide equal composition in terms of the committee members and the speakers.
"There is no one we didn't invite. If some people refused to attend it, it's their problem," Luhut said, referring to the symposium in April.
While the government expressed a commitment to solve the 1965 tragedy, Luhut, however, deplored the action of human rights activists, including Nursyahbani Katjasungkana and Todung Mulya Lubis, who initiated the International People's Tribunal on the 1965 tragedy, held from Nov. 10 to 13 last year in The Hague, the Netherlands, marking the 50th anniversary of the tragedy.
"Nursyahbani and Todung's nationality needs to be tested, having seen them going all the way to Netherlands to arbitrate over their own country," Luhut added. (vps/bbn)
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Linkedin Vldimir Isachenkov (Associated Press) Moscow Sat, May 21, 2016
The Russian defense minister proposed on Friday that Russia and the U.S.-led coalition launch joint action against al-Qaida's branch in Syria, known as the Nusra Front.
A spokesman for the U.S. State Department said no agreement on such action has been made with Russia.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Moscow had proposed to Washington that the coalition call on all factions eager to abide by a cease-fire in Syria to leave the areas where the al-Qaida branch is active by May 25. Then Russia and the U.S.-led coalition could conduct joint strikes against the Nusra Front and any other groups refusing to honor the truce, Shoigu suggested.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said "there is no agreement to conduct joint airstrikes with the Russians in Syria" but added Washington and Moscow are discussing "proposals for a sustainable mechanism to better monitor and enforce the cessation of hostilities."
Earlier, Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis would not comment directly on the proposal, which he said has not been formally presented to the United States. But he said the U.S. military is not cooperating or collaborating on operations with Russia in Syria except to maintain airspace safety.
"Russian operations are supporting the Assad regime and our focus is solely on degrading and defeating ISIL," he said, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State.
Shoigu warned that Moscow reserves the right to unilaterally strike militants refusing to respect the cease-fire, as well as weapons and militants crossing into Syria from Turkey, starting from May 25.
Russia long has accused Turkey of serving as a conduit for weapons and supplies flowing to the Islamic State and the Nusra Front claims which Ankara has denied.
The U.S.-Russia-brokered cease-fire, which went into effect in late February, has helped reduce violence in Syria, but it has been steadily eroding. The Nusra Front and its much more powerful rival, the Islamic State group, have been excluded from the cease-fire, and Russia long has pushed for excluding other militant groups in Syria that have cooperated with the al-Qaida affiliate.
Shoigu said the Russian proposal should help secure the cease-fire, adding that Moscow has coordinated it with Damascus. He claimed that the Russian military has started discussing the idea with the U.S. representatives.
Meanwhile in Syria, rebels and pro-government forces fought on several fronts on Friday after the Syrian army, backed by the Lebanese Hezbollah militant group, managed to seize valuable territory around the capital, Damascus.
Activists reported continued fighting in the Ghouta suburbs of Damascus with warplanes belonging to either Russia or the Syrian military intensifying airstrikes on the besieged, rebel-held area of Daraya.
Airstrikes on a rebel-held village in the northwest Idlib province killed at least eight civilians, according to the Local Coordination Committees group. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another group that tracks the Syrian war, said nine had died, including two children and three women.
The Observatory also raised its death toll from airstrikes Thursday on rebel-held villages in the central Homs province to 22 civilians.
Since the Russian military campaign began last September in an effort to shore up Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces in their battle against Islamic militants, Moscow has staunchly denied that its warplanes have hit any civilian areas in Syria.
Also Friday, ultraconservative rebel factions and government forces clashed in the central Hama province around the predominantly Alawite town of Zaara, which al-Qaida-linked militants seized from government control last week. The Observatory said both sides suffered casualties in the fighting.
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Associated Press Writers Deb Riechmann in Washington, Matthew Lee in Brussels and Philip Issa in Beirut contributed to this report.
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Linkedin Haeril Halim/ Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 21, 2016
Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo always has his own way of explaining the reasons behind the continual delays of the third round of executions of death row inmates despite the already well-managed preparations at the execution site on the Nusakambangan prison island in Central Java.
From late last year until recent times, the former grandee of the progovernment Nasdem Party cited a number of reasons, including the slowing economy, the need to maintain bilateral harmony and ongoing legal processes, for delaying the executions. On Thursday he argued that it was unethical to conduct the executions within the next two months because of the preparations being made by the country to observe Ramadhan, which is scheduled to begin on June 6. Ramadhan will run until July 7, after which Muslims nationwide will celebrate Idul Fitri on July 8 and 9 to mark the end of the holy month.
Prasetyo assured the public that no executions would be done before or during Ramadhan, with the most probable firm date of execution to be decided after Idul Fitri.
If it is before Lebaran [Idul Fitri] then it means during the fasting month. Conducting executions during the holy month will not sound right, Prasetyo told reporters, adding that he did not yet know when after Idul Fitri the Attorney Generals Office (AGO) would officially set the execution date.
Although the government has announced that the third round of executions is on the way, the schedule and list of those to be executed are not yet available, causing anxiety among inmates, their lawyers and anti-death-penalty campaigners. The only available information on the executions comes from the Central Java Police, which has claimed to have readied 150 executioners to shoot 10 foreigners from China (4), Nigeria (2), Pakistan (1), Senegal (2) and Zimbabwe (1), in addition to five Indonesians, on the isolated Island.
However, Prasetyo did not clarify nor confirm the figure, stating that his office had yet to officially issue the date of the executions and the names as well as number of death row inmates who will face the firing squads.
Well, what I can say is that on [May] 25th there will be another inmate who will file for a case review, Prasetyo said of another possible barrier that may cause a delay for the third round of executions.
AGO spokesman Amir Yanto emphasized that Filipino drug convict Mary Jane Veloso, who at least temporarily escaped execution last year when her alleged boss was arrested in the Philippines and the local authorities requested the Indonesia government reopen the case, and Indonesian drug kingpin Freddy Budiman would not be on the list that would be announced by the AGO.
Mary [Jane Veloso] is needed by the Philippine authorities to solve a human trafficking case [involving her], while the case review hearing of [Freddy] is ongoing, Amir said.
Recently, the Supreme Court rejected case review pleas filed by four Chinese nationals: Chen Hongxin, Jian Yuxin, Gan Chunyi and Zhu Xuxiong. It remains unclear whether the four were the Chinese nationals mentioned by Central Java Police.
The four Chinese men were found guilty of drug trafficking following a 2005 police raid on what was dubbed at the time Southeast Asias largest illicit drug factory in Banten, along with Frenchman Serge Areski Atlaoui, who also escaped execution last year because of an 11th-hour attempt by his lawyer to file for a case review, which was eventually rejected by the Supreme Court.
Velosos lawyer Agus Salim said his client was scheduled to be questioned by the Philippine authorities for the human trafficking case in the near future.
I dont know when the interrogation will take place, but both the Indonesian and the Philippine governments have arranged the questioning session for my client, he told The Jakarta Post.
Supreme Court spokesman Suhadi said he did not know how many death row inmates had appealed for clemency from the President.
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Linkedin Erika Anindita Dewi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 21, 2016
Ahead of the tax amnesty draft bill deliberation meeting slated for May 23, various political party factions have proposed that a higher-percentage penalty be imposed on tax evaders in exchange for redemption.
Ten factions of the House of Representatives will deliberate the problems and proposals that each faction puts forward on Monday with the Finance Minister Bambang S. Brodjonegoro.
The ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) has stressed that the program must be applied just once, and must fairly respect the obedience demonstrated by most taxpayers.
"On tariffs, we propose a rise. The faction's meeting initially proposed the rates of 5, 10 and 15 percent, but they may get changed 5, 8, and 10 percent," said Hendrawan Supratikno, secretary of the PDI-P faction at the House complex, in Jakarta on Thursday.
Article 3 of the draft bill lists three options for penalizing tax evaders: 2, 4 and 6 percent.
The 2 percent penalty is for tax evaders who submit their tax amnesty-protected funds-repatriation applications within three months of the implementation of the proposed tax amnesty law. The 4 percent penalty is for those applying during the fourth, fifth and sixth months of the law's implementation, and the 6 percent penalty is for those filing applications after the sixth month of the law's implementation.
Speaking separately, Golkar lawmaker Sarmuji, who sits on the House's Commission XI overseeing banking and finance, said the tax amnesty law must be a part of a wider tax reform.
"Golkar wants a higher tariff than that proposed by the government. We want a tariff of 5 percent and 7.5 percent, for just two batches, per six months," Sarmuji said.
Sarmuji shared a similar stance to Hendrawan on the implementation, saying that the program should not be applied more than once. If applied repeatedly, the program would disrupt the tax system.
The government should revise the 1983 law on general taxation procedures (KUP) before deliberating the tax amnesty draft bill, Sarmuji added.
Important points
The Gerindra Party, which has yet to determine its stance on the tax amnesty draft bill, has considered several important points from the bill.
Kardaya Warnika, Gerindra lawmaker from the Commission XI, said the party's questions were around equality of treatment for obedient taxpayers; the coverage of this program, as the government's focus, he said, had been on taxpayers living abroad and not those living in Indonesia; and the expiry date of the amnesty.
"When we get into a discussion on tariffs, we will propose a higher percentage than that proposed by the PDI-P," Kardaya said after a press conference at Gerindra's faction room at the House complex in Jakarta on Thursday.
Gerindra faction deputy chairman Desmond Junaidi Mahesa also questioned whether the tax amnesty draft bill, targeted at helping close the revenue gap in the state budget, was part of a long-term solution.
"Perhaps this is just a momentary solution. How many taxpayers are really eligible for the remission? Also, the [potential revenue boost] has not been accurately calculated," Desmond said during the press conference. (ags)
Surface Pro 5: Microsoft laplet to be available by June?; Suface Pro 5 to go against MacBook Pro line!
Microsoft Surface Pro 5 release date set June as Surface Pro 4 receives a price cut of $150 (Photo : YouTube/CTNtechnology News)
Microsoft's Surface Pro 4 successor - Surface Pro 5 - is said to hit the shelves prior WWDC 2016 to go against Apple's newest MacBook Pro line.
Apple Inc.'s upcoming Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC 2016) is less than a month away. Apple enthusiasts are without a doubt excited for the event and most of them are already certain that the newest generation Macbook Pros would be unveiled during the WWDC.
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With that being said, avid Microsoft followers are waiting patiently for Apple's leading competitor to announce their plans for the latest version of their laplet line - the Surface Pro 5. It has been more than 6 months since the Surface Pro 4 was made available. Historically, Microsoft releases one Surface Pro product every year, and at this point, it is almost expected that the Surface Pro 5 would be confirmed anytime soon.
Microsoft has remained mum about the details surrounding the Surface Pro 5. Fortunately, leaks of information about the laplet have made their way online. Based on these accounts, the Surface Pro 5 is a gadget worth saving up for.
Specifications
According to PC Advisor, the surface Pro 5 should be powered by the latest generation of Intel processor. At present, it remains uncertain whether Microsoft would go for the Skylake Chip or the upcoming Kaby Lake processor.
Moreover, there are rumors claiming that the Surface Pen that comes with the laplets would undergo some serious upgrades come the Surface Pro 5. The Pen is expected to be equipped with a rechargeable battery that charges automatically when magnetically attached to the Surface Pro.
The Surface Pro 5 is also rumored to be the first device of the line to be equipped with the USB-C port, as the previous versions of the Surface Pro, including the Surface Pro 4, were only equipped with a USB 3.0.
Launch Date and Pricing
Tech Times suggests that the Surface Pro 5 might be announced by October of this year, similar to when its predecessor was unveiled. However, there are persistent rumors claiming that the Microsoft laplet line should be available by next month, just in time to compete with Apple's MacBook Pro line.
Nevertheless, the Surface Pro 5 is expected to be priced similar to the previous versions, and the laplet would be available with different specifications sculpted to fit every need.
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Linkedin Edith M. Lederer (Associated Press) United Nations Sat, May 21, 2016
The most worrying environmental threats facing the world today range from the rise in diseases transmitted from animals to humans to the increasing accumulation of toxic chemicals in food crops as a result of drought and high temperatures, according to a UN report released Friday.
The UN Environment Agency's Frontiers report also highlighted the threat to human health posed by the alarming amount of plastic waste in the oceans, and scientific evidence suggesting that losses and damage from climate change are inevitable, with "profound consequences" for ecosystems, people, assets and economies.
The report emphasizes "the critical relationship between a healthy environment and healthy people," and stresses the importance of combatting global warming by moving to a low-carbon future.
According to the report, the 20th century saw dramatic reductions in ecosystems and biodiversity and equally dramatic increases in the numbers of people and domestic animals inhabiting the Earth.
This increased the opportunity for viruses, bacteria and other pathogenic agents to pass from wild and domestic animals through the environment to cause diseases in people, the report said.
These diseases called "zoonotic" or "zoonoses" diseases include Ebola, bird flu, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Rift Valley fever, West Nile virus and Zika virus, it said.
In the last two decades these emerging diseases have had direct costs of more than $100 billion, the report said, and "if these outbreaks had become human pandemics, the losses would have amounted to several trillion dollars."
According to the report, "around 60 per cent of all infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic as are 75 per cent of all emerging infectious diseases." And "on average, one new infectious disease emerges in humans every four months," it said.
While many zoonotic diseases originate in wildlife, livestock often serve as a bridge, the report said, citing the case of bird flu which first circulated in wild birds, then infected domestic poultry which in turn passed the virus to humans.
As for toxic chemicals in crops, normally plants convert nitrate into amino acids and protein but drought slows the conversion causing nitrates to accumulate and become toxic to animals, the report said.
Worldwide, over 80 plant species are known to cause poisoning from accumulation of nitrates and wheat, barley, maize, millet, sorghum and soybeans are among the crops most susceptible, it said.
"Acute nitrate poisoning in animals can lead to miscarriage, asphyxiation and death," the report said, and it can ruin the livelihoods of small farmers and herders.
Another toxin associated with climate change is hydrogen cyanide or prussic acid that can accumulate in plants such as cassava, flax, maize and sorghum, it said.
Mycotoxins, which are chemical by-products of the growth of mushrooms and other fungi, "can cause severe damage to the health of animals and humans, even at small concentration," the report said. And "mycotoxin-producing fungi infect many crops such as coffee, groundnut, maize, oilseeds, peanut, sorghum, tree nuts and wheat."
Aflatoxins, which are fungal toxins that can cause cancer and stunt fetal growth, are another emerging problem in crops, the report said. (bbn)
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Linkedin Robert Burns (Associated Press) Baghdad Sat, May 21, 2016
Bolstered by US airstrikes, Iraqi ground forces have recaptured the western town of Rutba after Islamic State fighters who had occupied the town for nearly two years fled or put up only light resistance, US military officers said Friday.
Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the top US commander in Baghdad, told reporters Friday that it was an important victory for the Iraqi security forces, even though Rutba is a small town.
MacFarland said that taking Rutba from IS will allow the reopening of the main road from Amman to Baghdad, which he said is a significant economic lifeline for Iraq.
"Although it's a small town, it's an important success for the Iraqi security forces," he said.
Another U.S. officer, Marine Brig. Gen. Bill Mullen, said in a separate interview that the decisive action in Rutba was US airstrikes outside the town that seemed to persuade the Islamic State fighters to flee rather than put up substantial resistance. He said there were an estimated "couple of hundred" IS fighters in Rutba prior to the Iraqi assault and that by the time the Iraqis arrived all but about 30 had fled north to the city of al-Qaim or across the border into Syria.
Col. Steve Warren, spokesman for the US military command in Baghdad, said the Iraqis had sent about 1,000 troops to Rutba. They were a combination of federal police, Sunni tribal fighters, border security forces and members of the Counter-Terrorism Force.
Warren said the Islamic State had used Rutba as a staging area for weaponry and foreign fighters flowing into Iraq.
Beyond the recapturing of Rutba, US officials were focused mainly on preparing Iraqi security forces for an assault on Mosul, which is the Islamic State's main stronghold in Iraq.
MacFarland said the US is pushing the Iraqis to prepare for that step but does not want to move faster than is prudent, given the Iraqis' military and political limitations.
"We don't want to rush them out there and achieve fragile victories," MacFarland told a small group of reporters traveling with Army Gen. Joseph Votel, who was in Iraq on Friday to consult with MacFarland and other U.S. commanders. "We want to make sure that their victories are irreversible."
Asked whether he believes the assault phase of the Mosul operation will be launched before the end of this year, MacFarland said, "I really am reluctant to make predictions."
One factor weighing on the Iraqi campaign is the political paralysis that has gripped the government in Baghdad. Also, the Islamic State has launched a series of deadly attacks in the capital, including suicide car bombings, apparently with the aim of sowing further discord within the government and causing the government to pull some of its forces away from Mosul to help defend Baghdad.
"It's important to make sure that we help keep Baghdad secure," MacFarland said. "It's the center of gravity here. One of the ways we're trying to help the Iraqi security forces is to do that in the most efficient way possible so that it (Baghdad) doesn't become kind of a sinkhole for all of the Iraqi security forces."
He said that "for the most part," Iraqi's political leaders are resisting what he called the temptation to bring significant numbers of Iraqi forces back into the Baghdad area. Already, about half of the Iraqi army is deployed in or near Baghdad.
MacFarland described an Iraqi military leadership of vastly different levels of competence.
"I've seen some pretty dang good leaders actually, surprisingly good, out there in some of the units that I've talked to," he said. Some seem almost as good as the officers in his own forces, he said.
He added: "Other times you look at them and say, 'Eh, this guy may not be cutting it.'" (bbn)
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Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Sat, May 21, 2016
British aero-engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce has been challenged to establish polytechnic training institutions in Indonesia that will be able to train a local workforce for the aero-engine industry.
During a discussion in Jakarta, director general of higher education Patdono Suwignjo said the company needed to create a long-term program in the country, such as specialized polytechnics for aero-engine spare parts and maintenance, instead of only sending lecturers to study abroad.
I have asked Rolls-Royce to establish polytechnics on advanced manufacturing of aircraft and aircraft maintenance, said Patdono as quoted by kompas.com.
"The Swiss government, for instance, has developed several higher education institutions in Indonesia including a manufacturing polytechnic in Bandung that has become one of the best in the country," said Patdono.
(Read also: Indonesia to learn vocational education from Germany: Minister)
Regarding this statement, PT Rolls-Royce Indonesia president director Adrian Short said that the company would continue to support Indonesian education programs and that he would take the matter to headquarters to be discussed.
The plan to have more specialized polytechnics is part of the government's program to revitalize 10 polytechnics around the country in a bid to boost workforce numbers with specialized technical skills. In addition to a diploma, graduates of these institutions will also receive a profession certificate of competence, said Patdono.
So far, the government has revitalized one polytechnic, Ambon State Polytechnic, which has been turned into a specialized mining polytechnic. (mar/kes)
(front page)
A month into strike, Verizon workers reach
for solidarity
NEW YORK Unionists at Verizon entered the second month of their strike standing strong and reaching out for solidarity.
Some 39,000 members of the Communication Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers walked off the job April 13 in nine states and the District of Columbia. Among the issues the unionists are fighting are Verizons plans to close call centers and increase outsourcing, raise health insurance costs and cut pensions.
U.S. District Court Judge Ann Donnelly issued a temporary restraining order May 10 ordering strikers to cease picketing hotels where Verizon houses strikebreakers. A series of actions by strikers employing whistles, air horns, noisemakers and a trombone, along with pressure from unionized hotel workers, have convinced a number of hotel managers to ask the scabs to leave. The petition to block the hotel actions was filed by National Labor Relations Board Regional Director James Paulsen, underlining the non-neutral character of the NLRB.
The Obama administration is intervening in the dispute to press for a settlement. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez convened negotiations between the CWA President Chris Shelton, IBEW President Lonnie Stephenson and Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam in Washington May 15.
Protests at Verizon stores across the country in solidarity with the strikers continue. Most workers at the stores and in Verizons wireless division are not unionized; the strike involves workers in the companys landline, internet and television services.
The CWA is asking other unions to adopt a Verizon store to picket. The New Jersey State AFL-CIO is encouraging affiliates to adopt a store and contribute to the strike fund. The Metro Washington Council AFL-CIO lists Verizon picket lines across the area to attend. And the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO is encouraging unionists to leaflet at three downtown stores.
The Hotel Trades Council here, whose members have joined strikers marches, adopted the picket line at 43rd St. and Lexington Ave, where unionists were loudly urging passersby to boycott Verizon when this reporter joined them May 16. Our members picket every day from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., and well be there until the strike is won," John Turchiano, who edits the hotel workers online magazine, said in a phone interview.
We are one with the 39,000 strong striking workers who walked off their jobs to fight for their rights for decent jobs and benefits," reads a statement by BIEN Philippines, an organization of call center, payroll and other office workers for companies based outside the Philippines.
BIEN invited a delegation from the CWA, including three strikers, to the Philippines for a four-day solidarity tour. They learned that workers in the call centers there are being forced to work overtime answering calls from Verizon customers that are usually answered by workers who are currently on strike. For the same work done by union members in the U.S., the Philippine workers are paid $1.78 an hour. A promise from a Verizon representative for an overtime premium of $1.07 an hour hasnt showed up in their pay.
During the trip the CWA members were joined by BIEN, the May First Movement Labor Center (KMU), and other local labor groups May 11 in picketing a Teletech call center where Verizon calls are answered. Later that day when the group attempted to meet with Verizon officials at their corporate office, they were told to leave and then followed by a private security group, which called a police SWAT team.
(front page)
Join Socialist Workers Party campaigning coast to coast
The Socialist Workers Partys experience in campaigning from Philadelphia to New Jersey to Washington state is that when we go to workers on their doorsteps, they want to discuss what is the way forward," Mary Martin, SWP candidate for governor in Washington, reported May 17. They give a hearing to our partys perspectives and program. Many want to try out our newspaper, the, pick up a book on revolutionary politics from Pathfinder Press, and help us get our party on the ballot."
Martin filed to be on the ballot in Olympia, the state capitol, the same day.
Workers reject President Barack Obamas claim that the U.S. right now has the strongest, most durable economy in the world." They are looking for a way forward out of the grinding depression conditions they face in todays feeble economic recovery including low pay, unsafe working conditions and degrading treatment.
The governments list of what they call NILF people Not In the Labor Force, workers 16 or older who are not employed or actively looking for work increased by over half a million last month to bring the total to 94 million, the highest number ever recorded.
Its in this context that members and supporters of the SWP are taking their revolutionary working-class perspective to workers at their doorsteps and in struggles against the bosses attacks from East Coast Verizon strikers to locked-out aerospace workers in Indiana to warehouse workers fighting firings in Los Angeles and as they put the partys presidential ticket of Alyson Kennedy and Osborne Hart on the ballot.
The SWP is also running candidates for Senate and Congress in California, Minnesota, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Georgia, Florida and the District of Columbia.
Communists find many people who want to join in discussing how the working class can unite and build a powerful movement to organize unions, fight police brutality, defend womens rights and transform ourselves to become capable of displacing the dictatorship of capital and building a new society based on human solidarity.
SWP campaigners have put Kennedy and Hart on the ballot in Colorado, and are prepared to file in Louisiana in July. Ballot drives to get the party out to workers in small towns and big cities are underway in Washington and New Jersey, and begin in Tennessee and Minnesota May 20.
Betsy Farley, a union steelworker and Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Congress in Chicago, joined pickets May 15 in South Bend, Indiana, where aerospace workers, members of United Auto Workers Local 9, have been locked out by Honeywell because they refused to sign a concessions contract. They treat us like were a commodity, like corn or soybeans," electrician John Billington told Farley. Four locked-out workers subscribed to the Militant.
SWP branches are organizing meetings with workers and young people interested in going to the June 16-18 SWP Active Workers Conference in Oberlin, Ohio (see article this page).
Im looking forward to going to the SWP conference because I enjoyed the party forums I went to in Omaha," Chris Steffen, who works in a plastic fabrication plant in Lincoln, Nebraska, told the Militant May 18. As some of us were organizing a demonstration in defense of a womans right to choose abortion at the state capitol here in April, we had a forum where Alexandria Smith, one of the organizers of the protest, and I spoke, and a dozen people took part in the discussion."
Steffen and SWP member Joe Swanson went to a May Day meeting on the fight to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. We raised the need to organize unions as part of winning $15," he said.
Workers fund the Militant
At a May 14-16 meeting to prepare the conference, the SWP National Committee decided to extend the deadline for the partys drive to win readers and contributors to theto May 24 to help branches of the SWP and Communist League sister parties around the world go over the top.
To date 1,435 subscriptions and $94,286 have come in toward the quota of 1,550 subscriptions and $110,000 for the Militant Fighting Fund. The cost of the papers production is sustained by hundreds of contributions every spring.
Twelve readers of the Militant here contributed $621 to the Militant Fighting Fund," Nat London writes from Paris. Five workers on the SNCM ferry boat line in Marseille and a group of temporary workers joined workers at the Peugeot auto plant in Poissy near here to put us over our goal of $450." The workers read French translations of Militant articles sent out each week by supporters in Paris.
Twenty-one prisoners have subscribed during the drive. I feel privileged that the Militant has opened my eyes and educated me to social issues that affect all working classes and struggles that unite us all," a prisoner in New Zealand writes. He said he appreciates books he has gotten from Pathfinder, especially Its the Poor Who Face the Savagery of the US Justice System: The Cuban Five Talk About Their Lives Within the US Working Class.
To join with the Socialist Workers Party in winning workers to a revolutionary perspective, contact a party branch listed in the directory on page 8.
(front page)
Washington launches anti-missile system on
Russian periphery
Washington inaugurated its first ground-based anti-missile system in Europe May 11 in Romania, and broke ground on a second site in Poland the next day. Russian President Vladimir Putin scoffed at U.S. claims the program is defensive and aimed at Iran, not Russia.
They arent defensive systems, they are part of the U.S. strategic nuclear potential deployed on the periphery, in Eastern Europe," Putin said May 13. We will have to think about how we can fend off the threats to the Russian Federations security."
The anti-missile site, which will be run by NATO, is housed at a U.S. naval facility located at a Romanian military base in Deveselu. U.S. Navy Lt. Shawn Eklund told CNN the new facility is capable of firing SM-3 missiles that can intercept short and medium range enemy missiles."
The Polish site is scheduled to be up and running in 2018.
The anti-missile system, officially called the European Phased Adaptive Approach, was initiated by President George W. Bush and so far also includes a radar system in Turkey, a command and control center in Germany and four naval destroyers with Aegis ballistic missiles that operate in the Mediterranean Sea from a base in Spain.
Tensions between the U.S. and Russian governments have been increasing over the last several years, alongside collaboration between the two in trying to stabilize the situation in Syria and President Barack Obamas talk of a reset" in their relations.
Putin boycotted the fourth and final high-level Nuclear Security Summit that Obama hosted in Washington, D.C., March 31 to April 1. The summits ostensibly advance Obamas goal of a world without nuclear weapons." In fact, they have been cover for Washington and Moscow to continue to possess more than 90 percent of the worlds nuclear arsenal, while trying to prevent more nations from acquiring them.
In 2011 Obama signed the New Start treaty with Moscow, which allowed the Russian government to scrap many of its older silo-based nuclear missiles with upgraded mobile ones. According to Time magazine, Russian delegates told U.S. representatives during an informal discussion that of course you guys want a nuclear-free world, because then you would dominate the world with your conventional weapons. Why would we ever want to do that?"
Despite portraying himself as an opponent of nuclear weapons, Obama has been stepping up the modernization of the U.S. arsenal. The Pentagon is planning five new types of nuclear warheads that are part of an atomic revitalization over the next three decades. Last year the U.S. military flight-tested the B61 Model 12 in Nevada. Moscow called the tests openly provocative."
According to Popular Mechanics the B61 has an internal guidance system and a dial-a-yield," meaning that the explosive power of each warhead can be set by the ground crew. The yield could range from 2 percent of the explosive power of the bomb Washington dropped on Hiroshima during World War II up to three times the power of that blast.
The escalation of development of nuclear weapons, whether tactical" or otherwise, and Washingtons provocative anti-missiles shield and other moves increase the risk of a world-threatening conflagration.
In April the Pentagon reported that there have been repeated incidents of Russian aircraft buzzing U.S. planes and ships in the Baltic Sea, Black Sea and other areas around the former Soviet Union.
After one incident in April, Secretary of State John Kerry said under the rules of engagement, that could have been a shoot-down."
Huugjilt (Photo : deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com)
There is a lot of debate on capital punishment, whether by lethal injection or firing squad, in many countries. Those who argue against executing people on death row cite the rising number of cases when higher courts overturn a decision and exonerate a person convicted of a heinous crime.
In some cases, such as Scottish man Edward McInnis, who was falsely accused of rape, robbery and burglary in 1988 at age 26, it robbed him 27 years of his youth for crimes he did not commit. But still, McInnis is lucky because he still attained freedom after DNA samples proved he was not the criminal, reported Faye Observe.
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However, in the case of Huugjilt, the decision by the Inner Mongolia Higher People's Court to exonerate him for rape and murder charges in 1996 when he was 18 is almost two decades late. Thats because Huugjilt was already executed by a firing squad that year.
Zhao Jianping, deputy president of the court, said while he gave a 30,000-yuan compensation to the family of Huugjilt, that it was a heartbreaking lesson. The wrongly executed mans parents visited his grave after the meeting with Zhao and burned a copy of the verdict overturning a lower courts death sentence as their way of telling him his wrongful conviction has been redressed.
A similar case is for review of the Shandong Provincial Higher Court which was ordered by the Supreme Peoples Court to go again over the conviction of Nie Shubin in 1994. Nie was executed for the rape and murder of a woman at age 21.
In February 2016, the 27 officials behind the wrongful execution of Huugjilt were given warnings and demerits. Feng Zhiming, the deputy district police officer in charge of the case, would undergo further investigation. He allegedly ordered investigators to torture Huugjilt to force the youth to admit the crime. Feng would be charged with dereliction of duties and accepting bribes, reported Daily Mail.
Guests demo the new Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Galaxy S6 Active at Samsung Unpacked prior to buying the device. (Photo : Facebook/Samsung)
Samsung will reportedly launch the highly-anticipated Galaxy Note 6 in the United States during the week of August 15 plus reports have claimed that it would also include an Iris scanner.
Besides the release date, it has also been revealed that the Samsung Galaxy Note 6 will sport a massive 6GB RAM chip inside the phone. More apps will be able to run in the foreground through multi-window support and background apps can eat as much as memory as they need to stay afloat.
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The new RAM chip was said to be unveiled by the South Korean tech company during the Samsung Mobile Solutions Forum in China. It was shown to be using a 10nm architecture and is considered LPDDR4 DRAM, Know Your Mobile reported.
In addition, the 10nm architecture also means that it will be faster than current smartphones. It will also consume less power which works in tandem with the massive 4000 mAh battery that will be present in the Galaxy Note 6.
Another rumor is that Samsung is also deciding whether the new phone would have a curved edge Super AMOLED display or just a normal flat screen. The company will not be releasing two different versions because it would cost more for them to manufacture both variants.
In terms of the other specs, the Galaxy Note 6 is rumored to have cameras that can reach up to a wide aperture of f/1.4 which is good for low-light situations. The phone would also use the new Snapdragon 823 chipset from Qualcomm clocked at 2.6GHZ and the Adreno 530 GPU which is the same one the ASUS Zenfone 3 is rumored to use.
More reports claim that the phone would also have a Samsung Iris scanner that would be much faster and safer than fingerprint scanning. The Galaxy Note 6 could feature an Iris scanner as Samsung already filed for trademarks for the branding name, Ubergizmo reported.
In addition, the phone would also be waterproof with an IP68 certification. The screen is sized at 5.8-inches with a pixel resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels.
Samsung is expected to release the Galaxy Note 6 on the week of August 15 if Evan Blass is to be trusted. Only then can users know whether the phone will have an Iris scanner and if it would really feature 6GB of RAM.
Cops defend handling of tutor suicide
BANGKOK: Police have insisted they strictly followed negotiation practices in line with local police standards when attempting to cajole the suspected killer of two university lecturers into surrendering and who later turned the gun on himself.
violencehomicidepolice
By Bangkok Post
Saturday 21 May 2016, 09:25AM
A police officer points at two relatives who are on their knees, begging Wanchai Danaitamonut to surrender on Thursday. Photo: Wichan Charoenkiatpakul
The police were heavily criticised for their handling of the situation and for not having trained professionals negotiate with the distressed 60-year-old university lecturer, Wanchai Danaitamonut.
Thitirach Nonghanphitak, the Central Investigation Bureau chief, defended the polices decision not to use psychologists in the stand-off, saying it was out of concern for their safety and since the suspected killer was well educated and may not have needed them.
Lt Thitirach said the suspect was stressed and probably wanted to speak to someone he trusted, which is why they brought people he knew to speak to him.
This conformed to negotiation principles, said said Lt Gen Thitirach.
Police officials only supported the negotiations and tried to control the situation. They brought a relative of Mr Wanchais in to help, he said.
The tense stand-off on Thursday (May 19) ended with Wanchai committing suicide by shooting himself after almost six hours of negotiations during which trusted friends, relatives and police officials pleaded with him to surrender.
Wanchai allegedly gunned down Pichai Chaisongkram, 56, and Natthapol Chumworathayee, 54, in an examination room in front of a graduate student at Phranakhon Rajabhat University in Bangkok on Wednesday morning (May 18) before fleeing.
He allegedly burst into the examination room and opened fire on the two men with a 9mm calibre pistol.
Lt Gen Thitirach said despite being accused of lacking any tact during the stand-off, police were in tune with Wanchais mental state and tried to allay his fears of ending up in jail by telling him of a previous high-profile murder case that had a more positive outcome for the convicted killer.
They referred to the case of former gynaecologist, Wisut Boonkasemsanti, who was sentenced to death for the premeditated murder of his estranged wife but was eventually released from jail, said Lt Gen Thitirach, adding that Wanchai became noticeably more relaxed upon hearing the details of this case.
What the lecturer was most concerned about was the possibility of him ending up dying in prison serving a life sentence or facing execution, said Lt Gen Thitirach.
But the polices efforts were in vain, and in a split second Wanchai decided to pull the trigger and kill himself, said Lt Gen Thitirach.
He shot himself at 6:44pm and was immediately rushed by ambulance to a hospital.
The Royal Thai Police regularly organises negotiation training sessions and sends a number of officials to attend more advanced courses overseas to handle such situations, the officer insisted.
Maj Gen Suwat Jaengyodsuk, a deputy chief of the Metropolitan Police Bureau who led police negotiations on Thursday, had completed a negotiation training course in the US, Lt Gen Thitirach said.
The Department of Mental Health expressed its appreciation to the Thai Journalists Association for warning members of the media to be mindful about their live broadcast of Thursdays negotiations either via the television network and Facebook Live.
No such violent acts should be broadcast to audiences because it is a way of spreading fear or relaying scenes of violence that may lead to copycats, said the department.
Read original story here.
Gun and drug dealer, 20, arrested in Phuket
PHUKET: A 20-year-old man was arrested on Thursday night (May 19) when he was found to be in possession of 2,098 methamphetamine pills (ya bah), three guns and 290 bullets.
corruptiondrugspolice
By Eakkapop Thongtub
Saturday 21 May 2016, 10:09AM
Kirkchai Boorit, 20, said that he worked for a drug network operated my a man named Paiboon Osod. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub
Provincial Narcotics Police led by Maj Rittichai Chumchuy arrested 20-year-old Kirkchai Boorit at a rented room on Surin-Montri Rd at 8:30pm on Thursday in a sting operation carried out after police learned that he was working for drug network of a dealer named Paiboon Osod.
Police seized from Kirkchai 2,098 ya bah pills, three unregistered guns including and Smith and Wesson and Thai paradit, 290 bullets, 1.65 grams of ya ice and drug taking paraphernalia.
Maj Rittichai said that undercover officers discovered that Kirkchai had rented a room in Phuket Town which he used as a base to sell drugs to people in the area.
After monitoring his activity, on Thursday an undercover officer set up on a deal to buy drugs from Kirkchai.
While Kirkchai was waiting to sell his drugs to his potential client in front of his rented room, police approached and searched him.
We found nothing on him, only a key to his room. However, Kirkchai admitted that he used drugs but said that he was not selling them, said Maj Rittichai.
We then proceed to search his room and found all the seized items, he added.
Kirkchai admitted that he received the drugs from a dealer named Paiboon who sent them to him via a local transport company. He said that he last bought 50g of ya ice and 8,000 ya bah pills from Paiboon, and that he had been arrested on drug related charges four-six times previously.
He also told police that he bought the guns via a Facebook page and that he would sell them on to any client who wanted one. He had previously sold two weapons to local drug dealers.
Kirkchai was taken to Phuket City Police Station where he was charged with possession of Category 1 drugs with intent to sell and illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.
Man killed, second wounded during Phuket karaoke bar argument
PHUKET: One man was killed and a second wounded during a fight at a karaoke bar in Thalang in the early hours of yesterday morning (May 20).
homicidecrimeviolencepolice
By Eakkapop Thongtub
Saturday 21 May 2016, 11:09AM
The body of 35-year-old Chaiyuth Insathon was found near a bamboo sala outside of the karaoke bar. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub.
Capt Suporn Muangkhai from Thalang Police received a call at 3:24 yesterday where it was stated that a man had been killed in front of the Panan Karaoke in Moo 4 Thepkassattri, Baan Don.
Police arrived at the scene with Kusoldharm rescue workers to find the body 35-year-old Chaiyuth Insathon lying in the pool of blood near a bamboo sala.
Also at the scene was 27-year-old Rachen Rakpong who had suffered a slash wound to his right wrist. He was taken to Thalang Hospital after receiving first aid treatment.
A waitress who witnessed the incident, 20-year-old Ms Ladawan Raksa, told police that at 3:30am she was talking to a group of four men in the bar when Mr Chaiyuth and Mr Rachen came by on a motorbike.
The driver of the bike, Mr Chaiyuth, began to rev the engine which annoyed the group of four men. One man from the group asked him Mr Chaiyuth what he was doing, so he turned off the engine, dismounted the bike and a threw a punch at the group.
A fight then broke out and one man from the group ran to a pickup and got a knife which he used to slash Mr Chaiyuth across his neck. He then attacked Mr Rachen.
The group then drove away in their truck with one member shouting I am an Udon native.
Police across the island have been alerted of the incident and are now hunting for the group.
New personal details form arrives at Phuket Immigration
PHUKET: A General at the Immigration Bureau has warned that failure to provide personal details on a new form handed out the Phuket Immigration Office this week will have consequences for foreigners submitting applications in Phuket.
immigrationtourismpoliceRussianChinese
By Tanyaluk Sakoot
Saturday 21 May 2016, 09:00AM
The new form marks criminal liability for providing false information. Photo: Tanyaluk Sakoot
Maj Gen Chachaval Vachirapaneegul, Deputy Commissioner of the Immigration Bureaus crime suppression unit, told The Phuket News on Wednesday (May 18) that new form, titled Foreign National Information Form is mandatory.
The form asks for foreigners to provide details of their social media accounts, Facebook, Line and email addresses, details of vehicles owned by the foreigner completing the application, and bank account details, among other information, including places frequented by the foreigner.
The top and the bottom of the three-page form features the warning: Providing false information to an officer, shall be punished under the Penal Code.
The form applies to nearly every type of application a foreigner can submit to Immigration. The header itself states (verbatim): This form shall be used for making record of information of every alien entering and staying in the Kingdom of Thailand and shall be submit with Notification of residences for Aliens (section 37, 38 of Immigration Act, BE, 2522), or 90-days notification, or Extension of Stays (all purposes), or Re-entry Permits, or in all cases involving alien labors.
Gen Chachaval made plain his position on the use of the new form: If a foreigner doesnt want to fill in their information by themselves, they will be questioned for our records anyway. If they dont fill in the form, we will suspect their reason.
However, he did not clarify whether a foreigner declining to provide all the information asked for would constitute basis for rejecting the foreigners application.
Gen Chachaval did confirm that providing details of social media accounts was optional, as stated on the form, but said that all other sections on the form were required.
We will not force people to provide their social media details, he said.
The form started being handed out at Phuket Immigration on Monday, one day after the order for Phuket Immigration Superintendent Col Sunchai Chokkajaykij to be transferred was published in the Royal Gazette. Col Sunchai declined to reveal to The Phuket News where he has been transferred to.
Col Kantawat Pongsatanbordee, Chief of Immigration Bureaus Information Technology Center in Bangkok, last Sunday was named as the incoming Phuket Immigration Chief, with the Royal Gazette stipulating he was to formally take office on Thursday (May 19).
On Tuesday, Col Kantawat declined to comment to The Phuket News on any issues. I am not ready to give any opinion yet, he said.
The claim that the form is mandatory is an about-face for Gen Chachaval, who as recently as April 19 told the press in Bangkok that the form was not mandatory when questioned about its introduction at Immigration offices there. (See story here.)
He also said that the new form in use in Phuket was official, even though the copies collected by The Phuket News on Monday (May 16) were photocopied on the back of other photocopies and did not carry the standard TM number in the top right corner indicating it is an official form used by the Immigration Bureau.
The reverse side of the copies collected by The Phuket News specifically provided PorNgorDor 1 tax payment details of three persons involved in a restaurant in Phuket, including the persons names, the company name and tax number.
Gen Chachaval assured he would soon rectify the Phuket Immigration Office publicly revealing such information.
He also assured that the details of the Foreign National Information Form would remain secure. We will keep all details provided on a secure server and they will only be shared with other law-enforcement agencies when needed, he said.
That assurance came less than four weeks after a website-development error saw personal details, including the names, addresses, professions and passport numbers, of thousands of foreigners living in Southern Thailand posted online on March 27. (See story here.)
Gen Chachaval said the new information form was necessary.
In the past, immigration lacked information about foreign nationals living in Thailand when problems happened. This updated information will help is catch foreigners faster, he said.
The information will be linked our data system and will not be revealed or given to others (sic). The information collected will be kept private, but will be used for national security purposes, he said.
Patong Mayor stays firm on Paradise Beach building demolition
PHUKET: The mayor of Patong Municipality, Chalermluk Kepsap, yesterday (May 20) stated that the demolition of a building at Paradise Beach at the south end of Patong will still need to go ahead as the land owners SorKor1 document is unclear and because the building sits in a land reform area.
constructionland
By Suthicha Sirirat
Saturday 21 May 2016, 03:57PM
The building went up despite no building permit being granted. Photo: Suthicha Sirirat
However, prior to Mayor Chalermluk statement, a legal representative of the company who leases the land, Paradise Beach Management Company, held a press conference in which they stated the building is legal and that they are prepared to take legal action against Patong Municipality regarding the matter.
Speaking to The Phuket News yesterday Mayor Chalermluk said, Regarding the building at Paradise Beach, Paradise Beach Management Company failed to convince us that the SorKor1 document numbered 276 that they hold is in fact for the land where the structure sits.
Neither the Provincial Land office nor Kathu Land Office could confirm that the Sorkor1 relates to the land in question. They could only confirm the existence of it, she said.
We have asked Paradise Beach Management Company to bring more proof of land ownership, and also requested that the actual land owner and owner of neighbouring land come forward. This has not happened.
In addition, the land official who has told Paradise Beach Management Company that the land document is legal is in fact from another district.
I am certain that the Sorkor1 document held by Paradise Beach Management Company is for the land where the building sits and that the land is within land reform territory. Furthermore, the court has already issued an order that the claimant of the SorPorKor abandon the site.
All information held by my office is clear, so why should we allow any building to be constructed there?
Paradise Beach Management Companys paperwork is incomplete and the committee overseeing the issue has no voted for the building to be demolished, she added.
At the press conference held by Paradise Beach Management Companys legal representative Mr Nathat Prasetnatikul, he said, Paradise Beach Management Company made a request for a building permit in Aug 2015 and Patong Municipality accepted all relevant documents on September 4. However, they later informed that the paperwork was incomplete and that additional documents were required.
On October 22, Mayor Chalermluk issued a letter to the Provincial Land Office and Agricultural Land Reform Office (ALRO) requesting they investigate the Paradise Beach land and confirm whether it falls within forest land or land reform territory, Mr Nathat said.
Then on November 3, Mayor Chalermluk told Paradise Beach Management Company that they needed 45 days more to reexamine all the documents,
The next day (Nov 4), ALRO advised Paradise Beach Management Company that the land with the Nakkerd Hills and that it is within land reform territory. They also said that they were in the process of cancelling the SorPorKor held by the land claimant Mr Sophon, he added.
Mr Nathat also said that in December 2012, Mr Sophon notified ALRO to say that he had bought the land in 1981 from a Mr Khew Wandee and Mr Chit Hendai, and at that time he requested permission to use the land for farming. However, the court said rejected his request. However, he insisted that he still has a right to use the land as he held the SorKor1.
On November 17, the Provincial Land Office told Mayor Chalermluk that Kathu Land Office had the power to investigate of the SorKor1 held by of Paradise Beach Management Company. However, Kathu Land Office said it could not proceed with the investigation as it is job of the district office, and that they could only look into the matter if the land owner requested to upgrade to the SorKor1 to a Chanote, Mr Nathat said.
Then on Nov 19, Mayor Chalermluk asked Kathu Land office to check the SorKor1 to see if it was a legal document. She also wanted to know if the Sorkor1 is for land in a land reform area.
Kathu Land Office confirmed to Mayor Chalermluk on Nov 27 that the SorKor1 Paradise Beach Management Company holds is for land at Paradise Beach, but they would not be able to investigate further unless the owner made a request.
On Feb 27, 2016 Mayor Chalermluk rejected the building permit requested by Paradise Beach Management Company, at the same time the company filed a lawsuit against Patong Municipality and filed a complaint at the Darongtham Centre, he added.
On Apr 21, the Provincial Land Office confirmed that the SorKor1 held by Paradise Beach Management Company can be used to obtain a building permit. However, Mayor Chalermluk has insisted that an investigation is made and that the land is surveyed before she can grant a permit.
Paradise Beach Management Company insist that they have followed the correct procedure for requesting the permit, however, they feel that Mayor Chalermluk has denied them their right to build on the land.
Moreover, Patong Municipality has no power to investigate land documents, their job is only to say yes or no to a building permit request, he said.
We do not own the land or have any right to the land, but we lease it from the rightful owner and we have lease documents to proof it In addition, we have not yet received the demolition order, As soon as we do we will appeal and take legal action, Mr Nathat concluded.
Genes responsible for how the nose looks identified by researchers
Andrew Kirk, a malt advocate, noses a glass of whisky (Photo : Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
Scientists have uncovered four genes that are thought to be responsible for how someone's nose looks and how it was formed from birth.
Researchers from the University College London analyzed the DNA and faces of over 6000 people. They studied how the breadth, height and pointiness of their noses were affected with the genes found in their DNA.
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After analyzing thousands of faces, the researchers determined that there were four genes responsible for the pointiness and width of a human nose. These were PAX1, GLI3, RUNX2 and DCHS2.
However, there was a fifth gene that affected the jut of the chin. The gene was EDAR, The Independent reported.
Previously, people thought that the nose's looks were just for aesthetic purposes. However, the researchers believe that the variation in nose shapes found from people across the world has a purpose.
"For example, the comparatively narrower nose of Europeans has been proposed to represent an adaptation to a cold, dry climate," said Andres Ruiz-Linares from the University College London.
It is also one reason why people who are in the hotter climates have shorter noses. The air that they breathe do not need to be warmed and so their noses are designed to easily and quickly inhale and exhale air from the environment.
Besides analyzing the faces and DNA data, the researchers also reconstructed half of the participants' faces in 3D. This was done in order to get the exact measurements of their facial features, Discovery News reported.
The RUNX2 gene affected how the width of the nose's bridge was formed. DCHS2 affected pointiness and GLI3 had the largest impact on the breadth.
"Few studies have looked at how normal facial features develop and those that have only looked at European populations, which show less diversity than the group we studied," said Senior researcher Dr Kaustubh Adhikari.
The research paves the way for more studies that can shed light on how humans evolved throughout time. Noses can tell how or where the people survived in certain time periods.
Researchers had their study, titled "A genome-wide association scan implicates DCHS2, RUNX2, GLI3, PAX1 and EDAR in human facial variation," published on May 19 at the Nature Communications journal.
Prominent Egyptian rights campaigner Mina Thabet was remanded in custody for fifteen days on Saturday by prosecutors in Cairo, to be investigated on charges including seeking to overturn the regime and joining a terrorist group.
Thabet, the programme director for minorities and marginalised groups at the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, was taken from his home during a raid by plainclothes police in the early hours of Thursday morning, the NGO has said.
On Thursday a prosecutor ordered him detained for an initial four days, on charges of inciting unlicenced protests, calling for the overthrow of the regime, inciting attacks on police stations, and joining a terrorist group that prevents state insituttions from doing their work, according to ECRF lawyer Doaa Mostafa, who was quoted in the local press.
International rights watchdog Amnesty International condemned the arrest as a "flagrant attack against freedom of expression and association" and in a Thursday release described Thabet as "a pillar of Egypts human rights community" who "has tirelessly worked to defend the rights of minority groups, including Coptic Christians."
Thabet is the second employee of the ECRF to be arrested in recent weeks; on 25 April, Ahmed Abdallah, the director of the NGO's board, was arrested at his home. He has since been charged with inciting unlicenced protests, among other offences.
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Egypt's military said Friday it had located debris and human remains in the Mediterranean north of Alexandria
Senior EgyptAir officials met with the French relatives of some of those killed in an EgyptAir plane crash on Thursday, Egypt's civil aviation said on Saturday.
EgyptAir Chariman Safwat Moslem and his vice Ahmed Adel met with the families, who flew to Egypt on Saturday, at a hotel near Cairo's international airport. With the help of an unnamed foreign expert, the civil aviation ministry said that the relatives were briefed on the process of recovering the human remains from the plane.
The Egyptian military reported that it located debris, personal belongings, plane seats and human remains in the Mediterranean on Friday, near the spot where the plane disappeared from radar.
EgyptAir said the relatives were told that the process of retrieval may take a long time, and that DNA tests could be necessary for identification, which would also take weeks.
The fifteen French nationals who lost relatives in the EgyptAir plane crash arrived in Cairo early on Saturday, MENA state agency reported.
All 66 people on board flight MS804 are assumed to have died, including the 15 French passengers, when the plane was lost over the Mediterranean sea.
The French victims' families were received by a number of French embassy officials and were escorted to a hotel designated by the Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation for their stay as they await news of the fate of their loved ones.
Cairo airport police and customs officials expedited the group's arrival procedures.
On Friday, three French officials and an Airbus technical expert arrived in Cairo to participate in an investigation led by Egyptian authorities.
Some of the families who arrived on Thursday in Cairo returned home late Friday after they met with EgyptAir officials who updated them on the latest information.
Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault exchanged condolences on Thursday.
EgyptAir on Saturday changed the name of its Paris-Cairo flight route from MS804 to MS802, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported.
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Egyptian Civil Aviation officials are investigating reports that smoke was detected on flight MS804, which crashed in the Mediterranean on Thursday
The French air accident investigation agency (BEA) said Saturday smoke was detected before EgyptAir flight MS804 went off radar, but that no conclusions can be drawn, The Associated Press reported.
BEA (Bureau d'enquetes et d'analyses pour la securite de l'aviation civile) spokesperon Sebastien Barthe told AP the plane's automatic detection system sent messages of detecting smoke in multiple places on the plane.
The messages "generally mean the start of a fire," said Barthe.
However: "We are drawing no conclusions from this. Everything else is pure conjecture," added Barthe.
Egyptian authorities said Friday they were "looking into the report [that there was smoke on the flight]," an Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation spokesman told AFP. "
At this point I can't deny or confirm it," the Egyptian official said.
Three BEA officials and a technical expert from France-based civil aircraft manufacturer Airbus arrived in Cairo Friday to participate in the investigations.
The Wall Street Journal had cited "people familiar with the matter" as saying the messages indicated smoke in the toilet and in the equipment compartment beneath the cockpit, where there is "a critical part of the airliner's flight-control computer," and that the automated messages were sent around 2:26 am on Thursday.
The Egyptian army, which is leading search and recovery efforts in the Mediterranean, has recovered debris and other remains but has not yet located the flight's Black Box.
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The incident happened near Al-Arish in restive Sinai
A Central Security Forces police first lieutenant and a solider were killed when an IED detonated as a police vehicle passed by in North Sinai's Al-Arish, according to an interior ministry statement reported by Al-Ahram Arabic website.
The soldier was transferred to hospital.
Egypt's army has been battling a decade-long Islamist insurgency in parts of North Sinai, which spiked in 2013.
Hundreds of security forces members have been killed in similar attacks in the past three years.
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Iraqi security forces spray tear gas outside Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone, Iraq. Friday, May 20, 2016. Iraqi security forces have fired tear gas and gunshots in the air as thousands of Shiite protesters stormed Baghdads heavily secured Green Zone, rushing toward the prime ministers office and parliament building. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, left, walks with new acting San Francisco Police Chief Toney Chaplin on Friday, May 20, 2016. The new police chief in San Francisco has inherited a daunting job in a city divided by race, where black residents' trust in law enforcement has been frayed by a series of violent confrontations and the perception that officers are hostile toward minorities. (AP Photo/Paul Elias)
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Saturday that no theory on the cause of the EgyptAir crash has been ruled out, after revelations of smoke in the cabin minutes before the disaster.
"At this time... all theories are being examined and none is favoured," he told a news conference after meeting with relatives of passengers who were aboard the doomed A320 which left Paris early Thursday for Cairo.
"The reports circulating here and there, which by the way are sometimes contradictory, give rise too often to nearly definitive conclusions," Ayrault said, warning of the "painful tension" caused to the families of the victims.
"Finding the plane is of course the priority, along with finding the black boxes to analyse them, which will allow us to answer legitimate questions," he said, referring to the voice and flight data recorders.
France's "dual goal" is to offer "solidarity with the families but also transparency... on the circumstances of this plane's disappearance," said the foreign minister, who was joined by Egypt's ambassador to France at the meeting with the family members.
The passengers included 30 Egyptians, 15 French citizens, two Iraqis, two Canadians, and citizens from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. They included a boy and two babies.
Seven crew members and three security personnel were also on board.
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But the tribe has a long way to go
At least 24 people were killed in two road accidents in Himachal Pradesh, police said on Saturday. In both the accidents, the vehicles in which the victims were travelling fell into gorges.
Kinnaur Superintendent of Police Khushal Sharma told IANS that 14 people were travelling in a Mahindra Bolero Camper vehicle when it fell into the gorge near Chota Kamba in Nichar tehsil of Kinnaur district on Friday night, killing 13 of them.
The victims were returning after dropping a newlywed woman to her marital house, he said. The lone survivor jumped out of the vehicle to escape death.
According to police, the vehicle was overloaded. Most victims belonged to Bada Kamba village, located near the accident spot.
In the second accident on Saturday, a Himachal Road Transport Corporation bus with 29 passengers fell into a 150-feet deep gorge near Bajroli bridge on the Sainj-Chopal road in Shimla district, killing 11 people and injuring 21 others, Sub-Divisional Magistrate M.R. Bhardwaj said.
The ill-fated bus was going from state capital Shimla to Tharoch in Chopal.
The victims included the bus conductor and the driver, who probably failed to negotiate a hairpin bend, an eyewitness said.
Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh visited the Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital here to inquire about the well being of the injured.
Seventeen people, including three women, were killed and 23 others injured when a private bus carrying 50 passengers fell into a gorge in Chamba district on May 20.
The bus was on its way from Sanghni to Dalhousie when the accident occurred.
Leader of Opposition and BJP leader Prem Kumar Dhumal blamed the frequent road accidents on poor road condition.
The AAP on Saturday claimed that Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse got several calls on his mobile from mafia don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar's Karachi residence.
Khadse promptly dismissed the allegation by AAP spokesperson Priti Sharma-Menon as "baseless" even as Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis asked Mumbai Police to investigate the matter.
"Maharashtra minister Eknath Khadse's number seen in Dawood Ibrahim's call logs. Its shocking. Khadse has to resign, otherwise a free and fair investigation cannot take place," Sharma-Menon said in a tweet and later at a media conference.
She alleged that Khadse received calls from Dawood between September 5, 2015 and April 5, 2016.
Khadse admitted that the number in question belonged to him but said it was not in service since the past one year.
Sharma-Menon told the media that the incident came to light after a Baroda-based techie Manish L. Bhangale, an ethical hacker, hacked into the call records of four phone number registered in the name of the don's wife Mehjabin Shaikh and detected four Indian numbers on which the don reportedly spoke.
Bhangale checked out the details of these numbers and found that one of these, an Idea mobile number, belonged to Khadse, Sharma-Menon alleged.
Ignoring objections of the White House, the Republican majority House of Representatives has approved the National Defense Authorisation Act which blocks $450 million aid to Pakistan for failing to take action against the dreaded Haqqani network.
The NDAA 2017 (H R 4909) was passed by the US House of Representative (277-147) on Wednesday night, which among others included approval of three major amendments reflecting the strong anti-Pakistan sentiment prevailing among the US lawmakers.
As a result, as per the House version of the Bill, the Obama Administration must certify that Pakistan has met before releasing $450 million in aid.
"Pakistan has shown progress in arresting and prosecuting Haqqani network senior leaders and mid-level operatives".
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher's amendment adds an additional requirement that the Secretary of Defense certify to Congress that Pakistan is not using its military or any funds or equipment provided by the US to persecute minority groups seeking political or religious freedom.
The NDAA-2017 also includes the sense of the Congress that Shakil Afridi is an international hero and that the Government of Pakistan should release him immediately from prison.
NDAA-2017 now needs to be passed by the Senate, before it can be sent to the White House for the US President Barack Obama to sign it into law.
Early this week, the White House had expressed strong objections to several provisions of the bill, including the one related to $450 million in aid to Pakistan.
"The Administration objects to section 1212 (of HR 4919), which would make $450 million of CSF (Coalition Support Fund) to Pakistan ineligible for the Secretary of Defense's waiver authority unless the Secretary provides a certification to the Congressional defense committees," the White House said in its statement.
"We share the Committee's concerns regarding the threat posed to our forces and interests in Afghanistan by the Haqqani Network, and we continue to engage with Pakistan at the highest levels regarding the need for concerted action specifically against the group," the White House said.
However, Congressman Mark Thornberry, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee late Wednesday night decided to ignore the White House's objection to this and asked the members of the House to approve these amendments in block, for which no voting took place.
Pope Francis extended his prayers and condolences to those afflicted by the crash of EgyptAir flight MS804 in the Mediterranean on Thursday, the Catholic News Agency reported on Friday.
"Having learned with sadness of the tragic crash of the Egyptian passenger airliner, Pope Francis wishes to assure you of his prayers and solidarity at this difficult time," read a telegram from Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin to Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.
The Airbus 320 crashed in the first hours of Thursday in the Mediterranean while en route from Paris to Cairo.
All 66 people on board are presumed to have died.
The telegram added that the pope commends the souls of the deceased of various nationalities to the mercy of the Almighty.
Upon the relatives of the passengers and all those involved in the search and rescue efforts, His Holiness invokes the divine blessings of strength and peace, the telegram said.
Debris from the plane was recovered by Egyptian search-and-rescue teams in the sea north of Alexandria on Friday.
The cause of the plane's demise has yet to be determined.
A number of heads of states have also offered their condolences to Egypt.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed his condolences to Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry in a phone call on Saturday, according to Sputnik.
On Friday, Jordanian King Abdullah II and Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari also offered their condolences by phone to El-Sisi and to the Egyptian people, state news agency MENA reported. Both leaders told El-Sisi that their countries stand by Egypt in this tragic incident.
King Mohammed VI of Morocco sent a telegram expressing his condolences to the Egyptian president and people on Friday.
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No fund manager has enjoyed and endured the highs and lows of running investment portfolios more than Rory Powe of Man GLG.
Over a career in the City spanning 30 years, he has at various stages led one of the most successful retail investment funds of the 1990s Invesco Perpetual European Growth and gone on to run his own hedge fund business, the eponymous Powe Capital Management.
But these highs have been countered by some galling lows the near meltdown of the Invesco fund after the dotcom bubble burst in early 2000 and, eight years later in the maelstrom of the financial crisis, the liquidation of his flagship hedge fund at Powe, Modulus Europe.
Many managers knocked back so heavily would have retired to the country. But not Powe. Since the summer of 2014, he has been quietly rebuilding his reputation at Man Group and he has been doing a pretty good job of it.
Since taking over the helm of Man GLG's Continental European Growth fund in October 2014, he has delivered investors an overall return of 40 per cent.
To put this in context, the average European fund has generated a return of 7 per cent over the same period.
Today Powe is a little more conservative than he once was at Invesco and Powe Capital. He is no longer interested in running portfolios that bet on markets or certain companies' share prices falling so-called 'shorting'. He is now a 100 per cent 'long-only' investor, looking to make money for investors from successful companies.
But he still maintains some of the bravado that made him such a success at Invesco, where he turned European Growth into one of the most popular funds of the 1990s, valued at 3.3 billion at its peak.
This is reflected in the fact that he is confident enough to run a tight portfolio currently just 35 stocks a style of 'conviction' investing that remains the hallmark of his past employer.
Long game: Rory Powe backs successful firms
Powe says: 'My approach is firmly based on investing in Europe's strongest companies businesses that enjoy a fantastic market position and where the competitive advantage they hold over rivals is sustainable.
'By having a competitive edge, the hope is that they will grow organically. Their fortunes will rely little on the state of the European or global economy.'
The so-called 'established leaders' that form the core of Powe's portfolio include Danish-owned Christian Hansen, a bioscience company that develops cultures and enzymes for use in the manufacture of yogurt, cheese and wine and controls some 45 per cent of the market.
Powe says Christian's products account for less than two per cent of the total cost of the dairy produce they are used in, so the company has scope to raise prices.
Alongside such established leaders are what Powe calls 'emerging winners' companies that he believes are challenging incumbents with new ideas.
Such businesses, higher in risk by nature, can only make up a third of the portfolio at most. Currently, they represent a fifth.
'This is not blue sky thinking,' says Powe. 'The companies must hold a competitive advantage.' Among this emerging camp is Italian-owned Yoox Net-a-Porter.
The group was formed from the merger last year of the internet retailer Yoox with online boutique Net-a-Porter and is benefiting from shoppers' greater willingness to purchase luxury goods over the internet. It recently teamed up with Armani to run its online sales.
Britain's overheated housing market could stall or even go into reverse if the UK votes to leave the EU, George Osborne claimed last night.
In his latest dramatic warning about the cost of Brexit, the Chancellor said there would be a hit to the value of peoples homes of 10-18 per cent by 2018.
The figure would equate to a loss of up to 52,500 on an average UK home costing 292,000.
But the Treasury last night admitted that the forecast related to a fall in predicted growth of house prices, meaning any actual drop would be much lower, or even non-existent.
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George Osborne (left) claimed Britain's housing market could stall or even go into reverse - but Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom (right) hit back
A Vote Leave campaign source described Mr Osbornes claims as wilfully misleading.
The Chancellors warning is part of a controversial document published next week on the economic shock that would be caused if Britain votes to leave the EU.
The warning will come just days before the first postal ballots for the referendum are sent out next Friday, fuelling claims that the Chancellor and David Cameron are using Government resources to tilt the referendum campaign unfairly in their favour.
VOTE REMAIN, BROWN TELLS MUMS Mothers should vote to stay in the EU for the sake of their childrens future, Gordon Brown will say today. The former prime minister will tell a Fabian Society event in London that EU membership is the best way of securing jobs for future generations. Mr Brown will also appeal to the 9.3million who voted Labour at the last election to turn out, urging them: Vote Remain, do not remain at home. Brexit campaigners have made capital out of the EUs dismal record on youth unemployment, which is running at nearly 25 per cent in France and almost twice that in Greece. But Mr Brown will insist that EU membership is good for the job prospects of British youngsters, saying: My message to young people is that Europe still is, and is more than ever, the future for jobs, environmental sustainability and fairness. My message to mothers, worried about their childrens future, is that the biggest job creator of the next decade will be Europes single market. Mr Browns intervention comes amid growing concerns in the Remain campaign that many Labour voters may stay at home rather than vote for a pro-Brussels campaign led by a Tory prime minister.
It will also be the last opportunity for the Treasury to intervene in the campaign before purdah starts on Thursday, the period before a poll when Whitehall cannot make announcements that might influence voting.
Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom hit back last night, saying: This is an extraordinary claim. The truth is the greatest threat to the economy is the perilous state of the Euro.
Some Tory MPs are so incensed by the Governments aggressive campaign that they are now plotting a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister after the referendum.
A number of MPs are already said to be contacting Graham Brady, chairman of the partys powerful 1922 Committee, to call for the vote.
A Tory source told the Daily Mail that dozens more are planning a co-ordinated push against Mr Cameron after the June 23 vote.
Under Tory Party rules, 50 MPs are needed for Mr Brady to trigger a formal confidence vote.
One Tory MP said a vote was now inevitable. Letters are going in to Graham Brady already people are talking about it quite openly, he said. But most of us are holding letters back until after the referendum for maximum impact.
But Government sources last night said Mr Cameron was getting on with the job of delivering the manifesto.
In an interview at a meeting of G7 finance ministers in Japan, Mr Osborne told the BBC: If we leave the European Union...Treasury analysis shows that there would be a hit to the value of peoples homes by at least 10 per cent and up to 18 per cent.
Families and loved ones of those aboard EgyptAir flight 804, which is believed to have crashed in the Mediterranean on Thursday, have begun mourning their relatives after debris from the wreckage was found on Friday.
A special prayer was held at mosques around Egypt on Friday to mourn the death of the Egyptian passengers, while EgyptAir announced that a memorial service would be held for their crew on Monday at a prominent mosque in New Cairo.
Relatives of many of the foreign victims of the crash flew into Cairo on Saturday for briefings on the search and retrieval process of the plane and of those lost.
Briefing sessions with EgyptAir officials were held at two hotels near Cairo airport one with relatives of crew, one with those of passengers.
A source close to the matter who asked to remain anonymous told Ahram Online that the overall atmosphere among relatives over the last two days has been filled with sadness and desperation.
They all had hope that the plane hadnt crashed, that their beloved ones were waiting to be rescued. This however changed when the families were told human remains were found by the Egyptian military early Friday, the source said, adding that some family members fainted when the militarys discovery was announced.
Below, Ahram Online takes a look at those who lost their lives in the crash.
Crew
Mohammed Saeed Ali Ali Shukair (pilot)
Shukair, 36, had 6,275 hours of flying experience, EgyptAir have said.
One friend said Shukair was a dedicated pilot who had wanted to fly planes from a young age.
AP quoted one childhood friend as saying the pilots family were "traumatised especially about the body, whether it will be found or remain missing.
According to Greece's aviation department, the pilot was in good spirits during the flight, and thanked the controller in Greek as he was being cleared to leave Greek airspace.
Mohamed Mamdouh Assem (co-pilot)
Like Shukair, Assem had chased the dream of flying since he was young, according to a childhood friend.
Assems father is a flight crew employee of EgyptAir. His mother passed away years ago due to cancer after she put all her savings towards sending him to the academy.
Life always takes the best for itself... God only takes the ones he loves earlier than we think... And you were one of the best I knew. Rest in peace my friend, hope you're in a better place with your mother up above, Assems friend, Ahmed Amin said.
He told Ahram Online that Assem had a pure heart.
Assems Facebook profile has since been changed to read Remembering Mohamed Mamdouh Assem, a Facebook option that is intended to memorialise loved ones following their death.
Mervat Zakaria
Zakaria was promoted to cabin manager a month ago, after working for EgyptAir for 20 years.
According to media reports, Zakaria gave up an acting career to become a flight attendant. She had a role in the successful melodrama Abu El-Ela El-Beshri.
She leaves behind a daughter.
Samar Ezz El-Din
Following the accident, a Facebook post by the 27-year-old flight attendant went viral.
El-Din, a graduate of Ain Shams University, posted a picture on September 2014 that seemed to show a flight attendant in wet clothes striding out of the sea with her suitcase, while behind her the wreckage of a plane is visible.
She was a newlywed who was passionate about aviation, and described by friends as someone who always had a smile on her face.
Yara Hany Farag
The flight attendant was remembered by a friend who spoke to Ahram Online as someone who was sociable and nice.
She lived in Kuwait all her life since she was in kindergarten, then she came to Egypt to joint Misr International University, the friend said.
Farag was an MIU alumni who graduated from the mass communication faculty.
Mahmoud El-Sayed Mansour
The 35-year-old flight attendant from the governorate of Sharqiya was in touch with his family only moments before the plane boarded in Paris.
His brother Ahmed told Al-Ahram Arabic that Mahmoud always told him to take care of his wife and three young children.
Hes a martyr who was doing his job, Mahmouds father said.
Passengers
The Abu Laban family
Lebanese film director Osman Abu Laban mourned on his Facebook page four members of his family killed in the crash -- his uncle and aunt, and his cousin and his cousin's wife.
Salah Abu Laban, his wife Sahar Koueider, their son Ghassan Abu Laban, and their daughter-in-law Reem Al-Sebaei were all onboard.
A special prayer was held at one of Heliopoliss mosques to mourn their loss; Cairo-based Osman and other family members attended the ceremony.
Ahmed Helal
The 41-year-old held both French and Egyptian nationalities, and lived in Amiens in France where he worked for Procter and Gamble.
The husband and father was travelling to Cairo for a holiday.
Procter and Gamble spokeswoman Segolene Moreau told AP Helal was someone who was "extremely valued by his employees. He really was exemplary.
Helal graduated from the American University in Cairo in 1999 with a degree in mechanical engineering, and had previously worked for Procter and Gamble in Egypt.
Mohamed Saleh Zayada
Zayada, a dual Sudanese-French national, was travelling to Sudan to attend the funeral of his mother, who died only days before the crash.
According to his brother, Zayada was due to travel to Sudan to see his sick mother ten days before the accident, but had to postpone his trip due to work.
The 62-year-old scholar, who was married with four children, worked for UNESCO in France.
He last spoke to his family in Sudan while boarding the plane in Paris.
Richard Osman
The 40-year-old geologist worked for gold mining company Centamin and was heading to Egypt for work.
Osman, originally from Wales but living in Jersey, regularly travelled abroad for work.
His wife had recently given birth to their second child.
Richard was so happy at the birth of his second daughter, and yet two weeks later he is no longer with us its an absolute tragedy. He was really happy about having the baby and was looking forward to enjoying a lovely family life with his two girls, Richards brother Alastair told The Guardian.
Alastair described his brother as a very kind person, loving person, very focused ... lot of people admired him for his strength and values.
Sahar Khoga
Khoga, a 52-year-old Saudi national, had worked at the kingdoms Egypt embassy for 13 years.
She was in Paris to follow up on her 22-year-old daughters cancer treatment there.
Saudi daily newspaper Okaz said that that Khoga had been joined on the trip by close relatives, including her sister and their sons. However, her relatives had returned home two days before the deadly crash.
The Saudi ambassador to Egypt, Ahmed Abdel Aziz Qattan, said the embassy would be assisting Khoga's son, who is enrolled at a university in Egypt.
Marwa Hamdy
Canadian media reported that that the IBM executive and mother of three was among those killed in the crash.
Hamdy relocated to Cairo from Canada a couple of years ago.
She was the mother of three boys, all of whom were enrolled at Al-Hayah International Academy in Cairo.
The school mourned Hamdy, describing her as a devoted and loving mother, who is greatly appreciated by everyone who has had the chance to deal with her.
Ahmed El-Ashry and Reham Mossad (husband and wife)
The couple had travelled to Paris because 28-year-old Mossad was to receive cancer treatment in the city. Their three children, a boy and two girls, remained with relatives in El-Ashrys hometown of Mahalla.
According to media reports, when Mossads condition began to improve, both parents decided to return to Egypt to see their children.
Their childrens school, Leaders College, mourned the death of the young couple.
Youmna Hamdy Shabana and son Ismail
Hamdy Shabana and her son were travelling to Paris to attend the wedding of one of Ismails friends, her sister Nesreen told Al-Ahram.
My sister was always smiling and laughing. She never held a grudge against anyone, she said.
Ismail, the youngest in his household, was due to get married in August.
Abdul-Mohsen El-Muteiri
El-Muteiri, a professor from Kuwait who lived in Paris, was on his way to a three-day conference in Cairo.
He leaves behind two children in France.
I just hope it wasnt painful, his cousin Mishary told the media in Cairo.
Seitchi Mahamat
Mahamat, a Chadian national, was a cadet at the French military academy Saint-Cyr Coetquidan.
He was heading home to Chad via Egypt, to mourn the death of his mother who passed away recently.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Mahamat had been finishing his second year as part of Saint-Cyrs Second Battalion.
Pascal Hess
The 51-year-old freelance rock photographer almost missed the flight after losing his passport days before the crash.
However, the French national Hess found his passport and caught the flight to Egypt, intending to stay for a ten-day holiday at a Red Sea resort.
The Bettiche family
Algeria has announced that Algerian national Saoudi Nouha and her family were among the victims of the crash.
Her husband Faycal Bettiche and their children Mohamed and Joumana are also among the victims.
According to the preliminary information gathered from the French authorities and Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Algerian national Saoudi Nouha, registered with our consulate in Nantes, is among the victims of this tragic accident, said a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman.
Joao David e Silva
Silva, a civil engineer, was the only Portuguese national on board. The 62-year-old was en route to Ghana to attend a conference, according to Portuguese media.
Pierre and Quentin Heslouin (father and son)
Pierre, 74, and his son Quentin, 41, were heading to Egypt for a holiday.
Pierre, a Paris-based management consultant was known to get the jobless back to work, and for serving as a local councillor according to French media quoted by AP.
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EgyptAir has called on media outlets to be "considerate" to the familes of those lost when the airline's flight 804 crashed in the Mediterranean on Thursday, saying that some of the relatives were angered by the use of the deceased in the press.
EgyptAir said families of the victims told airline officials on Saturday that some of their relatives' names were being used in the media and online to solicit donations, which the families found unacceptable.
EgyptAir Chairman Safwat Moslem and his vice, Ahmed Adel, met with families of those lost in the incident on Saturday at a hotel near Cairo's international airport. With the help of an unnamed foreign expert, the civil aviation ministry said that the relatives were briefed on the process of recovering the bodies of the deceased from the plane.
All 66 people on board flight MS804 are assumed to have died when the plane was lost over the Mediterranean sea.
The Egyptian military reported that it had located debris, personal belongings, plane seats and human remains in the Mediterranean on Friday, near the spot where the plane disappeared from radar.
EgyptAir said the relatives were told that the process of retrieval may take a long time, and that DNA tests could be necessary for identification, which would also take weeks.
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For Donald Trump to win the White House in November, he'll need the votes of women like lifelong Republican Wendy Emery.
Yet the 52-year-old from the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, can't commit to voting for her party's presumptive presidential nominee.
"I'm just disappointed, really disappointed," she said while standing in her arts and crafts shop. She and her circle of friends are "still in shock" over Trump's success and wonder who's voting for him, "because we don't know any of them."
Emery's negative impression of Trump was shared by most of the dozens of white, suburban women from politically important states who were interviewed by The Associated Press this spring. Their views are reflected in opinion polls, such as a recent AP-GfK survey that found 70 percent of women have unfavorable opinions of Trump.
Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign sees that staggering figure as a tantalizing general election opening.
While white voters continue to abandon the Democratic Party, small gains with white women could help put likely nominee Clinton over the top if the November election is close. Democrats believe these women could open up opportunities for Clinton in North Carolina, where President Barack Obama struggled with white voters in his narrow loss in the state 2012, and even in Georgia, a Republican stronghold that Democrats hope to make competitive.
Patty Funderburg of Charlotte, North Carolina, voted for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, but says she's already convinced that Trump won't get her vote.
"He's not who I'd want to represent our country," said Funderburg, a 54-year-old mother of three.
Trump insists he's "going to do great with women." He's accused Clinton of playing the "woman's card" in her bid to become the first female commander in chief. He's said he will link her aggressively to past indiscretions with women by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
The businessman also has previewed an argument focused on national security, with echoes of the pitch that President George W. Bush successfully made to white suburban women during his 2004 re-election.
"Women want, above all else, they want security," Trump told The Associated Press recently. "They want to have a strong military, they want to have strong borders. They don't want crime." He said "Hillary is viewed poorly on that."
Not so in the AP-GfK poll. About 40 percent of women surveyed said Clinton would be best at protecting the country and handling the threat posed by the Islamic State group, and about 30 percent said Trump.
Throughout the primary, Clinton has talked about policies meant to appeal to women: equal pay, expanded child care, paid family and medical leave and more.
And Trump has his own complicated past regarding women and has faced criticism for his actions both in his personal life and at his businesses toward them. He's vigorously defended his treatment of women, as has his daughter Ivanka Trump, who said her father "has total respect for women."
A super political action committee backing Clinton has released its first television advertisements featuring Trump's contentious statements about women.
"Does Donald Trump really speak for you?" the super PAC ad asks.
For many of the women interviewed, the answer appears to be no.
"He's just a jerk," said Elizabeth Andrus, a registered Republican in Delaware, Ohio, who says she voted twice for Obama. She praised Trump's political skills and argued his business career indicates an intellect and ability that could benefit the nation.
But his temperament, she said, is somewhere between "buffoonery" and "complete narcissism."
"It would be like having Putin for president," she added, referring to Russia's sometimes belligerent president, Vladimir Putin.
Erin Freedman, a 38-year-old from Reston, Virginia, said Trump "scares the crap out of me." While she's an enthusiastic backer of Clinton's primary rival, Bernie Sanders, she said she'd have no problem backing the former secretary of state against Trump in a general election.
Even some reluctant Trump supporters say they want him to dial back the braggadocio and caustic insults, and engage people more seriously.
"He's the nominee, so I'll vote for him," said Renee Herman, a 45-year-old from Sunbury, Ohio, who preferred retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and her home-state governor, John Kasich, in the GOP primary field. "But it's time we get past all this showmanship and hear from him what he actually wants to do and his plans for how to do it."
Trump's best opening is that Clinton, who is on the cusp of clinching her party's nomination, would enter the November race with a majority of Americans taking a dim view of her candidacy. Fifty-five percent have a negative view of Clinton, including 53 percent of women, in the AP-GfK poll.
"Anybody but Hillary," said Carolyn Owen, a 64-year-old educator from Clayton, North Carolina, near Raleigh. She said Trump wasn't her first choice, "but it's better than the alternative."
While Obama won the support of women overall in his two White House campaigns, white women have increasingly been shifting toward the Republican Party in recent elections. Obama only won 42 percent of white women in 2012. Romney won 56 percent of white women, more than Bush and the party's 2008 nominee, Sen. John McCain.
Clinton's hopes will largely hinge on replicating Obama's coalition of blacks, Hispanics and young people. In both of his elections, Obama earned near-unanimous support from black women, while drawing the votes of roughly 7 in 10 Hispanic women. But she would have more room for error with those groups if she can increase Democrats' share of white women.
Another potentially favorable scenario for Clinton involves Republican and independent women who can't stomach a vote for Trump but also don't want to vote for a Democrat. Maybe they simply stay home, keeping the GOP nominee's vote totals down.
For Angee Stephens of Indianola, Iowa, that seems to be the only option at this point. She's wary of Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, which is the subject of an FBI investigation, and her past political decisions. But "Trump sort of scares me," Stephens said.
In Georgia, Trump supporter Sue Everhart said she talks regularly with suburban Republican women struggling with whether to vote for Trump, and said some cite his boorishness. The former state party chairwoman said she tries to bring the conversation back to Clinton and remind Republicans "who we are running against."
As for Trump's penchant for controversial statements about women, Everhart said, "I learned a long time ago that most any man over 50 in this party, they like you as long as you're making the cookies."
"I should probably be offended," she added. "But I'm not."
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Egyptian authorities were investigating reports late Friday that there was smoke on the doomed EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo shortly before it crashed into the Mediterranean.
"We are looking into this report," an Egyptian civil aviation ministry official told AFP. "At this point I can\t deny or confirm it."
The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said automated warning messages indicated smoke in the nose of the aircraft and an apparent problem with the flight control system.
The warnings, which were automatically sent by the Airbus A320\s computer systems, came about 2:26 a.m. Thursday local time, just before air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane carrying 66 people, the Journal said.
The messages indicated intense smoke in the front portion of the plane, specifically the lavatory and the equipment compartment beneath the cockpit. The error warnings also indicated that the flight control computer malfunctioned, the report said.
CNN also reported smoke alerts on the flight minutes before it crashed, citing information it obtained from an Egyptian source that was filed through the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, which sends messages between planes and ground facilities.
Egypt\s aviation minister has said a terrorist attack was a more likely cause than technical failure for the crash.
On Friday, search teams found wreckage including seats and luggage about 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Egypt\s coastal city of Alexandria, Egypt\s military said.
The plane disappeared without any distress signal between the Greek island of Karpathos and the Egyptian coast.
It had turned sharply twice in Egyptian airspace before plunging 22,000 feet (6,700 meters) and vanishing from radar screens, Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos has said.
SOURCE: AFP
Thousands of anti-abortion activists gathered in Wichita in the United States in 1991 for the Summer of Mercy, sparking tumultuous mass protests that led to nearly 2,700 arrests outside local clinics and crowning the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue as the symbol of the movement.
As protesters prepare to return this summer for the 25th anniversary, the broader movement has splintered into disaffected factions and its strategies have evolved along with the shifting political and legal landscape of the abortion debate.
Perhaps most telling is the decision by Operation Rescue and its leader, Troy Newman, to distance itself from the July 16-23 event. Ever since abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was fatally shot in 2009 in his Wichita church, the group has tried to disassociate from more radical activists.
"I am concerned about the sort of zealots that follow them around and the sort of rhetoric," said Newman, who's also a founding member of the Center for Medical Progress, the group whose secretly filmed videos alleged Planned Parenthood sold fetal tissue and set off legislative attempts to cut funding for the largest abortion provider in the US.
"We have been able to accomplish a lot more through the political process than we ever were able to get sitting at the doors of an abortion clinic," he said. "I would never speak ill against that tactic, it was certainly something that launched Operation Rescue, and people were passionate about that, but tactics and times change."
While abortion clinic violence remains an ever-present concern, as evidenced by last year's fatal shootings at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, new strategies in the anti-abortion movement have emerged, most notably the growing numbers of restrictions placed by state legislatures on abortion clinics that culminated this week with an Oklahoma bill that would have effectively banned abortions; it was vetoed. A thwarted move in Congress to strip federal family planning funds from Planned Parenthood has spawned similar efforts in conservative states.
The 2016 return of the Summer of Mercy is being organized by Operation Save America, a Dallas-based Christian fundamentalist group now led by Rusty Thomas, who says he considers the original event a "heaven-sent revival."
"What we started in 1991 we hope to complete in 2016," Thomas said.
Among the featured speakers this year is Matt Trewhella, the founder of the Wisconsin-based Missionaries to the Preborn, which espouses a doctrine for local officials and states to ignore court rulings they consider immoral.
Operation Save America, the successor to Operation Rescue National, has been among the most strident opponents of abortion as well as gay rights and Islam. Thomas said his organization does not advocate killing abortion providers nor support other clinic violence.
Tiller and the Wichita clinic where he had performed late-term abortions had been a target for decades; it was bombed in 1985, and Tiller was shot in both arms in 1993. No abortion services were available in the city after he died until April 2013 when abortion rights group Trust Women opened one in his former facility.
Director Julie Burkhart said the clinic plans to stay open during this year's protests. They have beefed up private security and are working with law enforcement officials. She also plans to display a sign Tiller had in the clinic: "Women need abortions and I am going to do them." It was signed by Tiller.
Burkhart said she'd just gotten involved in abortion care during the 1991 Summer of Mercy, calling it one of those moments that set her on her life's path.
"It was scary, but the most important thing that it did for me it solidified my belief in the fact all people have to be able to determine what is best for themselves and for their families," Burkhart said.
Amid escalating violence at abortion clinics in the 1980s and 1990s, Congress passed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in 1994, aimed at protecting access to abortion services by imposing criminal penalties and civil sanctions. In its wake, the massive blockades like those during 1991 became a thing of past. The 10-year anniversary event organized by Operation Rescue brought a few hundred activists for mostly peaceful protests, only five were arrested.
Newman said no one has contacted him about this year's event. "They know how I feel," he said. The state's largest anti-abortion organization, Kansans for Life, hasn't been approached, either.
"We are not obligated to work with people just because they are pro-life," said Cheryl Sullenger, Operation Rescue's senior vice president. She served about two years in prison for passing along bomb-making materials in a thwarted 1987 conspiracy to bomb a San Diego clinic, but long ago renounced violence and instead embraced a strategy to close clinics by filing complaints with state medical regulators.
But Burkhart, in making her case, recounts something Tiller once wrote about how his clinic would not exist if people didn't want or need its services.
"The community dictates whether we are here or not," she said.
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Mushcup's Brian Steff takes his turn in 'My Favorite Guitar'
Mushcup's Brian Steff has an arsenal of guitars though his favorite is one loved and admired by fans
SHARE TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS Shonda Cleveland, left, and Shona Jones in front of their new business, Adam and Eve, an upscale adult boutique opening this summer at 3905 Wayne Ave. next to Five Guys Burgers. The franchise will offer lingerie, adult-themed products for couples and novelty items. TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS Shona Jones, left, and Shonda Cleveland discuss the floor plan and placement of fixtures in their retail space for the Adam and Eve franchise they will be opening in mid summer. The store will be an upscale adult boutique featuring lingerie, lotions, novelty items and products for couples.
By John Ingle of the Times Record News
Part of being a successful business is recognizing a need or finding a niche, and providing that product or service to consumers.
Shona Jones and Shonda Cleveland have discovered a need for an upscale adult boutique in Wichita Falls, and along with their husbands, Justin Jones and Marcus Cleveland, will fill that gap in the market with national brand Adam & Eve. The local store, which will be located at 3905 Wayne Ave. north of Sikes Senter, will be the 63rd store in the chain.
"We just started talking as friends how there was this sort of gap in the market for an upscale adult boutique, which was more comfortable and focused on women and couples," Shona said, adding that the conversation began about a year ago. "Once we had that idea, we started talking to our friends, local business contacts, you know, a wide cross section of Wichita Falls just to see if we were completely off or if there was really an opportunity there.
"It sounded like there was."
The two couples went in January to the Adult Novelty Expo in Las Vegas to meet with suppliers and vendors after making the decision to open a business. Shona said they weren't looking to become franchise owners of an Adam & Eve store specifically, but the chain's goal of providing high-quality products with a focus on safety and education naturally led them in that direction.
They also chose Adam & Eve, which has been around for more than 40 years, because the brand is a leader in the industry and is a recognized global brand with stores in the United States and Canada. Customers who know the brand have come to expect a certain level of quality Adam & Eve stores provide.
For Shonda, she said it was important for them to have the ability to make local decisions about the store. She said the local store will be different than what has been or currently is provided in the area, and the store should not to be confused with adult bookstores.
Another value of the chain that aligned with the two couples was that the stores are adult-only businesses. Shonda said there are drugstores, grocery and specialty stores, for example, in Wichita Falls that sell similar products, but do not have an age restriction. Patrons who enter have to be 18 years or older, and if they appear to be younger, employees will ask to see identification. Even if the age requirement wasn't part of the chain's guidance, they said they would have implemented the age specification so adult patrons would feel comfortable while shopping.
"This will be a very safe environment for couples and adults," she said. "We're very happy in our marriages and we want to help other couples stay together; just build that relationship."
The business partners said they worked closely with the city's Planning and Zoning office to make sure the business was in accordance with city code regarding the store and its proximity to Barwise Leadership Academy. They submitted a proposal to the Planning Division office on March 20 showing that 70 percent of the boutique would be clothing and garments and about 14 percent of the floor space would be adult-themed novelty items.
A March 24 letter from the Planning Division office said the store meets the city's requirements to be a general commercial retail business, and is not considered a sexually oriented establishment because it will not sell visual (videos) or printed materials. But, if the business does begin to sell those items, it will be a sexually oriented commercial establishment and could not remain within 1,000 feet of Barwise.
Karen Gagne, planning administrator for the city, said the city only has the group's franchise proposal to go by in making a zoning determination, but spot inspections could occur to make sure the business adheres to their plan.
"After they are in business and up and running, if for some reason we begin receiving complaints or we conduct a site inspection and we find out they're actually carrying other products or merchandise that does not follow how they've indicated to us at the city the breakdown of their merchandise, that may have to be reassessed," she said. "But, based on the information that has been provided to us in order to try to make a determination as to whether they do or do not fit into that category, it was based on that with only 14 percent being novelty items and not being magazine or books that type of materials it would not fit within that sexually oriented commercial category."
Gagne said as defined by the zoning ordinances, the business is not in violation of proximity rules as related to the school district property.
In addition to in-store sales, Shona and Shonda said they will also have a website in the near future for consumers to shop and buy items to be delivered to their homes in discrete packaging.
We had a pretty heavy news load this past week. Some of it was disturbing. You only have to look back at the headlines to see what I'm talking about.
So, it's nice at the end of such a week to look at some of the lighter news.
For example, a Louisiana state legislator proposed new age restrictions for strippers, raising the minimum age from 18 to 21. One of his colleagues went him one better, suggesting the maximum age for a stripper should be 28 and that all strippers should weigh no more than 160 pounds. The Legislature found that wrong in so many ways. It did not pass.
People seeing religious images in peculiar places like in the wood grain on a cabinet door is nothing new. But a woman in Winter Park, Florida, takes the cake. She professed on Facebook that she found one in a dirty diaper and posted it for everyone to see. Katy Vasquez said she had been struggling with tough financial times lately and saw the image on the soiled diaper as a message that things would get better. Some people might read it differently.
Speaking of which, a reporter for a television station in Phoenix was arrested for defecating in the front yard of a criminal suspect he was staking out. Certainly we in the media have our opinions of the people we cover but most of us keep those to ourselves. Reporter Jonathan Lowe was booked on a misdemeanor charge, and we hear the evidence against him is solid.
A woman in Severance, Colorado, is accused of robbing a bank drive-thru window while the two kids she was baby-sitting sat in the car with her.
You couldn't expect her to go off and leave the kids unattended, could you?
The week's award for creativity goes to a YouTuber who took a leaf blower and a big plastic jar of Cheetos and made a rapid fire cheese puff gun. Victims are said to suffer obesity and orange spots.
Justin Marling was just trying to do a good deed, dressing up like a Star Wars storm trooper and collecting donations for a charity called Force for Change in Newborn, Georgia. Very soon the force was with him the police force. Marling spent a night in the slammer. It seems wearing a mask in public is illegal under Georgia law.
Finally
We all know this has been a rough-and-tumble, no-holds-barred election year. Apparently it was just too much for a woman in Richmond, Virginia. Her obituary in the Times-Dispatch read: "Faced with the prospect of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Mary Anne Noland of Richmond chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God on Sunday, May 15, 2016, at the age of 68." Good for her she wasn't in Texas where dead people have been known to vote in past elections.
Recent rain may not be enough to stave off water restrictions
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The contest to be the Democratic presidential nominee hit an ugly new low last weekend, when Nevada supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders reportedly threw chairs and made threats against a senior state party official after 64 Sanders delegates were disqualified at the state convention. ]
Sanders said he does not support violence, but there are now worries the party's convention in Philadelphia could face similar incidents.
Why can't Hillary Clinton wrap up the nomination? Is the process rigged? Should we worry about political violence?
JOEL MATHIS
Is there a way to call off this election? Anything in the Constitution that allows for a deferral, a do-over, a second chance starting again next year, maybe, after everybody in the country has had a chance to take a remedial civics course?
No? Well that stinks.
As long as the violence and the threats were contained to Trump rallies, we liberals could at least comfort ourselves with a bit of moral superiority: We're not like those guys, right?
But the thrown chairs and threats in Nevada last weekend make it difficult to hold the high ground. We've all forgotten how to do democracy, apparently forgotten that sometimes in a democracy you lose, and that the correct response to losing is to work harder and better at persuading people you have the right ideas.
Now the secret to winning is apparently this: Make people afraid of what you'll do if they don't join you. This isn't democracy. It's thuggery. And it should be embarrassing to all Americans.
Here's a text the chairwoman of the Nevada Democratic Party received from a Sanders supporter recently: "We know where you live, where you work, where you eat. Where your kids go to school/grandkids. We have everything on you. We are your neighbors, friends, family, etc."
And another: "Someone will hurt you."
And another: "May retribution come fully and harshly upon you. I CURSE YOU."
Scary, right? And these are just the messages we can print in a family newspaper.
BEN BOYCHUK
Remember when everyone thought the Republicans were the suicidal party? With the media focused on Donald Trump's incredible rise, few people seemed to notice the Democrats were self-destructing.
Here's the truth: Hillary Clinton cannot wrap up her party's nomination because a sizable minority of Democratic primary voters simply doesn't like her.
They don't trust her. They believe she's corrupt. That she's part of the moneyed and powerful. That she doesn't really care about them. And they're right.
Trump has already started referring to Clinton as "Crooked Hillary." Expect the nickname to stick. Bill and Hillary Clinton have become millionaires many times over by selling access to foreign and domestic corporations through their allegedly "charitable" foundation. As a result, a federal grand jury is reportedly investigating the foundation's activities.
Investigators might be interested in the work of Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel. Last week, he released a series of reports alleging the Clinton Foundation has skirted state and federal disclosure laws and has never submitted to a required independent audit. It sure would be nice if somebody got to the bottom of that before November.
But even if the Clinton Foundation comes out looking squeaky clean or, at least, not hopelessly corrupt it's far from obvious that Clinton can close the deal with voters. She's an awful politician.
How many times has Clinton rebooted her campaign so far? Four? Five? Here's a headline from The New York Times last April: "Hillary Clinton Re-emerges, by Design (but Also by Surprise)" And here's the Times again, in September: "Hillary Clinton to Show More Humor and Heart, Aides Say." And here's a headline from the Hill newspaper in March: "Hillary Clinton takes new tack to boost her image."
If at first you don't succeed, maybe after the third or fourth time you should stop trying.
Many Democrats know the system is rigged.
Ben Boychuk (bboychuk@city-journal.org) is associate editor of the Manhattan Institute's City Journal. Joel Mathis (joelmmathis@gmail.com) is associate editor for Philadelphia Magazine.
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Bernie Sanders is playing a dangerous game. If he and his campaign continue their scorched-earth attacks against the Democratic Party, they will succeed only in one thing: electing Donald Trump as president.
I say this as someone who shares much of Sanders' political philosophy; I too, for example, see health care as a basic right. He has run a remarkable and historically significant campaign, pulling the party to the left and pumping it full of new progressive vigor. His crowds are almost as big as Trump's and perhaps even more enthusiastic. Most important, he has brought legions of young people into the political process.
But he hasn't won the nomination.
Hillary Clinton has an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, earned by her performance in primaries and caucuses. In the aggregate, she leads Sanders by about 3 million votes. The will of the party is clear: More Democrats prefer Clinton over Sanders as their nominee.
Instead of accepting this obvious fact, the Sanders campaign is behaving like a 2-year-old who can't have ice cream for breakfast. All along, Sanders and his aides have claimed that the party establishment was unfairly tipping the scales in favor of Clinton. Now the Sanders people have gone further and are deliberately stoking anger and a sense of grievance less against Clinton than the party itself. This is reckless in the extreme, and it could put Trump in the White House.
I do not believe I am being alarmist. The conventional wisdom holds that Trump's astronomically high disapproval numbers should make him unelectable. His misogyny turns off women; his bigoted immigration stance repels Hispanics; his shoot-from-the-lip temperament disturbs voters concerned about national security. On paper, this should be a cakewalk for any Democrat with a pulse.
In this election cycle, however, the conventional wisdom has been consistently wrong. It didn't see the Trump phenomenon coming. It thought Jeb Bush would be the GOP nominee, or maybe Marco Rubio. It viewed Sanders as nothing more than a fringe candidate. Most of the Nostradamuses of political commentary, let's face it, are on a serious losing streak.
The Real Clear Politics poll average has Clinton narrowly leading Trump, 45.8 percent to 42.5 percent; a Fox News poll released Wednesday actually showed Trump with a slight lead. At this point in a presidential year, general-election polls usually don't mean much. And yes, Democrats have a built-in Electoral College advantage. But it would be foolish not to plan for a tight contest in which every single vote counts.
Clinton is a better campaigner than many people give her credit for, but she has two major vulnerabilities that Trump will seek to exploit: Many people do not find her trustworthy, and she has been a leading member of the political establishment for decades.
Trump's central flaw is much more serious he is completely unfit for the job of president and could do great damage to the nation both domestically and internationally. But clearly many Americans are in an anti-establishment mood. The question is whether they are so disgusted with traditional politics and politicians that they will cross their fingers and take a flyer on Trump.
I hope not. But the Democratic nominee will be all that stands between Trump and the White House. It is possible to believe Clinton would be far from an ideal president and also believe she must be elected because Trump would be an unthinkable disaster.
Given this context, Sanders and his campaign are being shamefully irresponsible. Rather than accept defeat, they claim loudly that the party's nominating process was rigged against them. They display a degree of entitlement that they have not earned.
They rail against "unfair" and "undemocratic" party processes unless they work in Sanders' favor. So party conventions such as the one last weekend in Nevada, at which Sanders tried and failed to win a couple of extra delegates through parliamentary maneuvering are bad. But holding caucuses, which have limited participation, instead of primaries is good, because Sanders did very well in caucus states.
Sanders has every right to continue his campaign until the nominee is officially chosen at the convention in Philadelphia. But if he means it when he says he will do everything in his power to keep Trump from being elected, he has to do more than just modulate his rhetoric against Clinton. He and his campaign must stop attacking the Democratic Party in a way that might discourage voters in the fall.
I mean right now. This is serious.
Eugene Robinson's email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com.
BRUNSWICK Scores of motorcyclists took off Saturday from the Brunswick Harley Davidson store for a 100-mile ride against child abuse. The Albany New York Chapter of Bikers Against Child Abuse says its mission is to create a safer environment for abused children. "We exist as a body of Bikers to empower children to not feel afraid of the world in which they live. We stand ready to lend support to our wounded friends by involving them with an established, united organization," according to the chapter's website.
US President Barack Obama is leaving on a weeklong, 16,000-mile trip to Asia as part of his effort to pay more attention to the region and boost economic and security cooperation.
He'll spend three days in Vietnam, with stops in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, for meetings with top leaders, a speech on US-Vietnam relations, visits to cultural treasures and sessions with civic leaders and entrepreneurs. From Vietnam, he heads to Japan for a summit of the Group of Seven industrialized nations and a historic visit to Hiroshima.
Along the way, Obama will make a big push for the 12-nation trans-Pacific trade agreement, which includes the US, Vietnam and Japan.
The deal is stalled in Congress, but Obama hopes it will one day increase trans-Pacific trade and make it easier for US workers and companies to compete in Asia. The deal faces strong opposition from the leading 2016 presidential candidates and other critics, who say it doesn't do enough to protect US workers from unfair competition.
A key sticking point during Obama's stay in Vietnam will be human rights.
Five Republican senators sent the president a letter Friday labeling Vietnam "one of the most repressive regimes in the world" and urging Obama to press Vietnamese leaders to do more to respect freedom of religion and expression and other human rights. The letter was signed by Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, John Boozman of Arkansas, John Cornyn of Texas, James Lankford of Oklahoma and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.
Hours before Obama's scheduled departure, Vietnam granted early release from prison to a Catholic priest who is one of its most prominent dissidents. The move is widely viewed as a goodwill gesture before the president arrives in Hanoi late Sunday night for an official visit.
The Catholic archdiocese of the central city of Hue reported on its webpage that it welcomed the return Friday of the Rev. Nguyen Van Ly from prison. Ly, 70, has served several long terms in prison or under house arrest for promoting political and religious freedoms in the communist nation.
Obama's final year in office is heavy with foreign travel as he conducts what amounts to a long, global farewell tour. He's already made a historic trip to Cuba and visited Saudi Arabia, Germany and England. He's due to make a daytrip to Canada next month, attend a NATO summit in Poland in July and expected to become the first president to visit Laos in the fall. He's also expected to attend a fall summit of the Group of 20 industrial and emerging-market nations in China and an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru in November.
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Gasoline prices are at 11-year lows. Airfares are down anywhere from 10 to 26 percent.
Even hotels are cheaper, down as much as 5 percent.
Too bad about the security lines.
Travelers during the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of the summer vacation season, should find their money buying more.
Even the Capital Region, where gas prices, at $2.32 a gallon, were nearly a nickel above the national average, is seeing those prices down 42 cents a gallon from last year, according to AAA's Fuel Gauge Report.
And while the trend lately has been up, Gregg Laskoski, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com, said the increases remain "really miniscule."
As a result, AAA predicts a record number of Americans 38 million will travel over Memorial Day weekend, also an 11-year high.
The busy travel season is expected to continue through Labor Day. Airlines for America, the industry trade group, expects 231 million fliers between June and August.
At Albany International Airport, carriers have added 13.4 percent more seats than they had a year ago, said airport spokesman Doug Myers. While passenger boardings have also increased, up 10.2 percent so far this year, the faster growth of seating capacity has meant flights out of Albany are slightly less crowded, with 82 percent of seats filled, down from 87 percent a year ago.
Clearing security at Albany so far hasn't become the problem it is at major hubs such as O'Hare and Newark, although lines have become longer.
In Albany, expect to wait more than 31 minutes at peak periods in early morning and late afternoon, according to the Transportation Security Administration's wait time app.
How much longer isn't clear. Thirty-one-plus minutes seems to be the highest wait the app will display.
Albany airport officials late last week were advising travelers to be at the ticket counter at least 90 minutes before their scheduled departure.
During peak times, including holiday weekends, travelers may want to be at the ticket counter two hours before departure.
Airport officials also said travelers may want to enroll in the TSA Pre-check program, which provides expedited screening to those who have successfully undergone a background check.
It costs $85 for five years. Travelers in the Pre-check line can leave shoes, belts and light jackets on, and laptops and bags of 3-ounce liquids in their carry-on bags.
Seats for the Memorial Day weekend were still available on Amtrak trains out of the Capital Region, a check of its website at the end of last week indicated.
Travel on cruise ships, trains and buses was expected to fall 2.3 percent over the holiday, AAA said.
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Motorists traveling to New England will find gasoline prices lower than in Albany, with the exception of Connecticut, where prices late last week were about 8 cents per gallon higher, and Maine, a penny more.
Regionally, the real bargain prices are in New Jersey, where gasoline was just $2.11 late last week, according to AAA.
Once travelers get to their destination, they'll find hotel prices little changed from last year.
AAA reports its three-diamond-rated hotels will average $183 a night, while two-diamond property will average $151.
Travel site Orbitz.com said hotel rates are down nearly 5 percent from year-earlier levels.
While the average New York City rate is up 3 percent to $284 a night, rates in Washington, D.C., are down 20 percent to $162 a night, Orbitz said.
Closer to home, rooms at the posh Sagamore Resort in Bolton Landing ranged from $339 a night to $769 a night, while at the historic Equinox in Manchester, Vt., they ranged from $276 a night to as much as $689 for a suite.
Sites were still available at state-owned Rogers Rock campground at the north end of Lake George. The cost: $22 a night.
eanderson@timesunion.com 518-454-5323
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said on Saturday that some of her proposed reforms would have to wait because of the economic slowdown and tepid political support, but she pledged to push changes to the pension and education systems.
Bachelet, who must work fast to cement her legacy in her last full year in office before 2017 elections, said she was preparing legislation to gradually make university education free and would work to hasten creation of a state pension fund.
"We will continue with pending proposals - less numerous, which make it possible to complete the changes committed to," Bachelet said in her annual speech before Congress in the port city of Valparaiso.
"There are also initiatives that we must reprogram because we have to consider restrictions on resources or the need to form broad agreements," Bachelet said, without specifying what initiatives would be postponed.
Bachelet praised talks on a new constitution to replace one implemented by the country's former dictator Augusto Pinochet.
She did not mention a reform that aims to strengthen organized labor in the South American country. Last month a court rejected as unconstitutional key provisions in that bill, such as a stipulation that companies can only negotiate with legally designated unions during wage talks.
Bachelet was elected in a landslide in 2013 for a second non-consecutive term on pledges to reduce sharp inequality with an ambitious set of wide-ranging reforms paid for by tax hikes.
Her approval ratings halved from over 50 percent when she took office in March 2014 to around 25 percent by the end of 2015.
A financial scandal involving her family has damaged the center-left leader's reputation. Weak economic growth, dragged by falling mining investment and a copper market rout, has also weighed in Chile, the world's top copper exporter.
"Long-term strategies require sound public finances," Bachelet said. "I'm fully aware of the economic responsibilities of the state, even more so in the midst of reforms and a complex international scenario."
Bachelet, who pitched a slew of new proposals to Congress in previous speeches, made no major new announcements this year.
She commands a narrow majority in both houses of Congress, but is struggling to meet demands of her coalition, which ranges from centrist Christian Democrats to Communists.
The right-wing opposition remains unpopular, but changes to the electoral system last year are encouraging a proliferation of new parties that can tap into dissent.
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[May 21, 2016] Knowledge is power: Diaverum presents d.ACADEMY at ERA/EDTA in Vienna
Diaverum, one of the world's leading renal care providers, is presenting its service portfolio and the new education programme d.ACADEMY at the ERA/EDTA 2016 in Vienna. The international provider cares for more than 29 000 patients in 350 clinics in Europe, Middle East/Asia, Latin America and Australia/New Zealand. "ERA/EDTA is an important venue for us to meet the leading nephrologists and the best medical professionals as well as our business partners. We are looking forward to discuss the upcoming challenges, opportunities and solutions in the renal care market with them", says Dag Andersson, CEO and President of Diaverum. "To improve quality of life for renal patients, we are bringing different medical disciplines and services together and coordinating patient care". "We strongly believe in education, and therefore we have created a unique education programme for clinicians, nurses and patients: d.ACADEMY. This virtual university delivers state-of-the-art education at the right place and right time for our people", explains Professor Giovanni Strippoli, Chairman of the d.ACADEMY. "ll our educational activities pursue the clear goal of improving medical outcomes and quality of life for renal patients."
Diaverum will also present two posters with data of scientific research run in Diaverum kidney centers at the ERA/EDA 2016 on Sunday, 22 May (SP 607) and Monday, 23 May (MP 597). Exhibition
The exhibition starts on Saturday, 21 May 2016 and ends on Tuesday, 24 May. The Diaverum booth is situated in hall x2, booth Number 2.350. Visitors are welcome to learn more about Diaverum and to meet the Diaverum experts and the top management team. About Diaverum At Diaverum, our mission is to improve the quality of life for renal patients by revitalising them both physically and emotionally. Being one of the world's leading renal care providers, Diaverum offers a holistic approach, from preventive and early stage renal care to all renal replacement therapies. As a product independent provider - the largest in Europe - we are able to focus solely on caring for the individual needs of our patients. Our experience in renal care dates back 20 years, when the first dialysis clinic was established, previously under our former name Gambro Healthcare. Today, 9,000 employees care for 29,000 patients in 20 countries in Europe, Latin America, Middle East/Asia and Australia/New Zealand. Diaverum has its roots in Lund, Sweden and a corporate office located in Munich, Germany. This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160521005016/en/
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[May 20, 2016] Daisy Intelligence CEO Saarenvirta Offers Free Competitive Flyer Ranking Challenge at Retail Council of Canada's STORE 2016
TORONTO, May 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Daisy Intelligence Corporation founder and CEO Gary Saarenvirta today announced his company's participation as an exhibitor at the upcoming Retail Council of Canada (RCC) STORE 2016 which will be held at the Toronto Congress Centre on May 31 - June 1. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160520/370472LOGO During his announcement, Saarenvirta, challenged STORE attendees to visit his company's exhibit to sign up for a free competitive flyer ranking by Daisy's retail AI engine. "There's a lot of conversation about how AI might increase unemployment and inequality. I believe AI can be used to improve our reality: it can make our lives better and our businesses more productive," said Gary Saarenvirta, CEO of Daisy Intelligence. "Every week, retailers slog through mountains of data to pick products for their weekly promotions. We know this is a tedious task. Our artificial intelligence engine can analyze every option and consider every tradeoff to recommend the optimal choices. Computers excel with repetitive and mundane tasks. We should exploit this to free up a senior merchant's time so they can focus on tasks humans are good at like planning or negotiating." Most retailers and grocers attending the two-day conference will qualify for the limited time offer which is available throughout the duration of RCC STORE 2016. Detail are available at the Daisy Intelligence exhibit (#113), where retail AI guru, Saarenvirta and the Daisy team will be accepting applications.
"Is your flyer better than average or are you losing ground? Daisy knows. Let Daisy analyze your current digital or physical flyer and rank it versus benchmarks," said Saarenvirta. "Computers are unemotional and never get tired: Daisy will put in the same analysis and effort into choosing the last product for your flyer as it did with the first. Our clients tell us that they've gained 4 more hours back in their week to focus on more important tasks like marketing, planning and developing strategy." Daisy Intelligence is a disruptive artificial intelligence company that delivers business optimization service to unlock insights from transactional data to help their clients achieve better bottom line results. It is ideal for large footprint grocers, mass merchandisers, and retailers who need to choose from thousands of SKUs to make frequent promotional offers in their flyers, mailers, in-store and online. Specializing in improving promotional effectiveness, price optimization, product planning, site selection, customer loyalty, and core merchandising operations, the company is working with leading North American retailers, grocers, and big box operators.
With no systems to integrate, Daisy utilizes its AI based systems and its Theory of Retail proprietary approach to thoroughly analyze raw point of sale data on a scale no human could achieve. After 21 days, Daisy makes actionable recommendations for clients to act on and adopt in their existing operations. About Daisy Intelligence Corporation Daisy Intelligence Corporation is an artificial intelligence software-as-a-service company that analyzes very large quantities of our clients' transaction and operational data in order to make automated operational recommendations which retailers can capitalize on to improve their business. Using our proprietary Theory of Retail solutions, Daisy Intelligence analyzes 100% of the tradeoffs inherent in any complex business question and provides weekly, specific recommendations to help our corporate clients grow their total sales, gross/net margin, transactions and customers. www.daisyintelligence.com For more information, contact: Gary Saarenvirta Chief Executive Officer, Daisy Intelligence Corporation [email protected] 905.642.2629 ext. 221 This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/daisy-intelligence-ceo-saarenvirta-offers-free-competitive-flyer-ranking-challenge-at-retail-council-of-canadas-store-2016-300272620.html SOURCE Daisy Intelligence Corp
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What you need to know about Powerball and the $610 million jackpot
Defense Secretary Ash Carter spoke by phone Saturday with his Japanese counterpart after an American who works on a US air base in Okinawa was arrested for his links to the death of a local woman.
In the call to Gen Nakatani, Carter "conveyed his sadness and his regret" over the murder of the young woman "and extended his sincere apologies to the victim's family and friends," the Pentagon said in a statement.
Okinawan police arrested Kenneth Franklin Shinzato on Thursday for allegedly disposing of the woman's body in a weed-covered area in southern Okinawa.
Shinzato, a US citizen and former US Marine who works at the Kadena Air Base, has reportedly admitted to raping and killing 20-year-old Rina Shimabukuro, who had been missing since late April.
Nakatani on Saturday traveled to Okinawa to lodge a formal protest with the US base commander.
"I deliver a strong message of regret and at the same time make a protest," Nakatani told US military commander Lieutenant General Lawrence Nicholson, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, as he demanded that the US military in Okinawa ensure discipline among troops.
In the phone call, Carter told Nakatani "that the United States hopes the perpetrator of this crime will be held accountable under the Japanese legal system."
Carter also said the military "is determined to cooperate fully" with the Japanese authorities to investigate the case.
The statement described the murder as a "shocking and tragic incident."
The statement was released as President Barack Obama departed Saturday on a trip to Vietnam and Japan that will include the first visit by a sitting US president to Hiroshima, site of the world's first nuclear attack.
The southern island of Okinawa was the site of a brutal World War II battle but is now considered a strategic linchpin by hosting numerous US military bases that support the two countries' decades-long security alliance.
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"Andrea Quenette's statements weren't malicious, and she didn't use the n-word as a slur. Moreover, she's a professor of communications, and the classroom was an appropriate place to have a conversation about these issueseven if the conversation bothered some people.
"But her students didn't see it that way, and published a letter calling on KU to fire her. A lengthy investigation ensued: months later, the university determined that Quenette had broken no policies."
An important round-up of a KU prof that faces career jeapordy over loose classroom talk . . .Take a look . . .
CHEERLEADERS AND CRITICS OF THE TOY TRAIN CONFIRM THAT PRESIDENT TRUMP COULD DERAIL STREETCAR PROGRESS!!!
"I think we all understand that there will be a smooth transition from President Obama's transit policies to a Hillary Clinton administration," the insider assured. "Both President Obama and Former Secretary of State Clinton are committed to building our nation's transit system in developing urban areas . . . "
"The Obama administration is regarded as transit-friendly, and that may not be the case in a possible Trump presidency . . . In the end, he's a businessman and I don't think he'll tolerate the fuzzy math surrounding the streetcar and a lack of any real bottom line benefit. Trump won't have much to gain from supporting Kansas City's trolley folly."
LIKE IT OR NOT, THE MOMENTUM OF KANSAS CITY'S TOY TRAIN STREETCAR SEEMS TO DEPEND ON A HILLARY CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL WIN!!!
Both supporters and detractors of the Kansas City's streetcar experiment admit that the consequences of a likely Trump presidency don't bode well for the new streetcar.To wit for the cheap seats . . .At today's. . . There overall theme was ongoing commitment from the Obama-cash support of the streetcar on to Hillary Clinton's advocacy of the same transit priorities as her predecessor. Team Hillary proposesover the next four years.After today's meeting, a pro-streetcar insider told us:Meanwhile,not old school streetcar systems. Still, he hasn't offered any detail on how his administration would fund transit projects across the nation which contradict a more thoughtfully detailed promise to cut taxes. All things considered,over the small scale local streetcar cheerleaders.A couple of streetcar opponents sent this message our way . . .And so . . .And while this might not be the best or worst reason to vote for or against the former First Lady . . . It's certainly one of many ways the Presidential contest will hit home for Kansas City.You decide . . .
Legislative and regulatory interventions made by the government and the Bank of Greece were able to create, gradually, an action framework which will allow a recovery of the financial markets to the benefit of the Greek economy, employment and social cohe
The value of non-performing loans held by the four systemic banks in Greece amounted to 103 billion euros at the end of December 2015, a problem needed an urgent and efficient resolution by all interested parties with a sense of cooperation and social sensibility where necesssary, Aris Xenofos, chief executive of Hellenic Financial Stability Fund announced on Tuesday.
Presenting a report, recently completed by the Fund on non-performing loans of large enterprises, Xenofos noted that legislative and regulatory interventions made by the government and the Bank of Greece were able to create, gradually, an action framework which will allow a recovery of the financial markets to the benefit of the Greek economy, employment and social cohesion.
More analytically, the Fund's action plan on NPLs of large enterprises envisages five steps:
1) Research, tracking and ranking limitation and hurdles in the restructuring of large corporate debts held by Greek banks, such legal, tax, accounting and banking market issues.
2) Planning a coordination framework between banks to deal with large corporate restructuring, finding solutions based on international standards adjusted to Greek reality.
3) Setting a perimeter of problematic enterprises and sectors.
4) Evaluating existing capabilities of the banking sector, leading banks to adopt segmentation of cases, encourage advanced and long-term solutions, developing skills and improving quality and volume of necessary information.
5) expanding the role of capital markets, by activating capital market players through adopting a progressive, legal, regulatory and tax framework on bankruptcy and creating favorable macro-economic conditions.
Read more here.
RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said on Friday it is imperative to speed up the refugee relocation program from Greece, in statements made after the end of the meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels
Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said on Friday it is imperative to speed up the refugee relocation program from Greece, in statements made after the end of the meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels.
Theres no alternative to the relocation, or a plan B. Relocation from Greece must move ahead and urgently, Avramopoulos said, adding that tens of thousands of refugees remain trapped in Greece, while the overall number of asylum seekers who relocated from Italy and Greece barely exceeds 1,500.
He also said he expressed his disappointment to the EUs interior ministers for the poor performance of member-states in the relocation program.
Read more here.
RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
The Greek Foreign Ministry has slammed a conference held in Turkey titled The Turkish identity of Muslims in Western Thrace as stoking tension and uncertainty among Greek Muslims
The Greek Foreign Ministry has slammed a conference held in Turkey titled The Turkish identity of Muslims in Western Thrace as stoking tension and uncertainty among Greek Muslims.
Greece does not recognize its Muslim population, located predominantly in Western Thrace, as an ethnically Turkish minority but as a religious one.
Greece follows a policy of equality that pertains to all Greek citizens, regardless of religious identity, and secures the prosperity and dignity and rights of all, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Efstratios Efthymiou on Saturday.
According to reports, Turkish media carried stories identifying Greeces Muslim minority as ethnic Turks stranded in Europes poorest region.
RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Three deals were signed between the European Investment Fund and Greek intermediary banks and funds providing 150 million of additional investment to very small, small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) in Greece
Three deals were signed between the European Investment Fund and Greek intermediary banks and funds providing 150 million of additional investment to very small, small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) in Greece. Each agreement is backed by European Commission programmes.
The COSME agreement with Diorama Investments will trigger investments of more than 125 million to SMEs. The EU Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) agreementwith Cooperative Bank of Karditsa will cover a loan portfolio of 5 million for over 300 micro-borrowers targeting mainly farmers, young unemployed borrowers, cooperatives and social enterprises, as well as micro businesses active in the green economy.
The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI)-backed InnovFin dealwith ProCredit group will provide 20 million to innovative SMEs.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) signed a EUR 15 million financing agreement with Creta Farms SA, marking the first EIB transaction in Greece that benefits from the support of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the financing arm of theInvestment Plan for Europe. Creta Farms will use the new finance to develop new product lines in the cold cut meat and dairy food industry. The investment will improve the companys competitiveness, both domestically and in export markets, and help to create more than 100 quality new jobs in Greece.
Source: greeknewsonline.com
RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Tourexpi, turizm haberleri, Reiseburos, tourism news, noticias de turismo, Tourismus Nachrichten, , travel tourism news, international tourism news, Urlaub, urlaub in der turkei, , holidays in Turkey, , global tourism news, dunya turizm, dunya turizm haberleri, Seyahat Acentas,
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A police officer was killed and two others were injured when they attempted to arrest a "terrorist element" in southern Cairo, a statement from the Egyptian interior ministry said on Friday.
The officer who was killed was named as Lieutenant Ahmed Hussien Radwan; Lieutenants Ahmed Sobhi Zakariya and Ahmed Abdel-Fattah Abu Rayya were transferred to hospital.
All three were Central Security Forces officers.
The ministry did not disclose the exact location or further details about the nature of the attack.
In recent months, Egyptian security forces have carried out several raids on apartments where suspected or fugitive Islamists militants were reportedly either hiding or preparing for terrorist operations. These raids have often ended with suspects killed by police, who say they were met with gunfire upon arrival at the hideouts.
Earlier in May, eight policemen were gunned down by unknown assailants in the capital's southern district of Helwan. Four individuals, who were waiting in a mini-van, opened fire on a police patrol, resulting in the deaths of all eight officers.
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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has sent banks a request for proposals for a potential US dollar bond, according to several sources.
The sovereign is expected to issue in the international capital markets sometime this year to fund a burgeoning fiscal deficit. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia signed a $10 billion five-year bank loan, the government's first significant foreign borrowing for over a decade.
JP Morgan, HSBC and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi coordinated the loan, which pays an all-in margin of 120bp.
Saudi Arabia is rated A1 by Moody's, A- by Standard & Poor's and AA- by Fitch. All three agencies have cut the sovereign's ratings in recent months, with S&P downgrading it by three notches since October. - Reuters
Memac Ogilvy, a leading advertising and public relations agency, has begun rolling out a region-wide writing and storytelling course, starting with a day-long workshop in Bahrain.
Designed to hone the skills of the agencys writers in all disciplines, including PR, advertising and client service, the workshop applied interactive exercises and material to demonstrate the art and science of writing.
The course covered a wide-range of topics, including the science of storytelling, the do's and don'ts of writing, developing eye-catching headlines, jargon busting and text editing.
Memac Ogilvy staffers, Mark Jackson and Joe Lipscombe, led the workshop. Jackson is the agencys regional technology practice head and public relations director of the Bahrain office, while Dubai-based Lipscombe is a journalist, author, and editorial strategist, and the agencys first editorial director.
Storytelling is a powerful human need, and finding ways to express that in marketing communications can free brands to connect with people in the most potent way. Our workshop is designed to show how small changes in writing style can really benefit our clients, whether were supporting them with PR, advertising, social or digital campaigns, remarked Jackson.
We focused on the idea that great content comes from pushing boundaries and the courage to create edgier pieces that stand out from the clutter, he added.
Twenty one employees from Memac Ogilvy's regional offices in Jeddah, Bahrain and Dubai attended the workshop. Starting with Dubai later in May, Jackson and Lipscombe will hit the road to reach as many of the agencys 700 staff across its 15 offices as possible.
Plans are also underway to make the workshop available to clients across the region.
Ghassan Boujacli, the managing director of Memac Ogilvy Bahrain, said the quality of employees and investing in their development through training and workshops lies at the heart of Memac Ogilvys group strategy.
"This workshop is only one of many internal growth strategies that we are pursuing across our network to maintain our lead," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Donald Trump's "isolationist" foreign policy pronouncements are feeding insecurity in some Asian nations fearful of China's growing power, and risk emboldening nationalists and authoritarians in the region.
The real estate developer, who is very close to securing the Republican nomination for November's presidential election, has with undiplomatic abandon challenged much of the status quo in U.S.-Asia relations. Overall, his comments have sounded like a death knell for the "pivot to Asia" strategy adopted by President Barack Obama five years ago.
Trump has said U.S. allies like Japan and South Korea should pay more towards their defence, warned he could withdraw U.S. troops from bases in Japan, and mulled whether Japan and South Korea should have their own nuclear arms. This week he told Reuters he is willing to talk to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which would represent a major shift in U.S. policy.
In a television interview on Friday, Trump told MSNBC that while he was open to talks, he "would never go to North Korea."
Trump has also threatened to rein in China's big trade surplus with the United States, saying he will threaten to impose heavy duties on Chinese goods. And Trump says he will rip up and then renegotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact agreed to by the U.S., Japan, and 10 other countries in February.
Furthermore, Trump's call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States risks undermining moderate leaders in Muslim countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh.
"If he becomes president and adopts his own version of foreign policy, the U.S. will cease to be a Pacific power. That's the end result," said Kunihiko Miyake, a former Japanese diplomat, who served in both Beijing and Baghdad.
"It's not that we would adopt 'Japan First,' but if the U.S. leaves, there will be a vacuum and China will try to fill it," said Miyake, research director at the Canon Institute for Global Studies. "It's a survival issue for all allies of the United States."
Trump could, of course, lose the election to the likely Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, who is well known by many Asia policymakers.
And if he is elected he could act much differently in office. But Asian diplomats and policy advisers say that initial impressions count.
Trump's idea of making Japan and South Korea pay up rather than enjoy a cheaper ride under the U.S. security umbrella sent shudders through Tokyo and Seoul.
Trump reiterated his stance on Friday. "They have a lot of money, both of those nations," he told MSNBC, pointing to Japan's auto sales and South Korea's electronics industry. "We have to get reimbursed."
In addition, his comments about the possibility of a local nuclear deterrent fanned fears among Asian diplomats that the world could become an even more dangerous place.
"It is here that Trump is most scary," Lalit Mansingh, a former Indian ambassador to Washington, told Reuters in New Delhi, though he also noted it may be "just election rhetoric..
Japan's nationalist-led government has already boosted defence spending and has reinterpreted its pacifist constitution to allow its military to come to the aid of allies under attack even if Japan itself if not attacked, a major shift in Japan's post-war security stance.
"His position is causing anxiety, especially in East Asia," said a senior lawmaker in Japan's ruling coalition. "It is really hard to comprehend because conservatives have supported a stronger military presence and more engagement."
FLASHPOINT
Mansingh said he expects China to test the foreign policy resolve of whoever occupies the White House next, and the South China Sea looms as one of the most likely flashpoints.
Tensions over China's land-building and installations on islets in the disputed waters flared on Tuesday, when two Chinese warplanes carried out what the Pentagon called an "unsafe" intercept of a U.S. military reconnaissance aircraft.
"They're building a massive fortress in the South China Sea. They're not supposed to be doing that," Trump told Reuters, without saying what he would do about it.
At least, according to Mansingh, China's leaders and Trump shared the mentality of dealmakers, which could help settle diplomatic wrangles before they get out of hand.
Jia Qingguo, an adviser to China's government on foreign affairs, said Trump sounds like an "isolationist" who doesn't want the United States to become too active internationally.
"So, he doesn't sound that aggressive," said Jia, the dean of the School of International Relations at China's elite Peking University. "Chinese tend to think that too much so-called internationalism on the part of the U.S. is not that good."
A senior Japanese government official said Washington could lose influence in Asia if there was any perception it was softening its stance on issues like the South China Sea.
"And it would be very difficult to get it back," he warned.
Mansingh says those fears are overblown as the United States' self-interest lay in protecting access to the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
"What would American withdrawal mean? Does it want to hand over the affairs of the world to China? Would that serve anybody's interest? I don't think so."
DEALBREAKER
There are also fears that the TPP could unravel, or become worth a lot less to Asian partners, should Trump renegotiate the pact, as he has said he wants to do.
The deal has yet to be ratified by the U.S. Congress, but Obama has warned that delay could allow China to steal a march through its own proposed regional trade deal with 15 other nations.
"I think it's hard to imagine that TPP would survive a Trump presidency," said a top trade official in a major country in the region, who declined to be more closely identified.
"'Less intervention' would be a small benefit compared to the massive damage to the world from a USA that becomes more isolationist and more crassly commercial under Trump," he said.
The lack of priority Trump appears to give to issues that don't serve his "America first" agenda could mean he'll soft-pedal on human rights and democratic values, some critics said. That would come at a time when generals are running Thailand, a 'strong man' has just been elected as president of the Philippines, and Malaysia's prime minister has silenced independent media.
"Let's hope that someone on his team realizes that respect for human rights must be a core U.S. foreign policy value and not just a reality show line," said Phil Robertson, deputy director for Human Rights Watch's Asia division.
On the other hand, Panitan Wattanayagorn, an adviser to Thailand's defence minister, Prawit Wongsuwon, expressed confidence that Trump wouldn't apply pressure to countries like his.
"All in all, if Trump arrives, the chances of stronger ties will be good because he would want allies," said Panitan. Reuters
Russia has proposed to the U.S.-led coalition that they stage joint air strikes on Syrian rebels, including militant Islamist group Nusra Front, who are not observing a ceasefire, but the US responded coolly on Friday.
Such action would begin as of May 25 and be co-ordinated with the Syrian government, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told a Defence Ministry meeting broadcast on state television, adding Moscow reserved the right to stage strikes unilaterally.
He said joint air strikes should also target convoys carrying weapons and ammunition crossing into Syria from Turkey.
"We believe the adoption of these measures will allow a transition to a peaceful process to be achieved in the entire territory of Syria," he said. "Of course, these measures have been coordinated with the leadership of the Syrian Arab Republic."
Shoigu said discussions with US military experts based in Jordan and other counterparts in Geneva had begun on Thursday.
But the US made clear on Friday it had little interest in the idea, noting Russia has floated similar proposals in the past and stressing that it expected Moscow to pressure its Syrian government ally and to avoid unilateral strikes.
Washington has consistently refused to join forces with Russia in Syria ever since Moscow launched its campaign of air strikes in September last year, accusing it of acting solely to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The United States has called on Assad to step down.
Communication between the US and Russian militaries on Syria has been limited to contacts aimed at avoiding an accidental clash as they carry out rival bombing campaigns and small numbers of US forces operate on the ground.
Western officials suggested that the proposal, which the Pentagon said had not been formally presented to the US Defense Department, was an attempt by President Vladimir Putin to raise Russia's profile on the international stage.
"There is no agreement to conduct joint air strikes with the Russians in Syria," said U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby. He added that the United States believed that Assad's government was responsible for most of the violations of the fitful ceasefire that began on Feb. 27.
"We look to Russia to end such (government) violations, which includes strikes that have hit civilians and civilian facilities," he said.
While Russia supports the Assad government, the United States and its allies support rebels trying to overthrow him in a civil war that has burned for more than five years and killed at least 250,000 people.
However, both sides oppose the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, which was not included in a ceasefire deal which has failed to prevent widespread violence. A U.S. military strike killed Nusra Front's leader, Abu Firas al-Suri, in April.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz said the U.S. aim remains for Russia to persuade Assad to abide by the cessation of hostilities in Syria, saying it was not the first time Russia had made such a proposal.
"You've seen Russia show an eagerness to cooperate with us militarily. This is not something that's new," Schultz said.
In private, U.S. officials said the idea was a non-starter.
"Don't see it happening," a U.S. official said, adding the U.S. military "will ensure safety of flight but nothing else."
A Western official from a coalition country also played down the proposal.
"Putin has long had a strategy regarding Syria of trying to share the geopolitical stage with the United States and its allies, and his latest proposal appears to reflect that goal," the official said.-Reuters
Turkmenistan is in talks with the Islamic Development Bank, the Saudi Fund for Development and Japan's government on financing the construction of a gas pipeline to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, a project official said on Saturday.
The TAPI pipeline is supposed to carry 33 billion cu m of gas a year from Turkmenistan's giant Galkynysh gas field - a project designed to ease the former Soviet state's dependence on Russia and China.
Turkmenistan, which sits on the world's fourth-largest gas reserves, started building its section of the link in December. But its partners in the project - the state energy companies of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India - have yet to begin work.
The 1,814-km route also faces security challenges - current plans send the underground pipeline through one of Afghanistan's most violence-wracked provinces, Helmand, where the Taliban insurgents hold sway.
"The Islamic Development Bank has expressed interest and readiness to finance the project, not only on Turkmenistan's territory, but also in Afghanistan and Pakistan," Muhammetmyrat Amanov of TAPI Pipeline Company Limited told a conference in the Turkmen resort of Avaza.
"We are also working with the Saudi Fund for Development ... We have had meetings with the government of Japan. They have expressed interest," he said.
Amanov said the project company, controlled by Turkmen state firm Turkmengas, was working on estimating the total cost of the project.-Reuters
Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah on Friday vowed to strengthen its presence in wartorn Syria and send more leaders to the conflict, a week after its top military commander there was killed.
The death of Mustafa Badreddine, who Hezbollah said was killed near Damascus by shellfire from Sunni Islamist rebels, was one of the biggest blows yet to the Iranian-backed group's leadership.
Hezbollah, Lebanon's most powerful political and military group, has provided crucial support to the Syrian army, along with Iranian forces and the Russian air force. The group is estimated to have lost around 1,200 fighters in Syria's five-year-old conflict.
"No death of any of our leaders has driven us from the battle. This precious blood will push us to a larger, stronger and more sophisticated presence," leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech broadcast live on the group's Al Manar television.
"We are staying in Syria. More leaders will go to Syria than the number that were there before. We will be present in different forms as well," he said without elaborating.
"We will complete this battle."
Nasrallah spoke on a big screen, projected live in a hall in southern Beirut as part of a ceremony honouring Badreddine a week after his death.
A military band dressed in white marched past the screen shortly before Nasrallah spoke, and men in fatigues paraded with yellow Hezbollah flags.
IRANIAN COMMANDERS KILLED
Nasrallah said Badreddine had been involved in recent weeks in the planning of an offensive to capture territory from rebels southeast of Damascus. Syrian government forces and Hezbollah fighters seized that area on Thursday, taking a substantial amount of territory from insurgents.
Badreddine directed Hezbollah's military operations in Syria, insisting on basing himself in the country, and had been a top commander since the 1990s, responsible for breaking up Israeli spy networks and helping develop the group's media apparatus, Nasrallah said.
He reiterated a Hezbollah statement that Badreddine was killed by insurgent shellfire, and not by an Israeli attack, following speculation after one Hezbollah figure initially blamed Israel. But he warned that Hezbollah would retaliate if Israel targeted "any of our fighters".
At least four prominent figures in Hezbollah have been killed in Syria since January 2015. A number of high-ranking Iranian officers have also been killed, either fighting Syrian insurgents or in Israeli attacks.
Hezbollah has said it sees the Syrian war as an existential battle against Sunni extremists.
Nasrallah said the loss of commanders was not weakening the group.
Badreddine "is not the first martyr to die in this way nor will he be the last," he said.
"We have a generation of leaders" ready to fill the void left by those killed, he said.
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Aparna Banerji
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, May 21
Its girls all the way for the class XII CBSE results in the district this year. While Anchal Jain, pursuing the commerce stream from MGN Public School in Aadarsh Nagar, Jalandhar, bagged the second spot in the state and first in the city with 98 per cent marks, Naman Aggarwal, pursuing the non-medical stream from Delhi Public School, Jalandhar, has bagged the third position in the state and second in the city, with 97.6 per cent marks.
The third position in the district is jointly being held by Nirmaljit Kaur (medical stream) from Army Public School and Nitika Gupta (commerce) from Apeejay School with 97 per cent marks.
Mansi Rhode with 96.8 per cent marks, a student of Police DAV Public School, has got the fourth position in the district.
While an overjoyed Anchal Jain said dancing and listening to music were her favourite hobbies, she said a non-stressful and calm approach in exams saw her through in her results. Anchal aspires to be pursue finance administration.
Close on the heels of Anchal, Naman Aggarwal, a student of Delhi Public School who wants to be an astrophysicist, has bagged the second place in the district and the state with 97.6 per cent marks. Naman said that his ultimate dream was to be pursue research in astrophysics.
In the commerce stream, Anchal Jain from MGN Public School, Adarsh Nagar, bagged the top slot, followed by Nikita Gupta from Apeejay School with 97 per cent marks and Gurleen Kaur Dhindsa and Neelesh Arora with 96.6 marks from DPS. In medical, Nirmaljit Kaur from Army Public School stood first with 97 per cent marks. Anjali Goel from Shiv Jyoti Public Schoolwas second with 96.6 per cent marks and Himanshu Pathak from MGN Public School third with 96.2 per cent marks. In the non-medical stream, Naman Aggarwal topped the district with 97.6 per cent marks bagging the first position, Mansi Rode from Police DAV Public School with 96.8 per cent marks was on the second position and Ishneet Kaur from MGN Public School and Delhi Public School with 96.6 per cent marks, jointly on the third position.
Richa Ghera from Police DAV School topped the district in humanities with 96.6 per cent marks.
Seven out of the total 11 commerce, non-medical and medical toppers in the district are girls.
Nitika, Nirmaljit Kaur
(97 pc marks)
Nitika, a commerce student of Apeejay School, Jalandhar, said the prime reason she got good marks was her interest in studies. You just need to study with concentration even if it is just two one or two hours and the rest is easy.
She said one of her strong points was planning beforehand. I planned for the studies and gave a lot of attention to regular studies, hence I was able to score big.
Fond of watching films, Nikita said she spent a lot of time watching biopics for their inspirational value, when she was not studying.
Daughter of businessman Ajay Gupta and housewife Monica Gupta, Nitika aspires to get into actuarial sciences.
I want to eventually be a policy maker in streams like banking and insurance. I also appeared for the Actuarial Common Entrance Test (ACET) and want to pursue BSc or math honours. She said she would be aiming for Delhi University.
Nirmajit Kaur from Army Public School, pursuing the medical stream, aims to go for the Army Medical Corps as her profession of choice.
Daughter of ex-serviceman Subedar Major (retd) Harpal Singh and mother Harmeet Kaur, a housewife, Nirmaljeet said she grew up feeling proud of her father and his profession.
She shared, Rather than a commercial doctor. I think pursuing medical profession in the Army would give me greater satisfaction. I want to carry forward my fathers legacy of serving the nation.
Nirmaljit credited her parents and teachers for her marks. They always supported me and my elder sister Sukhmajot Kaur also guided me a lot. Besides, at school we had two pre-boards which really prepared us well for the exams.
Sharing her mantra for success, Nirmaljit said, I studied regularly from the first day onwards. So by the end, all I had to do was revise what I had already learnt.
Ishneet Kaur
(96.6 pc marks)
Ishneet Kaur from MGN Public School, who scored 96.6 per cent marks in the non-medical stream, credited her parents father Devinder Pal Singh and mother Rupinder Kaur for her success.
Gurleen Kaur Dhindsa and Neelesh Arora from DPS (commerce), Anjali Goel from Shiv Jyoti Public School (medical) and Karan Kalra from DPS (non-medical) also got the same percentage.
She said studying for her has been like reading a novel. Its all about interest. Opt for a stream you like and studying will be like reading a novel. I quite enjoyed my studies and this made them easier for me, she quipped.
While listening to music and playing guitar and reading mystery novels are Nirmaljits primary hobbies, she is aiming for BITS Pilani to pursue her dream of studying engineering.
Ravinder Saini
Tribune News Service
Mahendragarh, May 21
A joint team of the Crime Branch of the Rajasthan Governments PNDT cell in Jaipur and the local police raided Dhanvantri Hospital in Mahendragarh city and nabbed a doctor and a tout on charges of performing pre-natal sex-determination test.
The team also confiscated an ultrasound machine from the hospital. It had already been sealed by the district health authority sometime ago, but the hospital started using it again, said sources.
The Jaipur police have initiated further investigation into the matter after registering a case against Dr Narender Yadav of Baans Mohalla and tout Sanjay of the Mali Tibba locality here under the PNDT Act.
Sanjay had clinched the deal with a decoy customer to get the sex-determination test performed on her for Rs 23,000. He asked the woman to come to Mahendragarh on Friday. Sanjay took her to Dhanvanti Hospital, said Vikram Singh, in charge of the Crime Branch of the PNDT cell.
Thereafter, the team raided the hospital and nabbed Dr Narender Yadav and Sanjay.
They were taken to Jaipur. A case under Sections 315, 511 of the IPC and the PNDT act has been booked against Dr Narender and Sanjay in this regard, said Vikram.
The sources said an organised sex-determination racket was flourishing in the bordering areas of Rajasthan and Haryana adjacent to Mahendragarh district.
At a joint press conference with his French counterpart, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said that the concept of human rights is "different" for Egypt than it is for Europe.
This is a statement that reflects a deep conviction of the head of state that Egyptians are not apt to accessing the same standard of human rights afforded to European citizens.
Obviously, the president is not comparing something like standards of housing, education or healthcare with those available to European citizens.
We all know that it takes long years of hard work to build up an advanced economy; and actually some well-established democracies are still working on securing for their citizens adequate standards of living.
Yes, there are some exceptions where dictatorships have managed, with an exceptional access to natural wealth, to provide their citizens with considerably high living standards but even still, this was not sustainable due to the lack of democracy and the subsequent lack of accountability.
It is clear that what the president was referring to is matters of freedom of expression, personal rights and democracy; where the president of Egypt thinks that what is enjoyed by the citizens of Europe is not what is needed for Egyptians.
As such, an Egyptian must simply accept that he would end up in prison should he venture too far in expressing his views. An Egyptian citizen should simply accept that he is not equal to the European citizen and consequently has no place to pursue the same right to freedom of expression.
This statement reflects not only the authoritarian tendencies of the leader of the executive branch, but rather the dominating social concepts of supremacy, as seen in the tendency of many from the Muslim majority to believe that they are entitled to more rights than their Christian counterparts.
In fact, most of those who subscribe to extremist Islamist ideas tend to view Christians as second class citizens.
The same concept applies to gender, as most Egyptians have an engrained belief that men are entitled to more rights than women when it comes to anything from employment, to political participation and access to family wealth and inheritance.
This is also evident in the thinking of the military, which has been running the country since 1952.
They too think that they are more capable than anyone else to run the country and if a choice has to be made, it would have to come from the top brass and be separate from any serious civilian interference.
Worse still, the president, who comes from the ranks of the military, tends to think that his views have to be accepted without question or debate.
This perhaps explains his attitude when he decided to hand over the two Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir to the Saudis without consulting the prime minister, the parliament or the people.
The bare fact of the matter is that he thinks that he has a monopoly on the right decision, being from a military background, and that everybody elses views just do not count.
Along the same line of thinking, a police officer may accept that he comes second to a military officer, but he would certainly insist that he comes ahead of a civilian.
This is the heritage of the authoritarian regime that we have been living under for years. This is why it is considered almost perfectly normal for the police corps to see an officer attacking and harming, or even killing, a citizen.
Others in society have adopted a similar sense of social supremacy, such as businessmen, medical doctors and university professors.
Consequently, we ended up with a set of deep classist values, wherein members of society accept that they are not all equal and not all entitled to the same rights rights that are inadequate and limited to begin with.
This is why President El-Sisi thinks that, unlike the killing of an Egyptian at the hands of police, the killing of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni was a major crisis because it involved a European citizen.
For their part, the police corps remains unable to grasp the fuss over the killing of Regeni.
The point here is that when President El-Sisi spoke about different standards of human rights for Egyptians and for Europeans, he was actually reflecting a dominant culture that is adhered to by society at large.
El-Sisi was revealing a deep conviction that his prerogatives go way beyond those to which his French counterpart is entitled.
Needless to say, the French president is not in any position to send thousands to detention or to kill a segment of the population or to engineer the composition of the national assembly.
The French president is in no position to take a unilateral decision to handover the Mediterranean island of Corsica to the US. But the Egyptian president did just that and he admitted to it outright, because he believes it to be within his reign of unlimited authority.
Any Egyptian president is entitled to far more authority than his French counterpart, but the Egyptian people do not have even one-tenth of the rights to which the French people are entitled.
This French president certainly knows that, like all his predecessors, he may or may not run in the next presidential elections, and that there is always the possibility that he would end up retiring at a little house in the countryside.
This is something that no Egyptian president has had to even consider, as they have all exited the political scene under extraordinary circumstances.
I am very grateful that the president said what he did during this joint press conference, so that we can all know what he really thinks, and we all get to see that when he said that the people of Egypt are the apple of his eye, he was merely using a sweet line.
The people of Egypt will, however, always strive to gain their full rights and will always act to protect these rights and their territories, even when it comes to two small islands.
Egyptians know full well that they are not inferior to any other peoples and they will always strive for the rights they deserve.
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Majid Jahangir
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, May 21
Five unidentified militants were killed and two soldiers of the Armys counter-insurgency units injured in a seven-hour gunfight with militants in north Kashmirs Kupwara district today.
The gunfight erupted at Check Drugmulla in Kupwara, nearly 100 km from Srinagar, this morning when joint teams of the Special Operation Group of the J&K Police, Armys 41 and 47 Rashtriya Rifles battalions and CRPF started a search operation after an input about the presence of militants in the area.
As the search started, the militants, who were hiding in an abandoned house in the village, opened fire. As the forces retaliated, it triggered a gunfight.
In the seven-hour-long gunfight, five militants were killed. They were most probably from the Jaish-e-Mohammad, said Deputy Inspector General of Police, north Kashmir Uttam Chand. He said it was being investigated whether the slain militants had infiltrated recently or had been active in the area.
Defence spokesman Col NN Joshi said two Army men were injured in the gunfight and there condition was stable. We recovered five weapons from the encounter site, he said.
Sources said the area was cordoned off on Friday night after an input that a group of recently infiltrated militants was hiding in the village.
The group of militants had infiltrated recently and one of the members was killed in a gunfight in the Zunreishi Chowkibal forest on May 17. They managed to escape that day and we were tracking them. We zeroed in on them at Check Drugmulla, around 25 km from the Zunrerishi encounter site, the sources said.
Kupwara had remained a key infiltration route of militants to enter the Valley. In the recent past, militants had stepped up efforts to sneak into the Valley.
There were intelligence inputs that nearly 200 militants had been waiting to infiltrate from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Sources in the security establishment said around 20 militants had infiltrated into the Valley this year till April. Last year, Union Home Ministry figures stated that 35 militants had infiltrated into Kashmir.
The latest infiltration bid was foiled in north Kashmirs Uri sector on Friday. The sources said a group of militants tried to infiltrate via Kamalkote in Uri, which witnessed a ceasefire violation by the Pakistani army four days ago.
The sources said when militants were trying to sneak into the Valley, they were noticed and challenged by the Army. They fled to the Kamalkote sector without opening fire.
The Army later recovered some jackets, blankets, rucksacks and other war-like stores from the area. A total of 44 militants have been killed across the Valley this year so far.
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, May 20
Moderate separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq today held a rally in the old city here ahead of death anniversaries of two separatists in which Pakistani flags were raised. Clashes also were reported from Sarafkadal area of the old city.
Following the Friday afternoon congregational prayers at historic Jamia Masjid at Nowhatta, Mirwaiz came out on road along with his supports and marched through the streets to Hawal locality.
Eyewitnesses said over 2,000 supporters of Mirwaiz carrying party, Pakistani and pro-militant flags marched to Hawal, where they dispersed peacefully. However, clashes were reported from Sarafkadal area.
Mirwaiz has called for a general strike tomorrow on the death anniversary of Kashmirs two slain leaders Mirwaiz Moulvi Mohammad Farooq and Abdul Gani Lone. To foil the strike, the J&K government has decided to impose restrictions in five police station areas.
Moulvi Farooq was murdered in cold blood on May 21, 1990, when unidentified gunmen barged into his Nigeen residence at Srinagar and assassinated him.
Lone, a moderate separatist leader, was also killed on May 21 in 2002, by unidentified assailants at a rally that had been held to mark the death anniversary of Maulvi Farooq at Eidgah ground.
Lone was father of separatists Bilal and Sajjad, who is the first separatist-turned-mainstream politician and is a Cabinet minister in PDP-BJ government.
Earlier, Mirwaiz Umar in his Friday address at Jamia mosque said that attempts of harming the religious and cultural identity of Kashmiris and changing the demography of the region by converting Muslim-majority into a minority were being made under a well planned design.
Shyam Sood
Rajouri, May 21
Residents of several villages today held protests against acute shortage of drinking water. In many areas of the district, people have been facing shortage of drinking water for the past a few months and they have to cover long distances to fetch water from natural sources.
For the past more than one month, no water has been supplied by the PHE Department to many villages, including Lamberi, Dandani and Bela located on the Jammu-Poonch highway under the jurisdiction of Nowshera PHE wing, said Mohinder Pal, sarpanch of Lamberi village.
The villagers blocked the Jammu-Poonch highway in protest against shortage of potable water for more than an hour and lifted the blockade on the assurance of Harbansh Lal, SDM, Nowshera.
The protesters said that people were facing water crises at many places in the district.
Similar situation was being faced by residents of Brog village and its adjoining areas in Kalakot tehsil. Water was not supplied to these areas for the past more than a month.
Residents of Biragua and other villages blocked the Rajouri-Kalakot road at Bairagua this morning. They said that the PHE Department had failed to provide safe drinking water to them.
In this scorching heat, people have been forced to collect water from natural resources after covering long distances, said Mohinder Singh.
Residents of Palma and Nagrota villages blocked the Rajouri-Budhal road yesterday. They alleged that there was no supply of water in their areas for the past more than 40 days.
Several representations and repeated requests for restoration of the water supply have fallen to deaf ears and now, we have decided to protest against the PHE Department, said Mohd Ayub.
Not only the people living in the urban areas were facing water crises, but residents of far-off areas claimed that water had not been supplied to them for the last more than 5-6 months and they were dependent on rivulets and other water resources.
Daily wagers are on an indefinite strike for the last more than 60 days which has affecting the lifting of water from pumping stations managed by the mechanical wing of the department. The crises started with irregular lifting of water from these pumping stations, said Nissar Khan, Executive Engineer, PHE (Rajouri Division).
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, May 21
With the Presidents assent to the ordinance exempting state governments from holding the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for undergraduate medical and dental admissions this year still awaited, the Opposition Congress today surprised many of its own top leaders by taking a U-turn on the matter.
The Congress had vehemently demanded the postponement of NEET-UG by a year in the Lok Sabha on May 11. Participating in the Zero Hour discussion that day, leader of Congress in the House Mallikarjun Kharge had said, My request is that at least for this year NEET-UG should be deferred. Naturally all students will know that in the next year they have to face the common entrance test. Congress MP from Maharashtra Rajeev Satav had gone a step further: The Government should go back to the Supreme Court to seek exemption for state governments or else the Government should come out with an ordinance to defer the exam.
Most political parties had sought the postponement of NEET-UG that day, following which Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu had said the Centre wanted NEET but not from this year.
The disconnect between Congress stand in Parliament and the one its spokespersons have been taking since yesterday has surprised leaders like Kharge and Satav.
Randeep Surjewala, Congress chief spokesman, yesterday slammed the Centre for bringing an ordinance and sought its rollback, saying the move served vested interests of a medical lobby consisting of many politicians and businessmen.
Importantly, Jairam Ramesh, Congress nominee to the all-party meeting on NEET which Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had chaired recently, is also learnt to have argued for the resolution of three principal concerns of state governments difference in the syllabus of CBSE and state boards, the fact that CBSEs NEET will only be held in Hindi and English, and the reality that many states conduct their own tests for MBBS and BDS admissions and need time to switch to a new system.
Health Minister JP Nadda today even made the minutes of the all-party meeting on NEET public to say that the Congress had actually supported the postponement of NEET-UG for states by a year.
Simran Sodhi
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, May 21
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who embarks on a two-day visit to Iran on Sunday, will pay his respects at a Tehran gurdwara, the only functioning Sikh temple in the country since 1940s.
While the PMs Iran trip is likely to be highlighted for the Chabahar port deal, along with other connectivity pacts, the visit to the gurdwara has its own significance.
Iran has a thriving Sikh community which has never faced any kind of discrimination and has continued to practice their religion with freedom in the country. The gurdwara in Tehrans Mesjed Henidyah was founded by Bhai Ganga Singh Sabha in 1941. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also visited the gurdwara on her recent visit to Tehran.
In 2012, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had travelled to Tehran to attend the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit. Even though he was unable to visit the gurdwara owing to his hectic schedule, his wife Gursharan Kaur had paid her respects there.
The members of the Sikh community, some 800 families who live in the region, largely comprise traders and are Iranian citizens. Most moved to Tehran in the early 20th century from Punjab.
The PM will also inaugurate an international conference on India-Iran: Prospects & Retrospects and release a rare manuscript in Persian brought out by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations at the same conference.
Simran Sodhi
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, May 21
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Tehran's only functioning gurdwara during his two-day tour to Iran starting Sunday.
While the PM's Iran trip is likely to be highlighted for the Chabahar port deal, along with other connectivity pacts, the visit to the gurdwara the only one functioning in Tehran since 1940s has its own significance.
Iran has a thriving Sikh community that continues to practice their religion with freedom in Iran. The gurudwara in Tehran's Mesjed Henidyah was founded in 1941 by Bhai Ganga Singh Sabha. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also visited the gurdwara on her recent visit to Tehran.
In 2012, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had travelled to Tehran to attend the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit. Although he was unable to visit the gurdwara owing to his hectic schedule, his wife Gursharan Kaur had paid her respects there.
The Sikh community some 800 families who live in the region and are Iranian citizens mostly consists of traders, most of who moved to Tehran in early 20th century from the Punjab.
The Prime Minister will also inaugurate an international conference on India-Iran: Prospects & Retrospects and will release a rare manuscript in Persian brought out by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations at the same conference.
Modi will hold bilateral talks with President Hassan Rouhani after a ceremonial welcome on Monday morning, which will focus on regional connectivity, infrastructure and energy as well as terrorism and extremism in the region.
Also, discussions would feature mode of clearance of the $6.4 billion Indian refiners like Essar Oil and MRPL owe to Iran in past oil dues. Ahead of the visit, refiners have cleared $1.2 billion.
There will be signing of two contractsone by Indian Ports Global Pvt, a joint venture between the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust and the Kandla Port Trust, with Arya Bandar Company of Iran for developing two terminals and five multi-cargo berth in Phase-1 of the Chabahar port project.
Chabahar in South-East Iran will help skip Pakistan and open up a route to land-locked Afghanistan with which New Delhi has developed close security ties and economic interests.
From Chabahar port, the existing Iranian road network can link up to Zaranj in Afghanistan, about 883 km from the port.
The Zaranj-Delaram road constructed by India in 2009 can give access to Afghanistans Garland highway, setting up road access to four major citiesAfghanistan-Herat, Kandahar, Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif.
Indian investment in phase-1 will be in excess of $200 million, including $150 million line of credit from Exim Bank, an agreement for which would also be signed during the visit.
Besides signing of commercial contract for Chabahar Phase-1, Modi will witness signing of a trilateral agreement on transport and transit corridor among India, Afghanistan and Iran.
Sources said talks will feature Indian state-run firms securing rights to develop the offshore Farzad-B gas field, which was discovered by ONGC Videsh.
The trilateral agreement is seen to significantly enhance prospects of Indias connectivity with Afghanistan, Central Asia and beyond such as the North-South corridor.
Modi and Iranian President are also likely to review peace and stability in the region which faces several challenges, including terrorism and violent extremism, besides cyber crime and maritime security.
India and Iran had in 2003 agreed to develop Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman outside the Strait of Hormuz, near Irans border with Pakistan.
But the project moved slowly because of western sanctions against Iran. The sanctions were lifted in January and since then, India has been pushing for conclusion of an agreement.
The Indian company will undertake the development of two jetties in Chabahar port for 10 years and will transfer all cargo consignments except oil products.
About a fifth of the oil consumed worldwide each day passes through the Strait, a shipping choke point that separates the Persian Gulf from the Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean.
India plans to participate in implementation of the second phase of development of Chabahar, including building a 500-km railway line between Chabahar and Zahedan that will connect Chabahar to Central Asia.
According to the provisional deal, the Indian joint venture will refurbish a 640-metre container handling facility as well as rebuild a 600-metre multi-purpose berth at Chabahar.
The Indian side has guaranteed 30,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEUs) of cargo handling in the third year of operations and aims to handle 250,000 TEUs in the 10th year.
To help fund the project, the government of India had in February cleared a proposal by the Ministry of Shipping to secure up to $150 million in credit from the Export-Import Bank of India.
Chabahar port, located in the Sistan-Baluchistan Province on Irans southern coast, is of great strategic utility for India. It lies outside the Persian Gulf and is easily accessed from Indias western coast.
The port project will be the first overseas venture for an Indian state-owned port. Jawaharlal Nehru Port, Indias biggest container port, holds a 60 per cent stake in Indian Ports Global while Kandla port has the remaining 40 per cent. With PTI inputs
Shahira Naim
Tribune News Service
Lucknow, May 21
Mallya nu na kade wekhya, na Mumbai nu (I have never either seen Mallya or Mumbai) was the reaction of a shocked 45-year-old farmer, Manmohan Singh, from Bilsanda town in Pilibhit whose two bank accounts with Bank of Baroda had remained sealed since December 2015 for being the guarantor of absconding defaulter and liquor baron Vijay Mallya.
It was only after the media reported the harassment of the farmer that his accounts, jointly having the princely amount of Rs 5,217, was finally freed last evening. Manmohan Singhs son Harvinder said his whole family had never either seen Mallya or Mumbai.
He said in December his father had received a letter from the Nand branch of Bank of Baroda in Bilsanda town of Pilibhit, claiming that his accounts had been sealed and he would get no further loan as he was the guarantor and Director of Mallyas company. Mammohan Singh, owner of an eight-acre farm in Bilsanda, first thought that the letter referred to Rs 4 lakh farm loan he had taken from the bank.
Bank of Baroda Nand branch manager Mange Ram said the brach had received a letter from the Mumbai office to seize these two accounts of Manmohan Singh for recovery of the loan amount as his name was on the guarantors list of Vijay Mallya. It was after the bank officials visited the house of Manmohan Singh and sent a report to the Mumbai office of his humble background and the mounting pressure of the media that they received a letter permitting to release the accounts.
New Delhi, May 21
India on Saturday deeply appreciated Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus formal apology in the House of Commons for the Komagata Maru incident, saying it reflects Canadas commitment to the values of pluralism which India fully shares.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson said, We welcome and deeply appreciate the gesture of Prime Minister of Canada to deliver a formal apology in the House of Commons for the Komagata Maru incident.
The Indian diaspora in Canada has contributed immensely to Canadas growth and development and acts as a bond between our two nations, the spokesperson said.
Prime Minister Trudeaus gesture constitutes an acknowledgement of the positive role of the Indian diaspora.
It also reflects Canadas commitment to the values of pluralism and multiculturalism, which India fully shares, he added.
On May 23, 1914, a Japanese steamship, Komagata Maru, carrying 376 passengers majority of whom were of Sikh, Muslim and Hindu origin was denied entry into Canada after an immigration dispute, only for some to be killed in protests on their return to India.
Earlier this week, the Canadian Prime Minister delivered a formal statement of apology in the House of Commons and said, More than a century ago a great injustice took place. PTI
Raj Sadosh
Abohar, May 20
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has turned down the Congress demand of physical verification of the foodgrain stock at godowns owned/hired by various departments.
A visibly upset Badal hit back at Congress spokesperson and Abohar MLA Sunil Jakhar on his home turf for raising the foodgrain scam issue without valid documents. Speaking at a Sangat Darshan programme in Choohriwala Dhanna village, he said, Let Jakhar come out with solid proof instead of reiterating false and ill-found allegations through the media. He is free to approach the court, if he is in possession of some substantial material. He is also welcome for an open debate, but speaking lies hundred times should be stopped.
The CM organised Sangat Darshans in six villages of the Balluana constituency today. Resident of the villages that Badal visited yesterday faced five-six hour power cuts today as the power corporation was to ensure uninterrupted supply to the villages that the CM was visiting today.
He claimed there was no discrepancy in the wheat stock and the Congress was creating an unnecessary hue and cry on the issue. The Congress was going through a severe political crisis not only in Punjab but also across the country. It was levelling baseless allegations against the ruling alliance just to garner political mileage, he said.
He claimed the SAD-BJP alliance would register the third consecutive win in the forthcoming Assembly elections.
He said the Congress and AAP would have to face the wrath of the people in the Assembly elections since the electorates had understood that the Congress was fooling them and that AAP had betrayed the people of Delhi.
Without commenting on judicial rulings, the continued application of the protest law indicates that the state is continuing down the same path that is taking us toward more tension on the street and further divisions in society, and pushing young people to opt for more strident means to express their despair at ever having a voice.
Every time a political release seems to loom on the horizon or reasonable voices urge the state to reassess its stance on civil liberties, we end up back where we started or even further behind. Louder, more influential voices manage to persuade decision makers, and a sizeable chunk of the public, that abandoning the protest law and releasing people imprisoned for expressing their opinion will unleash chaos and violence and obstruct economic development and the war against terrorism.
In fact, this mentality, which has dominated state thinking over the past two years, is utterly wrongheaded. Curtailing the right of peaceful protest does not protect society from violence and does not bring security and stability.
A law criminalizing demonstrations wont deter anyone set on taking up arms against the nation, and anyway the authorities have other penal statutes at their disposal without restricting this constitutional right to protest peacefully. Prohibiting peaceful protest has had no impact on the battle against terrorism. It has only divided our ranks and excluded well-meaning youth from politics, at a time when the country needs to come together, mobilize energies, and regain the confidence of younger generations in the value of participation.
On the other hand, the assertion that the momentous economic, social, and security challenges facing the country dont permit us the luxury of disagreeing or questioning the governments performance is mistaken.
On the contrary, the very thing that will bring us together to meet these challenges is a diversity of opinion, government accountability, and participation in decision-making.
Participation makes the public a partner, encouraging citizens to be vigilant of state agencies and giving them a stake in outcomes.
The frequent admonition "to be quiet and let the government work effectively" removes oversight and accountability, especially with a weak, fragmented parliament, a besieged civil society, and a media fighting for its independence.
Where else can popular oversight come from, necessary to correct course, expose corruption, and review misguided policies and decisions?
Finally there is the claim that economic development and investment require laws that restrict freedoms. We need only consider the causes of the economic crisis to see that curbing the right to protest has not helped to resolve it, but only made it worse.
Political unrest does not help attract investments nor tourists. It only limits societys capacity to innovate and create, increases the cost of production, and erodes investors confidence in national stability, social peace, and the fairness of the countrys legal system.
A law loses legitimacy when its application leads to outcomes that defy logic, common sense, and justice. The protest law lost all legitimacy a long time ago, when it became clear that its aim was not to protect society from violence and thuggery, but to silence youth.
Every time another young man or woman is imprisoned, this law loses more legitimacy in the face of the courage of those convicted under its provisions.
What are we to think when we see youth sentenced to years in prison for carrying their countrys flag and peacefully protesting an obscure agreement concluded by the state without preamble or consultation?
The protest law hasnt been merely sulliedit has been thoroughly discredited and become a symbol for injustice and irrationality.
The ongoing disagreement in society is no longer about the protest law per se; it wont be resolved by a some tweaks in its provisions or pardons for a few prisoners. It is a reflection of the wide gap between two conflicting visions of development and reform.
One camp believes state institutions cant be rebuilt and development achieved unless all opposition voices fall silent and let the government work in peace. The other camp holds that an energetic society, diversity of opinion, and youth participation, no matter how scathing their criticism, are necessary to put the country on track, foster its creative energies, and restore its unity.Since the first approach hasnt worked, isnt it time to reconsider?
It is time to understand that a country like Egypt, with its diversity and richness, cannot progress in a climate that suppresses civil liberties and does not allow youth a say in determining their future.
*The writer holds a PhD in financial law from the London School of Economics. He is former deputy prime minister, former chairman of the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority and former chairman of the General Authority for Investment.
This article was published in Arabic in El-Shorouq newspaper on Monday, 16 May.
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Dhaka, May 20
Machete-wielding assailants hacked to death a village doctor and wounded a university teacher in Bangladesh on Friday, in what police suspected was the latest in a series attacks by Islamists in the majority-Muslim nation.
The attackers rode a motorcycle, which they used to block the victims' motorcycle in the western district of Kushtia, 150 miles (245 km) from Dhaka, said district police chief Mohammad Sahabuddin Chowdhury.
The homeopathic doctor, Mir Sanaur Rahman, 55, was killed on the spot, and his companion, identified as Saifuzzaman, 45, suffered serious wounds. Police found a bloody machete at the scene.
"We suspect Islamist militants are behind the attack," Chowdhury said.
Over the past year, the South Asian nation of 160 million has seen a surge of attacks on atheist bloggers, academics, members of religious minorities and foreign aid workers.
The doctor was on his way to a weekly free clinic he operated when he was attacked.
Chowdhury said police were checking whether the victims had any particular enemies or if other factors could have been a motive but media reported associates of the doctor saying he had a reputation for progressive views.
Friends of the wounded university teacher said he too was known for being progressive-minded.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the killing, the US-based monitoring service SITE said, quoting the militant group's Amaq news agency.
Members of Islamic State have claimed responsibility for some attacks, including the killings of two foreigners last year, and a university professor and a Hindu last month.
Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent has claimed some of he attacks.
The government has denied that Islamic State or al Qaeda groups have a presence in the country and says home-grown Islamists are responsible for the wave of attacks. Reuters
New Delhi, May 21
India on Saturday appreciated Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's gesture of apologising in the House of Commons in Ottawa for the infamous Komagata Maru incident of 1914.
We welcome and deeply appreciate the gesture of the Prime Minister of Canada to deliver a formal apology in the House of Commons for the Komagata Maru incident, external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.
The Indian diaspora in Canada has contributed immensely to Canada's growth and development and acts as a bond between our two nations. Prime Minister Trudeau's gesture
constitutes an acknowledgment of the positive role of the Indian diaspora," he said.
The Komagata Maru was a Japanese ship that was hired by a rich Malaysia-based Sikh, Baba
Gurdit Singh, to bring 376 Indians, mostly Sikhs, to Canada in 1914.
Since both India and Canada were British dominions at that time, the Indians should have had the right to enter Canada. But the Canadian government of that time put in place various clauses in laws to bar Indians from entering Canada.
The Komagata Maru, which entered the Vancouver harbour on May 23, 1914, was forcibly sent back to India after two months. On reaching Budge Budge in Calcutta in September 1914, the passengers
were subjected to firing by the British Indian police in which 19 of them were killed.
In his apology, Prime Minister Trudeau said: "Canada's government was, without question, responsible for the laws that prevented these passengers from immigrating peacefully and securely. For that, and for every regrettable consequence that followed, we are sorry." IANS
EgyptAir flight MS804 crashed while en route from Paris to Cairo in the early hours of Thursday
Related Cairo Opera House suspends events for 3 days to mourn lost plane
State culture institutions will suspend their activities for a three-day mourning period to mark the loss of EgyptAir's flight MS804, Egypt's Culture Minister Helmy El-Namnam decided on Friday.
Among the institutions operating under the ministry which announced the activities' suspention so far are Theatre House, a body responsible of all state-theatre activities, the Cultural Development Fund overseeing activities of the International Music Centre, Beit El-Sehemi, El-Ghouri Caravansary etc, the Cairo Opera House, and the Fine Arts Sector responsible of the state-museums.
The institutions will reopen on Monday.
The EgyptAir plane crashed in the Mediterranean in the early hours of Thursday while en route from Paris to Cairo.
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 White Deer Plain, the magnum opus of acclaimed author Chen Zhongshi, is a peculiar work in contemporary Chinese literature. His use of magical realism to document the upheavals in the countryside from the tail end of the Qing dynasty to the time Mao establishes the People's Republic reminds many of Nobel Prize winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Chen died of cancer on April 29 aged 73. But controversy surrounding this book, first published in 1993, continues. Some critics praised the 500,000-word novel as a seminal work in modern Chinese literature, but others dismissed it as mediocre with little literary merit.
In the first few years after its release, the book was left out of all the nomination lists for state-backed literary awards, until it won the country's most prestigious accolade for writing, the Mao Dun Literary Prize, in 1998. But, judges, who cringed at the explicit descriptions of sex and felt parts of the book misrepresented the Communist revolution, wanted the narrative sanitized before it could qualify for the award. Chen had to modify the story to be eligible for the prize.
However, the censors mollified over the years. In 2002, the White Deer Plain was picked as the only contemporary Chinese novel to be included in a mandatory reading list for college students compiled by the Ministry of Education. The uncensored edition hit the bookshelves in 2012.
The book remains popular among Chinese readers, more than two decades after its publication. It has sold about 2 million copies and has been translated into French, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian and Vietnamese. It is not widely known in the English speaking world due to a lack of a translation.
The story follows the struggles of two rural families, the Bais and Lus, in the central province of Shaanxi, over several generations starting from the early 1900s, when Qing rule collapsed and the ensuing decades with warlords before the country was swept up in the Sino-Japanese war. It also chronicles the bitter civil war and how lives changed a few years after Mao came into power. It portrays the upheavals in peasant lives and traditions in a rural society.
The protagonist, Bai Jiaxuan, is a complicated character. As a leader of the Bai clan, he is cast as a model of benevolence and an embodiment of traditional cultural values. But there is falseness and brutality hidden beneath this veil.
The author starts by saying "What Bai Jiaxuan always feels proud of is that he has been married to seven women in his life." But as the story progresses, we know that six of his wives are dead and Bai never sheds a single tear for them. But he is not completely indifferent to loss, because he cries and faints in grief when his father dies.
When each of Bai's wives die, his mother utters one sentence: "a woman is just like a paper screen stuck on a window, you just change it when it is broken." How cruel it is. Bai's father, a popular figure in the village, was also ruthless to his daughter-in-laws.
The family's attitudes towards women showed not only gender discrimination but also a lack of humanity.
But villagers never blamed the Bais for cruelty. Instead, they were praised for kindness. Bai does offer to help a widow and save some villagers during a riot. But, his kindness is based on his own moral standards and rules set by a patriarchal community. He bribes officials to help a stranger, but lynches village gamblers.
Bai's benevolence does not include an iota of love, even towards his children. He forces his daughter to marry against her will and brutally beats his son. He neither has any sympathy towards Tian Xiaoe, another main character abused by her husband. Tian cuts a tragic figure. She pursues her own ideal of love but is castigated as depraved by fellow villagers. After she was murdered, her ghost haunts the village.
As the clan leader, Bai whips Tian in public as punishment for what he sees as immoral behavior, and plots to kill her. After Tian's death, Bai builds a tower over her ashes to pin down her evil spirit forever.
Throughout his life, Bai flaunts his benevolence and morality. He is generous and tolerant of bandits and rogues but had no sympathy to those like Tian. His values were a lethal brew of hypocrisy and false beliefs that lacked wisdom and logic. The author uses this character to reflect on the defects of human nature and our tendency towards violence.
Some scholars see parallels between White Deer Plain and 19th century writer Lu Xun's A Madman's Diary and argue the real meaning behind Bai's Confucian ideology which is filled with benevolence and morality is actually cold-blooded cruelty.
Mi Qin is a magazine columnist and a contributor to Caixin Weekly
OKLAHOMA CITY A Senate panel passed a bill on Friday that would require Oklahoma schools to provide separate accommodations to students who object to sharing shower, bathroom or locker room facilities with transgender individuals.
Senate Bill 1619, by Senate Pro Tem Brian Bingman, R-Sapulpa, and House Speaker Jeff Hickman, R-Fairview, passed the Senate Joint Committee on Appropriations and Budget by a vote of 20-15.
It now moves to the House Committee on Appropriations and Budget for consideration.
The language of the bill was not made available until late Thursday. It was not posted on the panels agenda but was taken up under new business.
Supporters said it is in response to the issuance last week of federal guidance to schools directing that they allow transgender students to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity.
Compliance with Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs and activities, was cited along with other civil rights court rulings as the rationale for the guidance letter from the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education.
Sen. Gary Stanislawski, R-Tulsa, presented the bill for Bingman and debated for it. He declined several requests by his colleagues to hold the bill over so its language could be improved.
Stanislawski said a cleanup bill could follow later.
The current language of the bill would allow for any student at a public school in the state or the parent or legal guardian of the student to submit to the board of education of the school district a request for a religious accommodation based on the students sincerely held religious beliefs.
Sen. Brian Crain, R-Tulsa, questioned how the issue involved religion.
Sen. Corey Brooks, R-Washington, questioned why the measure did not apply to students who had no religious beliefs or were atheists.
Sen. Kevin Matthews, D-Tulsa, said that at one point many people held beliefs about not wanting to accommodate African-Americans or Muslims. He said the bill would have unintended consequences.
I believe it is an unjustified bill, he said. Do you realize that it is taking us backward with that line of thought?
Sen. David Holt, R-Oklahoma City, questioned why the issue was even being taken up at this point, pointing out there are only five days left in the session and that the state is facing an unprecedented budget hole of $1.3 billion.
I think the timing is wrong tragically wrong and that we have spent an entire day with just five days left in the session dealing with this and not putting the brainpower of the body into the budget situation, Holt said. It makes me feel ashamed.
Sen. Dan Newberry, R-Tulsa, said the measure was being addressed at this time because the federal government issued its directive when it did.
I am not going to back down in light of the budget crisis, Newberry said.
Supporters said the measure is in response to calls and emails from constituents.
Stanislawski said he was thankful for the thoughtful debate and questions.
I encourage you to vote for this bill, Stanislawski said. It is here for the fairness of us all.
Troy Stevenson, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, said he was extremely disappointed and called the legislation horrible.
He said it was badly written and would stigmatize school children.
Our Legislature should be in the business of protecting Oklahomans and not stigmatizing populations they dont like and pass a damn budget, Stevenson said.
UK documentary series, Worlds Toughest Prisons, which was pulled from Nines schedule while its 60 Minutes crew was behind bars in Beirut, begins tonight.
The first episode features a jail in Honduras while subsequent episodes feature Mexico, The Philippines and Poland.
No word if Lebanon will feature.
Normally you have to be a war criminal, gangland executioner, rapist or psychopath to secure a room in one of the worlds toughest prisons. Paul Connolly is none of the above but he heads to Honduras to spend a week living inside Danli Prison.
9:30pm tonight on Nine.
European Union ministers meeting in Brussels have agreed on a mechanism aimed at suspending visa-free travel for foreign nationals abusing the privilege and approved funds to help Greece cope with Europe's migrant crisis.
The action would essentially make it easier and faster for EU members to suspend visa waivers granted to foreign nationals under certain conditions -- such as, if large numbers stay illegally.
Dutch migration minister Klaas Dijkhoff, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, hailed the agreement, which still needs to be passed by the European parliament.
"The new mechanism offers more grounds to suspend, like readmission and asylum claims, and it also contains a permanent monitoring system to ensure that countries continue to fulfill the criteria for visa freedom," he said. "And it's considerably faster because the threshold to act is much lower."
The United States will allocate $28 million in humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, aimed at vulnerable groups of population, especially the victims of the Russian aggression in Donbas and Crimea.
This has been stated in the report of the US State Department, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.
"We are very pleased to announce that the United States is providing an additional $28 million in humanitarian assistance. This brings the total amount of humanitarian aid from the United States to more than $112 million since the start of this crisis," Nancy I. Jackson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, said.
This assistance will help "hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people affected by the Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine and the Russian occupation and annexation of Crimea."
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On May 22-23, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko will pay a working visit to Turkey.
This has been reported by the press service of the Head of State.
"On May 22-23, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko will pay a working visit to Turkey to attend the World Humanitarian Summit, which will be held in Istanbul," reads a statement.
Poroshenko will speak at the plenary session, as well as take part in a roundtable on the role of political leadership in preventing and ending conflicts.
The agenda of the visit also includes bilateral meetings of the President of Ukraine with heads of states and governments that participate in the summit.
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Resumption of relations between Western countries and Russia and lifting of sanctions will be a tragedy for the Crimean Tatar people.
Leader of the Crimean Tatar people Mustafa Dzhemilev said this in an interview with CBC News.
"If Western countries decide to re-establish relationships with Russia and become friends again, it is a disaster for the entire Crimean Tartar people," Dzhemilev said.
Dzhemilev said that his people were concerned that Canada was softening its opposition to the annexation. According to him, "human dignity is constantly being violated".
He testified he couldnt understand how anyone could start a dialogue with "a gangster," referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"Until the occupation of our land is over, we cannot make any deals," he said.
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President of the World Congress of Ukrainians Eugene Czolij urged members of the Riksdag, the national parliament of Sweden, to extend sanctions against Russia and to support Ukraine on its way to the EU.
An Ukrinform correspondent learned this from the headquarters of the Ukrainian World Congress.
"The President of the World Congress of Ukrainians urged Sweden to be indestructible in the protection of independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine and to support its European aspirations, as well as to extend targeted sanctions against the Russian Federation and do not lift them until it completely fulfills the Minsk agreements and stops the illegal occupation of Crimea," the UWC reports.
The issues on ratification of the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine and introduction of visa-free regime for Ukrainians who travel to Europe were among other important topics of the talk.
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The European Commission, in spite of skeptical statements of some EU member states, insists that Ukraine has fulfilled the Visa Liberalisation Action Plan (VLAP) and should receive a visa-free regime soon.
This has been said in the statement of the EU Delegation to Ukraine on Facebook.
"The European Commission, in spite of skeptical statements made by some EU member states, hopes that Ukraine will receive a visa-free regime in the near future. The European Commission insists that Ukraine has fulfilled the Visa Liberalisation Action Plan and should receive a visa-free regime "very soon"," reads a statement.
It is noted that "as Ukraine successfully achieved compliance with all the indicators that are set in the Visa Liberalisation Action Plan, the European Commission proposed the EU Council and the European Parliament to lift visa requirements (for short-term visits to the EU) for the citizens of Ukraine."
"The European Commission hopes that the European Parliament and the EU Council will soon approve this proposal," the statement said.
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Top U.S. universities are forcing out a proposed State Department rule that would ban foreign students from more research classes and projects comprising information considered as crucial top national security.
This proposal by the administration of President Obama comes in the wake of growing concerns in Washington over an increase in intellectual property stealing from foreign antagonist like China. This rule which is still in the proposal process and has not been extensively noted will specifically affect research linked with defense technology including satellite technology, nuclear engineering, and munitions.
U.S. colleges have recently gained huge popularity among foreign students who are willing to pay high fees, however the new rule which mostly affect company-sponsored research pose a threat by shrinking the pool of research opportunities available for colleges in the U.S.
Many leading U.S. school decline research grants that curb participation by foreign citizens as it conflicts with their policies of non-discrimination and academic freedom, according to reports by Reuters.
In a letter to the State Department, Stanford University confirmed that it joined forces with the University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and The Association of American Universities (AAU) to oppose the new rule, citing devastating results. Aside from the University of Chicago, Duke University, and Harvard, AAU represents 62 other top research institutions.
According to the universities, the rule will jeopardize academic freedom by tipping the balance too far in favor of national security.
Stanford's director of export compliance Steve Eisner noted that with the implementation of this rule, the university will not be able to perform the same fundamental research that they do. Stanford has a policy that indicate researches have to be conducted openly regardless of citizenship.
"We're not going to tell our Chinese students that they can't participate," Eisner added.
According to a 2011 FBI report, foreign foes and competitors take advantage of the easy access to information on college campuses and some of the students, researchers as well as foreign professors are actually working on instructions of other government, reports Daily Hunt.
The Institute of International Education noted that during 2014-2015 school year, there were about 1 million foreign students at U.S. colleges, a large number (31 percent) of whom were Chinese. That has increased from less than 100,000 in the 1960s when U.S. initiated regulating their access to research.
Last year, there was a hike of 53 percent from 2014 in the number of intellectual property cases the FBI investigated. According to the FBI, China is the guilty party. The FBI even claimed that Chinese nationals have attempted to export technology from the U.S., such as crucial military information saved on Boeing computers, and genetically modified corn seed.
Hong Lei, a spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that China's developments in the fields of science and technology have been possible through the hard work of the Chinese people, and suggested that U.S. should focus on improving cooperation with China rather than restricting foreign students.
The proposed rule stems from declining federal funding for research, forcing many to depend more on industry-sponsored projects.
State Department officials confirmed that they are fully aware of universities' disapproval as far as the rule is concerned, however noted that they have neither received complaints nor suggestion from companies that fund university research.
High school educators are still working hard in a bid to oust physical violence on campus, and as a result, occurrences of school crime and bullying have declined considerably.
Amy Joyner-Francis, 16, succumbed to injuries suffered in an attack involving four students in a restroom at Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington, Delaware, The Associated Press revealed last week.
According to high school educators, physical violence at school can be eliminated and prevented by creating a positive culture where nobody is disrespected. However, that is not an easy task, and requires continuous efforts, notes Michael Allison, principal of Hopewell High School in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, and president of the National Association of Secondary School Principals.
This is something that needs to be thought to the staff, teachers and students, and more importantly, this is something that the leader has to represent.
Although resolving issues even before they happen is a top priority, Allison caters a means for peer negotiation and animosity settlement at his school.
Staff members including custodian teacher, or principal are not only responsible to build rapport with students, but also to report anything that appear awry to a person in authority who can effectively address the concern, Allison added.
A solid student-staff relationship is crucial in creating a positive environment where violence doesn't take place, Allison says. During his years as a principal, he realized that teens trust staff members when they are confident that they are there for them and will not hesitate to talk to them if needed.
Changing the culture of school is not something that can be done overnight and principal of West Port High School in Ocala, Florida, Jayne Ellspermann understands this. According to her, 13 years ago when she started working at her school, the culture was harsh, and it was only through the joined efforts of the entire school community that an environment where no one is disrespected could be created.
Changing the culture is possible by empowering the students, cultivating positive leadership among the student body, and simply making good decisions, Ellspermann added. In addition, during the week they made time to instill character development into the school, making good use of the few guidance counselors they have.
A school counselor at Pomona High School in Arvada, Colorado, Sandy Austin says to combat violence, creating a caring environment at school is the key.
Austin created the B.I.O.N.I.C. Team program (Believe It Or Not I Care) a decade ago when she was still working at a high school where many students committed suicide within a short span of time, according to reports on US News.
Zika virus map seems to expand gradually. It has infected America and it is now heading to Africa. Approximately 7,500 people in Africa's western coast area have been exposed to Zika symptoms, as announced by the World Health Organization on Friday.
Three babies were reportedly developing Zika microcephaly - a birth defect of smaller brains and skulls - that has infected many babies in Brazil. The Zika outbreak in Africa becomes WHO new concern because the country has a poor infrastructure in terms of healthcare. Before Zika virus, Africa has experienced the largest Ebola outbreak in 2014, according to CDC Ebola fact sheet.
Health expert, Paul Hunter, explains that the likelihood of Zika disease becoming disaster in Africa is high, especially given to the dramatic spread and low quality of health infrastructure.
Zika virus map has proven that the outbreak quickly spreads beyond America. Cape Verde island, a popular travel destination in Africa has more than two hundred cases of Zika virus. The Mirror reported that in Senegal, more than a hundred pregnant women are suspected. WHO regional director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, explains why Zika virus is a huge concern. The spread of the virus to Africa continent means that the level of alarm is extremely high.
Furthermore, WHO suggests health officials to begin warning pregnant women so that they may not be exposed to mosquito bites - which could transmit the Zika virus. The mosquito-borne virus, according to WHO, can also be sexually transmitted so pregnant women should practice safe sex, BBC has learned.
Dr. Anna Checkley, UK researcher, has been analyzing Zika virus claims that the diseases has infected African countries since five decades ago and people might be immune to the virus. And since the Caribbean and Polynesian populations do not have the immunity, they are likely to get infected. WHO suggests the report will help continental Africa to re-evaluate the risk levels, increase the health care and be prepared.
Commencement speech 2016 highlights some important names, notable Hollywood A-Listers including Jason Bourne's Matt Damon at the MIT, Steven Spielberg at Harvard University, and Ryan Seacrest at the University of Georgia. How much does it cost to listen to inspirational message from famous people?
According to the CBS News, the Associated Press made a report compiled from 20 public universities who invited famous speakers to send off graduates. The report spilled out the price to invite Matthew McConaughey to speak at University of Houston graduation. The school paid $166,000 for the actor. And although he donated his earnings, the impressive amount sparked a controversy if a college should pay for an hour advice.
Booking agency spokesperson, Michael Frick, explains the nature in paying high cost to invite celebrities to speak at graduation. It is nothing ridiculous given their talents, popularity and achievements in the industry. Frick also describes it as a supply and demand in capitalism world, San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The supply and demand might seem to be true according to Margaret McCorry from Kean University. She said that students deserve memorable commencement speech. However, from the 20 universities, 16 claimed that they did not spend a dime on the speakers. For instance, Ryan Seacrest spoke for his alma mater at University of Georgia for free. And so did Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg commencement speech 2016 at UC Berkeley.
As for Steven Spielberg and Matt Damon, both gave a speech after being paid an undisclosed amount of fees. The RT reported that universities in California spend more than $7 million to pay notable speakers at graduation. Even if some speakers are giving a speech for free, universities still have to cover travel and accommodation expenses.
University Herald has compiled the best problem-solving tips addressed by famous speakers during their commencement speech, which include advices from Steve Jobs, Oprah, and Ellen DeGeneres.
Just days before its speculated May 26 unveiling, Samsung's purported C-series smartphones, the Galaxy C5 and C7 have been divulged in new promotional images.
This is not the first time Samsung's Galaxy C5 and C7 smartphones have surfaced online in leaked images, however the new leaked images that originally come from a Chinese website Digi Tech, gives a comprehensive view of the smartphones. The latest revelation of the first promotional images seems to be one of the freshest designs for the South Korean phone maker's mid-range smartphones yet.
However, the leaked images does not specify whether its the C5 or the C7, reports First Post.
Samsung's designs as far as its series of smartphones are concerned, only differ in terms of size, while the design is expected to be more or less the same for the Galaxy C5 and C7.
The promotional images offer the clearest images that have surfaced so far and gives a wider look of the alleged Samsung Galaxy C5 and C7.
The phone in the leaked images closely resemble the HTC's older A9 smartphone from the front, while the sides are clearly iPhone 6 series-inspired boasting a uni-body structure that seems to be metal-made. The back of the phone boasts some fine gaps meant for the antennas at the top and bottom that strike close resemblance with the HTC One A9, if it weren't for the centrally placed camera that looks typically Samsung.
Contrary to what earlier rumors hinted, the phones will not be available for prices starting at about $250, but instead, sources in China now claim that the price of the much-awaited C-series will be starting at about $335 for the C5 (32 GB) and $400 for the C7 with the same storage capacity.
Samsung Galaxy C-Series Specs:
Samsung Galaxy C5
As far as specs are concerned, the Galaxy C5 will reportedly boast a 5.2-inch full-HD display, and will be powered by Snapdragon 617 coupled with 4 GB of RAM. It is reported to feature a 16 MP rear camera and an 8 MP front camera. The C5 packs a robust 2500mAh battery.
Samsung Galaxy C7
The Samsung Galaxy C7 will reportedly feature a 5.7-inch full-HD display, and will be powered by Snapdragon 625 SoC. In addition, it will pack a 3000mAh battery. Rest of the specs will reportedly be same as the Galaxy C5.
The Samsung Galaxy C5 and Galaxy C7 both will run Android 6.0 Marshmallow, if rumors doing rounds proved true.
Since there is no confirmation from Samsung regarding the aforementioned C-series models, or their specs, we recommend smartphone fans take these rumors with a grain of salt.
Are you excited about the upcoming Samsung C-series smartphones? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Bill Husted
You can use the Web to find an answer to any question you might have, as long as you don't care whether the answer is correct.
Let's face it. I could in just a half an hour or so create a slick Web page explaining that Martians had been living among us for decades now. There would be pictures of them and even endorsements from famous people agreeing that what I was saying was absolutely correct. I could quote the head of NASA explaining he just had dinner with a nice Martian couple last Tuesday. (They love cauliflower.)
Before the Internet, the cost of creating a professional-looking newspaper or magazine was super expensive, now the cost of creating a website is so low, it's trivial. There's no need to print a book, own a newspaper or buy a television station. You can be in the media business for peanuts. And there's no one with the power to remove a fraudulent website like the one I mentioned. Since we tend to believe what we read, it can fool intelligent people. It's a vast and profitable playground for nutcases and crooks and a mine field for someone using the Web to get information.
Today, we'll try to come up with some ways to up the odds that the information you find and use for your work or school is accurate. I can't promise 100 percent accuracy because the very way the Web works is flawed beyond anything you might imagine. Here's what you may not know that makes even our best efforts to filter out the bad information impossible.
To explain how that works, I'll offer you a real-world example from a reader. I won't use his name but the rest is exactly how this happened. The reader is a chemist with a distinguished career behind him. But when he uses Google or any of the search engines and searches for his name, there are dozens of websites that say he is an optometrist, not a chemist. OK, you say and so he thought not a big deal. I'll contact the search engine companies such as Google and have them correct it.
Think a moment before I tell you the next part and see if you can guess the reason why that's impossible. Here goes. The search engine companies can't change the information because they just find the information; they didn't create it, don't own it. So even if they were willing to make the changes, they couldn't. To get the thing corrected, the reader would have to contact each individual website and like I said, there are bunches of them and convince each one to make the change. So he'll probably throw up his hands and live with being an optometrist. You're in better shape if websites erroneously label you a murderer or make a charge that is a lawsuit waiting to happen. In cases like that, the search engine companies will sometimes eliminate the erroneous sites from search results. They still can't change the information on the sites themselves, just ignore them when compiling search results.
By now, you see what I've been saying. The bad information comes to us in all sorts of ways. Some it is the result of an honest mistake, some is wrong because it's outdated and no longer correct, some is from nutcases, and some was created on purpose to be wrong so you can be cheated. Once it exists on the Web, it's darn near impossible to eliminate.
So what do you do, given the built-in flaws, when it's important that what you find is correct? Your best shot is to stick with name-brand websites, to only check websites that are run by experts in the area of your search (for instance, using NASA's website for information about our space program), and to keep checking still more sites after you have an answer that seems credible. It's a really good sign when, say, half a dozen reputable sites offer the exact same answer. Government and academic websites rank high; so do sites from large companies when seeking information about their own products.
Another, less scientific sieve to filter out the bad data is to use something you probably have in abundance common sense. If something seems wrong, don't ignore that feeling; spend extra time checking even more sites.
That should reduce but not eliminate the chances of getting wrong information.
You know what I'd do if the accuracy of the search would have a big impact on my health, finances or safety? No computer needed.
I'd call a library and ask for a reference librarian. That's someone who is trained in separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to searching for information. If you live in a small town, you might need to call a library in a large city. But for important searches like the ones I just described it is literally a call that can save your life, bank account and family's safety.
Searching is a great tool. But when the stakes are high, get expert help.
Bill Husted writes about technology. Contact him at tecbud@bellsouth.net.
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CAMARILLO
Pair to focus on online presence
"The Care and Handling of Your website and Social Media to Build Brand Awareness" will be presented at the May 25 meeting of the Public Relations Society of America's California Gold Coast Chapter.
Social media specialists Casey Preston, chief operating officer of Stratosphere Marketing, and Ed Aldana, president of iOVA Communications, will cover key strategies successful websites share and effective ways to leverage social media during a panel discussion.
The meeting will begin at 8 a.m. with networking, followed by the program presentation from 8:30-9:30 a.m. The event will be held at Ventura County Community Foundation, 4001 Mission Oaks Blvd. in Camarillo. Attending the meeting will be special guest Amy Bouchard, APR, chair, Public Relations Society of America Western District.
Recognizing that many businesses were in need of help to survive online, Aldana founded iOVA Communications, an award-winning online business development and communications firm.
Preston is chief operating officer and co-founder of Stratosphere Marketing Solutions, an end-to-end digital marketing firm dedicated to increasing clients' brand awareness online through the power of custom Web design, content, search engine optimization, social media, re-targeting and more.
The PRSA meeting is open to anyone who is interested in attending, and advance reservations are required. Admission is $20 for PRSA members and students, and $30 for nonmembers. A light breakfast will be served. Register by visiting http://www.prsagoldcoast.org.
Contact Nancy Gill, chapter treasurer, at nancy.gill@csuci.edu or 437-8456 for more information.
SIMI VALLEY
Employment issues to be discussed
Employment law firm LightGabler is presenting a free "You Don't Know What You Don't Know."
The seminar will be Tuesday in Simi Valley.
Attorney Jonathan Fraser Light will provide an overview of key issues for employers, including insurance coverage, financial control audits, arbitration agreements, confidentiality agreements, handbook mistakes, wage and hour liability, and independent contractors versus employees.
The seminar will be from 7:30-9 a.m. at the Best Western Posada Royale Hotel, 1775 Madera Road. A continental breakfast will be served.
Reservations are required at least 24 hours in advance by calling 248-7089 or emailing seminars@lightgablerlaw.com.
Staff reports
TROY HARVEY/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Tina Nielsen feeds an alpaca while visiting Alpacas and Beyond in Somis recently. Nielsen and a small group visited the farm as part of a series of agriculture tours organized by the Museum of Ventura County.
SHARE TROY HARVEY/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Kim Marziole, owner of Alpacas and Beyond gives a presentation about her alpaca farm during an agriculture tour earlier this month. TROY HARVEY/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Alpacas watch as visitors arrive at Alpacas and Beyond in Somis earlier this month. TROY HARVEY/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Socks made from alpaca fiber are displayed along side other products at Alpacas and Beyond in Somis recently. TROY HARVEY/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Visitors get an opportunity to feed alpacas during a tour of Alpacas and Beyond in Somis earlier this month.
By Claudia Boyd-Barrett, Special to The Star
Mark and Gina Norstedt, of Ventura, hadn't planned to spend their Saturday morning hobnobbing with cute, furry creatures typically found in South America.
But when a Facebook post on May 14 alerted Mark Norstedt to an alpaca farm tour in Somis organized by the Museum of Ventura County, he thought, why not?
"I said, 'Hey, let's go do this,' " he said. "We're only about 10 minutes away."
Soon, the Norstedts and their young son, Robbie, were among about 40 people inside a pen at Alpacas and Beyond, feeding pellets and mulberry leaves to about a dozen hungry alpacas. The friendly animals trotted through the delighted crowd, nuzzling people's hands and peering curiously at upheld cameras.
The event was the first in a series of four agriculture industry tours the museum has organized for this summer. Each tour offers participants a behind-the-scenes look at agricultural businesses in the county. Upcoming tours will be held in Ojai at a lavender farm and an olive oil company, and in Santa Paula at the citrus and avocado-growing Limoneira Co.
Kevin Genovese, the Museum of Ventura County's operations and facilities coordinator, said the tours have been held for the past three summers and the businesses change every year. The tours provide an educational experience for people beyond the museum walls, he explained.
"We've got the Agriculture Museum, which is about the history of agriculture," Genovese said. "We wanted people to connect a little more and go out to some of these (current) businesses and learn more about them."
At Alpacas and Beyond, visitors listened to a talk by owner Kim Marziole, who explained the ins-and-outs of alpaca farming, what the animals eat, the shearing and breeding process, the types of alpaca fibers and the kinds of products the fibers are used for. The 6-acre farm is home to almost 40 alpacas.
Marziole said she became an alpaca farmer 13 years ago after she visited the farm she now owns and fell in love with the animals. Experts come in to shear the alpacas once a year and the fiber is sent to manufacturers who turn it into yarn, socks, blankets, scarves and other products. Marziole sells the items online. She also breeds the animals, takes them to shows and boards alpacas for other people.
"It's just a very therapeutic business," she said. "All your worries go away with these lovely animals. They just bring calm to you."
Alpacas are traditionally found in the Andes regions of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Chile. They're related to camels and to their larger cousins, llamas. Ohio was the first state in the U.S. to import alpacas, Marziole said, and now the animals are found throughout the country. She said her animals have no trouble adapting to the Ventura County climate.
Fiber from alpacas, which comes in two main types, was used by the Incas to make clothing for royalty. The fiber is warm, breathable, lightweight and doesn't cause itching, unlike wool, Marziole said.
"Once you wear the socks, you won't wear anything else," she said.
The animals have a similar level of intelligence to dogs and horses, and respond to their names, Marziole said.
Museum member Ann Huston, of Ventura, said she decided to go on the tour because it sounded like a good way to learn about an aspect of the county's economy that you rarely get to see.
"I like to know about where I live, and we drive through this gorgeous scenery all the time. It's nice to see what's out there beyond the highway," she said. "Oh, and they're so cute. I just love animals. So that was the other reason."
Gina Norstedt said she enjoyed interacting with the alpacas, and was interested in alpaca yarn because she likes to knit.
"We got to feed alpacas. That's pretty cool," she said. "There's so much agriculture around, it's neat to be able to see where some of these things come from, the food and the yarn and everything."
Genovese said the other tours also include hands-on experiences. On the next tour, which will take place at Frog Creek Lavender Farm in Ojai, participants will be able to pick their own lavender, he said. At the Ojai Olive Oil Co. in July, they'll be able to learn about the process of making olive oil from orchard to production and taste some olive oil. Plans for the last tour, at the Limoneira Co. in Santa Paula, are still being figured out, he said.
"These trips are a way to engage the community in what the museum is all about, and it's our chance to share the rich agricultural legacy of the county with our members and friends," said the museum's marketing director Stefanie Davis.
IF YOU GO
What: The Museum of Ventura County will hold three more agriculture industry tours this summer: Frog Creek Lavender Farm in Ojai on June 11; Ojai Olive Oil Co. on July 9; and the Limoneria Co. in Santa Paula, on Aug. 13.
Time: All tours will begin at 10 a.m.
Cost: $10 per person, or $7 for museum members.
Reservations: Call 653-0323, ext. 315, or visit http://www.venturamuseum.org/upcoming-events/agriculture-museum-events for reservations.
LISA MCKINNON/THE STAR Mark and Johanna Caviezel are the husband-and-wife owners of Red Tandem Brewery, a "nanobrewery" located in the Oxnard Shores Shopping Center.
Lisa McKinnon Columnist SHARE LISA MCKINNON/THE STAR An aluminum tray holds tasters of the seven beers on tap at Red Tandem Brewery in Oxnard. Selections include an IPA, a red ale and a milk stout. LISA MCKINNON/THE STAR After two weekends of soft-opening events, Red Tandem Brewery will mark its grand opening May 25 at the Oxnard Shores Shopping Center, 1009 S. Harbor Blvd. LISA MCKINNON/THE STAR The tap list at Red Tandem Brewery in Oxnard lists styles ranging from India pale ale to milk stout. LISA MCKINNON/THE STAR The Red Tandem Brewery taproom in Oxnard draws a crowd during its first soft-opening event on May 13.
As Ventura County's newest craft brewery, Red Tandem Brewery also can claim a few regional firsts.
It's the first to set up shop at what used to be a hair salon.
It's the first to proudly self-identify as a nanobrewery, which, as the name suggests, is smaller than a microbrewery.
And it's the first in the city of Oxnard to serve its Kickstand kolsch, Lumber Jane roggenbier and Sea Cow milk stout within view of the five-barrel brewhouse in which said beers are made. (Although it also is located in Oxnard, Casa Agria Specialty Ales does its basic brewing at The LAB Brewing Co. in Agoura Hills; fermentation takes place at the Casa Agria brewery and taproom in a business park on Del Norte Boulevard.)
Some of these firsts help explain why it took Red Tandem's husband-and-wife owners Mark and Johanna Caviezel nearly two years to open the doors.
But after a May 13 soft opening that was so well attended there were occasional waits to get in (capacity: 49), the Caviezels said the results are worth the wait.
Still, "I don't want anyone messing with them," Mark said with a laugh when asked why the brewery's collection of hard-won business permits and other documents are displayed near the ceiling rather than at eye level.
Located between The Pizza Co. and Heavenly Cakes in the Oxnard Shores shopping center, the brewery is named for the red tandem bike the couple occasionally rides around the neighborhood, which they also call home.
They were gratified to see how many people pedaled to the brewery's soft openings, which repeated on May 14 and again May 20-21.
"It was everyone from the neighborhood you've ever seen out walking the dog or riding a bike, sitting down in one place and getting a chance to finally meet," said Johanna, a former telecommunications IT professional who now works for a company that helps schools conduct fundraisers. "At one point, one of the neighbors came over to help us wash glasses."
In addition to encouraging low-emissions forms of transportation, the brewery features energy-saving light fixtures that Johanna and Mark an aerospace engineer and hot air-balloon pilot who has been homebrewing, off and on, for more than 25 years made themselves using Ikea colanders and aircraft cable.
Despite its "nanobrewery" distinction, Red Tandem is opening with seven beers on tap.
While most were made in collaboration with an assistant brewer who has since moved on, the Red Tandem red ale is a recipe Mark started making several years ago at Johanna's request.
India pale ales with names like Sea Hag and Double Sea Hag will always be on tap, due to the beer style's popularity, Mark said. Others will rotate as the brewery finds its groove.
Tasters are $2 each, with flights served in deep aluminum trays to catch potential spills. Pints and 10-ounce pours are $5 to $6.50 each, depending on the beer. Growlers are $15 to $22.
Starting May 25, the brewery will be open from 4 to 10 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, and 1 to 7 p.m. Sundays (1009 S. Harbor Blvd., 805-236-2105, http://www.redtandembrewery.com).
GOOD FOR WHAT ALES YA
In other beer-related news, Topa Topa Brewing Co. of Ventura plans to open a taproom this summer in Santa Barbara's Funk Zone. For a previous Star story about the project, click on http://bit.ly/1Va0rFV.
Ventura Coast Brewing Co. has a tentative opening date of June. The brewery is under construction at the former My Florist Cafe / blu orkid space in downtown Ventura (76 S. Oak St.).
OPEN, SHUT AND IN BETWEEN
Launched in a Ventura industrial park in 2012, the Sugar Lab Bake Shop reopened Friday at its new location in the Victoria Plaza shopping center.
The larger space will allow co-owner and head baker Ali Davis and her crew to add coffee, cookies and other treats to the shop's previous menu of cupcakes and special-order cookies and cakes.
A grand-opening party is planned for May 28. Business hours are from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays (5936 Telegraph Road, 805-765-4292, http://www.sugarlabbakeshop.com).
In March, this column reported that members of the Perez family owners of Verona Trattoria in Old Town Camarillo had pulled the plug on plans to open Caffe Verona in Santa Paula.
The opening of Caffe Verona last week demonstrates that business partner Randy Almanza who is named with Pomposo Perez on the alcohol license for the Santa Paula location opted to move forward with the project.
The new restaurant is identified as Caffe Verona on its four-page menu of "Italian and fusion dishes." But pay with a credit card, as I did one night this week, and the resulting receipt bears the name of Fresh Mex Bar & Grill, a Mexican restaurant in Oxnard. That's apparently because Jaime Sandoval, one of the grill's managing owners, also is the manager at Caffe Verona.
The latter is in soft-opening mode, with a "chef from Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena" on the premises to help train staff, Sandoval said.
The cafe's menu encompasses American, Italian and Mexican fare. Appetizers include 10 corn, a local-knowledge dish consisting of 10 deep-fried, flauta-like corn burritos filled with refried beans and topped with cheese and red sauce ($9.99).
Entrees include a hamburger with lemon aioli sauce and French fries ($10.50), a 12-ounce garlic-butter grilled steak with vegetables ($17.50) and a bowl of campanelle pasta tossed with pesto, tomatoes, Parmesan cheese and thin, chip-like slices of potato ($12; add chicken or shrimp for an extra $3).
After seeing other diners with glasses of wine, I asked for a printed list and learned there wasn't one yet. Instead, I ordered a glass of Westerly 2011 Happy Canyon sauvignon blanc ($5) from the two bottles that were brought to the table for inspection. If you're looking for something that pairs well with 10 corn, you could do a lot worse.
Caffe Verona is open from 3 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays (650 W. Harvard Blvd., 805-218-3310).
The Thousand Oaks location of Ice Cream Lab closed this week, about 13 months after its debut at the Westlake Plaza shopping center.
Using liquid nitrogen to instantly freeze custom ice cream flavors for patrons while they watch, the mini chain still has sites in Beverly Hills and Pasadena (http://icecreamlab.com). The Thousand Oaks address has been claimed as the future home of BIG FISH Poke, which is expected to open this summer (2728 Townsgate Road, Suite 6).
After more than 20 years of serving Brazilian and Italian fare in the Westlake Plaza, Galletto Bar & Grill is slated to close in early June. The date depends on the transfer of the site's alcohol license to a new owner, said current owner John Borghetti.
"Having one restaurant in Thousand Oaks is enough," Borghetti said this week. He plans to focus his attentions on the Farfalla restaurants he operates at the Promenade at Westlake in Thousand Oaks (160 Promenade Way, Suite A, 805-497-2283, http://www.farfallawestlakevillage.com), in Encino and in Los Angeles.
The Galletto space will reopen as Finney's Craft House & Kitchen, a project from members of the same team behind P6 Restaurant & Lounge, Suki 7 and Chapter 8 Steakhouse, all of which closed in Thousand Oaks and Agoura Hills in the midst of the Great Recession.
Galletto remains open from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and from 4:30 to 10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, from 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays, and from 4:30 to 11 p.m. Saturdays (982 Westlake Blvd., Suite 2, 805-449-4300, http://gallettobarandgrill.com).
DeLiteFul Restaurant will offer low-carb, no-added-sugar dishes in a dining room decorated with dark woods, white tablecloths and glittering light fixtures when it opens at 7 a.m. Monday at what used to be Johnny Rockets at The Oaks shopping center in Thousand Oaks.
The restaurant offers vegan options (including peri-peri spiced tofu "steak" with red onion jam, $14.85) as well as herbed chicken albondigas ($12). Hours are from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturdays and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sundays (322 W. Hillcrest Drive, 805-418-5118, http://delitefulmeals.com).
REALITY BITES
The 12th season of "Food Network Star" will feature Damiano Carrara of Carrara Pastries in Moorpark and Agoura Hills when the series premiere is broadcast at 9 p.m. Sunday on Food Network.
For a previous Star story about Carrara's appearance on the show, go to http://bit.ly/1VW88PE.
Lisa McKinnon is a staff writer for The Star. Her Cafe Society column appears in the Sunday Life section and Fridays in the Time Out section. For between-column updates, follow 805foodie on Twitter and Instagram and "like" the Facebook page VCS Eats. Please send email to lisa.mckinnon@vcstar.com.
Colleen Cason
Graduations are bittersweet. We watch with pride as our children step up to claim their diplomas. They made it. They survived their worst day and their best all-nighter.
Then comes that pit-of-the-gut sadness as the graduates step off the platform bound for new lives that will take them who knows how far away.
One day, maybe this week, I will witness a sort of graduation and anticipate that same mix of emotions.
These two graduates will step off the edge of a nest 30 feet up in the air. They may disappear from sight for a few heart-stopping moments and if all goes well will reappear flying above a canyon on Santa Cruz Island into a future where they truly will have to wing it.
These fledglings are the bald eagles Class of 2016 from the Sauces Canyon nest. Theirs is one of nine eagle nests with a total of 13 hatchlings on five of the Channel Islands, just off our coast.
Each eaglet represents hope for the full restoration of this native species that vanished from the islands a half century ago due to hunting and the disastrous effects of the pesticide DDT.
I have watched these eaglets assigned the wing tag designations A-62 and A-63 via an Internet camera since they hatched in mid-March. I dread the moment that same lens will fix its relentless eye on the emptied nest. All the screen refreshing in the world won't bring them back.
I will miss viewing the daily lives of these amazing raptors. The old man is a canny fisherman. Momma is a fierce predator of birds. On the best hunting days, these parents would shovel in the grub until the wee ones would face plant in a food coma.
During rain storms, the mother formed her wings into a "mombrella" to protect the eaglets from the downpour. On many nights, she withstood pounding winds with her young nestled beneath her. Rain or shine, the dad kept guard nearby.
This is a lucky nest this year, but it is far from the Disney version of the circle of life. Momma occasionally arrived with live baby birds and dispatched them as they fought to survive, killing another mother's young to feed her own. The older A-62 pecked and bullied A-63 to achieve dominance, and the parents appeared to do nothing to cut it out. Over time, the browbeating stopped mostly because the food supply held out.
Sometimes those vittles weren't pretty. A family favorite was seal placenta tartar. Yum.
Despite this nutrient-rich start, it's possible these two will not survive to adulthood. Young birds lead a nomadic life for their first five years, according to Peter Sharpe, an Institute for Wildlife Studies ecologist. Eagles raised on the Channel Islands have been sighted as far away as British Columbia.
Restlessness in youth is hardwired into them at their peril. Immature birds might be hit by cars, electrocuted or drown attempting to cross the channel.
The mom of A-62 and A-63 barely survived a flight from the islands to the mainland several years ago. She was spotted in a Ventura backyard breathing heavily, her wings drooping.
Her eagle instincts eventually called her back to the islands to breed. And with any luck she and her mate will start a new family in the same nest next year.
The eagles drop in on us, but we humans are less likely to pay them a call. The Channel Islands National Park is one of the least visited of our nation's parks, mostly because it takes a boat or plane to reach them.
Watching these magnificent raptors close up via the internet has inspired in me a curiosity about the islands I've never felt before. The sounds of Santa Cruz Island captured by the nest cam have become the soundtrack of our home. Eagles really do scream, by the way. I check the weather on the island to see what will blow inland later in the day. I watch the same full moon shining on the nest that lights my suburban landscape.
Thanks to this connection, I plan to explore Santa Cruz Island this Memorial Day weekend with the hope of catching a glimpse of an eagle or two and discovering more about what the new documentary "West of the West: Tales from California's Channel Islands" presents as the earliest outpost of modern humans in the Americas.
I feel like an honorary member of this Class of 2016. I've learned a new appreciation for the Channel Islands as more than silhouettes on the horizon as I look out to sea in the direction of Hawaii. Although I'll still take a pass on their "delicious" seal placenta.
Email Colleen Cason at casonpoint101@gmail.com.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/COUNTY OF VENTURA PUBLIC WORKS AGENCY A solar panel power system in the parking lot of the Ventura County Government Center.
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By Jefferson Litten, Eye on the Environment
The call for solar energy in the Tri-County region is about to cross a major threshold: 1 gigawatt of solar power installed.
A gigawatt, or 1 billion watts of solar, creates enough electricity to power more than a quarter million homes, or nearly 90 percent of all homes in Ventura County. Once dubbed "alternative energy," it's clear that solar is no longer an alternative upstart in our region, but a mainstream source of electricity.
When we break down how that 1 gigawatt of energy is being generated across Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, about 80 percent is utility-scale large projects over acres designed to feed power onto the electrical grid. The other 20 percent of the solar power comes from rooftop and ground installations, which is where Ventura County is leading at a local and state level.
Ventura County has more than 12,000 distributed solar projects, totaling close to 100 megawatts of solar energy. That impressive total is more than many U.S. states have and is far ahead of both Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. It's also at the head of the pack in California, ranking as the 12th highest county in the state for the amount of small-scale solar projects installed. Such projects offer Ventura County homes and businesses the ability to generate their own electricity and save money on utility bills.
While solar is now a mainstream energy source, it is important to continue exploring steps to transition fully to clean energy.
One important step toward this transition is the implementation of Community Choice Energy. Regarded by many as the single most effective way our region can collectively move to renewable energy, this program still uses utility lines to deliver power, but offers communities the opportunity to choose their source of electricity. Communities can choose electricity from clean, renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. Marin, Sonoma, Lancaster and San Francisco all have Community Choice Energy programs where customers have options from 35 percent up to 100 percent renewable energy. In addition to more clean energy, all four programs offer electricity rates that are competitive with and in most cases cheaper than the existing utilities.
Because the energy is bought locally, electricity customer payments funnel back into the local economy instead of going to utility shareholders. Currently, 80 California communities, encompassing 60 percent of the states' electric customers, are either exploring Community Choice Energy or running successful programs. On the Central Coast, the three county governments as well as 24 city governments are in the first phase of exploring Community Choice Energy and will finish a Tri-County study in late 2016 that will suggest how this program can work in our region.
Ventura County residents can learn more about Community Choice Energy by visiting channelislandsenergychoice.org. The Ventura County Board of Supervisors will soon consider continued funding for investigation of Community Choice Energy options.
As individuals, Ventura County residents can move toward clean energy by choosing to install rooftop solar. In the city of Ventura, a program offered through July is making that process simpler. Through a program called Solarize Ventura, organized by the Community Environmental Council in partnership with the city, a group purchasing model helps Ventura homeowners install solar electricity through a streamlined and hassle-free process at a discounted price. In 2014 and 2015, Solarize Ventura programs helped 94 homeowners go solar and save on their electricity bills. Residents can visit http://solarizeventura.org to learn more or get personalized help at a workshop from 6 to 7:30 p.m. June 1 at Poinsettia Pavilion, 3451 Foothill Road, Ventura.
With so many new solar projects on the rise in Ventura County, it's never been easier to keep an eye on the environment. Clean energy is as close as the solar panels likely to pop up on your neighbor's roof.
Jefferson Litten is the director of energy programs at the Community Environmental Council. Representatives of government or nonprofit agencies who want to submit articles on environmental topics for this column should contact David Goldstein at 658-4312 or david.goldstein@ventura.org.
JOSEPH A. GARCIA/THE STAR Natalie Lavacca (right) keeps herself cool while waiting with Juliana De Giosa before La Reina High School's commencement Friday in Thousand Oaks.
SHARE JOSEPH A. GARCIA/THE STAR Silhouetted class La Reina High School seniors wait for the start of their commencement Friday in Thousand Oaks. JOSEPH A. GARCIA/THE STAR Caitlin Brown adjusts the tassel on her cap before participating in La Reina High School's commencement Friday in Thousand Oaks. JOSEPH A. GARCIA/THE STAR Taylor Stanfield (left) receives her diploma from Dr. Michael Bates, head of La Reina High School, during Friday's commencement. JOSEPH A. GARCIA/THE STAR Alex Pourvali (right) receives her diploma from Dr. Michael Bates, head of La Reina High School, during Friday's commencement.
By Jean Moore of the Ventura County Star
Like many students who are both smart and artistic, Alex Pourvali had to decide between going to a traditional four-year university or an art school after graduating from high school.
Would she go to a university that would give her a broad education and a backup plan if she didn't make art her career? Or would she take a leap of faith and commit herself to art?
Pourvali, 17, who graduated from La Reina High School on Friday evening, chose art, specifically the Rhode Island School of Design, one of the most prestigious art schools in the country.
"Everything I do is for art," said Pourvali, who has won several art awards over her years at La Reina, a Catholic girls school in Thousand Oaks. "Every career path I would see myself going down was art-related."
Pourvali graduated as La Reina is preparing to hire a new head of school and, the day after commencement, start a $2.5 million renovation of its oldest classroom building. As they have for 36 years, graduates carried bouquets of yellow roses, including a boutonniere for their fathers and a long-stem rose for their mothers.
Pourvali's dad was skeptical at first about her decision to study art, she said. Like many parents whose children want to major in art, he wondered whether she could actually make a living at it. But he came around, she said.
"He doesn't have an artistic background," Pourvali said. "He's a lawyer, and he didn't know how to place my artistic talent. ... But my parents see where my potential lies and trust me on it."
Pourvali's parents also might have been more comfortable with her staying nearby, going to CalArts in Valencia, another prestigious art school, she said. But Pourvali recognized that going to school across the country would let her grow personally, as well as artistically. She'd have to buy plane tickets for the holidays. The first time she got sick, she couldn't rely on her mom and dad to take care of her.
"It's kind of a big leap," she said. "But if I didn't go, I think I would regret it. It's what's best for me as far as individual growth. ... It's more about what kind of person do I want to be. Art will get me to who I want to become."
Her father, Robert Pourvali, understands why some parents might worry about their smart, talented child studying art. But art includes a wide variety of disciplines that can lead to a good job, he said.
"They're afraid they'll be holed up in a room painting, selling their paintings on a street corner," he said. "But there are so many paths you can take. It's a God-given talent. If you have something you're talented at, you cannot pass it up."
And what advice does his daughter have for other artistic students whose parents are worried about them majoring in art?
"I would tell them to continue studying art wherever they go, to make the best of whatever situation they're in," she said. "Don't let other people make you think any less of your talents."
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/SIGALERT A screenshot of traffic on Highway 101 Saturday.
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By Megan Diskin of the Ventura County Star
Traffic is slow on northbound Highway 101 from Thousand Oaks to Camarillo as many head to Oxnard Saturday for the California Strawberry Festival.
The 101 begins to slow down near the Westlake Boulevard exit and continues that way until at least the Central Avenue exit, according a Sigalert traffic map. The California Highway Patrol reported some minor-injury crashes on the freeway about 1:15 p.m. which was also holding up traffic.
Free shuttle service to and from the event is located at the Camarillo Premium Outlets in the lot behind Crossroads Church at the corner of Camarillo Center Drive and Plaza La Vista. In Oxnard the shuttles are also located at Topa Financial Towers at 300 East Esplanade Drive, the Oxnard Transportation Center at 201 East Fourth Street, Santa Clara High School at 2121 Saviers Road and Channel Islands Harbor at Harbor Boulevard and La Brea.
General admission tickets are $12 but admission prices for kids and seniors was lower. Tickets may also be purchased at the gates. Parking on site is $10.
Other area roadways were also seeing some backups Saturday afternoon. Traffic on Santa Rosa Road headed toward Camarillo was moving slowly. Westbound Highway 118 was slow from where the freeway connects to Highway 23 until Grimes Canyon Road.
The strawberry festival is located at Strawberry Meadows of College Park, adjacent to Oxnard College, 3250 S. Rose Ave., Oxnard.
CHUCK KIRMAN/THE STAR Forum attendees listen to seven candidates vying to succeed Kathy Long in the 3rd District county supervisor seat. Friday's forum was at Spanish Hills Country Club in Camarillo.
SHARE CHUCK KIRMAN/THE STAR Vying to succeed Kathy Long on the Ventura County Board of Supervisors are (from left) Jesus Torres, Kelly Long, Carla Castilla, Kevin Kildee, Martin F. Hernandez, Mike Morgan and Dan Goldberg. They answered questions and presented their views during a forum Friday at Spanish Hills Country Club in Camarillo. CHUCK KIRMAN/THE STAR Three of seven candidates for the seat are Martin F. Hernandez, Mike Morgan and Dan Goldberg. CHUCK KIRMAN/THE STAR Business representatives attending a forum Friday at the Spanish Hills Country Club listened to seven candidates vying to succeed Kathy Long on the Ventura County Board of Supervisors. CHUCK KIRMAN/THE STAR Three of seven candidates at a forum vying to become 3rd District supervisor are Kelly Long, from left, Carla Castilla and Kevin Kildee.
By Kathleen Wilson of the Ventura County Star
With no heir apparent to county Supervisor Kathy Long, political experts are puzzling over who will make it past the June primary to the general election.
The field of seven candidates for the seat in the far-flung 3rd District is both large and varied.
Carla Castilla is the favorite of the Ventura County Democratic Party, and Kelly Long of the Republican counterpart. Kevin Kildee and Mike Morgan are experienced councilmen who have been appearing on the ballot in vote-heavy Camarillo for decades. Martin Hernandez, mayor of Santa Paula, has been Long's aide for 15 years. Two young businessmen Dan Goldberg and Jesus Torres round out the field.
Kathy Long, a 20-year incumbent, did not recommend a successor when she announced her retirement, so there was no early favorite for the nonpartisan seat, a political science professor said.
"She didn't build an apparatus for a successor nor try to pass the baton to a particular person," said Herb Gooch of California Lutheran University.
Long said she wanted the candidates to make their own appeals to the public early on.
It was not until a few weeks ago that the five-term supervisor issued her endorsement, giving the nod to Castilla and Hernandez. Long said she picked two because there is only a slim chance that one person will win a majority of the vote in the June 7 primary, sending the top two to a runoff in November.
The winner will represent a district with largest geographical turf of any of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors' five districts. The territory sweeps west from Camarillo, where half the registered voters live, to Port Hueneme and southeast Oxnard. Then it switches back to Santa Paula, Fillmore and Piru.
Democrats make up 40 percent of the 75,792 registered voters and Republicans 34 percent, with voters declining to state a party preference notching 21 percent. Half the vote lies in affluent Camarillo, and the other votes are primarily in the small cities of Santa Paula, Fillmore and Port Hueneme.
The issues that have risen to the top in political forums include the balance of growth and open space, jobs, water resources and concerns over congested roads. Hundreds of people have turned out for the forums in Camarillo and Fillmore, the latest one on Friday at a Camarillo Chamber of Commerce luncheon at Spanish Hills Country Club.
A quick look at the candidates:
CARLA CASTILLA
Castilla, 38, of Camarillo, daughter of immigrant parents, was born and raised in the county. She was the first in her family to attend college, earning a degree from UCLA in international development studies and business administration.
She is an aide to state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson who has also worked for U.S. Rep. Lois Capps and in the White House.
"I bring over 16 years of federal, state and local experience to the table," Castilla said.
She is the leading fundraiser, with $62,000 in contributions, according to the latest campaign finance summaries. Castilla supports a proposed half-cent sales tax for transportation and the renewal of the Save Open-space and Agricultural Resources (SOAR) initiatives that require voter approval for development of farmland and open space.
DAN GOLDBERG
At 31, Goldberg is the youngest candidate and operating on the lowest budget.
The Camarillo resident and insurance accounts manager in Thousand Oaks calls himself the independent candidate.
He ran for the state Assembly as a Republican in 2010 to "get his feet wet," although unsuccessfully, he said, and is now forming a separate Independent California Party.
"It is the year of the independent," said the graduate of Channel Islands High School and San Diego State University.
He has a simple platform: forming a healthy-eating initiative in schools, developing light-rail mass transit and encouraging dog parks, which he says bring together community residents.
He does not believe a transportation tax is needed and supports SOAR.
MARTIN HERNANDEZ
The 55-year-old Santa Paula resident, Long's chief of staff, is campaigning as the experienced hand.
"There is no learning curve involved in electing me," he said.
No one else has a 15-year history of working in county government, plus he has developed relationships with department heads, employees and other elected officials, he said.
Hernandez favors the transportation tax and SUSTAIN VC, an alternative measure to SOAR with more flexibility for the building of food processing plants and zoning around schools. If elected, he intends to be a moderate voice, he said.
KEVIN KILDEE
Kevin Kildee, 59, owner of a men's clothing store and a longtime councilman, is a familiar figure in Camarillo.
He is telling voters he will work for them, he said.
"I told them I am here to represent you, not any special interests," he said. "I am just a regular person, I know how to give the public service, bring sides together. "
He has served on the Camarillo City Council for 19 years, a tenure during which the city built a new library. He also worked on economic development and transportation panels.
Kildee supports the transportation tax, although he says it will be hard to pass, and wants to renew SOAR.
KELLY LONG
Long, 44, of Camarillo, says she represents change on what she calls a "very left" board. The current board is made up primarily of liberal and moderate Democrats.
Long favors less regulation and initiatives to generate high-paying jobs, she said.
The candidate, who is not related to the incumbent, holds a degree in mechanical engineering from CSU Long Beach.
The mother of two has 12 years of experience in the health care industry, serving as a project manager and sales and marketing director.
Her management experience plus two and a half years on the board of the Pleasant Valley School District have prepared her to become a supervisor, she said.
"It is all about governing, and I know how to do that," she said.
She favors SUSTAIN VC and opposes the transportation tax.
MIKE MORGAN
Morgan, 69, a 36-year member of the Camarillo City Council, said he has the experience, knowledge and relationships with officials all around the county to do the job.
"If someone can beat me on experience, I want to see it," said Morgan, who is the current mayor.
Morgan cites these accomplishments: raising money for an outdoor pavilion at Camarillo City Hall, forming an arts council and co-chairing the original SOAR initiative in Camarillo.
"I have dedicated myself to Camarillo," he said. "Now I would like to devote myself to the remainder of the county."
He supports the renewal of SOAR and the transportation tax to help solve what he calls the "Camarillo crawl" on Highway 101.
JESUS TORRES
The telecommunications manager is focused on jobs.
Torres, 37, of Camarillo, said officials should be creating an environment that fosters innovation. Although the county has good university-educated graduates, they cannot find work and leave, he said.
"Our workforce continues to age," he said. "I want to make sure Ventura County is a good place to retire and a good place to raise a young family."
Torres, who holds degrees from UC Berkeley and USC, previously worked as an aide to former Assemblyman Pedro Nava.
He supports SUSTAIN VC and the transportation sales tax.
SHARE KAREN QUINCY LOBERG/THE STAR Dr. Robert Lum, Oxnard radiation oncologist, checks in on Hugh King before treatment. Lum contends changes in the way doctors are paid are threatening the future of their practices. JOE LUMAYA/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Westminster Free Clinic intern managers Karla Honorato, from Thousand Oaks High School, and Caleb Kim, from Westlake High School, sort through paperwork. KAREN QUINCY LOBERG/THE STAR Radiation therapist Tim Isom (left) readies Hugh King for radiation treatments at Dr. Robert Lum's office in Oxnard. JOE LUMAYA/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Westminster Free Clinic intake coordinator Claudia Chavez talks with Cristina Buendia, of Newbury Park, and her son Angel during the clinic that is held weekly at the United Methodist Church in Thousand Oaks. Chavez is covered by insurance purchased through the Covered California marketplace.
By Tom Kisken of the Ventura County Star
Connie Kline once paid $385 a month for health insurance. Now she pays $109 with $27 more to cover, for the first time, dental care.
The Democrat from Simi Valley who sometimes votes Republican does not know who she'll support in California's presidential primary on June 7.
One thing is absolute.
"Anyone who wants to shut down Obamacare, I would not vote for," said the income tax preparer with two children and a $40,000 annual income that qualifies her for premium subsidies. "It's made health insurance affordable."
The money-saving claim has been targeted like a prize fighter's chin during the presidential campaign, continuing a fight that erupted more than eight years ago when Barack Obama pledged to revolutionize health care. His Affordable Care Act created insurance marketplaces and expanded government-paid Medicaid insurance in moves that have covered 20 million previously uninsured Americans, nearly 5 million Californians and almost 90,000 people in Ventura County.
Insurance reform also has been accompanied by the continued rise of premiums as well as coverage costs that mean some of the working poor remain uninsured. The campaign battle and the calls for the health program's repeal orbit around whether reform has lived up to its name.
Affordable.
Steve Margolis answers with two words: "For who?"
The general contractor and business owner from Thousand Oaks is not insured through the Affordable Care Act but has a family policy that covers him, his wife and their two kids. He blames insurance reform for jacking up his premiums.
"I think it's like $16,800," he said of his annual costs, double what they were before the 2014 launch of insurance exchanges such as Covered California. He contends the Affordable Care Act means people like him end up paying for low-income people who were once uninsured.
"I feel bad for the people who can't get insurance. Does that mean the middle-class guy who's working his butt off pays for them?" he said.
Margolis knows exactly who'll get his vote on June 7: Donald Trump, who pledges to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
"I'm a Republican," Margolis said, explaining his opposition to the health plan.
PLACING BLAME
Insurance premiums in Affordable Care Act plans could rise 8 percent in 2017, according to budget estimates from Covered California. Premiums in outside individual and family plans, like the one Margolis owns, could see similar increases, according to Geoffrey Joyce, a USC health economist who studies medical costs and insurance.
In policies provided by employers, deductibles rose 67 percent from 2010 to 2015, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey.
It's fair to blame some rising insurance costs on the Affordable Care Act's prohibitions on denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, rescinding coverage and annual limits.
"Anytime you mandate coverage and you say you can't do some of the things you did to reduce liability in the past, it is going to translate into premiums," Joyce said.
But premium hikes were in the 4 percent range for the first two years of the insurance exchanges, Joyce said. He challenged claims that pin massive premiums solely on the Affordable Care Act. Such increases often reflect bare-bones policies that had to be expanded to reach standards set by Obama's health reform.
"It's not as if they have the same plans as before the ACA," he said.
MESSY NUMBERS
Hospitals and doctors face changes to their bottom line, too. The strategy is for government plans to reduce increases in payment but to compensate by adding more insured patients.
The math does not always work.
The Affordable Care Act's expansion in Medi-Cal brought coverage to 55,515 Ventura County residents. Visits covered by the taxpayer-funded plan to clinics in the Community Memorial Health System rose 54 percent in the two years after the expansion.
Patient discharges from Community Memorial Hospital and Ojai Valley Community Hospital jumped 36 percent.
More people didn't mean more money. Low reimbursement meant the hospital lost about $10 million in Medi-Cal in 2015, said Dave Glyer, Community Memorial's chief financial officer. That compares to a loss of about $5 million in 2013 before the Affordable Care Act.
"Governmental plans are not keeping up with the increase in costs," he said, noting that hospitals with a higher percentage of Medi-Cal patients own higher reimbursement rates. Community Memorial's rate could rise next year.
Even with the Medi-Cal loss, the health system's bottom line has not been dented by the Affordable Care Act. The system's $29 million profit in 2015 is higher than the pre-Obamacare days, but the increase comes mostly from the roller-coaster nature of a government supplemental payment program.
Joyce, the economist, said unchanging profits mean the Affordable Care Act has changed the way hospitals spend.
"It made a lot more providers and groups cost-conscious," he said. "Behind the scenes, it has led to greater efficiency."
$2 A MONTH
Manuel Arriola, an Oxnard insurance agent who sells Covered California plans, said premiums on his personal insurance rose from $450 a month before 2014 to $725.
Dr. Lee Wan, an Oxnard eye surgeon, credits the plan for lifting bans that barred people from coverage. But premiums for covering his 20 employees rose about 48 percent.
Belen Quezada pays $2 a month for health insurance. The Simi Valley outreach worker said the price is a result of a flawed income estimate made by the government that she's trying to fix because of possible tax penalties.
Quezada, once uninsured, has been insured through the Affordable Care Act since Covered California's launch two years ago. Before the glitch, she paid $157 a month to cover herself and her husband, who works as a window cleaner.
Stomach problems twice have landed her in the emergency room. She knows what the care would have brought if she didn't have the coverage.
"Big debt," she said.
SEARCHING
Dr. Robert Lum wants a candidate. He wants someone in the White House who protects the interests of doctors.
The problem is the Oxnard radiation oncologist politically an independent doesn't see anyone like that.
His issues include reimbursement changes that he said allow doctors to maintain their revenue only if they see far more patients, spending less time with each.
He worries about bundled payments that pay fixed sums for different types of care, sometimes in packages split between hospitals and doctors. He thinks it means less control and less money.
Lum contends the pressures are pushing doctors to partner with hospitals or medical corporations in an effort to ease the financial burden. He predicts the trend will grow.
"I think there's a lot of doctors who feel they will not be able to stay in business," he said, adding that he wonders about his own future. "We are definitely in a time of great uncertainty, more than we've ever been."
PRE-EXISTING DEBT
For some, questions about cost miss the mark. To them, the Affordable Care Act is not about the wallet; it's about the heart, lungs and liver.
When Lisa Safaeinili's husband died of cancer seven years ago, her insurance coverage shifted to a government-mandated program called COBRA. The coverage lasted three years.
Afterward, she couldn't find private insurance because of lumps under her skin in a condition called lipoma. She was deemed uninsurable.
Her health care came from the free clinic she directs at a Methodist church in Thousand Oaks every Wednesday night.
The Affordable Care Act changed all that. It meant insurers no longer could turn away people because of pre-existing conditions. Safaeinili pays $936 a month to cover herself and her 17-year-old daughter. She said the cost is about the same as her COBRA insurance.
"I have access," she said. "It gives you the security."
Safaeinili is middle class. The 100 people every week who see doctors, receive medication or gain other services from the Westminster Free Clinic clean windows for a living or serve as nannies or work in restaurants.
Emma Morrow, of Agoura Hills, earns about $13 an hour working in a preschool. Her three children qualify for Medi-Cal. She does not. Her husband is covered through his job as a furniture salesman, but it would cost far more than she can afford to join the coverage.
She found insurance in the Covered California marketplace. But after a half-year of paying $117 a month, she dropped the plan. She couldn't afford it.
She's not sure which presidential candidate she supports. She knows what she needs: health care totally covered by the government.
"Financially, it would be better," she said.
ABOUT THIS SERIES
This is the third in a series of stories looking at how policies proposed during the presidential campaign could impact Ventura County.
AFFORDABLE CARE ACT
The Affordable Care Act created a new insurance marketplace and the expansion of government Medicaid insurance in 2014 that have brought health coverage to 20 million Americans, 4.8 million Californians and 88,0000 Ventura County residents.
The programs drew criticism from inception, blamed for rising insurance premiums, problems in finding doctors and cuts in revenues for some providers.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would immediately call for the repeal of all of the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a program based on free-market principles. Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders has called for a single-payer system that would provide government health care to all. Democrat Hillary Clinton defends Obamacare and has also proposed allowing some people to buy into government Medicare.
Presidential candidates healthcare proposals (PDFs)-
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Bernie Sanders
Donald Trump
JOSEPH A. GARCIA/THE STAR Mountain View School teacher Jamie Reese (left) hears the announcement by Principal Jenny Goldman that she was chosen Ventura County Teacher of the Year. The last time the Teacher of the Year came from Mountain View was in 1977. "I can't think of a more deserving candidate," Goldman said. "She's so great, I'm so happy for her." Reese will now compete at the state level.
SHARE JOSEPH A. GARCIA/THE STAR Mountain View School fourth-graders Clay Wingrove (front), Bill Hunter (back left) and Logan Armenta (back right) cheer for Jamie Reese after hearing that she was named Ventura County Teacher of the Year, which makes her eligible to compete for state Teacher of the Year. JOSEPH A. GARCIA/THE STAR Ventura County Superintendent of Schools Stan Mantooth (right) hands Mountain View School teacher Jamie Reese the plaque for being chosen Ventura County Teacher of the Year. JOSEPH A. GARCIA/THE STAR Mountain View School teacher Jamie Reese is named Ventura County Teacher of the Year and will now get to compete for the state title. JOSEPH A. GARCIA/THE STAR Mountain View School teacher Jamie Reese (center) is surrounded by family members, her boyfriend and school personnel after it was announced Friday that she is the Ventura County Teacher of the Year and will go on to compete for the state title.
By Staff Reports
Jamie Reese, who teaches youngsters with emotional challenges at Mountain View School in Simi Valley, was named Ventura County's 2016 Teacher of the Year and will be eligible to compete at the state level.
Reese teaches a special day class for students with emotional disturbances in kindergarten through third grade. She has been teaching for eight years, the past six at Mountain View.
Her principal described her as "an extraordinary educator with an unstoppable drive."
One of her students put it another way: "She teaches very goodly."
School dignitaries and family members joined school officials Friday in surprising Reese with the award in her classroom.
In a letter nominating Reese for the award, Mountain View Principal Jennifer Goldman stated that Reese has become a leader on campus, with other teachers going to her for technical guidance and parents seeking her out for emotional support and advice on managing behaviors.
"She doesn't just teach," Goldman wrote. "She works closely with VCBH (Ventura County Behavioral Health) to assist parents in finding homes when they are homeless and supports parents in acquiring mental health services. She directly addresses the most uncomfortable of issues with families to avoid possible educational and personal crises."
Goldman wrote that Reese embraced technology long ago "a brain built for the technological evolution," is how she put it and maintains a website and posts a weekly newsletter that keeps parents and the community current on classroom events.
"She encourages both experienced and tech-phobic teachers to be bold and post on Twitter, to the benefit of the school and district," Goldman added.
Goldman is both a Google Certified Educator and an Amazon Education Innovator.
That kind of "thinking forward" is what Reese prizes most in her own personality.
"Progress is the most important factor to me personally because I want my students to be in a constant state of moving forward, of learning and of challenging themselves," she wrote in her applicant essay.
Even though teaching "is not an easy gig," she said she sees the rewards of her profession every day.
"My students are the reason I teach and do what I do," she wrote. "I believe that my own views about teaching are demonstrated in the value I place on student connection. If a student doesn't feel a connection with you, then nothing I have discussed with have impact or meaning for them. Connection is the glue that allows everything else to come together for a student."
Reese earned her bachelor's degree in liberal studies and a teaching credential at CSU Northridge, then earned another teaching credential and a master's degree in educational leadership at California Lutheran University. She began her teaching career at Wood Ranch School in Simi Valley in 2007, then moved to Mountain View in 2010.
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May 21 marked the second celebration of World Fish Migration Day. Why do migrating fish deserve their own international day of celebration?
The answer lies in both good and bad news. Bad news first: Many species of migratory fish, including Southern California steelhead, are severely threatened. Most of these species are struggling because of choices people have made over the years.
The good news is that we now understand the impacts of these choices and have the chance to improve the way we manage rivers and streams. These changes could go a long way toward supporting the recovery of fish that split their life cycle between rivers and oceans.
Steelhead trout, the migratory form of rainbow trout, were once plentiful in this region. Local waterways teemed with thousands of these fish, and the Santa Clara River had steelhead runs of 9,000 or more adult fish annually.
Today, fewer than 500 adults survive from the Mexico border up through Santa Barbara County. Southern California steelhead are now listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Pollution and overfishing have played a role in the decline, but research shows the No. 1 reason these native fish are struggling is their inability to access the upper reaches of the watershed. Migrating, or anadromous, fish like salmon and steelhead have an instinct to lay and fertilize eggs in the same streams where their predecessors spawned. When they can't access these streams and creeks, reproduction plummets.
Improving fish passage increases long-term survival prospects. Salmon and steelhead have soared on the Elwha River in Washington state since the Elwha Dam was removed several years ago. While dam removal may not be possible everywhere, improving fish passage over dams and diversions can go a long way in helping populations to recover.
In Ventura County, efforts are underway to restore fish passage in key parts of the Santa Clara River watershed. The Santa Clara River Steelhead Coalition coordinates public and private efforts to improve passage and other conditions for steelhead.
At the Harvey Diversion on Santa Paula Creek, coalition member California Trout is joining with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, Coastal Conservancy, Canyon Irrigation Co., UC Santa Barbara and Santa Clara River Trustee Council to elevate and stabilize the creekbed so steelhead can access a fish ladder over the diversion and get to the creek's upper reaches. Construction will begin this fall.
The Hyde Diversion Dam project at 12th Street near Santa Paula will improve fish passage and reduce costs for the landowner, a win for both fish and farms. Efforts are also starting to restore fish passage up Sisar Creek. Fish biologist Matt Stoecker has called Sisar Creek "a trout-producing machine."
The most significant barrier to fish passage on the Santa Clara River is the Vern Freeman Diversion Dam. The poor design of its fish ladder makes passage too difficult. For steelhead to truly rebound, they must have an effective way to swim past a modified or alternative diversion facility.
World Fish Migration Day reminds us that finding the balance between the needs of people and migrating fish is critical. Healthy rivers support healthy fish populations as well as agriculture, wildlife and people.
Candice Meneghin is a conservation program manager for the fish and watershed advocacy organization California Trout and a member of the Santa Clara River Steelhead Coalition.
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The seemingly mundane matter of issuing bonds to build and fix schools has suddenly morphed into a bubbling stew of highly contentious politics.
The reason: School bonds and the projects they finance are a multibillion-dollar industry, and high-dollar issues often spawn conflicts.
The most obvious example is a ballot measure that would authorize $9 billion in state bonds to help school districts finance construction.
Over the past four decades, ever since Jerry Brown's first stint as governor, the state has issued about $45 billion in school bonds, and Brown now says enough is enough.
The state is paying about $2 billion a year to service past school bond issues, Brown points out, and the process for allocating the money is inefficient and unfair. The $9 billion proposal makes no changes to the process and would add $500 million a year to the state's obligations.
Still, a coalition of contractors, developers and education groups is forging ahead. One factor is that the existing pool of bond money is almost exhausted, and when it's gone, local governments would be free to sharply increase developer fees to finance school construction.
Meanwhile, a squabble exists over how districts have spent previous bond money. The state Supreme Court has upheld a court decision saying the Fresno district's use of no-bid contracts for bond-financed construction, using a loophole designed for long-term "lease-leaseback" projects, is illegal.
Lawyers who won that case contend that billions of dollars in no-bid contracts in Fresno and other districts should be returned by contractors under state "disgorgement" laws. Contractors are pushing a bill that would give them partial protection from repayment and require future "lease-leaseback" contracts to be issued on a "best value" basis that falls short of competitive bidding. Assembly Bill 2316 cleared the Assembly this month.
Patrick O'Donnell, D-Long Beach, who chairs the Assembly Education Committee and is carrying the bill, says it would "tame the Wild West." But the winning attorney in Fresno, Kevin Carlin, calls it "a fox in sheep's clothing" that would still favor insiders, and he will urge the Senate to reject it.
Another pending bill would prohibit local school and community college districts from investing unspent bond funds themselves rather than using the county treasurer's office, stemming from a conflict in San Mateo County. Backed by county treasurers, it's being closely watched by school officials, investment advisers and others in the bond industry.
Finally, East Bay Times columnist Daniel Borenstein has detailed how one Contra Costa County school district's bond issue, which will go before voters in June, is distorting its underlying economics in a way that makes its impact on property tax bills seem far less than it almost certainly will be.
School bonds are big business, and we shouldn't assume they are merely benign acts of governance.
Dan Walters writes for the Sacramento Bee. Email him at dwalters@sacbee.com.
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Framed as an effort by farmers who just want to keep farming, the SUSTAIN VC initiative is fundamentally an attempt to weaken and ultimately undo the SOAR protections we have in Ventura County.
To understand SOAR Save Open-space and Agricultural Resources and the competing initiative, it is important to know two facts:
One, the SOAR 2050 renewal initiative was written and is supported by the same people who had the vision to bring you the original SOAR in 1998 that checked urban sprawl in Ventura County. It includes safeguards for agriculture without creating loopholes for urban sprawl projects.
Two, the SUSTAIN VC initiative is sponsored by the leaders of CoLAB (Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business). CoLAB represents the interests of many of Ventura County's largest landowners. The leaders of SUSTAIN VC opposed the original SOAR initiative in 1998.
The initiative voters approved in 1998 reflects a core value of the citizens of Ventura County. Citizens want the right to vote before elected officials approve a flood of urban sprawl projects that would condemn us to the fate of Orange County or the San Fernando Valley.
Those are places where highly productive agriculture has been almost entirely replaced by something even more profitable for landowners: subdivisions, strip malls and other urban development.
Back in 1998 as now, SOAR's opponents painted themselves as farmers just trying to farm, not landowners who would profit tremendously if they could get their land rezoned for development.
But Southern California has seen repeatedly that when given the option, converting a farm to urban development is too financially tempting for most landowners to pass up.
In 1998, SOAR's opponents predicted disaster for farmers. Instead, SOAR has worked well. Rampant urban sprawl has been checked, while the value of agricultural production and land has risen steadily to today's record levels.
In fact, citizens are so happy with SOAR that when a CoLAB-led poll was conducted in February, it found it could not defeat SOAR in a straight-up election.
So CoLAB's alternate strategy was to write a competing initiative and market it as an effort to preserve agricultural profitability.
But CoLAB's initiative weakens SOAR in two fundamental ways. First, it contains major loopholes that are vaguely written to allow large tracts of land to be approved for development by the county Board of Supervisors without a vote of the people.
Second, SUSTAIN VC ends your right to vote on urban sprawl projects only 16 years after the current SOAR expires. They are anxious to limit your right to vote.
CoLAB claims SOAR "locks in" land-use regulations until 2050. In reality, SOAR does not lock in regulations. What SOAR locks in until 2050 is your right to vote on urban sprawl projects as they arise.
And that is a good thing.
Let's look back. There have been 11 SOAR votes on development proposals since 1998. Citizens approved six of those and rejected five. A 1,000-home project east of Santa Paula was approved with an 80 percent vote of the people. SOAR is hardly the no-growth ogre opponents claim it to be.
Citizens will vote for good projects that benefit the residents of Ventura County and reject the others. And because you have the right to vote, developers will bring forward better projects when they ask you to rezone our county's vital open space and agricultural lands.
By giving you the right to vote, SOAR also helped break the link between campaign contributions to elected officials and the downstream approval of development projects throughout Ventura County.
There's one more important point. When SOAR was first on the ballot, the anti-SOAR rhetoric was, "If SOAR is so good for farming, why do so many farmers oppose SOAR?"
Then and now, the answer is easy to see. When it comes to farmland, the landowner's financial interest in development conflicts with and all too often trumps the farmer's interest in farming.
Harvesting urban sprawl projects instead of crops presents too tempting a windfall for many landowners to resist, even when the resulting urban development puts remaining farm operations at greater risk.
There is no rational argument for the citizens of Ventura County to give up their right to vote on urban sprawl projects before 2050.
SOAR's opponents were wrong in their campaign assertions and predictions in 1998. They are wrong with their anti-SOAR arguments again today. By maintaining our right to vote, SOAR offers our best chance to protect both the viability of agriculture in Ventura County and the public interest.
Karen Schmidt is executive director of SOAR.
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A year ago, a group of faculty and undergraduate students from CSU Channel Islands' Environmental Science and Resource Management Department were on the scene of the Refugio oil spill, sampling sediment and marine life within hours of the initial leak on May 19, 2015.
On Tuesday, a grand jury issued 46 indictments against Texas-based Plains All American Pipeline and an employee. Then on Thursday, federal investigators placed the blame squarely on Plains, finding, among other failings, that its inspection tools did not accurately detect the extent of the pipe's corrosion.
My first reaction was, "No kidding ... I guess pipes corroded to the thickness of a piece of paper were a giveaway, huh?"
My second reaction was, of course, to thank the repair guy.
The repair guy is the unidentified pipeline worker who decided to get his presumably routine maintenance of Line 901 finished just after midday on May 19, 2015. Before he could get to work, he called Plain's Texas pipeline dispatch and asked it to temporarily shut down the flow of oil from offshore fields in the Santa Barbara Channel.
No sophisticated sensor or switch or command system stemmed the oil it was likely a guy in khaki Carhartts and clueless about any spill. We all owe him a beer.
That break kept the spill to an estimated 148,000 gallons of crude, a moderate amount considering this pipeline can transport 2 million gallons a day.
An estimated 80,000 gallons from the pipe pooled next to the Pacific Coast Highway, with at least 60,000 gallons accumulating on or near Refugio Beach. The beach caught about 15 semi-tankers worth of goo about 0.01 percent of the amount involved in the 1969 Santa Barbara spill.
Documenting the harm has been complicated by our ocean waters just entering a new era of transition that includes emaciated pinnipeds (seals, sea lions) and disappearing numbers of ocean invertebrates (sand crabs, etc.).
Still, we have documented harm among the sand-dwelling critters of the coast, and acute economic harm across Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angeles counties, with people spending less money at beaches more heavily hit by tar balls than at those untarred or lightly tarred.
We've also seen longer-term economic ripples as drillers like Venoco declare bankruptcy partly due to the indefinitely shuttered pipeline. Some estimates place the ultimate liability to Plains All American at $250 million.
Through the mess, the Joint Incident Command proved a dismal communicator; a bureaucratic morass often deaf to the concerns of sister agencies and the public, and not nimble enough to take advantage of sophisticated spill-moniting tools.
Our polling shows this acted to further erode public confidence in our government's ability to respond to such disasters in a timely, open manner.
Through all this, I'm still thankful to that repairman for making that call. Now if I can just get his phone number, I have a few beers here.
Sean Anderson is a professor of environmental science and resource management at CSU Channel Islands. You can follow oil spill observations made by Channel Islands' Sandy Beach Rapid Assessment and Aerial and Aquatic Robotic Research via Anderson's blogs at oil.piratelab.org and aarr.piratelab.org.
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For years as the California Public Utilities Commission spawned scandals, criminal allegations and physical disasters, Gov. Jerry Brown sat silent, uttering nary a critical word about the agency.
He's still not talking about ethical problems in his administration, including charges of cronyism and favoritism at the Energy Commission and documented lies both from state prison authorities and the group of agencies that threatened summer blackouts unless the leaky Southern California Gas Co. storage field at Aliso Canyon in northern Los Angeles reopens soon.
But at least Brown and his appointees are at long last making some moves.
Most prominent was a mid-May ruling from the PUC that reopened a scandal-plagued settlement dunning consumers about 70 percent of the $4.7 billion cost of closing the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego County, wrecked in large part because of a blunder by its main owner, Southern California Edison.
The settlement was outlined in a secret meeting in Poland between Edison officials and former PUC President Michael Peevey, under criminal investigation for his role.
Two quieter actions could be important, too. Brown's latest budget revision shows he has given up on the idea that the PUC problems will quietly go away without him doing anything, thus leaving him a legacy of balancing the state budget, promoting renewable energy and fighting climate change.
Even Brown or at least his budget writers now admits the PUC has safety problems. It didn't take a genius to see this, after the fatal 2010 explosion of a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. natural gas pipeline in San Bruno. That was followed by the San Onofre shutdown.
Then came the monthslong methane leak at Aliso Canyon. Brown in mid-May quietly signed a bill by Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, requiring each Aliso well to pass a battery of tests or be plugged before the field can reopen.
Along with his budget proposal for a new safety division at the PUC, that made three significant moves in less than a week for Brown, who all but ignored these fronts for years.
It's now clear Brown knows the state's utilities have safety issues and his regulatory appointees have ethical ones. He'll toss a little money at the safety problem. But not much.
In a budget reaching above $120 billion, the governor proposes spending just shy of $1.7 million on 11 PUC staffers for a new Division of Safety Advocates.
This outfit, the proposal says, would operate much like the present PUC Office of Ratepayer Advocates, tasked with keeping utility rates down. That office has dismally failed, instead engaging in an elaborate dance where utilities demand high rates, then let the PUC cut them a little and brag about how much it "saved" consumers. California utility rates end up among the three highest in the Lower 48 states.
What might happen with the new safety division? Would it contribute to "compromises" that delay safety? Would it obfuscate lines of responsibility? Would it be a waste of money?
For sure, the PUC has long possessed the ability to track how utilities spend infrastructure maintenance fees customers have paid since the early 1950s. But the agency never did that.
Also, does creation of this new division mean the governor admits the failure of the existing PUC Safety & Enforcement Division?
Amazingly, it wasn't until 2014, well after both San Bruno and San Onofre, that the PUC adopted a policy of continually assessing and reducing utility safety risks. The budget plan says the new division would "determine whether additional safety improvements are needed." They plainly are.
The bottom line: Sure, the PUC favors adding this office. It could provide a convenient fig leaf for commissioners to hide behind.
While Brown's three moves should be just the beginning of an ethical and safety cleanup, they do show that secure as he feels, with no need to run for office again, he can be forced to recognize a need for changes, even if he won't talk about them.
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com.
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It's Infrastructure Week, when a nonpartisan coalition of public- and private-sector groups promote the need for government to invest in roads, bridges, rails, ports, airports, pipes, the power grid and broadband.
The mantra is #InfrastructureMatters, and the call to action? "Leaders at all levels are going to need to finally wake up and commit to building a long-term, sustainable plan to invest in America's infrastructure."
We agree. But just as, if not more, important as government action is the need for consumers to demand it. And when it comes to upgrading our water infrastructure, they must first understand it.
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, $4.8 trillion must be invested in our aging water infrastructure over the next 20 years. But how do we expect water ratepayers to absorb such costs when most don't know where their water comes from, or understand the amazing but aging infrastructure that delivers it?
Clean water doesn't just materialize in our glasses, bathtubs and clothes washers, any more than roads just suddenly appear to take us to work or electricity magically powers our homes and workplaces. But roads and electrical lines are visible. Our water infrastructure is not.
According to a 2011 Nature Conservancy poll, 77 percent of Americans "were unable to correctly identify their source of drinking water." That is consistent with similar polls EnviroMedia has fielded. In 2004 and 2014, EnviroMedia polls found only 28 percent of Texans said they definitely knew the natural source of their drinking water. EnviroMedia recently fielded the same question among 100 American households and only 31 said they definitely knew their water source.
But there is a silver lining. Through more than a decade of research, EnviroMedia has found a strong connection between knowledge of water and energy sources and willingness to conserve.
With trillions of dollars to invest in our U.S. water infrastructure over the next 20 years, it makes sense that the more people know about where their water comes from and how it gets to them, the more understanding they will be when rates go up and things go wrong (drought, water main breaks, algal blooms, water contamination).
In California, an April statewide poll by Probolsky Research found only 41 percent of ratepayers "are willing to pay higher water rates to ensure a safe, reliable, high-quality supply of drinking water." What's going on with the other 59 percent?
Channel Island Beach Community Services District ratepayers in Ventura County get their water from the State Water Project (20 percent) and groundwater (80 percent). The state water travels 800 miles from a melting snowpack in the Sierra to the Metropolitan Water District in Los Angeles, then to the Calleguas Municipal Water District, city of Port Hueneme and finally to the services district.
Some people may think that because Northern California had good snowfall and rain this winter, we should have plenty of water in Southern California. But much of that water flowed uncaptured into the Pacific Ocean due to regulations protecting native fish species in the Delta.
Ventura County water agencies are also coping with new regulations from the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Groundwater in the Fox Canyon aquifer is scarce due to drought and threatened by saltwater intrusion and pollution.
Our job is to educate ratepayers about the full cycle of water infrastructure from source to homes and businesses and back to source. Water is America's most essential but most neglected resource. Let's change that by educating ratepayers to know #WaterInfrastructureMatters.
Valerie Salinas-Davis is co-founder and CEO of EnviroMedia. Jared Bouchard is general manager of the Channel Islands Beach Community Services District.
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The campaign finance laundering case against our former state legislator Tony Strickland is disturbing on many levels.
Strickland this week paid a $40,000 fine (half of the original recommended amount) to settle allegations that he laundered campaign finance donations for his 2010 campaign for state controller.
The accusation is that beginning in June 2010, there were three major campaign contributors who had given the maximum amount allowable under state law to the Strickland committee but apparently wanted to give more.
They wrote bigger checks to the Ventura County and Stanislaus County Republican Party committees. Those committees then turned around and donated similar amounts to the Strickland committee.
The California Political Reform Act specifically states it is illegal to make a contribution in the name of another, or act as an intermediary for another. The law seeks to make it clear to the public who is contributing to political campaigns.
Strickland, after paying his fine, said he did not launder money. He told The Star, "I never solicited a party donation for me."
The Stanislaus County Republican Party has admitted to wrongdoing and paid a $10,000 fine. The Ventura County Republican Party denies any wrongdoing and is seeking a hearing. County party Chairman Mike Osborn, who serves on the California Republican Party board of directors and is a former treasurer of the state party, said, "We did nothing wrong."
The evidence compiled by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, however, shows that after reaching the maximum personal contribution to the Strickland campaign, William Templeton, of Texas, made a $32,400 contribution to the Ventura County Republican Party on June 7, 2010, after email discussions with Strickland. A second donor, Andrew Barth, of California, wrote a $15,000 check to the county party on June 11, 2010, after maxing out his personal contribution to Strickland.
Strickland's campaign manager sent the candidate an email on June 15, 2010, with the subject line, "FYI VCGOP check." In it, he wrote: "Tony you received 32,400 templeton 15,000 barth Total of 47,400." After some exchanges as to how the professional fundraiser's fee would be paid, and how much would be kept by the local party, Strickland responded by email: "Have mike write a 45k check to us."
One of the disturbing aspects of the case is that Strickland was running for the office of state controller the "state's independent fiscal watchdog."
California voters adopted the Political Reform Act in 1974 to reduce the amount of money spent in elections and to eliminate secret or anonymous contributions.
Despite the claims by Strickland and Osborn that they did nothing wrong, it seems clear to us that there was an effort to hide donations.
Strickland, after 10 years of service in the California Legislature representing Ventura County and two failed attempts to win a congressional seat, served as a visiting fellow and student mentor in the political science department at USC and has now jumped into national politics as the California chairman of The Committee for American Sovereignty, a super political action committee supporting Donald Trump.
The super PACs, as you know, are allowed to raise and spend as much money as they can on behalf of candidates, with minimal disclosure of the true source of the money.
So once again and now legally an unlimited amount of money can be spent on a campaign, and the law allows the committee chaired by Strickland to easily hide the names of donors through intermediary contributions such as what happened in 2010.
It is a disturbing trend that seems intent on gaining maximum political contributions with minimal public disclosure.
ASEAN and Russia leaders shared the importance and common interest of maintaining peace and security in Asia-Pacific as well as the role and contribution of ASEAN and Russia in addressing the current security and development challenges. Photo: VGP
Under the slogan Towards Strategic Partnership for the Sake of the Common Good, the leaders discussed on regional and international situation, reviewed the ASEAN-Russia Dialogue Partnership over the past two decades and figured out major orientations as well as concrete measures to lift up the bilateral ties to a new height.
In political-security sphere, Russia has actively participated in all key ASEAN-led forums and mechanisms and made increasingly important contributions to peace, stability and development ion the region.
For economic aspect, the two-way trade volume increased to over US$20 billion and Russian arrivals to the bloc rose to about 2.5 million.
Leaders to the Summit, however, said potential remains vast, thus both sides need to double efforts to deepen the bilateral relations, especially in ASEANs priority areas.
The leaders approved Sochi Declaration to lay a firm basis for the advancement of the ASEAN-Russia relationship in the future.
Regarding regional and international issues of common concern, the leaders shared the importance and common interest of maintaining peace and security in Asia-Pacific as well as the role and contribution of ASEAN and Russia in addressing the current security and development challenges.
ASEAN leaders highly valued Russias role, hoping for Russias continued active contribution to the blocs cooperation mechanisms and its support for ASEANs central role in the region.
Both Russia and ASEAN shared the same position that ensuring peace, stability and security of aviation and navigation in the East Sea is conducive to peace and development in the region and the world.
Both sides gave prominence to the position of settling disputes through peaceful measures on the basis of international law, especially the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, avoiding the use or threat to use force and any actions that may further complicate the situation, fully and effectively implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea, and working towards early conclusion of a Code of Conduct in the Sea Sea.
Speaking at the summit, PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc stressed that peace and security in the East Sea is vital to peace and security in the region and the world.
Meanwhile, ASEAN countries voiced their deep concerns over the East Sea situation, saying unilateral actions have changed the status quo in the East Sea, gone against the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea and international law, intensified tensions, eroded trust, and threatened peace, stability, security, safety and freedom of navigation and aviation in the East Sea.
PM Phuc underlined the urgent need of exercising restraint, stopping unilateral actions, demilitarizing, accelerating dialogues and negotiations to settle disputes, and achieving substantial progress in building the Code of Conduct.
The Vietnamese Government chief also praised the constructive role and contribution of Russia to peace, security and cooperation in Southeast Asia over the past years, calling for Russias more support for the maintenance of peace, security, safety and freedom of navigation and aviation and for the peaceful settlement of disputes in the East Sea in line with international law and regional agreements.
Part of My Son Sanctuary in Quang Nam province.
The brand name, proposed by experts from the EU-ESRT, reflects the convergence of special tourism products in the central region.
It is also in line with Vietnams national tourism brand name Vietnam-Timeless Charm.
The EU-ESRT will continue to collaborate with the localities to complete the brand names logo and slogan as well as consult on how to apply it in marketing.
The programme also helps the three localities improve their websites introducing tourist destinations with the new brand name.
Besides the Hue Imperial Citadel - World Heritage Site , Thua ThienHue province attracts visitors to its famous destinations such as Lang Co Bay, rated among the worlds 30 most beautiful bays, and Tam Giang Lagoon, the largest in Southeast Asia.
Quang Nam province is home to three world renown attractions the UNESCO-recognised World Cultural Heritage Sites Hoi An Ancient Town and My Son Sanctuary, and the Cu Lao Cham - a World Biosphere Reserve.
Da Nang city , one of Vietnam's popular tourist destinations, houses a number of beautiful beaches, the Ngu Hanh Son (Marble Mountains), Bana Mountain resort, and Champa museum.
An EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo crashed into the Mediterranean on May 19, 2016, with 66 people on board, prompting an investigation into whether it was mechanical failure or a bomb. (Photo: AFP/Thomas Samson)
ROISSY-CHARLES DE GAULLE AIRPORT: French investigators are checking again for security flaws at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport after Thursday's EgyptAir crash, despite already stripping hundreds of employees of their security clearance since last year's militant attacks.
It is still far from clear whether the EgyptAir plane that crashed en route from Paris to Cairo was the victim of a terrorist attack or that any security lapse happened on French soil.
But security staff are taking no chances.
Following the attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish supermarket in January 2015, the airport north of Paris imposed a zero-tolerance approach to staff, stripping more than 600 of its 86,000 employees of their security clearance.
Anyone with a criminal record lost their security pass, but the police authority that handled the review said 85 were suspected of having sympathies with radical extremists.
Another 400 members of staff are still under investigation after being flagged as possible radicalisation cases, added a source close to the investigation.
With even one radicalised staff member with access to sensitive areas posing a potentially major threat, investigators are hunting for the slightest sign of radicalisation.
The refusal of a male employee to speak to or take orders from a woman, for example, is enough of a red flag to justify pulling his badge.
BUILDING THE CLEAREST PICTURE
Investigators stress that they are not jumping to conclusions as to what caused Thursday's disaster in which all 66 passengers and crew were killed.
But they have questioned any ground staff who had the least contact or involvement with the plane.
The investigation requires close collaboration between the different services, including the air transport police (the GTA); the border police (the PAF) and the intelligence services.
They are striving to build a clear picture of what happened during the doomed plane's brief passage through Paris.
The Airbus A320 arrived in Paris from Cairo at 9.55pm Wednesday (1955 GMT). It took off again a little more than an hour later, at 11.09pm.
Investigators are using everything at their disposal, including video surveillance, to identify passengers, crew, maintenance staff and baggage handlers who had contact with the plane.
But so far they have not found any suspect or any flaw in the system, said a source close to the investigation.
Another source close to the probe confirmed that the security measures in place seemed to have functioned correctly.
"The terrorist hypothesis has not been ruled out, but more in the sense of a human action than a bomb," the source told AFP, implying that if there was foul play, it would have been caused by someone on the plane rather than a planted device.
One source at the airport said no freight had been loaded on the plane at Paris and the luggage in both the hold and cabin had been thoroughly checked.
It seemed "highly improbable" then that an explosive device was smuggled on board at Paris.
CHECKING THE PASSENGER LIST
Investigators are also looking at the passenger list.
"It's much too soon to say whether or not there is an individual with a problematic profile," said one of the investigation sources. "But that doesn't mean there are not suspicions."
Security in all French airports has been tightened since last November's attacks, air security specialist Xavier Tytelman told AFP.
"After a first check with scanners, 30 per cent of the luggage considered suspect is taken to a second system, special scanners for detecting explosives."
A final check was an inspection by hand with demining teams standing by, he added.
Hand luggage, meanwhile, is checked by scanners that are "99.9 per cent reliable", Tytelman said. "You would be hard-put to do more."
Profiling has also been introduced in Paris since the March 22 bombings at Zaventem airport in Brussels that killed 16 people.
The job of profilers is to observe the tens of thousands of people passing through the terminals on the look-out for anything that strikes them as abnormal behaviour.
The decision was issued as a measure to tighten security during the upcoming grand election, in which all citizens 18 years old and above will cast a vote to select members of the nations lawmaking National Assembly as well as of the local-level Peoples Councils for the 2016-21 tenure.
Authority units at airports in Vietnam are directed to increase regular patrols and supervision in restricted areas as well as heighten preventative measures aimed at barring families from entering such location.
Travelers will also be required to take off their jackets and shoes while going through scanners at airports, instead of only having to strip off their coats as usual.
Extensive interviews with passengers will also be applied during airport procedures.
Regarding checked baggage, the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam has enlisted the used of staffers and surveillance cameras to carefully monitor all luggage from the moment it is checked at the counter until it is loaded onto the aircraft.
Airplanes will be parked in appropriately lit areas in airfields at night and be supervised around the clock by camera systems.
All units will also be asked to monitor situations in public areas in the countrys airports, reminding passengers to stay close to their baggage and quickly responding to any potential assemblies of people that my result in disorder.
Operators will also tightly coordinate with local authorities to exchange information on social situations and promptly report any emerging incidents.
All extensive security procedures are set to be applied from May 20 to 25.
President Barack Obama spoke by phone Saturday with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, with both leaders agreeing on what the White House said was the "critical importance" of improving security in Baghdad's fortified International Zone.
A White House statement said Obama also extended condolences on behalf of the American people for the recent terrorist attacks in Baghdad.
The talks, which the statement said also stressed the importance of continued dialogue among Iraq's political parties, came less than a day after protesters defied bullets and tear gas to storm the zone, which houses parliament and an array of government installations.
The anti-government protesters, who were later driven from the area, vowed to return with weapons.
Many of the protesters were followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who, like many other political leaders in Iraq, has his own militia, known as the Peace Brigades.
Sadr came out in support of what he described as the peoples revolution against the government.
Security forces Saturday blocked all the entrances to the International Zone and increased the number of special forces checkpoints on city streets.
Inside the zone, some 40 Humvees were parked outside the parliament, and security forces were posted at key points.
Some Baghdad residents stocked up on food, water and medicine out of fear that the situation could get worse and protesters could start rioting and looting in the city.
One resident of Sadr City, a densely populated and impoverished pro-Sadr area of Baghdad, said the country did not need two wars.
We already have a war against Islamic State, and this is more important, said Ali, speaking on condition his last name not be used. "If we start a war against the government, we will have two wars, and this is not good for us. First, we should resolve the fight against IS.
Ali warned that the bigger danger was an armed conflict between different Shiite militias: those loyal to al-Sadr, and the powerful pro-Iranian militias of the Badr Organization and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq.
The pro-Iranian factions that are loyal to key Shiite government leaders have sent veiled warnings for al-Sadr to stand down.
But al-Sadr has emerged as one of Iraqs most powerful nationalist and populist leaders, and he has proved he can mobilize hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who are fed up with government corruption and the leadership's inability to protect them from repeated rounds of violence.
Fridays protest followed a series of bombings in Baghdad that left more than 100 dead and hundreds wounded, mostly Shiites from the citys poorer neighborhoods.
Al-Sadr's re-emergence came as analysts increasingly describe Abadis leadership as weak. His previous denunciation of protesters who forced their way into the International Zone three weeks ago to take over parliament was clearly ignored.
The prime ministers attempts to ease tensions by restructuring the government also have failed, and he has been unable to pull together the different political factions squabbling for power.
The U.N. special envoy to Iraq called for a de-escalation of the situation.
Restoring calm is key for Iraq to be able to move forward in finding a political solution, Jan Kubis said in a statement released Saturday.
The top U.S. commander for the Middle East made a secret visit to Syria on Saturday to look at cooperative efforts among Arab, Kurdish and other forces to overcome Islamic State militants.
Army General Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, spent nearly 11 hours in Syria, visiting locations where U.S. special operations forces are working with local fighters in the battle against IS.
Reporters accompanied Votel on his visit but, for security reasons, were not allow to disclose his trip until it was over.
Votel landed at a dusty outpost that serves as a U.S. camp for American military advisers who are training Syrian Arab troops in basic soldiering skills. Splitting off from the reporters, Votel then visited several other undisclosed locations in Syria before returning to the camp.
He spent time with not only U.S. service personnel but also top officers of the Syrian Democratic Forces, who have requested arms and ammunition from the United States.
Aides said Votel's flight into Syria was the first made in daylight by U.S. forces, who have about 200 advisers on the ground but no combat units. President Barack Obama has ruled out a U.S. ground combat role.
'Increased confidence'
In an interview as he prepared to leave Syria, Votel said his visit had hardened his belief that the U.S. is taking the right approach to developing local forces to fight IS. "I left with increased confidence in their capabilities and our ability to support them,'' he said.
The U.S. has struggled to find an effective ground force to take on IS in Syria. The problem is complicated by the fractured nature of the opposition to the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The U.S. is trying to develop credible Arab fighters to retake Raqqa, the Islamic State's self-declared capital, while Syrian Kurds have retaken territory from IS in other parts of northern Syria.
The U.S. is supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces, mostly made up of Syrian Kurds, numbering at least 25,000 fighters, with a smaller element of Syrian Arabs, numbering perhaps 5,000 to 6,000. The U.S. is trying to increase the Arab numbers.
Ban assails obstacles to aid
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed the Syria conflict in Doha, Qatar, on Saturday, saying at the annual Doha Forum that the Syrian government was continuing to use barrel bombs on civilians and putting "unconscionable and unlawful obstacles in the way of humanitarian aid." He said, "Is there anything more urgent than resolving that nightmare?"
Ban's comments came just days after an international meeting in Vienna where delegates from world and regional powers proposed turning a lull in the fighting in Syria into a long-lasting cease-fire.
More than 20 countries participating also agreed to increase their humanitarian aid to Syria. Many Syrian civilians surrounded by the violence have found themselves cut off from supplies of food and medicine for prolonged periods.
In his comments Saturday, Ban cautioned against "shortsighted policies and heavy-handed approaches" to confronting the extremists, saying they only exacerbate tensions. He called for a "full and immediate cessation of hostilities" followed by discussions about what kind of transitional leadership should follow.
Honolulu has agreed to pay a lesbian couple $80,000 after their arrest by a police officer who did not like seeing them kissing.
Courtney Wilson and Taylor Guerrero, Los Angeles residents, were visiting Hawaii last year when they were confronted in a supermarket by Officer Bobby Harrison.
According to the lawsuit, Harrison"observed their consensual romantic contact and, in a loud voice, ordered plaintiffs to stop and 'take it somewhere else.'"
He threatened to throw them out of the store when he saw their public display of affection a second time.
Later, all three got into a scuffle in the checkout line. The women were arrested and charged with felony assault on an officer.
Hawaii News Now says the charges were dropped after the store's surveillance videos disappeared.
The women filed a lawsuit. The $80,000 settlement must by approved by Honolulu's City Council, which is expected to vote on the settlement at its July meeting.
A city attorney said in a statement that "the tentative settlement is in the best interests of the city."
Officer Harrison retired after the lawsuit was filed.
Wilson said she and Guerrero had wanted the officer "to suffer some sort of repercussion" for his actions.
She told Hawaii News Now, however, she hopes the case inspires people to "stand up" for their civil rights and refuse to tolerate bigoted behavior.
Amid preparations for the end of a semester at Northwestern University where Arielle Salomon is pursuing a master's degree in business administration the 28-year-old is taking time out of her busy schedule to pause and appreciate what she says has been her fortunate life.
Everyone has their story about why they are here, and what challenges theyve overcome, so its important to remember that, Salomon told VOA. Ive grown up and been so lucky to have been sheltered from war.
Sheltered perhaps, but Salomon is very much shaped by it.
When Germany invaded Poland during World War II, her grandfather, Abram Salomon, fled to Lithuania to avoid the fate of many Jews in the Holocaust.
His whole family was murdered, except for him and his brother, who survive, so its incredible its amazing that they escaped," Arielle Salomon said.
As amazed as she is that they escaped, she also ponders an alternate reality.
Its one in which Arielle Salomon wouldnt be giving this interview, nor be able to appreciate much of whats shes experienced already in her young life, all of it possible because of the actions of one man a continent away and 76 years ago.
'Japanese Schindler'
People call my grandfather the Japanese Schindler, says Chihiro Sugihara, referring to the famous German businessman who helped saved hundreds of his Jewish workers.
Chihiro Sugiharas grandfather, Chiune, was a diplomat stationed at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania, at the onset of World War Two, as many Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazi occupation of Poland applied for visas to leave Europe.
It put Chiune Sugihara in a difficult position. Without clear guidance from his government, he acted on his own, deciding to grant 10-day transit visas through Japan for hundreds who applied.
He knew that the consequence of going against that order could impact his future, his career, and the livelihood of his family, said Shoshana Buchholz-Miller, with the Illinois Holocaust Memorial and Education Center. He took a chance.
Chiune Sugihara and his wife began signing visas in July 1940.
By the time he was forced to leave Kaunas several weeks later after closing the Japanese consulate, Chiune Sugihara issued more than 2,000 visas that allowed as many as 6,000 Jewish refugees to escape.
Today there are tens of thousands of people alive who would not be alive had he not taken that chance, Buchholz-Miller said.
Arielle Salomons grandfather, Abram, received one of Sugiharas visas, and traveled to Japan and parts of Asia, where he, his brother and other refugees waited out the war.
We have my grandfathers visa framed at home as a testament, a reminder, to this incredible story, she explained. The world had turned against the Jews, and this man saved my family.
Thousands alive today
The Simon Wiesenthal Center estimates as many as 40,000 descendants like Arielle Salomon are alive today because of Chiune Sugihara.
But after the war, he returned home in obscurity, and rarely spoke about the experience.
I think to protect the family, Chiunes granddaughter Madoka Sugihara explained in delicate Japanese as her brother Chihiro translated. Because he issued the visa against the government orders and he tried to not have anything happen to us because he went against the order.
Chihiro Sugihara said he can only remember one time when his grandfather talked about Lithuania.
He left some kind of memos, and when I was like 13 or 14 years old, he ordered me to copy the memos, he told VOA. At the time I was small so I didnt understand exactly what that means. So one sentence by sentence I had to ask my grandfather, what does that mean, how to write, how to read it. And then he start to explain what had happened.
Buchholz-Miller said, In Judaism, they say that the highest form of charity is anonymous. I think he really exemplified not doing it for the accolades but doing what he thought was right.
That earned him the honor of Righteous Among the Nations, one of Israels highest honors.
'Absolutely a hero'
Theres another title Buchholz-Miller said Sugihara deserves: I think he absolutely is a hero.
His grandson is more modest. Hero? I think he doesnt want to be the hero. He just do what he need to do.
One of the visas Chihiro Sugiharas grandfather issued is now part of an exhibit at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, the setting where Arielle Salomon was finally able to meet Sugiharas family for the first time to express her gratitude directly to two of the grandchildren of the man who saved her family.
Its something very emotionally overwhelming, she said after struggling for weeks to plan what she would say to Chihiro and Madoka Sugihara.
Our grandfathers were both in this incredibly trying moment. By piecing together this, it's amazing to remember how they survived the war," she said.
'Nice to meet' descendants
We didnt do anything specially, Chihiro Sugihara admits. But today we visit here the Holocaust museum and talk to the people and when we meet the people we realize such important things. It is difficult to say but it is always nice to meet a descendant of someone who was saved, and very impressed.
The Sugiharas have heard many stories of escape and survival in their travels around the world, most focused on their grandfathers act of mercy, a lasting reminder that to many he remains a hero.
People made him a hero. For me he was just a good grandfather," Chihiro Sugihara said.
While universities across the United States are honoring their newest graduates this month, many immigrants in downtown Manhattan are celebrating, too.
One hundred of them, representing 31 countries across four continents, graduated Friday as U.S. citizens, joining the ranks of 680,000 others every year in New York and cities around the country.
Line by line, together, they took an oath: ... I will support and defend the constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Some were tearful, others solemn. In the back, a few snapped selfies, proudly displaying the miniature U.S. flags distributed to each of them, while awaiting their names to be formally announced.
'Very happy'
Louise Antoine from Port au Prince, Haiti, cheerfully asked for a photo. Her husband, already a citizen, couldnt make the ceremony.
Im feeling good, Im very happy, Antoine exclaimed. Now I have a new family.
An American family.
Reyna Pacheco, 21, who moved to the U.S. from Mexico when she was 4, was also among the honorees.
Just two days prior, she celebrated another milestone a college degree from Columbia University.
My family and everyone has gone through a lot of struggles to get me here, said Pacheco, holding back tears. I think its become bigger than getting my degree.
Pakistani-American Manar Waheed, deputy policy director for immigration at the White House Domestic Policy Council, congratulated the crowd with a reminder of what it means to be an American.
It doesnt mean you forget where you come from, Waheed said. It means you carry it with you. It means you share it with others, and you make us all a better country for it.
Waheed, whose parents migrated from Lahore, Pakistan, said being a part of the ceremony was personal for her.
Had different opportunities
Her father, when he was a child, would sell toys on the side of the road after school in order to provide for his family. As a result of their parents' efforts, Waheed and her brother saw very different opportunities as American citizens.
Its those very opportunities that led Chijioke Anyira of Nigeria to the United States in 2011, where he has become a licensed nurse.
Anyira and his wife hope their three young children continue the legacy he has begun.
Now that he is an American, Anyira insists he will make his voice heard, beginning with the U.S. general election in November.
I have to vote, its my responsibility, he said.
The 'next great chapter'
Shin Inouye, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services press secretary and adviser for intergovernmental and external affairs, administered the afternoons oath of allegiance.
Inouye called the experience a high privilege.
To be part of that last step, to be able to be the first person to welcome them as new Americans, theres really no greater feeling than that, he said.
At ceremonys end, each new citizen joined in the Pledge of Allegiance, marking the end of afternoon formalities and the beginning of a new life chapter.
But not before receiving a personal greeting from President Barack Obama, on a plasma screen TV.
You can help write the next great chapter in our American story, Obama said. Im proud to welcome you as a new citizen of this country.
Nigerians are celebrating the recovery of the first of over 200 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram extremists two years ago from the town of Chibok. But some are voicing concerns about the spotlight of public attention focused on the rescued girl.
Amina Ali was freed less than two days before she met the press. She sat before journalists in Nigerias Aso Rock presidential villa as President Muhammadu Buhari presented her and her newborn baby to the world.
It was a triumph for Buhari, who took office last year pledging to defeat Boko Haram.
But giving the media access to Ali so soon after her rescue was concerning, said Aisha Yesufu, a top strategist with the Bring Back Our Girls movement, which has advocated for the schoolgirls rescue.
The whole media circus was like a circus," she said. "It was a bit distasteful. It should have been a private moment that she should have had with the president.
A spokesman for Buhari declined to comment.
The Chibok girls are not the only captives of Boko Haram. Prior to Alis release, Nigerias military rescued thousands of other abductees from the countrys northeast.
Some of the returnees say they have been stigmatized because they are seen to be associated with Boko Haram.
Yesufu said the publicity around Alis return could be used to resist that tendency.
This in its own way might even let the community know that, look, its not as if you can just throw her away," she said. "Shes welcome, and all other abductees too, are welcome when they come back.
Shortly after Ali's arrival in the capital on Thursday, Nigerias military announced the recovery of another Chibok schoolgirl. She had been a student at the same school in Chibok, but it was later disclosed that she was abducted from a different community at a different date.
The government says both girls will receive health care and counseling.
Oklahoma's governor on Friday vetoed a bill that would have effectively outlawed abortion in the state by making it a felony for doctors to perform the procedure.
Republican Governor Mary Fallin said the bill would not withstand a legal challenge.
While I consistently have and continue to support a re-examination of the United States Supreme Courts decision in Roe v. Wade, this legislation cannot accomplish that re-examination, Fallin said in a statement. Roe v. Wade is the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the United States.
The bill's sponsor, Republican Senator Nathan Dahm, had said he hoped the legislation would help to overturn the landmark ruling.
On Thursday, Oklahoma's Senate approved the bill, which said that anyone, including doctors, who performed an abortion would be found guilty of a felony and punished by up to three years in prison. The measure would have also revoked the Oklahoma medical licenses of most physicians who participated in such procedures. The legislation said an abortion could be performed legally only if it was done to save the mother's life.
Abortion rights groups said the bill was the first of its kind in the nation and called it unconstitutional.
Oklahoma lawmakers can still try to override the governor's veto, which requires a two-thirds majority in both the state House and Senate.
President Barack Obama left Washington on Saturday for a weeklong visit to Vietnam and Japan, his 10th trip to Asia since taking office.
Air Force One, the U.S. presidential jet, lifted off shortly after 1 p.m. local time for the long flight to Hanoi. After his jet makes two refueling stops along the way, Obama is due to touch down in the Vietnamese capital early Monday local time, or early Sunday afternoon in the U.S. capital.
A White House statement said the president's visit to Vietnam and Japan is intended to demonstrate the U.S. commitment to "rebalancing" relations with the nations of Asia and the Pacific region. His travel also is expected to increase U.S. diplomatic, economic and security engagement with those countries and peoples.
During his time in Japan, next Thursday and Friday, the president will stop at Hiroshima, where the world's first atomic bomb was detonated in combat, shortly before Japan surrendered to the United States to end World War II. Obama will be the first U.S. head of state to visit the A-bomb site.
Here is a brief summary of Obama's itinerary:
May 23-24: He will hold official meetings with Vietnam's leadership in Hanoi. Economic and security issues are expected to be high on the agenda. Obama also will deliver a speech on U.S.-Vietnam relations. During meetings and events in Hanoi and in Ho Chi Minh City, the president will discuss the Trans-Pacific Partnership, whose approval this year he sees as an important goal.
May 25: The president will travel to Japan.
May 26-27: Obama will take part in a summit of leaders of the Group of Seven, the world's biggest economic powers. The talks will be at Ise-Shima, a resort area in southeastern Japan, near Osaka.
May 27: After the summit, the president visit Hiroshima with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Minutes before EgyptAir Flight 804 plunged into the Mediterranean Sea with 66 people on board, smoke was detected inside the plane, investigators said Saturday.
Egypt's military released pictures of wreckage, including a pink bag, a life vest, shredded seat covers and mangled debris showing the EgyptAir name.
The latest information offers clues but no answers to what might have happened, while search crews continued scouring for further wreckage.
The flight recorders, the so-called black boxes, still need to be recovered from the bottom of the Mediterranean, believed to be some 290 kilometers north of Alexandria, before investigators would be able to put together a plausible scenario.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said he and other officials, as well as the Egyptian ambassador to France, had met with about 100 family members to express our profound compassion over the crash.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Ayrault said that all the hypotheses are being examined, none are being favored.
The French-made Airbus A320 had been flying from Paris to Cairo early Thursday, when it turned sharply twice before plunging about 6,700 meters and vanishing from radar screens without its crew sending a distress signal.
Egypt, France, Greece and the U.S. are among nations deploying planes and naval vessels to search for the plane.
No militant group has claimed to have carried out an attack.
Egypt's aviation minister, Sherif Fathy, has said a terrorist attack is a more likely cause for the crash than technical failure. But no clear evidence has emerged as to what brought down the plane. No militant group has claimed to have carried out an attack.
The European Space Agency (ESA) said Friday one of its orbiting spacecraft spotted what could be an oil slick 40 kilometers southeast of the plane's last known position and the information had been passed on to relevant authorities conducting a search mission. The agency released a grainy photograph of the scene, which showed little detail and cautioned there was no certainty the slick was from the aircraft.
ESA said a second satellite would pass the area where the slick was found on Sunday.
The agency released a grainy photograph of the scene that showed little detail and cautioned there was no certainty the slick was from the aircraft.
The ESA said a second satellite would on Sunday pass the area where the slick was found.
Three French investigators and a technical expert from the A320's manufacturer, Airbus, arrived Friday in Cairo to aid in the investigation.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry offered Egypt continued support for the search.
Kerry offered condolences to Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry for the lives lost on the flight, and said the United States would stay in close contact as the investigation progressed.
Egypt, France, Greece and the U.S. are among nations deploying planes and naval vessels to search for the plane.
WATCH: Prayers for EgyptAir crash victims
Prayers and a symbolic funeral for the passengers were held Friday at Cairo's Sultan Hussein Mosque.
EgyptAir sent interpreters and doctors to the Cairo airport to meet with the passengers' families.
The disappearance has renewed security concerns months after a Russian passenger plane was shot down over the Sinai Peninsula.
The Russian aircraft crashed in Sinai on October 31, killing all 224 people on board. Moscow said it was brought down by an explosive device, and a local branch of the extremist Islamic State group claimed responsibility for planting it.
The NATO-led military coalition in Afghanistan says a suicide bomber struck one of its vehicles north of Kabul Saturday, but caused no casualties to its personnel.
The attack occurred in Bagram district, which hosts the largest U.S. military airbase in Afghanistan, some 55 kilometers from the Afghan capital.
Resolute Support can confirm that one coalition vehicle was struck by a personnel borne IED (improvised explosives device) this morning in the vicinity of Bagram. Despite Taliban claims and reports in the media, there were no injuries to coalition personnel involved, said a statement the NATO-led coalition released in Kabul.
Earlier, a Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the suicide car bombing on a convoy of the invaders, a references the Islamist insurgency uses for U.S. and allied forces.
The spokesman claimed the attack inflicted several casualties and damage to vehicles, though the Taliban often exaggerates details of such attacks.
Saturdays bombing came a day after NATO foreign ministers and alliance partners agreed to extend beyond 2016 the Resolute Support mission, which is mandated to train, advise and assist Afghan security forces and institutions.
The Taliban says its violent campaign will continue until the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan and implementation of an Islamic system in the country.
Officers killed
Separately, officials in the restive southern Uruzgan province say six Afghan police personnel were killed when their colleagues turned their guns on them at a security outpost early Saturday.
The police chief for the Charghino district, the site of the violence, told reporters that three officers involved in the shooting have escaped taking weapons and vehicles with them.
On Friday, an Afghan security guard at a U.N. compound in Kabul shot dead a Nepalese guard and wounded another. U.N. officials say the incident is under investigation.
The Taliban often claims responsibility for such insider attacks, saying its loyalists haveinfiltrated enemy ranks."
Earlier in the week in the southern Zabul province, eight policemen were shot dead by a colleague.
The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility, saying the shooter was its member and managed to escape and return to insurgent ranks.
The leading U.S. gun lobby group, the National Rifle Association, has endorsed Republican Donald Trump for president and he responded by saying he would not let NRA members down.
Trump told the group's convention in Louisville, Kentucky, Friday that the endorsement is a "fantastic honor."
The NRA opposes measures aimed at restricting gun ownership and is considered one of the most influential such lobbying groups in the United States.
Takes aim at Clinton
Trump centered much of his remarks on Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, claiming that she wants to abolish the Constitution's Second Amendment, which gives citizens the right to bear arms. Trump said Clinton's proposals for greater restrictions on guns would leave law-abiding citizens at risk from criminals.
Clinton has said she supports the Second Amendment, but says more safety measures are needed to keep guns out of the wrong hands, including expanded background checks and a ban on assault weapons.
Trump often mentions in his speeches that he has a concealed weapon carry permit, and has called for policies that make it easier for law-abiding citizens to carry guns.
Clinton will appear Saturday in Florida with parents who have lost children to gun violence, including the mother of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager whose death in 2012 led to one of the highest-profile U.S. criminal cases in years.
The campaign appearances by both Trump and Clinton on gun-related issues this week highlight the prominent role the topic could play in the elections.
On Friday, Trump also touted the list of potential Supreme Court nominees he released this week, saying they show his support for the Second Amendment and he called on Clinton to release her own list.
Polls Show Race Narrowing
The latest national poll shows Clinton's lead over Trump has narrowed since he became the apparent Republican nominee earlier this month when the last of the his rivals dropped out of the race. The CBS News/New York Times survey released Friday found Clinton with a slight national edge over Trump, 47 to 41 percent, down from a ten-point margin a month ago.
The same survey showed Clinton's rival, Bernie Sanders, doing better in a potential match-up against Trump, leading the billionaire businessman 51 percent to 38 percent.
Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, has acknowledged that he has only a narrow path to overtake Clinton, who is leading in the Democratic delegate count, but he has vowed to stay in the race through the remaining state contests.
Sanders' supporters so far have resisted any move toward backing Clinton. They engaged in scuffles at a party convention in Nevada earlier this week when they felt they were short-changed in the number of national convention delegates that had been awarded to Sanders to represent the western state.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, backed by a historically anti-China party, has taken office with pledges to seek peace with Beijing, but snubbed its demand for dialogue, setting the stage for at least a short-term pullback in relations after eight upbeat years.
The new president, also Taiwans first female leader, said in her inauguration speech Friday that she would seek peace. She advocates neither declaring Taiwans formal independence from China a red line for Beijing nor unifying with the political rival of 70 years per Beijings long-term goal.
But the 59-year-old law scholar ignored Beijings warnings that she consent to dialogue on the premise that China and Taiwan belong to one country.
Relations with mainland China are an important link in the regional security system, Tsai said in her 25-minute speech before an estimated 30,000 people. We will work to maintain peace and stability in cross-Strait relations. The two governing parties across the Strait must set aside the baggage of history and engage in positive dialogue, for the benefit of the people on both sides.
Change in direction
Outgoing President Ma Ying-jeou agreed to dialogue under conditions that cast both sides under Beijings one China demand, with Taiwan as the Republic of China and Beijing as the Peoples Republic of China. Over Mas eight years, the two sides reached 23 deals on trade, tourism and investment while building mutual trust that was absent under other presidents.
Tsai acknowledged the talks in 1992 that created the one-China backdrop, but said the government must approach China also based on the constitution, Taiwanese laws and the democratic principle and prevalent will of the people of Taiwan.
Diplomats worldwide, but especially in Beijing, had counted down to Friday on expectations that Tsai might propose a dialogue mechanism agreeable to China.
But Tsais party rejects ideas that the two sides fall under one flag. She advocates talks with Beijing, but more cautiously compared with Ma.
Voters handed Tsai a landslide victory in January because many felt Mas Nationalist Party had grown too close to China through economic ties, including two-way trade that hit a record $130 billion in 2014. At mass protests in 2014, those skeptics vented fear Beijing would use economic ties to exert more political control over the self-ruled island.
Beijing has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s. As late as 2005 it had threatened military force if Taiwan veer too far toward legal independence from China.
What matters is what Professor Tsai personally thinks of the kind of relationship between Taiwan and mainland China is at this moment, says Liu Yi-jiun, public affairs professor at Fo Guang University in Taiwan. If things dont go as expected on the part of mainland China for sure [relations] will undergo severe changes. No one will deny any chance of that.
Beijing's view
China has warned Tsai since the election to keep up dialogue on the one-China condition, but made no specific threats. Beijing, however, carried out a military drill Wednesday.
Tsai might spend her first two to three months collecting opinions and data to form a dialogue proposal that both sides can accept, political analysts say.
In case Tsai makes an overture, Beijing is not expected to cancel the broadly popular agreements reached under Mas government. Chinese officials hope those deals excite Taiwans public about ties with China and someday bring about political unification.
But China may dial back on some deals as a reminder that a lack of dialogue can hurt the islands economy and world political standing.
China may buy off a few of Taiwans 22 remaining diplomatic allies, issue fewer permits to Taiwan-bound tourists, ask exchange students to avoid the island and have more Taiwanese deported from third countries to China if suspected of fraud.
That effort began after the election. In March China formed diplomatic ties with former Taiwan ally Gambia and a month later ordered 67 Taiwanese fraud suspects deported from offshore to China. Since the election, it has cut the number of travel documents, noticeable especially during Chinas May 1 holiday week.
Tsai is also expected to hold off any action on Taiwans disputed claim to the 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea. Ma has championed the claim over the past year, but his effort effectively supports Beijing. China and Taiwan use the same historic basis for the maritime claim, irking four Southeast Asian countries.
Tsai's policies
The president will focus largely on domestic economic policies aimed at helping common Taiwanese live better, her Cabinet spokesman Tung Chen-yuan says. She has pledged to develop solar and wind power while cutting back on nuclear energy. Other policies will favor biotech and defense, government spokesman Tung says. Tsai will also balance trade ties weighted now toward China toward other markets, he adds.
She needs to show she has the policies of policy direction for Taiwans economy, so that will be one of the many policy areas that she needs to address whether she can come up with a policy to diversity our trade partners, our tourist markets and so on, said ruling Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Lo Chi-cheng.
Tsai said during the campaign she would build 200,000 units of affordable housing, a boost to youth with low salaries. Later, Tung said, she will target wages and jobs.
The work search environment isnt too strong and salaries have been pressured very low, said Huang Chun-jung, a leader in the advocacy group Taiwan Youth Public Affairs. Basically what we hope most is that the new government can help young people find work. We need to see actual policies. We have an expectation but we need to keep watching.
The United States, which has long supported the so-called one China policy, said Friday it looks forward to working with the new government in Taiwan.
A statement issued by the American Institute in Taiwan, which represents U.S. interests in Taipei in the absence of formal diplomatic ties, said, "We look forward to working with the new administration, as well as with all of Taiwan's political parties and civil society groups, to further strengthen the ties between the people of the United States.
Minutes before EgyptAir Flight 804 plunged into the Mediterranean Sea early Thursday, smoke alarms rang out in the planes cabin, according to flight data.
The Aviation Herald website, which covers the aviation industry, published data that shows smoke alarms in the bathroom ringing out not long before the plane crashed.
The Aviation Herald reported that it received the information via the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), a system used by airline operators to download flight data, which shows that smoke was detected in the toilet at 2:26 a.m. local time.
About a minute later, another alarm went off signaling an avionics smoke alert.
Then, two minutes later, the last ACARS alert went out signaling smoke or a fire near the electronics and equipment bay of the aircraft.
France's aviation safety agency confirmed the validity of the messages, but a spokesman said it is "far too soon to interpret and understand the cause of the accident as long as we have not found the wreckage or the flight data recorders."
Egyptian authorities are also investigating the smoke alerts.
Search crews have found human remains along with the personal belongings of passengers from the aircraft but are still searching for the bulk of the wreckage.
Looking for clues to understand why the jet carrying 66 people crashed into the Mediterranean Sea, search teams sought to find larger pieces of the plane or the location signal from the flight recorders.
Egypt Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy has said a terrorist attack is a more likely cause for the crash than technical failure. But so far no clear evidence has emerged as to what brought the plane down.
No militant group has claimed to have carried out an attack.
The plane disappeared into the Mediterranean Sea, north of the Egyptian coast, early Thursday while headed to Cairo from Paris.
The Airbus A320 had been flying normally when it suddenly swerved radically and plunged more than 11,000 meters into the sea, never issuing a distress signal.
The European Space Agency said one of its orbiting spacecraft spotted what could be an oil slick 40 kilometers southeast of the plane's last known position and the information had been passed on to relevant authorities conducting a search mission.
The agency released a grainy photograph of the scene that showed little detail and cautioned there was no certainty the slick was from the aircraft.
The ESA said a second satellite would on Sunday pass the area where the slick was found.
Three French investigators and a technical expert from the A320's manufacturer, Airbus, arrived Friday in Cairo to aid in the investigation.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry offered Egypt continued support for the search.
Kerry offered condolences to Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry for the lives lost on the flight, and said the United States would stay in close contact as the investigation progressed.
Egypt, France, Greece and the U.S. are among nations deploying planes and naval vessels to search for the plane.
WATCH: Prayers for EgyptAir crash victims
Prayers and a symbolic funeral for the passengers were held Friday at Cairo's Sultan Hussein Mosque.
EgyptAir sent interpreters and doctors to the Cairo airport to meet with the passengers' families.
The disappearance has renewed security concerns months after a Russian passenger plane was shot down over the Sinai Peninsula.
The Russian aircraft crashed in Sinai on October 31, killing all 224 people on board. Moscow said it was brought down by an explosive device, and a local branch of the extremist Islamic State group claimed responsibility for planting it.
The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission has been carrying out outreach programs following complaints that it does not cater for the needs for local people.
The organization has staged various streets shows in various towns and cities including Zimbabwes second largest city, Bulawayo, where some residents urged it to publicize its activities, which include protecting and enforcing human rights.
In some areas, especially in Matabeleland region, local people were worried about the failure of the ZHRC in addressing atrocities committed by a North-Korean-trained crack, the Five Brigade, which is said to have massacred as many as 20,000 supporters of the late PF Zapu leader Joshua Nkomo.
Mr. Nkomos party was seen by President Robert Mugabes Zanu PF party as a threat to its push towards a one-party state crafted along the lines of Chinas Communist Party.
A large number of people have also urged the ZHRC to investigate the killing of almost 200 people before and after the 2008 general elections. At the same time they demanded that the Commission should also investigate the abduction of hundreds of people since independence by suspected state security agents.
Some local residents, who spoke to Studio 7 during a roadshow conducted by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission at Sekusile Shopping Centre in the Nkulumane high density suburb, said they were not aware of the existence of the Commission and that it needed to do more in order to be able to carry out its work.
One of the locals, who owns a commuter omnibus and only identified himself as Moyo, said police on the countrys roads appear to be violating peoples rights.
Moyo said ZHRC needs to teach ordinary people more about such issues.
Another resident, Shadreck Chinembiri, said the publicity campaign is welcome and noted that the Commission should not use the promotion as a bid to get more funding without offering relevant help to ordinary people.
ZHRC is carrying out the campaign, dubbed Taking Human Rights to the People in collaboration with the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association, Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights and the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum.
ZHRC Commissioner, Sethule Moyo, confirmed that the campaign was mooted after a survey showed that few people are aware of what the Commissions activities.
He said the Commission decided to collaborate with some organisations that are already involved in similar work in order to highlight its duties.
Kenias Shonhai, a lawyer with the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, said although government has sometimes seen civic society organisations as intruding in the work of promoting human rights, it is imperative for such organisations to carry out such work in order to complement government efforts.
The publicity campaign has been conducted in Harare and Matabeleland Souths Matobo district.
According to the Zimbabwe Constitution, the ZHRC is supposed to promote awareness of and respect for human rights and freedoms at all levels of society; promote the protection, development and attainment of human rights and freedoms; monitor, assess and ensure observance of human rights and freedoms; to receive and consider complaints from the public and to take such action in regard to the complaints as it considers appropriate; protect the public against abuse of power and maladministration by state and public institutions and by officers of those institutions and investigate the conduct of any authority or person, where it is alleged that any of the human rights and freedoms set out in the Declaration of Rights has been violated by that authority or person.
It is also supposed to secure appropriate redress, including recommending the prosecution of offenders, where human rights or freedoms have been violated; direct the commissioner-general of police to investigate cases of suspected criminal violations of human rights or freedoms and to report to the Commission on the results of any such investigation; recommend to parliament effective measures to promote human rights and freedoms and conduct research into issues relating to human rights and freedoms and social justice.
The ZHRC is supposed to also visit and inspect prisons, places of detention, refugee camps and related facilities; and places where mentally disordered or intellectually handicapped persons are detained; in order to ascertain the conditions under which persons are kept there, and to make recommendations regarding those conditions to the minister responsible for administering the law relating to those places.
The constitution clearly stipulates that the commissioner-general of police must comply with any directive given to him or her by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission may require any person, institution or agency, whether belonging to or employed by the State or otherwise to inform the Commission of measures they have taken to give effect to the human rights and freedoms set out in the Declaration of Rights; and (b) to provide the Commission with information it needs to prepare any report required to be submitted to any regional or international body under any human rights convention, treaty or agreement to which Zimbabwe is a party.
The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission may, through the appropriate minister, submit reports to parliament on particular matters relating to human rights and freedoms which, in the Commissions opinion, should be brought to the attention of Parliament.
Harare and Norton residents are bracing for a dry weekend without the precious liquid water - as the local authority is set to shut down the Morton Jaffray Water Plant in an effort to revive it.
City council spokesperson Michael Chideme said they want to install additional and new water valves acquired through a Chinese loan.
The additional valves are expected to enable the council to mix water drawn from Darwendale Dam with that from Lake Chivero making it cheaper to purify the water and also allowing us to convey more water to our residents, said Chideme.
He added that the shut down will also facilitate the removal and replacement of obsolete equipment.
Chideme further urged residents to make sure that they stock enough water for use during the two-day shut down.
He also urged them to use water sparingly.
The first eruption of Etna in 2016 has been rapidly changing, involving 3 of the 4 summit craters. After yesterday and partly today's strombolian activity from the North-East (and probably New SE) crater, a short, but violent phase of lava fountaining (paroxysm) occurred at the main summit vent, the Voragine. After this, the eruption has become dominantly effusive and is now producing a lava flow from a fissure vent on the lower eastern flank of the New SE crater. The lava flow, with one main channel and few secondary branches, is currently traveling into the Valle del Bove. ...
Mia Orosco wasnt nervous when she graduated from Baylor University last weekend with a degree in violin performance.
Nor was she nervous when she displayed her craft for the packed house at the Ferrell Center. After all, the Lorena native has played violin since she was 5 years old.
She did some incredible bluegrass, and it brought the house down, said Stephen Heyde, Baylors director of orchestral activities. It illustrates, again, good music is good music, whatever the style. And boy, she demonstrated that at commencement.
Orosco will move on to the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, and she has her Central Texas roots to thank.
Baylor was actually my inspiration to become a musician, Orosco said. I remember sitting in the Baylor orchestra camp when I was 13 and thinking, This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.
The same year she attended the camp, she picked up the fiddle a major step away from classical violin.
I thought it would be easy, but its actually one of the hardest things Ive ever done, Orosco said. I was trying to do these two genres simultaneously. I was taking college auditions at the same time, and I was preparing for a national fiddle contest, so it was really hard.
In 2009, at age 16, she performed for National Public Radios From the Top, which showcases young classical musicians. Three years later, she was named Grand National Champion at the National Old Time Fiddlers Contest, beating out fiddlers ranging in age from 17 to 57.
Orosco said the difference between the fiddle and violin basically comes down to which songs are being played, but technique means something, too. New mindsets and skill sets are required to play the fiddle. She has explained the difference in greater detail to her students at the Central Texas String Academy.
I would happily stay in Waco forever, Orosco said. I absolutely love Waco. To get the chance to be here for four years and work on my career, but at the same time work with local people and promote local events and stuff like that, thats been really cool.
Heyde has conducted the Baylor Symphony and the Waco Symphony Orchestra, both of which Orosco has played in. At Baylor, Orosco has been co-concertmaster for the past two years.
Her leadership of other students is phenomenal, Heyde said. They love her, they trust her, they know shell give them good advice and good leadership, and she always does.
Part of that leadership came in promoting the Baylor Symphony as part of a one-woman publicity crew, Heyde said. Orosco created posters to advertise concerts, and attendance rose.
It also speaks to her heart, Heyde said. Shes always trying to see what can be done and how she can contribute to the whole. She took it as a personal challenge.
That attitude should carry over to Indiana, which Heyde said is a top-notch graduate school. Orosco hopes to gain even more orchestral experience in her next steps.
I know that they demand a lot more of their students, just on an individual level, she said. The bar is so high because everyone there is so good. Im hoping to just overall bring up musicianship and just get more experience in the orchestral field.
She recalls scrolling through her Facebook feed and seeing friends of friends posting photos from recording sessions for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. She would love to contribute to a movie soundtrack one day and often listens to music from Hollywood composers John Williams and Hans Zimmer.
Orosco said a musicians career can be hard to plan, but she feels equipped to dive deeper into the industry after her training in Central Texas.
Once again, she doesnt need to feel nervous.
Being at Baylor and kind of kick-starting my career here, I got to work with these people in Waco, and thats really meant a lot, Orosco said. Ive got a good start. Theres still tons and tons I need to learn, but Baylors definitely given me a good shove off the cliff. Now I just need to figure out how to fly.
Three bikers arrested after the Twin Peaks shootout in Waco have joined the ranks of seven others who are suing McLennan County, Waco and state officials, alleging civil rights violations.
Bradley Terwilliger, of Bastrop County, and Benjamin Matcek and Jimmy Dan Smith, both of Burleson County, are seeking unspecified damages in their lawsuit, filed Friday in a Travis County federal court.
Like others before it, the lawsuit names McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna, Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman, Waco police Detective Manuel Chavez and an unnamed Department of Public Safety agent as defendants.
Reyna did not return phone messages left at his office Friday.
We have received these lawsuits and are actively litigating them, Assistant City Attorney Judith Benton said, declining additional comment.
The suit, filed by Dallas attorney Don Tittle, alleges unlawful arrest and due process violations and alleges the plaintiffs were arrested with no evidence that they committed any crimes or had any ties to warring biker groups the Bandidos or the Cossacks.
Matcek and Smith are identified in the lawsuit as members of the Line Riders Motorcycle Club, which the suit says has no affiliation with either the Bandidos or Cossacks. Matcek, according to the lawsuit, was running late and was not even at Twin Peaks at the eruption of the firefight, which left nine bikers dead and more than 20 wounded.
Once he arrived, Waco police allowed Matcek, Terwilliger and Smith to take one of their wounded friends to the hospital, the suit says. They were arrested later in the parking lot of a closed business as their friend was being treated.
The violence resulted in the arrests of 192 bikers including 15 who later were named in sealed indictments because they were injured and not arrested May 17, 2015 and the indictments of 154, all on identical first-degree felony engaging in organized criminal activity charges.
How little thought
The arrests of these three guys demonstrates how little thought Reyna and Chief Stroman gave before ordering these mass arrests, Tittle said Friday. One was a member of a small motorcycle club with no ties to anyone, one was not a member of any club, and the third one was running late and hadnt even arrived at Twin Peaks when the violence occurred. How on earth can you conspire with the others that were present when you havent even gotten there yourself? Its crazy.
Terwilliger, Matcek and Smith have not been indicted.
Despite a total lack of particularized evidence relating to specific individuals, defendants Stroman, Chavez and Reyna determined that individuals would be arrested and charged with engaging in organized criminal activity based entirely on their presence at Twin Peaks, the motorcycle club that defendants presumed an individual was associated with, and/or the clothing they were wearing at the time of the incident, the suit alleges. Rather than investigating the incident and relying on actual facts to establish probable cause, defendants theorized that a conspiracy of epic proportion between dozens of people had taken place, and willfully ignored the total absence of facts to support their theory.
The suit claims that the arrest warrant affidavit, which was identical for all arrested that day, falsely alleges that the bikers all were members of a criminal street gang. The document was drafted by the DAs office and obtained by Chavez.
That statement is categorically false, the lawsuit says. It is an indisputable fact that defendants did not possess any reliable, particularized information to indicate that plaintiffs themselves were members of a criminal street gang on or before the date such fact was sworn to by defendant Chavez.
Biker Ray Nelson filed a motion this week to disqualify Reyna from prosecuting the cases because of his role in the investigation and his decision to charge the wide array of bikers. A hearing on that motion is set next month. His attorney charged that Reyna commandeered the investigation after Waco police detectives had already processed a busload of bikers, identified them and allowed them to go home that evening.
In the aftermath of the incident at Twin Peaks, defendants apparently concluded that the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution ceased to apply and could be ignored given what they perceived as an immediate need to announce the re-establishment of law and order in their town, the suit alleges.
Terwilliger, according to the lawsuit, did not have any patches, vest or jacket that indicated he was a member of a group because he was not a member of any motorcycle club. The father of a young child who lost his job as a result of his arrest has friends in the Line Riders club and he rode to Twin Peaks to attend a meeting of a biker coalition and to socialize, the suit says.
Plaintiff Terwilliger was engaged in completely lawful conduct at all times relevant to the Twin Peaks incident, according to the suit.
Matcek, the suit says, made a 100-mile charitable ride the day before the Twin Peaks incident for the organization Bikers Against Child Abuse. The Line Riders is an independent group with no association to other clubs, the suit alleges.
Defendants were aware that the Line Riders were not affiliated or associated with any other motorcycle club because a detective in the gang unit with the Waco PD, who was working closely with defendants, expressly told Terwilliger, Matcek, and Smith on the evening of May 17, 2015, that he had determined that the Line Riders were an independent club with no affiliation or association to any other club, according to the lawsuit.
For that reason, the three were housed in a unit at the McLennan County Jail separate from other biker groups.
Smith, a heavy equipment shop manager, also is a member of the Line Riders, the suit says.
We are being led away from the values that have made this country the greatest in the world.
Fred Grimes
One hundred years later
Regarding your May 15 opinion, Ignoring the lynching culture of our past only contributes to an environment ripe for hateful mobocracy, and some following comments on the centennial of the 1916 lynching in Waco, I offer my own in response:
Waco is far from perfect and, for that matter, so am I, so we are pretty much starting from the same place. I lived and worked in Waco for over 30 years. My wife and I raised a family there. Our daughters were educated in Waco public schools. It was a choice and a good one at that time. It has given them both an accurate, unbiased viewpoint from which to work in the larger world.
In the almost 30 years since, much has changed and I am almost certain I would not choose to expose my children to the situation as it now exists in public education. This is largely because of political intrusion in the educational process and its negative results. The divisions in our society whether racial, religious, economic or by any other demographic you may choose have become wide to the point of creating a permanent, irreparable tear in the moral fabric of this country.
We are being led away from the values that have made this country the greatest in the world. Those who would stand up to defend these values are attacked, denigrated and diminished by the useful fools who, on the hope of personal gain, rise to the call of their puppet masters.
Recalling the horror of 1916 without recognizing the incredible positive accomplishments of the century in between serves no purpose but to reinforce those who would tear down this great nation.
Fred Grimes, Fredericksburg
Keeping us in our place
I wish to replay the Trib articles of May 18 by right-wingers and maybe tea party members Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post and Brent Doty of the Trib Board of Contributors.
Re: Rubin. this the price to be paid for welcoming a noxious figure like Trump... Ms. Rubin, Trumpenstein was the creation of the tea party and the GOP leaders words of hatred for minorities, the poor, the elderly, the disabled, women in general, etc., the last seven years. He is just repeating what the GOP believes. Please stop trying to cover the behavior of the Republican Party, most of whom are mini-me Trumps according to a study (Trib article) that found that 55 percent of Republicans are prejudiced.
Re: Doty. If a double of yourself had committed a crime, the police would look just for you. If a black or Hispanic were to commit a crime, all minorities would be profiled and stopped and searched and that is really OK?
For an alleged man of God, you lack the ability to fully pursue his words that all are created equally. In 2001 the 9/11 terrorism resulted in a vast practice of discrimination against Hispanics because we fitted the profile of a Middle Easterner (quote by the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety from a state legislative hearing on profiling in 2004 or so). The majority of those stopped then on the Texas highways were indeed minorities.
Profiling not only is discriminating but gives some police who actually are prejudiced the right to use this as a harassment tool to keep us in our place, just as they did during the Jim Crow eras of which you seem to support through your column.
Robert Aguilar, Waco
Facts on womens health care
As manager of Planned Parenthoods Waco Health Center, I write to clarify misinformation cited in a recent letter about the health services provided to Wacoans at Planned Parenthood.
Texas and Waco have some of the highest rates of uninsured women in the United States, which makes access to preventive health-care screenings so important in our community. Regardless of whether a patient is insured or uninsured, Planned Parenthoods health center provides vital health-care services to help women, and men, stay healthy. Our medical center provides HIV tests, screenings and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, treatment for vaginitis and urinary tract infections, clinical breast exams, cervical cancer screenings and cervical cancer prevention through colposcopies and cryotherapy, birth control to help women plan and space their pregnancies (including IUD insertions), preventive health screenings to detect diabetes, anemia and hypertension, pregnancy tests and referrals for adoption, prenatal care and abortion services.
One in five women come to Planned Parenthood at some point because they trust Planned Parenthood for expert, non-judgmental health care. As a nonprofit, Im proud of the high-quality health care our clinicians provide to Wacoans, regardless of insurance or economic status. Planned Parenthood is here for the Wacoans who count on us.
Tonya Capson, Waco
Trump vs. Iran
Though many of us do not like Donald Trump, perhaps we should nevertheless grit our teeth and vote for him this election. If its a choice between a Trump presidency and an Iranian nuclear strike, the lesser of the two evils is a Trump presidency.
If I am correct, the agreement allows Iran to hide nuclear weapons at unknown but suspected sites; it also gives Iran 24 days notice in which to move weapons to a site not being inspected.
At first Trump wasnt going to re-negotiate this pact, but more recently he has indicated that he would. I dont believe Clinton or Sanders have said they would. If we elect Trump this time around and stabilize the situation with Iran, then we can feel free to vote for someone more environmentalist and/or presidential in 2020.
Alex Sokolow, Santa Monica, California
Have another drink
I have read another article referencing people who drink alcohol as a way of self-medicating. Why doesnt our government do something about this? Regulate!
This is why people should see a doctor for a prescription for their meds. Wines, ports, sherries as well as all other sorts of alcoholic beverages should have a prescription. Perhaps craft beers could still be sold over the counter. But old folks could get their alcohol meds with Part D Medicare. And we could rename some breweries liquid pharmas. Bars would now be emergency clinics with wait staffs getting a raise in pay as med techs. It could even boost Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) as people come to realize all their liquid medications would be covered.
Sounds like a win-win to me.
Rachel Williams, Oglesby
BHP Billiton has built numerous towns around Australia over the past 131 years, and now it will turn its hand to building towns in Brazil.
The Australian miner and its partner in the tragic Samarco dam disaster, Vale, is set to rebuild the Brazilian town of Bento Rodrigues at a different location, after the town residents voted to rebuild about 12 kilometres away.
Bento was the town worst affected by November's deadly dam failure, which killed 19 people and swamped Bento under tonnes of mud.
Displaced residents were put into rental accommodation in late 2015, and they voted earlier this month on where their town should be rebuilt.
Emmy award-winning actor Alan Young, who rode to enduring TV fame alongside a talking horse on the popular 1960s sitcom "Mister Ed" and co-starred in the classic sci-fi film "The Time Machine," has died at age 96, his manager said on Friday.
Young, who also provided the voice of cartoon characters including Disney's Scrooge McDuck, died from natural causes this week at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital, a Los Angeles retirement facility for those in the movie and TV industry, according to his manager, Gene Yusem.
Alan Young as Wilbur Post with co-star Mister Ed - no peanut butter was used in the filming of this show. Credit:CBS
The English-born actor was best known for his role as Wilbur Post, an amiable architect with a loquacious palomino living in his backyard barn, during six seasons on Mister Ed, which still airs in reruns a half century after its original run on CBS ended.
Indonesia's chief security minister says he will show the ambassadors of four countries - including Australia - solid evidence against teachers and cleaners accused of sexual abuse at a prestigious international school.
Canadian teacher Neil Bantleman and Indonesian teacher's aide Ferdinant Tjiong had their prison sentences for sodomy at the Jakarta Intercultural School (JIS) reinstated by the Supreme Court on appeal in February this year.
Indonesian teacher's aide Ferdinant Tjiong and Canadian teacher Neil Bantleman had their prison sentences for sodomy at the Jakarta Intercultural School reinstated by the Supreme Court on appeal in February this year. Credit:Michael Bachelard
The shock decision attracted international ire because it was at odds with that made by the Jakarta High Court, which acquitted the men in 2015.
Chief Security Minister Luhut Panjaitan said he had asked the Jakarta Police to brief him on the case after ambassadors had complained.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff
May. 19, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY
By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 19, 2016 | 04:17 PM | PADUCAH, KY
Come out to Paducah's Lang Park, also known as Circle Park, for the 14th annual Fountain Avenue Neighborhood Community Street Fair. The event is today from 10:00 am until 2:00 pm.
The fair include crafts, face painting, a petting zoo and pony rides, music, games, prizes, and information about the neighborhood revitalization effort. There will also be free food while supplies last.
Since the revitalization of the Fountain Avenue neighborhood began in 2007, 35 new homes have been built and 72 of the original homes have undergone major rehabilitations. About $12 million in public and private funds have been invested into the neighborhood over the last nine years.
From 7:00 am until 3:00 pm, Monroe Street will be closed between 16th Street and Fountain Avenue. The northbound lane of Fountain Avenue from Monroe to Madison also will be closed.
The event is supported by Fountain Avenue United Methodist Church, the City of Paducah, Midtown Alliance of Neighbors, and others.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff
May. 20, 2016 | MURRAY, KY
By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 20, 2016 | 01:04 PM | MURRAY, KY
Ten representatives from the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade at Fort Campbell visited Murray State Universitys campus on May 13. The event included a Blackhawk UH-60M helicopter landing on campus, as well as a special commissioning ceremony for two Murray State graduates.
The brigades visit was part of a larger initiative to develop a partnership between Fort Campbell, Murray State and the city of Murray. The goal was to help students and community members gain an understanding of what happens at Fort Campbell while finding opportunities to support the community as well as the Universitys ROTC program.
When youre inside the gates of Fort Campbell, it seems very restrictive and exclusive, but were trying to actually show, Hey, were not only part of the community, but were here to give back anything that we can, said Lt. Col. Kenrick Smith, who oversees an aviation support battalion on the base.
The helicopter was available for viewing by University and community members, and pilots were accessible to answer questions. The brigade hoped the event helped ROTC students by allowing them to see equipment they will use in the United States Army. The Blackhawk UH-60M is the newest model and is considered a utility helicopter, which means it can carry troops or equipment while also being used for Medevac rescue.
Members of the brigade also participated in a commissioning ceremony in the Collins Industry and Technology Center to honor Murray State graduates Donovan Alexander and Adam Phelps, each of whom were commissioned to second lieutenant, United States Army. Alexander is a native of Hopkinsville, Ky. and earned a bachelors degree in English with an emphasis in creative writing and a minor in military science. Phelps, who is from Calvert City, Ky., received his degree in telecommunications systems management with a minor in military science. He was also named a Distinguished Military Graduate.
Murray State University and Regional Academic Outreach are proud of the many soldiers who have graduated from Murray States ROTC program and have gone on to be highly successful officers in the United States military. Were pleased to have the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade here in Murray to visit our fine institution and program," said Dr. Brian Van Horn, associate provost for regional academic outreach.
The brigades visit also included a meeting with Mayor Jack Rose to discuss potential collaborative projects with the city of Murray.
The 101st Combat Aviation Brigade is part of the 101st Airborne Division, which is the Armys only Air Assault Division, and operates under the command of Col. Craig Alia. The Fort Campbell military base, which spans both Kentucky and Tennessee, is home to approximately 24,000 active-duty soldiers and their families.
The communities have been so good to Fort Campbell, to our families. We deploy, and our families are here, and they have been taken care of by the communities. So even though, in the military, we move around a lot, we feel at home. I have a family, I have two daughters, and we love living here, said Col. Smith.
One arrested, two to the hospital after hit-and-run crash on I-24 in Christian County
Rita Redmond was a true lady who felt that every pupil had something to gift to the world
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This article was published 20/05/2016 (2349 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
EDMONTON Alberta has launched a broad 78-member outside task force to recommend new farm safety rules, but Agriculture Minister Oneil Carlier says there is no timeline for completion.
We dont have a hard, set deadline on when were expecting those recommendations. Sooner better than later, I suppose, Carlier told reporters at the legislature Friday.
Well make sure we give them the time to get this right.
Its a very diverse, very complicated industry.
The members include industry leaders, farm and ranch managers and workers spread out over six committees.
The six groups will work out the regulations to tailor safety and labour rules to varied agricultural operations.
The chairs and members will be paid every time they meet, up to $1,000 a day for the chairs and up to $429 for members, plus travel expenses.
They may finish their work this year but Carlier said it could go into 2017.
Once their recommendations are done, the government will give Albertans a chance to respond to draft regulations.
Carlier said the final regulations may not be ready until late 2017.
Wildrose agriculture critic Rick Strankman said the plan lacks focus.
The NDP government continues to be vague on details and timelines, as well as the compliance that will be necessary for farmers and ranchers while regulations for Bill 6 are developed, said Strankman in a news release.
I continue to have concerns that any positive work that may come out of consulting with actual farmers and ranchers will be superseded by the NDP government on this legislation.
While the new rules are worked out, farms and ranches are subject to general occupational health and safety rules under a bill passed late last year and put into force this January by Premier Rachel Notleys government.
The changes contained in that legislation, Bill 6, ignited protests at the legislature and threats to Notley and some of her cabinet last year.
Protesters fear the rules will tie up farm operations in red tape, making them unprofitable with one-size-fits-all regulations that may work on the factory floor but would be impossible to meet in dawn to dusk operations involving work that varies based on season and weather.
Labour Minister Christina Gray says until the new regulations are in place, occupational health and safety staff are trying to take the unique circumstances of each farm and ranch operation into account when investigating.
It is a bit of a challenge for (investigators), but we need to make sure that were keeping people safe in the best way possible, said Gray.
Grays office said there have been four investigations on farms and ranches since the bill took effect. All were in April. Two involved fatalities.
In one case, a farm worker died after an accident on a quad near Strathmore. In another case, a worker welding the rim of a tractor wheel was killed when the tire exploded.
OHS is still investigating those two cases but has not put in stop-work orders.
In the other two cases, a mixed farm near Leduc has begun replacing respiratory equipment and fixing the ventilation after an employee complained about being exposed to dangerous chemicals.
Near Hanna, a ranchhand suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung when she was stepped on by a calf. The ranch is now working with OHS to improve safety policies.
Under the bill, farm workers are now also eligible for workers compensation benefits.
Notleys government has already made clear that the rules will only apply to paid workers on the commercial aspects of farms and that they wont stop youths in farm families from learning the family business.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/05/2016 (2349 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
OTTAWA Finance Minister Bill Morneau says he expects the Alberta wildfires to have a relatively modest impact on the broader economy.
Morneau also says the economic fallout from the disaster will be largely contained to the current quarter of the fiscal year.
A huge wildfire forced the evacuation of Fort McMurray as well as the shutdown of some economically important oilsands operations.
The blaze also destroyed 2,400 buildings in Fort McMurray.
Morneau says investments over the coming months in response to the wildfire will not only help the people of Fort McMurray they will also help the economy bounce back.
He says the governments initial focus was the human challenge, such as the matching of charitable donations.
Morneau made the comments during a conference call to reporters. He is in Japan for a meeting of G7 finance ministers.
Opinion
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/05/2016 (2348 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Its less dramatic than a raging forest fire, but the dust that lingers and drifts across the landscape as farmers plant this years crop tells an equally worrisome tale.
Its dry out there critically dry at a crucial time in the growing season. Maps produced by WeatherFarm weather-station network show rainfall for much of the Prairies has been below normal, including southern Manitoba.
Its dry enough some farmers have delayed seeding, hoping for rain, although the general advice is the earlier a farmer plants, the higher the yields. But seed that germinates unevenly creates patchy stands that dont mature consistently.
The latest provincial crop report indicates seeding is more than two-thirds complete, which is well ahead of the five-year average for the midpoint in May. Most farmers have decided theyd rather gamble with their seed in the ground than in the bag.
All too often, once it starts raining, it doesnt stop, leaving farmers to wait for their fields to dry out while the biological clock ticks away their growing season.
When the soil surface is dry, farmers are tempted to place seeds deeper to get at moisture, but extension agronomists advise against it. It, too, makes for thinner stands because the deeper soil is still cold, and those seedlings have a hard time reaching the surface.
The big message in recent years has been getting farmers to slow down.
Research has shown high-speed seeding results in wide variations in seed depth, which makes for uneven stands.
Some of those early-seeded fields found enough moisture to germinate and were already greening up when frost hit May 13. That had farmers out the next morning surveying the damage. In most cases, its believed fields were relatively unscathed.
A May 30 frost last year wiped out hundreds of canola fields, forcing a scramble for replacement seed and a rush to get it reseeded before crop-insurance deadlines passed.
Managing nitrogen fertilizer is another challenge in a dry spring, especially if the farmer is applying it to the soil surface. The commonly used nitrogen product doesnt do its job without moisture. If it gets a little moisture, but not enough to drive it into the soil surface, the farmer risks losing it into the atmosphere through volatilization.
And while they are managing their field operations, they are keeping an eye on any grain still stored on farm in bins. The rapid spike in temperatures places grain in storage at a higher risk of spoilage, especially for oilseeds such as canola and flax.
When the hot air outside rises rapidly, as it did with the 34 C temperatures May 5, it heats up the bin walls, and condensation forms around the cold grain inside. The spoilage process creates heat that damages the grain quality. In some cases, its enough to cause a fire.
Making good decisions in the face of a rapidly changing dynamic is a big part of farming. That sometimes gets lost in the hype around the modern production aids and new improved varieties, which leave the impression farming is about following a recipe.
The newest or biggest equipment, the best varieties and a shed full of herbicides wont do much good if the farmer plants too deep, too early or too late, or allows stored grain to go up in flames.
Stephen Morgan Jones, a former senior bureaucrat with Agriculture and Agri-food Canadas research division, told an industry group recently that of the average 1.3 per cent per year increase in wheat yields, half comes from improvements in how farmers manage it.
BRUCE BUMSTEAD / BRANDON SUN FILES Manitobas latest crop report says seeding is more than two-thirds complete, well ahead of the five-year average for the mid-point of May.
Yet, when it comes to research funding, agronomy gets a paltry 10 per cent of the total allocation. So a lot of the decision-making is the result of wisdom, otherwise known as lessons learned the hard way.
And of course, even making all the right decisions doesnt pay off if it doesnt rain the right amount at the right time.
Laura Rance is editor of the Manitoba Co-operator and editorial director for Farm Business Communications. She can be reached at laura@fbcpublishing.com or 204-792-4382.
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This article was published 21/05/2016 (2348 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
THE language used in the treaties signed between First Nations and the Canadian government includes the line as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the rivers flow to indicate they are to last forever.
Jeff Courchene, the economic development officer for Sagkeeng First Nation, has an alternative-energy take on that phrase solar panels for the sun shining, greenhouses for the grass growing and hydrokinetic turbines in the flowing river.
This fall, New Energy Corp. Inc. of Calgary will install the companys new 25-kilowatt EnviroGen hydrokinetic power-generation system, as part of a federally funded program to install near-commercial technology in facilities funded by the federal government.
NEW ENERGY CORP. INC. The hydrokinetic turbine doesnt require a dam. Its ideal for isolated communities that rely on diesel generators.
Courchene said Sagkeeng wants to generate more of its own power. Its getting the hydrokinetic turbine piece and it also has applied for funding to build a 50-kilowatt solar-panel farm.
This is brand-new technology, Courchene said of the innovative portable electricity generator. And we are the first ones to have it.
The low-power hydrokinetic turbine generator will get set up in the Winnipeg River near the community. The equipment, which does not require any dams to be built or concrete poured, is anchored in the river.
Clayton Bear, the CEO of New Energy, said the project is about $400,000, including the equipment, site preparation and training.
We know the First Nation communities want to be self-sufficient, Bear said. This is the type of thing that can help them in some small way.
Once its installed, it requires no fuel and runs 24 hours per day, which means theres no need for a large battery bank.
Sagkeeng is connected to the power grid, but Bear said this type of technology could be especially attractive to isolated communities that depend on shipped-in diesel to operate generators.
Courchene said part of the impetus was the realization his fathers Hydro bill was taking a big chunk of his pension.
Although the EnviroGen system will have a minimal effect on that it is estimated to generate about $95 per day worth of electricity it is one step toward more community control.
Dale Friesen, Manitoba Hydros industrial and commercial solutions manager, said Hydro has a number of customer-owned generation projects.
We are 100 per cent supportive of communities taking on those kinds of projects, Friesen said.
He said Hydro is working with a number of communities on a variety of projects that can improve energy efficiency. They are looking at alternative forms of generation that are renewable and that allow communities to contribute environmentally and sustainably in a positive way.
martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca
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WALMART may be looking to add another weapon to its arsenal in its ongoing battle for the hearts and wallets of Canadian grocery shoppers.
In a note to clients, Desjardins Capital Markets Keith Howlett said Walmarts U.S. discount grocery store chain, called Walmart Neighborhood Market, posted a seven per cent increase in sales during the first quarter of this year. That was in line with the 6.7 per cent increase posted by Walmart Canada, which has more than 400 stores, including 317 Supercentres that carry a full line of grocery products.
The success of the Neighborhood Market concept in the U.S. has Howlett thinking the retail giant might soon be looking to try the concept north of the border, as well.
Walmart Neighborhood Market stores saw a seven per cent rise in the first quarter.
We speculate Walmart Canada may test this concept in Canada within the next three years, he said in his note.
Unlike its Supercentre outlets in Canada, which are typically about 120,000 square feet in size with about 30,000 square feet devoted to groceries, the Walmart Neighborhood Market stores are only 35,000 to 45,000 square feet in size and sell only sell groceries and pharmacy items.
Walmart has experimented with even smaller stores in the United States, known as Walmart Express. But they havent done well, and analysts have been saying the company will likely scrap that concept and focus instead on growing its Neighborhood Market and Supercentre operations.
Howlett isnt the only one who thinks Walmart might test the Neighborhood Market concept in Canada.
I wouldnt be surprised if they brought them in, Maureen Atkinson, senior partner with Toronto-based J.C. Williams Group, said in an interview Friday. Once they have worked all the bugs out in the States, they (tend) to take them wherever they think they can make money with them.
Atkinson said the smaller Neighborhood Market format is a better fit for smaller urban markets such as downtown Toronto, downtown Vancouver, or even downtown Winnipeg.
She said the Supercentre stores are too big for a smaller neighbhourhood-type setting, and simply shrinking the size of a Supercentre to try and make it fit doesnt work, either.
But this (the Neighborhood Market concept) would bring in something that was built to be small, not made smaller because there wasnt the space, she added.
She compared Neighborhood Market stores to Loblaws No Frills stores, which are a lot smaller than its Real Canadian Superstore outlets and seem well-suited to a smaller neighbourhood market. Loblaw opened two No Frills stores in Winnipeg early last year, and they did so well it has since added two more.
Atkinson said even if Walmart decides to bring the Neighborhood Market concept to Canada, she doesnt see it having a huge impact on the market. She noted Sobeys one of its other major competitors in Canada already has smaller-format stores, as well.
But whenever Walmart does something, you have to pay attention, she added. You cant just kind of dismiss it because they have such deep pockets. And if it doesnt work at first, theyll work on it until it does work.
In his note to clients, Howlett said Canadian grocers continue to grapple with the growth of Walmart Canada in discount groceries and the increasing appeal of Costco Canadas narrow selection of grocery items to middle- and higher-income households.
murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca
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OTTAWA The death knell echoed louder for the Senate spending saga Friday as prosecutors gave up chasing former senator Mac Harb, leaving the once-sizzling scandal little more than a fizzling heap of audits, investigations and trials.
One month after the sensational acquittal of Sen. Mike Duffy, prosecutors finally pulled the plug on their case against Harb, 62, saying they did not see a reasonable prospect of conviction.
That decision came just one day after the RCMP said investigators would not pursue charges against Sen. Pamela Wallin, despite having spent three years poring through her disputed travel expenses.
Senator Mac Harb leaves the Parliament Buildings after attending a meeting of the Senate Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration committee on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on May 9, 2013. Crown prosecutors have withdrawn charges of fraud and breach of trust against former Liberal senator Mac Harb. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Harb was facing one count each of fraud and breach of trust stemming from housing expenses once deemed unjustified by the Senate, forcing him in 2013 to repay $231,000 for years of housing claims, then promptly retire from the upper chamber.
The one-time Liberal MP from Ottawa filed for a secondary home in the city while claiming his primary residence was far from the national capital.
An RCMP investigation into Harbs spending alleged that his primary residence was in fact uninhabitable for three years, and that he maintained a 0.01 per cent ownership stake in it after selling the rest to a diplomat from Brunei.
In a statement, Harbs lawyer Sean May said his client has steadfastly maintained his innocence throughout the arduous process of the RCMP investigation, one in which he co-operated fully.
The withdrawal of the charges is a complete vindication of Mr. Harb, legally and ethically, May said.
That leaves Patrick Brazeau as the only senator with a scheduled criminal trial related to expense claims. Brazeaus lawyer Christian Deslauriers said Friday that if the Crown cant make a case against Harb, convicting his client would be even harder.
Just last month, an Ontario Court judge dismissed the 31 expense-related charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery against Duffy in sensational fashion. The Crown has until Tuesday to file an appeal in that case.
Ontario Court Justice Charles Vaillancourt ruled that the Senate spending rules were too ambiguous, echoing conclusions from two private auditing firms one looking into Brazeau and Harb, the other the Senates own books.
I would find it difficult for the Crown to prove without reasonable doubt that Mr. Brazeau wanted, intentionally, to defraud the system, knowing that the system is so unclear and impossible to understand, Deslauriers said.
NDP MP Daniel Blaikie called Duffys case the litmus test: if the charges didnt stick there, they likely wouldnt stick to anyone else involved in the Senate spending scandal.
If you couldnt convict Mike Duffy on the existing rules, its hard to believe you could convict anyone, Blaikie said.
Canadians really felt like there was something that had gone on there that deserved punishment, and so if it didnt happen in that case, I think its likely that it wouldnt happen in any other cases.
With files from Lina Dib
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A woman in crisis came at me with a knife and I wondered if I should shoot her with my police-issued revolver.
I was able to talk her down and have her surrender without firing a shot.
Thats how this scenario ended for me Friday at a special media day under the eyes of officers with the Winnipeg Police Services officer safety unit.
MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The Winnipeg Police Service held an information session for media organizations regarding the current Use of Force policy at the WPS.
The scenario and others similar to it gave members of the media a glimpse of various challenges police face daily, and the type of force officers can use.
Our hope is to dispel any myths or rumours, said Patrol Sgt. Julio Berzenji, co-ordinator of the officer safety unit. Our primary objective is, by bringing in the media, were bringing in the public the vast majority of times, we are able to resolve these incidents without force.
Berzenji said it is rare for police officers to use force and even rarer for an officer to use deadly force. He said out of more than 201,000 calls for police service in Winnipeg in 2015, only 938, or 0.47 per cent, involved an officer using force. Thats not much different from the 759 use-of-force incidents out of 203,000 calls in 2014, and the 716 out of 185,000 in 2013.
Berzenji said even though it is rare, we want to make sure officers are trained for that (situation). But the half of a per cent that (involves using) force includes pushing and pulling all the way up to lethal force.
Those options were illustrated in scenarios for members of the media.
CJOBs Brett Megarry put on a boxers headgear and, armed with only a baton, tried to defuse an incident with a suspect who kept wanting to fight. The suspect, who kept yelling youre going to die!, got too close and could have thrown punches before the scenario was ended.
Next up with the same scenario, APTNs Matt Thordarson was able to verbally persuade the suspect to lay on the ground.
In a different scenario, where the reporter put on a belt with a revolver, Taser, pepper spray and baton, CBCs Holly Caruk was forced to fire her revolver twice at a suspect who initially said he wanted her to kill him, before rushing her with a knife.
Caruk told officers she didnt want to fire the weapon but felt she had no choice.
Suicide by cop is an officers worst nightmare, Berzenji said afterwards.
Then, it was my turn.
After running through the gymnasium at the new downtown police headquarters building a move my instructor, Const. Colin Anderson, said was designed to get my heart rate up I learned my scenario was that I had been called to the Osborne area about a woman in crisis.
I turned around and there was the woman coming closer, telling me to leave her house.
After identifying myself as a police officer, things got more heated with the woman putting her fists up and starting to move towards me. I backed up a bit and pulled out my canister of pepper spray (which, for this scenario, was filled only with water).
That action caused the woman to pull out a knife and again come at me. Thats when I pulled my revolver (loaded with blanks).
I pointed it at the woman with the possibility I would have to shoot but, after ordering her to drop the knife and get down on the ground, and having her comply, I returned the revolver to its holster unfired.
MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The Winnipeg Police Service held an information session for media organizations regarding the current Use of Force policy at the WPS. Winnipeg Free Press reporter Kevin Rollson demonstrating the use of a pepper spray canister just before taking part in the use of force training scenario session.
Anderson said the decisions I made were correct because, while pepper spray might have been an option at one point especially if I had been accompanied by a fellow officer instead of being solo that was no longer the choice when the woman came at me with a knife.
Earlier, Berzenji said such scenarios given to officers in training will help make choices when they go to actual incidents.
Its our members who find a way to help people without resorting to the use of force, he said. We prefer all incidents between police and the public be resolved without the need to apply any physical force.
He said it all comes down to training.
There may be some cadets and officers who have never been in a fight in their life. We dont want that first fight to happen on the street. So we train them here.
Berzenji said there are several strategies police can use to defuse situations, starting with just showing up and followed by giving verbal direction, for example: Drop the weapon! or Get down on the ground!
Police officer presence is usually enough to restore order, he said. Verbal direction and police officer presence is how we resolve things 99.5 per cent of the time.
Berzenji said the Criminal Code of Canada gives officers the legal right to use force and gives similar rights to citizens who believe they are in danger of being killed or suffering grievous bodily harm, to protect someone from injury, and to prevent a suspect from escaping. He said all applications of force must be reasonable, necessary and not excessive.
Berzenji said police follow the one-plus-one doctrine: if someone wants to fight police with their fists, officers will not come back with their fists but with more force.
We could use a baton, he said. If someone comes up to stab you with a syringe that could infect you with something deadly, and they dont stop, I will shoot them.
It is the person who dictates by their actions how much force will be needed to control their resistance.
The scenario I was part of, seeing how a persons actions can escalate or defuse a situation, gave me a small window into the world of policing.
kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
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Could Manitoba become a north-of-the-border love nest for Americans escaping the prospect of a Drumpf presidency?
It could if you believe the hype surrounding the website MapleMatch.com and its promise to save Americans from living through a Drumpf presidency by finding genuine ready-to-marry Canadians.
Talk shows and cable news channels have joked about the website started by an Austin, Texas man who reportedly supports Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. It says it is signing up people on both sides of the border but isnt as yet a full-fledged matchmaking website.
Ted S. Warren / The Associated Press Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Eugene, Ore.
But if it ever gets up and running, MapleMatch.com may not be as sweet of a deal as it sounds, says a Winnipeg immigration lawyer who is the product of a cross-border coupling.
Alastair Clarke said cross-border matches may be easier to make today thanks to the Internet, but immigrating is a lot harder than it was back when his Canadian dad and American mom met and fell in love at university in Chicago.
Marriages between American and Canadian spouses face significant scrutiny by IRCC (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada) officers, he said. Under Canadian law, couples have to show their relationship is both genuine and not for the primary purpose of immigration, said Clarke. Immigration officers have broad discretionary powers to conduct interviews and investigate the marriage to ensure the application meets the legal tests, he said.
My advice to Canadians who wish to help their American neighbours through a sponsorship application is to make sure they develop a relationship before they get married, said Clarke. The Federal Court of Canada has confirmed the time leading up to the marriage date is significant during the primary purpose investigation, he said. The relationship should have breadth and depth before the wedding. Couples who choose not to get married can file an application as common-law partners or conjugal partners, but those applications have to meet additional requirements, he said.
Would Americans seriously consider abandoning their country for the Great White North if Drumpf becomes president? Maybe, says the spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations.
My advice to Canadians who wish to help their American neighbours through a sponsorship application is to make sure they develop a relationship before they get married
In the past weve joked about this kind of thing whenever there is a new Islamaphobic policy or some issue targeting American Muslims, said Ibrahim Hooper in Washington, D.C. I think people arent laughing as much anymore, he said Friday.
The non-profit council doesnt take a political position, he said. We merely react to anti-Muslim rhetoric, and Drumpfs anti-Muslim rhetoric has already hurt people even though the presumptive Republican nominee hasnt won the presidency. One example he cited was a Muslim woman attacked in Washington by a Drumpf supporter, who said When Drumpf gets in, you guys are gone.
He really has mainstreamed Islamaphobia in America, Hooper said. That is a really troubling phenomenon that will remain whether or not he is elected president. Drumpf losing is nearly as worrisome as is his winning, he said. It makes you wonder who will be blamed and targeted by his supporters.
Talk of leaving the U.S. so far is just talk, said Hooper. Its mainly in comments online and in the discussion phase right now. He hasnt yet heard of any American Muslim feeling so threatened theyre planning to take refuge in Canada.
Lets hope it doesnt go that far.
WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Winnipeg Immigration lawyer Alastair Clarke says scrutiny is thorough when it comes to immigration and relationships.
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
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Winnipeg health administrators believe they have the right diagnosis for whats ailing the citys hospital system, but they say the cure wont come overnight.
Long emergency room waits have plagued local hospitals for years, but the waits have been a symptom of a broader problem, experts say.
Also afflicting the system is a lack of co-ordination between various hospital departments and the discipline to discharge patients according to established national treatment times for specific illnesses, they say.
MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The WRHAs Lori Lamont said officials are taking a number of initiatives to improve patient flow.
Better prevention programs and improved services for patients who have chronic diseases are also needed to keep people out of hospital in the first place, they add.
The Free Press reported Friday some city hospitals are overflowing with patients and have been since last summer. According to the latest available information, the overall hospital occupancy rate for medicine and family medicine beds for the Winnipeg health region stood at 99 per cent in mid-March well above the ideal rate of 90 to 95 per cent. According to reports obtained by the Free Press, St. Boniface Hospitals occupancy rate stood at 109 per cent in March while Victoria General Hospitals was 107 per cent.
In an interview Friday, Lori Lamont, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority official responsible for patient-flow issues, said city hospitals are taking a number of initiatives to make the system more efficient.
Certainly, its complicated, and theres no one thing thats going to fix it, said Lamont, the WRHAs vice-president of inter-professional practice and chief nursing officer.
One issue health administrators are addressing, she said, is the fact Winnipeg hospitals tend to keep patients longer for certain illnesses than other institutions across Canada.
We need to make sure that everyone on the team including the patient and the family know what the expected length of stay is, Lamont said.
For instance, if someone is admitted to hospital with chronic obstructive lung disease and the expected length of stay is eight days, she said, there needs to be better co-ordination within the hospital and in dealing with family members and, potentially, home care to meet the anticipated discharge date.
I think we have not been as aggressive in managing to that expected length of stay as (other jurisdictions) have been, she said.
Occasionally, a patients discharge from hospital is delayed because needed home care services have not been arranged or a pre-discharge diagnostic test has not been scheduled on time.
Increasingly, Lamont said, local hospitals are keeping better information at a patients bedside so any caregiver who comes by can view the targeted discharge date and the tasks that need to be done before that day arrives.
The WRHA is installing new real-time patient-tracking software that has been piloted at Grace Hospital and is slated to be in use throughout the Winnipeg hospital system later this year. Called Oculys, the software will help doctors, nurses and administrators track patient flows through each hospital and identify what is holding things up whether it be a patient that is overdue for discharge or a room awaiting cleaning.
Lamont said caregivers take their jobs seriously and want to do their best for their patients. Without good information, though, they can be unaware of all the people who are waiting in line to get a bed.
Certainly, its complicated, and theres no one thing thats going to fix it Lori Lamont, the WRHAs vice-president of inter-professional practice and chief nursing officer
We need them to focus on the care of everyone, Lamont said, adding the new information system that is being implemented will help staff do just that.
Meanwhile, she said, more preventive measures and community-health programs are needed to keep people out of the hospital in the first place particularly those suffering from chronic diseases. Work is underway in northeast Winnipeg through Access River East and Concordia Hospital to treat those suffering from chronic lung disease in the community. More such efforts are needed, Lamont said.
Dr. Alan Katz, director of the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, said better co-ordination of home care and other services would improve hospital patient flow.
Often, before elderly patients are released from hospital, they require an assessment by occupational therapists or physiotherapists to ensure theyre fit to go home. Those services arent generally available on the weekend, he said. Theyre Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 services.
The availability of home care can be limited for policy and budgetary reasons, Katz said. Some home care clients see their home care hours rationed, he said.
Katz noted while Winnipeg hospitals may keep patients longer than other institutions across Canada, thats not always a bad thing. He noted readmission rates for patients in Winnipeg those who have to go back to hospital for the same condition are lower here than the national average.
Were actually putting patients needs realistically ahead of the system Thats a good thing.
larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca
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Florence and Nora lakes remain off-limits and the Mantario Trail remains closed due to forest fires, the province announced Friday.
But most of cottage country in eastern Manitoba and northwestern Ontario is open this holiday weekend, even though fires near Caddy Lake and Beresford Lake are still classified as out of control.
Manitoba officials said Friday morning that the Caddy fire is now 85 per cent contained, and neither fire has grown in size in the past week.
Fires in the province as of Friday, May 20.
The cause of the Caddy Lake fire is still under investigation; essentially they know the Caddy fire was not started by lightning but they are investigating its origin, said a Manitoba official.
No travel restrictions remain in Ontario, said an Ontario official, which is good news for Manitobans with cottages on Lake of the Woods and the many lakes along Highway 17.
Restricted fire zone prohibiting all open fires in Ontario remains for the districts of Kenora, Fort Frances, Dryden, Thunder Bay and southern portions of Sioux Lookout, Nipigon, and Red Lake districts, she said. There are no travel restrictions on the Ontario side. All restrictions were lifted as of Tuesday at 6 p.m.
The Wildfire Program of Manitoba Sustainable Development advised that due to high wildfire danger levels, burning permits have been cancelled for the central and eastern regions of Manitoba.
New burning permits will not be issued until conditions improve, although fires are permitted in approved fire pits.
Local municipalities may also implement burning bans or fire restrictions, Manitoba officials pointed out.
Evacuation orders for Nora and Florence lakes remain in effect at this time, as crews continue to work on fallen and fire damaged trees in these areas. The Mantario trail remains closed, said the province.
Cottagers and area residents can call 204-345-1444 to get up-to-date information about fires in the eastern region.
Manitoba Sustainable Development, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, the Southeast Whiteshell Fire Department and the Manitoba Office of the Fire Commissioner continue co-operative suppression efforts on border area wildfires.
In Manitoba, a total of 60 wildfires have been recorded to date. The average for this date is 104.
For further general information on the fire status, maps, travel restrictions, burning permit cancellations or other restrictions go to www.gov.mb.ca/wildfire/ or follow the Twitter account at www.twitter.com/mbgovnews.
For information on road restrictions in Ontario, call 1-807-937-7375 or 705-266-4560. Questions about the fire situation in northwestern Ontario can be directed to 1-807-937-7375.
To report a wildfire, call 911 or the T.I.P. line (toll-free) at 1-800-782-0076. The T.I.P. line is dedicated for reporting fires. All other inquiries should be directed to the other phone lines noted above.
nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
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WILLIE STARR was in the public gallery of the legislature Friday, expecting to hear the Pallister government has made his sister, Jennifer Catcheway, and other missing and murdered indigenous women and girls a top priority.
He left disappointed.
Its definitely really shocking: I have a sister whos missing, Starr said after question period.
MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS NDP candidate Nahanni Fontaine announced that an NDP government would develop a women's 24/7 drop-in and support centre in Winnipeg's inner city.
New Democrat Nahanni Fontaine lashed out at the Conservatives for not mentioning the issue in the mandate letters Premier Brian Pallister gave to his ministers to assign their priorities.
As did interim NDP Leader Flor Marcelino: Why is there no reference anywhere to the critical issue of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls? Marcelino asked.
Justice Minister Heather Stefanson and other Tories taunted the NDP for never releasing mandate letters during their almost 17 years in office, and declared: This mandate is for all Manitobans.
Indigenous and Municipal Relations Minister Eileen Clarke responded that the governments promise to make Manitoba the most improved province in Canada includes working for all Manitobans.
Fontaine said the Conservatives consider the issue a joke, instead of life and death.
She took exception to Pallisters frequent claim he is the champion of indigenous women: Indigenous women are champions of our own rights.
In the absence of Pallister who was attending the MTS-Bell announcement in Morris, Stefanson said the premier had spent a decade working for the matrimonial property rights of aboriginal women.
Starr said hes disappointed the issue isnt included in mandate letters given to cabinet ministers.
It should be a priority for all governments. We need positive results. I hope theyll step it up as much as other governments have. Where there are crimes happening, its usually our people who are suffering.
Said Fontaine: If its not made a priority, Manitoba will be on the wrong side of history. If its not, were going to be having this (debate) every single day.
I dont know how its possible to just stand up in the(legislature), when youre elected to represent all Manitobans, to spew nonsense, Fontaine said.
Were talking about Manitoba citizens as young as 11, 14, 15, murdered and thrown in a garbage bag, she said.
nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion
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Premier Brian Pallister said he wasnt going to brainstorm with reporters about carbon pricing what it would look like in Manitoba when he unveiled his throne speech May 16. Mr. Pallister would say only the made-in-Manitoba solution would come after consultations, provincewide, and whatever gets done here would meld with a pan-Canadian approach to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
And that much is a no-brainer.
In March, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the premiers if the provinces themselves couldnt come up with a consensus on a national carbon price, he would impose one on the country. They are meeting again in fall.
Transportation is Manitobas biggest sector for greenhouse gas emissions
But carbon pricing can take different forms. Cap-and-trade means setting a limit on carbon emissions by industry or per producer and then hitting them with penalties if they exceed it. (The trade part of the model is each firm gets a permit for their limit, and a producer can sell any amount of quota they do not use.) A carbon tax can be as straightforward as a pay-at-the-pump levy or a charge on your home heating bill.
Both mechanisms have economic consequences. And thats what Mr. Pallister wants to talk about with the various sectors and Manitobans in general. His concern is to adjust cautiously because the governments plan to improve services such as health and education hinges, in part, on a stronger economy, he stressed.
Manitoba is a bit player, relatively speaking, in GHG emissions, but its climate change plan is perfectly anemic compared to provinces east and west of it. Other jurisdictions have jumped in with steep carbon taxes (check out the gas prices in British Columbia); Ontario and Quebec are big into cap-and-trade; Alberta has moved aggressively into carbon pricing with the buy-in of the energy sector there. Some return revenues raised from the pricing to consumers, some plan to use the cash to curry research and development of environmentally sustainable technologies for industry.
The new Manitoba premier did not commit to the Selinger plan, released late last year, to cut greenhouse gas emissions by one-third by 2030. In this province, the largest emitting sector is the transportation sector (moving goods and people), followed by agriculture. Thats where change has to come if the province is to make headway in cutting GHG emissions. But beyond mulling over electrifying Winnipeg Transits fleet, the former Selinger governments plan leaned heavily on consultations in the two sectors. It looks like Mr. Pallister will pick up where the NDP left off.
What does that mean? There was no way Greg Selinger would introduce a carbon tax; hed had enough of tax-hike backlash, thank you very much. But Mr. Pallister has some flexibility. He has vowed to roll the PST back to seven per cent, and he has committed to restoring Manitobans right to a referendum on any major tax increase. Yet, he could get away with gradual increases to the gas tax without running afoul of that promise.
Manitoba motorists love affair with trucks and SUVs explains much of the rise in GHG emissions from the streets. Tongues wag at the water cooler when gas prices rise (and fall) by 10 cents a litre overnight, but the gas tax here is lower than in almost all other provinces.
In the days of climate change, that is not something Manitobans should be proud of, especially as this province will feel the real consequence of rising temperatures and weather extremes. Manitobans have to start thinking, and living, differently to meet the challenge. Increasing gas taxes gradually cannot be the solution, but it can be part of the answer.
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. Donald Trump, who just a few years ago praised U.S. President Barack Obamas appeal for stronger gun control after the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., was endorsed and embraced by the National Rifle Association Friday, completing his rapid transformation into a fierce pro-gun advocate.
Instead of detailing his own positions on gun rights at a political forum attended by thousands of NRA members, Trump told the crowd Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton would abolish the Second Amendment and then release violent criminals from prison, not caring that innocent citizens would be unable to protect themselves.
Hillary wants to disarm vulnerable Americans in high-crime neighbourhoods, Trump said. Whether its a young single mom in Florida or a grandmother in Ohio, Hillary wants them to be defenceless, wants to take away any chance they have of survival. And thats why were going to call her Heartless Hillary.
Mark Humphrey / The Associated Press Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks at the National Rifle Association convention Friday in Louisville, Ky.
Clinton fired back on Twitter: Youre wrong. We can uphold Second Amendment rights while preventing senseless gun violence.
Maya Harris, Clintons senior policy adviser, said Trumps remarks are conspiracy theories that distract from his radical and dangerous ideas.
Gun control has become a dominant issue in the race, though neither party has yet to formally install its nominee. This week highlighted the stark differences between Trump and Clinton, who will be the featured speaker at a fundraising dinner today for a memorial foundation honouring Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Florida teenager shot and killed by a neighbour in 2012.
Clinton, who has criticized Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders for not being strong enough on gun control, plans to expand that focus in the election. She has criticized Trump for being cavalier about gun safety and warned in a Twitter message last week Trump would force schools to allow firearms in classrooms because he no longer wants schools to be gun-free zones.
Clinton has never called for the repeal of the Second Amendment, and fact-checkers have discredited Trumps assertion she would abolish it. Instead, she has said she would narrow the loophole that allows easy purchases of firearms at gun shows or online. She has pledged to seek a law to end immunity from many lawsuits for gunmakers.
The gun lobby is the most powerful lobby in Washington, she said at a recent appearance. They have figured out how to really intimidate elected officials, at all levels, who basically stop thinking about this problem because they are too scared of the NRA.
NRA leaders repeatedly warned their members Friday that if Clinton is elected, their individual freedoms will disappear, and the Supreme Court will start limiting the rights of gun owners.
You can kiss your guns goodbye, said NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre. Thats not the America we inherited. Thats not the America we want for our children.
When a speaker attacked Clinton, the crowd cheered and Trump kept the attacks going in his partially scripted remarks.
Trump spoke at this same forum last year, when he was still debating whether he would run for president, and he barely talked about guns beyond declaring his love for the Second Amendment. His lack of specifics worried some gun rights activists, especially given his history: In 2000, Trump supported a ban on assault weapons and a slightly longer waiting period to purchase firearms.
The Republicans walk the NRA line and refuse even limited restrictions, Trump wrote in his 2000 book, The America We Deserve.
In 2012, after the mass killing at an elementary school in Newtown, Trump praised Obamas emotional call for policy changes to prevent future shootings. President Obama spoke for me and every American in his remarks in #Newtown Connecticut, Trump tweeted on Dec. 17 of that year.
Trump seemed to accidentally slide into his old ways during his speech Friday while describing the devotion of his two adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, to hunting and shooting.
My sons have been members of the NRA for many, many years, and theyre incredible. They have so many rifles and so many guns, sometimes even I get a little bit concerned, Trump said to gentle laughter. I say: Thats a lot.
Last summer, Trump posted a gun policy paper on his campaign website that called for improving background-check systems, locking up gang members and drug dealers found guilty of gun-related crimes for longer than usual, and fixing the mental-health system, although there were no details on how he would do that. He came out against firearm or ammunition bans of any sort, including bans on assault rifles. He wants to allow concealed-carry permits obtained in one state to be recognized in all 50 states and to get rid of gun-free zones at schools and military bases.
Trump frequently talks about eliminating gun-free zones at his rallies, alleging they attract sickos who want to kill as many people as possible. He said if the victims had been armed during recent terrorist shootings in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., you would have had bullets going in the opposite direction, and believe me, the carnage would not have been the same.
Trump has a concealed-carry permit in New York, but it is not clear how much experience he has with guns. When an NBC reporter asked him last summer if he ever used the weapon or went to gun ranges, Trump snapped: Thats none of your business.
Washington Post
Kiri Sannerud, daughter of Paul and Peggy Sannerud of Winona and a senior at Winona Senior High School, has been awarded a full scholarship to live and study in Germany. Through an application and interview process Kiri was accepted for the prestigious Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange funded by the United States State Department.
During the 2016-17 school year Kiri will live with a host family and attend a local college preparatory high school in Germany. This exchange is for motivated American high school students who want to fully immerse themselves in the German culture.
Kiri is currently completing the College in the Schools German 1003 course offered through the University of Minnesota and taught at Winona Senior High School by world language teacher Ruthanne Weisfpenning.
During the Civil War, drummers and buglers were allowed to enlist in the army without meeting the 18-year-old minimum age requirement for a combat soldier. Some estimates noted that 100,000 boys younger than 15 enlisted in the Union Army as musicians. Some 300 were even younger than 13.
It was the duty of the musicians to signal the soldiers when to eat, when to sleep and when to awaken. They also set the pace during marches. During a battle, they sounded out to let the soldiers know when to shoot and when to retreat, using their instruments. In the heat of battle, officers shouting orders could not be heard over the din, so the musicians louder bugles and drums were used as signal devices. These young musicians were also required to help remove the wounded from the battlefield, and act as runners or curriers between outposts. They could be required to assist a surgeon in a field hospital holding down a soldier who was having a limb amputated, and then disposing of the severed member.
They were not, however, allowed to carry guns. Instead, they were issued a thin sword, which they wore proudly around their waist. There were occasions, however, when they might pick up a rifle to save their own life, or that of a fellow soldier.
One such youth from Reedsburg, Frank Pettis, was 11-years-old when he enlisted in the Union Army as a drummer boy. His father, Amos, played the fife and also enlisted with his son. At the age of 12, Frank began his military service with his teacher, Captain A. P. Ellinwood, in Wisconsins 19th Infantry, Company A. He served from Feb. 22, 1862 to Aug. 9, 1865.
Pettis was present at every battle the 19th unit fought from Suffolk, Virginia, and New Berne, North Carolina, to the sieges of Petersburg and Richmond, where the colors of his regiment were the first to fly from the Confederate capital building in Richmond, Virginia.
After the war, Frank returned to Reedsburg and went to work in his fathers tailor shop. Several years later, at the age of 20, he became a miller.
He was a life-long member of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Reedsburg Drum Corps. He died in 1918, at the age of 68. At his funeral the Reedsburg Drum Corps, with muffled drums, preceded the hearse to Greenwood Cemetery where he is buried near his former teacher and captain, A.P. Ellenwood. Frank Pettis left five grown children.
Young Frank Petties is depicted with his drum in Reedsburgs military memorial in Nishan Park, on the Courage panel.
Senate Republicans were giddy about tightening voting rules in Wisconsin during a closed-door meeting in 2011, a former GOP staffer testified in federal court this week.
Republican Sens. Mary Lazich of New Berlin and Glenn Grothman (now a congressman from Campbellsport) stressed to their partisan colleagues that a photo ID requirement could limit voting in the Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee and on college campuses, giving Republicans a competitive advantage.
What Im concerned about here is winning, Grothman said back then, according to former Senate staffer Todd Allbaugh, who testified at the start of a trial Monday over a lawsuit contending voter ID and other restrictions illegally discriminate against students and minorities.
Other Republican senators in the room five years ago dispute Allbaughs recollections, with their attorney dismissing his testimony as hearsay. U.S. District Judge James Peterson is sorting it all out.
But this much is clear: Large groups of lawmakers shouldnt be huddling in secret to discuss anything related to major public policy proposals. No other government decision-making body in Wisconsin not school boards, city councils, county boards or even obscure subcommittees is allowed such a blanket exemption from Wisconsins open meetings law.
Yet the Legislature grants itself this glaring loophole: Republicans and Democrats in each legislative house can routinely meet behind closed doors as partisan groups, often with a majority of senators or representatives present. No members of the opposite political party, news reporters or the public are allowed to sit and listen.
This secrecy lets the majority party now the Republicans, previously the Democrats debate and count votes on what they plan to do before moving to the floor of the Senate or Assembly to make it official with a united front. The partisan privacy makes it easier for legislative leaders to pressure members to follow the party line and cut deals. Its part of the reason fierce partisanship is so rampant on both sides of the aisle.
Secret meetings at the state Capitol also make it harder for citizens to follow what their elected leaders are doing and hold them accountable for decisions.
Past efforts to apply the same open meetings standards to lawmakers that other public officials must follow have failed, despite bipartisan support. Only public pressure will force more openness. And Senate Republicans just provided another prime example of why legislative party caucuses should always be open. Its in these meetings where the big decisions about spending money and adopting policy are made.
Two Madison aldermen just ran afoul of the states open meetings law by discussing changes to city committees without posting the required public notice. The two sit on a three-member subcommittee, so they formed a quorum.
If thats a violation and it should be, to ensure the public knows what its elected officials are up to then surely a majority of the Wisconsin Senate huddled in a back room of the state Capitol demands the light of day.
The Beaver Dam Exchange Club celebrated the 40th anniversary of its founding and charter on April 21.
The National Exchange Club of the Wisconsin/Upper Peninsula District presented the club with a resolution expressing thanks and appreciation to The Exchange Club of Beaver Dam in recognition of the selfless contributions of service made by the members of the Beaver Dam Exchange Club for the betterment of their community over the past 40 years.
The four pillars of the Exchange Club are Americanism, Youth, Community Service and Child Abuse Prevention.
Under the pillar of Americanism, for seven years the Beaver Dam Exchange Club has hosted the American Heroes Music Festival to thank local service personnel (firefighters, police, EMS, first responders, K-9 units, Gold Star families, wounded warriors, veterans, active military, MIA/POWs) for keeping citizens safe and in recognition of their service to their country and local communities. Proceeds from that event are used to award a $1,500 scholarship to a graduating senior who plans to enter one of the service personnel careers.
Additionally in 2015, the Exchange Club purchased a new freedom shrine that was installed in the social studies corridor at Beaver Dam High School. This replaced an earlier shrine that required updating. The shrine includes important documents from the nations history such as the Declaration of Independence, Washingtons and Jeffersons first inaugural addresses, the Northwest Ordinance, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, the 19th Amendment, the instruments of surrender in World War II, and the Star Spangled Banner. The club has provided freedom shrine displays at Beaver Dam Middle School, Beaver Dam High School and Horicon High School. A freedom shrine is a 30-foot permanent wall display and is used by students for historical studies.
Under the pillar of youth, each year BDHS students are recognized at an Exchange Club meeting for Youth of the Month and Accepting the Challenge of Excellence awards where they receive honorary certificates and monetary contributions.
The Exchange Club also supports community causes and champions child abuse prevention, the third and fourth pillars.
The Exchange Club hands out flags to children along the Memorial Day parade route every year so that every kid has a flag to wave. The Exchange Club has distributed more than 50,000 American flags to children during parades since 1976. In recognition of the 175th anniversary of the city of Beaver Dam, the Beaver Dam Exchange Club will do the same along the 175th Anniversary parade route.
JUNEAUThe Juneau Area Veterans Memorial Committee has continued to meet and work on the plans for the changes and additions to the memorial which should be able to be seen and appreciated sometime this summer.
The committee also is working on planning for the needed fund drive to erase the residual indebtedness and pay for the new improvements. Again the emphasis is on getting out the awareness that the memorial belongs to the community and that every community member should be proud of the memorial and aware that they all have a way to express their appreciation to those of the community who have served the country to preserve our freedoms and way of life.
Right now, the attention and efforts are directed to the planned open house to be held at the memorial site, which is the Juneau Public Library, 250 N. Fairfield Ave., on May 27 from 11 a.m. until 2:30 p.m.
All residents of the area are invited to view the memorial and to find out the additions and improvements which are in planning and development.
There will be an honors ceremony to honor those who have given their lives in service to the country followed by a time to view the memorial, to view the plans and to discuss them with committee members present.
The fund raising planning and efforts have become very exciting as Anna Vitale, Dodgelands new technology instructor and faculty member and some of her students have joined the work. Their creative assistance with design and printing is invaluable. It is creating a bond and understanding between generations as well as an appreciation of each other. It also gives youths an opportunity to get to know more of adults who are working and serving in the community and to learn more about military service and those who have served.
Mailings have gone out to our local businesses and Industries for fund raising efforts and there will be follow-up contacts to determine participation and if donations will want to be designated for a specific cause. Those who are not recipients of our mailing, but who want to donate may contact one of the committee members. Those members are Mike Becker at 386-3310; Eileen Gratton at 386-3366; Dr. Robert Heinen at 386-9560 and Charles Griffin at 386-2102.
Anyone who wants to honor a family member, or a friend or acquaintance that served in military service at any time, of war or peace, to have their name added to the memorial.
There are several ways that such honor and remembrance can be designated on the memorial. Please contact a committee member or visit the Farmers and Merchants Union Bank in Juneau to obtain information detailing how this can be done.
A public information meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 25 to discuss the reconstruction of the Highway 16 intersection with Highway 60 in Columbia County. The meeting will be held from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Columbus Area Senior Center, 125 N. Dickason Blvd., Columbus, WI, 53925.
The proposed project will reconstruct and signalize the intersection. The length of the project is 0.41 miles. The project will also include 0.24 miles of reconstruction on Highway 60.
The intersection will be open to traffic during the construction, which is expected to last from May of 2016 to October of 2016.
The public is encouraged to attend the meeting, provide input and ask questions concerning this project.
If you are unable to attend the meeting, or would like more information, contact David Pilon at (608) 245-2622 or david.pilon@dot.wi.gov. Citizens who are hearing-impaired and require an interpreter may request one by contacting David Pilon at least three working days prior to the meeting via the Wisconsin Telecommunications Relay System (dial 711).
WISCONSIN DELLS Long before he was introduced as future senator, Russ Feingold knew hed be preaching to the choir.
At the convention of the Wisconsin chapter of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, which opened Friday at Chula Vista near Wisconsin Dells, Feingold talked about working people telling him they want from their representatives in Washington, D.C. and its not a wall separating Mexico from the United States or a ban on Muslim immigrants.
Here, said Feingold, is what Wisconsin voters really want: a minimum wage that is a living wage, relief from the crushing debt that encumbers many college students and an end to the exportation of U.S. jobs.
The people of Wisconsin want their hard work rewarded, he said. You have been attacked personally and professionally, and thats just wrong.
Feingolds ongoing effort to visit all 72 Wisconsin counties brought him Friday to Adams County, just north of the Columbia County line, where several hundred AFSCME convention-goers packed the Grand Ballroom at Chula Vista, and leaped to their feet applauding as he entered.
They booed both Feingolds opponent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who defeated Feingold in 2010 and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump.
Asked after his presentation how he envisions himself serving in the senate with Donald Trump as president, Feingold replied, Im not going to think about that, because its not going to happen.
The fact that Trump has all but sewn up the Republican nomination, he said, says a lot more about the Republican Party than it says about the mood of the American people.
Republicans, he said, have forgotten the working base of their party the people who Feingold said are unhappy, or even angry, about seeing more jobs moved overseas in search of cheaper labor.
Feingold said ultra-rich people, including brothers Charles and David Koch, have spearheaded a corporate takeover of Wisconsins state government, including the governors office, both houses of the Legislature and the state Supreme Court.
And, Feingold said, big-money interests like the Koch brothers paid for what he called false TV advertisements that attack his record in dealing with the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Tomah.
Feingold also decried the disrespect shown to President Obama, including the refusal of Senate Republicans including Johnson to even consider Obamas nominee to fill the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia.
When he was in the Senate, Feingold noted, he took part in giving advice and consent on two Supreme Court nominees put forth by Republican President George W. Bush, and he actually voted for the confirmation of one of them Chief Justice John Roberts. (Associate Justice Samuel Alito was confirmed despite Feingolds vote against him.)
Feingold also took issue with Johnsons characterization of Social Security as a Ponzi scheme that should have been privatized. Rather, Feingold said, Social Security and Medicare are the basic rock bed of the American dream.
Feingold challenged Johnson to do what he has done travel to all parts of Wisconsin and hear what voters have to say.
You should listen to the people all the time, he said, not just when you run for election or re-election.
Campaign Combatting Domestic Abuse Launched by Wrexham Students
This article is old - Published: Saturday, May 21st, 2016
An innovative campaign aimed at tackling all forms of domestic abuse has been developed by students in Wrexham.
Each year students studying Coleg Cambrias Public Service course work with partners to develop awareness raising campaigns as part of their Welsh Baccalaureate qualification
This year the campaign has been undertaken in partnership with Coleg Cambria, Welsh Womens Aid Wrexham, Stepping Stones and Safe Wrexham, with the students developing coffee cup sleeves.
The branded sleeves provide concise information about combatting domestic abuse, providing details of organisations which support victims as well as the Live Fear Free helpline.
A critical part of the partnerships work is to increase public confidence in reporting incidents of domestic abuse and sexual violence, and to also improve support for victims of abuse. A number of campaigns take place throughout the year aiming to raise awareness of the key issues, the most significant example being the White Ribbon campaign.
Every November, this global initiative encourages both men and women to wear a white ribbon as a personal pledge never to commit, condone nor remain silent about violence against women.
Reducing incidence of domestic abuse is a key priority for the Welsh Government, demonstrated by the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Act. The landmark legislation, which came into force in April last year, was the first in the UK specifically aimed at combating violence against women and aims to improve the public sector response in Wales.
The students campaign was formally launched by Wrexhams Assembly Member Lesley Griffiths at an event held at Coleg Cambrias Learning Centre.
Lesley Griffiths AM said: Statistics reveal one in four women and one in six men experience some form of domestic abuse. These figures are staggering, particularly when you realise a significant proportion of incidents are not reported to the authorities.
Although there is still more to be done, in recent years a lot of good work has taken place both locally and nationally, helping raise awareness and encouraging victims of domestic abuse not to suffer in silence.
Ms Griffiths continued onto praise the students campaign, adding: This local campaign is a great example of various organisations working together to help combat violence against women. It was great to witness the enthusiasm of everyone involved at the launch and I congratulate the Coleg Cambria students for their wonderful initiative.
Johnstown Community Pavilion Opens Following 125k Investment
This article is old - Published: Saturday, May 21st, 2016
A Community Pavilion has celebrated the grand opening of its fantastic new building following a 125,ooo investment.
Johnstown Community Pavilion last week celebrated the official of its new facility, with the pavilion replacing the former portakabin building which previously housed Johnstown Bowls Club.
Grant funding was secured from Cory Environmental Trust in Britain (CETB), WRENs FCC Community Action Fund together with a contribution from Rhos Community Council and Johnstown Bowls Club.
Johnstown Councillor David A Bithell, who officially opened the building said: This is a fantastic new building which we have been working to achieve for the past four years. The new building is now a modern community facility which supports Johnstown Bowling Club and the wider local community for meetings and small functions. We now have an excellent facility for the community to enjoy and use for many years to come.
The project has required a lot of hard work from Johnstown Bowling Club, officers from Wrexham Council and support from Rhos Community Council. It wouldnt have happened without this help and funding and my thanks to the funders, Cory Environmental Trust in Britain and WRENs FCC Community Action Fund.
Kevin Stevenson Chair of Johnstown Bowls Club said: The new building will enable us to offer better facilities to the local community to host events in the future. Without the support of the local authority and the funders the provision of this new community building would not have been possible and we thank them very much.
Now we have this facility the bowling club can hold larger events in the future. I also would like to thank Councillor David Bithell for all his hard work including a small group of Johnstown Bowling Club members.
Meleri Jones, Grant Manager for WREN added: We are pleased to support a project that will not only enhance facilities for current users, but will also create a multi use building that will be a hub for the whole community
Amid torrential rain in Sri Lanka, the number of deaths and of people displaced by severe floods and landslides is increasing. According to the Disaster Management Center, the number of deaths have climbed to 64; 319,507 people have been displaced, and overall 427,918 persons have been affected.
World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) reporters visited Aranayake and Bulathkohupitiya, two areas in Kegalle District, severely affected by two major landslides.
Bulathkohupitiya
WSWS reporters traveled 80 km from Colombo to the Rangalla junction near Bulathkohupitiya and walked 3km along a damaged road. There was no proper public transport to Kalupahanawatte tea estate, where the disaster had happened.
Sixteen people are reported dead in Kalupahanawatte due to Tuesdays landslide. Up to now, 14 bodies have been discovered; soldiers engaged in rescue operations are searching for others.
Six out of 10 line rooms, the barrack-type housing for the plantation workers, were destroyed in the landslide. Sixteen people were buried under the huge flow of mud and rocks. Survivors are staying in Sri Silananda School in Yattella, together with other displaced people from Aduragalawatte and Lewalawatte, two other landslide-prone areas nearby.
Two hundred ninety-eight people from 93 families are lodged in small classrooms that lack facilities. They are all together sharing only five toilets, and they have to sleep on the cement floors, even in the cold rainy nights. Since the buildings are only half covered, they suffer from rain and mosquito bites. They are supplied with food by nearby villagers and voluntary organizations.
WSWS reporters spoke to several people who were in shock after losing their loved ones and their belongings.
One worker from Nandanawatte, a nearby tea estate, said: We lived in Urumeewalawatte and came to Nandanawatte two years ago, because we were asked to move from the previous place which was at risk of landslides. The estate management and the divisional secretariat promised houses for us. So we shifted to the given lands, putting up some makeshift houses there. We are still living in those houses, as they didnt keep their promises. Now we had to move here, as we cannot live in those houses under heavy rain at all.
Murugaiyah Rajendran, 38, a worker from Kalupahanawatte, some of whose relatives died in the landslide, expressed his anger with the estate management and the successive governments.
Two years ago, the government and the management told us to move to another place, saying that our living places were under landslide threat. But they didnt provide us any alternative land. Even if we were provided such land, we wouldnt be able to build proper houses. However, with the experience of the people from Urumeewalawatte, we knew that we were going to face the same result, he said.
Rajendran recalled the fate of workers in Meeriyabadde, Koslanda who still live in makeshift camps after the 2014 landslide, saying: There should be a permanent solution for the landslide issue, but I dont believe in the management and the government.
In the course of discussion with Rajendran, National Dialogue Minister Mano Ganeshan and National Languages Minister P. Digambaram, both plantation trade union leaders, arrived. Then Rajendran expressed his anger towards them: It took three days after the disaster for them to see what happened to us. See how they are concerned about our lives! They dont pay any attention on this serious issue of landslides frequently faced by many of the estate workers in the hill country.
Aranayake
We visited the area where three villages were devastated by a landslide. It is located nearly 72 km away from Colombo. Nearly 75 out of an estimated total of 370 houses in these villages have completely vanished.
The massive flow containing mud, rocks and trees generated by the landslide smashed through two villages, Siripura and Depathgama, around 5.00 p.m. Tuesday. Within about five minutes, another landslide occurred. It has carried nearly 400 acres from the land, which had been a tea estate before it was transformed into Siripura village. Again Thursday, another landslide was reported in the area, suggesting that this disaster has not come to an end.
The mixture of rocks, trees, and mud ultimately ended its destructive journey by covering an entire paddy field, in some places up to 20 feet deep. In Siripura, each of all 51 families lost at least one member.
Survivors complained that they had not been properly warned about risk of landslides in the area. One Development Officer had warned villages only half an hour before the landslide.
Saman Athugala said: We complained to government officers about ground cracks that had occurred at the top of the hill. They came and inquired about that, but they never took proper action. Earlier we also complained about a minor landslide three years before. The same happened then. We need a permanent solution. But we have no trust about the government.
Displaced people from landslide-affected villages are temporarily living in Maalapaha Rajamaha Viharaya (a Buddhist temple) and Dikpitiya Rajagiriya Maha Vidyalaya (a school) in the Aranayake area. Altogether, 803 displaced people live in these camps within a 5000 square-foot area.
Premasiri Athugala, a worker from Thulhiriya Trade Zone, who now lives in Maalapaha Rajamaha Viharaya, said: As a result of this disaster, I lost 19 relatives. I have a house that has not been destroyed by the landslide. But now I am frightened to live there. We only want a house to live without fear.
Kumuduni Kumari, a widow now staying in Dikpitiya Rajagiriya Maha Vidyalaya, said: When the disaster happened, my husband was in his mothers house. Then he died. He was the sole breadwinner of our family. Now we have been stranded.
Colombo
According to the Disaster Management Centre, around 200,000 people have been displaced and are living in relief camps due to floods in the Colombo area. Thousands of people were captured by floods in the Kolonnawa and Wellampitiya areas, due to the extraordinary rise of the water level of the Kelani River.
One affected person told the WSWS: Due to lack of boats, many affected people in Colombo had to flee to safety by private boats, paying huge amounts. Those who were unable to pay such amounts had to stay in the floods for days until the Navy rescued them. Some people are still there, which means taking a huge risk.
Germanys Social Democratic Party (SPD) finds itself in free fall. In the latest poll by Forsa on Wednesday, its support fell to 19 percent, a decline of 2 percent from the previous month and an historic low for the SPD.
Forsas voter trends report for Stern/RTL states, Only 14 percent say the SPD best represents their personal interests. Forsa head Manfred Gullner commented on the results, The working class still makes up the majority of society but no longer feels represented by the current SPD.
The collapse of the SPD in the polls is the direct product of the right-wing, anti-social and militarist policies the party has pursued for years. The SPD is known as the Hartz IV party, which initiated an unprecedented social decline ten years ago with the Agenda 2010. The Hartz laws of the SPD/Green Party government (1998-2005), under Chancellor Gerhard Schroder and foreign minister Joschka Fischer, had catastrophic consequences.
Laid-off workers now lose all rights to social benefits after a year at the latest and are degraded to pleading for assistance. Those who wind up on Hartz IV welfare barely stand a chance of ever making it out of poverty. According to a study by the Paritatische Wohlfahrtverband, three quarters of those affected remain on Hartz IV permanently. Even the threat of falling into Hartz IV forces many laid-off workers to take a new job, often on the basis of low wages, a temporary contract or part-time hours.
Through the Agenda 2010, a second labour market was created, characterised by temporary work, short-term contracts and all kinds of low-paid jobs without any social security or rights. The legalisation of such precarious jobs has led to a sharp rise in poverty. The Paritatische Wohlfahrtverbands latest poverty report classifies 15.4 percent of the population, or 12.5 million people, as poor. Among these are around 3.4 million pensioners and over 2.5 million children.
At the initiative of Labour Minister Andrea Nahles (SPD), the Bundestag two weeks ago adopted new legislation to regulate temporary jobs and short-term contracts. It writes extreme conditions of exploitation into law. At the same time, in collaboration with the trade unions, all opposition is being suppressed.
The SPDs social counter-revolution has become the model for social democratic politics across Europe, The SPD led the way in enforcing one austerity programme after another on the Greek population and blackmailed and plundered the country in the interests of the international banks. Due to the collapse of the social democratic Pasok as a result of these policies, SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel and president of the European Parliament Martin Schulz (SPD) now cooperate closely with Syriza to press forward with social attacks.
The SPD has been attempting for years to export its Agenda 2010 to France. Two years ago, the architect who gave his name to the reforms, Peter Hartz, visited French President Francois Hollande and his government in the Elysee Palace to advise them on their labour market reforms. The result is the El-Khomri law, which the Socialist Party government has now imposed by emergency decree against mass protests.
In mid-March, at the beginning of the key phase in Frances Agenda policy, leading European social democratic politicians met in Paris to strengthen the hand of President Hollande. Along with Gabriel and Schulz, Italian Prime Minister and Democratic Party (PD) chairman Matteo Renzi, the then Austrian Chancellor and SPO chairman Werner Feymann, Portuguese Prime Minister and chairman of the Socialist Party Antonio Costa and the vice president of the EU Commission, Federica Mogherini, all participated.
The SPD has also played a key role in the preparations for war. Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD), Germanys foreign minister, has led the shift in foreign policy and the return of German militarism. In close collaboration with defence minister Ursula Von der Leyen (CDU), he has organised military rearmament. Hundreds of millions of euros which have been squeezed out of the working class by austerity measures are flowing directly into arms programmes for the military.
These reactionary policies are coming up against growing popular opposition. The SPD virtually collapsed in Marchs state elections. In Baden-Wurttemberg and Saxony-Anhalt, the SPD barely surpassed 10 percent of the vote and finished behind the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Members are also rushing in large numbers to leave the SPD. Since 1990, it has lost more than half its membership.
The SPDs financial structure has in the meantime become largely independent of declining membership dues. The bureaucratic organisation works according to corporate targets and controls a wide-ranging network of commercial operations. In addition, the party receives large sums from the state party financing system. Last year, state subsidies amounted to more than 50 million. The SPD is a party of the state, which enforces the interests of German imperialism and leading corporate associations with utter disregard for the opposition of the population.
Concern is growing in the ruling elite about the partys declining influence. The latest edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung s weekly magazine published a lead article on the subject entitled, Decline of a peoples party. It began,The SPD has hit rock bottom.
The article continued: The SPD is Germanys oldest party. It resisted the Nazis, provided three great Chancellors and influenced the German state like no other party apart from the CDU. But if federal elections took place on Sunday, it would receive, according to the latest polls, only 20 percent of the vote. In the east, the AfD would be 5 percentage points ahead of the SPD. A horror scenario for the great old party.
The advanced decomposition of the social democrats is an international phenomenon. In Austria, Greece, Britain and above all in France, and also in many other countries, a similar development is taking place. It is connected to a growing radicalisation of the working class.
In Greece, mass strikes have taken place against the brutal austerity policies of the Syriza government. In France, workers and students have taken to the streets for weeks to protest against the Hollande governments social cuts and labour market reforms. In Germany, strikes and workplace protests are sharply on the rise. Last year, the official number of strike days surpassed the one million mark for the first time in many years.
In the United States, China and India, strike waves are also breaking out. In the US, over 40,000 employees of the telecommunications giant Verizon have been on strike for weeks. This growing global radicalisation of workers and youth is finding expression in the mounting opposition to the SPD.
The working class confronts the task of finally liberating itself from these reactionary, nationalist bureaucracies. However, this requires more than a rejection of the party by refusing to vote for it and abandoning membership. The danger that far right parties like the AfD and FN could exploit the political vacuum is great.
The working class must adopt a new political course; it requires a new political perspective. Not a single problem confronted by the workers throughout the world can be dealt with within the framework of the nation state or the capitalist profit system. The working class needs an internationalist, socialist programme and a revolutionary party.
Herein lies the significance of the Partei fur Soziale Gleichheits (PSG) participation in the Berlin state elections in September. Unlike the Left Party, which pursues the goal of retaining the SPD in power and supporting it, we call upon everyone wishing to combat war, repression, nationalism and social inequality to energetically support the PSGs campaign. We are pursuing the aim of abolishing the capitalist system, the source of inequality, poverty and war, and developing a mass movement on the basis of a socialist and internationalist programme.
Asia
Taiwan flight attendants protest
Over 150 China Airlines flight attendants protested outside the Ministry of Labor in Taipei on May 13 over what they called an enslavement contract. The Taoyuan Flight Attendants Union said it had received complaints about the contract from nearly 1,900 China Airlines stafftwo-thirds of the airlines cabin crew workforce. Another protest is planned for May 31.
Workers claimed the new agreement, which the airline asked the attendants to sign last week, could increase their working hours to 220 per month. A union representative said the new work-hour rules would slash attendants rest time from 24 hours to 12 on certain long-haul flights.
Cambodian garment workers protest
One hundred former Galey Global garment factory workers protested outside the Preah Sihanouk provincial governors office on Wednesday and Thursday to secure wages owed to the companys 900 workers. The factory shut down in April. The estimated monthly salary for the employees ranges from $US100 to $300.
Workers were informed by a Sihanoukville labour department official that the government had decided items from the factory would be sold and that each worker would receive $71 in a first step towards resolving the issue.
India: Mysore paper workers demonstrate
Employees of Mysore Paper Mills (MPM), a public sector firm in Bhadravati, Karnataka, protested inside the factory on May 15 over salary payment delays. Workers have accused the government of starving the mill of operating funds resulting in the elimination of 50 percent of the 2,300 jobs at the mill. Plant production has ended with MPM sending workers on earned leave for an indefinite period in November.
An MPM Employees Association official told protesting workers that management had agreed to pay an advanced salary to those sent on leave. Permanent workers would receive 9,000 rupees ($US134) a month and contract workers 4,500 rupees a month. The official blamed the delay in payment of salaries for workers still employed on the negligence of senior company officials.
Haryana power distribution workers strike over sackings
Thousands of workers from state-owned power distribution companiesUttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam and Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN)held a state-wide strike on May 16 to oppose the sacking of 7,472 contract workers and some permanent employees on May 11. The sacked workers were among the 23,000 power workers who had struck over the hiring of private contractors for the maintenance and operations of transmission lines.
The power workers are members of the Haryana State Electricity Board (HSEB) Workers Union and the All Haryana Power Corporation (AHPC) Workers Union. The Joint Action Committee has planned demonstrations at each subdivision office till June 28 and threatened that if the government failed to act, all power department employees would strike for 48 hours on June 29.
School midday-meal workers in Jalandhar protest
Midday-meal workers held a protest march in Jalandhar on May 14 and demonstrated outside a government ministers residence. Midday Meal Workers Union members demanded a wage increase and other allowances and benefits on par with other government workers. They also want an increase in their allowances to 10,000 rupees a month, identity cards and service books, maternity leave, insurance, permanency and at least two workers per school and one worker for every 25 students.
Sri Lanka: Jaffna municipal workers end strike
Temporary health assistance workers and garbage removal workers of Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) ended an eight-day strike on Wednesday following assurances from the Municipal Commissioner that he will resolve their demands within the next three months.
The municipal workers struck to demand permanency and held daily protests in front of the Jaffna Municipal Council premises from May 10. They are sceptical about the commissioners assurance, saying that when they struck work last year on the same demand he falsely promised to solve the matter within 100 days.
Around 120 garbage removal workers have been working for seven years on a temporary basis and 11 among them are more than 50 years old. They are paid on a daily basis and do not receive paid leave. They are not provided with safety gear such as shoes or gloves. Most of them are living in shanties close to the city without any amenities.
Pakistan: Islamabad municipal workers demand wages
Capital Development Authority (CDA) contract sanitary workers demonstrated in Islamabad on Monday demanding three months outstanding wages. Workers burnt tyres and blocked roads in protest. The demonstration ended after the authorities promised to pay their overdue wages on Friday.
These contract workers are only paid between 10,000-12,000 rupees per month by private contractors. CDA began outsourcing its sanitary work last year to compensate for government funding cuts. Government payments to the contractors, however, have been delayed.
Doctors at a major teaching hospital in Lahore on strike
Doctors at the Lady Willingdon Hospital in Lahore boycotted the Out-Patients Department on Wednesday demanding three months of unpaid salaries. Around 100 doctors are affected. They also provided free life-saving drugs for patients and for repairs to all air-conditioners and fans. They said the strike would continue until their demands are met.
Lady health workers in Peshawar protest
Lady Health Workers (LHW) employees in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, demonstrated outside the district health office on Monday to demand three months unpaid salaries and job permanency. LHWs have been fighting for many years to be made permanent but the provincial government has continued to ignore an order from the Supreme Court of Pakistan to do so. The protest ended after authorities issued a written notice to make their jobs permanent. The government has regularly reneged on its promises.
Bangladeshi jute mill workers in Khulna protest
Workers of privately owned jute mills in the Khulna industrial belt demonstrated on the Khulna-Jessore highway on Tuesday demanding the reopening of all closed jute mills before the holy month of Ramadan.
The Private-Owned Jute, Yarn and Textile Mill Workers Federation is demanding immediate payment of all outstanding salaries, allocation of funds for ongoing operation of the mills and reinstatement of all retrenched workers.
The workers have also complained that the private jute mills have yet to implement a new wage rate issued by the pay commission three years ago in 2013. The federation has threatened to hold another demonstration blocking the highway if workers demands were not met by May 31.
Thousands of workers from eight state-owned jute mills in Khulna staged strikes in April to demand adequate fund allocation for the jute industry, payment of their arrears, formation of a wage board and stopping the move to privatise state-owned mills. The trade unions continue to separate private and state-owned mill workers.
Australia and the Pacific
Essential Energy workers to walk out for five days
Thousands of power workers in New South Wales will walk off the job for 20 consecutive four-hour stoppages commencing Monday May 23 and ending Friday. Electrical Trades Union (ETU) members are in dispute with the state-owned power distributer Essential Energy over a new enterprise agreement. Negotiations for a new agreement began 18 months ago.
The strike, which follows two four-hour stoppages in April and a 24-hour strike last week, will involve 120 depots and control centres. Unlike previous action, the union said it would not provide a skeleton staff during the stop work period.
Workers have rejected managements enterprise offer that includes the axing of 800 jobs over the next two years and unlimited job cuts after 2018. The company also wants to reduce emergency duty pay and cut wages and conditions of contractors, among other changes.
Essential Energy has refused to resume negotiations and launched a case in the Fair Work Commission (FWC) to terminate various agreements currently covering the workers. These include axing redundancy provisions, staff redeployment and salary maintenance. The FWC case is set down for a six-day hearing from June 14.
Canberra garbage truck drivers strike again
For the second time in as many weeks 39 garbage truck drivers employed by collection contractor SUEZ in Australias capital Canberra will walk off the job for two days on May 23. Curb-side garbage bins will not be emptied in 44 suburbs. The strike follows failed negotiations between the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and SUEZ over a new enterprise agreement.
The drivers rejected the companys modified offer following last weeks strike. The new offer included a 2.2 percent pay increase (down from 3 percent in its original offer) with a so-called improved redundancy payment of three weeks pay capped at ten years service. Current severance pay is two weeks pay for each year of service. A union spokesman said overall the new offer was not an improvement. Negotiations are continuing.
Hospital radiographers in South Australia impose bans
At least a dozen radiographers at the Flinders Medical Centre, a major public hospital in South Australias capital Adelaide, have begun imposing bans over what they say are unsustainable workloads. Industrial action includes not completing paperwork or answering phones after hours and on weekends.
The Public Service Association (PSA) said a lack of staff meant that CT radiographers were forced to work full-day shifts and then remain on call overnight, with insufficient rest and recovery breaks. Staff want the facility manned 24 hours as per other major Adelaide hospitals.
A union spokesman said funding for the facility had not increased for ten years and that the number of patients serviced by radiographers had doubled in the past five years.
New Zealand: Pakn Save workers picket Porirua store
Around 25 Pakn Save supermarket workers in Porirua, in the Wellington Region on New Zealands North Island, picketed their store on May 14 in a dispute over pay. FIRST Union members demanded pay parity with Pakn Save workers in inner Wellington stores. Management has offered a collective average pay rise from $16.20 to $16.52 per hour across two years. Staff in inner Wellington stores are paid an average of $17 per hour.
In March, Pakn Save workers in Invercargill, on New Zealands South Island, picketed their store over the same issue. Invercargill workers were paid as little as $14.75 an hour. They demanded a pay increase of $2 an hour to give them pay parity with colleagues on the North Island.
Waikato community support employees stop work
Some 200 Community Living Trust workers who provide caregiving services for the elderly and intellectually disabled in Waikato, a region on New Zealands North Island, stopped work for two hours on May 19. Members of the Primary Services Association and E Tu unions voted for industrial action after the employer offered a pay increase of just nine cents per hour or 3.60 a week.
French Polynesian airline workers on strike
Over 20 Air Tahiti workers began rolling strike action on May 13 over fears of job and pay cuts due to falls in domestic travel. The strike occurred a few days after French Polynesian unions cancelled a planned general strike over mass job cuts and loss of purchasing power since the global financial crisis of 2008.
Air Tahiti, which services international and domestic routes, including 46 of the colonys 67 islands, employs over 700 workers. Airline management wants to cut flights to some regions from once a week to once a fortnight, a move that would cut jobs and cause major inconveniences for outlying island residents.
The New South Wales (NSW) governments recently announced Better Prisons program exposes the political establishments brutal and cynical attitude toward some of the poorest and most disadvantaged people.
The program has been presented as the governments solution to the unsafe and scandalously overcrowded state of prisons in NSW, Australias most populous state. In reality, Better Prisons seeks to open up to private corporations the vast fortune to be made from prisoners.
Premier Mike Bairds Liberal-National government will progressively roll out performance reporting for prisons, benchmarked budgets and operational changes to increase productivity. It will aim to stimulate increased competition between the public and private sector for prison management. These are well-known privatisation buzzwords.
According to NSW government publications, if prison management fails to achieve required service improvements, prisons may be market testedthat is, offered up for competitive tender from private investors. One prison, the John Morony Correctional Centre near Sydney, is in the process of market testing. A decision on bids is due in early 2017.
Private corporations undoubtedly view prisons as a huge commercial opportunity. The federal governments 2016 Report on Government Services (ROGS) revealed that net operating expenditure (including depreciation) on corrective services across Australia was $3.7 billion in 201415, an increase of 7.6 percent over the previous year in real terms.
The ROGs report revealed that 34,982 people per day (excluding periodic detainees) were in prison on average nationally during 201415, an increase of 7 percent on the previous year. Over the past ten years, imprisonment rates climbed by 20.5 percent. However, only 6,394 prisoners (or 18.3 percent) were held in private facilities over that period. Better Prisons seeks to change that balance in NSW.
Bairds policy is part of a decades-long, global process of privatisation of government services. As the WSWS reported, the UK governments Prisons Bill is based on similar principles. Such policies impose unrealistic performance targets on prisons, while simultaneously cutting budgets and staff. The inevitable, ensuing crisis is then used to justify further reforms (privatisation).
Australian prisons are severely overcrowded. According to the ROGS, they were at 106.1 percent of design capacity nationally in 201415, and at 109.3 percent for secure facilities. In NSW, the figures were closer to 110 percent overall, and 115 percent for secure facilities.
That situation is becoming even more severe. In January 2016, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) revealed that the states prison population rose from 10,000 in June 2011 to 11,801 in September 2015, an increase of 18 percent. The report notes a particularly sharp increase since November 2014, with no sight of slowing.
Deeply inhumane consequences inevitably follow such levels of incarceration. Performance frameworks in custodial centre operations, a report published in March by the Audit Office of NSW, prison managers have adopted methods resulting in lockdowns and reduced time out of cells for inmates. These practices, the report notes, could reduce inmate welfare and increase the risk of inmate self-harm.
The systematic destruction of human beings hides behind such bland phrases. According to the 2016 ROGS, national average out of cell hours per prisoner per day were 10.1 in 201415. In NSW, that figure was below 8 hours, and at around 67 hours for prisoners in secure facilities. That is, 1618 hours per day spent in a cell.
Unsurprisingly, the same publication recorded the national rate of prisoner on prisoner assaults as 9.6 per 100 prisoners. The ROGS noted that the rate of apparent unnatural deaths in prisons in 201415 (including suicide, drug overdose, accidental injury or homicide) was 0.05 per 100. By comparison, the national suicide rate in 2014 was 0.012 per 100 (or 12 per 100,000), according to website mindframe-media.info (sourcing its data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics report Cause of Death Australia, 2014).
In each state, imprisonment rates are massively higher for indigenous people, who constitute some of the poorest, most oppressed layers of the working class. The ROGS reports that the 201415 national imprisonment rate was 139.4 per 100,000 non-indigenous people, as against to 2,196.1 per 100,000 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
The law and order policies of successive Labor and Liberal-National governments, coupled with significant underfunding of the judicial system, appear to be major causes of the overcrowding of NSW prisons.
The prison population includes people on remand, who are awaiting trial, but not granted bail. The BOCSAR report revealed that between March 2011 and September 2015, the NSW remand population grew by 874 people (a 32 percent increase), while the sentenced prison population grew by 662 people (a 9 percent increase).
According to BOCSAR, the increase in remand prisoners is likely due to four factors: increased police prosecution in circumstances where bail refusal is likely; increased prosecution for breach of bail; increased time spent in custody on remand (possibly due to a backlog of trial cases in court); and possibly a greater likelihood of bail refusal. The report observed that some of the growth in the prison population is simply due to police more often proceeding against people who are likely to be remanded in custody and given a prison sentence if convicted.
The BOCSAR report showed that the proportion of those convicted who receive a prison sentence has increased in 17 out of 18 offence categories, meaning that harsher sentencing practice would appear to be a significant contributor to the growth in the imprisonment rate.
In January, BOCSAR director Don Weatherburn commented on ABC Radio National that the explosion in imprisonment was partly due to both sides of politics in NSW playing up the law and order issue and getting tough on crime over the past 10 to 15 years.
The issue is not simply choosing better rhetoric. The bipartisan law and order agenda, particularly since the 1995-2005 premiership of Labors Bob Carr, has served a definite political purpose. It dehumanises prisoners as individual, evil wrongdoers, thereby deflecting attention away from serious analysis of the economic and social forces, particularly in a period of capitalist breakdown, that systematically produce social and psychological dysfunction and crime.
Of the 18 categories of criminal offences analysed by the BOCSAR report, several appear to be particularly indicative of social and psychological problems. The biggest single contributor to the increase in convicted prisoners is the offence of stalking/intimidation. This is followed (in the top 10) by: breach bond; criminal intent; receive/handle proceeds of crime; obtain benefit by deception; dangerous or negligent operation (driving) of a vehicle; deal/traffic in illicit drugs (non-commercial quantity); theft (except motor vehicles); serious assault; common assault.
It has been understood, at least since the age of the Enlightenment, that crime (and punishment) primarily are indicia of social, rather than individual, ills. That is, the social factors chiefly responsible for producing crime must be analysed, understood and overcome.
Better prisons is based on the opposite conception. It not only implicitly accepts high imprisonment rates, it seeks to open up the opportunity this creates for commercial exploitation. The NSW government aims to add more than 1,200 beds to the prison system by the end of 2017. That goal is not just repressive, it amounts to the priming of lucrative assets prior to sale.
There are mounting indications that a quarter-century during which the class struggle in the US, Britain and other industrialized countries was artificially suppressed is coming to an end. Recent weeks have seen a wave of strikes and protests in France against a reactionary labor reform law, carried out in defiance of a state of emergency imposed by the right-wing Socialist Party government; a general strike by Greek workers against austerity measures implemented by the pseudo-left Syriza party; strikes by junior doctors in Britain against social cuts carried out by the Conservative Party government with the support of the Labour Party; a strike by air traffic controllers in Belgium; and strikes by workers in India and China.
In the US, a strike by 39,000 workers against the global telecommunications giant Verizon, the biggest American labor stoppage in many years, is now in its sixth week. This is a significant, although still initial, expression of a growth of the class struggle in the center of world capitalism. It coincides with a series of strikes and sickouts by teachers in Detroit and other cities, and a wave of social protests such as the demonstrations against the poisoning of the water supply in Flint, Michigan and protests against police killings of unarmed workers and youth.
All of these struggles take place in the face of the treachery and sabotage of the trade unions. The unions at Verizon, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) have isolated the Verizon workers and done nothing to oppose company strikebreaking and violent attacks on picketers by scabs, who are being escorted and protected by the police.
They are desperate to end the strike and impose a sellout contract. In a sign of the accelerated drive to end the walkout, 88 Democratic congressmen, allies of the CWA and the IBEW, issued an open letter Thursday calling for an end to the strike.
In 2015, the United Auto Workers union barely succeeded in suppressing a rebellion of autoworkers against sellout contracts they signed with the Detroit-based auto makers. Despite the best efforts of the union bureaucracy, however, the past year has seen a modest but significant increase in strike activity.
Figures released last February by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) quantify the inflection point in the class struggle in America. They show a 400 percent increase in the number of days lost to major labor disputes in 2015 as compared to the previous year. The bulk of the increase is accounted for by the four-month strike of 5,000 oil workers across the US that year and the lockout of 2,200 steelworkers by Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Technologies.
The Verizon strike will dramatically raise the figure for days lost to labor stoppages for 2016. Labor contracts, meanwhile, are still pending for 573,000 postal workers, hundreds of thousands of state and local public employees and teachers, and hundreds of thousands of retail workers.
The level of strike activity remains far below what was commonplace from the 1940s to the 1980s. In 2015, there were 12 major work stoppages (1,000 or more workers) involving 47,000 workers, an increase over the previous year. This compares to the peak year for US work stoppages, 1952, when 2.7 million workers participated in 470 major industrial disputes.
In the 1980s, the AFL-CIO betrayed a wave of bitter strikes against mass layoffs, wage cuts and union-busting, beginning with its sabotage of the PATCO air traffic controllers strike in 1981 and its tacit support for the firing and blacklisting of 11,000 strikers by the Reagan government. This led to decades during which strikes in the US fell to historic lows. The growth of social inequality and record rise in the fortunes of the corporate and financial elite were directly connected to the virtual disappearance of any form of organized class struggle.
The collapse of the financial system in 2008 and the ensuing onslaught on jobs, wages and social programs left the working class stunned and disoriented. But as it became clear that the ruling classes of the world were intent on exploiting the crisis to wipe out all of the past social gains and reduce the working class to penury, workers began to realize there was no alternative to bitter struggle.
The revival of the class struggle is finding political expression in a turn by workers against all of the parties of the official left that are backed by the trade unions: the Labour Party establishment in Britain, the Socialist Party in France, the Social Democratic Party in Germany.
In the US, the growth of working class militancy is accompanied by the beginning stages of a profound political radicalization, reflected initially in the broad support for Bernie Sanders, whose claim to be a socialist has magnified his appeal to millions of workers and youth who are rejecting capitalism and looking for a radical alternative. His campaign is a preemptive response to the growth of the class struggle and the danger of the emergence of an independent political and revolutionary movement of the working class. Its aim is to keep this movement trapped within the Democratic Party.
The Donald Trump campaign is likewise a preemptive response to the growth of working class opposition to the existing economic and political setup. Its aim is to direct this movement along chauvinist and nationalist lines and prepare the conditions for the ever more direct use of violence to repress social tensions at home.
The revival of class struggle may be in its initial stages, but it will expand explosively. It is being driven objectively by the crisis of the world capitalist system, which offers nothing but poverty, dictatorship and the horror of global nuclear war. All of the struggles, whether strikes or social protests, raise revolutionary issues and pose the question of political power.
The first task that confronts workers is the need to break free of the reactionary pro-capitalist labor bureaucracies. But as Leon Trotsky explained in the founding program of the Fourth International, the Transitional Program, there are powerful objective forces that facilitate this task:
The orientation of the masses is determined first by the objective conditions of decaying capitalism and second by the treacherous politics of the old workers' organizations. Of these factors, the first is of course the decisive one: the laws of history are stronger than the bureaucratic apparatus.
The urgent and critical need is the building of a revolutionary Marxist leadership to unite all of the different struggles into a single class struggle and provide it with a revolutionary political perspective.
Earlier this week, the New York Times published an op-ed by ThinkProgress economic policy editor and Nation magazine blogger Bryce Covert, titled in its online version Make America Great Again for the People It Was Great for Already.
The article, passed off as a serious piece about the current state of American politics, exposes the Brown University graduate and the privileged middle class type she exemplifies, indoctrinated on the thin gruel of post-modernism and feminist thought, as completely ignorant of the history of the class struggle in the United States.
According to Covert, white men are supporting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trumps promise to Make American Great Again because they desire to return to a period of American history half a century ago when they received benefits at the expense of African Americans and women.
For Mr. Trump its about whom the government helps, not whether the government helps at all, Covert writes. He is promising to make the country great again, for the people who had it pretty great in the first place.
If you ask his supporters, they say life has gotten worse for people like them over the last 50 years, Covert adds. It seems safe to assume that, in the eyes of Mr. Trumps overwhelmingly white male fans, America was greater a half-century ago. Indeed, it was pretty great for them.
As proof of this claim, Covert provides a false reading history of the 20th century in which rights and privileges were won or lost in a bitter competition between the races and genders.
Starting with the New Deal in the 1930s and extending into the immediate post-World War II period, she argues, the federal government established social safety net programs in order to benefit white men while purposely excluding most women and minorities.
Social Security and unemployment insurance, the guarantee of the right to unionize, labor protections such as maximum work hours and a minimum wage, and the GI Bill which provided assistance to those who served in World War IIall were implemented to help white men while keeping everyone else down and out.
The significant gains workers made in the first half of the last century are boiled down to being nothing more than the result of a gentlemans agreement between racist and sexist white men, which has since been broken down. Anyone who does not believe that things are better than they were 50 years ago is a racist and a bigot. White men were given everything by the government in an earlier period. Having had all of the advantages for far too long, they should accept a decline in their living standards without complaint!
Excluded entirely from Coverts facile (and, one might add, astonishingly ignorant) reading of history is the brutal reality of the class struggle in the United States. A ferocious industrial civil war raged throughout the country from the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, which was suppressed by the deployment of federal troops, through the mass struggles of the 1930s and 1940s when workers finally won significant concessions from the bosses. During this period, countless workers were beaten, murdered, blacklisted, framed-up, railroaded into prison and shot down in the streets.
The socialist Eugene V. Debs, Sacco and Vanzetti, Joe Hill, Big Bill Haywood and the Wobbliesall of these figures and organizations mean nothing in the racialist view of American history. There is no place for the Haymarket Massacre of 1886, the Homestead Strike of 1892, the nationwide Pullman Strike of 1894, the Ludlow Massacre of 1914, the Great Steel Strike of 1919, the Battle of Blair Mountain of 1921, the 1936-1937 Flint sit-down strike, or the greatest strike wave in American history that lasted from 1945 to 1946.
The working class continued its struggles against dreadful working conditions and exploitation through World War II into the 1950s and through the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. Bloody battles were waged by workers in defense of the rights and benefits they had won well into the 1980s.
It was only though these struggles that workers were able to wrench certain concessions. The ruling class responded with reforms not out of racial or gender solidarity but out of fear of revolution. This fear was particularly great in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917, when the working class took power under the leadership of the Bolsheviks, an event that reverberated through the last century and up to this very day. Workers of every race, ethnicity and gender have looked to that revolution as the most powerful example of what can be accomplished when they consciously fight together as a class against the capitalist system.
Racism is not embedded in the psyche of American workers, as Covert would have us believe. Rather, racial divisions have been used by the ruling class to divide workers against each other, and every effort to unify the working class against this has been met with violence. Jim Crow segregation laws were implemented to block the unification of poor blacks and whites in a burgeoning populist movement at the end of the 19th century. This division was enforced by a decades-long wave of lynchings and racist mob violence that stretched well into the 20th century.
The enormous struggles waged by workers had a definite impact on the class consciousness of Southern black sharecroppers who were brought north as strikebreakers by industrial employers such as Henry Ford, seeking to weaken the labor movement by stoking racial divisions. However, soon even they too were drawn into the class struggle alongside their brothers and sisters who happened to be white.
The most effective struggles of the last century were led by socialists in opposition to all attempts by employers to promote artificial divisions within the working class. The industrial trade unions were formed on the basis of a fight to unify the working class, and it was out of this struggle that significant gains were won for all workers.
James P. Cannon, leader of the Socialist Workers Party and one of the founders of the American Trotskyist movement, noted quite powerfully in 1946 that every section of the working class had been radicalized through the vicious class struggle against capitalist exploitation:
American capitalism took millions of barefooted country boys from the bankrupted farms of the country; put shoes on them and marched them into the regimented ranks of socially-operated modern industry; wet them in the rain of the man-killing speed-up exploitation of the Twenties; dried them in the sun of the frightful crisis of the Thirties; overworked them on the assembly line, starved them on the breadline, mistreated and abused them; and finally succeeded in pounding them into a coherent body which emerged as a section of the most powerful and militant trade union movement the world has ever known. American capitalism took hundreds of thousands of Negroes from the South, and exploiting their ignorance, and their poverty, and their fears, and their individual helplessness, herded them into the steel mills as strikebreakers in the steel strike of 1919. And in the brief space of one generation, by its mistreatment, abuse and exploitation of these innocent and ignorant Negro strikebreakers, this same capitalism succeeded in transforming them and their sons into one of the most militant and reliable detachments of the great victorious steel strike of 1946. This same capitalism took tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of prejudiced hillbillies from the South, many of them members and sympathizers of the Ku Klux Klan; and thinking to use them, with their ignorance and their prejudices, as a barrier against unionism, sucked them into the auto and rubber factories of Detroit, Akron and other industrial centers. There it sweated them, humiliated them and drove and exploited them until it finally changed them and made new men out of them. In that harsh school the imported southerners learned to exchange the insignia of the KKK for the union button of the CIO, and to turn the Klansmans fiery cross into a bonfire to warm pickets at the factory gate.
There were racist white workers during this period, but the struggle led by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the dismantling of Jim Crow segregation would not have been possible without the radicalization of black and white workers in the first half of the century. White workers and youth played a significant role in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which was not seen as a competition over limited resources between racial groups, but as a fight for genuine equality.
Though Covert may not see it from her outpost in New York City, the truth is that American workers, whether they happen to be white men or not, have a lot to complain about in 2016.
And while she directs her venom against Trump supporters, the logic of her argument extends to all of those who claim that conditions of life today are getting worse. This sentiment has found its most significant expression in the support of millions of workers and students for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who has presented himself as a socialist fighting against the billionaire class.
For the billionaire Republican Trump, making the US great again means restoring American capitalism to its position of absolute world supremacy through the erection of stronger border controls, the imposition of heavy tariffs and the massive buildup of the military.
But to the extent there is a response among workers to Trump, and in a different form to Sanders, it is from an understanding that there was a period, now long gone, in which they could find a secure job that would provide them with decent health care, the ability to raise a family and a pension which would provide for a secure retirement.
To understand the roots of workers anger, one only has to point to the devastating impact of decades of deindustrialization, which has wiped out millions of decent paying blue-collar jobs. Or the raging social catastrophe impacting cities and towns across the country that is the outcome of decades of austerity and social counterrevolution. This has been the direct result of the suppression of the class struggle by the nationalist trade unions.
As a result, working class whites are now experiencing declining life expectancy due to record numbers of drug overdoses, alcohol poisoning and rising suicide rates. And even as a relatively small section of minorities and women have been elevated to positions of power and wealth, social and economic conditions for workers regardless of race or gender have declined significantly over the last five decades.
Today the relentless promotion of racial and gender politics has become the foundation of the Democratic Party. It is bound up with defending and advancing the interest of a privileged upper middle class layer which has benefited from Affirmative Action programs over the last several decades. They seek to convince workers who happen to be black that their interests can be advanced by supporting layers of the ruling class who happen to be black. We see the outcome of these politics in the elevation of Obama, who has presided over the greatest transfer of wealthto the richin US history. Working class women are supposed to back Hillary Clinton, the candidate of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus, because she is a woman. As for working class white men well, they deserve whatever outrages come their way.
It is the right-wing evolution of the Democratic Party and the upper middle class social layer that forms its political base that allows a figure like billionaire Donald Trump to present himself as an anti-establishment candidate who will defend the interests of ordinary people.
Covert's reading of this racialist perspective into American history serves the ultimate function of not only obscuring their history but also of pitting workers against each other. The notion that workers have separate interests based on their race or gender is a political fiction that can withstand neither an examination of the reality of life in the United States nor the great history of class struggle of American workers. The advancement of the interests of the working class continues to be bound up with the fight to overcome the divisions promoted by the ruling class, whether this is from the right-wing or the so-called left.
On Wednesday, retired British general Sir Alexander Richard Shirreff, NATOs deputy supreme allied commander in Europe between 2011 and 2014, published 2017: War with Russia .
In a speculative work, Shirreff argues that Russias annexation of Crimea inevitably sets the stage for wider conflict. He writes that Russia, in order to escape perceived encirclement by NATO, will seize territory in eastern Ukraine, open up a land corridor to Crimea and invade the Baltic states. His scenario names Latvia as the first of the Baltic countries to be invaded and even pencils in the approximate date--May 2017.
Before joining NATO, Shirreff served in Northern Ireland, Iraq and the Balkans. He claims his narrative is closely modelled on his NATO experience of war-gaming future conflicts. He used the book launch at Londons Royal United Services Institute to argue for a massive military buildup of NATO forces in the Baltic. Plans are already in place to begin such an escalation following a NATO summit in Warsaw in July.
Shirreff states his belief that Russian President Vladimir Putin would threaten nuclear action if NATO attempted to intervene in a Russian invasion of the Baltic countries, writing: Be under no illusion whatsoever--Russian use of nuclear weapons is hardwired into Moscows military strategy.
The claim that Russia is the aggressor, and not the imperialist powers encircling it, is repeated in the foreword to Shirreffs book by US Admiral James Stavridis, former supreme allied commander in Europe. He writes, Under President Putin, Russia has charted a dangerous course that, if it is allowed to continue, may lead inexorably to a clash with NATO. And that will mean a war that could so easily go nuclear.
Shirreff has become an open critic of the ruling Conservatives, decrying their lack of readiness for nuclear conflict with Russia. The right-wing Tory Daily Telegraph is promoting his book and conducted an interview Tuesday, highlighting his assertion that Britain has become introspective and self-absorbed. The Telegraph states that the book criticises the demise of Britains standing on the world stage and its creeping unwillingness to engage militarily overseas.
He said Britains recapture of the Falklands in 1982 had impressed the world, including Russia, but that was now being lost by a government terrified of being seen to commit.
Shirreff highlighted comments made by Prime Minister David Cameron in 2014 that Britain should avoid sending armies to fight, stating that the impact on allies and potential adversaries was profound. Shirreff elaborated, A country famous for once walking softly and carrying a big stick now had a leadership that shouted loudly but, thanks to ongoing defence cuts, carried an increasingly tiny and impotent stick.
Shirreff complained that the massive public spending cuts needed to fund increases in military spending have not been carried through with sufficient brutality. Britain is now little different from any other semi-pacifist European social democracy, more interested in protecting welfare and benefits than maintaining adequate defences, he said.
Shirreff related a dispute in 2014 with then-Defence Secretary Philip Hammond after the general wrote a piece in the Sunday Times questioning cuts to the armed forces. The defence secretary was so infuriated at being questioned in public that I was summoned by General Sir Peter Wall, the chief of the general staff and head of the army, and told that the defence secretary wanted formal action against me. He continued, However, formal action would have involved a court martial and, fortunately for the latters political reputation--it also seems he had not appreciated that I reported to NATO and not to him--wiser counsel had prevailed.
Shirreff was a participant in a BBC production, World War Three: Inside The War Room, aired in February. The premise of the film was that as international tensions reached a boiling point, a committee of senior former British military and diplomatic figures comes together to war game a hypothetical hot war in Eastern Europe, including the unthinkable--nuclear confrontation.
They discuss a scenario in which Russia launches a tactical nuclear strike against British and American vessels in the Baltic Sea, destroying two ships with 1,200 British Marines and crew killed. In response, Washington launches a nuclear attack on a military installation in Russia.
A more aggressive stance towards Russia has become part of daily military planning, with Britain, as NATOs largest military power in Europe, intimately involved in all its machinations. The 1991 dissolution of the USSR and the restoration of capitalism throughout Eastern Europe left the Russian-administered Kaliningrad region cut off from any land route to the rest of Russia. The territory is surrounded by Poland to the south and Latvia to the north and east, both of which have subsequently become members of NATO. As a result, any Russian military plane flying to and from Kaliningrad must fly over the airspace of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, making it a target for NATO intercepts.
In recent months, Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft have stepped up interceptions of Russian aircraft. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the RAF scrambled Typhoon fighters to intercept five unidentified Russian jets approaching the Estonian border. The MoD said the Typhoons shadowed two Su-27 Flanker fighters and an IL-20 Coot-A reconnaissance aircraft north of Estonia before two more Su-27s were detected and locked onto.
This follows an incident just days before, on May 13, when Typhoons from the Amari Air Base in Estonia were scrambled to intercept three Russian transport aircraft approaching the Baltic.
In April, four RAF jets were deployed to join the Baltic Air Policing (BAP) mission, operating alongside Portuguese F16s from Siauliai in Lithuania. BAP is a NATO exercise in which alliance members without their own air policing assets are assisted by other members in four-month cycles. This was the third consecutive year that UK jets have taken part in BAP. On the last occasion Typhoons were stationed as part of the NATO mission, they were scrambled 17 times to intercept over 40 Russian aircraft. During one launch last July, Typhoon fighters intercepted 10 separate Russian aircraft, including eight fighters.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said at the time, This is another example of just how important the UKs contribution to the Baltic Air Policing Mission is. We were able to respond instantly to this act of Russian aggression--a demonstration of our commitment to NATOs collective defence. We will continue to secure the Baltic skies on behalf of NATO and our allies.
The presence of RAF warplanes over towns and cities across Britain is becoming a regular occurrence. On April 21, four aircraft in formation--two Typhoons from RAF Leeming and two French AF Rafales--flew across northern England heading towards Wales. This was part of a two-week combined training exercise between UK and French forces. The exercise, dubbed Exercise Griffin Strike, was the latest operation of the Combined UK and French Joint Expeditionary Force and involved 5,000 military personnel.
The exercise saw British and French warships manoeuvring off the south and west coasts of England. On Salisbury Plain, the Armys 3 (UK) Division and French 7th Mechanised Brigade, including armoured units and infantry, trained together.
The operation took place as more than 3,400 NATO troops from across Europe and the US took part in Exercise Joint Warrior, mainly off the coast of Scotland.
On Thursday morning, San Francisco police officers shot and killed an unarmed woman who had been driving a car that police suspected was stolen. Within hours of announcing the death, Police Chief Greg Suhr announced his resignation at the request of Mayor Ed Lee. This purely cosmetic gesture will do nothing to address the class roots of police violence in San Francisco.
The woman, who has not yet been identified, was sitting in a parked car in the Bayview neighborhood of the city and allegedly drove off when police approached her, immediately crashing into a truck and becoming stuck. Two unidentified officers claimed that she was not responding to commands and one of them shot her once in the chest as she tried separate the two vehicles. She was taken to San Francisco General Hospital where she died.
No weapon was found on the woman and the officers have not claimed that she presented a danger to anyone. This was the third fatal shooting of a suspect in San Francisco in the past six months and comes shortly after new revelations of widespread racism and criminality in the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). Protesters have been demanding Suhrs resignation for several months, including a 17-day hunger strike that ended earlier this month.
Suhr, who was appointed chief by Lee in 2011, had always refused to resign, claiming he was carrying out important reforms to the department.
In a press conference at City Hall Thursday afternoon, Mayor Lee told reporters: I have previously expressed confidence in Chief Suhr because I know he agrees with and understands the need for reform, but following this mornings officer-involved shootingI have arrived at a different conclusion to the question of how best to move forward. Later, Suhr announced his resignation, saying of the shooting, This is exactly the kind of thing, with ongoing reforms, that we are trying to avoid.
These ostensible reforms included $17.5 million proposed by Lee to train officers in de-escalation techniques after police shot and killed 45-year-old Luis Gongora in April. Police claimed that Gongora, a homeless man, had lunged at them with a knife, but surveillance footage near the shooting showed police rapidly approaching Gongora with guns drawn and firing within 30 seconds of getting out of their cars.
That killing followed the slaying of 26-year-old Mario Woods in December 2015. Woods had been suspected of assaulting a man earlier in the day, and had a knife when he was surrounded by police. Again police claimed Woods presented an immediate threat, but video taken by bystanders showed Woods completely surrounded and walking slowly when police shot him 20 times.
These are just the most recent cases of police killings in San Francisco in recent years which include Amilcar Perez-Lopez, who was shot in the back by plainclothes officers who claimed he was lunging at them with a knife; and Alex Nieto, a City College student who was killed when police mistook a Taser he had for a gun. No officers have been prosecuted in these cases.
In addition to these killings, nearly 20 officers have been directly implicated in two different exposures of racist and homophobic text messages. In April this year, text messages of Officer Jason Lai to at least four other officers were released showing regular use of racial slurs and disparaging remarks against African-Americans, Indians, Hispanics, and Asians. Lai is himself of Chinese descent. One of the more extreme texts referred to black people protesting the Baltimore police killing of Freddie Gray as a pack [of] wild animals.
Far from being an aberration, a similar set of texts with Sgt. Ian Furminger at their center, were revealed in February 2014, implicating at least 14 officers. These texts talked about burning crosses and encouraged the killing of half-breeds. Captain Jason Fox was the highest-ranking officer identified in this scandal.
In both cases, the racist texts were only brought to light in the process of unrelated investigations into the officers criminal activity. Lai was under investigation for sexual assault. Although prosecutors declined to press charges on that accusation, he was eventually convicted of illegally accessing Department of Motor Vehicle records for personal reasons. Furmingers texts were discovered in an investigation of his theft of drugs and money from residents in the citys impoverished Tenderloin district. Furminger was convicted on four felony counts in February 2015.
More broadly in law enforcement, three San Francisco County sheriffs were charged in March of this year with forcing prisoners in the county jail to fight and betting on the results.
One of the particularly striking facts about the SFPD scandals is the racial diversity of the officers involved. Lai, of Chinese descent, was texting his hatred for black people to officers making disparaging remarks about Asians. Furminger, who is white, was texting racist remarks to the Hispanic and black officers he was engaging in criminal activity with. Two of the officers involved in killing Mario Woods, an African-American, were themselves black.
The racist views of individual cops are the manifestation of a more fundamental antipathy of the police force towards the working class as a whole. In the more impoverished parts of San Francisco, law enforcement exists as a particularly well-armed and financed gang that kills and robs with impunity.
While some protesters have presented this as the result of a racist culture among San Francisco police, the racism of individual officers is a symptom of the far broader rise in police violence nationally that cannot be explained by race, but rather by class. According The Guardian there have been a total of 390 people killed by police so far this year, nearly three a day.
The Lincoln University and Newcastle University students unions have voted to disaffiliate from the National Union of Students (NUS).
Ballots at Exeter and Sussex universities on the same question narrowly returned a vote to remain. Other student unions planning disaffiliation votes include Warwick, Hull, Cambridge, Worcester, Loughborough, Oxford and York.
Calls for university unions to separate themselves from the NUS became widespread following Aprils conference in Brighton, which saw the election of Malia Bouattia to the position of president with 50.9 percent of the vote.
Touted by the pseudo-left groups as a left candidate, based largely on the fact that she is the first Muslim female NUS president, Bouattia is an advocate of the reactionary identity politics that predominates in the NUS leadership. She is a leading member of the Why is my curriculum white? campaign, which seeks to divert philosophical, sociological and historical study away from the central questions of class and objective truth towards a postmodern agenda based on race, gender and sexuality.
The campaign, which purports to promote inclusiveness, was initiated by the NUS at the University College Londonone of the most selective universities in Britain. It claims that whiteness was fundamental to the development of capitalism and has underpinned the development of European science, modernity, and Enlightenment thinking.
Such ahistorical, irrational and racialised policies have opened the way for an assault on the NUS from the right, based upon demands that universities and student bodies commit themselves unreservedly to the promotion of the interests of British imperialism. Referring to statements Bouattia had made in the past on the issue of Zionism, the media and various politicians have branded her an anti-Semite. These attacks were run in parallel with the witch-hunt against supposed anti-Semites within the Labour Party that led to its leader Jeremy Corbyn suspending Ken Livingstone for his criticisms of Israel and Zionism.
Aimed at repressing any critique of the right-wing Israeli regime and its onslaught against the Palestinians, Bouattia has been condemned for describing Birmingham University as something of a Zionist outpost and referring to Zionist-led media outlets in the UK. Bouattia has stressed that her comments were directed at support for the criminal conduct of the Israeli government and not the religion of Judaism, but the condemnations continued.
Labour MP John Mann, who played a lead role in the provocations against Livingstone, attacked the NUS for not doing enough to combat anti-Jewish hatred.
The Conservative Party is playing a leading role in the attack. The right-wing Spectator magazine made claims to the effect that Bouattia had refused to condemn Islamic State in an NUS motion and was closely related to radical Muslim organisations. She was accused of refusing to back a motion condemning ISIS and of working with the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, which was banned from university campuses in 2004 due to anti-Semitism charges.
At Cambridge, Birmingham, Manchester and Kings College London (KCL), motions were either submitted or strongly supported by Conservative Party student organisations or individuals closely associated with them. At Manchester and Birmingham, motions were backed by Conservative Future. The disaffiliation campaign at KCL was headed by Joshua Boyle, previous president of the Conservative Society. At Cambridge University, Connor MacDonald, a committee member of the Conservative Association, criticised NUS for its hard-left political stance, saying that the union no longer dealt with the interests of students, but focused on pedalling a left-wing ideology, according to a Varsity report.
An article on the Conservative Home blog by its editor, Mark Wallace, characterised the NUS as a bastion of the loony left and claimed Bouattias election was reflective of the increasingly deep sympathyand sometimes co-operationbetween Trotskyists and Islamists, finding common ground under the excuse of fighting imperialism.
The suggestion that Bouattia is a Trotskyistor anything closeand that genuine Trotskyism has anything in common with reactionary Islamist terrorism is a slander. What Wallaces comments indicate is a growing concern among such layers at popular opposition to militarism and war, and the accompanying onslaught on social and democratic rights.
For many years, the NUS functioned as a political safety valve for student protest, with many leading Labour Party bureaucrats cutting their teeth in its leadership policing political discontent. Its former presidents include, for example, Jack Straw, the former foreign and home secretary, former home secretary Charles Clarke, right up to the more current crop including Jim Murphy, Wes Streeting and Aaron Porter.
But under Labours leadership, the NUS has increasingly operated as a business operation working in close cooperation with the universities, which themselves are now significant corporate entities. An amalgam of self-absorbed non-political individuals, business careerists and political careeristslargely based on gender and racial politicsthe body has consistently opposed any broader mobilization against the attacks on education and young people introduced by successive Labour and Conservative governments.
At the same time, policies such as Safe Spaces and No Platforming are utilised to suppress free speech, most notoriously to try to prevent WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from speaking against the war crimes of US and British imperialism, and their witch-hunt against him.
This has alienated many students from the NUS. It was in an attempt to redress this situation that a number of pseudo-left groups at the April conference presented motions calling on the body to actively mobilise against the government.
Unlike in previous years, the right wing, including the widely discredited Labour Students, were unable to prevent the motions being carried. This meant that the NUS agreed to organize a demonstration against the hike in tuition fees in the autumn and condemned the marketisation of education. The NUS has also opposed the bombing of Syria while Bouattia has criticized the governments Prevent scheme in education, which justifies political and ideological surveillance of students on the grounds of preventing their radicalization.
Writing in the Huffington Post, final year law student, David Browne, complained that Bouattia had campaigned on the basis that the NUS conference was not about the NUS; instead, it appeared to be about almost every other group in society (Tories excepted of course), and essentially that the NUSs job was to be an all-encompassing, marching protest movement.
I would submit that there are many far-left protest movements she could lead if she so wishes, he went on, a body that is supposed to represent the definitive national voice of students and campaign for their interests should not be one of them.
This is at the heart of the right wings attack on the NUS. It is one that the body is organically incapable of opposing. Turnouts thus far in the campaign have been extremely lowranging from a high of 30 percent to just 6 percent. Even at Exeter, the vote to remain in the NUS was carried by just 88 votes.
Responding to the Cambridge disaffiliation campaign, Elinor Clapson, chairwoman of the Cambridge Universities Labour Club, stated: Oh lord I have concerns about Malia Bouattia too but can't deal wth [sic] budding outraged middle class white man crusade to disaffiliate from NUS.
This is typical of the responses in defence of Bouattia, which confine themselves to celebrating the election of a Muslim woman rather than alerting students and young people to the political motives behind the disaffiliation campaign. The Yes to NUS campaign at Exeter chose to list as its five main points for continued participation in the NUS: the NUS Extra card, savings at university shops, commercial benefits for the Exeter Union, training for Exeter Union officials and claims that Exeter has greater political clout as part of the national organisation.
Those arguing in favour of the NUS are motivated by concern that the ruling elite might otherwise lose its grip on student activism. The afore-mentioned former NUM president, Labour MP Streeting, called on moderate, mainstream students to reclaim control of NUS. Porter, who oversaw the demobilisation of opposition to tuition fee rises and the abolition of Educational Maintenance Allowance, has called on the NUS to restore its close relations with the government established under his presidency.
Young people face a future of war and austerity. To counter this, they require a genuinely socialist organisationone that bases the fight against militarism and the constant assault on social and democratic rights on the mobilization of the working class for a revolutionary struggle against capitalism. We encourage all students and young people to consider the International Youth and Students for Socialist Equalitys statement of principles and join in the struggle to build this movement.
In a clear signal that the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) are moving to sell out the strike by nearly 40,000 workers against Verizon Communications, 88 Congressional Democrats have issued a statement expressing their concern over the walkout.
The letter begins by praising management, citing the companys success and its ability to be profitable throughout the changes that have taken place in the telecommunications industry. It then reprises the position of the union, denouncing the lack of a negotiated contract and plans by Verizon to send jobs to the Philippines, Mexico and other locations overseas or outsourced to low-wage, non-union domestic contractors.
It then calls on Verizon to be committed to hiring and retaining the skilled staff necessary to complete the buildout of its FiOS broadband service in a timely manner in all markets. Expansion of FiOS, the unionized sector of Verizon, has been a major demand of the CWA and IBEW.
Significantly, the statement says nothing about Verizons demands to increase health care costs for active and retired workers. Nor does it mention the companys effort obtain the power to shift workers to distant locations for months at a time.
The release of the statement follows the intervention of the Obama administration, which convened talks in Washington this week under the auspices of a federal mediator. President Obamas National Labor Relations Board has also intervened to secure a court injunction barring workers from picketing hotels housing strikebreakers.
Obama, Congressional Democrats, the CWA and IBEW are intent on wrapping up the Verizon strike before it becomes the catalyst for a broader movement of the working class. There are indications that strikers are winning broad public sympathy under conditions in which workers living standards have been under relentless attack by the supposedly liberal and progressive Obama administration.
The news blackout on the talks imposed by the IBEW and CWA is an affront to workers right to know what is happening behind closed doors. Workers have the right to the full details of the talks and all offers and counteroffers. The silence by union officials further underscores the necessity for workers to take the conduct of the strike into their own hands by organizing an independent strike committee to fight for the broadest possible mobilization of the working class.
Another factor creating pressure for the unions to call a quick end to the strike is that strikers in New York state will soon be able to collect unemployment benefits. This would take some of the economic pressure off workers trying to survive on the miserly weekly strike checks of $300 provided by the unions. The CWA alone is sitting on a $400 million defense fund.
The World Socialist Web Site warns Verizon workers not to be railroaded into returning to work without a ratified contract. Workers must have access to the full text of any agreement and be given the chance to study its details before any ratification vote.
Verizon workers contacted by the WSWS Verizon Strike Newsletter expressed opposition to the intervention by the Democrats. Glenn, a Verizon striker with 25 years from upstate New York, said, I keep telling everyone we cant go back to work without a signed contract. Obama wants to cut this off before it becomes larger. Why stop now? We are only a few days before our unemployment starts. We are in a much different position than in 2011. The public support is unbelievable. We have had teachers and Teamsters walking the picket line.
Another Verizon striker from Baltimore said, I feel that going back without a contract should be voted on by the members. If it is voted on, I would vote no. I think we need at least a clear framework before we go back.
The intervention by Democratic Party officials takes place under conditions of continuing violence against strikers. On Thursday, a security guard driving a Mercedes Benz hit two Verizon strikers in a company parking lot in Long Island. One of the workers was sent to the hospital with a broken leg.
These were the fourth and fifth workers to be struck on the picket line by police, security guards or scabs. Two strikebreakers have been arrested, one in Queens and one in Massachusetts, for ramming pickets with their vehicles. In the incident in Queens, the driver of a van ferrying scab replacement workers was reportedly a police lieutenant. He has not charged.
A further indication of the advanced preparation by the CWA and IBEW to impose a sellout was the recent attempt by CWA officials in Brooklyn to bar WSWS reporters from the Verizon picket line and prevent reporters from speaking to striking workers.
Glenn said he was outraged by the attempt of the CWA to ban the WSWS. What is more outrageous is when you went to Brooklyn and they told you to get lost. That is an attack on First Amendment rights. A lot of workers think like I do. Your articles have been spot on. We need to make sure that we dont get suckered into a rotten deal.
You have to keep an eye on those at the bargaining table who are supposed to represent you. We would like time to review any contract that comes down. Why should we leave our position of strength? Lets do this intelligently or the strike will have been in vain.
The pressure by Democrats to end the strike comes amid indications that the walkout is beginning to have an impact on Verizons bottom line. Wells Fargo cut its second quarter and 2016 revenue and profit margin estimates, citing the impact of the strike on Verizons operations.
Up to 8,000 oil workers were evacuated from camps north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Monday after the wildfire that destroyed large parts of the city earlier this month expanded rapidly.
The fire has grown in size significantly this week, rising to 505,000 hectares on Thursday and crossing the Saskatchewan boundary. The Blacksand Executive Lodge, capable of housing 655 workers, was destroyed by fire Tuesday.
Many of the workers were being evacuated for a second time in less than two weeks, having only arrived back in the area days before as the oil companies sought to quickly restart production following the evacuation of 90,000 Fort McMurray residents.
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley unveiled a conditional timeline for residents to return to the city Wednesday, saying that this process would begin June 1. The first step will see residents returning on a voluntary basis, before all residents join them June 15. She said that this was dependent upon the fire no longer threatening the city, the hospital being open and able to provide basic health services, 911 service being available and fire and police services operational, all roads being open to traffic and utilities restored, and supplies of potable water and food being provided.
Notley added that schools would not reopen until September. A total of 2,432 buildings were destroyed in the city, and over 500 were severely damaged. A further 10 homes were damaged in an explosion Monday night.
No serious damage has been reported to the regions tar sands facilities, which are surrounded by large firebreaks and equipped with teams of industrial firefighters.
The catastrophe provoked by the wildfire is a product of the capitalist systems ruthless pursuit of profit at all costs. Multibillion-dollar windfalls have been obtained by the major oil corporations through the vast expansion of the tar sands operations over recent decades.
Fort McMurray, which exploded from a small town with a population of just 35,000 in 1990 to over 100,000 at the peak of the oil boom in 2014, exemplifies the way in which basic social services and infrastructure were sacrificed to cut costs. While every conceivable measure has been taken to protect the tar sands production facilities, the ruling elite saw the workers as disposable assets. The lack of preparedness for wildfires was exacerbated by the impact of climate change and a strong El Nino effect.
Even as workers were rushed back into the region to restart production, reports indicated how unsafe the Fort McMurray area remains. On Monday morning, the provincial government reported air contamination rates were off the charts, reaching a reading of 38 on a scale that normally runs 1 to 10. It rose even higher, to 51, on Wednesday morning. This prompted an order for all firefighters and other emergency workers in Fort McMurray to wear gas masks, while Alberta Health Services ordered other workers planning to return to the area to help with recovery work not to do so. There are several hundred workers in the city attempting to prepare the hospital for reopening at the end of the month, and others reconnecting electricity and gas supplies.
Scientists are also warning that local water supplies will be contaminated with hazardous materials, and that rain will make the problem worse by washing ash and other debris into the Athabasca River, from where Fort McMurray obtains its water supply.
Many of the oil workers compelled to be frantically evacuated as the fire closed in this week explained they had no option but to return to work, even if conditions were unsafe. Lucy Fitzgerald, a Suncor employee, who like many moved from Canadas east coast to work in the tar sands, told CBC, Its a day-by-day thing right now, and thats all I can do. Its either that or go home, and stay home, and I cant afford to do that right now.
Others spoke out anonymously about their frustration at the oil corporations pursuit of profit, which had seen workers sent into an active emergency zone. Yeah, without a doubt. They lose so much money a day that thats all they see, a contractor told the Globe and Mail .
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rejected from the outset any attempt to provide a political explanation for the disaster, sharply criticizing the suggestion by Green Party leader Elizabeth May that climate change may have played a role.
This has won him plaudits in ruling circles, who see the crisis as an ideal opportunity to build public support for pipelines to enable the large corporations to transport oil from Albertas tar sands to tidal water. CBC enthused over the positive media buzz surrounding Trudeaus May 13 visit to Fort McMurray and Edmonton, and pollster Bruce Cameron commented that it was refreshing to see discussion about the oil sands that did not concentrate on environmental problems or climate change, but the human face. Far from being concerned with the lives of ordinary residents, he laid out what for him was significant about this, stating, It could have longer term implications in terms of making a human face for the oil sands.
More information continues to come to light about the utter lack of preparedness at all levels of government, despite repeated warnings about the wildfire risk.
Over 70 percent of the Alberta governments FireSmart budget, which is supposed to be dispersed to local communities to support fire mitigation measures, has remained unspent since 2014. Of the total funding of $23.6 million received by the Forest Resource Improvement Association of Alberta between 2014 and 2016, only $6.9 million had been allocated. This translates into 71 cents of every dollar remaining unspent.
Even more troubling was the rejection rate for communities who applied for funding. Of the 223 applications sent in by 80 communities from across the province in the past three years, only 113 were approved. Most of those declined because projects were deemed ineligible. However, the provincial government continues to insist that local communities must take the lead in wildfire preparedness.
This comes on top of the cuts to provincial wildfire budgets, including the New Democatic Party (NDP) governments slashing of the contracts for air tankers used to fight fires just three weeks prior to the Fort McMurray evacuation. The move means that as of August 16, Alberta will have no air tanker coverage in place, even though the fire season runs well into October.
At the federal level, persistent warnings have also been ignored. Jim Carr, the Liberals natural resources minister, received an explicit warning about the growing wildfire risk in briefing notes last year when he entered office. A 2005 wildfire strategy agreed by the federal and provincial governments is effectively stalled due to lack of funds.
Compared with the vast wealth extracted from the tar sands, the resources made available by the authorities to support the evacuees have been paltry. The Alberta government has paid $1,250 to every adult and $500 to each dependent, while the Red Cross, thanks to over $65 million in donations from across the country, paid out $600 per adult and $300 per dependent.
The Edmonton Emergency Relief Services Society, which is running the main evacuation camp at Northlands, has stated there is a desperate need for donations to keep up with demand.
The critical task of distributing the basic necessities of life to thousands of families trying to get by with little financial resources has fallen to volunteers. The society issued a call Tuesday for more to come forward. More than 4,000 have assisted at a makeshift distribution centre set up at an Edmonton mall. We would never be able to [do] it without the volunteers, they are our legwork and heart of what is going on, a coordinator told the Edmonton Journal. We do have to stress enough that we still cannot continue to be able to maintain and help as many evacuees without their ongoing support.
The cramped conditions in the camps have contributed to the rapid spread of stomach sickness. On Monday, it was reported that 281 evacuees had contracted a gastrointestinal illness, an increase of 138 percent in six days. Its very hard to keep it from spreading, said Joanna Oda, a medical officer with Alberta Health Services. This is not unexpected. This is what happens when many people are gathered in smaller places.
6 years, 5 months ago by Scott Hardy
Former part-time Kahoka police officer to be sentenced June 20
A former Kahoka, Missouri police officer has been found Guilty of threatening her teenage daughter with a gun last summer.
43 year old Michele Miller was found Guilty of misdemeanor domestic assault Thursday by Judge Karl DeMarce after a one-day bench trial in Scotland County court. Miller was said by authorities to have pointed a gun at her daughter early last August.
Miller, who was fired as a part-time Kahoka police officer after the incident, remains free on 25 hundred dollars' bond. She'll be sentenced by Judge DeMarce on June 20th.
MORVEN, Ga. (WTXL) - Citizens in South Georgia celebrated what makes Georgia the peach state.
The Morven Peach Festival is almost 30 years in the making and attracts more than just peaches. Every year the event boasts unique fair style foods including it's famous alligator on a stick.
The day also brought arts and crafts, live dance and music. Organizers say this combination demonstrates how the small town in South Georgia can make a big impact.
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U.S. prosecutors on Friday sought to unseal the to-date secret criminal case of an Islamic State defector after NBC News broadcast an interview with the New York man in which he spoke out against the militant Islamist group.
Unsealing the case could allow the U.S. Justice Department to make public details of why the man turned against Islamic State at a time when the government is trying to combat the group's online propaganda.
The government has reached an agreement on four new principles regarding the stability clause of the gas deal and will likely approve them on Sunday. According to these principles, future governments will have the option to review and amend the gas deal legislation.
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The High Court of Justice required the cabinet to write a new stability clause for the gas deal and it responded, making the gas deal a semi-binding piece of legislation. The solution was reached after the court ruled that the promise of regulatory immunity in the current form of the gas deal was unacceptable.
Leviathan gas field (Photo:Albatross)
The Energy Ministry said that after its minister,Yuval Steinitz, and representatives of Delek and Noble, the main stakeholders in the Leviathan gas field, met to discuss the new stability clause, the latter expressed its satisfaction with the proposed amendment.
Steinitz said, "Following many long hours of work, we succeeded in reaching an appropriate alternative to the stability clause in accordance with the principles established by the High Court, which aim to create a regulatory environment and encourage investment. I hope that the development of the Leviathan gas field that started last January will continue now in accordance the original schedule agreed upon in the gas deal. Moreover, I hope that Israel's economic waters will be reopened to gas and oil explorations by more international energy companies."
In a statement, a Noble representative said its talks with the government have allowed it "to formulate stability language which enables us to continue to progress the Leviathan project on timelines previously indicated."
Reuters contributed to this report.
Over 40 years after breaking the local boycott against Israel and offering to house a makeshift Israeli embassy on his personal property, Singaporean businessman Seow Kee Quek visited the Jewish state for the first time this week.
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I am now 70 years old. It took me about 41 years to get to the place that I gave a small help to, Quek told Tazpit Press Service (TPS).
The small help refers to Queks bold decision to rent space in the 1970s to the Israeli government on the 4th floor of the Oversea Union Bank building, owned by the Quek family a prominent family in the island city-state. As a landlord, Quek even took a loss in forgoing high returns on the rent, he told TPS.
Quek meets with the deputy defense minister
None of the major property owners wanted to permit a space and every single one was afraid of local terrorism and backlash by the Muslim community, explained Rodney Rahmani, a Jewish American friend and business partner of Quek who joined him on his visit to Israel.
Mr. Seow Kee Quek personally stepped up and against the entire old money establishment in Singapore, made his opinion known that it is the duty and obligation of all Christians and moral people of the world to stand with Israel, Rahmani added.
I was frankly a little bit worried, Quek told TPS. But I knew that with Gods help nothing bad would happen.
The building at 15 Scotts Road was chosen for the new Israeli contingent, Quek explained, because it housed a bank and a vault underneath, and it was secure.
Quek, a member of Singapores Christian minority, described the tumultuous period of conflict after Singapores founding in 1965 amid violence with the countrys neighbors, Malaysia and Indonesia.
There was bombing at the time in Singapore, Quek said. We had lots of trouble, and Israel was in the center of it, actually.
The founding prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, revealed in his autobiography how Israel had been instrumental in creating the Singapore Armed Forces. Following its independence in November 1965, Singapore turned to several countries with a request for military consultants and material aid, including India, Egypt, and the United Kingdom. However, only Israel consented to help the newly formed nation, wrote Lee Kuan Yew.
At the time, however, the Israeli involvement was a closely guarded secret. Quek recalled with a chuckle how the founding prime minister spoke in interviews of Mexicans providing the young country when in fact the help was coming from Israel.
He couldnt say Israelis because we are completely surrounded by Muslims countries, and it was very sensitive, Quek told TPS.
Things have changed since then, as evidenced by last months visit to Israel by Singapores prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, son of the founding prime minister.
During his trip this week, Quek visited Bethlehem, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem where he met with Deputy Defense Minister Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan. Quek professed that he was very surprised to meet the rabbinically bearded Ben-Dahan.
As a rabbi, I could hardly picture how he could be in the position of deputy defense minister, Quek told TPS. He looks to me like Santa Clause hes so saintly and so sweet and smiley. How can a man like that be put in such a serious position? Quek wondered.
On the subject of security, Quek was quick to say that he found Israel to be a thriving and secure country. Yet he also had some words of encouragement for the Middle Easts embattled democracy in its conflict with the Palestinians.
Singapore has made four different races with four different religions live in peace, Quek told TPS. I dont see why the most intelligent people, Gods chosen people, cannot work this out with the Arabs.
Egypt and Israel are close to reaching a compromise deal over $1.73 billion owed to the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) because of the non-supply of Egyptian gas to Israel since February 2011. According to a Bloomberg news agency report, Egypt will pay the IEC $865 million over 14 months.
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The sum of the compensation was determined in arbitration hearings between the two countries, which lasted many years, following Egypt's unilateral violation of its contract with the Israeli company.
Electrical lines (Photo:Gettyimages)
In 2008, Egyptian gas started flowing through a pipeline from al-Arish to Ashkelon. But, in February 2011, during the "Arab Spring," Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power and the pipeline was blown up. Thereafter, Egyptian authorities repaired it and gas began flowing from anew, but unknown attackers carried out additional and repeated bombings of the pipeline until it was permanently put out of service.
If indeed the compromise deal is signed, it will open the door to the implementation of a number of gas agreements between Israel and Egypt, which have been stalled for more than two years.
Staff at the Auschwitz museum have uncovered jewelry secretly hidden in an enamel mug since the liberation of the wartime Nazi death camp in 1945.
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The mug, one of thousands of kitchenware items seized by Nazi guards from those deported to the camp in southern Poland during World War II, was found to have an inside double bottom, under which a gold ring and necklace wrapped in a piece of canvas were hidden.
The objects, believed to have been made in Poland in between 1921 and 1931, were discovered during maintenance of the museum's enamelled kitchenware exhibits.
Mug and jewelry from Auschwitz (Photo:Reuters)
"When I picked up this mug, it turned out that there were hidden objects inside," museum staffer Hanna Kubik said.
"With time, the fake bottom had detached from the cup, so it was clearly visible that inside there was a bundle and you could see a fragment of the chain and a ring."
Between 1940 and 1945, about 1.5 million people, most of them Jews, were killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau in occupied Poland.
Those sent there had belongings taken away upon arrival, many of which are on display today.
Many hid valuables inside items the museum says are still being discovered years later. However, their owners often remain anonymous because of the lack of traces on the objects to identify them.
The museum, which says it has more than 12,000-enamelled kitchen items -- like cups, pots, bowls, kettles, jugs -- in its memorials collection, said the jewelry would now be stored in "in the form reflecting the manner in which it had been hidden by the owner."
Mammootty's Rorschach hits all the right notes, except in the end | Movie Review
The Egyptian military on Saturday posted the first photos of debris of EgyptAir flight 804, which crashed into the Mediterranean on its way to Cairo from Paris on Thursday, killing all 66 people on board.
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The photos appear to show the heavily-damaged remains of plane seats, life jackets -- one of which is seemingly undamaged -- and a scrap of cloth that looks to be part of a baby's blanket or sleeping bag.
The Egyptian military announced Friday that it had found debris in the eastern Mediterranean, around 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Alexandria.
First photos of EgyptAir flight remains.
Analysis of the debris is likely to be key to determining what happened to the flight.
Meanwhile, France's air accident investigation agency said Saturday that the EgyptAir jet sent a series of signals indicating that smoke had been detected on board before it crashed into the Mediterranean.
A spokesman for the BEA agency said the signals did not indicate what caused the smoke or fire on board the plane. But they offered the first clues as to what unfolded in the moments before the crash. One aviation source said that a fire on board would likely have generated multiple warning signals, while a sudden explosion may not have generated any.
First photos of EgyptAir flight remains.
"These messages do not allow in any way to say what may have caused smoke or fire on board the aircraft," said a spokesman for the French BEA agency, which is assisting an official Egyptian investigation.
He added that the priority now was to find the two flight recorders, containing cockpit voice recordings and data readings, from the Airbus A320 which vanished from radar early on Thursday.
First photos of EgyptAir flight remains.
The flight data was sent through an automatic system called the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which routinely downloads maintenance and fault data to the airline operating the aircraft.
Aviation website Aviation Herald published a burst of seven messages broadcast over the space of three minutes. These included alarms about smoke in the lavatory as well as the aircraft's avionics area, which sits under the cockpit.
First photos of EgyptAir flight remains.
While suggesting a possible fire, the relatively short sequence of data gives no insight into pilot efforts to control the aircraft, nor does it show whether it fell in one piece or disintegrated in mid-air, two aviation safety experts said.
The aircraft was carrying 56 passengers, including a child and two infants, and 10 crew, EgyptAir said on Thursday. They included 30 Egyptian and 15 French nationals, along with citizens of 10 other countries.
First photos of EgyptAir flight remains.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault was due to meet relatives of passengers in Paris on Saturday.
It was the third blow since October to Egypt's travel industry, still reeling from political unrest following the 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak.
A suspected Islamic State bombing brought down a Russian airliner after it took off from Sharm el-Sheikh airport in late October, killing all 224 people on board, and an EgyptAir plane was hijacked in March by a man wearing a fake suicide belt.
The UN Security Council and Western donors have urged Somalia's parliament to speed up approval of new election rules to ensure an August vote is held on time, saying delays put recovery from conflict at risk.
Somalia, slowly rebuilding after decades of violence and still battling an Islamist insurgency, is due to elect a new parliament, whose members will in turn pick the president.
"The United States is increasingly concerned about delays in the 2016 Somali electoral process," the U.S. State Department said on Friday, adding the "legitimacy of Somali federal institutions" depended on a transparent and timely transition.
The exchange of blows continued between Labor leader Isaac Herzog and former leader MK Shelly Yachimovich on Saturday, with Herzog harshly criticizing Yachimovich's conduct during his join Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
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Herzog bemoaned the fact that Yachimovich, according to him, had called him a "dog."
"Saying that someone who speaks with the prime minister is a dog who walks on all four, while that person is making efforts to prevent bloodshedI have serious concerns with what Shelly Yachimovich has been doing over the past few weeks," he said.
Shelly Yachimovich vs. Isaac Herzog (Photo: Motti Kimchi, Gil Yohanan)
Herzog also claimed that Yachimovich had repeatedly told him that she was in favor of joining the government, and then immediately came out against him in the press.
"In a political body, there are basic rules; it is not acceptable to call a leader a 'dog who walks on all four,'" he said.
Yachimovich leveled unprecedented scathing criticism at Herzog on Tuesday, claiming that "Netanyahu threw Herzog a bone and ordered him to retrieve it on all fours. His 'offer' should have been categorically rejected."
She later denied having referred to Herzog as a "dog."
Herzog was met with fierce criticism from his own Labor party to his efforts to join the government. Eventually, the talks fell through, and Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beytenu joined the government instead.
Despite the harsh criticism, Herzog clarified on Saturday that he has no intention of resigning. "I have no intention of giving that pleasure to these people by resigning," he said.
Herzog also spoke about the diplomatic process that would have been launched, had he joined the government: "With the unveiling of the diplomatic process on which I worked hard with Prime Minister Netanyahu and international officials, Israel would have address the Arab peace initiative positively for the first time, and would have been able to negotiate with Arab states about it for the first time ever. Such a development would have undoubtedly changed the face of the region."
He also stated he had no intention of negotiating with Netanyahu again. "The problem with Netanyahu is that, in the end, it has been proven that when he stands in the face of a historic decision, he fails to make it and always blinks first. I told to overcome his fears. I also have fears, but I believed (this was possible). Negotiations with Netanyahu are not on the agenda. They are completely over and behind us. There is no reason to believe in Netanyahu."
BAGHDAD- At least four anti-government protesters were killed and 90 injured when security forces ejected them from Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, hospital sources said on Saturday.
Iraqi security forces used live ammunition, rubber bullets, water cannons and tear gas on Friday to dislodge the demonstrators from the central district which houses government buildings, parliament and many foreign embassies.
The toll, compiled from four hospitals where casualties were taken and Baghdad's central morgue, accounts only for gunshot wounds and does not include cases of suffocation caused by tear gas.
YENAGOA- Former militants have called for a halt to a resurgence of attacks on oil and gas facilities in Nigeria's Niger Delta, saying it is an unnecessary distraction for President Muhammadu Buhari's administration.
The defunct Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), a group of former militants who previously targeted the oil-rich region, made the call in a statement late on Friday.
Buhari said on Friday he had heightened the military presence in the region where attacks in the last few weeks - mostly claimed by a group calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers - have driven the country's oil output to a more than 20-year low.
As early as 1976, at a time when those in positions of power rarely, if ever, considered the needs of the Israeli LGBT population, Supreme Court President Emeritus Aharon Barak met with representatives of the community to address their concerns as the then-attorney general.
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In his years as president of the Supreme Court, he continued to support the LGBT community and penned several precedent-setting rulings that expanded their rights. Barak's contributions have not been forgotten, and he is to receive an award for his actions at the beginning of June.
As a justice, Barak headed the court that allowed female partners to adopt the other female partner's children in the interest of the child, forbade discrimination based on sexual orientation regarding rights and benefits in the workplace, including against employees' partners, and nullified the rule that required unmarried women requesting sperm donations to undergo a psychiatric exam and social-worker evaluation. Over the years, these rulings have constituted precedents in various courts' subsequent judgments that provided justice to the LGBT community.
Aharon Barak (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
The timing of this award is symbolic: Barak will receive it at the book release event for "LGBTQ Rights in Israel: Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation and the Law," the first textbook addressing the legal aspect of the LGBT community in Israel. It was edited by Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Prof. Alon Harel, Yaniv Lushinsky and Einav Morgernstern.
Barak wrote in its preface, "The constitutional structure recognizes the right of every person to human dignity, regardless of sexual orientation. Thus, every person has the right to change their sex. Every person belonging to the LGBT community is entitled to human dignityLegislation that does not permit an individual in the LGBT community to fully realize their right to human dignity and civil and social rights is unconstitutional, unless it is proportionate."
The Aguda - The Israeli National LGBT Task Force said that, while politicians were slow to legislate for the benefit of the community, the court was considered progressive in its rulings on these issues.
BEIRUT- Activists say seven members of the same family were killed in an airstrike by the U.S.-led international coalition against the Islamic State group on the northern Syrian village of Arshaf.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that monitors the Syria conflict through local observers, says warplanes seen to cross into Syrian airspace from Turkey bombed the IS-held village, killing the seven family members, among them five women and a child.
The Local Coordination Committees activist network says 10 people in the village were killed in the strike.
WASHINGTON- A group the White House recently identified as a key surrogate in selling the Iran nuclear deal gave National Public Radio $100,000 last year to help it report on the pact and related issues, according to the group's annual report. It also funded reporters and partnerships with other news outlets.
The Ploughshares Fund's mission is to "build a safe, secure world by developing and investing in initiatives to reduce and ultimately eliminate the world's nuclear stockpiles," one that dovetails with President Barack Obama's arms control efforts. But its behind-the-scenes role advocating for the Iran agreement got more attention this month after a candid profile of Ben Rhodes, one of the president's top foreign policy aides.
In The New York Times Magazine article, Rhodes explained how the administration worked with nongovernmental organizations, proliferation experts and even friendly reporters to build support for the seven-nation accord that curtailed Iran's nuclear activity and softened international financial penalties on Tehran.
BEIRUT - At least 60,000 people have died in Syrian government prisons over the past five years due to either torture or dire humanitarian conditions such as lack of food, a monitor said Saturday.
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The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, Rami Abdel Rahman, said he compiled the toll from regime sources.
"Since March 2011, at least 60,000 people lost their lives to torture or to horrible conditions, notably the lack of medication or food, in regime detention centers," Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Syrian prisoners being tortured by Assad loyalists
He said the highest number of deaths had been recorded in the infamous Saydnaya prison as well as detention centers run by Syria's notorious air force intelligence and state security forces.
Thousands of prisoners are held in the military-run Saydnaya prison, one of the country's largest detention centre located 18 miles north of Damascus.
Rights groups have accused Syria's government of systematically using torture and inhumane practices in its detention centers. A UN probe in February accused the Syrian government of a policy of "extermination" in its jails.
The Britain-based Observatory says it has compiled a list of 14,456 names -- including 110 children - who have died in regime prisons.
According to Abdel Rahman, government forces have arrested a total of 500,000 people since Syria's conflict erupted in 2011.
Syrian prisoner tortured by the Assad regime (Photo: AFP)
While some have been released and others died, the whereabouts of thousands of detainees remain unknown.
Abdel Rahman also said that "several thousand people" have died while being held by rebel groups and jihadist factions like the ISIS group.
In early 2014, a regime defector calling himself "Caesar" smuggled out of Syria some 55,000 photographs depicting the tortured and abused bodies of around 11,000 people who had reportedly died in Syrian jails during the first two years of the conflict.
Earlier this month, the UN special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura named Eva Svoboda to oversee progress on the issue of detainees.
Shlomi Askira is the CEO of Project Resisim, an Israeli group leading the dialogue on the IDF, warfare, and bereavement. The project's volunteers challenge the culture of silence surrounding battle trauma and call on the Israeli public to examine the effects of war on Israeli society and to advance a culture of sharing and processing war experiences.
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Askira served as a division commander in the Nahal Brigade during the Second Lebanon War and was part of a unit that was sent in to rescue injured soldiers during the Battle of Wadi Saluki. Although ten years have passed since the end of that battle, it is still with him every day.
"One of the memories which stayed with me is receiving a call on the radio saying that another group was hit, and that there were dead and wounded. I was taking one of the bodies of the soldiers out of the warzone on a stretcher. When we lifted the stretcher up, one of his red boots hit me in the head. It was something which really affected me, and I feel like I'm experiencing it to this day," Askira said.
Head of Resisim Shlomi Askira (Photo: Asaf Magal)
The Resisim volunteers collect, listen, and record the stories of these soldiers and their families with the belief that sharing these stories will have an impact on the personal, social, and cultural levels. Additionally, the project organizes ceremonies on Israel's Memorial Day and has a running club which meets once a week in Jerusalem
Speaking to the Resisim Project was the first time that Askira felt that he was able to share his story.
"Resisim doesn't deal with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), because that's a medical condition. We deal with the wider population , those who lived through battle, who don't have any medical conditions and who weren't physically injured. I am not diagnosed with PTSD. But I do go to therapy, and I know how to fully express that my experiences in battle do indeed affect me."
Askira added, "There is a taboo in Israeli societypeople are worried to say 'I need help' out loud. They feel that they don't have anywhere to speak, because maybe they weren't war heroes who received state recognition or medals, or because they weren't physically injured, or because they weren't on the front lines."
Reut Stoller, 28, was an IDF educator in the Egoz Special Forces unit. Two months after she enlisted, the Second Lebanon War broke out, and she was moved to a new role: going to all the funerals of all of the soldiers who died during the war, heading the funerary processions, and laying a wreath on the grave of the soldier. Ten years afterwards, she still deals with the feelings from the difficult memories of those funerals.
Reut Stoller (Photo: Asaf Magal)
"No one thought to ask that it's like to be an 18-year-old girl, standing on the moist, freshly dug soil, with yet another coffin and yet another wreath," Stoller said. "To be the first one at the grave, to listen to more people crying, another 'El male rahamim' (Jewish funeral prayer), another time hearing the Yizkor memorial prayer. Going to the hospital in Nahariya and seeing the injured soldiers lying there with their thousand-yard stares on their hospital beds in their hospital gowns, still covered in blood from battle. The soldiers come back and don't talkbecause you're not supposed to talk about what happened."
Stoller's story, the story of someone who wasn't on the front lines but was still affected by war, of someone who still is nervous about talking about their feelings and about the pain they've been through, is one of the many consequences of the war on the human soul and the social imlications of this subject in Israeli society.
"You say to yourself, what did you go through? You didn't go through anything," Stoller continued. "Ten years after the war, I cry the same tears that I wouldn't let myself cry then."
Ravid Cohen (Photo: Asaf Magal)
Ravid Cohen, 27, served as a combat paramedic in the Gaza Division during Operation Cast Lead, where he dealt with dozens of injured. One of the most difficult experiences he had in the war was during a multi-casualty event involving dead and wounded. He still remembers and smells the battlefield and the screams of the wounded the piles of used bandages and puddles of blood on the ground.
Cohen shared, "I always felt that the feelings I had were abnormal and irrational, and I was embarrassed by them. After I began to share my experiences, I understood that there are other people who feel like me, and that everything I felt was natural," Cohen said.
In an attempt to improve relations between Jerusalem and Cairo, Israel will return Egyptian antiquities that were brought into the country by antiquities looters for the first time on Sunday.
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This development follows Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's call on Israelis to not give up on the opportunity for peace on Tuesday.
The items to be returned are two ancient sarcophagus lids. They were seized four years ago by inspectors from the Antiquities Robbery Prevention Unit during an inspection in market shops in Jerusalem's Old City. The lids are made of wood and covered with a layer of plaster. They are ornately decorated with paintings and hieroglyphics.
The lids were seized on suspicion of being stolen property. After expert verification that included carbon-14 dating to determine the age of the wood, the items were found unequivocally to be authentic.
Egyptian mummy sarcophagus (Photo: AFP)
One lid dates from between the 8th and 10th centuries BCE (the Iron Age), and the second is dated from between the 14th and 16th centuries BCE (the Late Bronze Age)
Because of the artifacts' rarity and organic components, they have been kept and preserved at the Israel Antiquities Authority's Jerusalem laboratories in climate-controlled storage. Wood sarcophagi of this type had previously only been found in Egypt and were preserved thanks to the region's dry desert climate.
It is suspected that Egyptian antiquities robbers looted ancient tombs in the Western Desert in Egypt, and afterwards the vandals smuggled the lids from Egypt to Dubai.
From there, they found their way to Israel en route to a different country in Europe.
After locating the ancient sarcophagi, the Egyptian authorities submitted an official request to Israel to return the stolen lids.
With relations between the two countries improving, Israel has decided to grant the request, and the rare sarcophagus lids will be handed over on Sunday to the new Egyptian ambassador, Hazem Khairat, in a ceremony at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem to be attended by representatives of the Israel Antiquities Authorities and senior officials from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Nobody on the planet can deny the role played by batting legend Sachin Tendulkar in shaping Indian cricket during the last two decades with his astonishing achievements. He is one of the few role models in Indian society who, with the bat in his hands, has charmed a nation even in the face of adversity.
He made people forget their agony, the day-to-day struggles, and problems of caste, creed and religion. When he bats, he unites India, irrespective of different political view-points. It can be safely said that he has been the most uniting factor in a diverse society like ours.
Sachins contribution to the game and towards nation building has been gigantic to say the least. So much has been written about him, its really a Herculean task for any cricket writer to pen down something new about the man who is known for his impeccable public image. It may sound cliched but there is no denying the fact that he is the almighty in a country where cricket is a religion. You will rarely find people who dare to criticise the God.
Sachin has crossed 35 years of age and his body has been taking the toll of international cricket for many years. Thus, there is nothing wrong if he sometimes takes a break from the hard-fought international cricket. We have seen several times in recent years that he made himself unavailable for some ODI tournaments.
The Little Master even decided to take voluntary retirement from international Twenty20 cricket. In all the decisions, he has found the entire country rallying behind him. As a cricket writer I too supported the man who has done the country proud on numerous occasions. I knew that all the decisions he has taken were for the interest of the country as it would prolong his international career, which ultimately would help India.
But, I find it somehow peculiar that the same man, who needs rest to prolong his international career, plays tournaments like the Indian Premier League and Champions League Twenty20 for Mumbai Indians, hardly skipping a single match. Its really surprising that the tournaments, which dont even have ICCs complete backing, are being played by Sachin when he should reserve his energy to play for the country. I really feel that the Master Blaster is doing no good to the interest of the country by playing in such tournaments, which will ultimately shorten his international career.
Sachins decision also sets a very bad example in front of the young generation who put money ahead of the love of playing for the country. You cant blame Rohit Sharmas and Virat Kohlis if they take their respective IPL franchisees more seriously and remain nonchalant about the pride of the country.
Being a die-hard fan of Sachin, it pains me when he skips playing for India but at the same time takes part in the cash-rich tournaments like IPL and CL T20. It pains me even more when I find that nobody questions Sachins decision of putting an IPL franchise ahead of the country.
I know that this piece may provoke an angry reaction from Sachins fans, but what I have mentioned is worthy of pondering over.
Patna: Former union minister and senior Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Lok Sabha MP Mohammad Taslimuddin on Saturday launched a tirade against Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over the deteriorating law and order in the state, saying that he is not even fit to be a `mukhiya` and therefore should forget about becoming a prime minister.
"There is no law and order in the state. Nitish Kumar is not even fit to be a `mukhiya`, forget about being a prime minister. They are falsely claiming that law and order has improved in the state. They have created false facts on crime rate but it reveals through media though," Taslimuddin told ANI.
"He has looted lot of funds of Bihar. What is he doing he is roaming outside. He should look after Bihar first. I want the RJD-JDU alliance to break today itself if possible, but its Lalu ji`s decision," he added.
Earlier also, Taslimuddin, a five-term MP who represents Araria in Lok Sabha, had said Kumar has failed to rein in the spate of killings that have taken place in recent past in the state.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been attacking the grand alliance in Bihar after the murder of two journalists, one in Bihar and the other in neighbouring Jharkhand. Senior reporter of a Hindi-daily `Hindustan`, Rajdeo Ranjan, was killed in Bihar`s Siwan district on Friday evening by unknown assailants near the railway station.
The journalist was shot from close range in the head and the neck.In Jharkhand, a journalist was shot dead by unidentified people at Dewaria in Chatra district.
A police official said, Akhilesh Pratap Singh, 35 who worked for a news channel, was gunned down near panchayat secretariat of the village on previous Thursday night.
The killing comes days after a brutal road rage case, in which suspended JD(U) MLC Manorama Devi`s son Rocky shot dead a class XII student, Aditya Sachdeva, in Gaya for overtaking his SUV.
Shimla: Twenty-two people were killed and over 20 injured when a state-run bus and a car fell into deep gorges in two separate accidents in Himachal Pradesh.
The mishaps occured in Kinnaur and Shimla districts.
In the first incident, the car in which 14 people were travelling rolled down into a 300-foot deep gorge near Bada Kamba on Chaura?Kamba link road in tribal Kinnaur district, police said.
They were returning late last night after leaving a newly wed at her in-laws' place. Twelve persons died on the spot in the accident and one succumbed to injuries on way to the hospital while the lone survivor jumped out of the falling vehicle, police said.
The brother of the bride and the vehicle's driver were among the deceased, they said.
District administration officials reached the spot and all the bodies have been recovered.
The vehicle was "overcrowded", police said, adding that an investigation is on.
In the second incident, the HPSTC bus was on its way to Tharoch from Chopal when it fell into a deep gorge near Bajroli Bridge in Theog sub division of Shimla district, police said, adding that nine persons, including the driver and conductor, were killed in the mishap.
Deputy Commissioner of Shimla, Rohan Thakur, said that four persons identified as Sukh Ram, Reena Devi, Promila and driver Parvinder died on the spot while five other succumbed to injuries on their way to the hospital.
He also said that as many as 20 people who were admitted to a hospital in Theog have been referred to Indira Gandhi Medical College, Shimla.
The district administration has given an immediate relief of Rs 50,000 to the families of the deceased. Police said they are trying to ascertain the cause of the accident.
Chennai: With few voices inside the Congress pitching for a major change in the party in the wake of the disappointing results in the Assembly polls in four states, senior leader Veerappa Moily on Saturday said that the grand old party has the greatest sense of resilience to bounce back.
"In politics, success and defeat is always in cycle. Even in the worst of crisis, we came out of the crisis immediately and we succeeded in elections. This is the history of the Congress. We have greatest sense of resilience, we can always come back," Moily told ANI.
"We won Pondicherry and overall, we have won double the seats than that of the BJP," he added.
Moily also said, the Congress winning back to back for three terms in Assam was a success.
"We have lost Assam, which we run for almost 15 years, that means it was a success. After those three terms people wanted a change. we admit our failure there, but we will bounce back after some time," he added.
When asked on a possibility of entry of Priyanka Gandhi into politics, Moily said that it was for the leadership to take a call.
"That is for the leadership to decide who should come back. But the Congress has a very strong leadership in the form of Rahul Gandhi and also Sonia ji, and we are in a position to come back," he added.
Congress leader Digvijay Singh pitched for a `major surgery` in the party after its dismal performance in the Assembly polls in four states.
Tharoor, an MP from Kerala, echoed Singh`s comments saying the party as a whole has to move beyond this cliched business of introspection into some serious action.
He added that young leaders need to find more space in the party.
The Congress lost power in Assam and Kerala and the alliance with DMK didn`t work in its favour in Tamil Nadu.
New Delhi: Days after the news reports that a phone number in the name of Maharashtra BJP minister Eknath Khadse was the most-dialled number by the underworld don and India's most-wanted fugitive Dawood Ibrahim, Maharashtra government on Saturday ordered a probe into the case.
Based on the information revealed by a Vadodara-based ethical hacker Manish Bhangale, the India Today had telecasted a report that frequent calls were made from Dawood's number to a mobile number in India, registered on the name Maharashtra BJP leader.
Bhangale had hacked the details of 4 phones registered in the name of Dawood's wife Mehjabeen Shaikh.
The BJP leader has denied the allegations and claimed that neither he nor any of his family members ever talked to Dawood. However, he accepted that the phone number in question does belong to him.
Meanwhile, Khadse's political rivals have launched an attack on him and demanded his resignation. Demanding his resignation, NCP and AAP have demanded an investigation into the allegations.
New Delhi: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) class 12 results for all 10 regions were announced on Saturday with girls again performing better than boys.
Sukriti Gupta of Montfort School in Delhi has topped the CBSE 12 result 2016, securing 99.4 percent marks.
Gupta, a science stream student, scored full marks in Physics and Chemistry while she got 99 out of 100 in English, Mathematics and Computer Science each. Her aggregate marks were 497 out of 500.
Palak Goyal of Tagore Public School at Kurukshetra in Haryana stood second in the all India ranking, securing just one mark less than Gupta. Her aggregate marks were 496 out of 500 - or 99.2 percent.
The third place was secured by Somya Uppal of St. Theresa's Convent School at Karnal in Haryana and Ajish Sekar of P.S.B.B Senior Secondary at K.K Nagar in Chennai, both getting 99 percent marks.
In the differently-abled category, Mudita Jagota of DAV Public School at Faridabad in Haryana stood first with 97 percent marks while Siddhartha Biswas of Kendriya Vidyalaya School at R.K. Puram here came second and Rakshit Malik of Amity International School at Noida in Uttar Pradesh stood third.
Minister of Human Resource Development Smriti Irani took to Twitter to congratulate the toppers.
Hearty congratulations to all CBSE students who have cleared class XII today, especially the toppers Sukriti, Palak, Somya & Ajish. Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) May 21, 2016
As per the CBSE, the passing percentage of girls stood at 88.58 compared with boys which was 78.85.
Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala recorded the highest percentage of passing with 97.61 followed by Chennai in Tamil Nadu with 92.63 percent.
Around 10,65,000 students had appeared for the examination that began on March 1 and concluded on April 22.
(With IANS inputs)
New Delhi: About 350 people die every day on India`s roads - more than any other country - with those under 18 and two-wheeler riders most vulnerable, according to various data.
An Airbus A-320 carries roughly 180 passengers, so the daily death toll on India`s roads is almost double that figure. "If (two) planes full of people crashed every day, wouldn`t the situation get more attention," asked Piyush Tiwari, founder and president of Save LIFE, an advocacy that has used Right-To-Information queries to disaggregate traffic-death data.
Indians under 18 years constitute 11.93 percent of traffic fatalities, according to a 2014 Save LIFE RTI query. The toll primarily stems from rash driving, below-global-standards roads and a shunning of safety - either deliberately or through ignorance.
It was in February that Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari told Parliament that 130,000 people die in 500,000 mishaps on Indian roads.
In 2015, a World Health Organization (WHO) study said India did not meet international standards of road safety, the areas of vulnerability being over-speeding, not using helmets, not using or misusing seat-belts (mandatory for the last 28 years) and the lack of child restraints.
The study rated India`s enforcements in these critical areas as 4/10.
"Even those who strap themselves in when seated in front often are not concerned when seat belts are not used by passengers at the back," said Tiwari. "They overlook the fact that in case of an accident, people in the back seat are often deadly projectiles, hitting the windshield and harming those strapped in front too."
Children suffer most in accidents, holding baby in arms is unsafe
A year-old baby was cradled in its mother`s arms, as most babies travelling in Indian cars are. When the driver slammed on the brakes, the child flew out of the window and died instantly.
Mohammed Imran narrated the death of a relative`s child to illustrate the widespread ignorance across India about using a car seat for children.
"While it`s true that a car seat is expensive, (a basic model can cost Rs.4,000, most are imported), I always feel that money is not the issue here," said Imran, founder of the Safe Road Foundation, an advocacy. "When you can afford a car, why not a car seat?"
Car seats, he said, are not enough. You must know how to use one. For instance, infants should use rear-facing infant seats, toddlers front-facing seats and older children booster seats.
"One must first challenge the attitude that a child is safer in his mother`s arms and make car seats readily available across the country instead of selling these only in select stores," Imran said.
Two-wheeler riders most accident-prone, as the tide of vehicles grows
Two-wheeler riders are clearly most vulnerable, according to 2013 WHO data. As many as 34 percent of two-wheeler users who died in accidents - nearly three times the number who died in car accidents - did not wear a helmet.
India`s rising, chaotic traffic makes them even more vulnerable. India had 15 million cars in 2014, or 13 per 1,000 people, according to 2014 report from The Energy and Resource Institute. Overall, that is not a lot - Brazil had 249 cars per 1,000 people, Thailand 206, China 83 and the US 797, according to the data.
But the density of cars is higher in burgeoning metropolitan cities: Delhi had 157 cars per 1,000 people, Mumbai 35, Bangalore 85 and Chennai 127.
The rise of distracted driving makes things worse
Apart from traffic density, distracted driving is becoming commonplace, despite the four-fold increase in crash risk when you drive while speaking on a mobile phone, Tiwari said.
Distractions and over-speeding without police checks explains why India is rated 3/10 on enforcement, according to the 2015 WHO report. Controlling and setting speed limits requires a nationwide upgrade, now that roads are better and vehicles faster.
"Many of the current speed limits are based on road parameters that existed in the 1960s and 1970s," said Tiwari. "So, even if you do stick to the speed limits, often, these are impractical and unviable."
Battling addiction, a new challenge on highways
Harman Singh Sidhu has been battling the state governments of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan - and liquor vendors in these states - for three years in courts to prevent liquor sales on India`s national highways.
"There is no specific law that prevents liquor vendors from selling along India`s highways," said Sidhu, president, ArriveSAFE, an NGO based in Chandigarh. "And this is despite evidence that 40 percent of India`s accidents occur from drink driving."
There were as many as 185 unauthorised liquor shops along a 291-km stretch of the Panipat-Jalandhar National Highway linking Haryana and Punjab, according to an RTI response filed by ArriveSAFE in 2012.
Drivers along these highways battle other addictions too. In an effort to stay awake, many consume a stimulant called poppy husk, an issue that requires greater awareness and advocacy and which ArriveSAFE is engaged in addressing.
New Delhi: BJP lawmaker Eknath Khadse on Saturday rejected allegations that regular calls were made to him from Dawood's mobile phone, saying that those who had the underworld don's number should have gone to the police first.
If they knew the phone number was of Dawood then why they didn't go to police? There must be something fishy going on, Khadse said.
The Maharashtra BJP minister said, the entire world is after Dawood. If they found out the number, they should have informed the police first.
People who have levelled allegations, how did they know Dawood's number? This should be enquired, he said, adding, In the last one year, no international call was received or made from my phone.
He said that baseless allegations were levelled against him.
The Maharashtra government on Saturday ordered a probe after some media reports claimed that Khadse's phone number was the most-dialled number by India's most-wanted fugitive Dawood Ibrahim.
Dawood's number was revealed by Vadodara-based hacker Manish Bhangale, who had hacked the details of four phones allegedly registered in the name of Dawood's wife Mehjabeen Shaikh.
The Dawood phone hack story was widely reported in the media.
The BJP leader has denied the allegations although he accepted that the phone number in question does belong to him.
The opposition NCP and AAP parties have demanded his resignation.
New Delhi: After creating history in Assam and Kerala in the Assembly Elections 2016, the Bharatiya Janata Party is gearing up for Lok Sabha Elections due in 2019.
The Assembly Election Results declared on May 19, 2016 were an affirmation of BJP president Amit Shahs campaign strategy and a revival of the national party in the state Assembly Elections after the Bihar and Delhi debacles.
The BJP, backed by two allies, crushed the Congress in many of its traditional bastions to script its maiden election victory in Assam. This is for the first time that the BJP could form a government on its own in the country's northeastern region.
Also, the party's improved performance in West Bengal and Kerala have not only come as a major reprieve to Prime Minister Narendra Modi but would also help empower party president Amit Shah, whose capabilities as "poll strategist" had come under scathing attack.
Talking to The Times of India, Amit Shah said the Assembly poll results have proved that whoever goes with the Congress loses. Like in Tamil Nadu, the DMK's success ratio is 56%. The Congress success is 19%. The Congress pulled down the coalition.
He further said that the BJP's base and work is on the rise in seven states - Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, West Bengal and Assam. I am confident that by the time 2019 comes we will convert our support into seats.
Shah further hailed the NDA government's schemes. The PM turned the Petroleum Ministry, seen as a corporate ministry, into a people welfare ministry. The Jan Dhan accounts were used for direct transfer of subsidies (Pahal) and this stopped theft of subsidy worth Rs 14,000 crore. Then the PM made a moral appeal to the well-off to voluntarily give up subsidies on LPG.
No one can provide full employment for 100 crore people. Self-employment is the solution. So, we have the Mudra bank. In the past year, Rs 1 lakh crore loans were disbursed. In the current fiscal, this will go to Rs 1.8 lakh crore. Some 5 crore youths will be employed.
The elated BJP president noted that there have been seven elections since the Modi sarkar assumed office. Of these, we won five, in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir and now Assam. We increased our votes in Bihar. In Delhi, we lost, but saved our vote percentage.
The Congress party is now left with power only in six states -- Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram. It is to form government in Puducherry, after winning the elections there.
New Delhi: An anonymous caller on Saturday made a call to the National Investigation Agency, threatening to blow up highly-guarded residences of Prime Minister Narendra Modia and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
The man claimed that he has planted the bombs at the PM and CM's residences.
The security officials were sent into a tizzy after they received a call from a man.
The call later turned out to be hoax.
A senior police official said the call was received around 12.30 PM at the control room of the National Investigation Agency, which informed the matter to the police immediately.
Several teams, with bomb disposal squads, were rushed to the Prime Minister's 7, Race Course Road residence and the Kejriwal's residence at Flagstaff Road in Civil Lines.
"Thorough checks were conducted in both places but nothing was found. It was a hoax call," the official said, adding Delhi Police's anti-terrorism unit Special Cell was also informed about the matter.
The call was made through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service and efforts are on to trace the man behind it. A case is also likely to be registered in connection with the matter, the official added.
Earlier this week, a man had called up the police control room threatening to have planted bombs in Rashtrapati Bhavan and undisclosed locations in central Delhi.
The man later was tracked down in southwest Delhi's Sagarpur area and turned out to be a drug addict who had called up the control room seeking former city police commissioner B S Bassi's phone number. When refused by the operator, he claimed having planted bombs.
(With PTI inputs)
President Barack Obama will host Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House on June 7, as the pair try to flesh out nascent trade and security ties.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Modi`s visit would "highlight the deepening of the US-India relationship in key areas since the president`s visit to New Delhi in January 2015."
"The President looks forward to discussing progress made on our climate change and clean energy partnership, security and defense cooperation, and economic growth priorities."
This will be Modi`s second White House visit since his Hindu nationalist party won a sweeping victory in 2014 polls.
Obama has assiduously courted the Indian premier, cultivating a strategic relationship seen as a counterweight to an increasingly assertive China.
It has been a dramatic transformation for a man who in 2005 was denied a visa to the United States on human rights grounds.
He had served as chief minister in his home state of Gujarat, when anti-Muslim riots killed hundreds.
But turning Obama and Modi`s warm words into concrete agreement has proven difficult.
A proposed bilateral investment treaty has languished for years, as New Delhi has taken a tough negotiating line.
Talks have been stalled over several issues, including the lack of protection for foreign firms in disputes with the Indian government.
"I think there is a reasonable chance we will see the leaders re-commit to engaging in BIT negotiations," said Rick Rossow of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, predicting limited progress.
India`s economy is rapidly growing, but poverty remains pervasive and foreign investment has lagged behind China, Brazil and even advanced economies like Ireland.
Modi, who faces reelection in 2019, has pegged his political future on a reform agenda and boosting the economy.
Observers say there could be more progress on security and energy cooperation.
A series of technical steps could allow the men to announce US nuclear companies entering the potentially lucrative Indian market.
In 2005, then-president George W. Bush lifted a three decade long moratorium on nuclear cooperation with India, introduced after the country developed a nuclear bomb.
The issue had been a major hurdle to relations between two of the world`s largest democracies.
Modi has made nuclear energy a priority, to offset horrendous levels of air pollution that is worsened by the dominance of coal-fired power plants and reduce dependence on foreign gas and oil.
A series of military agreements linked to support and logistics could also be signed by the two leaders and could pave the way for deeper military cooperation.
Many of the agreements have been stalled for years by India`s concerns about weakening the ability to act alone militarily.
Modi will also address a joint session of Congress on June 8.
Modi was invited to address the US Congress by Republican speaker Paul Ryan, who called the US-Indian relationship "a pillar of stability in a very, very important region."
Washington: A rare red carpet welcome awaits Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Capitol on June 8 when he will address a joint meeting of the US Congress, the first by a foreign leader this year.
This includes a rarest of the rare lunch hosted by Speaker Paul Ryan at the Capitol, meeting with the top Congressional leadership and a unique reception thrown in his honour jointly by House and Senate foreign relations committees in association with the two India caucuses.
Modi's joint address to the Congress - the first by a foreign leader in 2016 and the first of House Speaker Ryan - is likely to be attended by Vice President Joe Biden and several Cabinet members of the Obama Administration in a rare show of solidarity and support for the Prime Minister, Congressional sources told PTI.
In an increasingly rancorous Congress, the invitation to Prime Minister Modi was one of the rare bipartisan act. Leaders of both the Republican party, which controls both the House of Representative and the Senate, and the Democratic party of the President Barack Obama, teamed together to invite Modi to address a joint session of the Congress, sources at the Capitol Hill said.
Given the sharp differences between the Republican and Democratic leadership and this being an election year, it is likely that Modi would be the only foreign leader to address a joint meeting of the US Congress this year, they pointed out.
Unlike in the past wherein a joint address by a foreign dignitary is restricted to this event only, Hill sources said that the Congressional leaders have so far chalked out as many as four back-to-back events for Modi on June 8 at the Capitol Hill.
The information is according to an itinerary of Modi's schedule chalked out ? part of which is still being developed - by the top Congressional leadership.
Modi's engagement at the US Capitol is expected to be kicked off by a meeting with the top leaders of the Congress including House Speaker Ryan; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
Thereafter, Modi would address a joint meeting of the Congress, wherein he is expected to lay out his vision for relationship between the world's largest and oldest democracies.
There is a great enthusiasm among Senators and Congressmen to attend the historic address, a Congressional aide said, based on the response from the lawmakers for Modi's joint address.
Manmohan Singh was the last Indian Prime Minister to address a joint meeting of the Congress on July 19, 2005.
Earlier addresses have been by Atal Bihari Vajpayee (September 14, 2000), P V Narasimha Rao (May 18, 1994) and Rajiv Gandhi (July 13, 1985).
Mumbai: The Shiv Sena on Saturday criticised its ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for harping about its performance in the recent Assembly elections and said that it is still far from its objective of 'Congress-mukt' India.
BJP could win only Assam, while the Left front bagged Kerala, Trinamool Congress swept West Bengal, AIADMK managed to retain Tamil Nadu and the Congress-DMK alliance accounted for Puducherry, said the Shiv Sena.
Don't "grab all credit" for the results of the assembly elections in five states, it said, adding, "It is erroneous to say that the people have wholeheartedly supported the performance of the BJP government at the centre in the past two years.
"If that was so, then besides Assam the people of the other four states should also have endorsed the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government, its vision, its policies," the Sena said in a sharp editorial in its mouthpiece Saamana.
That did not happen and the fact was that in each of the four other states -- Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry -- the parties fought the elections on their own independent local agendas which helped them emerge victorious, IANS reported quoting the editorial.
"Tomorrow, if Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton win in America or if Nawaz Sharif returns to office in Pakistan, can it be attributed to the performance of the Modi government?" the Sena asked sarcastically.
The editorial criticised the BJP top brass for attributing the results of the elections to the good work of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
The Sena on Friday had said the BJP could not defeat the leaders of regional parties and even in Assam its victory came in alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP).
The BJP was content merely by "opening accounts" in West Bengal and Kerala, drawing a blank in Tamil Nadu despite its all-out efforts, and Congress returning to power in Puducherry, the Sena had said.
Though the `Congress-mukt` India was a laudable objective, the election results proved the BJP failed to achieve this, said the Sena.
"If we discount Assam where it achieved full majority (`100 percent BJP`) with AGP support, in the other four states, it did not even come up `One Percent BJP,`" said the Sena.
"Yet the victory in Assam has invigorated the BJP like a new birth in the family after many years, but four other babies are also born in the neighbourhood," the Sena said, ridiculing the BJP`s claims.
So the BJP could not claim credit in these four states (barring Assam) for making them `Congress-mukt` as the performance of the regional parties and their leaders was fully supported by the people.
The Sena said history is witness that one cannot destroy the Congress even when it is down, citing the example of the four seat won by the Congress in the recent by-elections to Delhi`s municipal bodies.
"You must watch out - the Congress`s tail will continue to wag in some or the other part of the country; so, even when that party is completely down, it cannot be ruled out," the Sena warned.
Srinagar: At least five militants were gunned down in a joint operation by police and the army in north Kashmirs Kupwara district on Saturday.
Four army jawans were injured in the nine-hour long gunfight.
After a tip-off about the presence of militants in Kupwara's Drugmulla village, a joint team of police and army had cordoned-off the area.
Five terrorists were gunned down in the ensuing gunfight.
Citing an army official, the Indian Express reported that as the security forces were conducting a search operation, the holed-up militants fired upon them.
The security forces retaliated, triggering an encounter, the official said. Intermittent firing was going on when last reports came in, the reported quoted the officer as saying.
Thiruvananthapuram: CPI-M veteran VS Achuthanandan on Saturday said he would continue to play the role of a "sentinel" of the people of Kerala, a day after the party unanimously nominated Pinarayi Vijayan over him for the chief minister's post.
Achuthanandan, who called a press meet this morning to announce that he was stepping down as the Opposition leader, refused to be drawn into any matters relating to the selection of party politburo member Vijayan as the new LDF chief minister.
"I will continue as a sentinel of the people of Kerala by upholding the spirit of the Left and taking up people's issues," 92-year-old Achuthanandan, a tireless fighter against corruption and corrective force within the party, told reporters shortly after the Chief Minister-designate made a courtesy call on him at his residence.
Achuthanandan, who was the LDF's face in the campaign during the May 16 Assembly polls, evaded questions on whether he was sidelined.
"This is not the time for any such questions. I have called you (media) as I am formally demitting the office as Opposition leader and to thank you for all the support you have given to me," he said.
Asked about reports that he would be given some top post, he replied, "You know that I don't expect such things."
The CPI(M) veteran said the people of Kerala expect LDF to bring out the truth behind the various scams of the previous Congress-led UDF government.
"People also believe that the new LDF government will put behind bars those involved in the murder of Dalit law student at Perumbavoor in Kochi recently," Achuthanandan said.
He said the people expect the LDF government to complete the state's dream projects like Kochi Metro, Kannur International Airport and SmartCity IT in a time-bound manner.
The nonagenarian said he will be very much in the state capital when asked if he would be shifting to his home town in Alapuzha.
Achuthanandan in his trademark style ended the press conference saying "good bye...good bye...good bye".
There were reports that Achuthanandan was unhappy at not being anointed as Chief Minister after being instrumental in giving the front such a resounding victory.
He was elected from Malampuzha constituency in Palakkad by a margin of 27,142 votes.
LDF secured 91 seats and Congress-led UDF 47 in the 140 member-assembly, while BJP bagged a single seat in the May 16 Assembly polls.
Colombo: Foreign aid began arriving in Sri Lanka on Saturday, bringing help to half a million people who have been driven from their homes by heavy rains and landslides that have killed at least 71.
The heaviest rains in a quarter of a century have pounded Sri Lanka since last weekend, triggering huge landslides that have buried some victims in up to 50 feet (15 metres) of mud.
The number of people missing now stands at 127.
Residents clung to ropes as they battled to cross torrents of water pulsing through the streets of the flooded capital Colombo, with some forced to take shelter in rickshaws.
India has sent a military plane carrying emergency supplies to Colombo while Japan has also rushed in aid on a commercial flight, the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry said.
The Indian government has provided inflatable boats, outboard motors, diving equipment, medical supplies, electricity generators and sleeping bags, officials said.
Two Indian naval ships were also expected shortly at the port in the capital while Australia and the United States have made cash donations to help the victims.
Floodwater levels in parts of the capital subsided slightly overnight, officials said, but heavy downpours on Saturday prevented many from moving back to their homes on the banks of the Kelani river.
"Colombo did not receive any significant rain last night and the water levels of the Kelani went down slightly," Disaster Management Centre spokesman Pradeep Kodippili told AFP.
"But there were showers upstream and we are worried that the water levels can rise again in a day."
Nearly 300,000 people were staying in about 500 state-run relief centres on Saturday, which also marks Vesak, a Buddhist holiday.
The country`s influential Buddhist clergy urged the faithful to divert at least half of the money spent on holiday celebrations to help flood victims.
"There are lots of people who have lost their homes, some have only the clothes they are wearing," top Buddhist monk Warakagoda Sri Gnanarathana said.
"Consider this your meritorious deed to celebrate Vesak."
Vesak celebrations were muted Saturday in Colombo and elsewhere compared to previous years when the entire city was decorated with lanterns and coloured lights.
Sri Lanka`s Navy and the Air Force operated boats in some of the worst-hit areas, ferrying people to shelters and taking food to those stranded, officials said.
President Maithripala Sirisena urged Sri Lankans to provide shelter and donate cash or food to flood victims as offers of assistance came in from overseas.
Officials said there had been a huge outpouring of sympathy for victims with donations of food, clothing and dry rations.
The DMC said 22 of Sri Lanka`s 25 districts had been affected. Around 300,000 people have been moved to shelters while a further 200,000 were staying with friends or family.
The meteorological department says the rains were caused by a depression in the Bay of Bengal, ahead of the arrival of the southwest monsoon.
Almost a third of people had been moved from the low-lying capital, which has a population of about 650,000.
The district of Kegalle, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) northeast of Colombo, has been the worst hit, with the toll from two separate landslides rising to 39.
Chennai: After putting up spirited shows in the previous Assembly and Parliamentary Elections, Vijaykant's DMDK is now in danger of losing state party status, thanks to its dismal performance in the just concluded polls.
DMDK's rout in the May 2016 election has resulted in it failing to meet all Election Commission guidelines on State Party status regarding vote share and number of seats.
DMDK's vote share plummeted to 2.4 percent in the 2016 Assembly polls from 7.88 percent in 2011, even as the party failed to return a single legislator.
The EC guidelines mandate that a political party has to not only get six percent of total votes polled, but also return at least two members to the state Assembly in the last General Election, i.e. May 16 polls.
Further the guidelines also make it clear that a party has to get a six percent vote share in the last Parliamentary Polls and return at least one member, which DMDK has not.
In the 2014 polls, the party did not win a single seat of the 14 constituencies it contested as the NDA partner and registered a vote share of just 5.1 percent.
It has also failed to meet the requirement of having secured eight percent of total votes both in the last Lok Sabha elections or Assembly polls, in the event of not returning a single member.
While contesting from 104 seats for the May 16 polls, DMDK, which was actively wooed by DMK and BJP before Vijaykant struck a poll pact with Vaiko-led PWF, lost all seats with the founder himself relegated to the third spot in Ulunthurpet.
Starting off on a positive note in the 2006 polls, DMDK made its electoral debut that year with Vijayakant being elected from Vriddachalam, just a year after he floated his Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam.
The party started off on an eight percent vote share mark and bettered it in the 2009 Parliamentary polls reaching 10.1 percent, even as it ensured a 7.88 percent vote share in 2011 when the party aligned with Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK for the Assembly elections.
The party not only won the 29 of the 41 seats it had contested from, but also became the main Opposition. However, DMDK could not consolidate on the gains as it fared badly in the local body polls in 2011 which it faced by itself even as a spat between Vijaykant and Jayalalithaa ensured the alliance between the two ended.
In the fag end of the previous 14th Assembly, eight of the dissident DMDK MLAs resigned, which resulted in Vijaykant being stripped off his Opposition Leader status.
Dehradun: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat on Saturday visited Rajya Sabha member Tarun Vijay who was attacked by a mob on Friday after he came out of a temple with Dalit leaders in Chakrata, 180 kilometres from here.
The CM assured that strict action will be taken in the matter, adding that nobody whatsoever can be stopped from going to a temple as God belongs to all.
"The DM and SSP are on the way to the spot of the crime. The commissioner will give me a first-hand report and we will take stringent action accordingly. People`s rights should be recognised and nobody can be stopped from going to a temple as God belongs to all," Rawat told the media here before meeting Vijay.
Stating that he does not have any concrete solution to the problem of people remaining steadfast to the strict customs and traditions, the Chief Minister added that certain areas have problems when it comes to relaxing their norms.
"But we are persuading the people and changes can be seen. Public awareness also needs to be cultivated in the matter. Yes, customs should be respected, but you can`t stop someone from worshipping. I want to call on all religious leaders in the state to open the doors of their temples to people from all faith and also to the Dalits. After all, everyone is human," Rawat said.
He further said that besides the guilty, those who were lax in taking any action from preventing the untoward incident would also not be spared.
Talking to the reporters after meeting the injured BJP MP, the Chief Minister assured that Vijay`s condition was stable and that the doctors were happy with the line of treatment given to him, adding that he has conveyed to the medical team of complete assistance from the state government.
"I told the doctors that if we need to bring in specialists from outside, that can also be provided. I have also told them that if he needs to be transported somewhere else for further treatment, then we can provide a chopper. But the treatment being provided here is really satisfactory. Even Tarun Vijay is happy with this treatment," Rawat said.
Condemning the attack, Rawat said that how can such attacks happen in the 21st century on the basis of caste and religion.
Meanwhile, DGP MA Ganapati told the media that a team has been constituted to help the police. A case in the matter has been registered with the revenue police and further action will be taken against the culprits.
"Where the incident happened does not come under the police jurisdiction but since a VIP team was going to the location, we sent a team for personal security," Ganapati said.
A mob of at least 2,000 people started throwing stones Vijay and Daulat Kunwar, a BSP leader from Chakrata, stepped out of the Silgur Devta temple at Punah-Pokhri village.
A few policemen were injured in the scuffle and two police vehicles were damaged.
Vijay was on a campaign to allow Dalits in the temples in the Jaunsar-Bawar region.
The National Rifle Association on Friday endorsed Donald Trump for US president, saying it was time to unite behind the Republican or "kiss your guns goodbye" if Hillary Clinton is elected.
"We have to unite and we have to unite right now," Chris Cox, head of the NRA`s lobbying arm, said at the gun rights group`s annual convention in Louisville, Kentucky.
"So on behalf of the thousands of patriots in this room, the five million NRA members across this country, and the tens of millions who support us, I`m officially announcing the NRA`s endorsement of Donald Trump for president."
The NRA`s endorsement of a Republican nominee is no surprise.
But the timing is notable because it came months earlier than in the previous two election cycles, suggesting the nation`s largest gun-rights advocacy group was seeking to help the Republican Party unite conservatives fractured over Trump.
The group`s chief executive Wayne LaPierre declared it was time to prevent Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, from gaining the White House and appointing a new justice to fill a Supreme Court vacancy.
"If she gets just one Supreme Court nomination, Hillary`s court will hold that the (US Constitution`s) Second Amendment is a government right, not an individual right, and you can kiss your guns goodbye," LaPierre said.
Trump was welcomed warmly as he received the endorsement, promising: "I will not let you down.""We`re getting rid of gun-free zones, OK? I can tell you," Trump said to loud applause.
He also took aim at President Barack Obama`s executive orders on reducing gun violence issued after December`s San Bernardino shootings, including the plan to crack down on unregulated Internet gun sales.
"They`ll be un-signed the first hour that I`m in office," Trump pledged.
The New York billionaire touted his own support for gun rights, boasting that he is a "long-term" NRA member and one of 13 million Americans with permits to carry firearms.
"I happen to be one of them," he said. "Nobody knows that. Boy, would I surprise somebody if they hit Trump."
He also quipped that his sons are avid shooters with so many guns that "sometimes even I get a little bit concerned."
Trump sought to paint former secretary of state Clinton as an anti-gun radical and "dictator" who will take away Americans` constitutional right to bear arms.
"The Second Amendment is under a threat like never before," Trump declared.
"Crooked Hillary Clinton is the most anti-gun, anti-Second-Amendment candidate ever to run for office."
Clinton has made reducing gun violence a key plan of her campaign platform.
Speaking Sunday at the majority black Canaan Christian Church, also in Louisville, Clinton pledged to build on Obama`s efforts to keep firearms out of the wrong hands.
"But it also means we... have to combat the culture of gun violence," she said. "For too many people, particularly young people in our country today, they seem to think that guns can solve their problem."
Her campaign says Clinton supports "sensible action" to address the issue, including expanding comprehensive background checks, cracking down on illegal gun traffickers, keeping weapons out of the hands of domestic abusers, and repealing an NRA-backed law that shields gun manufacturers and sellers from lawsuits.
The NRA was gearing for battle over the contentious gun control issue.
"You want to turn this election into a do-or-die fight over the Second Amendment? Bring it on," Cox challenged.
Meanwhile Trump repeated his assertion that last year`s terror strikes in France could have been minimized or even avoided if citizens had been armed.
"Paris is, probably in the world, the toughest place to have a gun," he said.
"No guns on the other side, folks. If you would have had guns on the other side... I promise there wouldn`t have been 130 people killed."
Cairo: Smoke alerts were triggered inside the cabin of the ill-fated EgyptAir jet minutes before it plunged into the Mediterranean Sea with 66 people on board, according to new details emerging shortly after human remains, luggage and seats were found by searchers.
Smoke was detected in the toilet and the aircraft's electrics, just minutes before the signal was lost, according to data published on air industry website the Aviation Herald, which said it had received flight data filed through the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) from three independent channels.
The fresh details follow Egyptian military's recovery of debris, passengers' belongings, body parts, luggage and aircraft seats from the ill-fated EgyptAir Flight MS804, en route from Paris to Cairo, even as the crucial black box has not been found.
However, there has been no official confirmation of the data regarding smoke alerts by authorities, who have earlier hinted at a terror angle to the tragedy, in which no survivors the 66 passengers have been found.
The Herald said the system showed that at 02:26 local time on Thursday (05:56 IST) smoke was detected in the toilet of the Airbus A320. Just a minute later - at 05:57 IST - there was an avionics smoke alert.
The last ACARS message was at 05:59 IST, the air industry website said, and the contact with the plane was lost four minutes later, which was 02:33 local time.
ACARS is used to routinely download flight data to the airline operating the aircraft.
"(The data) doesn't tell us anything, whether it's an explosion because of a bomb or because of a mechanical fault, but immediately it narrows down the area that we're looking at," CNN aviation analyst Richard Quest said.
"We're now no longer worried about wings or what else might have happened, or other flight control surfaces," Quest added.
The discovery of the wreckage of EgyptAir Flight MS804 near Alexandria came as the Navy continued to sweep the area looking for the plane's black box and bodies. The Egyptian presidency expressed its "deep sadness and extreme regret" over the deaths of the people on board the jet, in the first official recognition of the tragic crash of the missing plane.
The Airbus A320 "swerved and then plunged" into the Mediterranean, according to authorities. The plane, on its fifth journey of the day, was travelling at 37,000 feet when it disappeared from radar. It had made a stop in Tunisia before flying to Paris.
Two babies and one child were on board the plane carrying 56 passengers and 10 crew, according to EgyptAir.
Egypt has been leading the search effort, with support from France, Greece, Turkey and the UK. The US Navy dispatched a P-3 Orion maritime surveillance aircraft from a base in Sicily.
Philip Baum, the editor of Aviation Security International Magazine, told the BBC that technical failure could not be ruled out.
"There was smoke reported in the aircraft lavatory, then smoke in the avionics bay, and over a period of three minutes the aircraft's systems shut down, so you know, that's starting to indicate that it probably wasn't a hijack, it probably wasn't a struggle in the cockpit, it's more likely a fire on board.
"Now whether that was a technical fire, a short circuit, or whether it was because a bomb went off on board, we don't know," he added.
Meanwhile, Greece's lead air accident investigator, Athanasios Binis, was that the "point of reference" was an area 130 miles south of the Greek island of Karpathos.
The location is now the centre of a major international air and sea operation to find the plane's black boxes.
"There are three reasons for a plane (to go down)," he said.
"Meteorological, technical and human. The first has now been ruled out because the weather was quite good. Whether a technical factor or human factor, either inside or outside the plane, is to blame remains to be seen. All possibilities are open," Binis was quoted as saying by the Guardian.
European Space Agency satellites spotted an oil slick in the area where the flight had vanished - but the organisation said there was no guarantee it was from the plane.
The aircraft had lost contact with radar early Thursday above the Mediterranean Sea about 280 kms from the Egyptian seacoast at 02:30am (local time) as the flight was expected to arrive Cairo Airport at 03:15 am (local time).
The tragedy had raised fears of a repeat of the bombing of a Russian passenger jet by the Islamic State over Egypt last October that killed all 224 people on board.
However, no group has claimed responsibility so far of the crash.
YEREVAN, MAY 21, ARMENPRESS. The NKR Defense Ministry informs that overnight May 20-21 the situation remained unchanged in the Nagorno Karabakh line of contact.
The NKR Defense Ministrys announcement reads: Overnight May 20-21 the situation was relatively calm in the line of contact between Karabakh-Azerbaijani opposing forces.
The Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire agreement by firing various caliber weapons.
The Defense Army forces followed the ceasefire agreement and continued confidently carrying out their military duties.
YEREVAN, MAY 21, ARMENPRESS. The Defense Ministry of Armenia informs that the situation remained unchanged and calm in the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border.
The Armenian Defense Ministrys announcement reads: Overnight May 20-21 the situation remained the same along the entire length of the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border.
The Azerbaijani side fired sporadic irregular shots from various caliber weapons in the northeastern direction of the border.
The Armenian Armed Forces control the border situation and confidently carry out their tasks.
According to the information received from the NKR Defense Army overnight May 20-21 the situation was relatively calm in the line of contact between Karabakh-Azerbaijani opposing forces.
The Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire agreement by firing various caliber weapons.
The Defense Army forces followed the ceasefire agreement and continued confidently carrying out their military duties.
YEREVAN, MAY 21, ARMENPRESS. On 21 May the NKR President Bako Sahakyan sent an address to the participants of the second forum of Armenian Political Parties launched in the city of Stepanakert, press service of the NKR Presidential Administration informed Armenpress.
The address reads:
Respected participants,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I welcome all of you in Artsakh, in your Homeland. Holding the second forum of Armenian political parties in the Nagorno Karabakh is significant and demanded, especially in the current period of time. Our political parties have an important feature: having various goals and programs, members and supporters, in fatal and decisive moments they are able to unite around national ideas in Armenia, the NKR and the Diaspora and solve the set issues with joint efforts.
It was so during the April war too, when the political forces displayed a principal stance, demonstrated an exemplary unity, united the society to support the Nagorno Karabakh, protect the security of our people and state from the enemys insidious encroachments.
The role of political parties is great in the life of democratic countries. We have established fully functioning parties in Armenia and the Nagorno Karabakh. Our traditional parties are functioning in the Diaspora, which along with political activity are also carrying out great work towards maintaining the Armenian national identity and cementing ties with the Motherland. It provides good opportunity for the Armenia-Artsakh-Diaspora inter-party cooperation.
Once again signifying the role of the parties in our political life and state-building process I want to welcome this initiative of the Republican Party of Armenia and wish all the participants of the forum an active and efficient work.
YEREVAN, MAY 21, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan addresses the participants of the second forum of Armenian Political Parties, press service of the Presidential Administration informed Armenpress.
The address reads:
Dear colleagues,
I warmly welcome the participants and guests of the second forum of Armenian Political Parties. I am happy that the party representatives from Armenia and the Nagorno Karabakh responded to the initiative of the Republican Party of Armenia and gathered in Stepanakert, the NKR.
The consistent and coordinated efforts towards the further democratization, the increase of the efficiency of the public administration, the fulfillment of the human rights, the main conductors of which are the political parties, are strongly important for further strengthening of the two Armenian states.
I am aware that political forces, political figures who have different opinions on a number of issues, responded to the invitation to participate in the forum and expressed their willingness to jointly identify ways within the public over issues related to the activity of political parties, information, civil society and external affairs, the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
I am confident that this format will enable the political parties to fix a unified national positions based on the internal party positions. Moreover, the recent military operations in the Nagorno Karabakh borderline once more proved the potential of the national unity and determination of our people to live in freedom and protect their freedom. Strong state should have a strong army and contemporary political, public and economical systems based on national values.
Once more welcoming the participants of the Armenian Political Parties I wish the forum a productive work.
YEREVAN, MAY 21, ARMENPRESS. Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian made a statement over the 15 anniversary of Armenias membership to the Council of Europe.
Armenpress presents the full statement:
This year marks 15th anniversary of Armenias membership to the Council of Europe. Armenias membership to the Council of Europe in 2011 was really a great and responsible step for our country. 10 year old newly independent country became a part of the organization which includes nearly all Europe, has a rich history, traditions and a system of values based on shared commitments of all member states. Moreover, it joined the Council of Europe not only for being a part of the continent, but because it took several commitments which are the pillars of the Council of Europe in the spheres of human rights and fundamental freedoms, the rule of law and democracy. Thus, Armenia was presenting a bid to become a member of the European big family not only with its history and culture, which are, undoubtedly, integral parts of the Europe, but also with its commitment to these values.
Looking in depth the way Armenia passed since joining the Council of Europe, it can be stated that Armenia fulfilled its mission with honor. The legal obligations that were set by Armenias membership to the CoE were related to the signing of several conventions, the adoption or revision of laws, the protection of human rights. For instance, the Human Rights Defenders institute was established, the alternative services were set based on these obligations.
It is worthy to recall about the long-term productive cooperation between Armenia and the Venice Commission of the CoE. From this perspective I would like to stress especially our close cooperation with the Commission during the last years constitutional amendments in Armenia as a result of which the draft of the amendments was assessed by this famous organization as in accordance with the high-quality and international standards.
Armenia really made serious progress in the implementation of its obligations. CoE stated many times this fact and emphasized that out country confidently strengthens its democracy. The organization consistently follows the ongoing processes and reforms in Armenia through the works of the monitoring bodies, including the reporters of the CoE Committee of Ministers and the PACE monitoring commission.
Only recently the CoE Committee of Ministers adopted a decision over the implementation of Armenias obligations during which it welcomed the sustainable progress of our country and the commitment of Armenia to continue further reforms on strengthening human rights, democracy and the rule of law. During 15 year membership Armenia became an integral part of the CoE and its different structures with its active role. As a member of the CoE Armenia benefits from the opportunities provided by the organization to move forward the reforms that are vital for our country, are based on our priorities and serve the interests of our people.
From this perspective, a number of projects were implemented due to these various cooperation mechanisms. The Action Plans between Armenia and the CoE practically proved their productivity. It is not a coincidence that today the third Action Plan will kick off. It includes dozens of projects in the spheres of justice, rule of law, human rights and democratic governance. As in the previous cases, the role of the EU in these Action Plans is immense, thats why I want to thank our EU partners.
Armenia took the chairmanship of the CoE Committee of Ministers in 2013. Armenia stood at the helm of the European biggest organization, which was an important mission, and also opportunity and responsibility. Armenia succeeded in the chairmanship which was confirmed by the CoE Secretary General, heads of structures and member states in different occasions. 13 big international conferences, dozens of events took place in Armenia within the framework of its chairmanship.
Armenia initiated and proposed topics for discussions of the CoE big family for six months which were related to issues urgent for Europe, such as the fight against racism and xenophobia, intercultural dialogue, development of democratic societies, strengthening the role of the CoE in the European architecture and others. To move forward these discussions and put them into practice, we closely on a daily, hourly basis cooperated with the CoE Secretary General, secretariat divisions, the PACE, Congress, Commissioner for Human Rights for six months, and we are grateful to them for moving forward our priorities and the continues support. Armenia during its chairmanship was working to strengthen the functions of the organization aimed at expanding the CoE productivity in overcoming the challenges of human rights and democracy threats.
Armenias chairmanship has its input in expanding the mutual relations of the CoE with different international and regional organizations which was aimed at enhancing the efficiency and coordination of activities between the organizations working in the same fields.
One of the most discussed issues during the 126th session of the CoE Committee of Ministers in Sofia was how to provide human rights within the framework of conflicts. This is really an important initiative aimed at protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms. It is natural that the CoE having an active role in this initiative, must be interested and make efforts to ensure that all its principles, common European values and the rights of individuals set by the European Convention on Human Rights to be spread on all people living in its influence zone regardless of their residence status. Human rights protection is a universal imperative which does not recognize national, state boundaries. In this regard, we appreciate such kind of initiatives to discuss the issue of human rights protection in the conflict zones, from which I will value the important views of the CoE Secretary General.
You should not underestimate the role of international organizations, especially that of the structures dealing with human rights issues for the people living in the conflict zones. Eventually, human rights universal protection and respect are put at the core of resolving many conflicts. In this regard, the Council of Europe should fulfill an important mission.
For years the Nagorno Karabakh people struggle for their right to life which in this case is possible in the fulfillment of the right to self-determination. I would like to state that the CoE supports the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group over the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict which was announced many times by the CoE Secretary General, Committee of Ministers.
In this context, I want to refer to destructive initiatives of some of the PACE MPs. Since I have had the opportunity to present our view, I will limit myself once again stressing that the only format which has an international mandate to settle the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, is the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship, and the attempts of trying to remove the settlement process from that format can only hinder the negotiation process of the peaceful settlement of the conflict. Three OSCE Minsk Group chairing countries also spoke about this real damage.
The Council of Europe today never than before should fight against xenophobia, discrimination and propaganda of hatred, the human rights violations, and be consistent with all such cases that put in damage and challenge its fundamental values which can play a preventive role in further escalation of the situations and new crisis.
Human rights violations in our neighboring Middle East once more prove that the international community should take more uncompromising fight against such manifestations. They violate peoples right to live which are set in human rights fundamental documents, including the European Convention on Human Rights. In this context, we appreciate the visit of the CoE Secretary Generals to Armenia last year and his participation in Crime against Genocide second global forum related to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, where he made a speech. In its turn, the PACE issued a statement over the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide to which nearly 200 MPs joined.
Fifteen years of Armenias membership to the Council of Europe were marked by the close cooperation with the CoE in reforms carried out in our country and in the works aimed at adopting the European values, as well as by the active and productive involvement of Armenia in structures of the organization.
I am convinced that the traditions of these productive cooperation will continue to strengthen and expand.
YEREVAN, MAY 21, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Parliament Speaker of Armenia Eduard Sharmazanov highly appreciates the resolution adopted by the Chamber of Deputies of Chile condemning the Azerbaijani aggression against the Nagorno Karabakh Republic. "It is courageous step based on democratic values. It is important to state that the freedom struggle of the NKR people is understood by overseas. Such stance should be contiguous, and intolerance should be demonstrated against the Azerbaijani aggression. Chile proved that things can be named by their names. It is the only acceptable way, Sharmazanov stated.
The Chamber of Deputies (parliament) of Chile issued a resolution passed unanimously that condemns the armed attack of Azerbaijan against the Nagorno Karabakh Republic on May 19.
The full text of the resolution reads as follows, On the night of 1 to 2 of last April, ground forces and air of the Republic of Azerbaijan conducted a large-scale attack on the border with the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, with heavy artillery and last generation missiles.
This aggression represents the most flagrant violation of the Ceasefire Agreement signed by both countries in May 1994 and a breach of UN rules on Pacific Settlement of Disputes.
Faced with this new escalation of violence that has already claimed numerous civilian and military casualties victims, Chile condemns the aggression, calls for the cessation of military operations and the continuation of the peace negotiations within the framework of the Minsk Group, whose co-presidents are the United States, Russia and France, sponsored by the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The international community and the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh argue that the conflict, which has more than two decades, can only be solved by peaceful means and respecting the rules of international law and the right of self-determination of its people.
The Chamber of Deputies of Chile Resolves:
1. Reaffirms its commitment to peace and urges the Republic of Azerbaijan for the immediate cessation of all acts of war against the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh and the strict observance of the truce signed by both countries in 1994
2. Requests the Government of Chile to urge the parties to circumscribe the conflict settlement within the framework of the negotiations held in the Minsk Group, and thus avoiding a regional explosion with unpredictable consequences.
YEREVAN, MAY 21, ARMENPRESS. Museums night ceremony is being held in Armenia on May 21, 2016. It is proposed by the International Council of Museums, one of the oldest international organizations in the sphere of the protection of Cultural heritage, press service of the Armenian Ministry of Culture informed Armenpress.
Since 1997 on May 19 The International Day of Museums gathers more than 30.000 museums from worlds 5 continents calling them to organize special events and initiatives within the framework of the proposed topic of the year. This years slogan is Museums and Cultural Landscapes.
Museums night project was kicked off by the sponsorship of ICOM, UNESCO and the European Parliament. The goal of the day is to raise the role of museums in societys social-cultural life and to create favorable environment for the popularization of museum objects.
More than 112 museums participate in the ceremony this year in Armenia.
Armenian Museums will open their doors to the public with numerous ceremonies enabling them to once more get acquainted with the history and the cultural heritage of the Armenian people.
YEREVAN, MAY 21, ARMENPRESS. On May 20 an event devoted to Armenia was organized in the Antonine University of Lebanon, press service of the MFA of Armenia informed Armenpress.
The Armenian Minister of Education and Science Levon Mkrtchyan addressed with video the participants of the event and the Armenians in Lebanon. Videos were shown about Armenia, the Armenian Church and culture, as well as Armenian figures famous in various spheres.
Armenian Ambassador to Lebanon Samvel Mkrtchyan made a concluding speech during the event. He expressed gratitude to the organizers of the event stressing the importance of such events which creates a great opportunity to present your own country and people. He referred to the history of Armenian people, their struggle for their own identity, the Karabakh conflict and the achievements of the newly independent Armenia. Ambassador expressed hope that these ceremonies will continue.
He referred to the role of the Armenian community of Lebanon, their input in countrys political, social and cultural life, as well as the steps aimed at preserving the national identity.
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde (top, C) walks behind Governor of the Bank of Japan Haruhiko Kuroda (L) and Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso (C) prior to the start of the G7 meeting in Sendai on May 20, 2016
Britain's possible exit from the European Union took centre stage at a G7 meeting in Japan Saturday, as UK finance minister George Osborne warned a 'Brexit' could doom trade deals with EU countries.
The comments came during two days of talks largely focused on how the club of rich nations can stoke the lumbering world economy, with terrorism financing and a sharp divide over currency policy also on the table.
As the vote on Britain's future in the EU draws closer, Osborne said his meetings with G7 counterparts underscored the gravity of the in-out decision next month.
"If Britain left the EU, and wanted access to the single market...then we would need to pay into the EU budget and we'd have to accept free movement of people but we'd have no say over those policies at all," Osborne told the BBC.
Britain will decide in a referendum on June 23 whether to stay in the EU or leave the 28-country bloc.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne, like Prime Minister David Cameron, is campaigning for Britain to stay in.
"If we left the EU we would have a two year period to negotiate our exit with 27 other countries, we'd then have to negotiate new arrangements...and at the same time conclude over 50 trade deals with countries that aren't even in Europe," he said.
"That would be extremely difficult to do."
During that period, businesses would have "no certainty" about the future and so would not take on new workers or invest, he said.
"It hits people's incomes, it hits the value of houses, it hits businesses and jobs. People are beginning to understand that," said Osborne.
- 'No plan B' -
European Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, attending the meetings at a famous hot spring resort in northern Japan, said the G7 -- which also includes the US, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Canada -- backed Britain remaining in the EU.
"It is obvious that all the partners around the table want Great Britain to stay inside the EU and we are all aware that the situation would be bad, it would be a loss" if it left, Moscovici said.
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"We have no 'plan B'. When you start having a 'plan B' it means that you don't believe in your plan A. There is just one plan: the United Kingdom inside a united Europe."
With just over a month to the vote, the "Remain" camp is on 55 percent and the "Leave" campaign on 45 percent, according to the What UK Thinks website's average of the last six opinion polls.
On a visit to London last month, US President Barack Obama said Britain being in the EU magnified its global influence, and outside the bloc it would go to the "back of the queue" when it came to signing trade deals.
And Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned earlier this month that Britain would become "less attractive" for Japanese investment outside the EU.
Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso (top, 2R) leads the first session of the G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors' Meeting in Sendai, northern Japan
The G7 on Saturday pledged to clamp down on financial support for terrorist networks, with a plan to step up intelligence-sharing, freeze assets and tighten reporting rules on international transfers.
The club of wealthy nations has been cooperating to block the financial pipelines that allow terrorists to travel, plan and carry out attacks, but said that more must be done.
"Countering violent extremism and bringing perpetrators to justice remain top priorities for the whole international community," they said after two days of talks in northern Japan.
"The G7 commits to working together to strengthen the global fight against terrorist financing," said an action plan to be adopted by the group's leaders who meet in Japan next week.
French Finance Minister Michel Sapin, whose country suffered devastating attacks in January and November of 2015, said the Group of Seven was now in the "operational phase" of its efforts.
"We will introduce effective tools at our disposal in the war against terrorism financing," he told AFP. "It is absolutely essential."
Sapin said that good exchanges between intelligence agencies were vital, "especially to fight against large movements of money by, for example, the Islamic State in Syria or Iraq".
Another key tool is to counter the cover provided by "prepaid but anonymous phone cards, movements of cash that allow anonymous access to finances," he said.
"We must trace these."
The G7 action plan identified "targeted financial sanctions" as critical to hindering terrorist support networks.
It also emphasised the need to freeze terrorist assets, including those of individual militants.
Among specific measures, the bloc committed to reducing the threshold for declaring cross-border cash transactions from $15,000, 15,000 euros and two million yen to $10,000, 10,000 euros and one million yen.
It also said it would provide "continued strong leadership" to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which sets international standards to combat money laundering and terrorism finance.
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While lauding FATF for establishing standards, it said that "the evolving nature of current terrorist financing threats requires us to adapt our existing measures to combat those threats".
The pledge comes after Group of 20 finance ministers said in February that more work was needed to combat "loopholes and deficiencies" in the global financial system as part of the fight against terror.
The G7 consists of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States. All are also members of the broader G20, which takes China, India and emerging economies such as Turkey.
Heads of state and government from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and host Japan are meeting in Ise Shima for G7 talks
G7 finance ministers on Saturday voiced concern about the sputtering global economy as they looked for a plan to stoke growth, while a currency policy clash overshadowed their meetings.
The club of rich nations also pledged to tackle tax avoidance in the wake of the Panama Papers investigation and beef up efforts to disrupt the murky world of terrorism financing.
Two days of talks at a hot spring resort in northern Japan focused on how to stoke global growth which they said was under threat from myriad challenges, including terrorism, refugee flows and the threat of Britain's exit from the European Union.
The ministers were unanimous in opposing the prospect of a "Brexit", saying it would inflict a "shock" on the global economy that would only worsen the outlook at a time of geopolitical instability.
Host Japan was keen to get its G7 counterparts on board with the view that fiscal stimulus is the best way to kickstart global growth, but Germany and Britain were cool on the idea.
On Saturday, the group suggested a go-your-own-way approach.
"(We) discussed how to employ a balanced policy mix -- monetary, fiscal, and structural -- taking into account country-specific circumstances," they said in concluding remarks.
Japan's determination to tame the resurgent yen was another sensitive topic, after its repeated threats to intervene in forex markets put it on a collision course with its G7 counterparts.
The yen has seen several steep jumps since the start of the year, soaring more than 10 percent against the greenback at one stage, in a blow to Japan's exporters just as the economy slowed.
US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew kept up the pressure Saturday with a fresh warning, reminding Japan that previous commitments to "refrain from competitive devaluation and communicate closely have helped to contribute to confidence in the global economy".
- Yen clash -
In a statement which presented a clear rebuff to Japan, the group "underscored the importance of all countries refraining from competitive devaluation".
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In response, Japanese finance minister Taro Aso said Saturday that he told his US counterpart Tokyo was merely reacting to "one-sided, abrupt, and speculative moves" in forex trading.
A softer currency has been one of the pillars of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's bid to revitalise the world?s number-three economy since he swept to power in late 2012.
Japan last intervened in currency markets around November 2011, when it tried to stem the yen's rise to keep an economic recovery on track after the quake-tsunami disaster earlier that year.
The G7 finance chiefs also vowed to escalate efforts to disrupt the financing of global terrorist networks.
An action plan that their leaders are to sign at a summit in Japan next week set out measures to step up intelligence-sharing, freeze assets and tighten reporting rules on international transfers.
"Countering violent extremism and bringing perpetrators to justice remain top priorities for the whole international community," said the group which takes in the US, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Britain.
"The G7 commits to working together to strengthen the global fight against terrorist financing," they added.
As the vote on Britain's future in the EU draws closer, finance minister George Osborne said his meetings with G7 counterparts underscored the gravity of the in-out decision.
If voters opt to quit the bloc in a June 23 referendum, Britain would find it "extremely difficult" to conclude trade deals with EU nations while also trying to reach new agreements with non-EU countries, he told the BBC.
During that difficult process, businesses would have "no certainty" about the future and would not take on new workers or invest, he said.
"It hits people's incomes, it hits the value of houses, it hits businesses and jobs. People are beginning to understand that," Osborne said, winning firm backing from German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.
"We were all of the opinion that it would be the wrong decision for the UK," Schaeuble said Saturday.
"But it's a decision to be taken by the British voters. We're concerned that it could have negative consequences for the European and the world economy."
Photographer | Collection | Getty Images. The stage is set in Japan for the financial leaders of the Group of Seven of the world's leading economies to discuss policy, global growth and cyber-security.
The stage is set in Japan for the financial leaders of the Group of Seven of the world's leading economies to discuss policy, global growth and cyber-security. G-7 finance ministers from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K and the U.S. have gathered in Sendai. But what's on the agenda?
"With the latest G-7 finance ministers meeting due to start today (Friday) in Japan, it is quite likely that the subject of currency levels and fiscal policy is likely to be high on the agenda, and while markets have settled down a bit since the G-20 meeting in Shanghai at the end of March it remains clear that financial markets are still on edge, due to the lack of progress amongst policymakers with respect to fiscal reform," Michael Hewson, chief markets analyst at CMC Markets said in his morning note.
Speaking to CNBC in a phone interview, Hewson said the financial consequences of a "Brexit" vote on market volatility will also be a top concern for G-7 members.
While issues like the upcoming EU referendum, global uncertainty and central bank monetary policy are expected to remain the big focus over the weekend, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said the leaders are a lot more optimistic about the global economy than they were before.
"We agreed that the world economic environment is better than some feared a few months ago," Schaeuble told Reuters after the first round of talks, adding that Germany had growing room for room for fiscal manoeuvre which he is in favour of using in the next legislative period.
Some analysts have said that leaders will definitely touch upon the issue of central bank's role in the economy and the impact of low and negative rates.
"Some of the recent narrative from central banks in recent days is that low rate policies have helped create a culture of delay amongst politicians in implementing structural reforms," Hewson told CNBC.
"I expect this to be a familiar refrain along with the usual platitudes that monetary stimulus needs to run alongside structural reform, in order for the economic outlook to change significantly."
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Among other things, currency wars will also be on the top of the list, as nations struggle due to heavy dependence on the U.S. dollar.
A U.S. Treasury Official told the press that there needed to be a distinction between disorderly moves that warrant intervention, referring to the yen spike and fluctuations in markets that happen.
"When there are truly disorderly conditions (in currency markets), you know," he was quoted as saying by Reuters.
The meeting is also expected to focus on enhancing cyber-security across countries as financial transactions are becoming more global and there is an increasing need for G7 leaders to take prompt action, sources told Reuters.
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Reuters. "The Chinese people do not want to have war, so we will be opposed to [the] U.S. if it stirs up any conflict," Liu Zhenmin tells CNBC.
BEIJING China 's attempts to claim a nearly 1.4-million-square-mile swathe of open ocean are without precedent and probably without legal merit, but Beijing continues to assert its right to the economically critical zone and increasingly puts its claims in military terms.
Speaking to a small group of reporters in Beijing on Thursday, a high-ranking Chinese official made his warning clear: The United States should not provoke China in the South China Sea without expecting retaliation.
"The Chinese people do not want to have war, so we will be opposed to [the] U.S. if it stirs up any conflict," said Liu Zhenmin, vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "Of course, if the Korean War or Vietnam War are replayed, then we will have to defend ourselves."
The so-called "nine-dash line" that China has drawn over most of the South China Sea a gargantuan territorial claim that stretches about 1,200 miles from its shores would give Beijing control over a zone that's estimated to handle about half of global merchant shipping, a third of the planet's oil shipping, two-thirds of global liquid natural gas shipments, and more than a 10th of Earth's fish catch. The Obama administration, backed by several Asian governments and entities such as the Brookings Institution, argues that such massive ocean claims at great distance from land are "inconsistent with international law."
China has a growing military presence in the region, including the wholesale raising of islands and construction of airfields on what were once atolls. The U.S. Navy operates there as well, increasingly in concert with regional powers such as the Philippines. Two Chinese fighter jets on Tuesday intercepted and passed within 50 feet of a U.S. military reconnaissance plane.
"We rely heavily on the South China Sea [for] transportation of resources and energy and the South China Sea is an important trading group for us. We attach great importance to peace and stability in the South China Sea," said Liu, who warned the United States that it "cannot circle China by building military bases we cannot do so 30 years ago, or even now."
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"Chinese people and the government feel like we haven't been treated fairly because the U.S. is blaming China for rising tensions in the South China Sea," said Liu, who added that "what matters is that the U.S. government has recognized that times have changed, [and the U.S.] can gain much more through cooperation than going to war."
China is party to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, and that framework provides "no legal basis" for China to claim its "nine-dash" area, said Alessio Patalano, senior lecturer in Naval History and East Asian Security at King's College London.
But beyond that, Patalano said, China's actions have no historical precedent.
"There is not a precedent of this kind, and this is for two reasons," Patalano told CNBC. "First until recently, technology didn't allow nation states to project power over the oceans as it is possible today. Second, today's degree of interdependence has no precedent in history, therefore issues over the ability of shipping to move through this basin has potential impact on the international system in a way that was not possible previously."
The South China Sea for years has been a point of contention for bordering nations besides China, including Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines, but in recent years has become a larger nexus of disagreement as China has unilaterally declared the region its own. China's fishing fleet, the world's biggest, operates increasingly within the legally exclusive zones of Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and other countries.
A tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague is expected to rule in the next couple months on China's expansive territorial claims, though China has already rejected those proceedings.
As the dispute festers, experts see a higher chance of an unintended conflict between U.S. and Chinese vessels or aircraft, something that was witnessed in 2001 when a Chinese and a U.S. plane collided . China watchers say if a collision were to happen in 2016, a strong response from both sides could be possible.
"China attaches far greater importance to peace in the South China Sea much greater than the U.S. and Japan. No one should doubt our sincerity in this subject," Liu said. "The Chinese government will uphold peace in Southeast Asia even for the sake of our own survival. In this sense we are actively against any moves that will jeopardize peace in the South China Sea."
Liu warned that a conflict between China and the United States would have wide repercussions for the global economy.
"No country would want to see confrontations between [the] U.S. and China," he said, "because [the] Chinese and U.S. economy will be hurt, and impacts will be felt across the world."
CNBC's Everett Rosenfeld and Ted Kemp contributed from Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
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By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) - Tests show an outbreak of Zika virus on the African island chain of Cape Verde is of the same strain as the one blamed for birth abnormalities in Brazil, the World Health Organization said on Friday. "The findings are of concern because it is further proof that the outbreak is spreading beyond South America and is on the doorstep of Africa," said WHO's Africa director Matshidiso Moeti. "This information will help African countries to re-evaluate their level of risk and adapt and increase their levels of preparedness," she said. Zika was first discovered in Africa in 1947 and until the past year it was thought to cause only mild symptoms with no known link with brain or birth disorders. Researchers identified two distinct lineages in 2012, African and Asian. As of May 8, there had been 7,557 suspected cases in Cape Verde, an Atlantic archipelago around 570 km (350 miles) west of Senegal, which has historic ties to Brazil. Until the virus was sequenced by the Institut Pasteur in Senegal, it was not certain if the outbreak was caused by the African or Asian type, which has hit Brazil and other Latin American countries. Moeti said she would not recommend strict travel restrictions to try to stop the spread of the disease further into Africa, but advocated efforts to control mosquito numbers and stop people being bitten. Bruce Aylward, head of outbreaks and health emergencies at WHO, said it remained to be seen if African populations would have some immunity to the virus which could mitigate the impact of a Zika outbreak on the continent. U.S. health officials have concluded that Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size that can lead to severe developmental problems in babies. The WHO has said there is strong scientific consensus that Zika can also cause Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults. The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last year in Brazil, which has now confirmed more than 1,300 cases of microcephaly that it considers to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Cape Verde has reported three cases of microcephaly, and a mother thought to have caught Zika their later delivered a microcephalic baby in the United States. Cape Verde has not reported any cases of Guillain-Barre, WHO said. (Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Andrew Roche)
By Clare Baldwin and Stella Tsang HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Hong Kong visit by a top leader of China's Communist Party, which included talks with pro-democracy lawmakers, was an "important breakthrough" in relations between Beijing and the city, an influential Chinese newspaper said on Thursday. The visit by Zhang Dejiang, the third most senior member of the Communist Party, follows a period of tension in Hong Kong after tens of thousands took to the streets in 2014 to press for full democracy. The former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula meant to preserve its freedoms, but the refusal of Beijing to allow full democracy for a 2017 city election has raised fears for its autonomy. Resentment has simmered, and some democracy activists have even raised calls for independence, a previously taboo issue. Security was tight for Zhang's three-day visit that began on Tuesday. The Global Times, a tabloid published by the ruling party's People's Daily newspaper, said there was no chance of independence for Hong Kong but it called Zhang's meeting with the pro-democracy members of the city's legislative assembly an "important breakthrough". Hong Kong should give the legislators room to act politically, and they should be allowed to call for the ouster of the pro-Beijing chief executive of the city. "Although it is a sharp demand for the pan-democrats to have asked Zhang to replace the current chief executive, that is part of their rights to ask," the newspaper said in an editorial, referring to pro-democracy city legislators. Zhang said repeatedly he had come to listen, and his meeting with the veteran democracy campaigners, and the editorial in a state-run newspaper, were unprecedented. While it was not clear what action Beijing might take as a result of the visit, one of the legislators said it could signal a new stance on Hong Kong. "It is an unprecedented move," said Emily Lau, chairwoman of the city's Democratic Party and one of four pro-democracy lawmakers to attend a reception with Zhang on Wednesday. "It may show that they want to handle things a bit differently." "The situation here is pretty grim ... it's not just the pro-democracy camp, but the business community, the professional people, the grassroots people, they are all deeply unhappy, dissatisfied, frustrated and some feel hopeless," she said. Another lawmaker who did not attend the reception but is a long-time democracy activist, said Beijing authorities appeared to have realized that a tough stand against calls for greater democracy risked stirring demands for independence. "They realized the problem with very hardline confrontation is that they are losing the middle to a more separatist view ... especially the young people," said Lee Cheuk-yan. "I think they believe with a softer posture maybe they can gain the good faith of the people of Hong Kong and avoid the problem of spreading views against China and separating from China." (Reporting by Clare Baldwin and Stella Tsang; Additional reporting by Venus Wu; Editing by Robert Birsel)
An undated picture released on May 19, 2016 by the Nigerian army of the second rescued Chibok schoolgirl in Nigeria. Nigeria Military/Handout via REUTERS
By Alexis Akwagyiram and Felix Onuah ABUJA (Reuters) - A second girl who was among more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in a raid on their school in the northeastern Nigerian town of Chibok more than two years ago has been rescued, a spokesman for the Nigerian army said on Thursday. Army spokesman Sani Usman said in an emailed statement that the girl was among 97 women and children held hostage by Boko Haram who were freed on Thursday morning after clashes between soldiers and jihadist militants in northeastern Borno state. Amina Ali Darsha Nkeki, the first girl to be rescued, was found by soldiers working with a vigilante group on Tuesday near Damboa, south of Maiduguri in the remote northeast where Boko Haram has waged a seven-year insurgency to set up an Islamic state. Officials confirmed Amina was one of 219 girls abducted from the government school in Chibok in April 2014. Late on Thursday, the army said an operation in Damboa at around 11 a.m. (1000 GMT) led to the rescue of nearly 100 hostages that included the second Chibok schoolgirl. "We are glad to state that among those rescued is a girl believed to be one of the Chibok Government Secondary School girls that were abducted," said Usman, adding that she was receiving medical treatment. He said her name is Serah Luka and she was from the northeastern town of Madagali, in the state of Adamawa, which borders Borno. The army spokesman said it was possible that three other girls that Serah referred to as having fled and been rescued when the troops arrived may also be among the Chibok girls, adding that this was being investigated. A photograph of Serah released by the military shows her wearing a blue jilbab, a loose Muslim garment revealing her face but concealing her torso and arms. "She averred that she reported at the school barely two months and one week before her unfortunate abduction along with other girls over two years ago," said Usman. Earlier on Thursday the governor of Borno state, where Chibok is located, said the army was drawing up plans and moving into a Boko Haram forest stronghold in a bid to rescue the remaining girls. "We believe that in the coming weeks we shall recover the rest of the girls," Governor Kashim Shettima told reporters. "The military is already moving into the forest." Previous military attempts to storm Sambisa forest have met with mixed success, with soldiers making significant in-roads but failing to finish off the Islamist militants after running into bands of well-armed guerrillas, mines and booby traps. The #Bringbackourgirls activist group said Amina had told her rescuers the rest of the girls were under heavy Boko Haram guard in Sambisa. The governor's comments came shortly after Amina, the first girl to be rescued, met Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. "Amina's rescue gives us new hope and offers a unique opportunity to vital information," Buhari, a 73-year-old former military ruler, said during a meeting with the teenager, her mother and officials after a presidential jet flew her to Abuja. Amina was discovered with her four-month-old baby, and the army said it had detained a suspected Boko Haram militant called Mohammed Hayatu, who said he was her husband. On Thursday, the military released pictures of a clean-shaven man in a white shirt and cream trousers sitting beside Amina on a hospital bed holding the infant in his lap. INSURGENCY Amina, who was accompanied by her mother, Binta, Nigeria's defence minister and national security adviser, spent more than an hour with Buhari, who made crushing Boko Haram a pillar of his 2015 presidential election campaign. More than 15,000 people have been killed and 2 million displaced in Nigeria and neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon during its seven-year insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria. Under Buhari's command, and aided by Nigeria's neighbours, the army has recaptured most territory lost to Boko Haram. But the jihadist group, which last year pledged loyalty to Islamic State, still regularly stages suicide bombings. Boko Haram captured 276 girls in a night-time raid on Chibok in April 2014, its most high-profile assault. Some girls escaped in the melee but parents of the remaining 219 accused then-President Goodluck Jonathan of not doing enough to find their daughters, whose disappearance led to a wave of global outrage. (Reporting by Lanre Ola, Ulf Laessing, Felix Onuah and Afolabi Sotunde; Writing by Ulf Laessing and Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Diane Craft and Cynthia Osterman)
A second missing Chibok girl has been found in Nigeria, two years after she and 275 others were taken from their secondary school.
Army spokesman Colonel Sani Usman "has confirmed the rescue of another Chibok girl this evening".
Serah Luka was reportedly rescued at about 5pm local time during a military operation against IS-affiliated fighters Boko Haram.
She was taken to hospital after her rescue.
Serah is the daughter of a pastor, Colonel Usman said, and had only started at the boarding school in Chibok a little more than two months before the Boko Haram raid.
The news comes just two days after another of the abducted students was found.
Activists named her as Amina Ali Darsha Nkeki and quoted her as saying that most of the girls were still in the Sambisa forest, Boko Haram's biggest stronghold.
But the 19-year-old, traumatised and carrying a baby, was quoted as saying that six of her classmates were already dead.
She and her mother met Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari at his official residence in Abuja on Thursday, where he said the government was "doing all it can to rescue the remaining Chibok girls".
"Amina's rescue gives us new hope and offers a unique opportunity for vital information," he said in a statement.
:: Storm Of Questions Surround Chibok Survivor
There was international outrage when 276 girls - mostly aged between 16 and 18 - were abducted from their school during a Boko Haram raid on Chibok in April 2014.
Fifty-seven of them managed to escape the same day.
:: Nigerian Girls Detail Horrific Boko Haram Abuse
High-profile figures, including America's first lady Michelle Obama, joined a campaign with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls.
Hope was briefly raised in April 2015 when the Nigerian military announced it had rescued 200 girls and 93 women from the Sambisa Forest.
It later emerged that the Chibok girls were not among them.
Boko Haram militants have killed an estimated 15,000 people and kidnapped hundreds of men, women and children during a six-year campaign to establish an Islamic caliphate in northeastern Nigeria.
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I think off.
Saying you need to raise $10-$15 million for charity for it to be on is a pretty high bar.
That said, I guarantee you every network executive worth his or her salary is trying to make this debate happen on their air whenever and wherever.
I am still skeptical though because there's not a ton of reason for Trump to clash with Sanders at this point in the race.
The world's oil market is rebalancing faster than expected due to several serious outages, but for now there is enough oil in storage and excess capacity to keep prices from spiking.
"We've strung together an impressive number of outages and supply disruptions for the moment, but there's every incentive in the dire straits the industry's been in to get these barrels on line," said John Kilduff, partner with Again Capital.
Outages and supply disruptions in Canada, Nigeria, Venezuela, and other producing regions have reduced oil production by an estimated 3.8 million barrels a day. Some of those outages should be temporary, and could bring a wall of oil back to the market once they are resolved. There is also the potential for more production from Saudi Arabia, Iran and even the U.S. - if prices rise enough to enable America's shale producers to restart some drilling.
"Some of it's temporary, and if it goes on long enough, there will be longer lasting implications," said Michael Cohen, head of energy commodities research at Barclays. In Canada, an estimated 1.2 million barrels a day are offline due to forest fires in Alberta . The uncontrolled fire, covering 704,000 acres, moved toward energy production facilities Tuesday, after jumping a fire break area=.
Suncor shut down its base plant, and said it had not sustained any damage, while Enbridge's Cheecham crude tank farm was less than a mile away from fire but fire fighters had the fire there under control, according to Reuters.
"This is bad," said Cohen, adding it's the biggest disruption in North America since Hurricane Ike in 2008. "It looks like it's getting worse before it gets any better...It's hard to say. Is it two weeks? Is it four weeks? If it goes on for another two weeks we're going to have some medium term implications for some of the projects up there."
The industry had been hopeful the fires would be out and they would start sending workers back to their jobs just several days ago. "We had this big U-turn in events over the past 48 hours," said Jackie Forrest, vice president energy research at Arc Financial Corp. "It's getting difficult to predict when this wild fire will be put out." She said the fact it has moved north means it will take longer for the industry to restart oil sands production, now down by about 50 percent.
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Fires were reported at a worker camp, but Forrest said there was oversupply of camp space since they were built for the construction workers at the oil sands, not the smaller workforce that operates it.
The Canadian situation is different from other outages in that it is seen as a short-term problem, due to an act of nature, and while uncertain, the situations in Nigeria or Venezuela could be harder to predict.
In Nigeria, militants have knocked oil production offline as the country struggles with the impact of lower oil prices on its economy.
"If Nigeria goes offline, it's sticky. These armed militants are very intent on shutting down production. They have the capacity to do so," said Helima Croft, head of commodities research at RBC Capital Markets.
Croft said the government's decision to prosecute the militants has resulted in increased activity. Unknown attackers were reported to have blown up a gas pipeline owned by Italy's ENI in Nigeria's Niger Delta, the latest attack on an energy facility in the region.
Nigerian oil production is now down about 800,000 barrels a day, and Croft said the outages could be prolonged.
"This is a decision they made to engage this confrontation. No one looks like they're blinking yet," she said. "A small number of well-armed men in Nigeria can do significant damage to the energy sector."
Venezuela is another trouble spot, politically and economically. It is producing about 2.3 million barrels a day, but analysts see it as in a state of decline.
"Things are falling apart. People aren't getting paid. Equipment is not being brought in, and that's precipitating production declines," said Eric Lee, an energy analyst at Citigroup. He said the situation could lead to failures in infrastructure, such as ports, pipelines and refineries. Venezuelan officials this week said they were able to secure a better loan-for-oil deal from China, buying time on debt payments.
"When prices are low, you strip out the oil revenue and things start to gum up," said Cohen. "You've got people upset in Nigeria, Iraq and Libya, and part of it is they're not getting paid offYou've got Kirkuk oil field off line and you have a government in Iraq that is in a serious state of disarray."
But Cohen said oil could return to the market from disruptions and that could send prices lower again. Brent crude was trading just under $50 Wednesday, and West Texas Intermediate was at about $48.70, up about 11 percent in the past week.
Prices were steady even though U.S. inventory data showed a surprise increase of 1.3 million barrels of crude stockpiles.
"There's just too much oil around even with the big draw down in gasoline inventories today. We're just so well supplied," said Kilduff.
The outages, however, are outweighing the bearish forces for now, he said.
On the other side of the supply equation, there are also major producers that could add production.
One of those is Libya, and news of a deal to solve the crisis at the Marsa al Hariga terminal could lead to the resumption of some production.
"It's a good sign if the government in the east is going to recognize the UN government, but we'll have to see on this. The story changes day to day," said Croft. "They're at 150,000 and they have capacity at 1.6 million," she said. "Is it really a sustainable situation that you can get back to 600,000 or 700,000 on a longer term basis?" She said Libya could get back to production of about 350,000 barrels a day.
"I look at Libya and I'm still a pessimist for now. This is plan "B" for ISIS," she said. The presence of ISIS near the oil facilities is a threat. "They're not going to try to operate it. They're trying to make it inoperable."
Besides Libya's expected increase in production, Iran has been returning oil to the market more quickly than expected.
Saudi Arabia has said it could add another million barrels to the market this year, and analysts are watching to see if it will do that. Saudi Arabia has made clear it is ready to ramp up production to meet customer demand but it changed the dynamic of the market when it pushed OPEC to move to let the market set pricing instead of adjusting output.
That strategy led to a collapse in oil prices that took WTI to $26 per barrel. Oil has since been recovering from that low, and has received an extra lift from the outages.
"The political change in Saudi Arabia is going to change not only Saudi Arabia but the oil market," said Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of IHS. "In terms of achieving their objectives, they want to enhance their position of being the low cost supplier."
Yergin said it's striking that the oil disruptions have had such little impact. "You still have a big overhang of inventories, but after 18 months, the market is turning and it was time for a turn," he said. "Supply and demand in the second half is pointing to around $50 a barrel. But that's barring any major disruption. If we see further disruption that could put more upward pressure on prices."
Yergin said U.S. shale producers could start to resume some drilling activity and that could add barrels to the market. "Certainly at $50 that's the number that starts to stabilize U.S. shale. I think people come back and start putting on more drilling rigs. People, at $50, will be a lot more efficient than they were before," he said.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported another weekly drop in U.S. production Wednesday to 8.79 million barrels a day from 8.80 million the week earlier. A year ago, production was 9.35 million barrels a day.
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The number of Airbnb listings in Singapore has nearly tripled from 2,254 to 6,208 over the last year, according to Airdna, which provides analytics on Airbnb rentals, as more people turn to "sharing economy" sites for short-term rentals.
The growing popularity of sites such as Airbnb is inevitable, given the benefits they provide consumers and home owners. A June 2015 study by The Edge Property estimated that short-term rental landlords would need to rent out their units for only about 20 days a month to net the same revenue as regular landlords. Data from Airdna tells the same story. Top performing Airbnb rental properties fetched average monthly revenue ranging from $3,418 for studio units to $10,230 for units with four or more bedrooms. These properties could fetch between 31% and 84% more revenue compared with a typical long-term rental contract (see chart).
Given the lucrativeness of the Airbnb model, and softening rental market, more landlords are turning to short-term rents to generate rental income. The surge in the number of Airbnb listings despite the existing URA guideline points to the fact that landlords are willing to take the risk in exchange for a slice of the sharing economy pie.
airbnb infographic
Source: URA, Airdna, The Edge Property
Existing roadblocks
Last year, URA sought feedback through discussions with stakeholders on whether private residential properties could be used for shorter-term stays. A URA spokesperson says, The results of the public consultation were split, with no clear consensus.
Under existing guidelines, private residential properties, including individual rooms, should not be rented out for less than six months. The intention is to safeguard the living environment and to minimise the adverse effect from the frequent turnover of short-term occupiers, such as noise, loss of privacy, security and misuse of common facilities. There have also been calls for stronger enforcement against short-term stays. According to URA, there were 375 complaints regarding short-term stays in 2014 and 377 in 2015, compared with just 231 complaints in 2013. Offending private home owners can face fines of up to $200,000 and imprisonment for up to a year.
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HDB has regulations similar to URA guidelines against short-term rentals of less than six months, as well as other subletting regulations. According to media reports in 2014, HDB repossessed two flats from owners who had rented them out to tourists on a short-term basis. There were also investigations into 106 cases involving short-term rentals of HDB flats in 2012 and 184 cases in 2013.
Airbnb versus hotels
The strongest critic of Airbnb comes from the hotel industry. The average occupancy rate for hotels in Singapore has fallen from a high of 87% in 2012 to 85% in 2015. Revenue per available room has slipped 8% from $226 to $209 over the same period. This is despite a 5% growth in visitor arrivals from 14.5 million in 2012 to 15.2 million in 2015.
A comparison between the average daily rate of hotels and Airbnb rents shows that the latter could offer a compelling value proposition to tourists. The average daily rate represents the average amount paid for each occupied unit in a certain time period. While a mid-tier hotel room with an ADR of $168 is not directly comparable to a two-bedroom Airbnb rental with an ADR of $212, tourists might be willing to pay an extra $44 for a rental property likely to be larger than the hotel room.
Similarly, a group of four travellers could rent an Airbnb for $169, versus two economy hotel rooms for a total of $200 or two mid-tier hotel rooms for $336. Judging from the potential savings, short-term rents are likely to appeal to those who are budget-conscious and willing to trade hotel service for more space, and those travelling in larger groups (see table).
While short-term rentals could be a bane for hotels, an increase in new visitor arrivals who prefer to stay in short-term rentals instead of hotels could be a boon for the tourism industry, owing to the increase in tourist spending. In a May 2015 report, San Franciscos Office of Economic Analysis estimated that the increase in visitor spending per short-term rental unit per rental day was US$177 ($242).
A URA spokesperson says, There was important feedback that any change in rules should ensure a level playing field. Currently, regulated accommodation providers such as hotels and serviced apartment operators are subject to regulatory requirements to ensure the safety and well-being of occupants. They are also subject to business taxes.
airbnb vs hotels
Source: Singapore Tourism Board, Airdna, The Edge Property
Where do we go from here?
Given the growth in Airbnb listings despite the current regulations, the authorities could step up enforcement against law-breaking homeowners. Policing efforts are difficult and expensive, though. For example, there are no straightforward methods to distinguishing short-term tenants from actual guests, which could lead to scuffles and conflicts.
A better solution would be to modify regulations to legalise short-term rentals under a framework that minimises negative implications and allows for tax collection. While it is unlikely HDB will relax its stance, policies adopted by other cities can provide insight into short-term rentals for private housing.
Lessons from abroad
In Germany, Berlins "Zweckentfremdungsverbot", or prohibition of improper use of law on private property rentals, took effect on May 1. Under the new law, owners are allowed to rent out only rooms, and not entire flats or houses, on online portals such as Airbnb. Offenders can be fined up to 100,000 ($155,600).
Andreas Geisel, Berlins head of urban development, says the new law is a necessary and sensible instrument against the housing shortage in Berlin and that he is absolutely determined to return such misappropriated apartments to the people of Berlin and newcomers. Rents in Berlin surged 56% between 2009 and 2014, signalling a housing shortage.
The city of Austin, Texas in the US requires all short-term rental properties to be registered for a fee. There is a limit to the number of properties that can be registered under each individual to prevent a cottage industry of commercial hosts who run multiple properties as short-term rentals.
Amsterdam in the Netherlands requires short-term landlords to obtain permits, and caps the number of days they are allowed to rent out their homes at 60 days a year. Airbnb also collects a 5% tourist tax from the bookings on behalf of the city. Various cities around the world also require Airbnb to collect a hotel or tourist tax from each booking. The requirement for registration and permits can be an effective form of surveillance on the number of owners and properties active in the short-term rental market. An increase in government revenue from the collection of fees and taxes could be put towards constructive social spending. In addition, imposing hospitality taxes on short-term rentals would also help level the playing field for hotels.
A cap on the number of short-term rental days in a year could act as a control to prevent a supply glut that will have severe repercussions on the hotel industry. Limiting the supply is also a means of controlling the disamenities arising from short term rentals.
It is in the interest of the authorities and short-term rental portals to collaborate on regulation and enforcement. In exchange for a favourable regulatory environment, the portals will need to assist in the collection of taxes and disallowing unregistered owners and properties from listing on their platform.
Let ineffective by-laws be bygones
Given that neighbours of the short-term rental units are among the worst affected by adverse effects, they should be given a choice as to whether short term rentals should be allowed in the project they are living in. This can be achieved through a poll of owners in each development. A development where a majority of owners voted yes would be allowed to rent out their units on a short-term basis.
To compensate for the increased wear and tear on the common facilities from the large number of transient occupiers, a maintenance levy can be collected on each short-term booking. This will be in addition to the regular maintenance fee payable so that the short-term rental units contribute a greater portion of the monies required for the upkeep of the development.
On the issue of security, the rental guests could be required to register with the management of the estate, the way hotel guests are required to check in. This would help security personnel differentiate between guests and trespassers. Registered guests are also more likely to behave.
In the long run, there will be a clear demarcation between developments that allow short-term rentals versus those that do not. Investors are likely to gravitate towards Airbnb-friendly developments, whereas owner-occupiers might choose to stay away. This could result in more relevant by-laws and policies.
Ready or not, the sharing economy is here to stay. Cities should work with service providers to promote greater transparency and efficiency, instead of fighting them.
This article appeared in The Edge Property Pullout, Issue 729 (May 23, 2016) of The Edge Singapore.
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Ukraine on Sunday denounced as dangerous lies suggestions from Russia that it was preparing to use a "dirty bomb". Its western allies also dismissed the allegations from Moscow, just hours after Russia went public with the claims. In conversations with his British, French and Turkish counterparts, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu conveyed "concerns about possible provocations by Ukraine with the use of a 'dirty bomb'", Moscow said. Russia did not mention the alleged "dirty bomb" allegation in its statement following Shoigu's call with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin. "If Russia calls and says that Ukraine is allegedly preparing something, it means one thing: Russia has already prepared all this," President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address on social media. "I believe that now the world should react as harshly as possible." Earlier Sunday, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba denounced Moscow's claims as "absurd" and "dangerous". "Russians often accuse others of what they plan themselves," he added. A British defence ministry statement said Defence Secretary Ben Wallace had "refuted these claims and cautioned that such allegations should not be used as a pretext for greater escalation". And in Washington, National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson dismissed Moscow's "transparently false" claim. "The world would see through any attempt to use this allegation as a pretext for escalation," she added. - 'Vile strikes' - Russia also announced Sunday that it had destroyed a depot in central Ukraine storing over 100,000 tonnes of aviation fuel. Kyiv's energy operator meanwhile said scheduled power cuts had been introduced in the Ukrainian capital due to Russia's repeated strikes on the nation's power network. The blackouts started from 11:13 am (0813 GMT) with consumers in Kyiv divided into three groups "disconnected for a certain period of time", energy company DTEK said. DTEK reiterated calls for residents to use electricity "sparingly" and for businesses to limit their use of external lighting. More than one million Ukrainian households have lost electricity following recent Russian strikes, according to the Ukrainian presidency, at least a third of the country's power stations having been destroyed ahead of winter. Zelensky condemned the "vile strikes" in comments late Saturday, after Russian attacks caused power cuts across the country. - 'Save your strength' - In the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rig, deputy mayor Sergiy Miliutin was dealing with emergencies and power outages from his underground bunker, used as a venue for a children's martial arts competition. "I've reached a point where I just survive on my drive. You have to stay level-headed and save your strength. No one knows how long this will all last," he told AFP. The intensification of Russian strikes on Ukraine, particularly energy facilities, came after the bridge linking the annexed Crimea peninsula to mainland Russia was partially destroyed by an explosion earlier this month. It was another major setback for Moscow's forces, battling to contain a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the south and east of the country. French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday that it was for Ukrainians to decide when "peace is possible", in comments made in Rome at the start of a peace summit. Ukraine reported three deaths in an overnight Russian artillery strike in the Toretsk area, a governor of the eastern Donetsk region said. Inside Russia, two lines of defence have been built in the border region of Kursk to deal with any possible attack, a local governor said on Sunday. On Saturday Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor in the neighbouring Russian border region of Belgorod, said the construction of defence structures had begun. Gladkov said two civilians had been killed in strikes there Saturday, and that 15,000 people had been left without electricity. - Kherson evacuations - Meanwhile Ukraine's SBU intelligence service said it had detained two officials of Ukrainian aircraft engine maker Motor Sich on suspicion of working with Russia. The SBU said management at the company's plant in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region -- partly controlled by Russian forces -- had colluded with Russian state-owned defence conglomerate Rostec. The suspects had supplied Russia with Ukrainian aircraft engines that were used to make and repair attack helicopters, the SBU said. In the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, which Russia claims to have annexed, pro-Moscow officials on Saturday urged residents to leave "immediately" amid a "tense situation" at the front. Kherson, the region's main city, was the first to fall to Moscow's troops and retaking it would be a major prize in Ukraine's counter-offensive. A Moscow-installed official in Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, told Russian news agency Interfax on Saturday that around 25,000 people had left Kherson city to the left bank of the Dnipro River. Ukraine has denounced the removal of residents from Kherson, describing them as "deportations". bur-imm/raz/jj/lcm
By Steve Holland and Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton pivoted to a general election match-up against Republican candidate Donald Trump on Thursday, saying he is dangerously unpredictable and not qualified to be president. Confident that she is finally close to defeating U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont for the Democratic nomination, Clinton turned heavy fire on Trump, who has been running about even with her in national polls of voters looking ahead to the Nov. 8 presidential election. On the Republican side, Trump promoted top aide Paul Manafort to serve as campaign manager and chief strategist, the Trump campaign said. Corey Lewandowski, the Trump aide who has been campaign manager, retains that title and will continue to oversee day-to-day operations, the campaign said. In addition, Trump has hired veteran Republican lawyer A.B. Culvahouse to help vet potential vice presidential running mates, a source close to the campaign said. In a CNN interview, Clinton used the example of the apparent downing of an EgyptAir plane from Paris to Cairo to say that Trump would lack the skills to bring together U.S. allies to respond to global threats. "I know how hard this job is and I know we need steadiness, as well as strength and smarts in it, and I have concluded that he is not qualified to be president of the United States," Clinton said. Trump, the Republicans' presumptive presidential nominee, has been intensifying his criticism of Clinton by lobbing personal attacks at her and her husband, former President Bill Clinton. Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state, said she would resolutely refuse to respond to Trump's goading. "He can say whatever he wants," she said. But she said the EgyptAir crash reinforces the need for American leadership and that Trump's proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States has sent the wrong signal to countries that Washington will need to work with in the fight against Islamic militants. "He says a lot of things that are provocative, that actually make the important task of building this coalition, bringing everybody to the table and defeating terrorism more difficult," she said. "It sends a message of disrespect and it sends a message that makes the situation inside those countries more difficult." Clinton suggested the Democratic race was over because of her nearly insurmountable lead in delegates to the nominating convention, despite Sanders' insistence on staying in the race. "I will be the nominee for my party," she said. "That is already done, in effect. There is no way that I won't be." She said Sanders will have to eventually help her unify the Democratic Party after the prolonged nomination fight. "I am absolutely committed to doing my part, more than my part. But Senator Sanders has to do his part," she said. The Sanders campaign rebuffed Clinton's nudge to get out of the race, pointing to his recent victories. "In the past three weeks voters in Indiana, West Virginia and Oregon respectfully disagreed with Secretary Clinton. We expect voters in the remaining eight contests also will disagree," Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs said. Trump stepped up efforts to rally Republican loyalists behind his campaign after winning a divisive primary fight that left the party ruptured. On Capitol Hill, Manafort and other Trump aides met with conservatives in the House of Representatives who are members of the Freedom Caucus group and canvassed them for policy ideas. Manafort was reaching out for ideas on policy, and several Freedom Caucus members made suggestions, said Republican Representative Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee. "It went very well, it was encouraging. I think the Trump team recognizes the relevance of the Freedom Caucus, and the influence they have. I think actually, despite some early skepticism by some members, I think the (Freedom Caucus) board received Manafort and his representation of Trump very well, DesJarlais said. Manafort also met with U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a Tea Party Republican who was a big backer of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas for president. Lee has expressed some concerns about Trumps candidacy. A spokesman for Lee said U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a key Trump adviser, was also at the meeting. (Additional reporting by Alana Wise; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and James Dalgleish)
By Alastair Macdonald KELMIS, Belgium (Reuters) - A small town in Belgium that spent a century living outside the map of Europe's great power system celebrates the 200th anniversary of the quirky autonomy it secured in the wake of the Napoleonic wars. Neutral Moresnet was the name given to the sliver of land, barely a square mile, that was home to a key deposit of the zinc ore calamine. It inspired tourists and anarchists - and utopian enthusiasts for the world language Esperanto - before succumbing to another round of the European bloodshed that gave it birth. Granted independence in 1816 to keep a peace between Dutch and Prussians following the defeat of its former French imperial masters at Waterloo, it was swept away 98 years later by World War One. Now, as a town called Kelmis, it sits in Belgium, in the small German-speaking region close to Aachen in Germany. "This is a unique history. This neutrality was a one-off. It has historical significance and that's a good reason to celebrate it," Kelmis mayor Louis Goebbels told Reuters at the start of a weekend of festivities for the bicentenary. These included parades by Napoleonic military reenactors and lectures on the prosperity and freedoms enjoyed by defenceless, tiny Moresnet amid a Europe held together ever more shakily by the balance of powers forged at the Congress of Vienna. Claimed by war-weary Prussians and Dutch, the Aachen Borders Treaty of June 26, 1816 divided the district of Moresnet between Berlin and Amsterdam with a narrow triangular strip containing the mine itself under shared control as Neutral Moresnet. When Belgium seceded in 1830, it took over the Dutch interests there. Run by the Vieille Montagne company, which boomed by cladding the roofs of Paris and other cities with rain-proof zinc, the population of the 3.4 sq.km. territory soared from 256 in 1816 to nearly 5,000 by the start of World War One in 1914. PEACEFUL "ANARCHY" Mayor Goebbels relates how his forefathers came from Germany to the "neutral zone". The mine, aware of a celebrity status that came from running its own state, was a model employer, offering a host of welfare services and sponsoring social clubs. For some there was also the draw that residents of what is known in French as La Calamine could avoid military service in Prussia or Belgium. Low taxes, notably on home-brewed alcohol, drove a thriving liquor trade -- and much smuggling. Law was largely dispensed locally with a light touch. It is cited as a model by libertarians who liken it to self-governing communities of the Wild West: "Moresnet demonstrated the possibilities that statelessness holds out for peace, prosperity and good order," U.S. financial trader and economist Peter C. Earle wrote in a 2014 study, "A Century of Anarchy". The limits of Moresnet's independence, though, were obvious. When in 1886 the company doctor, Wilhelm Molly, hit on the idea of the territory's own postal service, with an eye to stamp collectors, the twin supervisory powers in Berlin and Brussels joined forces to stop him -- leaving just a few rare specimens. As the mine declined, the ever enterprising Dr. Molly sought to make Neutral Moresnet a centre for Esperanto, an artificial "world language" intended to promote peace. Renaming the neutral zone "Amikejo" -- Esperanto for a place of friendship -- Molly even commissioned its own national anthem in 1908. But six years later, the breakdown of the "armed peace" that Europe had agreed at the Congress of Vienna a century earlier wiped Neutral Moresnet off the map. German troops swept it up and annexed it in their 1914 conquest of Belgium. After World War One, it was handed wholesale to Belgium along with other German-speaking borderlands as part of Berlin's reparations. A century and another devastating European war later, though dozens of stone border markers still dot the fields and woods, people in Kelmis find it hard to imagine their forebears carving out a space between great-power frontiers bristling with guns. "After two world wars, people here don't generally want to talk about the past," said Sylvie Fabeck, curator of the local museum. Her grandmother was the last person born in "free" Moresnet, weeks before war broke out in 1914. "These events," she said, "Are a chance to show what Neutral Moresnet was." It now lies in the 4-million-strong Meuse-Rhine Euroregion, an administrative area that embraces French-speaking Liege, German-speaking Eupen and Flemish Hasselt in Belgium, Charlemagne's 8th-century capital at Aachen in Germany and Maastricht, the Dutch home of the European Union treaty. Despite new checks on some of the EU's unpoliced borders since last year's migration crisis, the 11,000 multilingual people of Kelmis can now work easily in all three countries. As museum curator Fabeck puts it: "This is what is now Europe." (Editing by Stephen Powell)
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Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau poses following an interview with Reuters in his office on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, May 19, 2016. REUTERS/Chris Wattie
By Andrea Hopkins and David Ljunggren
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested on Thursday that a C$30 billion ($21 billion) budget deficit was not a hard limit as the government's focus should be on spurring economic growth.
In a wide-ranging interview, Trudeau, 44, also said he wanted Britain to stay in the European Union and attributed his role a day earlier in an unusual physical fracas in Parliament partly to being in a high stress job.
On the budget deficit, Trudeau said he was not obsessed with a "perfect number" and instead vowed to increase economic growth.
"Yes, we need to be fiscally disciplined, we need to be responsible, but we need to be investing in the right kinds of things at the same time, so the arbitrary picking a number and trying to stick with it is exactly what I campaigned against in the last campaign," Trudeau said.
"It's not an obsession with the perfect number, it's an obsession with the perfect, or the right, path to grow the economy in ways that help in the short term but lead us on the path towards prosperity in the medium and long term."
Canadian economic growth is tepid and massive wildfires spreading across the energy heartland will cut federal tax revenues and cost Ottawa billions to cover much of the damages.
Trudeau campaigned on a proposed C$10 billion annual deficit but the ruling Liberals later said the economy needed a bigger jump start given the downturn. In March, the government unveiled a budget with a shortfall of just under C$30 billion.
"What Trudeau learned from ballooning out the deficit the first time was that voters don't care. Canadian voters are prioritizing growth and Trudeau plans to deliver that at any cost," said Adam Button, currency analyst at ForexLive in Montreal.
"Like voters, the market is much more concerned with growth at this point. Central bankers have failed to deliver growth and markets are willing to tolerate larger government deficits for a chance to return to the old normal."
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Speaking in his corner office on Parliament Hill, where a sheathed Sikh sword sits on the desk, Trudeau said he did not see a point at which the government would walk away from talks with Bombardier Inc because aerospace jobs were exactly the kind of future Canada wants.
Ottawa is under pressure to provide aid to the plane maker, which is based in the mostly French-speaking province of Quebec, Trudeau's home, but federal negotiators want concessions around control of the company.
NO ABORIGINAL VETO ON PIPELINES
The prime minister also said that while community consultation was vital, Aboriginal groups did not have a veto over pipeline development.
Building new oil pipelines in Canada has proven difficult in recent years amid fierce legal and social opposition, frustrating producers who want greater market access.
Trudeau said there would be no unanimous agreement over the future of pipelines needed to carry oil from landlocked Alberta, but the government's long approval processes ensured any decisions would balance concerns from both the environment and the energy sector.
He also expressed hope Britons would vote on June 23 to stay in the European Union, noting there would be "nothing easy or automatic" about Britain negotiating a bilateral trade deal with Canada.
Trudeau, under fire for initiating the confrontation in Parliament on Wednesday - a rare public loss of control that dented his image - characterized his actions as "a poor judgment call."
He declined to comment on whether Canada or the world would struggle if Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump were to win the White House in November.
"I know that the relationship between Canada and the U.S., specifically, but (also) between the U.S. and the rest of the G7 countries is greater than the personality of any one leader and I look forward to working with whomever the Americans elect this fall," Trudeau said, adding that he has never spoken to Trump.
(Additional reporting by Leah Schnurr, and Fergal Smith in Toronto; Editing by Amran Abocar and Alan Crosby)
PORT LOUIS (Reuters) - Mauritius said on Friday that tourism revenue in 2016 will be 1.9 percent higher than it had previously forecast, after a surge in visitors during the first quarter. Tourism is a valuable source of foreign exchange for Mauritius, an Indian Ocean country known for its luxury spas and beaches. Tourism earnings are now expected to reach 55 billion rupees ($1.56 billion) this year, up from earlier forecast of 54 billion rupees, according to Statistics Mauritius, the government's statistics office. Last year, tourism earnings totalled 50.2 billion rupees. The statistics agency also raised its forecast for 2016 arrivals to 1,240,000 from 1,230,000 tourists. Visitors in 2015 numbered 1,151,723. In the first quarter of 2016, Mauritius attracted 327,836 tourists, up 12.5 percent from a year earlier. Revenue grew 13.9 percent to 15 billion rupees in the quarter, the agency said. ($1 = 35.1500 Mauritius rupees) (Reporting by Jean Paul Arouff, editing by Larry King; editing by Elias Biryabarema)
YENAGOA, Nigeria May 21 (Reuters) - Former militants called for a halt to a resurgence of attacks on oil and gas facilities in Nigeria's southern Niger Delta, saying it is an unnecessary distraction for President Muhammadu Buhari's administration.
The defunct Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), a group of former militants who previously targeted the oil-rich region, made the call in a statement late on Friday.
"We should give President Buhari the opportunity to fulfil his promises to the Niger Delta people by maintaining peace in the region," they said in the statement.
Former members of MEND, many of whom amassed large sums of money through contracts to protect pipelines under an amnesty agreement, are influential, although whether this extends to those responsible for the recent attacks is not clear. (Reporting by Tife Owolabi; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Alexander Smith)
(Adds detail, background)
By Felix Onuah and Anamesere Igboeroteonwu
ABUJA/ONITSHA, Nigeria, May 20 (Reuters) - Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday said he ordered a heightened military presence in the restive Niger Delta region to deal with a resurgence of attacks on oil and gas facilities, a day after yet another pipeline explosion.
British Foreign Minster Philip Hammond warned on Saturday military action would not end a wave of attacks in the southern swamps because it did not address rising anger among residents over poverty despite sitting on much of Nigeria's oil wealth.
The rise in attacks in the Delta in the last few weeks has driven Nigerian oil output to a more than 20-year low, worsening a drain on public finances.
A group calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers has claimed responsibility for several sophisticated attacks.
Speaking at a meeting with Shell (LSE: RDSB.L - news) 's upstream head, Andrew Brown, Buhari said he had instructed the chief of naval staff to reorganise and strengthen the military Joint Task Force to deal with the militancy.
"We have to be very serious with the situation in the Niger Delta because it threatens the national economy," Buhari said in a statement.
"I assure you that everything possible will be done to protect personnel and oil assets in the region," he added.
Nigeria had several times announced army reinforcements to the Delta but diplomats said the military has achieved little as militants were operating in small groups and hiding in the hard-to-access swamps.
"Mr. Brown had appealed for an urgent solution to rising crime and militancy in the Niger Delta," the presidency said.
An industry source told Reuters that major oil firms warned Vice President Yemi Osinbajo this month that a military crackdown was actually fuelling dissent in the Delta.
The presidency statement also quoted Brown as saying Shell would not pull out of Nigeria despite the violence and that it was in talks with state energy firm NNPC for new oil and gas projects.
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Their was no immediate comment from Shell, but its country chair said in an interview published on Sunday the firm was committed to long-term investment in the West African nation.
Buhari's comments came after locals said a gas pipeline operated by NNPC was attacked late on Thursday.
The pipeline, which connects the Escravos oil terminal to Warri, supplies gas to different parts of the country.
Eric Omare, a spokesman for the Ijaw Youth Council, a youth umbrella, said the attack occurred near the village of Ogbe Ijoh, near Warri, "on the pipeline belonging to NNPC.
Resident James Dadiowei said he heard a "loud bang" at the pipeline, but an NNPC spokesman was unable to confirm the attack.
On Thursday, intruders blocked access to Exxon Mobil (Swiss: XOM.SW - news) 's terminal exporting Qua Iboe, Nigeria's largest crude stream. And, earlier this month, Shell workers at Nigeria's Bonga facilities were evacuated.
In February, the Avengers claimed an attack on an undersea pipeline, forcing Shell to shut a 250,000 barrel-a-day Forcados terminal.
The group also claimed responsibility for blasting a Chevron (Euronext: CHTEX.NX - news) platform in early May, shutting the Warri and Kaduna refineries. Power outages across Nigeria worsened as gas supplies were also affected.
The army said on Sunday it had arrested several suspected members of the Avengers, but locals said they had been freed.
"They were released on Wednesday evening," Omare said.
Residents said the military had described them as Avengers but locals had protested they were Chevron pipeline inspectors who had shown the soldiers arresting them their identity cards.
Militant attacks have spiked since authorities issued in January an arrest warrant for a prominent former militant leader who with other rebels in 2009 agreed to stop blowing up pipelines in exchange for cash, a plan Buhari has trimmed as part of an anti-graft drive.
(Additional reporting by Tife Owolabi, in Yenagoa; writing by Alexis Akwagyiram and Ulf Laessing; Editing by Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman)
(Updates with Phillips 66 (Hamburg: 18376318.HM - news) no immediate response to request for comment)
LONDON, May 21 (Reuters) - U.S (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) . independent refiner Phillips 66 is in the final stages of selling the only oil refinery in Ireland (Other OTC: IRLD - news) , a source familiar with negotiations said on Saturday.
Phillips 66 did not immediately respond to resquests for comment.
Responding to a report on the Irish Examiner website, which said an agreement to sell the Whitegate refinery would be reached within the coming weeks, the source said a deal was "in the offing".
The Examiner said ArcLight Capital, Irving Oil, UK-based PTFPlusOne and Valero Energy were in the running, and that Irving Oil were the frontrunners.
It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) was unclear whether the potential buyers intended to keep the plant open or close it and use it for storage only. (Reporting by Simon Falush, writing by Andy Bruce; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
By Belinda Goldsmith COPENHAGEN (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As one of a handful of ambassadors for women globally, Australia's Natasha Stott Despoja is hoping other countries will put aside politics and appoint a champion for women's rights to ensure issues impacting women and girls are put centre stage. So far about six countries have appointed ambassadors for gender equality - starting with the United States and followed by Australia, the Seychelles, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Stott Despoja, a former politician who at 26 became the youngest woman to sit in the Australian parliament, said women's issues were easily overlooked without someone advocating for them to be addressed at national and international levels. This can be to ensure that girls get equal access to education and the job market, to push for investment in women's health care, or to tackle violence against women. "These appointments send a message to the country, the region, and globally that these are matters of priority," Stott Despoja told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at Women Deliver, the largest women's health and rights conference in a decade. "You need to take the politics out of this issue ... I think you will find countries coming on board and recognising the high level advocates are worth appointing." Stott Despoja, 46, the former leader of the Australian Democrats, was appointed Australia's ambassador for women and girls in 2013, five years after quitting politics. She said her role had three aims: to promote women's economic empowerment, to promote women's leadership, and to eliminate violence against women and girls. Ending violence against women is a major challenge in the Pacific region on Australia's doorstep which has some of the world's highest levels of violence against women. Studies show 90 percent of women in Papua New Guinea and two-thirds of women in Fiji have suffered some form of violence. Stott Despoja said Australia helped fund shelters for women, crisis centres, and supported the introduction of legislation and policies to outlaw domestic violence as well as seeking measures to prevent such violence. "I get to see the best and worst aspects of humanity in my job and the most confronting images and stories comes from women who have experienced violence," said Stott Despoja, who regularly liaises with the other ambassadors for women globally. "On the flip side the work we do does transform lives." Stott Despoja, whose appointment ends in December this year, said the time was right to advance the campaign to improve women's rights, with the 193 United Nations member states agreeing last year to aim for gender equality by 2030. "There is a very strong understanding among legislators and powerbrokers and ministers and civil society and NGOs that women and girls and gender equality is where it is at," she said, flatly ruling out a return to politics when her term ends. "We have to invest in women and girls if we want a world that is stable, secure and prosperous and one that grows." (Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)
By Martin Petty and Mai Nguyen HANOI (Reuters) - Cyber-criminals unsuccessfully tried to send money from a Vietnamese bank to a Slovenian one in December, but there have been no other cases of attempted fraudulent transfers identified in Vietnam, a top central bank official there said on Tuesday. Le Manh Hung, head of the State Bank of Vietnam's (SBV) Information Technology Department, told Reuters the Dec. 8 transfer - for 1.2 million euros ($1.36 million) via the SWIFT network - was the only attempt to steal funds detected by Tien Phong Bank (TPBank). Other Vietnamese banks and the SBV have not been hit, and the name of the Slovenian bank was not known, he said. It was also not clear how many accounts were listed as recipients. The Slovenian central bank said it had no information on the matter and was not informed about it by official bodies. The Slovenian police had no immediate comment. Unlisted TPBank revealed the interrupted cyber heist in response to Reuters inquiries on Sunday. It involved the use of bogus SWIFT messages, the technique at the heart of a massive theft in February from the Bangladesh central bank. SWIFT, a linchpin of the global financial system, is used by about 11,000 banks and financial institutions for transactions. The two attacks on banks will likely increase scrutiny on the security of its network. Interpol was immediately informed of the attack via its representative in Vietnam, Hung said. There was no financial loss and TPBank found the bogus transfer through its own reconciliation system, he said. TPBank has not said which bank the funds were headed to and Hung said he did not know the identity of the Slovenian partner. Hung said TPBank was hit because a third-party vendor it had used to connect to the SWIFT money transfer system was likely infected with malware. The vendor's Internet servers were based in Singapore, he said, adding he did not know the identity of the vendor provider. OTHER METHODS SWIFT has declined comment on TPBank's claims. On Thursday, it had said a unnamed commercial bank was targeted by a malware attack similar to the one at Bangladesh Bank. But SWIFT said in mid-May the malware it had found was used to remove traces of fraudulent transactions, not to conduct the transaction, adding the attackers had used other methods it did not identify to send the fraudulent transfer requests. (http://bit.ly/1TezgHe) Hung said it was the vendor that had been compromised, rather than TPBank's own systems. TPBank has declined Reuters requests for further comment. TPBank, founded in 2008 by Vietnam's top technology firm FPT Corp, is considered one of the communist country's most modern and tech-savvy banks and it this month received the "Best Internet Banking" prize from The Asian Banker. In February, in one of the world's biggest ever cyber-heists, hackers tried to steal nearly $1 billion from Bangladesh Bank's account at the New York Federal Reserve. Most orders were blocked but $81 million was transferred to accounts in the Philippines and most of the money remains missing. (Additional reporting by Marja Novak in Ljubljana, Slovenia; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and John Stonestreet)
A woman has been airlifted to hospital with life-threatening injuries after a knife attack near a supermarket in west London.
Three other women were stabbed during the attack in the car park of a branch of Sainsbury's in Hampton.
A man in his 60s was arrested at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder, the Metropolitan Police said.
Police and paramedics were called to the store on The Avenue at 10.35am and when officers arrived they found three women with knife wounds, which were not serious.
A fourth woman found at a property nearby was taken to hospital by air ambulance with life-threatening injuries, a police spokesman said.
Police said a Taser was deployed during the suspect's arrest but it was not discharged.
A woman working at a nearby pub said the attack appeared to be unprovoked.
"He only went for the women," she said.
"The man ran through and started attacking them. It didn't seem like they knew him; it was completely unprovoked.
"If it had been 10 or 20 minutes earlier there would have been children there because it's right outside a primary school.
"He was caught very quickly just outside the car park. He appeared to be out of it, on drugs or crazy.
"The woman who was badly stabbed in the back made it up to the police station and raised the alarm.
"She is well-known locally and always goes shopping there all the time."
A member of staff at Tangley Park Children's Centre, which backs onto the scene, said: "We kept all the children safe and kept them in the building until we knew it was safe.
"It's just such a shock - our parents and children could have been walking to their cars at that time.
Sky's Charlotte Lomas, reporting from the scene, said: "I spoke to a man here who was in the car park at the time of the attack.
"He was putting money in a machine when a young gentleman alerted him to the fact there was a man here with a knife.
"He ran from the scene and was approached by the man he said tried to stab him, but he ran away, got his wife and got out of the car park as soon as he could."
By Jeffrey Heller JERUSALEM (Reuters) - "He's a magician, he's a magician," the partisan crowd chanted as a beaming Benjamin Netanyahu strode into his party headquarters a little over a year ago to declare a come-from-behind victory in Israel's election. Now, with the expected entry into his right-wing government of ultranationalist Avigdor Lieberman as defense minister, it looks like Netanyahu, in his fourth term as premier, has pulled off another piece of political sleight of hand worthy of a "House of Cards" script. In a matter of hours on Wednesday, Netanyahu crushed the opposition, shored up his support in his narrow, rightist coalition and put himself more firmly on course to become Israel's longest-serving leader. But Netanyahu's surprise pact with Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu party, widely expected to be finalised by the weekend, and dashing talks with the center left was already raising Palestinian and international concern. Lieberman, a settler in the occupied West Bank, has stirred controversy by questioning Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's commitment to peace and the loyalty of Israel's Arab minority, while pushing for stonger military action against Gaza's Hamas rulers. "It's already an extremist government and now it will get even more extreme. This government will block any horizon for peace," said Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization. An Egyptian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters: "We're shocked, we're really shocked." He noted that the Lieberman appointment came just a day after a speech by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi promised Cairo's help to try to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. DEFENSE CHIEF At home, questions were raised about whether Lieberman, a former foreign minister who once proposed bombing Egypt's Aswan dam, had the temperament or qualifications to replace ex-general Moshe Yaalon as defense chief of a country that has largely lived by the sword since its creation in 1948. "I hope Lieberman lives to 120, but I think that even if he does, he will not gain the prowess, knowledge and experience that Yaalon has. These kind of chances should not be taken," former Defence Minister Moshe Arens told Army Radio. It had appeared for the past days that Netanyahu and Isaac Herzog's center-left Zionist Union party, which has 24 lawmakers, were closing in on an alliance that would put a more moderate face on the government and bolster its one-seat majority in the 120-member parliament. But in a surprise move, Lieberman, who declined to join the government straight after the 2015 election, convened a news conference on Wednesday to say he was now ready to negotiate an agreement that would bring his party's six lawmakers into the coalition. Soon, Lieberman's car was pulling up to the prime minister's office, where the two - who have a history of testy relations - launched talks expected to be wrapped up before the weekend. Netanyahu met Lieberman's demand to be named defense minister, political sources said. Herzog swiftly curtailed his own negotiations and said that bringing Lieberman in would result in government policies "on the brink of madness". Herzog's future is now uncertain. Political commentators have predicted his days as head of the Zionist Union are numbered, especially after many of the party's legislators warned against negotiating with Netanyahu and threatened not to support any partnership with his Likud party. For Netanyahu's current far-right coalition partner, the Jewish Home party, the prime minister's expected ousting of Yaalon could not come soon enough. A Likud member, Yaalon drew criticism from ultranationalists and his own party for backing the military's decision to prosecute a soldier who shot dead a wounded Palestinian attacker in the occupied West Bank in March. Laying out the welcome mat, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked of Jewish Home, said: "Avigdor Lieberman is part of the nationalist camp, and I think the coalition, together with him, with 67 legislators will hold together until 2019," when Israel's next election is due. If Netanyahu remains in office until the end of July 2019, he will be Israel's longest serving prime minister. (Additional reporting by Dan Williams and Ali Sawafta; Editing by Luke Baker and Alison Williams)
Terror suspect Salah Abdeslam has invoked his right to silence during questioning by judges investigating his alleged role in the Paris attacks.
The 26-year-old arrived at the Palace of Justice in the French capital surrounded by armed security forces while a police helicopter hovered overhead.
However, the session was quickly terminated after he declined to answer questions.
It is thought the Brussels-born Frenchman played a key logistical role in the attacks in November in which 130 people were killed.
:: Salah Abdeslam's Lawyer Says He Is 'A Moron'
Abdeslam is thought to have been driven back to Brussels from Paris hours after the attacks by two friends.
He was arrested in the Belgian capital in March, four days before the terror attacks at Brussels airport and a metro station.
Last month, he indicated he was prepared to co-operate with investigators, but today his lawyer, Frank Berton, suggested his client had been disturbed by 24-hour video surveillance in his maximum-security cell.
"The hearing is over," said Mr Berton.
"Mr Abdeslam decided not to speak today, using his right to remain silent.
"The magistrate asked him why and he did not want to explain the reasons of his silence."
:: Salah Abdeslam: Hunting Europe's Most Wanted
Mr Berton added: "The CCTV monitoring is a political decision, not a judicial decision, because there is no legal framework (for it).
"He can't tolerate being watched on video 24 hours a day.
"Psychologically that makes things difficult."
The hearing marked the first time Abdeslam was questioned since his extradition from Belgium last month, at which point Mr Berton said his client wanted to explain his path to radicalisation.
He is the only suspect still alive that is believed to have played a direct role in the attacks at a concert hall, stadium and cafes in Paris.
The other attackers died in suicide bombings or under police fire.
Authorities and victims' families had hoped his evidence would solve mysteries that remain about how the attacks on the night of 13 November happened.
It is thought Abdeslam may have been recruited as a suicide bomber by Islamist militants but changed his mind before carrying out the attack.
By Wiktor Szary WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's prime minister appeared to escalate a conflict with the European Commission on Friday, declaring Poland is a sovereign state and will not bow to external pressure. The European Union's executive arm is investigating whether Poland is violating the rule of law, and it said on Wednesday it would send its criticisms to Warsaw by Monday unless it saw significant progress on problems it had already identified. That drew a heated response from Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, who said in a speech to parliament that Poland will "never yield to any ultimatum." "The Polish government will never allow for anyone to impose their will on Poles," Szydlo said. "I am the prime minister of the Polish government, and my compatriots' opinion is and always will be supreme. I am a European, but above all I am a Pole." The row stems from changes that Poland's newly elected government imposed on the country's constitutional court late last year, which increased the size of majorities required for rulings and changed the order in which cases are heard. The EU said those changes undermined the court's independence, and it responded in January with an unprecedented inquiry into whether the government, formed by the eurosceptic Law and Justice party (PiS), has breached democratic standards. It was the first use ever of the commission's Rule of Law framework. In theory, an EU decision that Poland had breached the standards could eventually lead to sanctions such as the suspension of Poland's voting rights in the EU. The government has signalled that the differences between two sides had narrowed, although it said it would need more time to resolve the issue. It has agreed to reverse some but not all of the changes affecting the court. But PiS also argues it has an electoral mandate to carry out changes it deems necessary. And it says the top court had been too closely allied with the former centrist, pro-EU government. Szydlo's speech suggests its position may be hardening. It also has friends within the EU. Speaking earlier on Friday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whom PiS considers an ideological and political ally, said that Poles were being treated unfairly and Brussels will never win its battle against Warsaw. But a response to Szydlo's comments by one commissioner seemed to indicate the EU wouldn't back down, either. "Just like the Polish government has its prerogatives and duties, so do we," said Gunther Oettinger, the commissioner for digital economy and society, told reporters during his visit to Katowice, in southern Poland. "Our duties come from treaties, including the duty to safeguard the rule of law in EU states." (Reporting by Wiktor Szary, Wojciech Zurawski, editing by Larry King)
When you think of a council, you most likely think of a group of people sitting around a conference table or a committee room, debating issues and making decisions. You probably dont imagine a 400-person bureaucracy.
Yet thats what the National Security Council has become. An entity originally created in 1947 to coordinate foreign policy and advise the president has quadrupled in size over the last two decades and doubled under President Obama. The ballooning bureaucracy of the NSC has alarmed senior officials outside the White House for years, and especially in the Pentagon, where former defense secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, among others, have complained that NSC staffers have centralized power and micromanaged the Cabinet.
The White House says it agrees that NSC has gotten too big, having announced nearly a year ago that it was reversing the trend of growth across successive administrations. But its not moving fast enough for Republicans in Congress, who are advancing legislation that would either cap the NSC staff at 100 or subject the post of national security adviser to confirmation by the Senate. The House adopted multiple amendments aimed at reining in the NSC as part of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which passed on Thursday afternoon.
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To a certain extent, the Republican push is a partisan effort inspired, most recently, by the New York Times profile of Ben Rhodes, which depicted Obamas deputy national security adviser as a puppet-master of the Washington press corps. As GOP lawmakers see it, Rhodes was able to sell reportersand by extension, the publicon a misguided nuclear deal with Iran in part because the NSC is shielded from effective oversight and accountability. If there was any kind any kind!of accountability or transparency over those folks who were on the National Security Council, perhaps that never would have happened, Representative Jackie Walorski, an Indiana Republican, told me. We dont know because its just not there. Walorski, who sits on the Armed Services Committee, was able to pass an amendment that would subject the NSC to public-disclosure requests under the Freedom of Information Act if the post of national security adviser becomes confirmable by the Senate.
Story continues
They were not created to be this large, almost 400-member bureaucracy.
On a practical level, requiring the NSC to participate in FOIA might change little, since government officials already have wide latitude to withhold or black out information that is classified or sensitive for national-security reasons. But Walorski points out that until a Supreme Court ruling in the 1990s, the NSC had been subject to freedom-of-information requests. They were not created to be this large, almost 400-member bureaucracy, she said. Im in the camp of keeping it where it was intended to be, or all the rules change.
Yet although the timing of the GOP effort to restrain the NSC might be about seizing on the fallout from the Rhodes profile, it spotlights a real tension in the government. The expansion of the National Security Council over the last two administrations tracks with a centralization of power and decision-making in the White House, where officials are undeniably less accountable to Congress and the public. In late 2012, when Republicans protested the potential nomination of Susan Rice as secretary of state, Obama named her his national security adviser instead, ensuring that she could remain by his side without allowing the Senate to filibuster her nomination. As Politicos Glenn Thrush has written, Obama has sidelined his Cabinet as much asif not more thanany previous president, preferring the message-discipline that the tighter circle of authority inside the White House can offer.
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In the realm of national security, a larger NSC is partly a reflection of the post-9/11 threat environment and the fact that the U.S. has been fighting two wars for more than a decade. Still, the complaints go beyond just how large the NSC has become. In his memoir, Gates wrote that NSC staffers would make direct calls to four-star generals in the fielda breach of the chain of command that would have been a firing offense in previous administrations.
How seriously is the White House taking the push in Congress? Mark Stroh, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said that under Rices direction, the NSC staff had already shrunk by 12 percent in the last year-and-a-half. Her review has also led to fewer interagency meetings and streamlined internal procedures. More importantly, however, these measures will help to ensure the NSC staff is best positioned to assist the president in carrying out his ambitious foreign-policy and national-security agenda during his remaining time in office, Stroh said.
He would not directly address the GOP proposals, but the White House has in the past noted that one reason the NSC staff grew so much under President Obama was that it was merged with a separate Homeland Security Council created by President Bush after 9/11. And as administration officials are quick to point out, the Republican bill wouldnt actually constrain Obama so much as his successor. The desire of some Republicans to try to limit the ability of the next president to make foreign-policy decisions, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, mused to reporters on Tuesday, may reflect their lack of confidence in their prospects for the next presidential election.
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This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
By Lanre Ola MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - A Nigerian schoolgirl rescued more than two years after being taken captive by Boko Haram militants will meet President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday amid hopes she can help shed light on the whereabouts of more than 200 other missing girls. The girl, named by activists as Amina Ali Darsha Nkeki, was accompanied by her mother, Binta, and the provincial governor as she was driven in a military convoy to the airport in Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria's war-scarred northeast. Soldiers working with a civilian vigilante group rescued Amina on Tuesday near Damboa, south of Maiduguri. Officials confirmed she was one of 219 girls abducted from the government school in Chibok in April 2014. She was found with her four-month-old baby, while a "suspected Boko Haram terrorist" called Mohammed Hayatu who said he was Amina's husband, was also detained, the army said. Amina's rescue should give a boost to Buhari, a former military ruler who made crushing the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency a pillar of his presidential campaign in 2015. However, an assertion from activist group #Bringbackourgirls that the remaining abductees were under heavy Boko Haram guard in the Sambisa forest, the jihadists' final stronghold, will put pressure on him to send in rescue squads. Boko Haram captured 276 girls in their night-time raid on Chibok, one of the most audacious assaults of a seven-year-old insurgency to set up an Islamic state in the north. More than 15,000 people have been killed and 2 million displaced in Nigeria and neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon. Some girls escaped in the melee but parents of the remaining 219 accused then-President Goodluck Jonathan of not doing enough to find their daughters, whose disappearance led to a global campaign #bringbackourgirls. Amina's mother last year spoke of her daughter's fear of Boko Haram but of her enjoyment of attending school and doing well at her studies. She told the Murtala Muhammed Foundation, a Nigerian non-profit organisation researching a book on the Chibok girls, that she was not sure of the age of Amina, the youngest of her 13 children although only three survived their early years. "She always sewed her own clothes," her mother said in the interview released to the Thomson Reuters Foundation by Aisha Oyebode of the Murtala Muhammed Foundation. Binta said Amina's father died some months after his daughter was abducted. "After Amina was kidnapped, only two (of our children) are left alive," she said, adding her son and daughter live in Lagos. She said she constantly thought of her lost daughter, who had always helped her around the house. "(My son) said I should take it easy and stop crying," she told the Foundation. "He reminded me that I am not the only parent who lost a child." (Reporting by Lanre Ola, Ulf Laessing and Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani; Editing by Ed Cropley and Janet Lawrence)
By Dustin Volz and Sweta Singh (Reuters) - The Senate Homeland Security Committee's top Democrat sought information Thursday from global financial network SWIFT and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on steps being taken to bolster cyber security in the wake of the theft of $81 million from the central bank of Bangladesh. Senator Tom Carper of Delaware requested that both answer questions and brief his staff by June 17 on how they were handling issues following the February heist, during which hackers wired money out of an account at the New York Fed held by Bank Bangladesh, as well as how they were safeguarding against other potential cyber threats. "These cyber attacks raise important questions about the security of the SWIFT system and the ability of its members to prevent future attacks," Carper wrote in his letters. The inquiry comes as policymakers, regulators and financial institutions around the world increase scrutiny into the heist at Bank Bangladesh and a separate attempt to use fraudulent SWIFT messages to steal from a commercial bank in Vietnam. The Association of Banks in Singapore told Reuters it had invited SWIFT for a meeting in June to discuss the latest cyber attacks. The Bank of England last month ordered British banks to provide documentation on SWIFT security measures. In his letters, Carper said there appeared to be no evidence the Federal Reserve systems were penetrated or compromised in the Bangladesh attack. The New York Federal Reserve has denied responsibility for the intrusion, which some security researchers have said was due to a flaw in the SWIFT bank messaging network. The identity of the Bangladesh hackers remains unknown. Brussels-based SWIFT is a cooperative owned by some 3,000 global financial institutions. A representative for SWIFT could not immediately be reached for comment. The New York Fed plans to respond, a representative said. Carper asked SWIFT how it shares information about cyber security threats against member banks, whether there were consequences for members who did not follow security standards and if it plans to revise its cyber security policies in response to the Bangladesh attacks, among other questions. He requested similar information from the Federal Reserve, including steps it has taken to coordinate with SWIFT, Bangladesh Bank, the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Treasury since the heist. Major U.S. banks are scrutinizing security of the SWIFT messaging network following the cyber attacks, according to media reports. (Reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington and Sweta Singh in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Jonathan Oatis)
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan will not seek to renew the mandate for the international peacekeeping mission in Darfur in June as it believes the insurgency there is winding down and civilians are safe, a foreign ministry official said on Thursday. The joint African Union-United Nations force, known as UNAMID, has been stationed in Darfur since 2007 with a mandate to stem violence against civilians. The U.N. Security Council will discuss a one-year renewal of its mission in June. Security remains fragile in Darfur, where mainly non-Arab tribes have been fighting the Arab-led government in Khartoum, and the government is struggling to control rural areas. Clashes between government forces and armed groups in mid-January forced more than 130 thousand people to flee their homes, according to U.N. figures. "It is time to end the mission of UNAMID in Darfur," Kamal Ismail, a minister of state in the foreign ministry said. "The situation is stable in Darfur and the rebel activities receded. There is no citizen in Darfur that is under threat and in need of protection from UNAMID." Some 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur since the conflict began in 2003, the U.N. says, while 4.4 million people need aid and over 2.5 million have been displaced. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2009 and 2010 on charges of war crimes and genocide in his drive to crush the Darfur revolt. Sudan asked UNAMID to prepare to leave in 2014 amid a dispute over attempts by the mission to investigate an alleged mass rape by Sudanese soldiers in the Darfur town of Tabit. The government denies any wrongdoing by the soldiers. "We believe that it is better to shift the budget that is spent on the UNAMID mission to the development of Darfur and hope that UNAMID's exit happens smoothly through dialogue," Ismail said. (The story was refiled to correct the official's title throughout to minister of state in the foreign ministry, not foreign minister) (Reporting by Khaled Abdelaziz; Writing by Asma Alsharif; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Tom Heneghan)
DHAKA (Reuters) - Three workers were killed on Saturday when fire engulfed a textile factory in Bangladesh, police said, renewing fears about safety in the multi-billion dollar industry. A Pakistani technician was among those killed at the factory in Narsingdi, 50 km (30 miles) north-east of Dhaka, police official Shahidur Rahman said. "The blaze started on the ground floor of the seven-storey building, where chemicals were stored," he said, adding it was not immediately clear what caused the fire. At least seven workers were injured and taken to hospital. It took firefighters three hours to put out the blaze. Such fires have become less frequent in recent years as global brands and the Bangladesh government have focused more on safety. The $26 billion export industry employs four million people and generates 80 percent of Bangladesh's export earnings. Bangladesh's garment sector is the world's second biggest after China. The industry came scrutiny after the collapse of a factory complex in 2013 killed more than 1,100 people and a garment factory fire in 2012 killed 112 workers. (Reporting by Ruma Paul; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
TOKYO (Reuters) - An American man working at a U.S. military base in Japan was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of dumping the body of a 20-year-old Japanese woman, police said, a case likely to stir anti-U.S. sentiment ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama. The 32-year-old civilian working at the base on the island of Okinawa admitted to abandoning the corpse but did not make any comments about whether he had killed the woman, an Okinawa police spokesman said. Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida summoned Caroline Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Japan, to lodge a protest. "I expressed a strong regret to Ambassador Kennedy and lodged a stern protest. I told her an incident like this is inexcusable and that I feel strong indignation," Kishida told reporters. Kennedy told Kishida the United States would redouble its efforts to prevent similar incidents, the foreign minister said. In Washington, the Pentagon said the individual was a contractor, but did not name him. Spokesman Peter Cook said the Pentagon would provide "complete cooperation" in the investigation, while State Department spokesman John Kirby expressed condolences. "This is a terrible tragedy and it's obviously an outrage," Kirby told a daily news briefing. "We're treating this situation with the utmost seriousness." Obama, who is to attend a Group of Seven summit in Japan next week, will become the first U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, a city destroyed by a U.S. atomic bomb 71 years ago. Okinawa, the site of a bloody World War Two land battle, hosts the bulk of U.S. military forces based in Japan since the war, and many residents resent what they see as an unfair burden. U.S. installations take up about 18 percent of Okinawa's land area and past incidents involving Americans have fueled resentment. In 1995, a 12-year-old schoolgirl was raped by three U.S. servicemen on Okinawa, sparking huge protests, and earlier this year, a U.S. sailor was arrested on suspicion of raping a woman at a hotel in Naha in the south the island. Japan's ambassador to the United States, Kenichiro Sasae, said he hoped the latest incidents would not affect the mood toward Obama's visit to Hiroshima, as the Japan-U.S. alliance had made "tremendous progress" under the current U.S. president. "The Okinawa issue is the Okinawa issue," he told reporters. "This is a tragic event, but a tragic event should not overshadow the fundamental objective of the alliance that's what I hope," he told reporters in Washington. (Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Idrees Ali and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Andrew Hay and Sandra Maler)
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Tsai Ing-wen is to be inaugurated Taiwan's first woman president on Friday, with the export-driven economy on the ropes and wary Communist Party rulers in China watching for any move towards independence by an island it considers its own. Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won parliamentary and presidential elections by a landslide in January on voter backlash against creeping dependence on China. There were massive protests in 2014 against a trade pact with China that the previous government had sought to push through. The DPP, which has traditionally favoured independence from China, takes over after eight years under China-friendly Nationalist Ma Ying-jeou. Tsai's inauguration speech at 11.10 am (0310 GMT) will be widely watched for any hint of anti-China sentiment, which could sour economic ties further. "The favourable interaction will be broken," said Chang An-lo, a pro-unification leader, rallying about 400 supporters outside the DPP headquarters this week. China has not ruled out using force to bring Taiwan under its control. It is deeply distrustful of the DPP, whose charter includes a clause promoting "a sovereign and independent Republic of Taiwan". Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to Taiwan after losing the civil war to the Communists in China in 1949. China has pressured the new Taiwan government to stick to the "one-China" principle agreed with the Nationalists. That allows each side to interpret what "one China" means. The Communists say they rule all of China including Taiwan, while the Nationalists maintain Taipei is the ruler. Tsai has said she will maintain the status quo, but stops short of referring to "one China". During the inauguration ceremony, performers will pay tribute to demonstrations that have been key to the DPP's rise, including the 2014 Sunflower Movement protests. The DPP is distrustful of growing economic dependence on China and champions Taiwans own history. Tsai, partly of aboriginal descent, will take the stage in front of the presidential office, a life-size replica of which Taiwan has said has been built in China and used for attack practise. "We have emphasized ... our hope that both sides will continue to show flexibility going forward in the name of maintaining peace and stability," said Daniel Kritenbrink, senior director for Asian Affairs at the White House's National Security Council, earlier this week. The United States switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, but is also Taiwan's biggest ally and arms supplier. Taiwan's political uncertainty pushed Taiwan's main stock index to over three month lows last week with foreign investors net equity sellers every trading session so far this month. Exports and orders have slumped for the last year. Many Taiwan technology companies produce their goods in China while also eying the vast Chinese market potential, making the mainland a major export destination. (Reporting by J.R. Wu; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in WASHINGTON; Editing by Nick Macfie)
YEREVAN, MAY 20, ARMENPRESS. On May 19 the Government of Armenia and the European Commission signed an agreement over Armenias participation in the Horizon-2020 EU Research and Innovation framework program in Brussels, Press Service of the MFA of Armenia informed Armenpress.
From the Armenian side, the agreement was signed by the Minister of Education and Science Levon Mkrtchyan, and from the EU side the agreement was signed by the EU Commissioner on Research, Science and Innovation Affairs Carlos Moedas.
By the coordination of the MFA of Armenia the negotiations between Yerevan and Brussels over Armenias participation in the program were being held during the last two years.
Horizon-2020 framework program will be implemented until 2020. Armenias participation in the program will contribute to the integration of our scientific communitys researches into the European area, the cooperation with the European leading scientific centers, the development of innovative approaches and methods, which in its turn will lead to the sustainable development programs in Armenia. Moreover, the close cooperation in these fields will give new quality to the Armenia-EU relations.
YEREVAN, MAY 20, ARMENPRESS. Head of the National Assembly ARF faction Armen Rustamyan says in order to restart the negotiations over the settlement of the Nagono Karabakh conflict, Armenia must set two concrete preconditions for Azerbaijan which are the maintenance of the ceasefire regime and participation on the NKR in the negotiations. If the agreements reached in Vienna will be implemented in the nearest future, in particular, when the investigative mechanisms of the incidents will be installed in the line of contact, guarantees will be created that Azerbaijan will maintain the ceasefire, the OSCE Representatives group will expand, the violations will be recorded, only in that case we can speak about the new round, Armenpress reports, he said this during the briefing.
At the same time, the head of the ARF faction stated that even during that time we cannot talk about negotiations since there cannot be any negotiations without the participation of the NKR. We cannot consider the meeting between the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan negotiations. These are meetings for preparing the negotiations. We can talk about negotiations only when the Nagorno Karabakh will return to the negotiation table. Only that time the negotiation process will become complete, MP stated.
Armen Rustamyan added that Azerbaijans blitzkrieg was subjected to fiasco during the four-day war. They present their failure as a victory, but even if it is a victory, it is a Pyrrhic victory, since the lost was much more than they expected. They were trying with that blitzkrieg to solve several issues, to create a new line of contact, however, they failed, MP stated.
Referring to the talks over concession issues MP said there is no need to talk about the concessions since Azerbaijan never talked about it.
He also referred to the talks about the lost territories of the Armenian side during the four-day war and the calls of taking those territories back. MP said as long as the state of war continues, there can be constant changes in the line of contact. Why do we use the expression of line of contact since there do not exist clear borders, and as long as the state of war continues, this line of contact can be changed. The line of contact has always been changed during these years and it will change since there is no basis to think that the war ended. We have also taken several territories under our control without announcing that. These have not been publicized, and there is no need to publicize these, however, I say the truth, head of the ARF faction stated.
YEREVAN, MAY 21, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Parliament Speaker of Armenia, head of the Armenia-Greece parliamentary friendship group Eduard Sharmazanov, who is on a working visit to Athens, on May 20 met the first Deputy Parliament Speaker of Greece Anastasios Kourakis, Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Greece-Armenia parliamentary friendship group Eleni Stamataki and Antonis Balomenakis, press service of the National Assembly of Armenia informed Armenpress.
The sides stated with satisfaction that the bilateral relations develop in a dynamic way, and stressed the necessity of the further strengthening and development of the inter-parliamentary relations, the activity of the parliamentary friendship groups, as well as supporting each other in the international parliamentarian platforms. They also referred to the recent developments taking place in the South Caucasus.
Armenian Deputy Parliament Speaker informed his Greek counterparts that the NKR National Assembly factions issued a statement on May 19 condemning the genocide committed against Greek people in the Ottoman Empire. He said that by this the NKR became the 5th country to recognize the Greek Genocide.
Eduard Sharmazanov expressed gratitude to the Greek MPs for visiting the Nagorno Karabakh and Yerablur Pantheon last month.
Your visit to Yerablur where You paid tribute to the memory of the victims killed as a result of the Azerbaijani aggression on early of April showed that You are real advocates of solidarity, Sharmazanov stated.
He highlighted that the Nagorno Karabakh conflict must be solved only with peaceful means, and no one can silence the voice of the Nagorno Karabakh people.
Greek parliamentarians in their turn stated that Greece supports the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group aimed at the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
Anastasios Kourakis stressed the necessity of the condemnation of genocides, especially the genocides of Greek and Armenian people.
Greek MPs expressed their gratitude to the Armenian Parliament for the unanimous adoption of the statement by the National Assembly of Armenia on March 24, 2015 condemning the Greek Genocide committed in the Ottoman Turkey.
YEREVAN, MAY 21, ARMENPRESS. On May 21 NKR President Bako Sahakyan sent a condolence letter to the family of the Gandzasar monastery priest Grigor Markosyan, press service of the NKR Presidential Administration informed "Armenpress".
The letter reads:
"I have learnt with deep sorrow about the death of the Gandzasar monastery priest Grigor Markosyan.
Priest Grigor was among the first priests of the re-opened NKR Diocese, a person who selflessly served our people, substantially contributing to the maintenance and development of religious and national values, as well as carrying out the sacred mission of reinforcing Christian faith in our country.
His name and memory will always remain bright in our mind.
On behalf of the NKR people, authorities and myself personally, I offer condolences and support to all the relatives and friends of the deceased, as well as our faithful nation in connection with this irretrievable loss and wish them courage and tenacity".
YEREVAN, MAY 21, ARMENPRESS. New clues emerged on May 20 about EgyptAir Flight 804, but there were no answers as to what caused the plane to go down in the Mediterranean Sea, Armenpress reports citing CNN.
There were smoke alerts near the airliner cockpit early Thursday in the minutes before it crashed, according to flight data CNN obtained on May 20 from an Egyptian source.
The data came through the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), a data link for sending messages between planes and ground facilities. A screen grab of data has time stamps that match the approximate time the aircraft went missing.
The alerts don't necessarily mean a fire occurred on the plane or that the crew even knew about the alerts, which are automatically transmitted, aviation experts cautioned.
Still missing are the most important clue: the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, sometimes called the "black boxes."
"(The data) doesn't tell us anything, whether it's an explosion because of a bomb or because of a mechanical fault, but immediately it narrows down the area that we're looking at," CNN aviation analyst Richard Quest said. "We're now no longer worried about wings or what else might have happened, or other flight control surfaces."
The plane carrying 66 people disappeared while flying from Paris to Cairo.
Egyptian officials say they suspect terrorism, but no group has come forward to claim credit.
No survivors have been found, but searchers in the Mediterranean Sea located debris on Friday, including suitcases and human remains.
Aviation experts held different views of what the ACARS data may signify.
There were indications of problems with a heated window in the cockpit, a sliding window in the cockpit, smoke in the lavatory, smoke in the avionics compartment below the cockpit, a fixed window, the auto pilot and the flight control system.
"It could have been either something mechanical that had failed, a short circuit, or it could have been an incendiary device of some kind as well," CNN aviation analyst David Soucie said.
He said it was significant that the data was sent over a period of one to two minutes.
"Now if it it was a bomb, the characteristic bomb ... (it) would have ruptured the skin of the aircraft," Soucie said. "This is not the indication you would have had, because a bomb that would do that would be instantaneous, and these reports would not have gone over two minutes like they do."
Missing EgyptAir MS804
According to an aviation official and a former FAA official, the ACARS data, however, could be consistent with a catastrophic failure -- be it from an intentional act or mechanical breakdown.
The aviation official said if there was a fire on board a plane, it would tend to burn slow enough for pilots to send an emergency message. These messages could have been a result of wires shorting out and malfunctioning as the plane broke apart.
The aviation official said the messages, while random, would be consistent with what would be sent by a system on a plane that is falling apart.
There have been electrical problems with window anti-ice heaters in A320s. In 2003, the FAA required windshields replaced in all A320s in the United States. It's not known whether Egypt followed the FAA directive.
YEREVAN, MAY 21, ARMENPRESS. US Secretary John Kerry met in Brussels Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Armenpress reports, US State Department official website informs.
The Secretary recalled Turkish Foreign Minister about the importance of freedom of expression and a free and independent media.
The two ministers reviewed the situation in Syria, emphasizing the need for all parties to the cessation of hostilities to abide by their commitments and to contribute to the political process for transition.
They also discussed ongoing coalition efforts against Daesh in Iraq and in the region, as well as international efforts to address the worsening refugee crisis.
European dairy farmers should forget about an end to Russias trade ban, an expert on the countrys dairy industry, has warned.
Michael Mischenko, chief editor of Russia Dairy News, said the embargo on EU food imports, in place since August 2014, could last another two years. And the country may never need European dairy products in the same quantity again.
Russias ban has deepened the dairy slump, on top of the world milk oversupply and dwindling demand from China.
Before the ban, EU farmers shipped one-third of their cheese and one-fifth of their butter to Russia with all exports worth 1.8bn in 2013.
Mr Mischenko told the Dairy Industry Newsletter conference that Russia was building up its own dairy production, lessening its dependence on imports.
He said big world traders such the EU and New Zealand should not put all their eggs in one basket.
Opportunity for neighbouring countries
Neighbouring countries such as Azerbaijan, Belarus and Kazakhstan have enormous potential to produce more milk and supply Russia too, he added.
China has also been working closely with Russia. Last year reports surfaced that a Chinese firm had started building a 100,000-cow dairy unit, to make milk and cheese for Russian shoppers. The farm would likely be the biggest in the world.
It will be very easy for those [nearby] countries to come to the Russian market. [Russias dairy] deficit is going down. It is a very good opportunity for Russia to develop its own production and a bad opportunity for [Western] countries to supply their milk to Russia.
Russias dairy industry shrunk dramatically after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Milk production in 1987 hit 19.5bn litres, but had shrunk to 15.9bn by 2013.
But output has been building recently, especially since the EU trade ban, launched in reaction to Europes own sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis.
Last year the dairy herd grew by 1.2% to 4.5 million cows, while milk production also jumped 2.5% to 16.7bn litres.
Political tactics
President Vladimir Putin seems to favour the tactic of food embargoes in his diplomatic squabbles.
Russias relations with Turkey have worsened after a Turkish jet shot down a Russian plane over Syria in November 2015. Just this week, Russia banned imports of squash and pumpkins from Turkey, the latest in a string of sanctions.
Identity Europa, formerly known as the National Youth Front, is the youth wing of the Neo-Nazi American Freedom Party. The group, along with members of the National Policy Institute, held a rally on May 6 at the UC Berkeley campus with the full protection and cooperation of campus police. They livestreamed the whole event and put up a large poster in the downtown Berkeley area. Members of the group that participated are well known Neo-Nazis and one, Nathan Damigo, served time for a hate crime against a cab driver. It was the largest open white power gathering in the Bay Area in some time and shows the degree in which the far-fight is growing in the wake of Trump's campaign.The event itself was billed as a "safe space" to talk about race in America, using language common among left-wing, activist, and anarchist spaces. While they didn't fly completely under the radar, their event happened without being physically shut down. When their gathering was disrupted, twice, briefly, National Policy Institute members waved at the police, who were stationed around the plaza watching the entire event, to come over and back them up. This makes it appear that there had to have been some level of coordination between the white nationalists and UC Berkeley itself, and if a permit was involved, then this would have meant that UC Berkeley students were needed to set those wheels in motion.
The Zionists and Rightwing UK Labourites are launching a witch hunt against supposed anti-semites because they have exposed the historic relationship between the Nazis and the Zionists who colluded during the 2nd WW. Nazis were invited by the Zionists to Palestine because they agreed with the Nazi solution of Jews going to Palestine for their own state.
Zionist, Nazi Relations in 1930's Becomes Big Issue in British Politics-Interview With Lenni BrennerUpdates May 7May 5 Video Interview with Lenni Brenner about Nazi-Zionist collaboration in the 1930'sOver 20,000 sign petition opposed to Labor MP who called Livingstone a "Nazi apologist"April 29, 2016 Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, England has been suspended from the Labour Party, supposedly saying something about "Hitler supporting Zionism".The comment on Zionism and Hitler was sloppy. But hopefully there's going to be an international examination what actually happened in the '30's, the collaboration of the mainstream Zionist organizations and the Nazis for at least 4 years and especially the betrayal of Jewish interests by Zionist organizations when they broke the anti-Nazi boycottThe issue is joined. Start reading up on it1. The betrayal by Zionist organizations of the anti-Nazi boycott of the 1930's2. The long history of betrayal of Jewish interests by prominent Zionists and Zionist organizations.3. The issue of Zionist-Nazi collaboration was debated before a million people on British TV in 1987. Part 1, Part 2The Lenni Brenner archive. It's Brenner that Ken Livingstone cites as having taught him about the periodCan Zionist Apologists Explain Away These Images?April 30. Hitler from the start was a murderous beast and in Mein Kampf in the 1920's talked about gassing Jews. Yet for a number of years the Nazi government in fact encouraged emigration of Jews (while at the same time passing ever more vicious laws against Jews within Germany). German Jewish organizations tried to resist with one exception, Zionist organizations. They decided to cooperate with the Nazis on emigration even though they knew it would sabotage all hopes for resistance. They brought an SS official, Baron Leopold von Mildenstein, to Palestine who stayed there six months, and wrote about his experience positively in the SS magazine Angriff in a year long series of articles and had the above medal struck in honor of the trip.That medal is real. Please explain it.This is a picture of Haim Arlosoroff, a top Labour Zionist leader, assassinated in June 1933 weeks after he had bargained a preliminary version of "The Transfer Agreement" with the Nazi German government. In this agreement Zionists would sell German goods in Palestine and the Middle East so that German Jews could leave Germany with more of their capital. The agreement was furiously denounced by Revisionist Zionists because they knew it would doom the anti-Nazi boycott and weaken resistance to Hitler.Arlosoroff was shot on June 16, 1933. A Revisionist Zionist named Avraham Stavsky was identified by Arlosoroff's wife Sima from some photos and she testified against him at his trial. He was convicted and sentenced to death. (The conviction was later overturned. Evidence had gone missing). According to Lenni Brenner, "In 1944 a ballistics expert discovered the gun that killed Arlosoroff was used in the Cairo assassination by the Stern Gang splitters from Jabotinskys organization." (Trace 1933 Murder Weapon to Stern Group Death Squad, Jewish Journal, 10 August 1973.)You say Livingstone is just talking some antisemitic nonsense. What about the Revisionists (whose descendants have run the Israeli government since the late '70's) who were denouncing the same thing in the early '30's that Livingstone is talking about now?. They were so furious about it that they murdered a fellow Jew because of it.Please explain.BTW About That Supposedly Terrible Sentence About "Hitler" and "Legal"May 1. Interesting that the supposedly outrageous meme where Labour MP Shah included the words, "what Hitler did in German was legal" is actually part of a famous "Birmingham Letter" by Martin Luther King of 1963 where he makes the point that just because something is "legal" it isn't necessarily moral and shouldn't necessarily be obeyed. Here is the quote and linkWe should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.The interviewer of Ken Livingstone brings up the "Hitler" "legal" business as supposedly an anti-Semitic statement being totally ignorant of its origin and intent. Livingstone then gives an imprecise answer about Hitler supporting Zionism and we're off to the races."Supporting Zionism"The beast Hitler, or course, never had any desire to help Jews in any fashion. However, the Transfer Agreement negotiated by the Zionists with the Nazi German government did in fact support the Zionist project in Palestine. Read the glowing account of it by Edwin Black a very enthusiastic Zionist in his book "The Transfer Agreement". The Epilogue of the 2009 reprint (endorsed by Abraham Foxman of the ADL, no less) tells how the agreement led to an "economic explosion" in Palestine. He says "Palestine's economic absorbtiveness tripled, perhaps quadrupled..." He ends the book talking about the men who in 1933 decided to make the agreement. He writes, "These men were the creators of Israel. And in order to do so, each had to touch his hand to the ost controversial undertanking in Jewish history - the Transfer Agreement. It paved the way for a state". Here's a link to Edwin Black's website. Read his description of "The Transfer Agreement".The Zionists and Hitler despised each other, but both thought they were brilliantly using each other. There's no doubt the agreement did help the Zionist project in Palestine in monetary ways, but at a collosal cost, sabotaging and destroying a major effort to defeat Hitler in the 1930's.Return to Home PageAnatomy Of A Propaganda Blitz Part 2: HitlergateIN ALERTS 2016 POST 17 MAY 2016 LAST UPDATED ON 17 MAY 2016 BY EDITOR HITS: 1031The recent furore surrounding a supposed 'Labour antisemitism crisis' is a classic propaganda blitz of the kind described in Part 1 of this alert.Dramatic New EvidenceAs with so many propaganda blitzes, intense media coverage was triggered by 'dramatic new evidence'; namely, the discovery of a graphic posted by Naz Shah two years ago, before she became a Labour MP. The graphic shows a map of the United States with Israel superimposed in the middle, suggesting that a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict would be to relocate Israel to the US.Shah's post was highlighted by right-wing political blogger Paul Staines who writes as Guido Fawkes:'Naz Shah... shared a highly inflammatory graphic arguing in favour of the chilling "transportation" policy two years ago, adding the words "problem solved".'Jonathan Freedland, comment editor at the Guardian, argued that leftists view Israel as 'a special case, uniquely deserving of hatred', and that this hatred 'lay behind' Shah's call 'for the "transportation" [of Israel to America] - a word with a chilling resonance for Jews'.In the Observer, Andrew Rawnsley claimed that Shah believed 'that Israelis should be put on "transportation" to America, with all the chilling echoes that has for Jews'.Guardian assistant editor Michael White reported that Shah had been suspended from the Labour party 'while the context of her antisemitic comments... are thoroughly investigated'. Clearly then, the jury was in - the comments were 'anti-semitic'.By contrast, Israel-based former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook, who was given a Martha Gellhorn special award for his work on the Middle East, argued that the map 'was clearly intended to be humorous rather than anti-semitic. I would make a further point. It is also obvious that the true target of the post is the US, not Jews or even Israel making the anti-semitism claim even more ridiculous'.Norman Finkelstein, Jewish author of 'The Holocaust Industry' and the son of Holocaust survivors, commented that he had originally posted the graphic on his website in 2014:'An email correspondent must have sent it. It was, and still is, funny. Were it not for the current political context, nobody would have noticed Shah's reposting of it either. Otherwise, you'd have to be humourless. These sorts of jokes are a commonplace in the U.S. So, we have this joke: Why doesn't Israel become the 51st state? Answer: Because then, it would only have two senators. As crazy as the discourse on Israel is in America, at least we still have a sense of humour. It's inconceivable that any politician in the U.S. would be crucified for posting such a map.'Finkelstein responded powerfully to the idea that Shah's posting of the image was an endorsement of a 'chilling "transportation" policy':'Frankly, I find that obscene. It's doubtful these Holocaust-mongers have a clue what the deportations were, or of the horrors that attended them. I remember my late mother describing her deportation. She was in the Warsaw Ghetto. The survivors of the Ghetto Uprising, about 30,000 Jews, were deported to Maijdanek concentration camp. They were herded into railroad cars. My mother was sitting in the railroad car next to a woman who had her child. And the woman I know it will shock you the woman suffocated her infant child to death in front of my mother. She suffocated her child, rather than take her to where they were going. That's what it meant to be deported. To compare that to someone posting a light-hearted, innocuous cartoon making a little joke about how Israel is in thrall to the U.S., or vice versa... it's sick. What are they doing? Don't they have any respect for the dead? All these desiccated Labour apparatchiks, dragging the Nazi holocaust through the mud for the sake of their petty jostling for power and position. Have they no shame?'Emotional Tone And Intensity Demonising DissentFormer London mayor Ken Livingstone, a 'long-time ally' of Jeremy Corbyn but not an MP, defended Shah from the accusation of anti-semitism. He said:'When Hitler won his election in 1932 his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.'This was met with the kind of cross-'spectrum' moral outrage that is so characteristic of a propaganda blitz. Again, everyone knew or did they? - that Livingstone's comments were outrageous, monstrous, rabidly anti-semitic.John Mann MP confronted Livingstone, calling him a 'a disgusting racist', 'a fucking disgrace' and 'a Nazi apologist'. The lengthy tirade was broadcast widely, with Mann thoughtfully checking to ensure the camera was catching the action. His denunciation was more 'dramatic new evidence' of a scandal, ideal ammunition for a propaganda blitz.Few TV viewers will have been aware that Mann is 'one of Corbyn's strongest critics'. Last July, after Corbyn had become frontrunner in the leadership election race, Mann called for the Labour party to suspend the contest 'over fears of an "infiltration" by hard-left activists'. Mann said:'It is pretty clear that what is happening amounts to infiltration of the Labour party.'Mann's concern at the time was not anti-semitism but 'the Militant Tendency-types coming back in'.The website TheyWorkForYou records that Mann 'Generally voted for use of UK military forces in operations overseas', 'Consistently voted for the [2003] Iraq war' and 'Consistently voted against an investigation into the Iraq war.' He voted for war on Libya in 2011, and again for war on Iraq in 2014. If any journalist highlighted the ironic location of the moral 'high ground' from which Mann was so volubly preaching at Livingstone, we missed it.The Jewish Chronicle certainly agreed on Livingstone:'Labour now seems to be a party that attracts antisemites like flies to a cesspit. Barely a week goes by without the identification of a racist party member or allegations of racist behaviour by those involved in the party.'Under the title, 'Labour's Sickness', a Times leader presumably written by Blairite neocon Oliver Kamm denounced the 'grotesque analogies' offered by Livingstone, a 'trivial ignoramus'. The leader concluded:'The tropes of antisemitism are... a stain on British public life. A great political party is harbouring a sickness and has a moral obligation to purge itself.' (Leader, 'Labour's Sickness,' The Times, April 28, 2016)Under the headline, 'Labour's anti-semites put the party in peril,' the Daily Mail commented:'Mr Corbyn gave not the faintest sign of understanding how monstrously and deliberately offensive it was of his long-term ally Ken Livingstone to make the absurd claim that Hitler was a Zionist.'Richard Littlejohn wrote in the Mail under the title, 'The fascists at the poisoned heart of Labour':'Naz [Shah] by name, Nazi by nature, was revealed to have backed the transportation of Jews in Israel to the United States. Red Ken rallied to her defence by claiming, absurdly, that Hitler was a Zionist.'In the Mirror, the commentator Fleet Street Fox damned 'Ken Livingstone's ridiculous assertion that Hitler and the Jews were on the same side.'A Guardian leader commented that the Labour party 'finds itself charged with being contaminated by antisemitism. And with singular crassness, instead of clearing the air on Thursday, Mr Livingstone encouraged the accusation'.Jonathan Freedland wrote in the paper of Livingstone's comments:'His version of history was garbled and insulting, suggesting that the Hitler who had already written Mein Kampf had not yet gone "mad" and was "supporting Zionism" - as if there is any moral comparison between wishing to inflict mass expulsion on a minority and the desire to build a thriving society where that minority might live.'In fact, it is hardly in doubt that Livingstone intended to suggest that Hitler had become more insane when he committed genocide. This is not the same as arguing that he had previously been sane. Livingstone later commented of Hitler:'He was a monster from start to finish but it's simply the historical fact. His policy was originally to send all of Germany's Jews to Israel [sic] and there were private meetings between the Zionist movement and Hitler's government which were kept confidential, they only became apparent after the war, when they were having a dialogue to do this.'The late historian Howard Zinn supported the assertion of a Nazi descent into more extreme madness and also the claim that the Nazis initially planned to expel the Jews:'Not only did waging war against Hitler fail to save the Jews, it may be that the war itself brought on the Final Solution of genocide. This is not to remove the responsibility from Hitler and the Nazis, but there is much evidence that Germany's anti-Semitic actions, cruel as they were, would not have turned to mass murder were it not for the psychic distortions of war, acting on already distorted minds. Hitler's early aim was forced emigration, not extermination, but the frenzy of it created an atmosphere in which the policy turned to genocide. This is the view of Princeton historian Arno Mayer, in his book Why Did the Heavens Not Darken, and it is supported by the chronology - that not until Germany was at war was the Final Solution adopted.'[Raul] Hilberg, in his classic work on the Holocaust, says, "From 1938 to 1940, Hitler made extraordinary and unusual attempts to bring about a vast emigration scheme... The Jews were not killed before the emigration policy was literally exhausted." The Nazis found that the Western powers were not anxious to cooperate in emigration and that no one wanted the Jews.'Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to victims of the Holocaust, also discusses 'The Transfer Agreement'.Jonathan Cook wrote:'Livingstone's mistake was both to express himself slackly in the heat of the moment and to refer to a history that was supposed to have been disappeared down the memory hole. But what he is saying is, in essence, true.'Finkelstein commented:'The Nazis considered many "resettlement" schemes the Jews wouldn't have physically survived most of them in the long run before they embarked on an outright exterminatory process. Livingstone is more or less accurate about this or, as accurate as might be expected from a politician speaking off the cuff.'Manufacturing ConsensusAs so often, the propaganda coup de grace was supplied by a Guardian leftist; this time, Owen Jones, who tweeted:'John McDonnell [Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer] was right to swiftly force Naz Shah's resignation - but now the party has to suspend her.'One day later, Jones issued a further decree:'Ken Livingstone has to be suspended from the Labour Party. Preferably before I pass out from punching myself in the face.'Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, commented:'Didn't always agree with Ken Livingstone but he's been an anti-racist fighter & took on Thatcher before @OwenJones84 was born. Sad to watch.'Abunimah added:'To watch @OwenJones84 throw Ken Livingstone under the bus to appease a bunch of hard-right racists is a truly pitiful sight.'Jones' tragicomic McCarthyist stance in all but ordering the suspension of Shah and Livingstone for supposed anti-semitism strongly reminds us of the way the Guardian's George Monbiot supported a nugatory smear of progressives promoted by his notoriously non-credible interlocutor, Oliver Kamm. Monbiot wrote that Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, John Pilger and Media Lens were part of a 'malign intellectual subculture' that sought 'to excuse savagery by denying the facts' of genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda. Monbiot even wrote an article titled, 'Media Cleanse'. As recently as March 25, Monbiot tweeted:'Still waiting for Hume, Herman, Pilger, Media Lens etc to acknowl[edge] their terrible mistakes on Srebrenica'Timing and Strange CoincidencesGeorge Eaton, fiercely anti-Corbyn political editor of the hard-right 'centre-left' New Statesman, tried and failed to coin the term 'Hitlergate' to describe the scandal that had engulfed Livingstone (the Nexis media database finds no other mentions of the term). Eaton cited an anonymous MP arguing 'it firmly pins responsibility for next week's [local election] results on the hard-left antics'. This at least gave a good idea of the motivation behind the propaganda blitz.Norman Finkelstein was again far beyond the corporate 'mainstream' in asking some obvious questions:'The question you have to ask yourself is, why? Why has this issue been resurrected with a vengeance, so soon after its previous outing was disposed of as a farce?... The only plausible answer is, it's political. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the factual situation; instead, a few suspect cases of antisemitism some real, some contrived are being exploited for an ulterior political motive. As one senior Labour MP said the other day, it's transparently a smear campaign.'He added:'You can see this overlap between the Labour Right and pro-Israel groups personified in individuals like Jonathan Freedland, a Blairite hack who also regularly plays the antisemitism card. He's combined these two hobbies to attack Corbyn.'Israeli historian Ilan Pappe noted how the young electorate supporting Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders in the US have a 'desire for cleaner, more moral politics that dare to challenge the neoliberal set up of economy and politics in the West'. The result being that 'Members of the political elites and establishment, in very senior positons, voice clear, unashamed support for Palestine.'This is the background for the current vicious attack on the Labour Party and Corbyn. Whatever the Zionists in Britain point to, as an expression of anti-Semitism, which in the main are legitimate criticism of Israel, have been said before in the last 50 years. The pro-Zionist lobby in Britain, under direct guidance from Israel, picks them up because the clear anti-Zionist stance of BDS has reached the upper echelons. They are genuinely terrified by this development. Well done the BDS movement!'Jonathan Cook summed it up:'Corbyn and his supporters want to revive Labour as a party of social justice... This is nothing more than a class war to pave the way for a return of the Blairites to lead Labour.'Chomsky has discussed the long-standing efforts to associate anti-semitism with anti-Zionism for political ends. In 1973, leading Israeli diplomat Abba Eban said that 'one of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all'. Critics of Israel were to be branded 'anti-semites', while Jewish critics like Chomsky were guilty of 'self-hatred'.Asa Winstanley, investigative journalist at the Electronic Intifada, puts the supposed 'crisis of antisemitism' in context:'A 2015 survey by Pew found that seven percent of the UK public held "unfavorable" views of Jews. By contrast, about a fifth held negative views of Muslims and almost two-fifths viewed Roma people unfavorably.'There's no evidence to suggest that such views are any more prevalent in the Labour Party and the tiny number of anti-Semitism complaints suggests they may well be less so in a movement many of whose activists have been in the frontline of anti-racist struggles.'Conclusion - 'Emotionally Potent Oversimplifications'The fact that completely false, or highly questionable, claims are repeatedly being affirmed by an instant, outraged 'consensus' across the media 'spectrum' is powerful evidence for the existence of a propaganda system undermining democracy.Journalists may plead ignorance, but elites have openly advocated the 'manufacture of consent' in exactly this way for decades. In 1932, highly influential US foreign policy adviser Reinhold Niebuhr wroteof the need for 'emotionally potent oversimplifications' and 'necessary illusion' to overcome the threat to elite control posed by 'the stupidity of the average man'.Vested interests are well aware that public opinion can be manipulated by 'emotionally potent' declarations of certainty, on the one hand, and by nurturing doubt on the other. Indeed, the flip side of the propaganda coin promoting false certainty was described by Phil Lesley, author of a handbook on corporate public relations:'People generally do not favour action on a non-alarming situation when arguments seem to be balanced on both sides and there is a clear doubt. The weight of impressions on the public must be balanced so people will have doubts and lack motivation to take action. Accordingly, means are needed to get balancing information into the stream from sources that the public will find credible... Nurturing public doubts by demonstrating that this is not a clear-cut situation in support of the opponents usually is all that is necessary.' (Lesly, 'Coping with Opposition Groups', Public Relations Review 18, 1992, p.331)The logic is crude but effective. When elites want to prevent action, for example in response to climate change, they work hard to encourage public doubts. When they want to attack Iraq, Libya or Syria, or Julian Assange, or Jeremy Corbyn - when it is vital that the situation be presented as clear cut - 'balancing infomation' must be ridiculed, damned and dismissed. These are the tasks of a propaganda blitz.Photo is of metals struck by NazisApril 30. Hitler from the start was a murderous beast and in Mein Kampf in the 1920's talked about gassing Jews. Yet for a number of years the Nazi government in fact encouraged emigration of Jews (while at the same time passing ever more vicious laws against Jews within Germany). German Jewish organizations tried to resist with one exception, Zionist organizations. They decided to cooperate with the Nazis on emigration even though they knew it would sabotage all hopes for resistance. They brought an SS official, Baron Leopold von Mildenstein, to Palestine who stayed there six months, and wrote about his experience positively in the SS magazine Angriff in a year long series of articles and had the above medal struck in honor of the trip.
May 20, 2016 - The Humane Society of the United States applauds a settlement agreement that will effectively end the abuse of animals by Santa Cruz Biotechnology. The agreement reached with the U.S. Department of Agriculture is the largest civil penalty in the 50-year history of the enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act.
SCBT will lose its license to operate as a dealer, as well as its registration to operate as a research facility with the USDA, essentially shutting the business down. It will also pay a penalty of $3.5 million.SCBT has a long history of Animal Welfare Act violations. The violations include having numerous severely sick and injured animals, providing inadequate veterinary care, failing to avoid and minimize pain and distress and failing to consider alternatives to procedures involving animal pain and distress as required by law. USDA inspectors discovered that SCBT was housing more than 800 goats after SCBT officials denied the animals existence to the USDA.The HSUS and its members, along with numerous other animal welfare organizations, have called for tough enforcement in this case. Kathleen Conlee, vice president of Animal Research Issues for The HSUS said:The public was outraged when we brought the plight of thousands of animals at Santa Cruz Biotechnology to their attention. We urged the USDA to pursue strong penalties and prohibit this facility from continuing its business given its lengthy record of violations of the minimal welfare standards the law requires. We are grateful to the agency for doing just that with this historic agreement, sparing immense suffering of animals in the companys care.The Humane Society of the United States
Hillary Clinton Flunks Animal Rights And Environmental Issues by ARC
More hawkish even than Obama, Clinton has approved the bombing of animals as well as people in the 7 illegal and immoral wars he is waging now
I Issues Re Animals
1. James Blair of Tyson Foods (one of the nation's biggest animal slaughter operations) and insider trading helped H Clinton turn $ 1000 into $100,000. She invested in cattle futures. Those cows had no future.
2. Hillary and Bill Clinton have had a special relationship until his death in 2011 with Don Tyson, whose company has killed tens of billions of cows and pigs and trillions of chickens after a life of suffering in hideous factory farms. The Clintons have a longstanding relationship with John Tyson, Chairman of Tyson Foods.
3. Hillary Clinton was for a time on the WalMart board, one of the world's biggest killers of mammals, birds, fishes.
4. Hillary Clinton voted for the immoral Iraq war the prosecution of which has murdered hundreds of billions of birds and mammals, burned to death by bombs, crushed by tanks, seized and killed for food etc and which has added trillions to the US debt.
5. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promoted the 7 illegal wars, bombing campaigns and drone assassinations of the Obama administration in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, with untold billions of animal deaths.
6. Hillary Clinton voted for NAFTA, which gave countries with less humane legislation easier access to the US market.
7. Until Bernie Sanders' critical mass of opposition, Clinton was in favor of the Keystone Pipeline which like nearly all oil pipelines destroys fragile animal habitats, kills animals with oil spills, crushes them under heavy vehicle
8. Clinton has hired a Monsanto person for her campaign. Monsanto has killed mammals, birds, bees and other insects in a variety of ways
9. Clinton is tied to Goldman Sachs through her son in law's hedge fund. Sanders wants her to release the text of her remarks to Goldman Sachs, which paid her $225,000 for her speaking engagement. Politico article: "She sounded more like a Goldman Sachs managing director." Goldman Sachs is invested in animal slaughter, environmental destruction, war profiteering etc and was a major factor in plunging Greece, Spain and other countries into massive debt through pricegouging interest. She, Ted Cruz whose wife has a 6 figure salary with Goldman Sachs, and John Kasich, who lost hundreds of billions for Ohio pension funds when he was an executive with Lehman Brothers, are the 3 candidates of the duopoly most tied to Wall Street.
10. At the State Department, Hillary Clinton gave an award to Heifer International, the butcher industry's corporation which separates terrified baby animals from their mothers and sends them to lives of slavery and slaughter overseas, thereby spreading disease to humans, global heating and freezing, deforestation, and world hunger.
11. Clinton has supported fracking around the world. Poisonous fracking water chemical stews have killed millions of animals, from cows, sheep and other mammals to birds, reptiles, fishes etc. not only from water poisons but from fires caused by deforestation frackers who interfere with the rain cycle and massive earthquakes such as an 8 point record breaker for Canada in Alberta.
12. Because Hillary Clinton is on record requiring forced vaccination of children against parents' wishes, (against choice), it follows that she favors the animal research (torture of animals called vivisection) which develops the vaccines.
II The Environment
Hillary's fracking promotion through the State Department has harmed the planet.
Fracking made Oklahoma the earthquake capital of the world. Government inaction on fracking has caused 800 earthquakes in the Youngstown Ohio area alone. It causes turned on water faucets to burst into flame. It deforests fragile environments. It sends a poisonous stew of fracking chemicals into the ground. They end up everywhere in the watershed, killing people, cows, sheep, other mammals, birds, frogs etc.
The movie Promised Land with Matt Damon exposes the criminal techniques of fracking companies, sometimes owned by huge natural gas companies.
Hillary Clinton supported offshore drilling, supported the Keystone Pipeline for a long time, has worked at the State Department in support of 7 illegal immoral wars and the bombing which destroys fragile environments.
Nicky Wiesenfeld spends every Portland Timbers match standing in the north end of Providence Park, excitedly chanting along with the rest of the Timbers Army.
But there is one chant that Wiesenfeld never sings.
When the capos raise their arms and lead the crowd in a rendition of "Portland Boys, We are Here," Wiesenfeld and many other fans stay quiet, unwilling to say the verse, "Shag your women, drink your beer!"
"It's a chant about pillaging the other team's town and it uses women to talk about that," Wiesenfeld said. "Obviously, it's an exaggeration, but I think when you have 5,000 people singing 'shag your women' and you're equating women to objects, it is really dangerous and it's offensive."
The Timbers Army adopted the chant long before the Timbers made the move to MLS in 2011. "Portland Boys" is based on similar chants that have been used by English Premier League teams, including Tottenham and Chelsea. Versions of the chant have been embraced by other MLS teams, including the Seattle Sounders, who use a version of the chant that does not include the line "shag your women."
The "shag your women" verse has caused controversy within the Timbers Army for years.
107ist board member Lexi Stern said that debates over the chant have come up at least once a year for the last seven to eight years. Still, the Timbers Army has yet to take any official action or make any changes to the chant.
The TA lists the lyrics to the chant on their website, though in the online version the word "steal" is used in place of "shag." Wiesenfeld said "shag" is what people say when singing the chant at Providence Park, though she doesn't think "steal" would be any better.
Wiesenfeld recently wrote an op-ed on the Timbers Army website, calling for the TA to change the chant.
In her piece, Wiesenfeld questioned how an organization that prides itself on being inclusive and creating a positive environment for people of all backgrounds can continue to sing a chant that is offensive to a large portion of its members:
The TA prides itself on championing women in the sport and showing respect for all supporters. Yet we still sing a verse that encourages our fans to "shag your women," every match. We continue to gleefully chant a line that is mildly threatening, heteronormative, and divisive at best. How can we expect other clubs to respect female fans if the TA - the most influential supporters group in North America - continues condoning and reciting a chant that reduces women to objects to be shagged, possessions to be conquered, "babes" to be ogled?
Wiesenfeld has seen a wide range of responses since she posted her piece on April 15.
Some members of the Timbers Army have argued that it is clear that the chant is not meant to be taken seriously. The chant also has a line that says, "burn, destroy, wreck and kill," which clearly aren't sentiments that the Timbers Army literally condones.
Others have argued that fans shouldn't be trying to censor chants that the group has rallied around. The TA has a long tradition of singing "Portland Boys" at every Timbers match.
Still, there are also plenty of other fans that want to see the verse changed.
Timbers Army member Holly Duthie said that the verse comes off as threatening and objectifying. Duthie said that enough people have stood up and said the chant makes them feel uncomfortable throughout the years and it should be clear that it is time to make a change.
"To me, the lyric says women are equal to beer, both spoils of war to be enjoyed by the invading hordes," Duthie said.
Timbers Army member Faolana McMullin said that she would be fine if the TA decided to keep the chant, as long as they simply changed the lyric and removed the word "your."
"Outside of that particular phrase, it's one of my favorite chants," McMullin said. "I appreciate traditions and I respect them and I want there to always be an appreciation for the Timbers and Timbers Army, but I don't think having the word 'your' in that chant is imperative to do that."
Despite a large response to her piece, Wiesenfeld said that she has yet to hear anything from the 107ist Board of Directors or the capos that lead chants at Providence Park about making changes to "Portland Boys."
She said she was "surprised" and "disappointed" to not get a response from the 107ist Board, but plans to continue pushing for a change to the chant.
"I want to keep the dialog going," Wiesenfeld said. "There are a significant number of people that don't feel comfortable singing that chant, don't want their kids to be involved with it and don't want to be a part of it at all."
-- Jamie Goldberg | jgoldberg@oregonian.com
503-853-3761 | @jamiebgoldberg
The pieces dont all fit in Personal Shopper, but thats much of the fun of writer-director Olivier Assayass enigmatic tale of a young woman who may be in contact with her dead twin brother. Or maybe shes being stalked by an unseen assailant. Or maybe its both.
Assayas and star Kristen Stewart first worked together on 2014s Clouds of Sils Maria, and their new film can be seen as a vague companion piece, exploring some of the same issues with a similarly opaque air. This time, she plays Maureen, an American living in Paris who works for a glamorous but demanding star named Kyra whom we only see from afar. Kyra is but one of two ghosts in Maureens life, the other being Lewis, her twin who was a medium before his death from a rare heart condition. Maureen feels connected to her brother for obvious reasonsplus, they share the same conditionand shes convinced that he will try to contact her from the Great Beyond. So strong is her belief that she spends nights in his old house, hoping that hell appear.
The mystery of whether Lewis is reaching out to Maureen is but one flowing through Personal Shopper, but perhaps the films greatest puzzle is what her fixation on her brother has to do with either her unglamorous, unfulfilling job or the unexpected text messages she starts receiving from a stranger, who seems to know her whereabouts to a disturbingly intimate degree. Assayas wont reveal the connections, letting these different strands of Maureens life represent competing elements of her daily grind. At first, the only thing they have in common is that the same character is experiencing them all, but as the film rolls along, we begin wondering if perhaps there are invisible links to these seemingly unrelated occurrences.
As in Sils Maria, Stewart here plays a bright, somewhat directionless young woman biding her time in the employ of someone famous. But the films gnaw on the same themes, too. In Sils Maria and Personal Shopper, Stewart seems to be commenting on life as a celebrityhow it can be a surreal, slightly disorienting odyssey that leaves one feeling trapped under glass. Personal Shoppers house-of-mirrors narrative is beguilingly perplexing to the viewer, but we soon see how its hell on Maureen, who cant find any equilibrium in her unsettled life.
To attempt to explain the direction Personal Shopper takes is merely to regurgitate plot points that dont sound like they belong in the same film. But Assayas is working on a deeper, more metaphoric level, abandoning strict narrative cause-and-effect logic to give us fragments of Maureens life refracted through conflicting experiences. For instance, her impulsive desire to try on Kyras beautiful clothes appears to come from nowhere, but its tied emotionally to her sense of frustration that Lewis cant or wont communicate with her. Nothing happens in this film as a direct result of what came before, which explains why the sudden appearance of suggestive, potentially dangerous text messages can be interpreted as a literal threat or as some strange cosmic manifestation of other, subtler anxieties.
Personal Shopper encourages a sense of play, moving from moody ghost story to tense thriller to (out of the blue) erotic character study. But that genre-hopping (not to mention the movies willfully inscrutable design) is Assayass way of bringing a lighthearted approach to serious questions about grieving and disillusionment. The juxtaposition isnt jarring or glibif anything, Personal Shopper is all the more entrancing because it wont sit still, never letting us be comfortable in its shifting narrative.
If Stewart isnt as singular here as she was in Sils Maria, she continues to be a wonderfully unfathomable presence. In that film, it was Juliette Binoches aging star who took center stage, whereas this time its Stewarts character who is very much alone in the spotlight, making Maureen an uneasy protagonist, unsure about everything around her. Is her brother watching over her? Is the stalker, who seems to know when shes on the train or when shes at home? Stewarts beauty is used as a mask to conceal loneliness, a feeling only emphasized by Maureens passionless Skype conversations with a boyfriend working in the Middle East. Maureen isnt having a breakdown, but some sort of slow-motion evolution is amidst.
So what happens in the end? I cant saynot just because I loathe spoilers but because, quite honestly, Im not sure I know. But tonally and thematically, it fits with the restless anxiety thats informed much of Personal Shopper. No one may be able to decipher this movie completelyperhaps not even Assayas himself. But its power comes from its ability to convince you that, if you work it over in your mind enough, you just might. Like Lewiss ghost, Personal Shoppers meaning is just out of reachand yet tantalizingly close.
Director: Olivier Assayas
Writer: Olivier Assayas
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Sigrid Bouaziz, Anders Danielsen Lie, Nora von Waldstatten
Release Date: Screening in competition at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival
Tim Grierson is chief film critic for Paste and the vice president of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. You can follow him on Twitter.
For successful reintroduction of lynx into the wild, the number of released animals is crucial. If only a few lynx are reintroduced to found a population, the genetic diversity is too low to ensure their long-term sustainability. An international research team has recently published these findings in the scientific journal Conservation Genetics. The researchers highlight the need to strengthen newly established European lynx populations by additional translocations of lynx as well as other conservation measures.
Scientists of the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW), the Bavarian Forest National Park (Germany), the Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland) and the Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia) investigated the genetic status of two lynx populations in the Bohemian-Bavarian and Vosges-Palatinian forests in central Europe.
The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is the largest European cat species and has been protected in the EU since 1992. Originally spread throughout all of Europe, the species is now mainly limited to protected areas such as national parks. Current populations only exist because countries have invested a considerable effort to protect lynx in Europe or to reintroduced them to suitable habitat in its former range. Reintroduced populations face some specific challenges: "Our results show that these reintroduced populations usually consist of too few individuals to be self-sustaining. Small populations are highly vulnerable to loss of genetic variation because each individual represents a high percentage of the population's gene pool," explains Daniel Forster, geneticist at the IZW.
The population in the Bohemian-Bavarian forest was founded by introducing 5 to 10 lynxes in the 1970s and later supplementing them with 18 additional individuals. The population in the Vosges-Palatinian forest was founded by 21 lynxes released between 1983 and 1993. From this already limited number of founders, only some individuals actually produced offspring. "From a genetic point of view this means that the few founder animals represented little genetic variation," says Jorns Fickel, coauthor of the study and also a geneticist at the IZW. To assess the effect of the reintroduction on the genetic status of these two lynx populations, the scientists compared their genetic diversity with those of naturally occurring lynx populations in Eastern Europe. For this purpose they analysed molecular markers in lynx DNA obtained from fecal, blood, and tissue samples.
The study showed that these two populations displayed very low genetic diversity in comparison with other European lynx populations, with far fewer genetic variants present in the new populations than in the naturally occurring populations. A previous study on a reintroduced lynx population in Slovenia and Croatia already indicated that small reintroduced populations suffer from low genetic diversity. The current study now confirms these findings and thus points towards a more general pattern: Small populations are unlikely to survive in the long term. According to the authors of the study, it is well justified to classify the Bohemian-Bavarian population as "endangered" and the Vosges-Palatinian population as "critically endangered" as is currently done by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN Red List). Thus, suitable measures for their 'genetic reinforcement' and conservation need to be taken.
Especially for small populations it is crucial that not a single individual dies before it has reproduced -- be it of natural causes or poaching. "It is therefore really important to reduce the illegal killing of lynx to establish and maintain a long-term viable population" emphasizes Forster. He and his colleagues also advocate the reintroduction of more lynxes to directly strengthen the genetic variability of the populations. Indirect conservation measures such as setting up wildlife corridors can further facilitate the genetic exchange between neighbouring populations and thus contribute to the strengthening of the overall lynx population as well.
World Federation of Neurology Working Group on Zika developing guidelines for diagnosing Zika-related neurological complications.
The President of the World Federation of Neurology (WFN) Prof Raad Shakir (London), said today that following the first confirmed Zika-related case of microcephaly on US territory, in Puerto Rico, and the ever-growing number of sexually-transmitted Zika infections in Europe, "it is increasingly obvious that the Zika epidemic has long assumed global proportions." As the opening of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro draws closer, and with WHO warnings about the risk of Zika taking hold in Europe, more and more attention would be focussed on the relentless spread of the epidemic, said Prof Shakir.
Concerned about the increasing number of neurological complications related to the Zika virus, the WFN has recently established a working group to contribute expertise in support of the coordinated global response to the Zika crisis. A large percentage of people suffering from Zika virus infections are asymptomatic or show only mild symptoms. But potential neurological complications can be dramatic. "There is a lack of awareness that perhaps more risks are involved in Zika infections than the devastating foetal malformations when Zika is acquired during pregnancy such as the now-familiar microcephaly issue. With major neurological conditions such as Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), myelitis, or meningoencephalitis involved in Zika infections, the risks are much broader than originally thought," says Prof John England (Louisiana State University, New Orleans) who chairs the WFN Zika Work Group.
In a follow-up to a recent meeting on the public health implications of Zika in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Prof John England and Prof Marco Medina, of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras, also a member of the WFN Zika Work Group, agreed on the need for formal guidelines outlining diagnostic criteria for neurological complications of the Zika virus. "We will be working over the next weeks to develop a broad consensus among experts on this," said Prof England.
With no vaccination in prospect for the time being and lack of evidence about the risk factors influencing the development of neurological symptoms after Zika infection, the focus is now on surveillance, enhanced mosquito control, and prevention, says Prof England. "In particular at a time when thousands of athletes and fans will be travelling to Rio in July, we need to create awareness about the risks involved, and what needs to be done for personal protection."
As of 11 May 2016, 58 countries and territories report continuing mosquito-borne Zika transmission. Nine countries have reported evidence of person-to-person transmission of the virus.
Vibrio cholerae infects roughly four million people annually, worldwide, causing severe diarrheal disease, and killing an estimated 140,000 people. Its success as a pathogen belies the challenges this bacterium faces. The waters this bacterium inhabits when it's not infecting H. sapiens can be 40 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than our normal body temperature. Now a team of investigators from the University of California, Santa Cruz provides new insights into how different temperatures in the bacterium's environment control expression of genes required for life at those temperatures. The research is published ahead of print May 20, 2016 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
In the study, the investigators grew V. cholera at human body temperatures, and then shifted them to the temperatures of the waters they normally inhabit when they are not infecting people, said corresponding author Fitnat Yildiz, PhD, professor of Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology, the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Loni Townsley, Yildiz' student who performed the experiments, used microarrays to determine which genes were expressed at the various temperatures. Low environmental temperatures of around 15oC (59oF), turn on genes that regulate biofilm formation, genes that code for a molecular weapon that secretes toxins, and genes that enable adaptation to cold.
Biofilms are tough microscopic mats of bacteria. These enable V. cholerae to abide hardily at the low environmental temperatures temperatures, growing on a species of zooplankton, Daphnia magna, which is a tiny crustacean. "V. Cholerae in biofilms are protected, sheltered," said Yildiz. (Growing on millions of zooplankton makes the V. cholerae independently mobile, raising the chances of encountering a human host to infect.)
As for the molecular weapon, a device called a "type VI secretion system," it was discovered only recently, said Yildiz. Although knowledge about the secretion system is increasing rapidly, much remains to be learned. "We do know that it is used to kill both bacterial and eukaryotic cells," said Yildiz. And V. cholerae is known to be able to take up DNA from these dead cells, in order to acquire new genes.
Beyond that, it's not certain what purposes killing other bacteria may serve. One speculation is that killing members of other bacterial species that inhabit the surface of Daphnia opens up more space for V. cholerae to grow, said Yildiz. Another speculation is that V. cholerae may procure nutrients -- carbon and nitrogen -- from the dead bacteria.
In any case, the investigators found that expression of a protein component of the type VI secretion system was highest at 25oC (77oF).
The investigators also found that expression of a major regulator of virulence is notably reduced at low temperature. That means that expression of virulence factors is curtailed at low temperatures, which makes sense since they are only needed during infection of a human host -- which happens at body temperature, said Yildiz.
Linking the genes that promote biofilm formation, cold adaptation, and production of the toxin-producing system to the Vibrio-zooplankton association, as was done in this study, was a breakthrough in understanding the environmental lifecycle of V. cholerae, said Yildiz.
"Our research focuses on environmental pathogenesis, with the goal of increasing our understanding of molecular detection, survival mechanisms, and dissemination dynamics of human pathogens into the environment," said Yildiz. "Our long-term goal is to develop strategies for disease prevention and treatment by identifying targets to reduce environmental survival and infectivity."
The death of a dog isn't likely to sway the course of history, but seeing how much they meant to those who loved them most can easily move a heart. Rarely is that more true than in watching one dog's silent eulogy to his dead best friend.
Facebook/Carlos Aguilar
This week, Carlos Aguilar and his dog, Ron, bid farewell to their canine companion, Chocolate - a dog whom they'd rescued together last year from the streets near their home in Chile. It didn't take long before Chocolate and Ron, whom Aguilar had also rescued, became inseparable. "Their love for each other was immense," Aguilar tells The Dodo. And so was Ron's sense of loss.
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Facebook/Carlos Aguilar
When it came time to lay Chocolate to rest, Ron was there right by Aguilar's side, though he wasn't just an idle observer. After Chocolate was placed into the ground, Ron stepped forward to be the one to actually bury his friend - casting soil over his body by scooping it up with his snout.
Instagram/barnaby_chester_possums_rango
Chester was nestled deep in his mother's pouch when the unthinkable happened - his mom was hit by a car, and he went flying into the night sky. The woman who hit his mother felt awful, so she pulled over and spent more than an hour searching for her. "She could not find the possum anywhere in the dark, but sitting in the middle of the road she saw a tiny baby joey possum looking very frantic while wondering where his mother was," Taneile Hoare, who owns Free As a Hawk Refuge in New Zealand, tells The Dodo.
"As with a baby that size, he should have been in the mother's pouch, so after being hit by her car he must have been thrown out of the pouch and onto the road," Hoare says.
Hoare was alerted to Chester's plight via social media, and decided to take him in. But that very same night, not far away, another baby possum was off to a terrible start: A trapper had killed his mother, and when he approached her dead body, he found Barnaby peering up at him from her pouch.
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"The trapper spared his little life and asked if I would like to take on the little joey to raise at our refuge," Hoare says. "And of course I said yes." And that was how Chester and Barnaby, both newly orphaned, came to live with one another last August.
Hoare rushed to pick them up within hours of each other. Since then she's done everything for them - bottle-feeding, washing their blankets and pouches, "socializing them and helping them gain some confidence since loosing their mums, and helping them bond with me," she says.
The little possums have come a long way - they had very different personalities when they first arrived. "Barnaby was a real mummy's boy and all he wanted was to snuggle up to you and be babied and be pampered," Hoare says.
"Chester on the other hand was Mr. Independent and wanted to do everything for himself," she says. "When it came to being bottle-fed, he wanted to hold the syringe by himself. He always had to have things his way when sharing the pouch with Barnaby, as he wanted the best spot."
"But as they grew up, Barnaby started to stand up for himself, and he is now the more dominant between the two of them," Hoare adds. "But with me they know I'm still mum and are very gentle and polite." But they also know how to get wild: "They love running around their enclosure at night in full speed," she adds.
Hoare runs Free As a Hawk and cares for a slew of animals - from lambs and chickens to an emu and an alpaca named Cria, a recent arrival who was just 2 months old when she was orphaned. "She just loves snuggling up to you and following me everywhere on the farm," Hoare says.
There's also a wallaby named Rango, whom Hoare says has "utterly and completely stolen my heart." And yet he sometimes gets just a little envious of the possums. "Rango used to get very jealous when I didn't give him his bottle first and would would reach out and try and sneak the bottle out of my hand and out of the possum joey's mouth," she says. "He never won that disagreement as the possum's milk was different to his milk."
So, don't worry, Barnaby and Chester. We're pretty sure mom loves you, too.
Wally might just be the most famous rabbit in the world - and he got there in large part due to his unique haircut.
But he wasn't always so dapper. On Thursday, Wally's human, Molly, shared a photo of the Instagram-famous bunny before his first signature haircut. "This is a photo of Wally's first Halloween in his baby yak costume," she wrote. "Just kidding ... this is really a photo of Wally before we ever did snippies [Wally-speak for haircuts]. I tried so hard to learn to brush him, but he became so anxious that he couldn't tolerate grooming sessions for more than a few minutes."
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"Look at that gnarly puff!" she added. "That's more than a few minutes of de-matting!" For reference, here's a photo of what a nicely brushed Angora rabbit should look like:
Shutterstock
While any photo of Wally is bound to be adorable, his pre-grooming photo serves as an important reminder about rabbit care. Rabbits are famous for being much more work than many people expect, and each year hundreds of rabbits are abandoned when their owners realize they can't care for them - and still more live sad lives in cages when their owners stop trying. Fortunately, Wally has a great owner who came up with a special solution to the bunny who didn't like brushes - and now makes sure other owners know how much work they can be.
"While I'm truly honored that Wally is so loved, it's very unwise to buy an Angora - or any rabbit - without sufficient knowledge or preparation," she wrote in a recent post. "Please, don't get a rabbit - and especially not an Angora - if you cannot be certain that you can provide the rabbit with an environment and level of care that is critical to the bunny's well-being."
But all's well that ends well. And in Wally's case, it ended very well indeed.
You cant swing a pint glass these days without hitting a new brewery or brewpub. Theyre popping up so rapidly, its hard to keep track of whats out there, let alone whats good.
While I do my best to steer readers in the right direction, Ontario beer drinkers owe a debt of gratitude to Jordan St. John and Robin LeBlanc, authors of the recently published Ontario Craft Beer Guide (Dundurn, $16.99).
St. John and LeBlanc scoured the province looking for new (and old) breweries, sipping some excellent pints, and some terrible ones. After they recovered, they agreed to an interview.
How long had you guys been considering doing this book?
LeBlanc: Well, originally we had this idea for Canadian Cider Guide, because we really wanted to celebrate that industry, which is growing at an alarming rate. We pitched it to Dundurn and their initial reaction was: That sounds amazing, but youre both very well-respected beer writers, why dont you write a guide on Ontario breweries? And we both looked at each other and went, Why didnt we think of that?
Given how rapidly breweries seem to be coming and going, why even bother trying to keep track? Isnt it a futile effort?
St. John: Well, yes and no. The last book of this kind for Ontario that was really comprehensive was written by Jamie MacKinnon in 1993 (called the Ontario Beer Guide). Its great. Its a snapshot of attitudes and of the market at a particular point in time I figure that breweries are going to come and go, but maybe driving business to the better breweries gives them an advantage Plus, it gives beer drinkers an advantage in a province with 200 breweries some pints arent worth the $7.50 youre paying.
How many breweries are there in Ontario right now? How many actually have their own brewhouses?
St. John: In the book, about 180. The book goes up to Nov. 15, 2015. Since the book there are more. Id say that maybe 75 per cent of them have brewhouses. Contract brewing is a tough gig Theyre renting tank space and the margin is getting squeezed.
How has the Ontario beer scene has changed over the last five.
St. John: I started writing about beer in 2010 and at the time there were something like 40 breweries across the province. Weve basically added 100 in 2014-2015 and there are a lot more coming. Were seeing contract players and a lot of small-town breweries that just wouldnt have made it five years ago If you talk to the beer nerds, theyll tell you were way behind America, but were just not. Our best stuff is damn near as good as their best stuff Were very good and getting better. Three or four years from now Americans will be flocking here.
Is there an Ontario beer style?
St. John: Theres the Ontario Pale Ale, but I dont think its internationally recognized. A sort of malt forward hybrid English-American Pale Ale. Examples would be Duggans No. 9 IPA or Mill Street Tankhouse.
Do you have a favourite Ontario beer?
St. John: Im not sure you ever have a de facto favourite I have been drinking a lot of Side Launch Mountain Lager, though.
LeBlanc: That question is honestly like asking what my favourite film is. It always changes and its never just one. That said, if pressed for one, Folly Brewpubs Flemish Cap and Sawdust Citys Blood of Cthulhu will always be two personal favourites.
Looking into your beer-filled crystal ball, what changes do you see for the Ontario beer scene over the next few years?
St. John: A number of contract players are going to fall out of the market and the remaining brewers are going to focus more on grocery store sales as that program ramps up to 450 stores. I dont think it will take them 10 years to reach that number. More importantly, I think that the overall beer market has been shrinking for the last six years or so. 2016 is going to be the year that small brewer market share increases enough to actually grow the overall pie.
Authors picks
Here, Robin LeBlanc explains three of the duos top picks for Ontario craft brews to be sipping this summer.
Amsterdam Starke Pilsner (LCBO: $2.95 per can)
In the brutally hot summer months, one should always have a pilsner handy and youd do well to keep this hoppy variation of the style in your fridge. Lemon, pepper, and grain notes make this one a beauty.
Sawdust City Golden Beach Pale Ale (LCBO: $3.25 per can)
A wonderful combination of citrus and tropical fruit notes combined with a slight grassy note in a light body makes this one an excellent porch sipper.
Side Launch Wheat (LCBO: $2.80 per can)
A great example of a Bavarian hefeweizen and a natural go-to in the summer months, working well as a delicious and substantial refresher.
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HORNBY ISLAND, B.C.-Hornby is one of those places you want to tell everyone about and yet at the same time no one.
The Salish Sea island, often referred to as Hawaii of the north, has warm waters and sandy beaches that set it apart from neighbouring islands, with their rocky beaches and frigid ocean temperatures.
Someone once told me that Hornby floated up from further south a millennia ago. This may just be island lore but Hornby does seem to have a geography all its own.
It takes three ferries and the better part of a day to get there from Vancouver, which is fitting because the journey to Hornby is more like a pilgrimage to a sacred place.
I have been returning to Hornby since I was a child and my own children have spent summer after barefoot summer exploring the islands treasures. Once your feet touch the ground or your car rolls off the boat, you are on Hornby time.
The air is a fragrant cocktail of salt, wild rose and blackberry. Not far from the ferry docks you will come across the Cardboard House Bakery, an island landmark. It is a tradition, at least in my family, to stop here at the beginning of each holiday for a frangipane tart or some other delicious treat and sit with them in the bakerys apple orchard. We take a moment here to ponder which beach we might visit on day one. Such are the tough decisions one must make on Hornby.
Each beach has its own unique offering. Tribune Bay draws the most tourists with its dramatic cliffs, white sand and tropical vibe, but I have an affinity for Pebble Beach where I have sifted through millions of stones, and for Whaling Station Bay where the tide deposits new bounty each day, littering the ocean floor with sand dollars one day and spider crabs the next.
At low tide there are games of bocce and skim boarders surfing the shallow pools. At high tide, families wade into the bathwater, while children race to save their drowning sandcastles. These are the scenes of summer island rituals embedded in my mind.
Hornby may be the only place in the world where you can dive with six-gilled sharks. I prefer the relative safety of a leisurely sea kayak trip around the island. Hug the shoreline and you will see thousands upon thousands of starfish clinging to the rocks.
It is an impossible sight only rivalled by a walk through old growth forest onto Helliwell Bluffs. Here the grass is so yellow and the sky and sea so blue that it feels as if you have stepped into an Edward Hopper painting.
At the end of Whaling Station Bay there is a thatched roof cottage. It is a beautiful piece of architecture that blends seamlessly into the tall grass. A modest jewel, like the island itself.
Karen MacKenna is a Toronto writer.
When You Go
Get there:
Ferries (bcferries.com) depart from Horseshoe Bay in Vancouver and arrive in Nanaimo. From there you drive 45 minutes north to Fanny Bay and take a short boat ride to Denman Island. Follow the through traffic to the Hornby Island Ferry.
Stay:
SeaBreeze Lodge (seabreezelodge.com) is a family-run lodge that offers rustic simplicity, but the food, service and location make this a first class retreat.
Wind and Waves (windwaves.ca) is a vacation rental company that will find you the cottage that is right for you, from architectural masterpieces perched on the cliffs overlooking Tribune Bay to more humble artist cottages tucked away in the woods.
Camping is a wonderful way to experience the island during the mostly sunny summer months. Details: hornbyisland.com/accommodations/camping/
Hornby Island Diving Lodge (hornbyislanddiving.com) offers food, shelter, sauna and guided dive tours.
Eat and drink:
Cardboard House Bakery (thecardboardhousebakery.com) is a bakery/cafe by day and pizza joint and music venue by night.
The Breeze Restaurant (seabreezelodge.com) offers home-cooked meals with an ocean view.
Carbrea Vineyard (cabreavineyard.com) is a microwinery nurtured by Stephen Bishop, manager of Seabreeze Lodge, and his wife.
Island Sprits Distillery (islandspirits.ca) is worth a visit.
The Co-op (hornbyislandcoop.ca) is a grocery store, post office, liquor store and meeting place.
Explore:
Hornby Outdoors is the place to go for canoe, kayak, paddleboard and bike rentals. Skim boards also for sale.
There are artists all over Hornby and there is no comprehensive list so you will have to discover them yourself. One of my favourites is a visit to esteemed ceramist Wayne Ngans (waynengan.com) studio and garden.
Hornby Island Farmers Market (realhornby.com) is an idyllic market under a canopy of trees selling local arts and crafts, produce and lunch.
The Hornby Island Recycling Depot (hirra.ca) have it all figured out here and there is not a scrap that doesnt find its right place. Go to the Free Store where they give away everything from clothing to pocketbooks and art supplies.
Helliwell Provincial Park is a must for walking.
The Hornby Festival (hornbyfestival.bc.ca) runs July 28 to Aug. 6. Listening to music under the stars at Olsen Farm is an experience you will not forget.
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OTTAWATransport Canada is launching a new campaign to warn Canadians about the dangers and the legal consequences of pointing lasers at aircraft.
With the number of laser strikes on the rise across the country, Transport Minister Marc Garneau will use a Toronto-area event to highlight that pointing a laser at passing aircraft is a reckless act that puts lives at risk, the Star has learned.
The minister will make the announcement Tuesday at Buttonville airport with a fitting backdrop the York Regional Police helicopter.
A video now on YouTube shows one incident in 2015, when the crew of the police helicopter were struck multiple times by a laser during a night flight. The crew was able to direct police officers on the ground to the suspect to make an arrest.
A 19-year-old Vaughan man was charged with mischief endangering life, unlawfully engaging in behaviour that endangers an aircraft and projecting bright light into a navigable airspace.
Members of the York Regional Police Air Support Unit know all too well the dangers of being struck by a laser beam, Eric Jolliffe, chief of the York Regional Police force, said in a statement prepared for the announcement.
At best, lasers are a distraction for pilot, but at worst, they can temporarily blind them, risking everyones safety.
The small, handheld lasers can mean big problems for pilots. The concentrated beam of light can startle a flight crew, cause temporary blindness and even permanent eye damage.
Pilots and air carriers have been pressing Ottawa to crack down. In 2014, the countrys largest airlines, along with pilot unions, helicopter and general aviation associations, signed a joint letter to the federal transport and justice ministers to say tough action was needed to curb what they said was a genuine and growing safety and security concern.
There were almost 600 laser strikes reported to Transport Canada in 2015, up from 502 incidents the year before. Between January and April of this year, there were 148 incidents.
Indeed, in recent days, a Sky Regional Airlines jet landing at Pearson, a KLM flight departing for Amsterdam and an ORNGE air ambulance helicopter flying over Toronto have all been struck.
Pointing a laser at an aircraft is not only a reckless act that puts people at unnecessary risk, its simply not a bright idea, Garneau says in the statement.
Transport Canada and law enforcement across the country are working together to ensure offenders face the fullest force of the law, he said.
Federal transport officials are asking anyone who sees someone pointing a laser at an aircraft to call police.
And during the Tuesday event, Garneau will highlight the legal consequences of pointing a laser at an aircraft, which includes up to $100,000 in fines and five years in prison.
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OTTAWAThe British envoy to Canada says he has no issue with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saying this week that Britain should not leave the European Union.
High Commissioner Howard Drake says his country faces a huge decision in the June 23 referendum that will decide whether Britain should leave the 28-country EU.
Drake says he did not think Trudeau was meddling in Britains internal affairs.
The prime minister was very careful to point out this is a matter for the British public to decide, not for foreign countries, Drake said Friday.
But I think, as any world leader is entitled to do, he is entitled to express a view of what he thinks his countrys national interests should be.
Trudeau told Reuters on Thursday that he wants to see Britain remain as part of a united Europe, where it would enjoy greater prosperity.
Britain is always going to have clout, its just obviously amplified by its strength as part of the EU, said Trudeau.
I believe were always better when we work as closely as possible together and separatism, or division, doesnt seem to be a productive path for countries.
He also said it was far from certain that Britain would be able to negotiate its own unilateral free trade deal with Canada.
The remark echoed what U.S. President Barack Obama recently said about the possibility of Britain negotiating its own free trade deal with the United States if it left the EU. Obama said that would leave Britain at the back of the queue in negotiating with the U.S.
Trudeau suggested it would be equally difficult for Britain to replicate its own version of the Canada-EU free trade deal, known as CETA, saying theres nothing easy or automatic about that.
Trudeau is the latest world leader to speak out against Britain leaving the EU the so-called Brexit along with Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Several global financial bodies have said Britains economy would suffer if it left the EU.
Drake summarized his governments position this way: It is very much in Britains interest to remain a member of the European Union, that it is a vote for our prosperity and our security and that the alternative what is being articulated by the leave campaign is very much a leap in the dark.
Drake played down any potential effect on CETA if the Brexit forces win the day on June 23.
We dont think were going to leave the EU so thats very hypothetical, he said. The CETA process is a separate one. And obviously its hugely important to Canada. The prime minister, the government made that very clear here.
Under the EUs rules, it could take several years for Britain to formally break ties with the institution once it declared its intention to leave. During that time, Britain would remain a part of the EU and be bound by its treaties.
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Former Ontario PC party leader John Tory, now Torontos mayor, and the once-critical current PC leader Patrick Brown were all smiles at a meeting-turned-first-photo-op at city hall on Friday.
Now almost two years into his term, Tory talked with Brown about transit priorities, a future Kitchener-Waterloo-Toronto innovation corridor and other municipal governance issues, he said.
I have welcomed a number of leaders to this office and I certainly welcome Mr. Brown today, Tory said, noting they share similar concerns. It was just a very productive discussion.
Brown specifically noted issues with mental health services across the province and the downloading on municipalities that often puts the onus on police to manage people in crisis.
On mental health, I share Mayor Torys passion that we need to do a better job, and Ive been informed that elsewhere in the province that 40 per cent of police calls are mental health calls, he said. I think the province needs to properly fund mental health and certainly appreciate the City of Torontos interest in mental health.
Tory chimed in, saying the number of calls to Toronto police for what are known as emotionally disturbed people continue to rise.
This is, of course, causing a lot of police resources to be expended on this at the expense of other things they could be doing, Tory said. Its the not right way for people to get the help and support they need. In many cases, these police calls wouldnt be necessary if the people were getting the support they need.
That conversation followed a decision by the Toronto Police Services Board, of which Tory is a member, Thursday to release an internal reportinto the fatal police shooting of Toronto man Andrew Loku.
Loku was killed in 2015 while carrying a hammer inside his apartment building, which provides affordable housing to those with mental health challenges. The unnamed officer who shot Loku was cleared by the provinces Special Investigations Unit, but the case has continued to draw criticism of both the police and the subsequent investigation.
There was no public talk of what had appeared to be bad blood between the old and new leaders.
In his run for the PC leadership and since taking the post just over a year ago, Brown has been highly critical of predecessors including Tory for ham-fisted election promises that turned off broad swaths of voters and has pledged not to repeat their mistakes as the 2018 race looms.
In Torys case, it was the ill-fated 2007 campaign pledge to extend public funding to religious schools teaching the provincial curriculum, which backfired and handed then-premier Dalton McGuinty a second majority despite his first-term decision to levy a health care levy, breaking a promise not to raise taxes.
Tory said he will continue a healthy dialogue with leaders like Brown at Queens Park.
In the end, what were all trying to do is build a strong city of Toronto and a stronger province, he said.
With files from Rob Ferguson
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In death, the voice of Ramsey Whitefish has surfaced with a power he did not possess as a homeless man living in Toronto.
A gripping 2012 Hamlet-inspired video reveals the raw, poetic soul of the 42-year-old found dead Wednesday at 60 Gloucester St., near Church and Wellesley Sts. Trevor Severin, 24, was charged with one count of second-degree murder.
On the YouTube video, Whitefish interprets Hamlets centuries-old soliloquy by drawing from his own haunting experiences as an aboriginal man trying to survive in downtownToronto.
All I think about is nothing. Nothing! Whitefish says angrily to the camera, while standing in a downtown alley.
All my friends are dying, each and every frickin day. Therefore, I stand here alone. Alone. Alone. Alone.
The video grew out of a drama project developed by Sanctuary, a Christian charitable organization whose outreach includes programs and services for the citys homeless. Though Whitefish shared a room in a Gloucester St. rooming house, a friend of his told the Star Whitefish didnt like the place, didnt choose his roommate and often would not sleep there because of bedbugs and safety concerns.
In 2012, Sanctuary art director Lyf Stolte said Whitefish, along with several street brothers, had asked Stolte about acting, referring to acting as to be or not to be. With that phrasing in mind, Stolte chose Hamlets soliloquy to discuss.
Stolte worked with Whitefish semi-regularly over six months, culminating in the performance shot in an alley between the Sanctuary building and a condo. Whitefish spoke for about three minutes into the camera.
It was one take. He didnt use a script. He knew there was this central idea locked in his brain about the soliloquy, Stolte said of the man hed known for more than a decade and described as a talented poet.
With just a single camera, Stolte wanted a second angle and asked Whitefish to repeat the monologue. Whitefish obliged. Stolte edited the two pieces (they werent identical but very close in theme, he said) into a seamless three-minute final cut.
As his performance nears the end, Whitefish addresses and twists the iconic line:
To be or not to be? That is the answer that the question killed.
Then, Whitefish hangs his head and weeps.
His left hand dries the tears. His right hand cradles a bottle of alcohol. Whitefish looks up, towards the sky, and ever so softly says, Thank you very much.
At the time, Whitefish gave Stolte permission to post the video on YouTube under his nickname, Rammstein.
He wanted to share his story and he felt it was really reflected in the To Be or Not To Be project, Stolte said of his very big-hearted, big personality friend.
The art director recalled that Whitefish loved the finished product.
He said, Im like f---ing Marlon Brando, arent I? Stolte said, laughing.
And I said, Yes, yes, you kind of are.
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In the imploding Middle East, where disarray and division rule, the need to reverse the downward spiral has never been greater. But more than ever, it is a region scarred by war, instability, occupation and violence.
It is also a region where the legacy of the past is always a burden and a flashpoint for fresh debate. Incredibly, the Middle East is still trying to sort out the aftershocks left a century ago following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which was one of the largest and longest empires in history.
One hundred years ago this week, Britain and France secretly carved out a new Middle East that would emerge under their control at the end of the First World War. It was called the Sykes-Picot Agreement, named after the two British and French diplomats who created it.
This centennial has produced considerable attention in the Middle East. The May 1916 agreement, which is widely loathed in the Arab world, was not intended to set precise borders but to define spheres of influence that would ultimately shape the modern Middle East. But it was done in a way that would foreshadow how western colonial powers would treat the Middle East for decades to come.
It was an act of betrayal, done in secret and with the goal of imposing their will on the entire region. For these reasons, and in spite of its odd name, the Sykes-Picot Agreement has had an enduring popular and political resonance in the Middle East debate.
In the Oscar-winning 1962 drama Lawrence of Arabia, widely regarded as one of the greatest films in the history of the cinema, Peter OToole played the role of T.E. Lawrence, a British army officer and diplomat whose First World War exploits in the Middle East earned him fame.
Perhaps Lawrences greatest achievement was to convince the Arabs to support the British during the war in exchange for assurances that they would be allowed to govern their own regions after it ended. But one of the films most dramatic scenes was when he and the Arabs learned that Britain and France had betrayed them with this secret pact.
Two years ago, the Islamic militant group Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, actually produced a video called The End of Sykes-Picot, followed by this pledge from the groups head, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: This blessed advance will not stop until we hit the last nail in the coffin of Sykes-Picot.
Much of this recent rhetoric is nonsense, of course. The tragedy in the Middle East in modern times is largely due to its own failures. The corruption of its dictators, the squandering of its oil wealth and the oppression of its own people cannot be blamed only on western politicians, however complicit they may have been. That would be too easy.
But it would be equally wrong to deny the burden of history. It is a fact that, immediately after the end of the First World War, the western colonial powers worked to protect their own power, and did little to help the people of the Middle East to set out on their own.
A hundred years after Sykes-Picot, we have Syria festering in front of us, with more than 400,000 people dead. We have Daesh. We have Egypts horrors, Libyas anarchy and Israels continuing brutal occupation of Palestinian lands. And we have the gradual disintegration of Iraq.
So, yes, the borders of this 21st-century Middle East will inevitably be far different than what was imagined in 1916 and what we see today.
But there are signs of hope. There was an international effort this past week in Vienna to kick-start a new round of negotiations over the Syrian crisis. The U.S., Russia and other countries including, finally, Canada agreed to use airdrops for humanitarian aid to Syrian civilians.
They couldnt agree on a date to resume stalled peace talks, and that was disappointing. But the fact that efforts are still happening is important.
The message 100 years ago from the Sykes-Picot Agreement was that military power and western self-interest should be deciding factors in the Middle East of the 20th century.
That has proven disastrous.
Let us hope that we are now learning it will be our diplomats, not our soldiers, who will guide us through this next century.
Tony Burman, former head of CBC News and Al Jazeera English, teaches journalism at Ryerson University. Reach him @TonyBurman or at tony.burman@gmail.com .
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JAKARTA, INDONESIAA volcano in western Indonesian unleashed hot clouds of ash on Saturday, killing three villagers and injuring four others, an official said.
Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra province blasted volcanic ash as high as 3 kilometres into the sky, said National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. He said ash tumbled down the slopes as far as 4.5 kilometres westward into a river.
The 2,600-meter-high mountain had been dormant for four centuries before springing to life in August 2010, killing two people and forcing 30,000 to flee. An eruption in February 2014 killed 16 people.
All the victims of Saturdays eruption were working on their farms in the village of Gamber, about 4 kilometres away from the slope, or within the danger area. Video images showed dead farm animals covered in dust.
Mount Sinabung is among more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, which is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
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CAIRO Leaked flight data showing trouble in the cockpit and smoke in a plane lavatory are bringing into focus the chaotic final moments of EgyptAir Flight 804, including a three-minute period before contact was lost as alarms on the Airbus 320 screeched one after another.
Officials caution it's still too early to say what happened to the aircraft France's foreign minister said Saturday that "all the hypotheses are being examined" but mounting evidence points to a sudden, dramatic catastrophe that led to its crash into the eastern Mediterranean early Thursday.
Sebastien Barthe, a spokesman for the French civil aviation investigation agency told The Associated Press that the messages generally mean the start of a fire.
French and Egyptian authorities, working around the clock to find the flight data recorders, cautioned that the cause of the crash remained unclear. Also Saturday, Egypts military spokesman posted on Facebook what he said were the first images of debris recovered by naval ships in the Mediterranean, including a life vest, fabric from seat cushions and parts of the aircraft exterior. The images have not been verified by other nations investigating the crash.
EgyptAir Flight 804 departed Pariss Charles de Gaulle airport at 11:09 p.m. Wednesday and was bound for Cairo when it crashed into the sea early Thursday. The messages signalling the aircraft detected smoke aboard the flight were first reported Friday by the industry publication Aviation Herald. The website said smoke appeared in a lavatory near the cockpit, and that the information was transmitted through the planes Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System.
We are drawing no conclusions from this, Barthe told THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Everything else is pure conjecture.
The planes abrupt turns and ultimate descent into the Mediterranean has raised fears the flight was targeted by terrorists, but no group has so far claimed responsibility for the crash.
The discovery Friday of human remains, wreckage and passenger belongings added momentum to the quest to unravel the mystery of why the Airbus A320 suddenly dropped from the sky, probably killing all 66 people aboard.
Without the bulk of the fuselage and flight recorder, the tragedy has offered few tangible clues.
On Friday, Egyptian naval ships backed by U.S. and European search aircraft scoured the Mediterranean, concentrating the hunt on an area about 290 kilometres off the coast of the Egyptian city of Alexandria, according to an Egyptian military spokesman, a day after earlier reports of located debris were retracted. If more debris is located in the area in coming days, it could signal a major shift in the investigation into how the plane, travelling at a cruising altitude of 37,000 feet, could have suddenly swerved, flown in a circle, then plunged thousands of feet, losing contact with air controllers before vanishing.
Experts now have a target zone to try to peer below the waves in hopes of finding the flight recorders and what remains of the fuselage. But the presumed crash site covers some of the deepest water in the Mediterranean, with a seabed basin that is more than 10,000 feet below the surface in some places. The currents are also strong, which could complicate efforts to pinpoint the wreckage.
In Athens, more details about the reported Egyptian finds were given by Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, who said a seat, luggage and a body part were spotted. The European Space Agency, meanwhile, said a satellite detected a possible oil slick in the same area. Greek state television said the recoveries were made about 115 miles from the planes last tracked position.
A day after a top official in Egypt said that terrorism appeared more likely than a catastrophic technical malfunction, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on France-2 television that there is absolutely no indication of the cause of the crash. No group has claimed responsibility for the fallen plane.
U.S. officials also urged caution on drawing conclusions about the cause of the crash. Analysts at the CIA and other agencies, meanwhile, have worked with foreign counterparts to scrutinize the flights passenger list and crew roster. Three French civil-aviation experts arrived in Cairo on Friday to assist with the investigation, reported Egypts flagship state-owned newspaper, Al-Ahram.
On Saturday, French investigators confirmed that smoke was detected in the plane in multiple locations before it crashed, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS reported.
The discovery of the debris and passenger remains diminished already slim hopes of finding any survivors. There were about a dozen nationalities on board, with Egypt and France suffering the greatest losses. In Cairo on Friday, hundreds of relatives and friends of the missing gathered in mosques for memorial services, offering solemn prayers and tears.
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The EgyptAir flight had flown across northern Italy and into Greek airspace, where air traffic controllers later noted that the planes pilot was in good spirits before entering Egyptian airspace. Minutes later, the plane veered violently to the east, dropping from 37,000 feet to 15,000, according to Kammenos. At one point, the plane made a 360-degree turn before disappearing from radar and crashing into the Mediterranean.
The disappearance of Flight 804 was Egypts third major air incident in eight months, further eroding confidence in the safety of the countrys air travel and delivering another blow to government efforts to revive a struggling economy and tourism sector. In October, the Islamic States affiliate in Egypt asserted responsibility for bringing down a Russian charter flight over the Sinai Peninsula with a bomb smuggled aboard, killing all 224 people on the plane. In March, an EgyptAir flight from Alexandria was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus by a 59-year-old Egyptian man wearing a fake explosives belt. He later surrendered, and all hostages were released.
In a sign that the Flight 804 crash could have serious economic ramifications, the Egyptian stock exchange plunged on Thursday its last trading day of the week recording more than $300 million in losses. And the Egyptian newspaper Al-Wafd quoted an adviser to the countrys tourism minister as saying the government expected an industry downturn following the crash due to fears of travelling with EgyptAir.
On Friday, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi expressed condolences to the families of the passengers. In a statement, his office said that Sissi, with utmost sadness and regret, mourns the victims on board the EgyptAir flight who were killed.
The tragedy was particularly felt by Osman Abu Laban. The Lebanese film directors aunt and uncle, their son and the sons wife were aboard Flight 804. On Friday, in a post on his Facebook page, Laban, who lives in Egypt, announced funeral prayers at a Cairo mosque for his lost relatives.
Oh Lord have mercy and forgive them and make their final resting place a paradise, he wrote.
With files from The Associated Press.
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DAYTON, OHIOA solar-powered airplane touched down late Saturday in the Ohio hometown of two of Americas most well-known aviation pioneers on the latest leg of its around-the-world journey.
The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 landed late Saturday in Dayton, Ohio, where inventors Wilbur and Orville Wright grew up. The plane took off from Tulsa International Airport before 5 a.m. Saturday. The flight to Dayton International Airport took 17 hours.
The plane will be in Dayton until early next week, the Dayton Daily News reported. A spokeswoman for the planes crew said an exact takeoff time wouldnt be known until 24 hours in advance.
The globe-circling voyage began in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan.
The plane is expected to make at least one more stop in the United States, in New York, before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe or northern Africa, according to the website documenting the journey.
Niklaus Gerber, an air traffic control expert whos helping to plan the planes routes, said during an interview live-streamed on the Solar Impulse 2 website, that the New York trip will be challenging. He said the plane will encounter air traffic from three busy airports John F. Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark International.
During its most recent trips, the aircraft took off from Phoenix Goodyear Airport in Arizona at about 3 a.m. on May 13 and landed in Tulsa about 20 hours later.
It departed from northern California in the early hours of May 2 and landed at the airport southwest of Phoenix 16 hours later. Last month, it flew from Hawaii to California.
The Solar Impulse 2s wings, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.
Ideal flight speed is about 45 km/h, although that can double during the day when the suns rays are strongest.
The plane had a five-day trip from Japan to Hawaii and three-day trip from Hawaii to Californias Silicon Valley.
The crew was forced to stay in Oahu, Hawaii, for nine months after the planes battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan.
Project officials say the layovers give the two Swiss pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg a chance to swap places and engage with local communities along the way so they can explain the project, which is estimated to cost more than $100 million.
The solar project began in 2002 to highlight the importance of renewable energy and the spirit of innovation.
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SYRIAOn a secret trip to Syria, the new commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said Saturday he felt a moral obligation to enter a war zone to check on his troops and make his own assessment of progress in organizing local Arab and Kurd fighters for what has been a slow campaign to push Daesh, also referred to as ISIS or ISIL, out of Syria.
"I have responsibility for this mission, and I have responsibility for the people that we put here," Army Gen. Joseph Votel said in an interview as dusk fell on the remote outpost where he had arrived 11 hours earlier. "So it's imperative for me to come and see what they're dealing with to share the risk they are dealing with."
Votel, who has headed U.S. Central Command for just seven weeks, became the highest-ranking U.S. military officer known to have entered Syria since the U.S. began its campaign to counter Daesh in 2014. The circumstance was exceptional because the U.S. has no combat units in Syria, no diplomatic relations with Syria and for much of the past two years has enveloped much of its Syria military mission in secrecy.
Votel said he brought reporters with him because, "We don't have anything to hide. I don't want people guessing about what we're doing here. The American people should have the right to see what we're doing here."
Votel flew into northern Syria from Iraq, where he had conferred on Friday with U.S. and Iraqi military commanders. In Syria he met with U.S. military advisers working with Syrian Arab fighters and consulted with leaders of the Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella group of Kurdish and Arab fighters supported by the U.S.
A small group of reporters accompanied Votel under ground rules that, for security reasons, prohibited disclosing his visit until after he had left Syria. After landing at a remote camp where American military advisers are training Syrian Arab troops in basic soldiering skills, Votel split off from the reporters who flew in with him; he then visited several other undisclosed locations in Syria before returning to the camp.
Syria is a raging war zone, torn by multiple conflicts that have created severe human suffering across much of the country. But on Saturday the U.S. advisers camp that Votel visited was quiet. Situated about 50 miles from the nearest fighting, it was remarkably quiet. The sharpest sound was a month-old puppy's yapping as he ran between visitors' legs. A light breeze nudged several bright-yellow flags of the Syrian Democratic Forces attached to small bushes and atop a post buried in an earthen berm beside a shooting range.
Aides said Votel's flight into Syria was the first made in daylight by U.S. forces, who have about 200 advisers on the ground. Military ground rules for the trip prohibited reporting the kind of aircraft Votel used, the exact location of where he landed and the names and images of the U.S. military advisers, who said they have been operating from the camp since January.
An Associated Press reporter and journalists from two other news organizations were the first Western media to visit the secretive operation.
The last known high-level U.S. official to visit Syria was Brett McGurk, Obama's envoy to the coalition fighting Daesh. He spent two days in Syria in late January, including a tour of Kobani, the small town near the Turkish border where Kurdish fighters backed by U.S. airstrikes had expelled an entrenched group of Daesh fighters a year earlier.
In the interview, Votel said his visit had hardened his belief that the U.S. is taking the right approach to developing local forces to fight Daesh.
"I left with increased confidence in their capabilities and our ability to support them," he said. "I think that model is working and working well."
The U.S. has struggled to find an effective ground force to take on Daesh in Syria, where President Barack Obama has ruled out a U.S. ground combat role. This presents a different problem than in Iraq, where the U.S. at least has a government to partner with.
The problem in Syria is complicated by the fractured nature of the opposition to the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The U.S. is trying to develop credible Arab fighters to retake Raqqa, Daeshs self-declared capital, while Syrian Kurds have retaken territory from Daesh in other parts of northern Syria.
The U.S. is supporting what it calls the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is predominantly comprised of Syrian Kurds, numbering at least 25,000 fighters, with a smaller element of Syrian Arabs, numbering perhaps 5,000 to 6,000. The U.S. is trying to increase the Arab numbers.
Syrian Arab commanders who were made available for interviews at the U.S. camp Saturday said their forces are gaining battlefield momentum but also need a lot more help. They were quick to say the U.S.-led coalition should pitch in more.
Qarhaman Hasan, the deputy commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, said he has given the Americans a list of his most pressing needs. Atop his list: armoured vehicles, heavy weapons like machine-guns, as well as rocket launchers and mortars.
"We're creating an army," he said through an interpreter, and have had to rely on smuggling to get weapons.
"You can't run an army on smuggling," he said.
Tribal leaders said in interviews that they also want to see the U.S. do more, both militarily and with humanitarian aid.
"America has the capabilities," said Sheik Abu Khalid as he puffed on a cigarette under the shade of pomegranate and pine trees.
Talal Selo, spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, was especially strong in his criticism of the U.S. for providing too little assistance and for giving the SDF "very useless" support. He said that if this continued the Syrians opposing Daesh will have to fight for another 50 years.
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BANGKOKVietnam granted early release from prison to a Catholic priest who is one of its most prominent dissidents, a move widely seen as a goodwill gesture before President Barack Obama arrives on an official visit late Sunday night.
The Catholic Archdiocese of the central city of Hue reported on its webpage that it welcomed the return Friday of the Rev. Nguyen Van Ly from prison. Photos on its website showed a frail Ly, 70, being helped off a minibus, kneeling to pay his respects to his senior colleagues, then being led to a room prepared for him at the diocese. He has suffered several health crises while imprisoned.
Ly has served several long terms in prison or under house arrest for promoting political and religious freedoms in the communist nation. He was first jailed in 1977, two years after the Communist takeover of all Vietnam.
His early release was for an eight-year prison term he had been serving since March 2007 after being convicted of spreading propaganda against the state. He was released on medical parole in 2010 for 16 months before being sent back to prison in 2011 to resume serving his sentence, to which a five-year probationary period is also attached.
Vietnams persecution of dissidents has been a roadblock to warmer relations with the United States, from which it is seeking the lifting of an arms embargo. Washington and Hanoi share a strategic interest in challenging Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, some of which are in areas long claimed by Vietnam.
The governments relations have always been strained with the Catholic church, associated with French colonial rule and the former anti-communist South Vietnam, as well as an influential power base independent of the ruling Communist Partys control.
The U.S. State Department said it welcomed Lys release.
We consistently have called for the release of Father Ly and all other prisoners of conscience in Vietnam, said Gabrielle Price, the departments spokeswoman for East Asia and Pacific affairs. We remain deeply concerned for all prisoners of conscience in Vietnam. We call on the government to release unconditionally all prisoners of conscience and allow all Vietnamese to express their political views peacefully without fear of retribution.
More than a dozen human rights groups last month sent an appeal to Obama urging him to press Hanoi to release political prisoners.
The appeal, whose signees included Human Rights Watch as well as groups focusing on Vietnam, urged him to make clear, both in private and in public, that (the) U.S.-Vietnamese relationship will not fundamentally advance absent meaningful human rights improvements, including the release of imprisoned activists, and end to harassment of civil society groups, and respect for international law.
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Re: Burning bridges with the electoral reform file, May 19
Re: Electoral reform may not make Canada more democratic, May 13
Burning bridges with the electoral reform file, May 19
There are two valid approaches to this project of electoral reform, but only one sensible one.
Sure, the citizenry could spectate until, as Thomas Walkom predicts, the process produces whatever crazy idea the politicians come up with, and then give it a thumbs up or down.
Or, much better, Canadians could be elbows-deep participants from the get go in articulating the values and principles at play our values and principles, defining the problem were trying to solve and overseeing the process of evaluating the proposed systems until the best match is found. In other words the choice will be our choice. Then, a referendum would only tell us what we know already.
If we leave it to the politicians without providing our thorough, prior advice and guidance then theyre just guessing at the right solution. Knowing is better than guessing. Happily even a quick read of Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsefs motion indicates that shes intent on this more effective and sensible course.
Let the people vote on electoral reform? Why settle for that when we can have them us design that system?
Mark Henschel, Toronto
Rarely does the Star become so obviously duplicitous as when discussing electoral reform. Over the years the Star has campaigned shamelessly for a system so atrocious that only one nation still uses it.
At the same time it has campaigned ceaselessly against the electoral method used by 30 of the 34 OECD nations, using blatant misrepresentations about the type of election used by almost every other industrial democracy.
Now you make common cause with the Conservatives to try to defeat a system that will forever limit the power of corporate media to frighten people into voting against their interests.
Did we require a referendum to allow women, citizens of Asian ancestry or our First Nations to vote? Of course not. These are basic items of human rights that arent up for debate in any nation claiming to be civilized.
Why then should we have a referendum on whether our votes should finally count? As you correctly report, you have been successful in defeating such referendums in all previous instances.
Why should Parliament give you another chance to work your mischief against democracy?
Gary Dale, West Hill
Maryam Monsef announced a select committee composed of six Liberals, three Conservatives and one NDPer to study various voting systems to replace our current first-past-the-post system (FPTP). The opposition to such reform by the Stars editorial on May 12 and Chantal Hebert editorials are both disappointing.
In fact there are very few people still alive in Ontario who voted in the last majority election, in 1936, where one party earned more than 50 per cent of the popular vote federally, Brian Mulroney did so in the early 1980s with 50.1 per cent majority mandate from Canadians.
All three parties, provincial or federal, have benefited from a phony majority, thanks to FPTP, when their party achieved absolute power while over 60 per cent of the voters said no to their platforms.
Disturbingly, parties who govern with the 37 to 39 per cent majority routinely introduced legislation that they wouldnt dare campaign on we need look no further than Kathleen Wynnes Liberals selling of Hydro One. All parties are guilty of this abuse of power.
Our current FPTP system is not undemocratic but it is unfair and disenfranchises voters who will vote strategically because they know their votes wont count. In the October 2015 federal election more than 9 million Canadians votes or 51.8 per cent of votes cast did not count.
In New Zealand, where they ditched FPTP in 1993, only 3 per cent of votes cast were wasted. This year marks the 100th anniversary of when Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta granted women the right to vote, beginning the journey that one day would lead to securing voting rights for women across Canada.
Let us imagine, as your May 12 article suggested, there was a referendum by men in 1916. The odds are real good Chantal Hebert, my wife and daughters would still be waiting to vote, and the same holds true for our First Nations who, in 1960, no longer had to give up their Indian Status in order to vote.
Canada, United States and England are the only countries left that have FPTP and, like Thomas Walkom said on May 13, If politicians insist we abandon the FPTP voting system, we can probably live with the results. Other countries do.
Ken Robertson, Barrie
Some of the observations by Chantal Hebert in her May 14 column dont sit quite right.
First, there are sound reasons to consider other voting systems than FPTP, is an understatement. There are many, very good reasons, including decreasing cynicism and increasing turnout. Further to that observation, gauging satisfaction with FPTP using a survey from 16 years ago is pointless; both the political landscape and the population itself have changed dramatically. People are disgruntled with FPTP.
Secondly, imagining Stephen Harper as the one stacking this deck is indeed scary, but we need to remember that Harper did stack the deck to stay in power, in very undemocratic ways: neutering Elections Canada, manipulating and breaking election laws, shutting down parliament, to name a few. This anti-Harper sentiment really should linger; we cannot allow those nefarious tactics to be how a government maintains power.
Here we have a transparent attempt to legitimately improve our system. It was loudly called for, then pledged (not only) by the Liberals before the election, which they proceeded to win. Calling it undemocratic is unfounded and paradoxical. If anything it only highlights the need for electoral reform in the first place.
Obviously any new system will favour some parties more than others. Thats fundamental. (If not, the elections would turn out exactly the same.) We must realize that this is a good thing.
If a resulting government more closely resembles what we actually vote for then anyone who loses favour does so for the right reasons.
Jordan Winters, Scarborough
Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose questions why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is not incorporating a country-wide referendum on proposed changes to the Canadian Elections Act. Does she not remember that this issue was front and centre during the last election campaign when candidate Trudeau made it abundantly clear on dozens and dozens of occasions that, if elected, incorporating electoral changes would be one of his top priorities?
In fact, could Ms Ambroses recent contention be early signs of a collective memory failure on the part of the Conservative Party? After all, just two years ago, Stephen Harpers Democratic Reform Minister, Pierre Poilievre, announced Bill C-23 (ironically called the Fair Elections Act) in a draconian attempt to change electoral rules that would have disenfranchised tens of thousands of Canadian voters.
It took a public outcry, and the sworn testimony of the Chief Electoral Officer before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedures and House Affairs, in which he stated that the bill contained measures that would undermine its stated purpose and not serve Canadians well, to amend some of its more egregious proposals.
And, unlike Ms Ambrose, most of us remember that Bill C-23 was created by the Conservative government without a Canadian referendum. So why would she demand one now?
In addition, unlike Prime Minister Trudeau, Stephen Harper did not have the courage, during the previous election campaign, to mention his intentions regarding electoral reform. Does Ms Ambrose not realize that the Canadian public will perceive that objecting merely for the sake of objecting is, not only counter-intuitive to an effective opposition strategy, but simply counter-productive overall?
So, please give it a rest, Ms Ambrose; Canadian voters have already spoken loudly and clearly on the need for electoral reform during the last election.
J. Richard Wright, Niagara-on-the-Lake
I always appreciate Chantal Heberts well thought out and insightful columns, but I hope there is more interest in electoral reform in the country than her May 14 column suggests.
The groups I follow, like Fair Vote Canada and Leadnow, feel there is some hope for change to a more proportional electoral system at this time, coming on the heels of 10 years of Harper rule based on a mere 40 per cent of the popular vote.
The process to a fairer, more democratic, proportional system of voting will not be easy, but I dont see the need for a referendum on the issue.
Canadian women, except for indigenous women, were given the vote in 1918 by an act of the federal parliament and that was the largest change to our voting system, enfranchising approximately 50 per cent of the population, that I am aware of. This was accomplished without a costly and time consuming referendum. All we need is Mr. Trudeau and the Liberal party to support the change to proportional representation.
I am encouraged that when Craig Scott introduced a motion supporting the adoption of a proportional representation model in Parliament in December 2014, several Liberal MPs supported it, even if Mr. Trudeau voted against it.
Susan Fraser, Toronto
I agree that there should be a referendum before there is an ongoing change to our electoral system. Because it may impossible to have a referendum with appropriate consultation prior to the 2019 election, any changes to the electoral system without a referendum should be for the 2019 election only. There should be a commitment to hold a referendum in the 2019-2023 period.
I presume that any referendum should have about three options, one of which should be the status quo. If the majority prefers the status quo, that should be the system in the subsequent elections regardless of the position of the governing party.
Given the tight time frame, limiting any changes to a single election with a commitment to a referendum during the next Parliament may be the best way for the Liberals to maintain their election promise while giving proper scope to public opinion.
Bruce Couchman, Ottawa
Electoral reform may not make Canada more democratic, May 13
Thanks to our FPTP electoral system, both Prime Minister Trudeau and former Prime Minister Harper won contrived majorities while winning only 40 per cent of votes. This democratic deficit can be addressed by a simple electoral reform: hold runoff elections in constituencies where no candidates have won more than 50 per cent of the votes, after eliminating candidates who have failed to win 25 per cent of the vote. This will produce a party winning a majority of votes to emerge. This will combine the advantages of FPTP and proportional representation.
Electoral reform will not only make Canada more democratic, it will also make the government more representative.
Mahmood Elahi, Ottawa
Thomas Walkoms analysis of election was very enlightening. My understanding of proportional representation is that the candidates are selected by the party, so they do not represent constituencies, as the candidates of FPTP do, so it would not be possible to have them support policies of their area or to hold them responsible for government decisions.
I also understand that in some countries there are people elected in addition to those representing the constituencies, based on some proportional representation. That might be better. In any event it is extremely important that representatives do represent their constituencies and are responsible to them.
Karen Whitewood, Toronto
Thomas Walkom damns PR with faint praise we can probably live with it. But he largely misses the point by concentrating on the effect on political parties. The point of electoral reform is not what it means for political parties; its about what it means for voters.
Are we going to continue with a system under which most of us are represented by someone we voted against, and where we have a government that most of us voted against? Or are we going to have a system where every vote counts, no matter how you vote or where you vote?
Thats the definition of a fair voting system, and its called proportional representation.
Wayne Smith, Toronto
It is true that forms of PR have failed in four provincial referendums in the past 11 years. But it is also true that the people of British Columbia in 2005 were the first to vote and chose PR by a clear majority of 57.7 per cent.
Governments in power are notoriously reluctant to change the voting system that elected them. The B.C. vote failed because the province had demanded a maximum minimum vote of 60 per cent for passage, more than the usual 50 per cent required for legislative approvals.
Stig Harvor, Toronto
The additional appointment of some non-voting Senators to the Election Reform Committee could be a tax and time saving when the Commons legislation following the December Committee report is then examined by the Senate. The Senate itself, to better inform its review, could appoint a group of senators to actively follow the committees proceedings and public response.
Because electoral reform is so basic to our democratic process, both Houses of Parliament the Commons and the Senate need to be engaged intensively.
Paul Cosgrove, former joint chair, Select Joint Committee on Senate Reform 1984, Brockville
Your editorial on electoral reform continues the fiction that we have a democracy where people are represented by those we elect. No kind of different system of electing political party hacks is going to provide the people representation so long as the corporate party system uses whips to compel obedience of members.
Our House of Commons was intended to be divided horizontally between rulers and the representative of the people, with majorities cobbled together on issues.
Ed Goertzen, Oshawa
Maryam Monsef, the Minister of Democratic Reform, as a new member of the House, understands what she is there for. Too bad we didnt elect 300 like her. She is a breath of fresh air, the other braying asses could take lessons from her.
Allan McPherson, Newmarket
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Fritz Stern, who fled Nazi Germany as a boy and became a leading historian of the land he left behind, illuminating the forces that shaped the German state from its founding through the Holocaust to modern times, died May 18 at his home in New York City. He was 90.
The cause was cancer, said his wife, Elisabeth Sifton.
Dr. Stern spent half a century as a professor at Columbia University, where he was educated after arriving in New York City on the eve of World War II. He was 12 years old when his family left Germany in 1938 and took with him the memory of a society on the brink of the darkest chapter in its history.
A grandson of Jewish converts to Christianity, Dr. Stern was baptized at birth but was nonetheless a target of Hitlers anti-Semitic persecution. Before his 20th birthday, 6 million Jews among them his aunt and uncle had perished in the Holocaust, an event that would leave generations of German Jews alienated from their homeland.
As a scholar, Dr. Stern sought to answer what he described as a burning question: Why and how did the universal human potential for evil become an actuality in Germany?
In his search, he rejected what he regarded as simplistic and wrongheaded answers, such as the theory expounded by historian Daniel Jonah Goldhagen in his best-selling book Hitlers Willing Executioners (1996) that ordinary Germans had readily participated in the Holocaust because of an eliminationist anti-Semitism rampant in the German culture.
Dr. Stern condemned Goldhagens thesis as the indictment of a people and said that he resented all the tomes and slogans about Germanys inevitable path from Luther to Hitler.
In his writings, Dr. Stern traced decades of German history. His first book, The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology (1961), analyzed three German intellectuals of the late 1800s and early 1900s Paul de Lagarde, Julius Langbehn and Arthur Moeller van den Bruck whose philosophies, he argued, helped open the way for National Socialism.
In the book Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichroder, and the Building of the German Empire (1977), Dr. Stern explored the relationship between Otto von Bismarck and Gerson von Bleichroder, the Jewish banker who became one of the Iron Chancellors closest advisers.
In his essays, collected in volumes including The Failure of Illiberalism (1972) and Dreams and Delusions: The Drama of German History (1987), Dr. Stern embarked on broad explorations of German culture, political and otherwise.
He attracted particular notice with a later volume, Five Germanys I Have Known (2006), a memoir spanning the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the divided worlds of East Germany and West Germany during the Cold War, and the unified nation that emerged after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Decades of study and experience have persuaded me that the German roads to perdition, including National Socialism, were neither accidental nor inevitable, he wrote. National Socialism had deep roots, and yet its growth could have been arrested.
I was born into a world on the cusp of avoidable disaster, he continued. And I came to realize that no country is immune to the temptations of pseudo-religious movements of repression such as those to which Germany succumbed. The fragility of freedom is the simplest and deepest lesson of my life and work.
Dr. Sterns works were widely read in the United States and in Germany, where he received some of the countrys highest literary honors, and where he became, the New York Times once reported, a moral arbiter and perhaps the closest thing to a trusted external judge of the countrys bitter internal debates.
The skill of Fritz Sterns depictions and his integrity, Roland Ulmer, the president of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, told the Times, have generated an atmosphere that provides the descendants of the victims and the descendants of the perpetrators with the building blocks from which to fashion a shared memory of a time when German-Jewish patriotism was thinkable.
Fritz Richard Stern was born on Feb. 2, 1926, in the city that was then Breslau, Germany, and that today is Wroclaw, Poland. His father was one in a long line of doctors, and his mother was a teacher.
Before leaving for the United States, the young Dr. Stern observed the demagoguery that whipped his classmates and the country into a nationalistic frenzy. He recalled his math teacher posing questions such as, If three Jews robbed a bank, and each got a part of the loot proportionate to their ages . . . how much would each get?
Before beginning his studies at Columbia, Dr. Stern consulted the physicist Albert Einstein, a family acquaintance, who advised him to study medicine instead of history. Dr. Stern went with history, later writing Einsteins German World (1999), a work of biographical history.
He received a bachelors degree in 1946, a masters degree in 1948 and a PhD in 1953, all from Columbia. Among his classmates was the poet Allen Ginsberg. His professors included the literary critic Lionel Trilling and the historian Jacques Barzun.
Dr. Stern served in the early 1980s as provost at Columbia. Outside of academia, he was an adviser to U.S. diplomat Richard C. Holbrooke during Holbrookes tenure as ambassador to Germany from 1993 to 1994.
Dr. Sterns marriage to Margaret Bassett ended in divorce. He later was married for 20 years to Sifton, with whom he wrote No Ordinary Men: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi, Resisters Against Hitler in Church and State (2013).
Besides Sifton, of New York City, survivors include two children from his first marriage, Fred Stern of New York City and Katherine Brennan of Annapolis, Md.; three stepsons, Sam Sifton of New York City, Toby Sifton of Brunswick, Maine, and John Sifton of Washington; seven grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Reflecting on the passage of time, Dr. Stern once remarked that memory may be mighty . . . yet it can also be inaccurate. It keeps us on our toes, but it brings us only to the threshold of historical understanding.
In decades of scholarly pursuits, no country, no society, is shielded from the evils that the passivity of decent citizens can bring about, he wrote. That is a German lesson of the twentieth century for all of us.
Recommendations Exceptional Excellent Very Good Availability information is based on distributor records. Wines might not be in stock at every listed store and might be sold at additional stores. Prices are approximate. Check Winesearcher.com to verify availability, or ask a favorite wine store to order through a distributor.
(Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post)
Wine in cans is definitely a niche product, but you can find it in the Washington area. Field Recordings winery, in Californias Paso Robles region, offers a red and a white at $11 for a 500-milliliter can and several more wines under its Alloy label (distributed by Free Run). Underwood winery, in Oregon, markets several wines in cans as well (distributed by Constantine).
Here are four other wines, available in traditional 750-milliliter bottles, to enjoy during your patio parties once the sun comes out.
Dave McIntyre
E. Guigal Crozes-Hermitage 2012
Rhone Valley, France, $23
Wrap an organic blueberry in a strip of artisanal bacon, then smoke it over hardwood embers or just decant this beauty at least an hour before dinner to reveal its seductive flavors of, well, you get the idea. Alcohol by volume: 13 percent.
Distributed by M. Touton: Available in the District at Calvert Woodley, MacArthur Beverages, Morris Miller Wine & Liquor, Pauls of Chevy Chase, Rodmans, Whole Foods Market (various locations); on the list at Bistrot Lepic & Wine Bar, Nora. Available in Maryland at the Breadery in Catonsville; Columbia Palace Wine & Spirits and Kings Contrivance Liquor Shop in Columbia; Downtown Crown Wine and Beer in Gaithersburg; Hunt Valley Wine, Liquor & Beer in Cockeysville; Jasons Wine & Spirits and Pine Orchard Liquors in Ellicott City; Montgomery County Liquor Store (Potomac); Old Farm Liquors in Frederick; the Perfect Pour in Elkridge; Rodmans (White Flint); Roundabout Fine Wine & Spirits in Laurel; Total Discount Liquors in Eldersburg; Wells Discount Liquors in Baltimore. On the list at La Ferme Restaurant in Chevy Chase, Tersiguels French Country Restaurant in Ellicott City. Available in Virginia at the Wine Cabinet in Reston.
Zudugarai Antxiola Getariako Txakolina 2015
Spain, $14
This white wine from Spains Basque regions is a favorite of sommeliers because of its low alcohol and searing acidity. Taste it alone, and you might pucker up and complain that its sour. But try it with food, especially spicy dishes, and the acidity abandons the diva role to become a supporting player for the wines abundant fruit. ABV: 11 percent.
Distributed by Dionysus: Available in the District at DVines, Rodmans; on the list at Compass Rose, Tico. Available in Maryland at Balduccis and Bradley Food & Beverage in Bethesda. Available in Virginia at Barrel Thief Wine Shop & Cafe and Ellwood Thompsons Local Market in Richmond, Chain Bridge Cellars in McLean, Leesburg Vintner, Swirl & Sip in Fairfax, the Wine Cabinet in Reston.
Alexander Valley Vineyards Dry Rose of Sangiovese 2015
1/2
Sonoma County, Calif., $15
This refreshingly juicy rose is one of my perennial favorites, and its so widely available now in the District and Maryland that the word seems to be out. This vintage does not disappoint. Its vibrant red color stands in contrast to the current vogue for a lighter shade of pale in rose a reminder that color may indicate style but not quality. ABV: 13.2 percent.
Distributed by Bacchus in the District and Maryland, Select in Virginia: Available in the District at Batch 13, Bell Wine & Spirits, Burkas Wine & Liquor, Cairo Wine & Liquor, Calvert Woodley, Chevy Chase Wine & Spirits, Circle Wine & Liquor, Eye Street Cellars, Harrys Reserve Fine Wine & Spirits, Kogod Liquor, Magruders, Modern Liquors, Pauls of Chevy Chase, Pearsons, Potomac Wine & Spirits, Rodmans, Safeway (Georgetown), Sheffield Wine & Liquor Shoppe, S&R Liquors, S&S Liquor, Whole Foods Market (Foggy Bottom, P Street, Tenleytown). Widely available in Maryland, including at Montgomery County Liquor Stores (Darnestown, Potomac, Silver Spring); Old Line Fine Wine, Spirits and Bistro in Beltsville; Rodmans (White Flint). On the list at the Daily Dish in Silver Spring, Republic in Takoma Park.
Es Lo Que Hay Garnacha Vinas Viejas 2013
Calatayud, Spain, $19
Garnacha from Spain has become a popular cheap red in recent years. Its spicy, fruity expression contrasts with the earthier character the wine has in France, where the grape is known as grenache. The Es Lo Que Hay has that racy Spanish character, with some nice depth and structure to add interest. ABV: 14.5 percent.
Distributed by Kysela: Available in Maryland at Bay Ridge Wine and Spirits in Annapolis; Beards Hill Liquors in Aberdeen; Lighthouse Liquors, Roland Park Wines & Liquors, Wells Discount Liquors and Wine Source in Baltimore; Dawsons Liquors and Goskas Liquors in Severna Park; Friendship Wine & Liquor in Abingdon; Halfway Liquors in Hagerstown; the Perfect Pour in Elkridge; State Line Liquors in Elkton; the Wine Bin in Ellicott City. Available in Virginia at Norms Beer & Wine in Vienna; on the list at Bistro Bethem in Fredericksburg, Taqueria Guadalajara in Winchester.
THE DISTRICT
Suspects in sexual assault sought
D.C. police are searching for two men wearing ski masks one armed with a gun who investigators say forced a woman into a vehicle and sexually assaulted her Wednesday in Southeast Washington, according to authorities.
The incident occurred at about 10 a.m. in the 4500 block of Benning Road SE, near a busy intersection at East Capitol Street NE. Police said the men forced the woman into a minivan and drove her about one mile to the 1100 block of 46th Place SE, where she was sexually assaulted.
One assailant was described as a black man standing 6 feet 6 inches talll with a medium complexion and wearing a black jacket, blue jeans and Timberland boots and a black ski mask. Police said he was armed with a handgun.
The second assailant was also described as a black man standing about 6 feet 6 inches tall with a dark complexion and wearing a black jacket, black sweatpants and black Nike boots and a black ski mask.
Police described the vehicle as an older model white minivan with tinted rear windows. The license plate number was not known.
Peter Hermann
VIRGINIA
Police investigate homicide in Fairfax
Fairfax County police are investigating a fatal shooting Friday at an apartment complex as a homicide.
Officers went to the 6000 block of Richmond Highway for a report of a person shot at about 2:20 a.m., police said. Officers found an unresponsive man in the parking lot of the Cityside Huntington Metro Apartment Homes in Alexandria, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police identified the victim as Tarreece John Sampson, 24, an Alexandria resident and Fairfax County Public Schools employee. Police had not yet announced a possible motive or suspects in the case.
Lynh Bui
THE REGION
WWII female pilots can be buried at Arlington
Female pilots who served in the air forces during World War II can now be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, thanks to legislation President Obama signed Friday.
Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, were buried at the military cemetery from 2002 until 2015, when then-Secretary of the Army John McHugh ruled that they never should have been allowed under then-current law. During the war, Congress voted down a bill that would have granted the female pilots military status.
In January, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), the longest-serving woman in Congress, introduced the bill that cleared the way for the burials. Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), a retired Air Force colonel who took office last year, pushed the bill in the House.
Rachel Weiner
The D.C. Council likely will pass a fiscal 2017 budget that includes far less renovation money for Coolidge High School, seen here, than Mayor Muriel Bowser originally proposed. (Amanda Voisard for The Washington Post)
D.C. Council member Brandon T. Todd (D-Ward 4) detailed the unsavory cafeteria conditions at Shepherd Elementary School in a letter he posted on a community email list.
Shepherd has a welldocumented history of rodent infestation, he wrote. It is a major health hazard for our students to have to eat among rodent droppings on and near their lunch tables.
Todd was assailing the $12.4 million cut in funding for renovations to Shepherd Elementary, a decline that came during recent budget negotiations and will cost the Ward 4 school in Northwest Washington its long-promised new cafeteria.
We must address the concerns, he said.
School officials say the description of the rodent-infested cafeteria is exaggerated, and the rats are no more an issue at Shepherd than they are in other parts of the city. The squabble is the latest of many fights involving the Districts $6 billion plan, more than a decade long, to modernize most of its school buildings. By fiscal year 2022, 98 of the systems 112 schools will be modernized, according to city officials.
When Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) announced her $13.4 billion spending plan for fiscal year 2017, she also proposed overhauling the method the city uses to budget for school modernization projects. The District would begin to use more realistic cost estimates when it makes capital improvements to schools and will apply a standard ranking system to decide the order in which schools are renovated. Her plan also called for schools to be renovated at one time, instead of in multiple phases during summers.
[Bowsers budget changes the citys approach to school renovations]
The mayors proposed budget included the $12.4 million to renovate Shepherds combined cafeteria and auditorium. But the D.C. Councils education committee recommended slashing that funding, instead spreading the money to fund smaller projects at other schools. Council member David Grosso (I-At Large), who chairs the committee, said Shepherd already has received tens of millions of dollars in renovations, and the money should be used at schools that are not slated to receive any renovations in the next few years. Construction is currently underway at Shepherd to build a third story and an atrium.
Parents at the school think that the money should stay there, arguing that the cafeteria is crucial and that it should have been renovated long ago.
That has left some of the members of the community feeling like Shepherd was targeted, said Jasmine Riley, co-president of Shepherds Parent Teacher Association. Were not asking for yoga classes; were not asking for sushi; were just asking for a safe environment for our children.
The D.C. Council voted to approve the budget which included the cuts to Shepherd last week, and it is expected to pass it with a final vote when it convenes May 31.
Shepherd was not the only school to see proposed funding changes to renovation projects.
Coolidge High School located in Ward 4s Takoma neighborhood initially was slated to receive $59 million in fiscal year 2017. That money would have, in part, gone toward designing a renovation project and preparing the building for the work, which was planned to be completed by August 2019.
Grosso said the committee removed more than $45 million of that funding and reallocated it toward fulfilling the citys expensive goal of opening small homeless shelters in each of the citys wards to replace the troubled D.C. General shelter.
The plan is for the city to allocate more money to Coolidge in coming years so that the renovation can still be completed by 2019.
Todd, the council member, said he is worried that the money will not actually be there in future years, and he fears that the Coolidge project could receive cuts again.
Whats to say that wouldnt be the case next year? Todd said. While I do support closing D.C. General, I think we could have found the money elsewhere.
Others feel their schools were slighted in the budget process from the beginning. Parents at Garrison Elementary School in the Logan Circle neighborhood argue that their antiquated building is dissuading young families from enrolling in the school. The school had wanted $40 million for a complete renovation, but it is receiving only $28 million.
And while most schools are now being renovated all at once, Garrison will be renovated during two summers because there are no available empty buildings in the neighborhood for the students to move into while construction is underway.
Garrison will have the sinkhole in its field repaired this summer and will receive renovations to the interior of the school the following summer. The schools multipurpose room will not receive renovation funds.
The need of that school is not as great as some of the others, said Nathaniel Beers, the school systems chief operating officer.
A bus stop on Benning Road is about 100 yards from the alley where Tayvon Devonte Cummings was killed. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
The laundromat near the Benning Road Metro station in Southeast Washington was called Mamas long before Bernetta Cephas claimed the title when she came five years ago to work the 3-to-9 evening shift.
Signs inside warn against charging cellphones, wearing pants too low and asking for change. Last week, Miss Mama, as she is known, taped up two grim additions: D.C. police posters asking for help solving recent killings. Cephas knew both victims, shot in broad daylight in the neighborhood.
The laundromat has become a refuge for those who pass through police officers on their lunch breaks; corner boys escaping the rain; a homeless 13-year-old. It sits at the vibrant crossroads of Benning Road and East Capitol Street, the heart of Ward 7, where gunfire is not uncommon and homicides this year have increased threefold.
[Track every D.C. homicide since 2000]
As of Friday, 21 people have been killed this year in Ward 7, among the citys poorest and most violent areas, compared with seven at this time last year. The ward, one of eight in the city, accounts for nearly half the Districts 47 killings this year. Seventeen of Ward 7s homicides occurred during daylight or evening hours.
Concern about the killings reached a new level of urgency Monday, when a young man and a woman were fatally shot three hours and five blocks apart cases that police think are linked. As of Saturday there were no arrests in the slayings of Tayvon Devonte Cummings, 22, and Tracey Louise Cooper, 45, but police have said they think the shootings were the result of disputes involving people who knew each other.
[Man, woman fatally shot amid spate of shootings in the District]
In the neighborhood, they have prompted discussion but not fear, the general feeling being that the shootings were targeted. But people are shaking their heads at an apparent split in an otherwise tight group of friends that apparently led to the killing of the woman. Still, anything but quiet whispering is discouraged. One of several older men who set up chairs under a shade tree just steps from where Cummings was shot summed up the mood:
I dont ask no questions. I dont want to get shot.
Cephas struggled to count the people who have passed through her laundromat over the years and became murder victims. Four so far, she said, pausing. Five, six they cut his throat right out here. She reached eight, rattling off the dead by their nicknames on the street.
Miss Mama, a single mother, raised eight children, now between the ages 17 and 34. All are successful, she said, among them two who are in college, another a store clerk and a third working in Dallas. Outside the shop, she sees people who are less fortunate.
Its like a bubble out there, Cephas said, gazing at a bustling interchange and men on folding chairs whiling away the last few hours of daylight. Some of these people, theyve never been off Benning Road.
Bernetta Cephas is the manager at Mama's Laundromat. She heard the shots and saw people scatter when the killing of Tayvon Devonte Cummings took place. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
On Monday last week, Cephas heard the gunfire that at 1 in the afternoon claimed the life of a young man who had hung out at her store in the Benco Shopping Center. From her front door, she watched people scatter, not knowing that Cummings managed to fire his gun toward her strip mall even as he collapsed to his knees on a gravel road and later died. And Cephas counted Cooper, fatally shot three hours later, as a monthly regular before police said a gunman targeted her in the driveway of her duplex on 49th Street SE.
Law enforcement officials said detectives are investigating whether Coopers assailant may have thought someone close to her was involved in the Cummings slaying. There are many intertwined lives in this neighborhood. Both Cummings and Coopers son hung out at the strip mall, both calling Cephas Miss Mama.
The conversation about the killings in Ward 7 and whether they portend a violent summer reminiscent of last year when homicides surged 54 percent have spread into the contested race for the Ward 7 council seat.
Former D.C. mayor Vincent C. Gray (D), making a bid to reenter District government, has shown up at several crime scenes. He has used Twitter to prod his opponent, Yvette Alexander (D), in the June 14 primary, saying the city failed to recognize the urgency: Yvette Alexander tweeted at Chief Lanier to request a plan for Ward 7. What took so long? Details?
Alexander responded after Mondays shootings: We need to come up with a plan of action, because our residents want some assurance that they are safe in their community as they should be.
A man is detained by police in front of Mama's Laundromat. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
The Shrimp Boat Seafood complex near the Benning Road Metro station. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier called the political wrangling unfortunate and said it could scare people from cooperating. Politicians spinning about how its getting out of control shuts that down for me, she said of tips.
Lanier said that the number of homicides was unusually low in Ward 7 at this time in 2015 and that the level of deadly violence is similar to what it was during the same period in 2014. Robberies without guns in Ward 7 are down to 85 from 114 at this time in 2015, but gun robberies are up from 66 to 103. Assaults with dangerous weapons, which includes shootings, are down from 72 to 58.
Police said arrests have been made in at least nine Ward 7 homicides. Several of the killings were street shootouts, and two teens were slain at the same Metro station. In one case, a barber is accused of punching another barber during an argument in the shop. In another, police said a man hijacked a Metrobus and subsequently struck and killed a pedestrian in a gas station parking lot.
Lanier pulled extra police from three districts to augment the force in Ward 7 after Mondays shootings, and she launched this years annual Summer Crime Initiative in the ward on May 1, earlier than in other areas. The initiative also involves helping connect residents with myriad government social services.
But Lanier said that even police on every corner cant always deter violent crime. She said there was a uniformed officer on the very block earlier this month, when a gunman fatally shot a man across the street from a community baseball field. If someone is committed to shooting someone, theyre going to shoot someone, Lanier said.
Flowers were laid on the doorstep at the home of Tracey Louise Cooper, who was killed just a few blocks from where Tayvon Devonte Cummings was killed the same day. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
Tensions were evident along Benning Road when the slain Coopers son was arrested after police said he became angry at the scene of his mothers killing and later, while talking to detectives, threatened the person he thinks killed her. He was charged and released, confined to his house and ordered to stay away from the area around the intersection. The son later told police his statements were made out of frustration.
Tony Lewis, 24, grew up on these streets and works part-time repairing heating and air conditioning units. He helps out at a stand offering shoes, hats and bags that sits outside the Shrimp Boat, a landmark seafood spot at the intersection.
Lewis knows tourists arrive in his city for monuments and the White House, or the arts and club scene, but for him, this spot at the Shrimp Boat is the District as it should be: chaotic, vibrant, colorful, loud, edgy and scrappy. This right here is the real D.C., he said. Its a good place. I wouldnt want to live nowhere else. I love this place. He acknowledges that young people need help; more city services, more activities to keep them from finding trouble and trouble finding them.
But Angela Leonard has a hard time seeing that kind of hope. She too sells merchandise at the Shrimp Boat bazaar and has watched the ebb and flow of the neighborhood for the past 15 years as she hawked shoes, purses and hats.
Angela Leonard stares toward the scene across the street where Tayvon Devonte Cummings was killed. Her own son was killed two years ago just feet from where she's sitting. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
Two years ago in March, she left her two sons in charge of the stand about 5:30 p.m. on a Saturday. Thirty minutes later, a man stepped onto the sidewalk and approached one of her sons, 20-year-old Kevin Leonard, and the two argued. The man opened fire, killing Leonard. Dude approached him and . . . they shot him dead in front my 12-year-old nephew, Angela Leonard said. In front of his brother.
People dont know a mothers pain until they lose a child, she said. The gunman was never caught.
Leonard recounted her story one evening last week, saying she returns to her stand because this is my bread and butter.
From that spot, she has seen a gunman shoot up a bus stop. And tragedy again struck her family earlier this year when her 15-year-old nephew was fatally shot at the Deanwood Metro station.
On Monday, she saw people race from gunfire across the street, the bullets that killed Tayvon Cummings. Its crazy out here, she said. This dont make no sense. They dont play fair. They dont fight fair. I leave it to God.
( Scene of gun battle Saturday afternoon in Springfield, Va., between a robbery suspect and police. (By Fredrick Kunkle, Washington Post.) )
A gun battle erupted between a jewelry store robber and a police officer at a Fairfax County shopping center Saturday afternoon an exchange that wounded a bystander and sent people running for cover.
One nearby merchant said there were so many shots that it sounded like rain on a tin roof.
A lot really fast, said Jackie Caroe, a manager at Max Muscle, a nutrition supplements store in the Brookfield Plaza shopping center in the Springfield area.
Fairfax authorities on Saturday evening were searching for a man who they say traded fire with the officer, then climbed into a getaway car, drove off, crashed, carjacked another car, crashed again and ran away.
The suspect exited the jewelry store and immediately opened fire upon our police officer, said Fairfax Police Chief Edwin Roessler. And the officer got engaged in a gun battle.
Roessler said a bystander, who was in a car, was hit by a round that appears to be from the robbers weapon. The victim was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, officials said. The officer was not injured. It wasnt clear whether the robber was hit.
At 12:22 p.m. Saturday, police received a call for an unknown situation inside the Dubai Jewelry store at the Brookfield Plaza shopping center, just south of the Interstate 95 interchange with the Capital Beltway. An officer who responded set up in a cover and concealment position outside the store, Roessler said.
The officer then saw a man exit the store armed with a handgun.
The officer immediately challenged the suspect, Roessler said. The suspect then immediately opened fire.
As the officer continued with the gun battle, the suspect fled into a getaway car that was stationed nearby, Roessler said. The gunman appeared to be acting alone, police said.
Inside the Max Muscle shop, Caroe wasnt at first sure what she was hearing. Then she heard sirens, saw police and learned what had happened.
I mean, its kind of scary, she said.
Another person who heard the gunfire, Daysi Mazariegos, was working in her tax-preparing business. Mazariegos said she heard three shots, then a burst of eight or more. They sounded to her like a nail gun, as if from construction workers. Thats what she said to her husband, who was also in the office.
No, those are shots, he told her.
She looked outside and saw police officers and bystanders running along a wall.
After he drove off, the robber crashed in the area of Spring Village Drive. He stole another car, police said. No one was injured in the carjacking, police said. The robber then drove to the 7600 block of Hooes Road.
The suspect crashed again, the chief said, and then fled on foot.
Patrol officers, police dogs and at least one helicopter were used in the search.
Police described the man as 20 to 30 years old, wearing all brown clothing. They cautioned that he may have changed clothes.
During part of the search, residents in the Hooes Road area were told to shelter in place.
Brookfield Plaza and the area around the jewelry store were sealed off while officers collected evidence.
Officials didnt immediately know how many rounds were fired outside the jewelry store. There were many shots fired, Roessler said.
Patricia Derian, a Mississippi civil rights firebrand who served as the State Departments human rights chief under President Jimmy Carter and helped save thousands of lives by giving humanitarian concerns greater weight in U.S. foreign policy, died May 20 at her home in Chapel Hill, N.C. She was 86.
The cause was complications from Alzheimers disease, said her husband, Hodding Carter III, the journalist and political activist who served as assistant secretary of state for public affairs during the Carter administration.
Patt Derian, as she was widely known, came to Washington with no government or foreign affairs background. Her chief qualification for the human rights job was her effectiveness in combating segregation as an activist and Democratic national committeewoman in the South.
She traced her fiercely independent disposition to childhood. Her parents, she said, were totally absorbed in their own lives in the Washington social orbit. She was left to her own devices, and she grew up both bookish and rebellious. On the brink of adolescence, she recalled in an oral history, she announced to her parents that she was fed up with the dainty protocol expected of a girl her age: Im 13, I smoke and Im not going to curtsy anymore!
Far from a backlash, she was greeted with cheers of approval. As she later said in an oral history interview, What was transmitted to me, my fathers lifetime message to me was, You live your life so that you can look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell!
Patricia Derian, left, with President Carter, Virginia McCarthy and Eleanor Holmes Norton, right. (Douglas Chevalier)
She was a Mississippi doctors wife in the 1960s, but she also emerged as a persistent, often effective voice of progressive Democratic politics.
She crusaded against the small-town tyranny of white Citizens Councils, fought to integrate public schools, helped unseat the all-white Mississippi delegation at the partys national conventions and worked to harvest a new crop of Southern leaders not linked to a stark segregationist past.
For her support of Jimmy Carter, the former Georgia governor who won the presidency in 1976, she was rewarded with a place on his transition team and then the State Department job as coordinator for human rights and humanitarian affairs.
She warned then-Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher: If you want a magnolia to decorate foreign policy, Im the wrong person. I expect to get things done.
The coordinators job created only a year before she took over was treated as an afterthought by department officials. She vowed to tackle it with vigor, and she was buoyed when President Carter announced that human rights would be the soul of our foreign policy.
After Congress upgraded her title to assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs, she saw the change as a powerful mandate to force moral judgments to the table in negotiations with foreign leaders over humanitarian aid and security packages.
My hardest task was to make that clear to a bureaucracy that for 100 years had been weaned on the idea that American political, commercial or security interests were the only things that counted in diplomacy, she told The Washington Post in 1981. I tried to make them see that human rights was something that wouldnt tarnish their polished and exquisite view of classical diplomacy, but that actually could serve as a powerful new weapon for American interests.
President Jimmy Carter prepares to sign the American Convention on Human Rights at the Pan American Building, in 1977. Patricia Derian is in the background. (Associated Press)
Initially, Ms. Derian had some successes. She pushed the president to exert influence over the World Bank and other development banks by voting against or abstaining from loans to Argentina, Ethiopia, Laos and Uruguay and other countries with deplorable human rights records.
Ms. Derian and members of her team traveled widely to assess the human rights situation in countries receiving U.S. aid. Her human rights reports to Congress provided information on such previously overlooked topics as labor, womens rights and such practices as female genital mutilation.
Her reports, which began to embarrass and infuriate many allies, met with resistance from the Pentagon, CIA, National Security Council and even other quarters of the State Department. Cold War hawks on Capitol Hill dismissed her as a troublemaker with a simplistic view of global relations and little understanding of strategic considerations during the Cold War.
In 1977, Ms. Derian provoked an international stir when she gave a speech addressing the Soviet Unions oppression of Jews and dissidents in violation of the Helsinki accords and said it showed the Soviet leaders untrustworthiness on strategic arms limitation talks.
She managed to persuade the governments of Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan to release thousands of political prisoners, but she caused a firestorm in the Philippines by criticizing the authoritarian leader Ferdinand Marcos.
One of Ms. Derians chief antagonists, Richard C. Holbrooke, then assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, helped arrange for Vice President Walter Mondale to visit and smooth things over with Marcos, an act that Ms. Derian regarded as a betrayal of her office.
Ms. Derian had bitter clashes with other colleagues at State, officials in charge of various regional bureaus who recognized the strategic importance of unsavory allies from Romania under Ceausescu to Iran under the shah. As the president and other policymakers adopted a country-by-country, case-by-case attitude on aid decisions, she often found herself outmaneuvered.
She lamented to a House foreign affairs panel in 1980, I often find myself in the decision-making process, not in the majority.
One major test case of Ms. Derians mixed influence was Argentina, whose right-wing junta carried out thousands of extrajudicial killings, kidnappings and acts of torture with impunity during its 1976-83 rule. She met with members of the regime and later recalled, in particular, an encounter in 1977 with the Argentine navy chief, Emilio Massera, who said he washed his hands of any of the deaths.
She met Massera at the Naval Mechanics School, an infamous detention and torture center near Buenos Aires. She recalled in her oral history: He and I are sitting in leather chairs, side by side, not facing each other. . . . I said, As for torture, I know people are being tortured right here under this roof. I have a map of that floor, which did cause him to blink. I said, In fact somebodys probably being tortured right under our feet right now.
He goes, You remember Pontius Pilate? with an enormous smile, rubbing his hands together. . . . It was one of the most unbelievable moments of my life. . . .Here is this bald confession.
Military assistance to Argentina was reduced in 1978, and Ms. Derian continued to play a role in diplomatically isolating the country worldwide.
Jacobo Timerman, the Argentine journalist who wrote the best-selling book Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number about his years of being imprisoned and tortured, appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1981 and credited Ms. Derian with helping orchestrate his release and with saving thousands and thousands of lives all over the world.
In an interview, Juan E. Mendez, an Argentine-born professor of human rights law who serves as the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, said Ms. Derian represents the highest point of this notion that human rights is central to U.S. foreign policy. That impulse continued through the administrations of both parties, but it never achieved the height of objectivity and rigor of the Patt Derian years.
Patricia Sue Miriam Murphy was born in Manhattan on Aug. 12, 1929, and she grew up in Danville, Va., and in Washington, where her father was a lobbyist for the Anaconda copper-mining company.
In 1952, she graduated from the University of Virginia nursing school and married Paul Derian, a resident in orthopedics. They settled in Jackson, Miss., and later divorced.
Besides Hodding Carter, whom she married in 1978, survivors include three children from her first marriage, Mike Derian of Takoma Park, Md., and Dr. Craig Derian and Brooke Derian, both of Chapel Hill; four stepchildren; a sister; and 12 grandchildren.
Ms. Derian, who served on the boards of humanitarian groups after leaving the State Department, described in her oral history what propelled her into rights work.
You just have to decide how much youre going to tolerate, she said. It turned out my tolerance was very low, because it seemed to me, here I am facing my children, what will I say to them when theyre adults? And what will I think of myself?
On rare occasions, Americans coalesce around a common cause, usually following some calamity a terrorist attack, a natural disaster or, say, during a presidential election.
Take today. Or rather, take the past several months during which Americans have begun to face the probability that theyll elect a president they dont much like. Polls suggest as much, as do my own conversations with strangers, family and friends, from which Ive deduced the following: When it comes to whom theyll select for their next president, most Americans are stranded in a political no-mans land.
Think of the movie Cast Away or the ABC series Lost, in which a plane crashes, leaving survivors to fend for themselves, and youll get the idea. Lets just say, the jungle looms large, and no one is emerging as the leader who can clear a path.
Metaphor off now: Theres no one to vote for.
What are we going to do? people keep asking me.
Obviously, the Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump bases are as un-confounded as ever. Hillary Clinton has her usual camp, including half of women voters. But a more vast number of people who identify as independent or moderate or recently have become so, thanks to the past years cannibalizing circus are dissatisfied with both presumptive nominees.
The adage that our presidential election is a nose-pinching exercise or a choice between lesser evils doesnt approach the rising level of ennui flooding the American street.
I would characterize this larger constituency as also including people who, though they may lean left or right, suffer a greater repulsion to the political moment than to a single candidate, though theres plenty of revulsion to go around. To the extent that the remaining candidates are central to the current environment of anger, paranoia and, in some cases, violence, all are equally unappealing.
And, seriously, could we stop yelling?
There is only one candidate for whom this middle bloc of voters could reasonably stomach voting. Given that Trump is such an unpleasant character and, by virtue of his own statements, unqualified to lead the most powerful nation on earth; and given that Sanders wants to create a nation that most Americans wouldnt recognize; be it resolved that the saner choice is Clinton (notwithstanding everything you hate about her).
Hence the malaise that passeth all understanding.
If only by default, Clinton holds the higher ground. That even many Democrats find her unappealing and others wouldnt like her if she reversed climate change, saved every beast and bog from extinction or ruin, and cured cancer with a single pill is understood. As lightning rods go, she has no peer. Cave men could have invented electricity had Clinton been nearby.
Add to her well-known list of public concerns a lack of transparency, perceived deceptions, those emails, Benghazi and the current FBI investigation a potentially more damning development: Her pivot to the left.
This was made necessary, of course, by Sanderss anthem of class warfare, but as Clinton pirouetted stage left, she added another layer of doubt to the disenfranchised middle, gave progressives another reason to question her loyalty to their goals, and made it more difficult for Trump-repelled conservatives to consider her as an acceptable alternative.
One might wish that Sen. Lindsey Grahams (R-S.C.) quip about a contest between her and Trump were correct. More or less, he said that corrupt beats crazy every time. But even Graham has surrendered, locking arms in the Trump parade. Party before Clinton has prevailed as well among most of the stop-Trump crowd, a fleeting movement among a handful of Republican formers.
For Clinton to prevail over Trump, shell need to win over Sanderss supporters, a dimming prospect at the moment, as well as the vast middle where mortals roam in wounded unity. But support among the latter depends on the answer to a tricky question: Is she really as liberal as shes promising to be, or is she faking? Trump-leaning voters face the same challenge: Is he really as awful as he seems, or has he just been bluffing?
Given the high stakes, a contest between a scheming fake and a dangerous bluffer inspires little confidence and possibly little interest in voting. To the plea what are we going to do? the correct answer is, of course, vote . The high ground may be more molehill than mountain, but it still beats the gutter.
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FAIRFAX COUNTYS Fire and Rescue Department is not your typical suburban cat-in-the-tree brigade. Among its considerable assets, which include some 1,400 uniformed employees, it is home base for Virginia Task Force 1, a crack search-and-rescue team thats been deployed to terrorist bombings in Oklahoma City and Nairobi; earthquakes in Haiti, Turkey and Taiwan; and Hurricanes Katrina and Isabel, among other calamities far beyond county lines.
So its all the more concerning to learn that such a highly regarded department, by far the largest in Virginia, is beset by allegations of sexism, cyberbullying and unprofessional conduct. The concerns, fueled by the suicide of a female firefighter and other recent incidents, have prompted the county Board of Supervisors to hire an outside consultant to examine the agency, its work culture and its personnel practices.
Among the most jarring of the reports is that Guy Morgan, who heads the fire departments Office of Professional Standards, is under investigation for posting lewd photos on his personal Facebook page. (A 6-foot snow penis and a gallery of nearly naked young women featured prominently in the sophomoric gallery.)
As some veteran firefighters noted, Mr. Morgans job description in effect, he is the departments standard-bearer of probity and good conduct imparted a fox-guarding-the-hen-house aspect to the scandal. The pictures are totally contradictory to the title he holds, said Mike Mohler, president of the Virginia Professional Firefighters Association. Mr. Morgan, who is the subject of an internal probe, has been relieved of his investigative powers for the time being.
The supervisors call for outside help is well justified. The reports about Mr. Morgan followed news a few weeks earlier that firefighter Nicole Mittendorff hanged herself after being mocked and degraded in a series of sneering posts, allegedly written by her co-workers, in an online forum called Fairfax Underground. If Fairfaxs vaunted fire department, or parts of it, has taken on the characteristics of a high school clique full of bullies, its time for a serious cultural do-over and for some firings that convey that message loud and clear, provided that the culprits can be traced and credibly identified.
Ms. Mittendorffs death prompted the fire chief, Richard Bowers, to initiate an internal investigation. The department must also fully cooperate with the outside auditor, when one is chosen, to get to the bottom of that event. Key questions include whether it was symptomatic of deeper rot in the departments morale and work environment, whether adequate mental-health support is available for employees, and whether leadership has been effective in communicating basic expectations regarding workplace ethics and conduct.
The countys fire department handles more than 90,000 calls annually; distractions are an unaffordable luxury. Its the job of county leaders and Mr. Bowers to ensure that a highly professional force stays that way.
In his May 19 op-ed, A shared Democratic vision, E.J. Dionne Jr. missed the point of the Sanders campaign. The system is rigged for the wealthy and connected, and the Democratic Party has shown no willingness to change this.
The total vote outcome would have been better for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and more inclusive with a less-restrictive primary voting process. Many of the primaries excluded independent voters and potential voters who hadnt registered months in advance. While this was known, it doesnt take away from the idea that the system is rigged. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has more votes, but the voting isnt over. Mr. Sanders could narrow that substantially or take the lead.
Mr. Dionne wrongly said the core policy differences between Ms. Clinton and Mr. Sanders relate less to goals than to the speed and means through which theyre achieved. Until Ms. Clinton refuses money from big donors and Wall Street and forgoes PACs, she is part of the problem, not the solution. Universal access to health insurance is not the same as single-payer health care, and making higher education more affordable isnt the same as college education being tuition-free. These differences are huge.
Rob Bohn, Gainesville
Let me understand the complaint from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) about the closed Democratic primaries: For more than a quarter-century, Mr. Sanders believed that the Democratic Party was not worth aligning himself with formally, but he was willing to accept committee assignments as a de facto member of the Democratic caucus. Now, after agreeing to play by the rules that allowed him the freedom to advance his agenda within the Democratic Party, he rails at the Democrats for the rules and processes he gladly accepted for many years.
Talk about having your cake and eating it, too.
Eric Sapirstein, Alexandria
The mere possibility of a Donald Trump presidency gold-plated faucets in the house first occupied by John and Abigail Adams will perhaps have a salutary effect. It might demystify an office that has become now swollen with inappropriate powers and swaddled in a pretentiousness discordant with a republics ethic of simplicity. This wholesome retreat from presidential grandiosity would be advanced if on Jan. 20, 2017, the 45th president delivered the following inaugural address:
My fellow Americans, brevity is not only the soul of wit and the essence of lingerie, it is, on occasions such as this, polite. You who are arrayed in front of me, losing the feeling in your feet as you stand on the frozen Mall, should be spared a long soliloquy by someone who, as a presidential candidate, inflicted on you an excruciating amount of talk.
Besides, you have hired me only to administer one of our three branches of government, and only for four years. So lets avoid unseemly excitement about todays routine transfer of power. Years ago, Dallas Cowboy Duane Thomas said this about another recurring extravaganza, the Super Bowl: If its the ultimate game, how come theyre playing it again next year? I may ask Mr. Thomas to be my press secretary, if I decide to have one.
I probably will not have one because I hope weeks will pass without having to bother you with reminders of my existence. Weeks during which there will be nothing much of importance to hear from or about me as I go about the humdrum business of seeing that the laws enacted here on Capitol Hill are faithfully executed.
In the next four years, beloved entertainers will die, local law enforcement disputes will occur, March Madness will come and go and I will have nothing to say about any of these things because they are unrelated to my duties, which do not include serving as national pastor-cum-pundit.
As is traditional, at the conclusion of these remarks I shall eat lunch in the Capitol with Congress. But before doing this, I shall pay a tribute to Congress, which the Constitutions Article I establishes as the first branch of government. My tribute will be to delay joining its members for the 10 minutes or so it will take to sign a stack of executive orders nullifying most executive orders issued by my predecessor. He used them to wield executive power to institute policies and alter laws that properly should be initiated by Congress.
This will be enough business for Day One of my first 100 days. And I promise you this: On the 100th day of my administration, America will be . . . pretty much indistinguishable from what it is today. Would you, my over-excited countrymen, really want it any other way? Would you really want to live in a nation that can be substantially changed in a matter of a few months by a hyperactive government?
For efficiency, and to minimize unnecessary folderol, I am going to take a minute right now to deliver my first and last State of the Union address. It is this one sentence: Things are much better than they once were slavery? gone; the Oregon Trail? replaced by the Interstate Highway System but things could be better.
There. Wasnt that less disagreeable than the annual midwinter prime-time pep rally that presidents stage because of the Constitutions blurry mandate that the president shall from time to time give to the Congress information about the countrys condition? How quaint. As though Congress is interested in information.
After todays lunch, Congress should try nibbling at the edges of our problems, many of which Congress created to please you, the clamorous people. To you I say: We have nothing to fear but your insufficient fear of what has been done on your behalf and at your behest.
In the 2016 contest of opinion through which we have passed Thomas Jeffersons decorous description, at his first inauguration, of the ferocious 1800 campaign a trillion words were spoken, approximately none about the publics appetite for unfunded government entitlement programs.
If you want the United States to be Puerto Rico writ large or, even worse, Illinois just stay the course you are on. In words Lincoln spoke at his first inauguration, the nations fate is in your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine.
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HARDLY A day goes by without evidence that the liberal international order of the past seven decades is being eroded. China and Russia are attempting to fashion a world in their own illiberal image; Britain is debating a departure from the European Union; Austrias front-running presidential contender espouses fear of migrants, trade and globalization; and far-right parties are thriving in Europe. The radical Islamic State group wields merciless violence on its own lands in Iraq and Syria and exports terrorism beyond. In the United States, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has attracted millions of voters by campaigning against some of the foundations of American leadership in the world such as the defense alliance with Japan and South Korea, while Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders has drawn millions more with the false promise of trade protectionism.
This poses an enormous trial for the next U.S. president. We say trial because no matter who takes the Oval Office, it will demand courage and difficult decisions to save the liberal international order. As a new report from the Center for a New American Security points out, this order is worth saving, and it is worth reminding ourselves why: It generated unprecedented global prosperity, lifting billions of people out of poverty; democratic government, once rare, spread to more than 100 nations; and for seven decades there has been no cataclysmic war among the great powers. No wonder U.S. engagement with the world enjoyed a bipartisan consensus.
These impressive accomplishments need a renewed boost from the United States and Europe, yet the public debate is running in the other direction. As authors of the report point out, many around the world are worried about an American retrenchment and yearn for more, not less, from the United States. They do not want to accede to the values of Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China, who reject democracy, accountability and human dignity.
The new report, which is impressively bipartisan in its signatories and was co-chaired by a Reagan administration official, Robert Kagan (now a Post columnist), and a Clinton administration official, James P. Rubin, suggests strengthening all elements of U.S. power: diplomacy, economics, military expensive, but well within our means. They rightly point out that the adaptability, resilience, and innovation of the U.S. economic system is a source of global strength and influence. The big question is not whether we can afford it but whether we have the willpower to use it. How? In Asia, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the proposed free-trade agreement, must be approved. The United States must keep trying to integrate China into the rules and traditions of the liberal international order a policy of eight presidential administrations while also marshaling forces to confront Chinas assertive and unilateral grab of territory in the South China Sea. Likewise, stabilizing Ukraine and saving it economically will be a vital bulwark against Russias violent subversion. More needs to be done, too, to protect the Baltic states. In the Middle East, the liquidation of the Islamic State and ending the Syrian war will demand time and treasure from the United States. Todays morass is in part the consequence of a leadership vacuum.
Americas global leadership demands movement on all these fronts while resisting facile populist appeals to turn inward.
Iraqi government forces monitor a street in the western town of Rutba after they recaptured it from the Islamic State group. (Moadh Al-Dulaimi/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)
Amid hedgerows of computer screens in the joint operations center that runs the war against the Islamic State, Marine Brig. Gen. Bill Mullen explains the complex assault that drove the extremist fighters this week from the strategic town of Rutbah at the western part of Anbar province.
The battle showed how the campaign against the Islamic State, which has slowly taken off over the past 18 months, is supposed to work: This month , a U.S. drone attack on a nearby highway killed Shaker Wahib, the terrorists military emir in Anbar, shaking morale. The day before the battle, the United States dropped two huge bombs on the minefields and berms surrounding the town.
Then came the attack from a combined force of Iraqi army troops and hundreds of recently recruited tribal fighters who had been trained by U.S. Special Operations forces. When they moved in, only 30 Islamic State fighters stayed to fight, said Mullen. The rest had fled.
Mullen has been running the operations room here for nearly a year. When he arrived, he said, a serious gloom enveloped the Iraqi military because of its humiliating defeats in Mosul and Ramadi. But with the recapture of Ramadi late last year, said Mullen, some of that lost confidence has returned.
Iraq is still a nation in disarray, with bitter ethnic hatreds and a central government that has nearly collapsed. The military campaign rests on political quicksand. The fragility was shown by Fridays invasion of the Green Zone by Iraqi demonstrators who are enraged by the corruption of their government.
Gen. Joseph Votel , the recently appointed U.S. Central Command commander who oversees the U.S. military in the Middle East, sees a mixed picture in the Iraqi military. They are getting better . . . [but] theres still a lot left to do, he told me and several other journalists who traveled here with him.
Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, a lanky, blunt-spoken officer who took command of U.S. forces in Iraqi and Syria late last year, explained: Weve had to pick them [the Iraqi army] off the ground and dust them off. . . . They are certainly better than the enemy. Thats the standard.
Votel and MacFarland are trying to accelerate a campaign that had seemed, at times, to be foundering. Theyre more open to the media, as illustrated by our trip here, and theyre working harder to coalesce the elements of the U.S.-led coalition. Their goal is to stress the Islamic State on many fronts at once preparing assaults on Mosul, Fallujah and other strongholds. The multi-pronged strategy, said Votel, reflects the virtues of simultaneity.
The military power that the United States can mobilize is daunting: We visited a warehouse packed with 37,000 sets of body armor and 32,000 M-16 rifles that will be airlifted to the Iraqis. We saw command centers that fuse intelligence from scores of drones and direct fire from missiles, jets, artillery and Special Operations commandos.
We visited a camp in Taji where trainers from coalition nations are attempting to rebuild an army that lost face after its collapse in Mosul in June 2014, explained Lt. Col. Jim Hammett. Hes an Australian special forces officer who helps command a 480-person team from Australia, New Zealand and Britain. Amid the endless frustrations of Iraq, the training team has a one-word motto: Perseverance.
The most striking change is the mobilization of Sunni tribes in Anbar since the Islamic State began to lose its grip in Ramadi in October. The government-paid Sunni militia in Anbar has grown this year from 6,000 to 9,500, and its now supplemented by an additional vetted force of 6,000 tribal shield fighters, who arent paid a salary but get weapons and death benefits. Another 9,000 Anbar tribesmen have volunteered on an unofficial basis.
If more Sunni sheiks are working with the United States (and an Iraqi government they despise), its for a cynical reason: They think the American side is winning. U.S. commanders name seven Sunni tribes that are now contributing fighters against the Islamic State. Whats intriguing is that some of these tribes are said to be split, with part still backing the Islamic State and others defecting. The U.S. strategy is to treat the so-called caliphate as a weak state and turn the tables by mounting an insurgency against it from the inside.
Americas military strength remains overwhelming, even after the tests of the past decade, and the emerging campaign almost surely will gradually disable the Islamic State. The problem, as nearly every commander here will acknowledge, is that U.S. military might cannot make a broken Iraq work as a nation.
Read more from David Ignatiuss archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
In her May 18 op-ed, Why cant Clinton handle truth?, Kathleen Parker skewered Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for opportunistically changing her positions. Ms. Parker concluded that a president should be able to admit to mistakes, express genuine remorse, apologize for errors and revise history only in the service of truth.
If Ms. Parker were describing the ideal spouse, her list of qualities might make sense. But a president? Does it really make sense for him or her to have these qualities? Quite possibly, at times the opposite is closer to the truth, as long as the behavior in question furthers the aims of our country. And nothing Ms. Parker said addressed that issue with respect to Ms. Clinton.
William Vaughan Jr., Chebeague Island, Maine
David Harsanyi is a senior editor at the Federalist.
Never have so many people with so little knowledge made so many consequential decisions for the rest of us.
A person need only survey the inanity of the ongoing presidential race to comprehend that the most pressing problem facing the nation isnt Big Business, Big Labor, Big Media or even Big Money in politics.
Its you, the American voter. And by weeding out millions of irresponsible voters who cant be bothered to learn the rudimentary workings of the Constitution, or their preferred candidates proposals or even their history, we may be able to mitigate the recklessness of the electorate.
No, we shouldnt erect physical barriers to ballot access. Lets purchase more voting machines, hire additional poll workers, streamline the registration process, mail out more ballots for seniors and produce more Rock the Vote ads imploring apathetic millennials to embrace their civic duty.
At the same time, lets also remember that checking a box for the candidate whose campaign ads you like best is one of the most overrated obligations of the self-governed. If you have no clue what the hell is going on, you also have a civic duty to avoid subjecting the rest of us to your ignorance.
Unfortunately, we cant trust you.
Now, if voting is a consecrated rite of democracy, as liberals often argue, surely society can have certain minimal expectations for those participating. And if citizenship itself is as hallowed as Republicans argue, then surely the prospective voter can be asked to know just as much as the prospective citizen. Lets give voters a test. The citizenship civics test will do just fine.
How many screeching proponents of the two major candidates would pass this quiz? Here are some of the questions, which run from easy to preposterously easy:
If both the President and the Vice President can no longer serve, who becomes President?
There were 13 original states. Name three.
What is one right or freedom from the First Amendment?
What is freedom of religion?
I have tempered confidence that at least a majority of the voting public could pass such a test though I couldnt say the same for a majority of presidential candidates. Certainly, this should be a breeze for citizens so intensely involved in the process that they feel compelled to plaster bumper stickers on their cars and attend the rallies of their favorite candidates.
Or am I being too optimistic? When Newsweek asked a thousand voters to take the official citizenship test a few years back, nearly 30 percent couldnt name the vice president. More than 60 percent did not know the length of U.S. senators terms in office. And 43 percent couldnt say that the first 10 amendments to the Constitution are known as the Bill of Rights.
Only 30 percent knew that the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
In another study, by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, we learned that only 36 percent could name all three branches of the U.S. government. Only 62 percent knew that the U.S. Supreme Court was tasked with determining the constitutionality of legislation. Fewer than half of Americans knew that split decisions in the Supreme Court have the same effect as 9 to 0 decisions.
These are the people who pick the people who define the basic fabric of the legal system and often our lives.
To be fair, the contemporary electorate is probably no less ignorant today than it was 50 or 100 years ago. The difference is that now we have unlimited access to information. As James Madison wrote, A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both.
And it literally takes seconds to learn about the fundamentals of our republic and the positions of candidates. If you forsake the power of information, you have no standing to tell the rest of us how to live our lives. Dont vote.
Now, some of you will accuse me of peddling crass elitism. But I say the opposite is true. Unlike the many who depend on ignorant voters to wield and secure their power, I refuse to believe that working-class or underprivileged citizens are any less capable of understanding the meaning of the Constitution or the contours of governance than the supercilious 1-percenters. I believe this despite the widespread failure of public schools to teach children basic civics. Its still our responsibility as voters.
Of course, we also must remember the ugly history of poll taxes and other prejudicial methods that Americans used to deny black citizens their equal right to vote. Any effort to improve the quality of the voting public should ensure that all races, creeds, genders and sexual orientations and people of every socioeconomic background are similarly inhibited from voting when ignorant. For the good of our democratic institutions.
Stonewaller, shape-shifter, liar. I wrote this week about how an all-but-certain presidential nominee embodied these characteristics, prompting comments from readers observing, with varying degrees of snarkiness, that they had assumed I was referring to Hillary Clinton.
My target was Donald Trump, but these readers raise a reasonable and important question: Cant the same criticism I heaped on the presumptive Republican nominee be applied to the Democratic front-runner? To all politicians, for that matter? Am I just whaling on Trump and going soft on Clinton because I disagree with Trumps positions and agree, for the most part, with Clintons?
Some will conclude that I am simply in the tank for Clinton, willfully blind to her faults. (On that score, full disclosure: My college-age daughter has volunteered for the Clinton campaign as an unpaid intern this summer.)
But Id make two countervailing points. First, I have been a tough critic of Clinton where it was merited: on her bone-headed decision to use a private email account and her clumsy handling of its aftermath, on her relentless speechifying and her refusal to disclose the transcripts of these remarks, on her about-face on trade.
Second, and this goes to the question of whether my assessment of Trump is motivated, intentionally or subconsciously, by ideological disagreement: In the three presidential election cycles during which I have been an opinion writer, I have never used language anywhere near that strong about previous Republican nominees.
The Republican presidential front-runner reversed course on a whole load of issues all on May 4. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
Because Trump is different in degree more than in kind, but in his case the difference of degree is a yawning chasm. All politicians deflect unwanted questions and demands for information (stonewaller). All evolve, if not outright flip-flop (shape-shifter). All, at times, say things that turn out to be untrue (liar). What puts Trump in a different league is his outright unwillingness to abide by the customary norms of disclosure (releasing tax returns); his reversals on issues within the course of a single interview, no less a single campaign; and his determined refusal ever to acknowledge error even when confronted with irrefutable facts to the contrary.
Contrast Clinton, which is not to say that she is pure or angelic.
On stonewalling, it is fair to say that Clinton has a penchant for secrecy. When Bill Clinton first ran for president in 1992, the Clintons declined to release tax returns prior to 1980, which would have revealed the quick $100,000 profit that Hillary Clinton made trading commodities. At the same time, the Clintons did release more than a decades worth of tax returns back then, and more since. Transparency is not Clintons first instinct. But Trumps refusal to release his returns is so far outside historical practice that he makes Clinton look like the epitome of openness.
On shape-shifting, Clinton is not alone among politicians in altering positions in ways that can fairly be interpreted to accord with political interests. She said she was opposed to same-sex marriage when that position was politically convenient, and she changed that position when the political climate changed. She was for free trade agreements before she was against them, first praising the Trans-Pacific Partnership as the gold standard of trade deals and then assailing it.
Yet voters, agree or disagree, can have reasonable confidence about Clintons basic worldview and where she stands on issues. Trump is erratic. He stakes out a position one minute (punishing women who have abortions) and abandons it the next. He is against raising the minimum wage, but then supports a higher wage, or maybe not. He has a tax plan but might totally change it.
On lying, one of the common counts against Clinton involves her statements about what prompted the Benghazi, Libya, attack. Space prevents re-litigating that issue here, but the accusation of deliberate lying remains unfounded. As PolitiFact concluded, There simply is not enough concrete information in the public domain for . . . anyone to claim as fact that Clinton did or did not lie to the Benghazi families. The Posts fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, similarly found there was not enough evidence to label Clinton a liar.
Clintons handling of another lie is instructive. At several points during the 2008 campaign, Clinton described landing under sniper fire in Bosnia in 1996; video debunked that account. But confronted with conflicting evidence, Clinton acknowledged that she misspoke. Has Trump ever backed down from his bevy of demonstrably false statements?
1 of 45 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Trump captures the nations attention on the campaign trail View Photos The Republican candidate continues to dominate the presidential contest. Caption Businessman Donald Trump officially became the Republican nominee at the partys convention in Cleveland. Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at Trump Doral golf course in Miami. Carlo Allegri/Reuters Wait 1 second to continue.
My point here is not that Clinton is a perfect politician far from it. Still, she plays within the goal posts of ordinary political behavior. Trump operates far outside any of the usual lines.
Read more from Ruth Marcuss archive, follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her updates on Facebook.
Because very few members of Congress have served in the military, let alone in combat, perhaps its not surprising that they take a casual attitude toward honoring our promises to those Afghans who risked their lives, and those of their families, to aid our troops [Keeping faith with Afghans, editorial, May 17]. Congresss willingness to leave these people to their fate is a disgrace.
The U.S. military has long insisted it will leave no man behind. Perhaps House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.) and the other committee members would like to scrap that inconvenient tradition as well.
Susan Altman, Washington
ILLINOIS
Chicago to admit police code of silence
Attorneys for the city of Chicago have told a federal judge that they are prepared to admit to a jury that a code of silence exists within the police department in an attempt to keep Mayor Rahm Emanuel off the witness stand.
But U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman said Friday that he would still ask Emanuel (D) to testify in the case of two whistleblower police officers suing the city, explaining that the mayors testimony could offer much more texture on the issue.
Legal experts said it was likely the city would settle rather than allow Emanuel to take the stand in the case, which is set to go to trial May 31. But they said the citys willingness to have attorneys formally acknowledge a code of silence in court was a significant step after years of denials.
Emanuel himself brought up the code of silence problem in a December speech to the City Council during protests and calls for his resignation over the death of Laquan McDonald, the black teenager who was killed by a white officer in a shooting caught on police dash-cam video.
Associated Press
INDIANA
Appeal likely in feticide conviction
Attorneys for an Indiana woman found guilty of killing the premature infant she delivered after ingesting abortion-inducing drugs will soon ask an appeals court to throw out the convictions that led to her 20-year prison sentence.
At issue is Indianas feticide statute, which the defense says was passed to protect pregnant women from violence that could harm their developing fetuses, not to prosecute women for having abortions. The state says that law is not limited to third-party actors and can apply to pregnant women.
Attorneys for 35-year-old Purvi Patel will urge the Indiana Court of Appeals on Monday to reverse her 2015 convictions on charges of feticide and neglect of a dependent resulting in death. The states attorney generals office will defend the northern Indiana jurys decision.
Patel, of Granger, was arrested in July 2013 after she sought treatment at a hospital for profuse bleeding after delivering a 1-pound infant boy and putting his body in a trash bin behind her familys restaurant. Court records show Patel purchased abortion-inducing drugs online through a pharmacy in Hong Kong, took those drugs and delivered a premature baby in her home bathroom.
Associated Press
Man arrested in case of body wheeled on dolly: Police have captured a man they say was seen wheeling a womans body on a dolly and leaving it on the front lawn of a New York City home. Anthony Lopez, 31, was arrested Saturday on charges of murder and concealing a human corpse. The medical examiner will determine what caused the death of 26-year-old Aduba Obiamaka, who police believe was Lopezs wife.
From news services
Robaba Mohammadi, 16, suffers from a form of palsy that paralyzed her arms. In the face of adversity, she taught herself how to draw detailed portraits by holding the pencil with her mouth. (Antonio Olivo,Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)
Robaba Mohammadi, 16, suffers from a form of palsy that paralyzed her arms. In the face of adversity, she taught herself how to draw detailed portraits by holding the pencil with her mouth. (Antonio Olivo,Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)
Mostly paralyzed and often alone, Robaba Mohammadi could have easily given in to the despair that swallows her war-ravaged country, and few would have blamed her.
Instead, the stubbornly determined 16-year-old, born with clawed hands and feet, picked up a pencil and started drawing with her mouth.
As she sketches, producing increasingly detailed portraits of animals, still objects and people, the girl who has a form of palsy is gaining modest fame as a symbol of unyielding hope in what looks to be another bloody year of war with Taliban insurgents.
I was alone, and I wanted to find a way to pass the time, Robaba said inside a small family home that sits among dirt roads on the outskirts of Kabul. Thats the way I started drawing. Now, I want to pursue this as a profession. Its not for fun anymore.
Over about 15 months, Robaba has progressed from simple drawings of birds and dolls to serene portraits of flowers with delicate wrinkles on their petals, animals with glistening eyes framed by light and shade, and unveiled women with glamorous hair and bold expressions.
When Robaba makes a mistake, she clutches an eraser between her lips and rubs away the error a task she is learning to avoid.
On a recent afternoon, the girl positioned her frail figure before her easel in the sunlit room she uses as a studio.
Robabas mouth moved back and forth rapidly as she added depth to the face of an Afghan police officer, Serajuddin Afghan Mal, who has reportedly defused several thousand improvised explosive devices left along the roads by Taliban fighters.
This was her first commission, which came after a member of the Afghan parliament saw a story about Robaba on a Kabul TV news show last month and contacted her with a request to produce a portrait that would honor the officer.
The subject suits her, Robaba said, because she wants her art to reflect Afghanistans better nature to be a reminder that there is still cause for celebration in a country more often paralyzed by suicide bombings and the uncertainty wrought by nearly 15 years of war.
Usually, people are hearing about fighting, explosions and blasts, she said. If they listen to my story, its a story of hope.
For Robaba, drawing was initially a response to a lifetime of frustration and loneliness.
Her parents brought her to Kabul from the countrys central Ghazni province when she was 3, settling into a largely undeveloped corner of Kabul that sits near a sprawling lumberyard.
They carried Robaba over the neighborhoods jagged, dusty roads during repeated searches for a doctor who could unfurl her arms and legs and make them work.
The doctors could only speculate about the cause of her condition and, after about five years, the family gave up.
We lost hope, said Robabas mother, Masuma. Like many Afghans, she uses only one name.
Robaba spent most of the time inside the house, maneuvering her torso to get around and whiling away the hours as her three younger siblings grew up around her.
When Robaba was 7, she began to resent that her younger sisters attended school while she stayed inside, often alone for hours.
She found a school notebook belonging to one of her sisters and stashed it under a rug. Later, she did the same with two pens.
While the rest of the family was away, she grabbed a pen with her left foot and tried to write.
When that didnt work, Robaba held the pen in her mouth and slowly copied the first two letters in the Dari alphabet: alif and baa.
For six months, nobody knew what I was doing, she recalled, laughing. My sister was saying, Where is my notebook? They didnt think I could steal it because I cant use my hands or feet.
But as her writing improved over the years, the teenage Robaba still had no outlet for her frustration.
So she started drawing. That meant enduring the pain that came with firmly and repeatedly guiding a pencil across what became countless sheets of paper.
I cannot leave the house. I am not free, Robaba said about her determination, her usually playful eyes widening for emphasis. I have a desire to draw nature, natural beauty. Im not free to see these things with my own eyes.
Now, what she can see with her own eyes is the possibility of a future beyond the walls of her home. And maybe even beyond Kabul.
An aide to the parliament member who commissioned the police officers portrait arrived recently at Robabas home to retrieve the illustration. In his hand was an envelope holding the equivalent of $72 a sum that made the young artists face blush with pride. Robaba signed her name at the top of the drawing and thanked him.
Farkhunda Zahra Naderi, the parliament member, said that when she saw Robabas story on television, she recognized an opportunity.
Shes someone who can give courage to other Afghans, Naderi said. Shes actually sending a message: If we have hope, we can try. We can move forward.
Naderi said she is pushing to have Robaba enrolled in school, with an emphasis on art instruction so the teenager can further develop her talent.
She said she also intends to unveil the portrait of the officer at a ceremony to be held in his honor that will double as a public introduction for Robaba.
Robaba said she hopes to master drawing and then graduate into painting more sophisticated portraits and natural landscapes.
To that end, she stopped talking and went back to work.
As the lumberyard workers outside used a buzz saw to shave fresh planks of wood, Robaba drew a rough sketch of a dove carrying a peace sign.
The effort took about 20 minutes.
When she finished, the dove had a broken wing.
Flying with a broken wing is art, she wrote over the picture, before glancing around the room with a look of defiance.
Mohammad Sharif contributed to this report.
Read more
Years after invasion, the U.S. leaves a cultural imprint on Afghanistan
Afghan women say hackers and threats have made them afraid of Facebook
In Afghanistan, the art of ghting extremism
Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world
A view shows the construction of the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Faisal Al Nasser/Reuters)
Persistently low oil prices appear to be taking a heavy toll on Saudi Arabia, spurring rare labor unrest as the kingdoms rulers pursue radical changes to stabilize the economy.
Companies in the oil-exporting country have been forced to shed tens of thousands of employees in recent months. The government, in turn, has imposed painful austerity measures on citizens, ripening conditions for Arab Spring-like turbulence, analysts say.
Late last month, construction workers torched buses during demonstrations in the holy city of Mecca because they had not been paid in months.
Adding to unease has been the meteoric rise of King Salmans 30-year-old son, Mohammed bin Salman. He has taken charge of economic reform, but rival royals and religious elites appear rankled by his attempts to consolidate power.
The conditions that produced the Arab Spring five years ago havent gone away, and they seem to be even more of a concern in Saudi now, said Bruce Riedel, a former foreign policy adviser to President Obama and a senior analyst at the Brookings Institution. Saudi Arabia with its generous oil-financed welfare system managed to avoid significant unrest while the 2011 uprisings took hold in Egypt, Libya and Syria.
A crew works at the construction site of the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 12. (Faisal Al Nasser/Reuters)
Good times, bad times
Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally and the worlds biggest oil exporter, is still a wealthy country and has bounced back from times of low oil prices before. But even as crude has risen recently to nearly $50 a barrel from around $30 earlier this year, analysts do not foresee a return anywhere close to the sky-high prices of two years ago.
Rising international energy competition is partly to blame for the price collapse. So, too, is the Saudi policy of trying to bankrupt competitors in other countries by keeping oil production relatively high.
Still, Saudi officials appear to recognize the pressing need to reduce the countrys overwhelming reliance on oil sales, which account for an estimated 80 percent or more of government revenue. Last month, Prince Mohammed, the deputy crown prince and defense minister, announced a major economic restructuring dubbed Vision 2030. The plan intends to bring transparency to opaque government institutions and substantially boost income from non-oil-related industries.
The plan includes the partial privatization of the state oil company, Saudi Aramco, and envisions extensive job creation. Unemployment has become especially problematic for Saudis younger than 30, the majority of the kingdoms 22 million citizens.
Economic growth has tapered off recently and budget deficits have grown, spurring the International Monetary Fund to warn last year that Saudi Arabia could run out of cash if it failed to make reforms.
Authorities have responded to the crisis by cutting subsidies for water, fuel and electricity, but financial experts say more is needed possibly taxation, a hot-button issue for Saudis.
Some Saudis may be ready to accept the changes.
They have to be gradual and accepted, but people understand that they are needed, said Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the Gulf Research Center, who lives in the coastal city of Jiddah.
But many doubt whether the necessary changes can be introduced fast enough in such a conservative society that is run by an absolute monarchy with little apparent desire for political reform.
A costly war in Yemen
Simon Henderson, an expert on Saudi Arabia at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the powerful religious establishment has not responded to the Prince Mohammed plan, which suggests they disapprove of it.
Theres nothing in the recent changes that would be a cause for joy among the religious establishment, Henderson said.
Prince Mohammed, who also serves as the countrys defense chief, has unsettled many Saudis, including royals, by launching an expensive war in Yemen and aggressively confronting rival Iran throughout the region.
This month, King Salman reshuffled the government in yet another move interpreted as further paving the way for his son to eventually ascend the throne.
A more immediate issue appears to be an economy no longer flush with as much cash. This appears to be what led to demonstrations last month by employees of the Binladin Group who had been laid off without receiving pay. Video images of the protests show buses burning as sirens blare in the background.
The company, a construction giant run by Osama bin Ladens brother, has let go of tens of thousands of mostly non-Saudi workers in recent months. The company has amassed an estimated $30 billion in debt, in part because the government, a major client, has not settled bills.
Saudi authorities had banned the company from bidding on new contracts after an accident last year at one of its construction sites in Mecca that killed 111 people.
A lack of business
But the primary issue facing the Binladin Group and other companies appears to be a lack of business and getting the government to pay up for work rendered, said Christopher Davidson, an expert on Persian Gulf countries at Durham University in Britain.
This is a bigger issue that goes beyond the crane incident, because its not in Saudis interest to let its biggest construction company fail, he said.
So far, most of those laid off have been foreigners, who form a large chunk of the labor force. But Davidson said he expects that companies will start letting large numbers of Saudi employees go, which would increase the chances for unrest.
Its the older generation the retired Saudis who used to run things who have questions about the pace of all this.
Read more:
Saudi Arabia is reeling from falling oil prices. And it could get much worse.
How a blond American kid became a huge star in Saudi Arabia
Saudis are now working at Starbucks and McDonalds. And thats a big deal.
Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Smoke was detected in multiple places inside an EgyptAir plane minutes before it plummeted into the Mediterranean Sea with 66 people on board, French investigators said Saturday, citing messages from the planes automatic detection system.
Sebastien Barthe, a spokesman for the French civil aviation investigation agency, told the Associated Press that the messages generally mean the start of a fire.
French and Egyptian authorities, working around the clock to find the flight data recorders, cautioned that the cause of the crash remained unclear. Also Saturday, Egypts military spokesman posted on Facebook what he said were the first images of debris recovered by naval ships in the Mediterranean, including a life vest, fabric from seat cushions and parts of the aircraft exterior. The images have not been verified by other nations investigating the crash.
EgyptAir Flight 804 departed Pariss Charles de Gaulle airport at 11:09 p.m. Wednesday and was bound for Cairo when it crashed into the sea early Thursday. The messages signaling the aircraft detected smoke aboard the flight were first reported Friday by the industry publication Aviation Herald. The website said smoke appeared in a lavatory near the cockpit, and that the information was transmitted through the planes Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System.
We are drawing no conclusions from this, Barthe told AP. Everything else is pure conjecture.
1 of 22 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Possible debris from EgyptAir flight recovered in the Mediterranean View Photos Egypts military spokesman posted what he said were the first images of debris, including parts of the aircraft exterior. Caption Egypts military spokesman posted what he said were the first images of debris, including parts of the aircraft exterior. May 21, 2016 Recovered debris possibly from the EgyptAir plane that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea. Egyptian Military via Reuters Wait 1 second to continue.
The planes abrupt turns and ultimate descent into the Mediterranean has raised fears the flight was targeted by terrorists, but no group has so far claimed responsibility for the crash.
The discovery Friday of human remains, wreckage and passenger belongings added momentum to the quest to unravel the mystery of why the Airbus A320 suddenly dropped from the sky, probably killing all 66 people aboard.
But with the bulk of the fuselage and flight recorders still missing, the tragedy has offered few tangible clues.
Cunningham reported from Istanbul.
One of the Islamic States most hunted leaders delivered a rare speech Saturday that suggested the militants are feeling the pinch of recent territorial losses and the killing of key officials in U.S. airstrikes.
Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, who is the Islamic States chief spokesman and a close aide to leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, threatened Jews, urged supporters to carry out more terror attacks against Western targets and used typically defiant language to predict victory for the groups self-proclaimed caliphate.
But the defensive tone of the speech, delivered in an audio address posted on one of the Islamic States websites, also suggested that the militants are contemplating the prospect that their senior leadership will be wiped out and their last important cities lost.
Do you think you have won because you have killed one or more leaders? It is a false victory, he said.
Even if we lose Raqqa or Sirte, we wont be defeated, he added, referring, respectively, to the Islamic States de facto capital in Syria and the city in Libya it more recently conquered.
Just as significant was what the speech did not contain.
There was no claim of responsibility for the downing of the EgyptAir flight that crashed Thursday into the Mediterranean. Investigators have yet to determine what caused the plane to crash.
The speech was not delivered by Baghdadi, despite feverish speculation by Islamic State supporters throughout the day on social media that the leader would be addressing them directly.
However, Adnani, like Baghdadi, has several times been rumored to be dead, and the address demonstrated that he is alive. Baghdadi delivered his most recent speech in December, and Adnani had not spoken publicly since October.
This address came after months of setbacks in which the Islamic State has been pushed out of a string of key towns and cities, including Palmyra, Ramadi, Sinjar and, most recently last week, the Iraqi town of Rutbah near the Syrian border. U.S. officials also claim they are successfully targeting a growing number of the groups top leaders.
Adnani suggested that if the Islamic State loses its territory, it will resort to guerrilla warfare. Already, the group has stepped up the pace of suicide bombings in Baghdad and elsewhere in an apparent attempt to assert its presence even as it is defeated on the ground.
Brett McGurk, who is President Obamas special envoy to the anti-Islamic State campaign, tweeted that the speech was a sign that the U.S. strategy was working. Another sign of #ISIL leaders in deep hiding, afraid to appear in public, or already dead, he tweeted, using an acronym for the Islamic State. Days are numbered.
Read more:
Islamic State, growing stronger in Libya, sets its sights on fragile neighbor Tunisia
Under strain, Islamic State takes its battle to the streets of Baghdad
The war against the Islamic State hits hurdles just as the U.S. military gears up
Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Democratic Party presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton said Thursday that her likely Republican opponent was not qualified to be president of the United States, telling a CNN interviewer that Trumps declarations on foreign policy would damage US interests.
Clinton linked her national security argument to the disappearance of an EgyptAir passenger jet earlier in the day, en route from Paris to Cairo, saying that this incident shines a very bright light on the threat of terrorism.
I think it reinforces the need for American leadership. The kind of smart, steady leadership that only America can provide, working with our allies, our partners, our friends in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere, she said. Because we have to have a concerted effort that brings to bear both domestic resources, sharing of intelligence, take a hard look at airport security one more time. Whatever needs to be done must be done.
Clinton was being interviewed on CNN by Chris Cuomo, son of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo and brother of the current Governor Andrew Cuomo, a shill for the Democratic Party establishment who readily agreed that his guest was certain to be the nominee of the Democratic Party. The math about the nomination, he said, thats, frankly, the easy part. The question was how to defeat Trump, he continued.
The axis of Clintons criticism of Trump was that he was too erratic in his statements and views on foreign policy. I know how hard this job is, and I know that we need steadiness as well as strength and smarts in it, and I have concluded he is not qualified to be president of the United States, Clinton said.
And I think in this past week, whether its attacking Great Britain; praising the leader of North Korea, a despotic dictator who has nuclear weapons; whether it is saying pull out of NATO; let other countries have nuclear weapons, the kinds of positions he is stating and the consequences of those positions and even the consequences of his statements are not just offensive to people, they are potentially dangerous.
Clinton continued in this vein, criticizing Trumps statements about barring Muslims from entering the United States, not as an unconstitutional attack on democratic rights, but as a boon to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Donald Trump is being used to essentially be a recruiter for more people to join the cause of terrorism, she said.
The CNN interview represented an escalation of the attacks Clinton has made ever since Trump became the Republican frontrunner. She is openly appealing to Republican warhawks and neo-conservatives who regard Trump as a quasi-isolationist because of his retroactive criticism of the Bush administrations war in Iraq, and who are hostile to his statements of praise and admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This appeal to militarism and the Republican right was spelled out even more explicitly by Clintons campaign chairman, former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta. In a statement emailed to the media on Friday, Podesta denounced Trumps foreign policy pronouncements.
This is not how presidents behave, he said. This is not about ideologyits about responsible leadership. Anyone who is serious about our national security, regardless of their party, should not stand with Donald Trump.
In her overall approach to the general election campaign, Clinton is hewing closely to the line of argument laid down by President Obama, who ridicules Trumps claims that the US economy is in dismal shape. I also feel optimistic about the country, she told Cuomo. I mean most of what Trump says is pretty negative about America. Its pretty much fearmongering, criticizing. You know, we are well positioned, if we do our part, if we show leadership, if we bring people together.
Clinton is running as the candidate of complacency and self-satisfaction, of continuing the progressive work of a Democratic administration that is in reality the most right-wing in US history. Clinton thus effectively cedes those who are dissatisfied and discontented with the social and economic conditions imposed by American capitalismthe vast majority of working peopleto her semi-fascist opponent.
Within the Democratic primary campaign, the vast majority of young people and struggling sections of the working class have given their support to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. In her interview on CNN, Clinton barely even gave lip service to attracting the Sanders supporters once she officially becomes the Democratic nominee.
Effectively dismissing Sanders recent victories in Indiana, West Virginia and Oregon, and the likelihood that he will win most of the remaining contestsincluding the most populous US state, CaliforniaClinton told Cuomo, I will be the nominee for my party. That is already done, in effect. There is no way that I wont be.
She added that it was Sanders responsibility to convince his own supporters to back her as the Democratic nominee, just as she had supported Barack Obama in 2008 after losing a protracted fight for the presidential nomination.
In support of A Moon Shaped Pool, Radiohead kicked off their World Tour last night in Amsterdam.
The 24-song setlist kicked off with four tracks from the new album, but also saw a number of outliers from their usual live choices - including the first performance of My Iron Lung in over seven years.
The setlist, seen below, also featured a number of classics including Paranoid Android, Weird Fishes / Arpeggi and Everything In Its Right Place.
Burn the Witch
Daydreaming
Decks Dark
Desert Island Disk
Ful Stop
Morning Mr Magpie
There There
The Daily Mail
My Iron Lung
Videotape
Identikit
The Numbers
The Gloaming
Lotus Flower
Everything In Its Right Place
Idioteque
Bodysnatchers
Bloom
Present Tense
Paranoid Android
Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
You and Whose Army?
Reckoner
The performance was also marked by the full line-up, including Jonny and Colin Greenwood, Phil Selway and Colin O'Brien. A number of songs from A Moon Shaped Pool featured orchestral tracks, however the songs were rearranged to suit the current lineup.
Sadly, no Irish dates have been announced for the Moon Shaped Pool tour, however they do play three nights later this week in London. If you were lucky enough to get tickets for that, here's a taste of what's in store.
Via YouTube
Investigators discovered wreckage Friday believed to be remains of Egypt Air Flight 804, the Cairo-bound jetliner that crashed into the eastern Mediterranean Thursday after a series of abrupt swerving maneuvers.
It certainly is possible that the destruction of this aircraft was the result of some form of sabotage. But no solid evidence has yet been found, among the wreckage or elsewhere, to justify claims advanced by Western leaders Thursday that Flight 804 was targeted for a terror bombing. In contrast to the provocative statements of various political figures, officials charged with investigating the disaster have been careful to avoid jumping to conclusions.
US officials initially claimed that satellite photos show strong indications that the plane was brought down by an explosion, yet failed to bring forward any hard evidence.
A US avionics expert cited in US media late Friday suggested that a mechanical breakdown in the cockpit might have produced an electrical fire.
Even as uncertainty remains over the crash, the US and European ruling elites are seizing on the incident to demand a further escalation of their military operations in the Mediterranean and across Africa and the Middle East, and to intensify their drive to remove all remnants of democratic restraint on the powers of the state.
The NATO powers, which are engaged in massive buildup on Russias border, responded to the crash by deploying a multinational naval flotilla to the crash area.
Los Angeles International Airport implemented heightened security procedures Friday, including random searches in entrance areas.
US media responded to 804s disappearance with warnings that a New Stage in the War on Terror has begun, and that Islamic State and Al Qaeda are on the March.
The possibility that a bomb was smuggled onboard a flight leaving from Paris Charles De Gaulle (CDG) airport would prove the failure of all the preventative security measures taken to safeguard global civil aviation since 9/11, Time magazine warned in its report, If a Bomb Brought Down Egypt Air 804 the War on Terror is About to Change.
If airline employees are being doubted, wouldnt that include a mechanic, who could know where to tuck something out of sight? Time warned, informing readers that ISIS operates more like a mass movement and that anyone can join who is angry.
Far from idle speculation, these conceptions are being advanced to rally support in ruling circles for even greater attacks on democratic rights, including intensified surveillance against the working class and the broad mass of the population, under the slogan anyone may be a terrorist.
The decade and a half since September 11, 2001 has witnessed, in all of the advanced capitalist countries, a systematic buildup of the states capacity to spy on and detain individuals without any legal process. Open dictatorship now looms in all of the leading capitalist democracies.
Justified to the public in the name of fighting Islamic terrorism networks, these preparations are intended for use against the international working class. The November 13, 2015 attacks in Paris, planned under the noses of European intelligence, became the basis for the imposition of martial law decrees throughout France that remain in force today and are being bolstered with sweeping anti-labor measures.
The same terror groups who supposedly constitute the enemy were armed and financed by the US and the European powers in pursuit of their predatory and neocolonial interests. Beginning in 2011, these forces were mobilized by NATO as tools in its wars against Libya and Syria.
In discussions with members of the Washington-backed dictatorship of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in the Egyptian capital on Friday, US and British diplomatic chiefs offered all kinds of support to Egypts military government.
The crimes of Egypts military regime, which has carried out massacres and mass executions in an effort to crush the revolutionary movement of the Egyptian working class that erupted in 2011, exemplify the real meaning of the war on terrorism, which aims at the suppression by military and police violence of the workers and oppressed masses throughout the entire world.
Five years after a US-NATO war shattered Libya, Washington is preparing to send troops into the oil-rich North African nation for a long-term mission, the Pentagons top uniformed commander said Thursday.
Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters returning aboard his plane from a meeting of NATO commanders in Brussels that the new military deployment, which could involve thousands of US troops, could happen any day. It awaited only a formal agreement with the new government that the Western powers and the UN are attempting to set up in Tripoli, he indicated.
General Dunford told reporters that there had been intense dialogue and activities under the surface aimed at bringing about the Libya intervention. This apparently referred to efforts by the US ambassador to Libya, Peter Bodde, and the State Departments special envoy for Libya, Jonathan Winer, to wrest a formal request for military intervention from Fayez al-Sarraj, the unelected head of the Western-backed Libyan Presidential Council.
Under UN and US tutelage, Sarraj and his allies established this council in exile in Tunisia, returning to the Libyan capital, Tripoli, at the end of March. It is obvious that this new puppet regime has been created for the sole purpose of providing a veneer of legality to another US-NATO military intervention in the devastated country.
Sarrajs legitimacy, however, is by no means clear. His is now one of three competing regimes, including the Islamist-dominated General National Congress (GNC) in Tripoli and the House of Representatives (HoR) based in the eastern city of Tobruk, which was previously recognized by the West as the legitimate government of Libya. Neither the GNC nor the HoR have recognized the authority of Sarrajs presidential council.
Nor is it clear what fighting force Sarraj can rely upon and the US and its allies can arm and train. It was revealed earlier this month that US Special Operations troops have been on the ground in Libya since last year attempting to contact and assess various rival militias to see which one could be employed in the service of Washingtons interests in the country.
Ostensibly, the US and its allies are intervening to counter the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) inside the country. ISIS fighters, reported to number at least 5,000, have taken control of a stretch of the Libyan Mediterranean coast. It is no accident that the center of this territory is the city of Sirte, formerly the hometown of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The city was reduced to rubble by US-NATO attacks in the days leading up to the October 2011 torture and murder of Gaddafi at the hands of US-backed Islamist militiamen.
As in Iraq and Syria, Washington is justifying this new intervention in the name of combating a force that it itself spawned. Libyas ISIS fighters came from the Islamist militias that the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies supported and armed in the bid to oust Gaddafi in 2011. Many of them were then sent into Syria, along with large stockpiles of Libyan weapons that were shipped to that country as part of an operation run out of the secret CIA station in Benghazi. That station and a separate US consulate were overrun by Libyan Islamist militiamen in September 2011, leading to the deaths of US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
Discussions on the coming Libya intervention took place at a meeting of foreign ministers from the US, Europe and the Middle East on Monday in Vienna. Among the decisions taken was to seek exemption from an arms embargo imposed by the UN after the fall of Gaddafi so that weapons can be funneled in to forces loyal to the puppet Sarraj, though it is, as of yet, unclear who those forces are. US Secretary of State John Kerry allowed that a delicate balance had to be found to prevent the arms from falling into the hands of Al Qaeda-linked and ISIS elements that Washington is ostensibly fighting.
The real objective in Libya today, as in 2011, is the assertion of undisputed US-NATO hegemony over the country and its massive oil reserves, the largest on the African continent. Having turned Libya into the model of a so-called failed state with its first intervention, Washington appears to want to impose some kind of neocolonial regime with its pending second incursion.
The centrality of oil is manifest in the operations of the two major armed militias that are being considered for the role of Western puppet forces. The first is the so-called Libyan National Army formed under the command of Khalifa Hafter, a former Libyan army officer who became an asset of the CIA in the 1980s, set up near the agencys headquarters in Langley, Virginia and then airlifted by the Americans back into Benghazi during the 2011 war for regime change.
Hafters forces have been moving slowly west from Benghazi toward the ISIS center of Sirte, expending most of their energies on seizing control of some 14 oil fields along the way. The fields were taken largely from the Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG), whose commander, Ibrahim Jadhran, had sworn allegiance to the US-backed regime of Sarraj after previously seeking autonomy for the east and attempting to sell oil independently of the government in Tripoli.
Meanwhile, a rival militia based in the city of Misurata in northwestern Libya has been approaching Sirte from the opposite direction with similar intentions. It is widely anticipated that these two forces, apparently the principal candidates for serving as the foundation of a Western puppet force in the country, may end up battling each other rather than ISIS.
While General Dunford predicted a US-NATO intervention was imminent, he was less forthcoming about its composition.
It had been reported initially that Italy, which exercised brutal colonial rule over Libya under the fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, would lead the mission, providing upwards of 5,000 troops. Among Romes principal concernsaside from reasserting its old colonial ambitionsis securing the Libyan coast, which is expected to be the major route for refugees seeking to reach Italy, now that the EU has sealed off the so-called Balkan route.
On Monday, however, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said that Italy would not send troops into Libya. While under pressure to intervene in Libya, we have chosen a different approach, Renzi said in a statement.
For its part, Germany has reportedly rejected placing any of its troops in Libya, saying that it would only train Libyan forces in neighboring Tunisia.
The apparent disarray within NATOs ranks reflects the competing interests of the US and the various European powers as the Libyan intervention escalates what is emerging as a new imperialist scramble for Africa.
As Washington prepares to launch another military intervention into a nation that it previously decimated through a war of aggression, its ongoing campaign in Iraq appears in growing danger. Baghdad was placed under military curfew Friday night after Iraqi security forces used tear gas and live fire to drive back thousands of antigovernment demonstrators who stormed the heavily fortified Green Zone, reaching the office of Iraqs US-backed prime minister, Haider al-Abadi.
Initial reports indicated at least one civilian, and perhaps several, killed by security forces, and dozens wounded.
Protesters, including supporters of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, had stormed into the blast wall-enclosed Green Zone on April 30 to protest government corruption and failure to provide basic services and security. Anger has only deepened in the intervening weeks as the result of a series of terrorist bombings claimed by ISIS that have killed more than 150 people in Baghdad this month.
In the wake of the bloodshed in the Green Zone, there is a growing threat that an armed confrontation between government forces and armed Shia militias in the Iraqi capital could eclipse the so-called war against ISIS.
Winner of the Directors Fortnights top award, the art cinema prize, the slim, slice-of-life drama Wolf and Sheep mixes naturalistic, ethnographic images with an appealing thread of folkloric magical realism. The action is set in an Afghan village that 26-year-old tyro director-writer Shahrbanoo Sadat, Afghanistans first-ever female feature helmer, was forced to re-create in the dusty mountains of neighboring Tajikistan due to security concerns for her mostly foreign crew and the presence in the tale of a naked, green, female fairy. Sadat also imported 38 Hazaragi-speaking villagers, adults and children, who play versions of themselves. Although more compelling on a visual level than a narrative one, the movie represents an enticing festival and niche event item, as well as a vision of Sadats homeland that is far different from what the media normally depicts.
Inspired by the remote, rural outpost in central Afghanistan where the filmmaker spent her teenage years feeling like an outsider, the film immediately establishes the dynamic of a place out of time, a spot where not much happens and where everyone knows everyone elses business and discusses it ad infinitum. It is also a village where the sexes remain very much segregated. The women cook, clean and dry dung patties at home while affairs such as funerals, animal husbandry (and sacrifices) and deciding justice are managed outdoors, man to man.
The local children, who herd flocks of goats and sheep up and down the mountain each day, also cleave into same-sex groups. As the animals graze, their bells tinkling in the distance, a group of girls talks about marriage and pretends to smoke cigarettes, while the roughhousing boys practice with their slingshots and exchange surprisingly vulgar insults. Even among such a tiny population there are cliques: The other girls shun Sediqa (Sediqa Rasuli), a melancholy-looking youngster, chattering that Sediqas grandmother became blind after nursing a snake.
Young Qodrat (Qodratollah Qadiri), whose fathers funeral takes place in the films opening moments, also is the subject of gossip when his mother becomes the third wife of a local man who doesnt want to keep her kids. One day while Qodrat is brooding, he runs into Sediqa and instructs her on the fine art of slingshot braiding. Sharing a bond as outsiders, the two youngsters explore the mountainside together a few times, but their friendship isnt fated to continue.
Since the pace of village life is slow and repetitive, its difficult to discern how much time passes, but certain incidents stand out. At one point, a slingshot novice accidentally (but bloodily) puts out another boys eye, and the injured youths father demands justice in the form of a bull. At another point, an unseen wolf attacks and kills some of the livestock, and the angry flock owners beat the little shepherds.
In contrast with her representation of mundane daily life, Sadat inserts some striking moments of magical realism, illustrating the folklore that lives large in the local imagination. At several points, the men and boys repeat the tale of the Kashmiri wolf, a creature that walks on two feet. A green fairy lives underneath the animals furry pelt. She was once captured by a felonious miller and forced to become his wife, but she managed to escape. Sadat depicts both fairy and wolf as eerie presences, stalking the landscape by night. Near the films conclusion, the rumor of armed men heading toward the village represents a more metaphorical wolfish rapacity.
Made on a modest budget (that includes 413 crowd-sourced contributions), the film is pleasing to the eye, with the non-professional actors wearing their own colorful clothing. Theres no production designer credit; per Danish producer Katja Adomeit, director Sadat designed the mud-and-stone dwellings herself, which workers then built in Tajikistan. Strong sound design also contributes to the you-are-there ambience.
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Around 12:30 a.m. PT early Saturday, a procession began at Fisherman's Village in Marina del Rey to move the only remaining flight-qualified external tank from the Space Shuttle program - a gift from NASA. The tank will end its journey at the California Science Center in Exposition Park, where it will join Space Shuttle Endeavour on display.
The ET-94 is enormous - it weighs 65,000 pounds (empty), is 154 feet long and about three stories high. It sits on dollies as it is pulled by a truck on the 16-mile journey to the Science Center, reminiscent of the trip that Endeavour made, which attracted an estimated 1.5 million spectators during its 2012 trek through the streets of Los Angeles.
To mark the occasion, the California Science Center held a black-tie fundraising gala at the site, and around midnight, guests including roughly 10 NASA astronauts spilled out of the party, led by a New Orleans jazz band playing 'When the Saints Go Marching In." The band and guests followed the fuel tank up Fiji Way toward Lincoln Boulevard. As they walked, they were joined by a growing crowd of residents who came out to see ET-94. "Awesome!" said thrilled guests as they took pictures and posed for selfies with the fuel tank.
The gala itself, the 18th Annual Discovery Ball, was themed to look back at the fuel tank's nearly 5,000-mile journey thus far. It started April 12 at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where the ET-94 was moved onto a barge and traveled south through the Panama Canal en route to Marina del Rey.
Friday's gala began with a New Orleans-themed cocktail party in the shadow of the fuel tank, featuring performers in costumes and a jazz band. During this time, guests took pictures and selfies under the ET-94. Attendees also "traveled to Panama" for a Caribbean-themed dinner and program that was held under a tent decorated to look like a lush tropical rainforest. The event included a performance by a Panamanian folkloric dance troupe.
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Guests were welcomed by California Science Center president and CEO Jeffrey Rudolph. There was enthusiastic applause as he introduced the NASA astronauts in attendance, including Ken Ham, Rick Searfoss, Charlie Precourt, Dan Bursch, Robert Curbeam, Steve Swanson, Danny Olivas, Kay Hire, Garrett Reisman and Sandy Magnus. Astronauts are walking with the fuel tank to the California Science Center, greeting residents and answering questions as they go.
Gala attendees also included guests from the California Science Center community, local officials and representatives from NASA. That included State Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) and Los Angeles Mayor Gil Garcetti.
The gala raised funds via table sponsorships (seatings of 10 ranged from $10,000 to $50,000 and individual tickets were available in packages of two for $2,500), as well as a raffle for a 2016 Lexus RX Hybrid and a Hands-On Science Camp scholarship. The cost of the fuel tank's move is approximately $3 million and will be funded by the EndeavourLA Campaign, whose total fundraising goal is $250 million. About half of that has been secured to date.
Read More: Space Shuttle Fuel Tank Arrives In L.A., Sluggish Journey to Exposition Park Begins Friday
The external tank was the only component of the Space Shuttle that was not reused. Approximately 8.5 minutes into the flight, with its propellant used, the tank was jettisoned on a preplanned trajectory with the majority of it disintegrating in the atmosphere and the rest falling into the ocean. The ET-94 was built to support science missions for the Space Shuttle Columbia. Then the Columbia accident occurred, involving the ET-93, and the ET-94 was never used.
When it arrives at the California Science Center, the ET-94 will sit on the north side of the Samuel Oschin Space Shuttle Endeavour Pavilion, where there will be a viewing area. Its final home will be the not-yet-constructed Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. The center anticipates breaking ground on the new facility later this year, and it's expected to take about three years to complete. For the final exhibition, Endeavour will be mated to the tank and it will be rotated 90 degrees to place it in launch configuration, reaching an elevation of nearly 200 feet to accommodate a complete Space Shuttle system that includes the ET-94, the Orbiter and real Solid Rocket Boosters.
The ET-94's route through the streets will continue from Fiji Way to Lincoln; Lincoln to Mindanao Way; Mindanao Way to CA-90; CA-90 to Culver Boulevard; Culver to Lincoln via transition ramp; Lincoln to Loyola Boulevard; Loyola to Westchester Parkway; Westchester turns into Arbor Vitae St. at Airport Boulevard; Arbor Vitae St. to La Brea Avenue; La Brea to Manchester Boulevard; Manchester to Vermont Avenue; Vermont to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard; and MLK to Exposition Park.
The route to move the fuel tank is a bit longer than the one used for Endeavour. The tank is neither as wide as Endeavour (32 feet versus 78 feet) nor as high (35 feet versus 56 feet), and so it's expected that fewer utilities will be impacted and no trees will be removed along the route from the coast to Exposition Park, though some light trimming may be necessary, according to the California Science Center. It is expected to arrive on Saturday night.
Below is a map of the route the ET-94 will take on its way to the California Science Center.
See photos of the fuel tanker documented on social media below.
#LAPD: We couldn't be any more excited to assist with the escort of #ET94 as it heads to the @casciencecenter. pic.twitter.com/y3xunA0FFW
- LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) May 21, 2016
Roads blocked last night & this morning in Playa because this ext. fuel tanker is on the move!! pic.twitter.com/AfngHXL2Y0
- Jovana Lara (@abc7jovana) May 21, 2016
#shuttle tank Hillcrest/La Brea @knx1070 pic.twitter.com/DhXrpRPvzc
- Ed Mertz (@knxedmertz) May 21, 2016
Walking with the#shuttle tank#MyDayInLA pic.twitter.com/b5UtHTBNrl
- German Ramirez (@gramirez135) May 21, 2016
#APTOPIX for May 21, 2016, our image selections from the past 24 hours. https://t.co/b8WnsjFNIw #Endeavour pic.twitter.com/3JcGo6KlK6
- AP Images (@AP_Images) May 21, 2016
This abandoned ghost town looks exactly like it did decades ago, and its creepy cool
This abandoned ghost town looks exactly like it did decades ago, and its creepy cool
An abandoned ghost town now sits on the eastern side of Californias Sierra Nevada mountains. It used to be a bustling location home to 10,000 residents, but now? It looks as though these people suddenly vanished and left some spooky spirits in their wake.
abandoned 2
Whats perhaps most unusual about Bodie is that its still standing especially since it was first inhabited in 1877. Two years prior, a mine cave-in revealed that money could be made from the ore there and it was later bought by the Standard Company. Crowds then flocked to this locale to make a buck or two, but you wouldnt know it nowadays.
abandoned 4
If you pay Bodie a visit, youll see that its been dubbed a National Historic Site and a State Historic Park. Thats because the buildings interiors look as though theyve barely changed. In fact, Bodie has been described as being in a state of arrested decay. The pool tables are still holding equipment. Kitchen tables have all their chairs. Local stores have shelves and shelves of goods out on display. Even the schoolroom still has notes on the chalkboard.
abandoned 3
On the parks website, it states, Today this once thriving mining camp is visited by tourists, howling winds and an occasional ghost.
abandoned 5
To take a peek at this spooky situation for yourself, you can attend Bodies 1.5 hour Ghost Walk, which involves the re-telling of ghost stories and town legends. Plus, theres the Exclusive Ghost Mill Tour. It allows tourists to view the incredibly creepy, 116-year-old Standard Mill. Even if ghosts arent your thing, theres also an event featuring an astronomy lesson. Its known as Star Stories.
Considering that were fans of all things mysterious and abandoned, wed love nothing more than to pay Bodie a visit (maybe even at night, if were feeling extra brave).
The post This abandoned ghost town looks exactly like it did decades ago, and its creepy cool appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Thailand's hospital-bound monarch Bhumibol Adulyadej is being treated for water on the brain and has had the excess fluid drained, the palace said in a statement late Friday.
Bhumibol, 88, is the object of an intense personality cult and his frail health is a subject of significant public concern.
The wheelchair-confined king is rarely seen in public and has spent most of the past two years hospitalised for a series of ailments, including previous bouts of hydrocephalus (water on the brain).
The Royal Household Bureau said in a statement that doctors adjusted a tube used to drain excess fluid after they noticed facial twitching.
"It was detected that his facial muscles had irregular movements and the doctor conducted a computer x-ray and found there was an irregular surplus of fluid in the backbone and brain," the statement said.
"The team of royal physicians corrected this by adjusting the tube in his abdomen between 6:30 pm to 7:45 pm (Friday) and the result was satisfactory," the statement added.
It is the second health update issued by the palace in less than a week. Last Saturday the palace said Bhumibol had been treated with antibiotics for a lung infection and knee inflammation.
Previous health updates, including one last year, have also mentioned a build-up of fluid in his spine or brain that was later relieved. He was first treated for hydrocephalus in 2011.
Bhumibol is the world's longest-reigning monarch and most Thais have never known life under another king.
Anxiety over what will happen after his reign comes to an end is considered an aggravating factor in the country's past decade of tumultuous politics as competing elites jostle for power and influence ahead of the transition.
Bhumibol last left Bangkok's Siriraj hospital in early January for an hour-long trip by car to visit his palace and other royal projects, according to officials.
He was last seen in an official photograph distributed in mid-December.
The kingdom has one of the world's strictest lese majeste laws, punishing any criticism of the monarchy with up to 15 years in prison.
Use of the law has skyrocketed ever since royalist army generals seized power in a May 2014 coup with scores arrested and jailed, some for as long as 30 years.
This season of 'Love Is Blind' is shaping up to be absolute madness here's what people are saying about it
ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algerian troops killed six Islamist fighters during a large-scale military operation in a forested area east of the capital, the ministry of defense said on Saturday. Attacks and bombings are rare now since Algeria emerged from its 1990s war with armed Islamists, but small groups of fighters allied to al Qaeda's North Africa branch are active in remote areas to the east and the south. The six were killed during an army sweep through the d'Errich forest in Ain Turk in the Bouira region, the ministry said in a statement posted by APS state news agency. The army said it had killed eight and captured one in total during the operation which began on May 17. Last week the army also killed seven suspected Islamist fighters in Lakdaria, also in Bouira province. More than 200,000 people died in Algeria's civil war with armed Islamists in the 1990s, until President Abdelaziz Bouteflika negotiated an amensty deal with several fronts of fighters, leaving others in the mountains. (Reporting by Patrick Markey; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
Mexicos Foreign Ministry gave the green light on Friday for the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, Joaquin El Chapo Guzman Loera, to be extradited to the U.S.
This means all the conditions for Guzmans extradition met the standards agreed upon by the U.S. and Mexico. Two Mexican judges had already signed off on his extradition to California and Texas, where hes charged with drug and murder crimes. The Mexican Foreign Ministry also said the U.S. has guaranteed Guzman will not face the death penalty.
Referring to him as the capo, meaning cartel boss, the Mexican newspaper, El Universal, reported (translated from Spanish):
The boss will be prosecuted before the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas, on charges of conspiracy organized crime, weapons possession, murder and money laundering. Likewise, before the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of California, on the charge of association to import and possess with the intent to distribute cocaine
Guzmans lawyers now have 30 days to appeal the decision.
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Guzman, the notorious drug lord, led the Sinaloa Cartel for decades. Hes been arrested and later escaped twice, once in 2001, and again last year from the high-security Altiplano Prison, the same one where he was kept until earlier this month. On May 7, the government transferred Guzman to a smaller facility in Ciudad Juarez, near the Texas border. They denied this was a precursor to extraditionproximity to the U.S. would not have much to do with the process. Instead, the Mexican government said it was done to make improvements to the Altiplano Prison.
In all, Guzman faces charges and possible extradition from seven different U.S. jurisdictions.
Read more from The Atlantic:
This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - An Australian law firm has filed a compensation claim against Russia and President Vladimir Putin in the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of families of victims of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, shot down in 2014, media reported. The jetliner crashed in Ukraine in pro-Russian rebel-held territory on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board, including 28 Australians. The aircraft, which was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile, the Dutch Safety Board concluded in its final report late last year. Fighting was raging in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces when the aircraft was downed and many Western experts and governments blamed the rebels. Australia's Fairfax media reported on Saturday that 33 next of kin were of victims named in an application by Sydney law firm LHD Lawyers, representing people from Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia. Reuters could not immediately reach LHD Lawyers for comment. The application was filed on May 9 and names the Russian Federation and Putin as respondents and seeks $10 million in compensation per passenger, the report said. The Dutch Safety Board, which was not empowered to address questions of responsibility, did not point the finger at any group or party for launching the missile. (Reporting by Jarni Blakkarly; Editing by Robert Birsel)
By Francois Murphy and Michael Shields VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria could elect the European Union's first far-right head of state on Sunday, with support for Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer buoyed by a migration crisis that has heightened fears about employment and security. Opinion polls suggest the presidential race between Hofer and former Greens leader Alexander van der Bellen will be close-run. A far-right victory would resonate throughout the 28-member bloc where migration driven by conflict in the Middle East and Africa has become a major political issue. Austria took in 90,000 asylum seekers last year, more than 1 percent of its population, many of them shortly after it and neighboring Germany threw open their borders last autumn to a wave of migrants including refugees from Syria's civil war. The government has since clamped down on immigration and asylum, but that about-face only fueled support for the far right, which was already capitalizing on widespread frustration with the country's two traditional parties of government. Sunday's run-off election comes four weeks after Hofer unexpectedly won the first round with 35 percent of the vote. The president traditionally plays a largely ceremonial role but swears in the chancellor, can dismiss the cabinet and is commander in chief of the military. Whoever wins, the election is likely to be a new high-water mark for Europe's resurgent far right, all the more significant for being in a relatively prosperous country with comparatively low, albeit rising, unemployment. It will also indicate whether mainstream parties were right not to close ranks and call for an anti-Freedom Party (FPO) vote, with many feeling it would only have bolstered the FPO's argument that it is taking on a hostile political establishment. HEAVY BLOW The first-round vote was a heavy blow to the ruling Social Democrats (SPO) and their coalition partner, the People's Party - for the first time since Austria's president became directly elected in 1951, neither party will provide the head of state. The result also set off a party revolt within the SPO that led to rail boss Christian Kern becoming chancellor, replacing Werner Faymann. Whether the more popular Kern's arrival will affect the outcome on Sunday is unclear. Van der Bellen, who came second in the first round on 21 percent, has accused his opponent of having an authoritarian view of the president's powers, saying Hofer wants to dismiss the government so snap parliamentary elections can be held. The next parliamentary election is due in 2018, but with the eurosceptic FPO running first in opinion polls on more than 30 percent, it would be well placed to win a snap vote. Hofer has said he would, as president, already have dismissed the government over its handling of the migration crisis, but would not do so immediately if he became head of state. Tabloid reports of immigrants availing themselves of Austria's generous benefits, as well as of crimes in which immigrants have been suspects, have played into the FPO's hands. A Gallup poll for the Oesterreich newspaper last weekend found Hofer ahead by a 53-47 margin based on 600 people surveyed. But it was a dead heat among those who said they were certain to vote, a key factor after nearly a third of eligible voters failed to cast ballots in the first round. Bookmakers, however, gave Hofer as favorite. Betting website bwin.com, for example, gave odds of 1.45-to-one for Hofer and 2.55-to-one for van der Bellen. (Editing by Ralph Boulton)
By Ruma Paul DHAKA (Reuters) - Machete-wielding assailants hacked to death a village doctor and wounded a university teacher in Bangladesh on Friday, in what police suspected was the latest in a series attacks by Islamists in the majority-Muslim nation. The attackers rode a motorcycle, which they used to block the victims' motorcycle in the western district of Kushtia, 150 miles (245 km) from Dhaka, said district police chief Mohammad Sahabuddin Chowdhury. The homeopathic doctor, Mir Sanaur Rahman, 55, was killed on the spot, and his companion, identified as Saifuzzaman, 45, suffered serious wounds. Police found a bloody machete at the scene. "We suspect Islamist militants are behind the attack," Chowdhury said. Over the past year, the South Asian nation of 160 million has seen a surge of attacks on atheist bloggers, academics, members of religious minorities and foreign aid workers. The doctor was on his way to a weekly free clinic he operated when he was attacked. Chowdhury said police were checking whether the victims had any particular enemies or if other factors could have been a motive but media reported associates of the doctor saying he had a reputation for progressive views. Friends of the wounded university teacher said he too was known for being progressive-minded. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the killing, the U.S.-based monitoring service SITE said, quoting the militant group's Amaq news agency. Members of Islamic State have claimed responsibility for some attacks, including the killings of two foreigners last year, and a university professor and a Hindu last month. Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent has claimed some of he attacks. The government has denied that Islamic State or al Qaeda groups have a presence in the country and says home-grown Islamists are responsible for the wave of attacks. (Editing by Robert Birsel)
There was much excitement when it was announced that Gilmore Girls would be coming back with a four part series on Netflix.
Shooting on the project began in February, and the official title for the show was revealed when Lauren Graham (Lorelai) was interviewed on Ellen, in an episode that will be airing in the US on Monday.
The show will be called Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Not the most original title, but it gets to the point. Each of the four episodes will be 90 minutes long and be set in a different season.
The original Gilmore Girls series ran between 2000 and 2007, and followed the lives of single mother Lorelai and her teenage daughter Rory, in the small Connecticut town of Stars Hollow. Melissa McCarthy also co-starred, as did Sean Gunn, brother to Guardians of the Galaxy director James.
No plot details have been leaked so far, but since the actress who plays Rory (Alexis Bledel) just had a baby, its possible her pregnancy will be written into the show. They will also have to deal with the loss of Richard Gilmore, played by actor Edward Hermann who passed away on New Years Eve 2014.
No official release date has been confirmed for the show.
Via TVLine
COTONOU (Reuters) - Cotton production in Benin plunged by more than a third during the most recent season, President Patrice Talon said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde. Output by Africa's third-largest cotton producer was 260,000 tonnes during the 2015-2016 season, Talon said, a drop from 394,000 tonnes in the previous season because farmers lacked pesticides or fertilizer. Cotton is a major export for the tiny West African nation. Last month Talon ceded control of the sector to the professional cotton association after his predecessor seized it in 2012. The presidency said investors had been scared away by the state-run system. (Reporting by Allegresse Sasse; Writing by Makini Brice)
Associated Press
JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii (AP) The U.S. military said Monday it's ready to begin draining 1 million gallons (3.79 million liters) of fuel from three pipelines as part of an initial step toward closing a World War II-era fuel storage facility that leaked petroleum into Pearl Harbor's tap water last year. Starting Tuesday, the military will spend six days draining the pipelines one by one. The fuel has been sitting in the pipes since the military suspended use of the Red Hill facility last year after it leaked petroleum into a drinking water well serving 93,000 people in and around Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
By Rob Kenner
Today marks what would have been the 44th birthday of Christopher George Latore Wallace, better known as The Notorious B.I.G. aka Biggie Smalls. As most rap fans know, Wallaces life was cut short by an assassins bullet on March 9, 1997, and the greatest rapper who ever lived died before the age of 26.
Over the years most of Wallaces music industry friends have paid tribute to the legendary emcee and shared memories of the time they spent with him. Last night at the Barclays Center, Puff Daddy, Faith Evans, Lil Kim, Mase, The Lox, and Busta Rhymes kicked off a 25-date Bad Boy Reunion tourJay Z and Mary J. Blige even made guest appearances. The crowd bought shirts emblazoned with Wallaces face and sang along to some of his best loved songs. Without Wallace its hard to say whether Bad Boy Recordsor the Barclays Center for that matterwould have even existed.
In the early 2000s, I ran the books division at VIBE magazine, where I had the privilege of editing Unbelievable, the only proper biography of Christopher Wallace, the manas opposed to Biggie the rap star. The books author was Cheo Hodari Coker, a veteran rap journalist who profiled Biggie early in his career and also conducted one of his last extensive interviews before the rappers tragic death. Cheo did literally hundreds of interviews for the book, which became the basis for the film Notorious, whose screenplay he co-wrote.
It was a complex story to tell. Biggies rhymes were so vivid because he truly lived the life he rapped about. Although Christopher was an excellent student and a devoted son to his single mother Voletta Wallace, he eventually turned to the street life, providing for his daughter Tyanna by selling crack before he found a way to live a better life, going from negative to positive by virtue of his lyrical gift.
One day while we were still working on the book I received a letter stamped with marks indicating that it was sent by an inmate from a correctional facility. The handwritten letter inside was from one Robert Cagle aka Zauqael, who said that he had read VIBEs coverage of Biggies early lifeparticularly the time he spent hustling in North Carolina just prior to his deal with Bad Boy coming through. (For hustlers in New York going to smaller towns down south meant less competition and higher profit margins.) Cagle said that if we wanted to learn more about Wallaces life before the fameand how he first got the name Biggie Smallswe should speak with him. So we arranged a time to do a phone interview from prison and the following conversation took place.
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We did our best to verify the things Zauqael said but nobody else in Wallaces life was really aware of his movements in North Carolina. Cagles criminal record and timeline did check out perfectly and the details felt so real that we decided to include some of what he said in the book. The rest of the transcript has never been published before today. While the rest of the world celebrates Biggies birthday, heres a side of Christopher Wallace that few people ever knew.
Hey Zauqael, thanks for reaching out. What made you decide to write us that letter?
I read the story where Big was talking about how he met an entourage in North Carolina and how the day he left, all of us got arrested. People have heard that story, but nobody knows the details, because none of them was there. It was only me, Sharif, my little brother Jazell, and Big. So it was only four of us. Lil Cease and Big D and all them wasnt down there. Me and him was tighter than that. Its no benefit really for me [telling this story] from here [in prison]. What I wanted them to know is since we talking about his life, I wanted people to know about his time in North Carolina, because that was a part of his life. And that played a big part in his becoming a rapper.
Did you know those Junior M.A.F.I.A. guys from Brooklyn?
When I stopped in Puffs studio in midtown, I had ran into em one time. That was right after he did the episode with Martin Lawrence. That was the last time I was in there with him. And then I got arrested. So I was incarcerated when Big got shot in Los Angeles.
When did you and Big decide to make the move to North Carolina?
Big was in North Carolina before me, and he had got into some trouble, so he left. During the time he had left, I came down and got established. And it just so happened that one of the individuals that worked for me was Bigs old friend who worked for Big to slang drugs for him. But Big had left because he got in trouble of some sort down there. So he waited till the heat died down. When Big came back, the dude that he was coming back for, he was already working for meand we was doing pretty good at the time.
So that made you partners.
I didnt know Big at the time. He came down with a girl, and she was the one who was holding the stuff for Big. She came with him on the bus. He had came down with nothing big, that wasnt really no problem as far as interrupting my situation. But at the time, I didnt want the worker to work for him. So I said, This is what you do: if you can find somebody else that can work it off, then do it like that. And what had happened, the individual that he got, Biggie gave all of his stuff to the guy and the guy ran off. So Big was stuck.
I felt bad cause it was my idea for him to get somebody else. At the time, I was staying with a chick, but I stopped staying with her. So we went and got a hotel. He got a room, I got a room. I said, Listen I feel bad about this. So what we can do is, you send the girl home, and you stay down here with me. And thats what happened. I gave him a few hundred. She left. Boom. So he stayed down with me. And in the process of him staying down, I was still doing my thing.
I was older than him, and he looked up to me in many ways like a big brother. I didnt come to know him through music. I didnt look at him as a star. I looked at him as my man.
I didnt come to know him through music. I didnt look at him as a star. I looked at him as my man.
What was the difference in your ages?
I was like maybe 28, and he was like 18.
Why did you trust him?
We met, and we was dealing with a negative situation. I didnt know him. As I was getting to know him, he was very funny. He wasnt on no thug stuff. He was a good dude, man. All the way around, man. All the way.
Was Big rapping at all during that time?
Back when Big first came down I didnt know he could rap. How I found out he could rap Back then it was different. The drug game was kinda big at the time. And at that time, everybody thought they was a rapper. I thought I was a little rapper. You know, I wrote a couple of rhymes back then. When I say it the first time, it sound good. But when you only got one rhyme and you keep saying it, then people start to realize you wack. So the rap game wasnt really that promising to me because I didnt have the talent for it.
When we was in the hotel, thats when we spent a lot of time together. We didnt want to go on the block, so we stayed in the hotel most of the time. So what had happened was, we was watching [the 1975 movie] Lets Do it Again, and he was telling me that his name was Big, and he could rap. He didnt make a big deal out of it. He just said he can rap. And everybody knows how to rap, you know? So we were watching Lets Do It Again in the hotel and one of the characters was named Biggie Smalls. I said, Listen, aint you say your rap name is Biggie? I said, No, listen. Thats a better name for you right there.
And he said, Yeah I like that. Because it was gangster, plus it was funny.
Did you ever hear him rap?
Even at that time, I said, Son is nice, but we drug dealers right now. I was keeping it real. Lets keep it moving.
Sometimes we would be in the car, and records would play and sometimes they would have a long instrumental at the end before it goes off. So Id say, Yo Big, hit something. Then I started seeing how nice he really was. But back then, againwe drug dealers. You know what Im saying?
What years are we talking about?
Were talking about from the end of 90 to mid 92all in that era right there.
Were you staying in North Carolina permanently?
We bought a house together down there. And the address if you want to quote it is 2700 Alpha Drive. Ill never forget it. Thats where we lived at.
See, as we started getting more involved, we started seeing a lot more money. So now, we starting to get business-minded. And we starting to hear Biggie more often. Hes in the house, hes writing. Not that we was taking it seriously, but we just had so much time. North Carolinas nothing like New York, where you can just go to 42nd Street and have fun. Its kind of boring during the weekdays. Most of the time we shopped, hit the malls and things like that. But when we was in the house, he stayed writing.
Google Maps image of 2700 Alpha Dr. in Raleigh, North Carolina
Google Maps image of 2700 Alpha Dr. in Raleigh, North Carolina
Did he have a notebook?
Yeah, he had one of them black old notebooks with the little white spots on it.
You know when I really knew he had talent? There was a club down there called the Zoo, and one of the girls that was at the counter liked me. Anyway, we went to the club, and when we came in there, they already knew we was from New York, so that gave us like a gold medal as far as that was concerned. This girl really liked me so I said, Listen, I got my man in herehe rhyme, I rhyme, you know what Im saying? Can we do a little something? She went to the manager, and he said yes. So I gave the mic to Biggie. It was a cordless mic. He started rhyming and they went crazy. The club wasnt like a stage. It was a regular club. But when he was rhyming, no one could see him cause we stayed right near the DJ booth where they handed the mic to us. When he touched the mic, everybody wanted to see. He ripped it and they was going crazy. Thats when I really knew that he had the talent.
Were you there the night when Puffy called cussing him out, telling him to come back to New York?
Yeah, Puffy called. It was his moms telling him that Puffy called, and telling him that he needed to come to New York. This was way down towards the end.
So when he started talking about Puffy working at Uptown records, my other partner would say, Listen man, if thats the case, when we need to clean the money up, lets do it through Big. But Big was like Nah, because he was actually seeing money. We doin our thing. We go to the club, its like were celebrities. He had celebrity status in a different way. So when Puff started calling the house, he was like, I aint fucking with this shit.
At the time, we was like, Yo son, you need to try to get that, because this might be the way out when we ready to be easy.
So when his moms called, he wanted one of us to go as a manager when he went up there. But I said I needed them down here. You can handle it. If things get major, then
The morning he went to NYC, thats when we all got arrested.
We go to the club, its like were celebrities. He had celebrity status in a different way. So when Puff started calling the house, he was like, I aint fucking with this shit.
The next day?
The same day. Big left that morning and we got arrested that afternoon.
Did you get arrested by a few cops or was it a major raid?
It wasnt a raid at the house. What it was was, a friend of mines was dealing with somebody. He mustve got in trouble. So he called and said that he wanted something. So when we went, we made the sale. He got the thing, and then we headed more into Raleigh. So we look out the window and we see one sheriff car which didnt really alarm us, then we see another, then we see another.
Now in North Carolina, its not like New York where you see police cars constantly like that. So when I see more than three or four, you know its not because they just doing routine. You understand what Im saying? When you see four or five, they here for a reason.
So they pulled us over. They made us come out the car. They searched our car. They found a couple things in the car. The car that we had was a rented car. The rental car had our address. They searched there and found more. The whole charge is on my record. I was the only one to do time outta there.
Oh really?
Yeah, they gave me five years for intent to sell cocaine, maintaining a dwelling and maintaining a vehicle, and simple possession. They gave me five years for everything but I only did a year and a half because they got a serious good time law down there. And being that I was wanted in New York, they said, We might as well send him to New York.
So what happened when you got to New York?
I was hollering at Big when I got to New York. He had already did Party and Bullshit and he did some shit with Heavy D. And the Ready To Die record didnt come out. I was in Tower Records when he was having that signing. I was sitting right next to him. Thats the day I met Mark Pittshis managerme and Mark are still cool. And Puffy was there. But I seen Puffy before, so it wasnt no big thing with him.
What did you think seeing your friend succeeding in the rap game?
I was really happy for him, but you wanna know the funny thing? Before he came out with that album, I think Craig Macks album came out. I went to Craig Macks release party or I think it was a party for Easy Mo Bee, the dude who produced the track. And I seen Biggie there, and when he came up to meyou know, I seen the success that Bad Boy was doing, and Im hearing all the workand he was asking me for money. And I just couldnt understand it.
At the time I guess the girls were starting to know who he was. So he wanted to take a girl out, so he asked to borrow $1,000 from me. And I was questioning him. I said, Well where is all the money? I seen you doing things. And he was saying that he was doing promotional tours and right now hes not seeing no money.
So I said, OK, no problem. You know Im hitting him here and there, blah blah blah.
Were you in New York when Pac was shot in Quad Studios?
Yeah I was. [Big and I] had a little discussion on that too. He was basically saying he had nothing to do it. Me and him had a relationship outside of Junior M.A.F.I.A. so our relationship was a little more close, because we actually lived together in the same house.
So you dont believe the allegations about him being involved Pacs shooting in 94?
No, not at all. Not at all. And thats from somebody whos lived with him. We lived in the same house. I know Bigs character. You know, rapping and how you portray an image to relate to the fans is totally different than a persons real personality. When I had a chance to talk to him, he was like, You know I wouldnt do nothing like that.
But by the fact that Biggie was in [Quad] studio at the time, it made [Pac] speculate that he had something to do with it. I met Pac before. Through Big. We was in the Club USA.
When I met Pac I was so amazed at his character from the parts he portrayed. Cause he was a really nice dude. Really genuine, really open. And I seen at that point how easily he would let someone come in, especially when you was introduced by somebody else.
Did you notice any changes in Biggie as he achieved more success?
I was running into him in the Tunnel, and he was mad at me cause I wasnt keeping in contact with him. But he had so many people around him. He had 15, 16 people around him. You gotta understand that even though we was from New York, I met him in North Carolina. So we grew together down there. So it was different because me and him didnt really have no obstacles. We didnt have our girls down there with us, interfering. It was like being in a college dorm setting like, but in a house, and just learning different things about each other.
It was a real big brother relationship. The funny part about it is a lot of rappers talk about the drug situation and going out of state, and none of them was down there. And thats what really bugged me out. None of em never was down there. I dont know how they getting these stories and none of em was ever down there.
So you knew pretty much everyone that was operating down there?
Exactly. So when they was trying to talk about what he did. I was like, Yo, yall dont even know the half.
And I aint gonna lie, when we was down there at first, we was in a situation. I hate to talk about it over the phone, but I like to give realness to let people know that he wasnt no sucker neither. And some of the things he talked about he really did. You know?
We was in the hotel [Laughs], one of the hotels we stayed in. And at the time, you gotta understandeven though I felt bad about the dude running off, I felt like I was obligated to a certain extent. And like I said I was still just getting to know him, still feeling him out. I dont know if I might show my money, he might rob me. I didnt really know.
So he was like, I need some money man. I cant wait. So Im saying, you know, my stuffs out there, we gotta wait. He said to me, Im tired of waiting. Im going down and and and and rob the hotel.
I said, What?
He said, Yeah Im going down there and rob the hotel.
I said, Man listen, you cant go like this. You gotta have a game plan.
He said, Man Im going down there.
Youre laughing as you talk about it.
Lemme tell you something. He had the best sense of humor that Ive ever known from an individual. This dude was hilarious. Nothing was serious to this dude. Everything was a joke to him.
So hes saying, Gimme something so I can go down there and rob them.
I said, Listen man, you crazy?
He said, Man Im gon do this. Either you goin with me or you not.
So I said, Yeah Ill go with you.
So I opened the back door of the hotel, put a garbage can down there. We went in there and Yo, this is the funny part, right: [Laughs] He caught himself jumping over the counterbig as he isand couldnt get over the counter. He didnt swing or hit the man, so the man was real cooperative. But he couldnt get over there. So he had to stop and go all the way around cause he couldnt jump over. But he attempted. So he gets back down, he goes around, and we do what we gotta do.
Now mind you we stayed in the same hotel.
Wow. Are you serious?
Yeah, we stayed in the same hotel. So we go back like were going out the back way. But we go up to our room.
Ten minutes later we come downstairs like nothing happened. So we see the guy, and the police was there and everything. So we was like, Hey what the hell is going on? He said, I dont know, some guys come in here and they robbed me. Did yall see anybody?
Big was like, Damn, aint no protection in here? So we acting like we scared now.
He didnt recognize you?
No, he didnt recognize uswe had hoodies on. I would think he would, but when you scared sometimes you dont really look like that.
What other memories do you have of Christopher Wallace, as opposed to Biggie?
When we used to go shopping, everybody used to get their own shopping cart. Bigs cart was just as big as everybody elses. But the shit he used to getall the Haagen-Dazs, you know what Im saying? His room was the closest to the kitchen. And everybody had a different cabinet. So his cabinet would go the quickest out of everybody.
I liked ice cream but I wasnt the type to eat it so fast. So if we went back to the store, mines would still be in there. So he used to eat my shit thinkin Im not gonna get it because I dont eat it like they did. My ice cream could stay in there two weeks and I might not never even go and touch it or even get it out the freezer or nothing. But he made sure if I did go to touch it, that it would feel like theres ice cream in it. He had the shit stuffed with bread.
So I looked, I say, YoWhat the hell is this shit? I knew exactly who it was, man. I said, Yo Big, what the fuck man? He said, Aw man, I didnt want you to get mad.
I said Yo, you is a greedy fat fuck.
Everybody used to have to put names on their shit because of him, man.
He would eat it all?
He was playing no games.
We used to eat out a lot too. In North Carolina they got Shoneys and Perkins And you know what the funny thing? Remember when he wrote that rhyme [in Big Poppa] about taking the girl to the hotel and eating a T-bone steak, cheese, eggs, and Welchs grape?
We used to go to this place called the Waffle House and they used to have the steak and eggs and all that. And then another thing, we used to go to the House of Pancakes that was located near NC State. And we used to get a carafe of grape juice with the cheese and eggs and the T-bone steak.
We used to go to the House of Pancakes that was located near NC State. And we used to get a carafe of grape juice with the cheese and eggs and the T-bone steak.
Were there other songs of his that you can recognize where the lyrics came from?
I was so into doing what I was doing then, I never looked at what he was writing. Like I said, he was just my man who knew how to rhyme. I didnt see his real talent until he started making records. When you just hear dude rhyme, he nice, but you dont think his talent is so extraordinary because youre not really focused on that. And plus, Im not no producer. Im not no Puff Daddy or none of that. So it dont look as good to me as somebody whos really into that.
I listened to a lot of his rhymes, but I cant remember none of them word for word. But when he was writing them and I was listening to some of the songs, I could relate because I remember those are some of things that we used to run into.
What was you guys dress code at the time?
Ill never forget. This was Bigs favorite thing: the Champion sweatshirt, and you remember the hats where it tied at the top and it was the same color as the sweatshirt? Thats what he was wearing at the time. It looked like one of them knitted hats. But at the top you would tie it. And he used to buy the Champion sweatshirts with them hats. That was his whole get-up.
My getup at that time was Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap, Banana Republic. I did a lot of Polo. He wasnt into that. You have to understand he was a big guy so a lot of stuff wasnt
They didnt make it in his size?
Exactly.
Was Biggie a rapper who hustled, or a hustler who rapped?
I would say both, because he really did the hustling thing. You know what Im saying? He really did that. In all aspects. He did a little bit of drama like I said the thing that happened in the hotel. He wasnt a punk. He was definitely both. He lived and seen most of the life he talked.
What about the whole player persona? Was that really him?
I remember one time I came out there and two girls was out there fighting over him. I had just bought a fish sandwich. The doors open, and the next thing you know two girls is fighting. So hes screaming at me, Zauqael, come on man. I said, I aint trying to put this sandwich down. He had these girls going crazy.
Did he have a hard time getting girls in North Carolina?
I think so. He wasnt into them.
Really?
When we was in North Carolina, I never seen him approach no woman. I think his self-esteem as far as women was concerned wasnt as great as it was with me. I was light-skinned and slim and all that, and Im on some old, fly-guy stuff. He wasnt really like that. And at the time he was still young, you got to remember. He was mature in some aspects, but as far as women he wasnt into that like that.
Did Big make the right decision going into music?
[Exhales] I think I would say he made a good decision because thats something he wanted to do. He was having fun. But he thought he was worth more than he was getting at the time. I stopped at the studio one time, and he didnt say it out direct, but he was saying you had to be careful in this game, and he was working on getting a lawyer and trying to renegotiate his contract at the time. And he was getting ready to do Junior M.A.F.I.A.
So did he make the right choice? If he never left North Carolina, he might be coming from the system like me.
And people might not know his name.
But then again he might have been alive. So who knows?
More from Pigeons & Planes
Sendai (Japan) (AFP) - A British vote to quit the European Union would inflict a "shock" on the global economy, G7 ministers said Saturday, presenting a united front against the prospect of a "Brexit".
Among the most vocal was German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who strongly cautioned against opting to leave the 28-member EU in next month's referendum.
"We were all of the opinion that it would be the wrong decision for the UK," Schaeuble said at the conclusion of two days of talks in northern Japan among Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank chiefs.
"But it's a decision to be taken by the British voters. We're concerned that it could have negative consequences for the European and the world economy."
The club of rich nations also issued a statement that warned a Brexit would only worsen the outlook for an unstable world.
"Uncertainties to the global outlook have increased, while geopolitical conflicts, terrorism, refugee flows, and the shock of a potential UK exit from the European Union also complicate the global economic environment," they said.
As the June 23 referendum on Britain's future draws closer, finance minister George Osborne said his meetings with G7 counterparts underscored the gravity of the in-out decision.
If voters opt to leave, Britain would find it "extremely difficult" to conclude trade deals with European Union countries, he told the BBC.
"If Britain left the EU, and wanted access to the single market... then we would need to pay into the EU budget and we'd have to accept free movement of people but we'd have no say over those policies at all," he said.
"We would have a two-year period to negotiate our exit with 27 other countries, we'd then have to negotiate new arrangements...and at the same time conclude over 50 trade deals with countries that aren't even in Europe."
- 'Remain' camp leading -
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During that extremely difficult process, businesses would have "no certainty" about the future and so would not take on new workers or invest, he said.
"It hits people's incomes, it hits the value of houses, it hits businesses and jobs. People are beginning to understand that."
With just over a month to the vote, the "Remain" camp is on 55 percent and the "Leave" campaign on 45 percent, according to the What UK Thinks website's average of the last six opinion polls.
On a visit to London last month, US President Barack Obama said Britain being in the EU magnified its global influence, and outside the bloc it would go to the "back of the queue" when it came to signing trade deals.
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde has also lent her voice to the "Remain" campaign, warning that quitting the EU would be "pretty bad to very, very bad" for the British economy.
The Treasury in London on Friday released data showing that by 2018, house prices in Britain would fall by at least 10 percent and up to 18 percent due to the "profound economic shock" that would result from a departure.
-- Bloomberg News contributed to this report --
Calvin Harris was involved in a car crash on Friday night in Sherman Oaks, Calif., on his way to the airport for a Las Vegas performance.
Adams transport was involved in a collision this evening on the way to the airport. As a result he will be unable to perform at Omnia tonight. He has been examined by doctors and told to rest for a few days, his team wrote Saturday morning on Facebook.
According to the Los Angeles Times, a Volkswagen Bug crossed the center divider and crashed into a Cadillac SUV carrying Harris around 11 p.m. He suffered a cut to the nose and was rushed to a local hospital and released shortly afterward. TMZ reports that the 16-year-old female driver, who was not wearing a seat belt, was ejected from the car and later treated for a broken pelvis.
Harris, whose real name is Adam Wiles, left the hospital against medical advice, according to TMZ, when a private room wasnt available. The DJ has since returned to his Beverly Hills home.
The musician was set to perform on Saturday night at the OMNIA Nightclub at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. He still has shows scheduled at the club on May 27 and June 3.
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Calvin Harris was involved in a car accident on Friday night and is currently in hospital, according to a statement on his Facebook page. The DJ-producer was on his way to the airport for a show at the Las Vegas nightclub Omnia, which had to be cancelled.
According to TMZ, a Volkswagen Beetle full of teenagers crashed into the Cadillac SUV Harris was riding in. He suffered an injury to his face and had to be rushed to a Los Angeles hospital. A 16-year-old girl who was thrown out of the Volkswagen and broke her hip was also taken to hospital, TMZ's sources report.
A statement on Harris's Facebook page confirms that he's been examined by doctors and is now recovering. Harris's camp has made no further comment. It has not verified several additional details reported by TMZ.
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A transcript from Camille Cosby's February deposition was released on Friday, revealing just how much Camille avoided the press regarding accusations against her husband, Bill Cosby.
Camille's deposition, which took place in Massachusetts, was in connection to a civil suit against Bill brought by several women who allege the entertainer sexually assaulted them.
WATCH: Camille Cosby All Smiles as She Heads to Deposition
In previous depositions, Bill admitted to having extramarital relationships and to obtaining Quaaludes to give to "young women" that he "wanted to have sex with."
According to the newly-released transcript, Camille's counsel pushed back when their client was asked whether Bill's admission to having romantic relationships outside their marriage meant that he deceived her.
"It's hard to see where that goes other than to humiliate her," Cosby's attorney Christopher Tayback stated. "Whether she does not form an opinion that that would have been deceitful is really entirely beside the point, and the only basis is to upset this witness. And, by the way, that was incredibly successful, because she was upset and she is upset."
Camille also refused to answer the question of whether Bill acted with a "lack of integrity" throughout their marriage.
According to the transcript, Camille claimed that she does not read the newspaper, doesn't get much information off the internet and seldom watches television. Camille said she gets information from her husband and it was he who made her aware of ex-Temple University employee Andrea Constand's suit against him.
WATCH: Bill Cosby's Lawyer Speaks Out Following Comedian's Sexual Assault Charge, Says He's 'Not Guilty'
With regard to the complaints against her husband, Camille said that she perused the initial complaint but did not read it "thoroughly." For subsequent documents surrounding the case, Camille said she only looked "through the pages to get the overview."
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Additionally, Camille claimed that she is not aware of her husband drinking, and only has an idea of what Quaaludes are.
Despite the ups and downs in their marriage, Camille also revealed that the couple renewed their marriage vows for their 50th wedding anniversary in 2014.
Bill is scheduled to appear for a second pre-trial hearing on felony sexual assault charges on Tuesday. The charges stem from an alleged encounter with Constand in 2004. Constand claims that the comedian drugged and raped her. Bill denies any wrongdoing.
WATCH: Bill Cosby's Accusers: A Timeline of Alleged Sexual Assault Claims
Bill has refuted all sexual assault accusations against him, which led to Tamara Green, Therese Serignese, Linda Traitz, Louisa Moritz, Barbara Bowman, Joan Tarshis and Angela Leslie to file suit claiming that his denial of such allegations are both false and defamatory.
The comedian is counter-suing the women, claiming they are making false accusations for their own financial gain.
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THR ranked the best moments from the 2016 Cannes Film Festival red carpet, beginning with Julia Roberts kicking her heels off at the Money Monster premiere.
Dance parties seemed to be the norm at this year's festival, with good friends Naomi Watts and Susan Sarandon shaking it on the carpet and the Shia LaBeouf-led cast of Andrea Arnold's American Honey showing off their moves at the film's premiere.
But the top red-carpet moment was stolen by the massive furry giant seen in Maren Ade's German comedy Toni Erdmann, which made a surprise appearance on the Croisette. The film was picked as one of the best of the festival by THR's chief film critic, Todd McCarthy.
See More: Cannes: The Red-Carpet Arrivals
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Owen Gleiberman: Today I saw my final film of the festival, Paul Verhoevens Elle, starring Isabelle Huppert as an outwardly placid and conventional Parisian bourgeois who is secretly an addict of depravity. (In the opening scene, she gets raped and the movie suggests that she half enjoys it.) My central thought, apart from how odd it was to see Verhoeven show up at Cannes with a screw-loose psychodrama thats like Basic Instinct impersonating an art film, is that Elle is entertaining, provocative, but not, in the end, truly convincing. And I think thats the case with a number of films Ive seen here. I didnt buy Personal Shopper, Olivier Assayas drama in which Kristen Stewart may be getting visits from the ghost of her dread brother. It wants to be a supernatural fable for adults, which I respect, but theres not enough there there. I thought the movie should have been called Paranormal Inactivity. And I really didnt buy The Last Face, Sean Penns ponderous folly about triage physicians in Africa whose vague romantic problems always seem far more important than the lives of the African children theyre trying to save.
Peter Debruge: It might sound strange to say that Elle is the film I had been waiting for here at Cannes, considering how it hails from Paul Verhoeven, a filmmaker whose view of sex and violence has previously struck me as being that of a stunted 13-year-old boy, and that it violates one of my cardinal rules of cinema (namely, rape is too sensitive an issue to be depicted carelessly, and theres no excuse for filmmakers to use it as a mere narrative device, ever). But Elle is the first movie of this years festival to take my psyche to a truly dangerous place one that tackles the perverse complexity of modern relationships and only the second (after Nicolas Winding Refns twisted cult of beauty parable The Neon Demon the night before) to leave me on the edge of my seat, in breathless anticipation of where it might go next. Turns out, Elle may as well be the unofficial sequel the world didnt need to Hupperts career-best performance in Michael Hanekes The Piano Teacher, and I dont read that upsetting initial rape as you do at all: I saw no evidence that Hupperts character enjoys the experience. Far from it. But she lives in a culture where reporting the crime does no good, and where shes surrounded by and a participant in relationship-related hypocrisy on all fronts: her cuckolded son, her dishonest ex, the best friend whose husband shes shagging on the side. The fact that there are multiple rape scenes in the film (including virtual ones at the video game company she co-owns) makes a chilling statement on how our culture continues to disrespect women.
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Gleiberman: The Neon Demon and Elle really are a natural-born double bill of kink. Theres no denying that Refns head-trip horror film set in the L.A. fashion world is spellbinding to look at every shot seems to have come out of a different gorgeous bad dream. But the film is such a stylized, overdeliberate pastiche that for me it never acquired the quality of a nightmare. Its more like a Calvin Klein music-video nightmare, and by the end it edges into bloody surrealist kitsch. The two festival films that had me on the edge of my seat are American Honey, which we discussed last time, and which to me fully deserves the Palme dOr a lot of people predict its going to win, and Hell or High Water, a tale of bank-robbing brothers in West Texas that looks like a genre film, only its been given such an artful humane pulse that it lingers in the imagination in a way few crime stories do.
Debruge: I missed Hell or High Water, but liked Bogdan Miricas Dogs, which is set in the Romanian boonies, but may as well be a West Texas thriller, a la Blood Simple. Its my favorite of the three Romanian films in official selection, though Im not counting German director Maren Ades mostly Bucharest-based father-daughter dramedy Toni Erdmann, which is my prediction to win the Palme dOr. Like so many of the films Ive seen here in Cannes, it spoke to something very personal in this case, the fact that Im up to my eyeballs in work here Cannes, to the extent that Ive been all but ignoring my parents needs back home. The movie serves as the sort of intervention I suspect many a dad wishes they could offer kids whove lost sight of lifes real priorities and its frequently hilarious in the process. Hitting even closer to home was Jim Jarmuschs simple, so-much-depends portrait Paterson, about a blue-collar New Jersey bus driver who does put his family first, and even makes time for creative writing on the side. As someone who yearns for the zen-like simplicity Jarmusch captures, that film offered the closest thing to what Paul Schrader calls a transcendental experience at the movies oof, if only his film, the dog that was Dog Eat Dog, had done the same.
Gleiberman: I wish I could share your enthusiasm for Paterson. I did find its ironic version of domestic coziness ironic for Jarmusch, that is quite appealing, and I loved the slice-of-life verse, but wheres the conflict? Adam Drivers poet-prole is in the same place at the very end of the movie that he is at the beginning. He hasnt been on even the tiniest of journeys. And I do wish he talked more! I found the Tehran couple in Asghar Farhadis The Salesman, for all their troubles, to be far more arresting. Even for those who loved A Separation or The Past, this is a Farhadi movie that sneaks up on you. For a while, its a little staid, but its climax has the kick of a mule, and Farhadis theme his whole critique of the male ego, notably in his native Iran has a resonance that speaks volumes.
Debruge: Its been a fascinating Cannes for gender issues across the board, and now that weve had time to evaluate the entire lineup on its own terms, I side with festival topper Thierry Fremaux, who told the P.C. police obsessed with counting the paltry number of female directors in competition (three) to wait until theyd actually seen the films, which like man-made Carol and Blue Is the Warmest Color before them collectively offered what are sure to be the years juiciest distaff-driven stories. I didnt care for Personal Shopper either, but totally understand why Assayas essentially broke out Kristen Stewarts Clouds of Sils Maria character into her own movie. Kleber Mendonca Filhos Aquarius also let me down, but makes magnificent use of Sonia Braga. Two-time Palme winners Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne are so good at getting us to identify with real-world women that we almost take the accomplishment of The Unknown Girl (starring Adele Haenel) for granted, while over in Directors Fortnight, fellow Belgian gets a career-best performance from Berenice Bejo in his tough After Love.
Gleiberman: I agree, Peter: The seismic presence of female sensibility at Cannes this year wasnt about bean-counting the number of women directors. It was about reveling in the raw power of the actresses in American Honey, like Sasha Lane and Riley Keough, who express a bold new freedom (and also a perilous lack of knowledge about what to do with it), and also about how Andrea Arnolds epic existential improv filmmaking takes the youth-culture expose to a whole new level. Having said that, I couldnt let this dialogue finish without a quick nod to my two least favorite films at Cannes this year. Runner-up: Slack Bay, a monstrously twee turn-of-the-century homicide comedy that reveals Bruno Dumont to be a director of such grating misanthropy that you wonder why he even bothers to make films. And, by far the worst movie I saw here: Its Only the End of the World, Xavier Dolans excruciatingly scrappy, incoherent ramble of a family hatefest. The yelling, the ragged monologues that barely connect to each other, the endless close-ups that are like metastasizing selfies, the hero whose refusal to reveal whats on his mind is even more hostile to the audience than it is to his family once it leaves Cannes, this movie should be shown in film schools all over the globe as a quintessential example of how not to do it.
Debruge: A lot has been said about the overall quality of this years Cannes lineup, which has been true, although Ive had my share of allergic reactions one being a movie you loved, Owen: Ken Loachs I, Daniel Blake, which telegraphed where it was headed from the outset, and hit every obvious note along the way. Like you, I found Dolans movie largely insufferable, though I loved his use of music (not nearly as much as Refns or Arnolds, mind you) and found the climactic confrontation nearly worth the ride. Speaking of music choices, the farther I get from Gerard Depardieus embarrassing rap impersonation in Tour de France, the better, whereas in the absence of dialogue, Michael Dudok de Wits inherently understated The Red Turtle uses a lovely score to bring its animated desert-island Adam and Eve story to life.
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Jon Frosch: OK, guys, let's get down to it. Because it's Cannes, there's always this (perhaps unconscious) expectation that most of the films in competition should be world-class works of art. That's unrealistic, though some editions of the festival are more satisfying than others - I recall 2011 and 2013 as particularly strong - and I would say this year's main slate has been about average, don't you think? A lot of the films, even pretty good ones like Maren Ade's crowd-pleasing 162-minute father-daughter comedy Toni Erdmann, felt bloated, indulgent or unpruned. Sieranevada (173 min.), American Honey (162 min.) and the initially batshit-fun but ultimately tedious The Neon Demon (117 min.), to name just a few, are movies that, for me, didn't justify their running times. That's one of the occasionally vexing things about auteur cinema at the Cannes level: Some of these filmmakers are very enamored of their own images.
Still, there were some gems (and I haven't seen Paul Verhoeven's "rape comedy" Elle, which I hear is something to behold): Jim Jarmusch's funny (as in not just droll) and sneakily moving Paterson, starring the great Adam Driver as a poetry-writing New Jersey bus driver; The Salesman, another engrossing, expertly paced moral thriller from Iran's Asghar Farhadi; Olivier Assayas' scary, sexy, unsolvable puzzle Personal Shopper, in which Kristen Stewart continues her post-Twilight streak of magnetic performances; the Dardennes' typically intelligent, beautifully wrought The Unknown Girl, about a young doctor overcome with guilt when a woman she refused to treat turns up dead; and Cristian Mungiu's deftly directed and written Graduation (Bacalaureat), which revolves around a Romanian man who takes "helicopter parenting" to the next level.
David Rooney: I'm with you on the unassuming but potent charms of Paterson, a movie of deceptive surfaces that packs a lot of heart, with such a smart, soulful performance from Driver, who just gets better and better. Likewise Stewart, whom I found so boyishly sexy in the loopy but perversely pleasurable Personal Shopper. There's nobody I'd rather watch communicating with ghosts in a haute couture harness. I would definitely add to the strong crop Jeff Nichols' audaciously restrained Loving, the kind of drama that seems to demand big Oscar-baity speeches, and it's to his credit that he steadfastly refrains, giving the movie a quieter but arguably more authentically emotional charge. The performances of Joel Edgerton and especially Ruth Negga are unimpeachable. The Dardennes' film, like Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake, is not their strongest work but thoughtful and socially engaged in ways that made me grateful to be pulled into their world.
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I agree, too, about the worrying trend of the unjustified epic. Toni Erdmann is a very rewarding movie, with a distinctive take on a father-daughter relationship that felt new to me. But I couldn't help thinking its spell might have been just as bracing with a tighter focus in the opening stretch. American Honey also has a lot of great stuff, though Andrea Arnold's fascination with the milieu she's portraying in her first big-screen U.S. work seems to have overshadowed her interest in character and plot. Even a frequently exhilarating mood piece needs some kind of bone structure.
Paterson
Frosch: Todd, I know you disagree with me and David on Personal Shopper, which you didn't like. But I believe you downright loathed American Honey. It's a maddening and ultimately disappointing film, for sure, with a rather uninteresting heroine and, as David suggested, an approach to story and character that might charitably be described as "cavalier." But I think there's greatness somewhere buried in there - you can see a bit of it in Shia LaBeouf's charismatic con artist, in the gorgeous, tactile cinematography and in the jubilant use of diegetic music (those glorious Dirty South rap-alongs!). What about the movie rubbed you the wrong way in particular?
Todd McCarthy: I did loathe American Honey, which captures youthful energy and abandon for sure but has no story worth talking about and manages the extraordinary feat of being two hours and 42 minutes long and not creating any supporting characters you could even name or discuss. The film may turn some people on with its undeniable energy and audacious, youth-connected attitude, but the tone, pace, mood and nature of the action remain exactly the same all the way through, with no modulation or real character revelation. I liked Arnold's initial film work, up to a point, but her dreadfully misjudged Wuthering Heights and now this reveal the extreme limits of her talent.
I've felt from the third or fourth day that this is a very disappointing Cannes, and was startled by other critics who said they liked a bunch of the films. For me there were only a few top-drawer films, one or two other decent ones and the rest uninspired, overlong and, almost invariably, not their directors' best work. The highlight for me was definitely Paul Verhoeven's Elle, which was last to screen. It's so good to have him back, and the film, a very unusual and provocative portrait of a rape victim, is so elegant, so finely attuned to emotional and sexual nuance. Isabelle Huppert is sexier in this movie than she was 30 years ago. It's probably too outre and "commercial" to win any awards, but it's my favorite film in the festival. Other than that, the best for me was Graduation (Bacalaureat), a pretty much completely achieved work about the rot and systematic corruption of Romanian society as Mungiu sees it, but illustrated in a human, rather than doctrinaire or preachy, way. On its heels was Toni Erdmann, widely noted as a German film with humor but even more striking for its unexpected flavors, moods and spirit. I like Jeff Nichols' Loving just fine; it's commendably low-key and un-self-important, which makes it a rarity among American issue-oriented films. Deborah, what did you like?
Deborah Young: Well, first, about the abundance of overlong films this year: I agree that a lot of directors take carte blanche with their running times when they come to Cannes, knowing the programming staff is very indulgent with its darlings. On the other hand, there's at least one film you mentioned, Jon, Cristi Puiu's Sieranevada, in which I would argue that form follows function and its over-the-top length contributes to the feeling of being trapped at an endless family reunion in a locked room. It doesn't compare to his unforgettable The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, but something kept pulling me back into the bickering clash of forlorn personalities. I guess it has to do with the way Puiu moderates the tempo, varies his use of the camera and directs the actors. There's much to admire, even if I'm not sure the regular filmgoing public will feel the way I did. I'll probably recommend something else to my intimates at home, something like Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden, another long competition movie (145 min.) that I think earns its running time. I admire its formal sophistication, but it's also just such a hoot to watch (even if the "Korean lesbian movie" reputation it had here this year is a bit reductive), as well as beautifully shot and refreshingly unexpected. If there is a dull minute, I don't remember it.
The Handmaiden
The Handmaiden split the critics down the middle, probably because it's so unrepentantly entertaining it doesn't seem like it ought to be in competition. It reminded me why I like big Asian films so much: They don't have the Western prejudice about screenplays needing to have unity of time, place and spirit, and they have no qualms about throwing in the kitchen sink. I think they invented genre contamination.
On a totally unrelated note, an amusing anecdote: Someone just told me about seeing a film here where the person next to him slept soundly through the key scenes - only to wake up at the end and exclaim, "What a marvelous picture!"
Frosch: Ha! Critics falling asleep at festival press screenings (and sometimes snoring, though I won't name names) is definitely a thing, and let's be honest here: We've all done it. Our friends and family at home may think we're sipping champagne on the beach and air-kissing stars, but between jet lag, constant deadlines and very-early-morning movies, the struggle is real! There were a few films this year that I wish I could have slept through, though I hear I dodged the biggest bullet by skipping Sean Penn's The Last Face (or The Last Fart, as a former French colleague of mine referred to it). David, we know what you thought of that one. What were your other competition lows?
Rooney: You have to wonder about the demonic nature of the Cannes programmers putting three of the most challenging (a way kinder word than they deserve) movies so late in the competition, when we're all fried. Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World for me just erased the thrill of his last movie Mommy, which seemed such a breakthrough. The new one was not only hopelessly stagebound, but 90 minutes with that shouty family - who seem connected only by their taste in drag-queeny eye makeup - was a punishing eternity of circuitous dialogue that revealed almost nothing about their dreary dysfunctionality. Neon Demon has about 20 hilarious minutes (All hail Christina Hendricks!), and then becomes turgid and pointless, with nothing fresh to say about the fashion industry's (and Hollywood's) obsession with youth and beauty. Who knew lesbian necrophiliacs and cannibal supermodels could be so boring? Though I did feel a surge of national pride that the last, vicious, eyeball-eating girl standing is an Australian. My peeps! Our esteemed colleague Leslie Felperin nailed it when she called it "Dario Argento's Next Top Model." As for Sean Penn's faux-Malickian love-in-wartime twaddle, The Last Face, the less said the better.
McCarthy: Neon Demon is pretty worthless, but it's impressive compared to Dolan's almost unbearable film. At least two of the French entries also had no business in competition: Nicole Garcia's From the Land of the Moon at least has Marion Cotillard, but is a slow, old-fashioned melodrama, while Alain Guiraudie's Staying Vertical is quite unconvincing and even silly. There's something very wrong and suspicious about the selection of the festival's French entries and has been for some time. But that's a subject that would need to be explored in depth, and with strong knowledge of the power of various production and sales organizations in France. The bottom line is that an inordinate number of the films - and notably the ones of dubious quality - have significant participation by French companies.
Young: I have to say, this hasn't been the worst Cannes for me and almost everything I've seen has been worth watching - though I wish there had been a film that bowled me over and changed my way of looking at movies. Still, I felt a measure of improvement over last year, when Cannes screened a series of lackluster duds. Here we've been seeing not masterpieces but at least films you can recommend to your friends.
Like Jon, one of my favorites was Farhadi's The Salesman, which takes him back to Iran (after shooting The Past in France) with another chilling glimpse into an uncompassionate macho Iranian culture. It's a film that bored me in places, but when you get to that terrifying ending that leaves you shaken, you know you're watching a master filmmaker at work.
The Unknown Girl
Frosch: I think one thing we can all agree on is that this year's competition flaunted a plethora of first-rate performances by women, a very welcome trend given how grim things have gotten back in Hollywood. The jury has an embarrassment of riches to sift through when deciding on their best actress prize. We've already lavished praise on Kristen Stewart and Ruth Negga; many feel Isabelle Huppert and Sonia Braga give career-best turns in Elle and Aquarius; Sandra Huller is a comic and dramatic knockout in Toni Erdmann; and Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti is devastating - and fearlessly unsympathetic - as the victim in The Salesman.
My favorite of all might be rising French star Adele Haenel, superb as the young doctor-turned-detective in the Dardennes' The Unknown Girl. It's such a focused, unsentimental, un-pandering bit of acting (and therefore a longshot for any kind of award, here or elsewhere). Without raising her voice, welling up or setting her chin atremble, Haenel registers every tiny shift in her character's emotional and psychological state. She's also utterly persuasive as a razor-sharp physician - not a Grey's Anatomy-style hotshot shouting orders in medical jargonese between makeout sessions, but a diligent and meticulous woman of science whose conception of her profession gradually expands. No undue snark intended, but few performers can play smart so seamlessly.
Rooney: Even in imperfect or divisive movies there's been some very compelling acting this year. What impressed most was the complete service of the performers to a unifying directorial vision and tone. The work of British standup comic Dave Johns and Hayley Squires in I, Daniel Blake, for example, is in perfect sync with Loach's quietly indignant observation of the invisibility of the marginalized poor and unemployed. But I suspect no performances will stay with me longer than those of Peter Simonischek and Sandra Huller as the conflicted father and daughter in Toni Erdmann. The two characters start out in such seemingly irredeemable extremes of abrasiveness, and then the director pulls back and skillfully contextualizes them by layering in their personal histories and illuminating their environments. Everything ultimately felt part of a collaborative grand master plan between director and actors that yielded unique emotional rewards. Who would ever have guessed that one of the most resonant and thrilling moments in the lineup of a festival famed for cinematic refinement would be an uptight businesswoman belting out a cheesy Whitney Houston power-pop ballad?
CANNES Confirming its status as a Palme dOr frontrunner, 2016 Cannes sensation Toni Erdmann won the International Critics Prize Saturday for best picture in Cannes Competition. Plaudit was awarded by the International Federation of Film Critics (Fipresci).
A stunningly singular third feature from Germanys Maren Ade, per Varietys Guy Lodge, Maren Ade has been one of the best reviewed Cannes Competition movies in the last decade. Lodge, for example, called it a unique study of an estranged but mutually depressive father and daughter which is a humane, hilarious triumph. Last years Fipresci Competition winner, Son of Saul, went on to Oscar glory, snagging an Academy Award in the foreign language category. Sold by The Match Factory, Toni Erdmann is a Komplizen Film production in co-production with Coop99, KNM, Missing Link Films and SWR/WDR/ARTE. Sony Pictures Classics has acquired Toni Erdmann for North and Latin America.
No Country For Old Men as reimagined by the Romanian New Wave, wrote Varietys Peter Debruge, Dogs, from Romanian first-feature director Bogdan Mirica, a crime thriller set in a benighted corner of Romania, won Fiprescis jury vote for best picture in this years Un Certain Regard. Produced by EZ Films, 42 KM Film and Argo Film, Dogs is sold by Bac Films.
Fiprescis third prize, awarded to a title in either Directors Fortnight or Critics Week, was snagged by Raw. A femme campus cannibal gorefest, cast by critics as a confident, stylish feature debut from Frances Julia Ducornau, it features a no-holds-barred perf from on-the-rise actress Garance Marillier as a student vet whose vulnerability is offset by her flesh-eating. Lead-produced by Jean des Forets, and co-produced by Rouge Intl. and FraKas Prods., the Wild Bunch-sold Raw will have been gobbled up by distributors at Cannes.
Xavier Dolans Competition contender, Its Only the End of the World, about a terminally ill gay man, won Cannes Ecumenical Award. Cannes head Thierry Fermaux accepted an award from Fipresci in thanks for it 50 years jury presence at Cannes, and Cannes; support for the international press.
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The top prizes for Competition, including the Palme dOr, are awarded Sunday evening. Un Certain Regard official kudos are announced later today.
Fahime Nafir contributed to this report
INTERNATIONAL CRITICS PRIZES, CANNES 2016
COMPETITION
Toni Erdmann, (Maren Ade, Germany, Austria)
UN CERTAIN REGARD
Dogs, (Bogdan Mirica, Romania, France)
DIRECTORS FORTNIGHT/CRITICS WEEK
Raw (Julia Ducournau, France, Belgium)
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The Directors' Fortnight sidebar awards were given out Friday night, with Wolf and Sheep by Shahrbanoo Sadat taking the top prize.
The film, based in the central Afghanistan village where Sadat grew up, follows a group of young children who work as shepherds.
THR's review described Wolf and Sheep as "an absorbing ethnographic docudrama hybrid, marbled with a curious vein of phantasmagoric storytelling."
The SACD Prize, awarded to a French-language film, went to L'Effet aquatique (The Together Project), directed by Solveig Anspach. The comedy from the late French-Icelandic filmmaker finds a man pretending he can't swim in order to get closer to the lifeguard he loves.
Read More: 'The Together Project' ('L'Effet aquatique'): Cannes Review
Mercenaire, directed by Sacha Wolff, won the Europa Cinemas award, which aims to enhance the promotion, circulation and box-office runs of European award-winning films on the screens of a cinema network stretching across Europe.
The Illy prize for short film went to Chasse Royale, directed by Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret. Plus a special mention was given to Zvir (The Beast), directed by Miroslav Sikavica.
The top prizes for the main selection will be awarded on Sunday night during the closing ceremony at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes.
Saturday Morning Post: The Weekly View from Washington
General Electric isn't waiting for the November election to render a verdict on globalization. With strong protectionist headwinds blowing at home and abroad, the industrial giant is making what CEO Jeff Immelt calls a "bold pivot" to localize operations within its world-spanning footprint. So while the company used to produce locomotives in one only one spot, for example, it now does so at multiple sites, in part to preserve market access and ensure it can weather the anti-trade tide. Immelt described the strategy Friday afternoon in a commencement address to New York University's Stern School of Business, telling graduates they are entering the most volatile and uncertain global economy he's ever seen.
As a political commentary, what's striking about Immelt's address is that he appears to be taking the new rash of protectionist rhetoric at face value. Some very recent history might suggest that's a mistake. Recall that the last time Hillary Clinton ran for president, in 2008, she scrapped with Barack Obama over who'd make the toughest opponent of freer trade. But once in office, they worked together to craft the Trans Pacific Partnership, which Clinton belatedly disowned after she became a candidate again. The difference this season -- as Immelt noted in his speech, without naming names -- is that the presumptive nominees of both parties now agree on the issue. Donald Trump has made his hostility to past trade pacts a keystone of his candidacy, pledging to confront our trading partners and declaring just this week, "Who the hell cares about a trade war?"
Immelt knows Trump is drafting off of a deeper populist animus already convulsing the conservative movement. Last fall, when Congressional Republicans blocked the renewal of the Export-Import Bank, GE blamed the impasse for its decision to move 400 U.S. jobs to France. "Unlike the U.S., most countries are increasing their export financing," Immelt said Friday. "So we will export turbines to Asia and the Middle East, made in France supported by French financing." That flexibility, he suggested, needs to be a corporate hallmark for an era in which American-led global integration is no longer assured.
See original article on Fortune.com
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[bs_bullet_primary] Arizona and Georgia are now in play
Donald Trump may be opening up the Rust Belt and parts of the map to the Republicans with his tough talk on the economy, but his statements on immigration and other controversial topics have also brought traditional Republican strongholds Arizona and Georgia into the swing state category. [bs_link link="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trumps-map-the-downside-223393" source="Politico"]
[bs_bullet_primary] Republicans donors are looking to the Senate
It is no secret that many Republican bigwigs, including a lot of big money donors, aren't big fans of Trump. Rather than sit this election out, though, many of these donors are instead looking to important Senate races for a place to send their checks. [bs_link link="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/us/politics/republican-donors-trump-senate-house.html?ref=politics" source="New York Times"]
[bs_bullet_primary] The DNC has an olive branch for Bernie Sanders
In an attempt to bring Bernie Sanders and his supporters back into the fold, the Democratic National Committee has offered to give the senator seats on a key platform committee at the national convention this summer. Still, the progressive wing led by Sanders could be fighting hard for its policies all summer. [bs_link link="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dnc-to-offer-sanders-a-convention-concession/2016/05/19/99706b54-1df4-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html" source="Washington Post"]
Around the Water Cooler
[bs_bullet_primary] Would Trump's deportation plan work?
There has been a lot of debate about the morality and political efficacy of Donald Trump's proposal to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. But would it even be possible, physically? Maybe not. [bs_link link="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/20/us/politics/donald-trump-immigration.html?_r=0l" source="New York Times"]
[bs_bullet_primary] Is there an Ivanka breaking point?
Ivanka Trump is in many ways everything her father isn't: measured, levelheaded, and likeable. But with all of the times Donald Trump has said negative things about woman and minorities, how much longer will she be able to credibly be part of his campaign? [bs_link link="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/ivanka-versus-the-donald/483542/" source="The Atlantic"]
[bs_bullet_primary] Tom Cotton makes waves on criminal justice
In an era when many on both sides of the aisle want to address criminal justice reform, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton is staking out the other side of the aisle, saying that the United States actually has an "under-incarceration problem." [bs_link link="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/tom-cotton-under-incarceration-223371" source="Politico"]
Talks on direct currency transaction between Ghana and China expected Updated: 2016-05-21 13:52 (Xinhua)
ACCRA - The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Abdul Nasiru Isahaku, has confirmed moves by Ghana and China to trade their national currencies.
Addressing the media on the state of the country's macro-economic conditions, Isahaku said the bank was expecting Chinese officials for preliminary talks on the proposal.
Concerning the prospects, the governor said there was the need for education in the market for the cedi - yuan transactions to become accepted.
According to him, the central bank had tried the renminbi market by importing about $20 million equivalent of renminbi but was not well utilized.
"But we actually used physical cash, dollars to get this renminbi but this structure that is being proposed by China is direct cedi to yuan transaction without going through a third party, almighty dollar.
"So there might be some benefits to that but we haven't had any deep conversations on that," the governor added.
Isahaku also confirmed that the central bank had reviewed its policy on the importation of foreign currencies, allowing mining firms, which constitute one of the largest sources of foreign currency in Ghana, to sell their foreign Exchange (FX) earnings directly to the market.
The central bank, the governor said, could then buy the residual, which is what the market cannot take, "and that goes to add up to our reserves. So it is much more measured".
"That approach is much more measured than we've been doing it now. So we think, together with tight policy stance, fiscal consolidation and the confidence that we are clawing back into the economy will all help in strengthening the economy as we move on to the second half of the year," Nasiru added.
London (AFP) - The Church of Scotland voted Saturday to allow its ministers to be in same-sex marriages, following years of deliberation.
The national church's general assembly in Edinburgh voted to extend a law passed last May that permits its ministers to be in same-sex civil partnerships.
Commissioners in the Kirk, as the church is known in Scotland, voted 339 to 215 to allow ministers to be in same-sex marriages.
"We had a debate which made very clear that we were not interfering with our theological definition of marriage and were not going to the place where ministers or deacons could themselves be conducting same-sex marriages," said the Very Reverend John Chalmers, principal clerk to the general assembly.
"It is an entirely different discussion."
The Kirk retains the traditional view of marriage as being between a man and a woman.
However, individual congregations can "opt out" if they wish to appoint a minister in a same-sex marriage.
"In some ways we crossed the Rubicon last year when it was agreed that Kirk sessions could call someone in a civil partnership and for many people what today was about was simply tidying up and making the law of the church consistent with Scots law," said Chalmers.
The Church of Scotland is Protestant, Presbyterian and has no bishops. Some 1.7 million people, or 32.4 percent of the Scottish population, are members, according to the last census in 2011.
More than 850 commissioners from across Scotland, the rest of Britain, Africa, Asia, North America, Europe, the Middle East and the Caribbean registered to attend the 2016 general assembly.
Colin Macfarlane, director of gay rights charity Stonewall Scotland, said: "Today's result is great news for the Kirk and a progressive move forward.
"Empowering ministers to live their lives with honesty and integrity sends a powerful signal to faith communities and society as a whole."
Miami (AFP) - In one case, a writer claimed a mini Ice Age would befall Earth in 15 years. In another, an op-ed touted global warming as saving countless people from freezing to death.
A new project called Climate Feedback, run by a French scientist living in California, took these and other stories to task, and in the past year has critiqued climate change stories in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, the Telegraph, Forbes magazine, the Wall Street Journal and more.
Interested readers can visit the website ClimateFeedback.org to see what climate scientists thought of the original article.
The site uses web annotation software to enable line-by-line critiques from more than 100 volunteer scientists, pointing out what they see as errors, falsehoods and misrepresentations.
Founder Emmanuel Vincent, 31, said the project is about communication, not activism.
"We see it as a scientific endeavor," said Vincent, who is from the southern French village of Lignan sur Orb, near Montpellier, and works as a project scientist at the University of California, Merced.
"We try to be neutral and explain the science and why some people get it wrong in the media."
Vincent said the site is aimed at the general public, but particularly journalists, editors, and those who influence public opinion.
He is currently raising money to do even more by launching a "Scientific Trust Tracker" that would grade various media on reliability when it comes to climate change stories.
The US space agency, on its NASA Climate Twitter handle, called the project "a win for science and a win for climate reporting."
- Mixed response -
In some cases, the critiques have resulted in corrections, including the Telegraph article that claimed a mini Ice Age was imminent.
But others have not, such as a pair of Forbes articles -- one that featured a listicle of alleged global warming "lies" and another that claimed NASA denied any retreat of polar ice.
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They garnered hundreds of thousands of views online but were never corrected, despite being described as "deeply inaccurate and misleading by the more than 20 scientists who reviewed them," according to ClimateFeedback.org.
Another popular target is Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish author of the 2001 best-seller, "The Skeptical Environmentalist," who frequently writes about the politics and economics of climate change.
Lomborg's opinion articles have been graded "very low" in terms of scientific credibility, and Climate Feedback scientists accuse him of "cherry-picking" data to back up his arguments, mainly that global warming has some benefits -- including the bit about saving people who might have frozen -- and that climate alarmism doesn't lead to effective solutions.
In an interview with AFP, Lomborg said he was "quite shocked" by the site's critiques, and disagreed with their tactics.
"They are having people pretend to talk science but they are really talking politics," he said.
"Because they are saying unless you say something that shows global warming is bad, you are wrong," he added.
Lomborg said he believes he is writing for a sophisticated audience that understands -- as he does -- that climate change is happening and is dangerous.
"The current way we are tackling it is incredibly ineffective," he said.
"Making it about only the negatives -- if you are only allowed to talk about that -- actually makes this a very, very poor way to be informed."
- Under the microscope -
So what is the best way to communicate about climate change?
Denial and skepticism about climate change remain a problem in the United States, where a recent Gallup poll found that one in three people do not blame human activity for global warming, and 57 percent do not see climate change as a serious threat.
Some say the media is to blame for these beliefs.
Meteorologist Eric Holthaus wanted to find a way to cut through the scientific jargon for readers of Rolling Stone in a piece titled "Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares are Already Here."
During the editing process, a climate scientist Holthaus respected said he liked the piece but feared Holthaus may have been to straightforward, too direct, too certain in assertions.
So Holthaus volunteered to have his story put under the microscope by Climate Feedback scientists.
Their review was mixed. They found no errors, but some commented on research he'd failed to mention, or found fault with the lack of links to original science articles.
"Maybe the scientists were reading it as if they were reading a formal journal article, and not necessarily a piece that is written to the same audience that reads music reviews," Holthaus told AFP.
He described the process as a "learning opportunity" that nevertheless raised many questions.
"If they are trying to fact check all of climate journalism, that seems to be a big task and then even you have to ask the question, what is the point of that?"
He also said relying on readers to go to ClimateFeedback.org to check an article that they may have read elsewhere, and expecting it would change their views "seems a little bit idealistic."
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Three Congolese activists, arrested hours before a general strike in February to demand that President Joseph Kabila leave power when his mandate expires this year, were sentenced on Friday to one year in prison, the United Nations said. Bienvenu Matumo and Heritier Kapitene, members of the pro-democracy group Struggle for Change (Lucha), and Victor Tesongo, a member of an opposition party, were convicted of inciting disobedience and spreading false information, said Jose Maria Aranaz, director of the U.N. human rights office in Democratic Republic of Congo. "We are very worried about this instrumentalisation of the judiciary and the continued criminalisation of civil society," Aranaz told Reuters. The three were arrested shortly after attending a meeting with other peaceful pro-democracy activists to prepare for the strike, the campaign group Human Rights Watch said. Dozens of Kabila's critics have been arrested since last year as part of what the United Nations and rights groups say is an escalating crackdown on political dissent ahead of a presidential election scheduled for November. Kabila is ineligible to stand for re-election after serving two elected terms but opponents accuse him of trying to delay the poll to hold onto power. Congo's highest court ruled last week that Kabila could stay in power if elections did not occur by the end of his mandate. The government says it is unlikely to be able to organise the vote on time due to logistical and budgetary constraints. It denies that any of the arrests are politically motivated. On Thursday, a leading opposition presidential candidate, Moise Katumbi, was indicted for allegedly hiring mercenaries in a plot against the state. Katumbi denies the accusation, which he says is meant to derail his presidential bid. (Reporting by Aaron Ross; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
TORONTO (Reuters) - Authorities in Canada's wildfire-ravaged energy heartland have lifted evacuation orders on Suncor Energy Inc and Syncrude oil sites after rain and cold weather helped dampen the flames. Municipal authorities in the oil town of Fort McMurray lifted the mandatory evacuation orders on Suncor's base plant and Syncrude's Mildred Lake facility, as well as nearby camps that house oil workers, late on Friday. Suncor said on Facebook that a limited number of staff will be back at some of its sites on Monday at the earliest and that all will return "in a phased manner over the next few weeks," but it is unclear when it will restart production. A Suncor spokeswoman said on Saturday that the plans posted on Facebook had not changed. Syncrude, majority-owned by Suncor, is still monitoring the situation and does not yet have a timeline for restarting production, although it does have skeleton crews at its sites, a spokesman said. Fort McMurray itself still sits largely empty, after its entire population of nearly 90,000 was evacuated in the northern Alberta fire that has blackened more than 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) since it began earlier this month. The fire also triggered a prolonged shutdown that has cut Canadian oil output by a million barrels a day. The blaze forced the evacuation of Suncor and Syncrude facilities and nearby camps after it jumped a critical firebreak late Monday, moving north of Fort McMurray into oil sand camp areas. Some 8,000 workers were evacuated. Producers have since signaled a gradual increase in operations. The fire has "waned" since Friday, though it remains the same size Saturday morning, said Alberta wildfire information officer Laura Stewart. She said the fire has not had additional impact on oil facilities and is not expected to grow in size over the weekend. The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which oversees Fort McMurray, tweeted the area received 2 mm (0.079 inches) of rain overnight. Some of the evacuees from Fort McMurray may be allowed to return as soon as June 1, if air quality improves and other safety conditions are met. (Reporting by Ethan Lou in Toronto; Editing by Alexander Smith and Chizu Nomiyama)
dea marijuana
In April, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) released a letter to lawmakers saying that it would
reviewmarijuana's classification as a Schedule I drug, considered the "most dangerous class" of substances.
Marijuana was classified as Schedule I in the early 1970s, shortly after the passage of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (CSA).
The CSA forms the backbone of US drug policy. It established the scheduling system, which places legal and illegal drugs with potential for abuse into five categories from Schedule V, the least dangerous, to Schedule I, the most dangerous.
Substances in Schedule I are considered to have "no currently accepted medical use" and are completely prohibited. Drugs in the Schedule II to V classification are considered to all have some amount of medical use and therefore undergo varying amounts of regulation.
The system sounds sensible enough, but a closer look at what chemicals are in each schedule reveal flaws long pointed out by the system's critics:
BI GRAPHICS_Drug Scheduling chart
In the current scheduling system, marijuana is placed in the same "most dangerous" category as heroin, one of the most powerfully addictive and dangerous illegal substances on the planet. Psychedelics like peyote and LSD and the party drug MDMA (ecstasy) round out Schedule I.
Meanwhile, tobacco and alcohol, the two most widely used and deadly substances in the US, are nowhere to be found. Fentanyl, a painkiller approximately 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine and hundreds of times more powerful than heroin, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is in Schedule II.
To many observers, the US's drug scheduling seems arbitrary. To understand why, it's instructive to look back at how the schedules were made.
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The five groups were determined during the approval process of the Controlled Substances Act in 1970. The scheduling of most drugs was determined by Congress during the debate over the bill and was supposedly chosen according to the scientific and medical evidence at the time.
But Kathleen Frydl, a historian at the University of California at Berkeley, has rejected that characterization in her book, "The Drug Wars in America, 1940-1973":
While presented as a scientific evaluation, and offered as a lucid and legible categorization of drugs, in reality Schedule I was used to accommodate and continue the posture toward drugs regulated under the Harrison Narcotic Act (heroin); Schedule II drugs in turn inherited the practices and norms associated with the Drug Control Abuse Amendments of 1965 (amphetamines, barbiturates). ... In this way, the CSA enshrined in law the arbitrary distinction drawn between two groups of drugs. ... The legislation was not a scientifically arbitrated scheme of drugs, but a political framework that consolidated a host of decisions, as well as some failures, to decide how to manage the drug portfolio of the United States.
A marijuana plant is seen at the The Global Marijuana March in Toronto, May 7, 2011. Demonstrators took part in a march to support the legalization of marijuana. REUTERS/Mark Blinch
Once the scheduling was established, the law gave the US Department of Justice and the attorney general the authority to revise the scheduling of drugs already classified or designate scheduling for new drugs, according to a report by the Drug Policy Alliance.
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was given the power to conduct a scientific and medical evaluation of a substance to make a recommendation over whether it should be scheduled which is binding to the Justice Department. But once a substance fell into Justice Department control, it stayed there. When the DEA was created in 1973, the attorney general passed scheduling power on to the agency, which it has held ever since.
Such a system presents a troubling conflict of interest: The law-enforcement agency whose budget depends explicitly on the magnitude of the threat from illegal drugs is in charge of determining the dangerousness of those drugs, rather than a scientific or medical body equipped to evaluate changing research or scientific data.
The DEA has long argued that its scheduling decisions are rooted in science, despite its status as a law-enforcement agency.
"Really it comes down to science. That's the foundation of the argument. We're bound by that scientific and medical evaluation," Russ Baer, staff coordinator in the Office of Congressional and Public Affairs at the DEA, told Scientific American last month.
marijuana California
The history of marijuana's scheduling over the last 30 years, however, would seem to suggest otherwise.
The attorney general under President Richard Nixon, John Mitchell, placed marijuana in Schedule I in 1970 at the recommendation of Assistant Secretary of Health Roger O. Egeberg. In a letter to lawmakers, Egeberg indicated that his recommendation was provisional until studies could determine a proper scheduling.
Around the same time, Nixon created the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, aka the Shafer Commission, to research the substance. The commission's findings, released in 1972, recommended that marijuana be decriminalized and said that the threat had been exaggerated.
"The existing social and legal policy is out of proportion to the individual and social harm engendered by the use of the drug," the report concluded.
The commission's recommendations were ignored by Nixon. In 1994, Nixon aide John Ehrlichman told Harper's Magazine that the criminalization of marijuana and heroin was a thinly veiled attempt to discredit the "anti-war left and black people."
"We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did," Ehrlichman said.
Over the years, the DEA has repeatedly resisted attempts to reschedule or de-schedule marijuana, despite the appeals of advocacy groups and the DEA's own members.
In 1972, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) petitioned the DEA to reclassify marijuana to Schedule II so physicians could prescribe it. While the petition was denied, it started a long legal battle that forced the DEA to start a scientific and medical evaluation of the drug.
In 1986, the administrator of the DEA initiated public hearings on the rescheduling of marijuana. After two years of hearings, the DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young recommended rescheduling marijuana.
"Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care," Young wrote in his ruling.
Eric Holder
DEA administrator John Lawn overruled Young's ruling, citing the testimony of doctors conducting research in the field. By the time the DC Court of Appeals affirmed the DEA's decision in 1994, the petition had taken 22 years to process.
Subsequent petitions to reschedule marijuana have taken nine and seven years, respectively, to process. And they have similarly ended in failure.
In the intervening years, organizations such as the American Medical Association, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Pediatrics have all made recommendations to reschedule marijuana or suggest that marijuana be allowed as medicine for certain patients. The National Academy of Medicine's recommendations were solicited by the White House in 1997 and then summarily ignored.
Since California began allowing medical marijuana in 1996, 22 other states and Washington, DC, have followed suit, permitting the medical use of the drug in some form, a decision in direct opposition to the position of the federal government.
A 2014 Medscape survey of roughly 1,500 doctors found that 56% supported legalizing medical cannabis nationally, with 82% support among responding oncologists.
Even US President Barack Obama's former attorney general has come out in favor of rescheduling.
"I certainly think it ought to be rescheduled," Holder said in a February 2016 interview. "You know, we treat marijuana in the same way we treat heroin now, and that clearly is not appropriate."
Still, many drug-policy advocates are skeptical at the practical effects of rescheduling marijuana in a currently toxic political climate.
Mark Kleiman, a New York University professor specializing in issues involving drugs and criminal policy, wrote in a blog post in 2014 that "rescheduling" marijuana is a "red herring" that would have "zero" practical effect on medical marijuana.
Meanwhile, Bill Piper, the director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, wrote that while "rescheduling would be huge politically," it wouldn't do much for patients or users.
The solution, according to Kleiman, is opening up medical research to the scientific community.
One of the primary reasons that the DEA has rejected rescheduling marijuana is because of a lack of evidence of its medicinal value.
Incidentally, however, one factor of why there isn't enough evidence is that the DEA restricts how much marijuana can go toward research, because of its Schedule I status. Any prospective study must be approved by the HHS, the US Food and Drug Administration, and the DEA, a review process that has existed since only the late 1990s.
Currently, the University of Mississippi is the only institution licensed to cultivate marijuana for research, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
NOW WATCH: This is how the legal marijuana industry is affecting Mexican drug cartels
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It would be difficult to find a more dynamic and well-rounded Democratic political creature than Howard Dean. One year after the infamous Dean Scream, the beloved longtime Vermonter and former medical doctor stepped up as chair of the Democratic Party, a position he would hold from 2005 to 2009. In 2005, Dean also founded Democracy for America, a progressive PAC and advocacy group that is thriving in the 2016 cycle. This is all in addition to his many years in the Vermont legislature, his six consecutive terms as governor of the Green Mountain State, and his service as head of the National Governors Association.
And now that America is on the precipice of what will inevitably be one of the most polarized and unpredictable general elections in recent history, Dean has become a sought-after political pundit, appearing frequently on cable news and quoted often in print media. In the present political climate, Dean has a unique perspective on his fellow Vermonter, Bernie Sanders; on Hillary Clinton, whom Dean has endorsed; and on the shape of the Democratic electorate itself. In fact, if there were an emperor of progressive Democrats, Dean would be the manexcept of course his fellow Vermonter, Sanders, is now that man. Unsurprisingly, Deans feelings about Sanders are complicated.
The two have certainly clashed over the yearsdating back to the early 1990s, when Sanders was mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and one of the founders of the Progressive Coalition, now the Progressive Party. As an unusually viable third party, Vermonts Progressives caused then-Governor Dean more than a few headaches over dozens of policies, like free trade, environmental regulations, and party registration. And then theres health care. In November 1993, Dean slammed then-Representative Sanders for his health-care proposal. According to The Vermont Times, Sanders marched into the Statehouse to unveil his own study of how a Canadian-style single-payer health system would save Vermont $270 million. Sanders Statehouse appearance was a violation of the accepted and unspoken protocol that dictates that members of the Washington delegation stay the hell out of Montpeliers business. After the Statehouse move, Dean went all in and compared Sanders to Ronald Reaganperhaps the only person ever to do so. Dean said Sandersjust like the former Republican presidentwas building expectations for something that was not going to happen. This year, during the battle for Iowa, Dean again bashed Sanderss health-care plan: Would his plan result in the kind of chaos that in fact would undo peoples health care? That is something to be concerned about.
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All of this confirms the sentiments several Democratic insiders expressed to me: Dean and Sanders are not pals.
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***
Im a little worried about the things hes saying now towards the end here, Dean told me in a recent interview. But hes been an incredibly helpful influence on the campaign, because hes really forced the more mainstream politicians to confront what the real problems are. The internal rifts in the Democratic Party have always been substantial of course, but the 2016 race has brought those schisms sharply to the fore. Americans have become more frustrated with government, partisanship, and mainstream candidatesa scenario that on the left has paved the way for an idealistic, anti-establishment, socialist-Democrat like Sanders to emerge. Theres an enormous feeling among Americans that the system is rigged against them, said Dean. I think that was one of the biggest issues before [Sanders] even got in the race, but hes explicated it in a way that nobody else would have.
Still, changing the narrative of the Democratic conversation is one thing, but there are deeper issues of Democratic solidarity in Sanderss hands at the momenta moment that, as far as Dean is concerned, Sanders cannot retreat from if Donald Trump is to be defeated in November. Of course Democrats can unite again, Dean said. But will they? A lot of it depends on what Bernie wants to do. He cant really go back to just being the gadfly With a campaign like the one hes run, hes going to have a lot more reach to him. And if he does go back to being a gadfly, his status will drop precipitously because he wont be viewed a serious player.
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Sanderss surprising rise to national prominence has left Dean floating in the center of an interesting riptide of Democratic currents. As a proud endorser of Clinton, he has accrued no small amount of flack from his fellow liberal Vermonters, some of whom now view him as their states very own turncoat. Its unfortunate that [Dean] and some others are so wedded to establishment politics, explained David Zuckerman, a Progressive state senator who has served in the Vermont House and Senate for 18 years. Theyre unable to see the tide of the times and how Bernie is actually bringing way more people into the fold. Zuckerman said that Sanderss socioeconomic policies could reach middle-of-the-road working-class voters and still energize the left. What surprises me about someone like Howard Dean, and the other Vermont superdelegates, said Zuckerman, is that theyre the ones who should be most aware of Bernies ability to win the general election by getting those voters to the polls.
If Sanders wants to have a movement, hes going to have to hire some people to do it, because its not going to be him that does it.
Still, its understandable that this calculus is not so evident to Democrats. For 40 years in Vermont politics, Sanders was a leftist independent who ran against Democrats for public office. Last fall, MSNBCs Chris Matthews could not persuade Howard Dean to acknowledge that Sanders is now a Democrat, even though he has declared himself one and is seeking the Democratic nomination. (Once, in 1996, Dean even bucked Democrats support of Sanderss Independent congressional run to endorse the Republican nominee instead.) Of course, Deans support of Clinton is in line with most prominent Vermont Democrats, including current Governor Peter Shumlin, Senator Patrick Leahy, and former Governor Madeleine Kunin. Cheer for Bernie, vote for Hillary, Kunin remarked during a speech in Burlington last summer. It was 11 months ago, but the statement sums up what many conflicted, pragmatic Vermont Democrats currently feel about the presidential race.
Adding to the Sanders drama around Dean is that Deans own political organization, Democracy for Americawhose mission is to empower the progressive grassroots to take our democracy back from corporations and the wealthy few and aggressively combat growing income inequalityhas been an outspoken ally of the Sanders campaign. What we did is we asked our members if and who we should endorse in the presidential primary, said Charles Chamberlain, the executive director of DFA. Plus, the group specifically set the threshold for endorsement high, at two-thirds majority. Last December, Sanders met that threshold: 270,000 DFA members voted to endorse Sanders; he won 88 percent of the vote. Barack Obama didnt even win 88 percent, said Chamberlain. In fact, the Democracy for America threshold is so high that, Nobody has ever earned a presidential endorsement from DFA before.
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Whats more, Democracy for America and their Sanders-centric members have been extremely active in the 2016 primary season. In addition to email campaigns, old-fashioned door knocking, and contributing money directly to the Sanders campaignDFA volunteers have participated in more than 90,000 phone-banking shifts, resulting in more than 80 million voter contacts, according to Chamberlain. Thats almost on par with the total number of calls that were made in all of 2012 by President Obamas campaign.
Dean, however, sees the Sanders momentum as something much more nuanced than who should or who shouldnt be president. Dean views the Sanders campaign as the basis for a larger structural changejust not a change Sanders himself will necessarily lead. Bernie is not a creature of movements, Dean said. Hes an iconoclast. Movements, Dean noted, take more than just passion. Hes a very interesting guy, and what Ive said is, if he wants to have a movement, hes going to have to hire some people to do it, because its not going to be him that does it. He can be the spokesperson, and he can motivate, and he can set the issues. But he cant do the nitty-gritty work of fundamental change. Thats tough talk. After all, candidate Sanders is explicitly creating a movement and agitating for fundamentaleven revolutionarychange.
***
Deanthe ultimate party-organization manmay be more suspect of revolutions these days than he was 12 years ago during his own dynamic push for the presidency. Its certainly easy to draw parallels between Deans 2004 campaign and Sanderss run this year. Dean pioneered numerous elements of modern Democratic presidential campaigning: He used small-donor fundraising, grassroots organizing, a motivated corps of young people, and the latest technologyall pillars of Sanderss current success. So its tempting to see Deans obvious discomfort with Sanderss candidacy as cynicism born from experience or even just professional jealousy. But for Dean, its much simpler: He and Sanders were never preaching to the same choir. Bernies ideological place on the spectrum is different than mine, said Dean.
Dean and Sanders each positioned themselves to the left of the Democratic mainstreambut the mainstream itself has shifted further left in the years between the two campaigns. As I look back on it, the way I was running against the Democratic Party was because they were behaving like Republicans, Dean explained. Bernies big picture is fundamentally about the economic system, which I believe hes mostly right aboutnot because hes always been right, but because the economic systems gotten worse and worse in terms of its fairness in the last 15 to 20 years.
Hillary has to be gracious, and Bernie even a little more gracious. And its not in his nature.
And even though many establishment Democrats have lost sleep over the divide that is gripping the Democratic coalition, Dean does not think there is cause for concern. Itll go away by itself, Dean said. No one knows better than Dean how quickly a movement can evaporate, but Dean does think Sanders needs to play a big role in bringing out his voters for Clintonpreferably sooner rather than later. Going forward, a lot will depend on how Sanders reacts to an official Clinton nomination. Nobody wants Donald Trump to be president, Dean said. They dont want right-wing people in the Supreme Court. Hillary has to be gracious, and Bernie even a little more gracious. And its not in his nature.
Dean though is optimistic about Sanderss Millennial voters moving over to Clinton. Dean sees Millennials (he calls them globals) as about 80 percent of Sanderss followers. The first globals will cheerfully switch to Hillary for the most part, Dean said. Theyre not confrontational people; theyre very pragmatic. The remaining 20 percent of Sanderss supporters, however, Dean views as unlikely to be converted to team Clinton. Those are older Sanders voters, who have never been Democrats and dont seem to like Democrats. Theyre sort of sourpusses anyway, he said. And they probably wont switch over, which is fine. We can win with 80 percent of Bernies vote. And yet, his optimism carries a caveat: Sanders will still have to encourage his voters to go for Clinton.
In a statement issued by the campaign, Sanders in fact promised, if not to overtly support Clinton, than at least to ensure a Trump loss: I will do everything in my power to make sure that no Republican gets into the White House this election. Dean said he has faith that Sanders will stay true to his word. What he said, and I actually think hes telling the truth, is that hes going to do everything he can to make sure theres not a right-wing president, Dean said. He doesnt have to bless Hillarys positions, or pretend hes something hes not. Hes never going to do that; he never has. But he does have to be a little tolerant of the fact that theres some difference. Tolerance isnt a word most people would associate with Sanders when it comes to the establishment candidate. And Dean has called on Sanders to tone down the rhetoric, which he called bitter and said could weaken progressives. As Dean told me, when it comes to November, What Bernie does makes a big difference.
So what if the unthinkable happens and Trump becomes the victor this fall? Who the hell knows? Maybe Vermont should just secede. Hell, were more Canadian than most of the other states anyway.
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This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
By Julien Pretot CANNES, France (Reuters) - Some critics stood up and booed at cannibalistic horror movie "The Neon Demon" when it screened at Cannes Film Festival this week, but they weren't its target audience, said Danish director Winding Refn. The 45-year-old, known for his 2011 breakthrough hit "Drive, says he has made a teenager's movie, one that does not belong in the adult world of good taste and morality. "Teenagers love graphic, they love counter-culture ... they love anti-establishment and I made a movie about a 16-year-old girl who probably knows more about what a teenager wants than you and I," he told Reuters in an interview on Saturday. The film tells the story of aspiring model Jesse, played by teenage actor Elle Fanning, arriving in Los Angeles where she quickly become a designer's muse, an object of desire and jealousy. Its scenes of lesbian necrophilia, blood and cannibalism have won it outrage and headlines, helped by the presence of mainstream Hollywood star Keanu Reeves as motel owner Hank. "We didn't make a movie for the parents. We made a movie for the teenagers because they're the ones who are interesting," Rehn said. "The more extreme art is, the more interesting it becomes. We don't make films because we're nice and want to do good or bad for that matter. We want to experience," he added. The Neon Demon, given a 15 rating by the British Board of Film Classification, is due out next month in many markets. (Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
hbo-building-game-of-thrones-s4-top
Major changes are afoot at HBO that go well beyond bringing Bill Simmons and Jon Stewart in to host new shows. Per Variety, the cable giants programming president, Michael Lombardo, will step down after 33 years with the company. Lombardo developed a slew of critical and ratings over the past nine years, including Game of Thrones, Girls, True Blood, Veep, Boardwalk Empire and True Detectives first season (lets pretend season 2 never happened, OK, good).
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But the tide has turned against HBO recently, with several misfires both on air and that have yet to even premiere. From less-than-stellar performances (Vinyl, The Leftovers) to quick hooks (Togetherness) to projects that stumbled badly while in development (Westworld, what was to be David Finchers Utopia) things seem unsteady at best and dire at worst for the longtime leader in the cable world.
There are challengers everywhere, starting with Netflix, which Variety reports came out on top of an April Morgan Stanley survey measuring the preference of consumers regarding the best original content from premium TV or Internet-video subscription services for the first time in six years. Add to that the deluge of options on free cable stations such as AMC and FX and you can see how much pressure HBO is under to continue to deliver.
There are still two years of Game of Thrones left after this one but HBO probably needs to develop something to replace it right now. Two or three somethings, even. Its comedies are still top-shelf as the current seasons of Veep and Silicon Valley will attest. And as far as non-fiction programming goes, its tough to beat shows like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and The Jinx. Its safe to assume that both Simmonss and Stewarts projects will add to that stable in terms of quality.
Time will tell if Lombardos replacement, reportedly series, specials and late-night president Casey Bloys, can restore HBO to being the gold standard of dramatic programming on cable. You can bet the folks who sign the checks are hoping he can, big time.
(via Variety)
Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump poses for a photo after an interview with Reuters in his office in Trump Tower, in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., May 17, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
In an extensive interview with The New York Times, Donald Trump pondered his own success within the Republican Party, musing that he was able to gain support by eschewing the party's obsession with ideology.
Trump suggested that his bombastic personality and non-traditional path to the nomination is what has gotten people to the polls to vote for him in likely record-setting numbers.
He also explained why he thinks Republicans lose so many elections:
One thing Ive seen over the years is that the Democrats stick together, and the Republicans eat their young. Thats why they lose so many elections. You know, a normal, very nice, very likable Republican would be hard pressed to win.
Trump certainly has obliterated his many competitors. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who was thought to be the likeliest Republican nominee before the primary season began, dropped out before winning a single state. Marco Rubio, a Florida senator considered a rising young star within the party, lost his home state to Trump.
The 2016 Democratic primary has certainly tested Trump's theory about Democrats, however. The party has an insurgent candidate of its own in Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has drawn massive crowds at his rallies and drawn significant popular support among younger and more left-leaning voters.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was long expected to be the party's nominee and likely still will be but Sanders has refused to drop out and has pledged to fight until the end of the nomination process.
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Too bad it isnt raining. Olivier Cerf is eager to break the golden rule in classic car motoring.
Usually anything wetter than a lawn sprinkler would prevent me from driving anyone elses 1965 A-code Ford Mustang, but in this case, I cant help but think Olivier is right. His Tampa Bay Automobile Museum has the only prototype four-wheel-drive pony car known to exist. While its likely one of the most valuable original 65 coupes around, demonstrating its full value means driving it when you wouldnt dare take out lesser classic cars.
To understand how this American icon became so unique, we have to start in Britain.
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Harry Ferguson made his fortune in the tractor business, but the innovative engineer also had a vision for safer cars. Along with collaborating partners who were also keen on four-wheel-drive, he decided to prove the technology on the racetrack. With Stirling Moss at the wheel, the Ferguson P99 won the very wet 1961 International Gold Cup at Oulton Park. It was the only Grand Prix race the P99 completed, and the record stands as the only four-wheel-drive victory in F1 history.
Ferguson passed away in 1960, but the victory at the damp Gold Cup showed his technology was still very valuable. So his namesake Ferguson Research carried the torch. In late 1964, while Americans were lining up at their local Ford dealerships to order a Mustang, two (possibly three) coupes where snuck out the back door and sent over to the Ferguson shop in the UK.
The same Ferguson Formula viscous-coupling center differential proven on the racetrack was then installed in a brand new blue coupe. To clear a path for the front driveshaft and differential, the transmission was rotated a few degrees, the oil pan was modified, and a few places on the chassis were strengthened.
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This Mustang was not only a testbed for four-wheel-drive, but also Ferguson Research added Dunlop Maxaret anti-lock brakes adapted from aircraft technology. Four-wheel drive and ABS in a time when we were still using bias-ply tires made this truly a space-age coupe.
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There were few Mustangs in the UK at this time, and so presence of the Ferguson Research cars would attract a crowd (this blue one had 4WD and the second car retained rear-wheel drive for comparison.) But more than just drawing attention in England, there might have been a more strategic reason for utilizing the very American coupe. It has been said that Ferguson sent this blue Mustang back to the USA to show Americans the benefit of four-wheel-drive on one of their own cars.
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The added expense of the Ferguson system, American pride, or likely a little bit of both resulted in no takers from all of the major US manufacturers.
The 4WD Mustang went back to the UK. It was used as a showcase for Ferguson Formula technology. It helped inspire other projects including a few Ford Zephyr police demonstrators and found limited production in the Jenson FF (Ferguson Formula). The Mustang was retired to the Ferguson Family Museum on the Isle of Wight, and remained there until 2007. The Cerf family acquired it in 2009.
Today, the prototype is complete but in well-used condition. Years as a testbed means the body gaps are not concours worthy, but theres no major damage or rust. Basically it just looks like your uncles old Mustang.
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The same goes for the interior, where the blue is aged, but it doesnt feel as old as a half-century. There is now a large Smiths tachometer mounted in the middle. It undoubtedly provided the technicians with invaluable information in the 60s, but today it serves as a little reminder that this American pony has some British blood in its veins.
Buying a car that spent most of its life at an engineering firm seems to have its privileges. The A-code 289 V8 fires up with the kind of quickness that would make owners of much younger Mustangs jealous.
Anyone who has driven a 65 knows is exactly how this one exits a parking lot. The automatic transmission clicks into drive like a ratchet wrench; the steering has a few degrees of play but gets grippy quickly; and the suspension has a few squeaks when it finds a little bump.
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The differential has a 37/63 front/rear power divide so it can retain a rear wheel drive feeling in most situations, but tight corners reveal this cars unique nature. At lower speeds, turning through an intersections require a little more driver attention. A regular Mustang will happily right itself towards the end of a bend. But with the front wheels constantly being powered, this coupe feels a bit like a pickup locked in 44 hi mode. The Ferguson Mustang needs to be guided all the way through the corner or the powered front end might try to dash for the curb.
The real advantage of this system comes in performance driving. With over a third of the power constantly going to the front, you instantly feel the front wheels pulling the rear ones around a sharp corner. The test drive was kept to suburban roads, but it was obvious that it would take a lot to break the rear end loose, if it could be done at all. It seems worth coming back to the Tampa Bay museum to take Olivier up on his offer to test this Mustang on wet roads.
This is a truly unique and valuable car, but it is tough to play the what if game had it reached large-scale production. Would we be telling the rally legend of the 4WD Fords instead of the Ur-Quattro? Would university professors in Vermont be driving 66 Mustangs instead of old Subarus? Would James Caan ever had to have suffered Cathy Bates in Misery?
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The luxury of historical perspective lets us know it was not the right time for the Ferguson Mustang. America was interested in providing more power to the wheels during this era, and not interested in powering more wheels.
Instead, the car best fits in the USA as a prototype in Tampa Bay. It has found a home in a museum that celebrates interesting engineering and one-off automobiles like this one. Plus, theres enough tropical thunderstorms down there to let this traction-happy Mustang prove its worth any time of year.
Photo Credit: Myles Kornblatt, Tampa Bay Automobile Museum (last image)
DuPonts DD Protection Solutions segment increased the total number of Thermo-Man facilities to five with the launch of the first Asian DuPont Thermo-Man testing facility in Singapore. The facility will promote collaboration for the progress of innovative designs and material between DuPont and other manufacturers. The equipment and apparel developed here are aimed at protecting professionals most exposed to flash fires, including firefighters, industrial workers and military personnel in the Asia Pacific region.
One of the most ingenious burn injury evaluation devices, DuPont Thermo-Man, is a life-size mannequin covered with 122 heat sensors. The device can record the protective performance of garments under actual flash fire situations. The exposure of a garment to a flash fire that can increase the temperature to over 1,000 degrees Celsius is imitated in the test.
Originally, the DuPont Thermo-Man was created for the U.S. Government, to protect military personnel from burns. Now with a new testing facility in Singapore, customers based out of the Asia Pacific can access DuPonts services as well as witness the testing on their own. This advanced facility is meant to complement safety research, serving customers needs as well as helping save lives by simulating worst-case scenarios with real-world aspects.
DuPont is a world leading heat and flame protector, with its flame-resistant fiber, DuPont Nomex, and facilities for training and product selection tools. Nomex is used by over 3 million firefighters, workers in the manufacturing, chemical, oil and gas industries, as well as emergency and armed personnel. The Thermo-Man and Nomex are aimed at benefiting garment makers for a number of industries including petrochemical, automotive, petroleum and emergency services among others, providing a crucial safety barricade.
The new facility in Singapore has received support from the countrys Economic Development Board, enabling DuPont deliver on its commitment to bring world-class technology to Singapore, to advance protection techniques and help it serve as a testing hub in the Asia Pacific. Singapores current research facilities and geographical location will complement DuPonts attempt to reach customers in that region faster and resolve the increasing number of complicated problems due to urbanization and industrialization.
Revenues from DuPonts Protection Solutions segment fell 8% year over year to $729 million in first-quarter 2016. Operating earnings rose 5% to $176 million as cost reductions and improved utilization at the Chambers Works plant more than offset unfavorable currency impact and lower volumes. The segment is the companys fourth-largest by revenue and third-largest by earnings.
DuPont currently holds a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
Other well-ranked companies in the chemicals industry include Innophos Holdings Inc IPHS, Innospec Inc. IOSP and Asahi Kasei Corp. AHKSY , all sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
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Today in One Paragraph
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 279 pregnant women in the United States and its territories have tested positive for the Zika virus. Donald Trump now has the NRAs endorsement, and hes reiterating his campaign promise to get rid of all gun-free zones. Lawmakers in Oklahoma moved to impeach President Obama and other administration officials over last weeks transgender-bathroom guidelines. And search parties located debris from the missing EgyptAir flight.
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Zika in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that 279 pregnant women in the United States and its territories have the virus, which is linked to birth defects and other health conditions. The CDC will now report all cases of pregnant women testing positive for the virus, regardless of whether they show symptoms. The news comes amid a funding debate between Congress and the Obama administration, which has asked for nearly $2 billion to combat the virus. (Nora Kelly, The Atlantic)
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The NRA Endorses Trump. Chris Cox, the executive director of the NRAs Institute for Legislative Action, announced that the group would back the presumptive GOP nominee. Now is the time to unite, Cox said at Fridays NRA convention. If your preferred candidate dropped out of the race, its time to get over it. Trump spoke onstage immediately after the endorsement, warning that crooked Hillary wants to abolish the Second Amendment and repeating a campaign promise: Were getting rid of gun-free zones, I can tell you, he said. (John Santucci and Meghan Keneally, ABC News)
Impeach Obama? Oklahoma Republicans filed articles of impeachment against the president, the U.S. attorney general, and the U.S. secretary of education for allegedly violating the Constitution with last weeks recommendations to public schools on accommodating transgender students. The state legislators dont have the legal authority to impeach the president, but they hope the measure will inspire an impeachment process at the federal level. (Heide Brandes, Reuters)
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EgyptAir Debris Found. Greek authorities found luggage, seats, and human remains from the EgyptAir flight that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday. The Airbus A320 was en route from Paris to Cairo carrying 66 passengers when it went down. The cause of the crash remains a mystery, but Egyptian authorities believe terrorism is a more likely cause than technical failure. (Maggie Michael and Paisley Dodds, Associated Press)
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The Weekend in One Paragraph. Hillary Clinton will be fundraising in Washington, D.C., and Florida, and Bernie Sanders will hold a rally in California on Saturday. President Obama flies to Vietnam on Saturday as part of a week-long Asia trip.
Follow stories throughout the day with our new Politics & Policy page. And keep on top of the campaign with our 2016 Distilled election dashboard.
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In a phone conversation, Nathan told me that he had been able to turn his life around thanks to Trumps high energy persona, his refusal to give in or be pushed aroundand his declared abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, or drugs. Ive had an ongoing fight to get off drugs, but this is the most successful Ive ever been, he said. I was given the strength and the resolve of spirit to not buy drugs again. He took a deep breath. Through the Trump campaign. Politicos Ben Wofford on the movement among Millennials to Make Yourself Great Again.
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Facebook Isnt Neutral. The social-media network has recently faced allegations of political bias in its Trending Topics section. Heres how it uses algorithms in subjective decision-making. (Caitlin Dewey, The Washington Post)
Coal Miners as Canaries. Clinton has introduced detailed plans for bringing sustainable jobs to coal-mining communities. Why do voters in states such as West Virginia prefer Trumps largely empty rhetoric? (Andrew McGill, The Atlantic)
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Bernie, Please. Its virtually impossible for the Vermont Democrat to catch up to Clintons delegate lead, but hes still sticking aroundand the style of campaign hes running will do irreparable harm to his party and his message. (Jamelle Bouie, Slate)
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Senate Squad. Republicans in the Senate dropped a new Wes Anderson-style video featuring a round-up of their legislative accomplishments. (Paulina Firozi, The Hill)
We want to hear from you! Were reimagining what The Edge can be, and would love to receive your complaints, compliments, and suggestions. Tell us what youd like to find in your inbox by sending a message to newsletters@theatlantic.com.
-Written by Elaine Godfrey (@elainejgodfrey)
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A life jacket, a shoe, a white handbag, a tattered blue airline blanket: these were among the fragments recovered from the EgyptAir passenger jet that plunged into the Mediterranean on Thursday. Egyptian navy search teams scooped the items out of the sea and released a video of the items on Saturday.
The debris provided a haunting illustration of the fates of the 66 people who were onboard the red-eye flight from Paris to Cairo on Thursday morning. But the shreds of fabric and foam found north of the city of Alexandria offered little indication of what caused the jet, an Airbus A320, to suddenly swerve and then fall 38,000 feet into the sea. In Egypt, relatives mourned their loved ones without their bodies.
The crash of EgyptAir Flight 804 is the second aviation disaster linked to Egypt in the past eight months. It follows the downing of a Russian passenger plane over the Sinai Peninsula in October 2015 that killed 224 people in an act claimed by a branch of the Islamic State group in Egypt. Thursdays crash places further international scrutiny on Egypts government as it wrestles with the economic and political fallout from a series of high-profile incidents that have killed both Egyptians and foreign nationals.
The governments response to this weeks disaster produced at least one contrast with its handling of the Russian plane crash. For months, Egyptian authorities resisted the notion that the Russian plane could have been brought down by a bomb, even as U.S. and Russian officials pointed to terrorism as the cause of the disaster. On Thursday, Egypts Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi said that a terror attack was a more likely cause than a technical failure, even as French officials refused to assign a cause in the early days following the crash.
Egyptian officials may feel that some of the scrutiny on Cairo may be unwarranted, since the plane departed from Paris, which could eventually raise questions about security there as opposed to within Egypt. The majority of the victims were in fact Egyptians. Officials at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
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If this was a terrorist attack, then there was a catastrophic French security failure, said Mokhtar Awad, a research fellow at George Washington University. Whether the Egyptian government likes it or not, in peoples consciousness, Egypt is still involved. The impact to tourism and the economy is still negative.
Following the Russian Metrojet plane crash on Oct. 31, a branch of ISIS based in Sinai claimed responsibility for bringing the plane down. The militants later said they had smuggled a bomb hidden inside a pineapple-soda can. After lethal attacks in Paris and Brussels, the Islamic State group also claimed responsibility within a day following the violence. As of Saturday afternoon, no one had claimed the downing of the Egyptian plane as a terrorist attack.
Tourism is a central pillar of the Egyptian economy, and this weeks crash is likely to deal another blow to the already struggling industry. Following the Metrojet crash, the number of tourists arriving in Egypt plummeted from 909,000 visitors in October 2015 to 347,000 in February 2016. This weeks crash is likely to further undermine those numbers and dampen hopes of a revival of the Egyptian economy still adjusting following years of political unrest and militant attacks.
Other incidents have also raised international concerns about the security situation in Egypt. Last September, Egyptian security forces killed 12 people including eight Mexican tourists after mistaking them for militants in Egypts vast western desert region. In February, the tortured body of an Italian doctoral student was found outside Cairo, raising suspicions from rights groups that he had died at the hands of security agents. The killings underscored ongoing rights abuses under the current government that have included the deaths of more than a thousand people since the military deposed an Islamist government in 2013.
In the Sinai Peninsula, Egypts security forces are waging an ongoing battle with insurgents affiliated with ISIS. An insurgency has been ongoing in Sinai for years, with attacks accelerating in 2013. A wave of deadly bombings and attacks peaked in the summer of 2015 with the assassination of Egypts chief prosecutor in a Cairo car bombing coupled with a major offensive by militants against security forces in north Sinai.
In addition to the anguish and bewilderment about this weeks plane crash, some Egyptians are also feeling a sense of disaster fatigue.
I think there is a feeling in Egypt that we are suffering from too many, one after the other, crises and disasters, of different sorts, said Samer Shehata, a renowned expert on Egyptian politics at the University of Oklahoma. It is almost too much to handle, regardless of ones political position or outlook on the current regime. It is both nationally exhausting and terribly, terribly sad.
* EgyptAir jet sent signals indicating smoke detected
* Signals did not indicate what caused smoke -French agency
* Hunt for plane's "black boxes" continues
* French FM says no cause has been ruled out (Adds comment from air investigators, ISIS statement on Ramadan)
By Tim Hepher and Ahmed Aboulenein
PARIS/CAIRO, May 21 (Reuters) - The EgyptAir jet which crashed in the Mediterranean on Thursday sent a series of warnings indicating that smoke had been detected on board, shortly before it disappeared off radar screens, French investigators said on Saturday.
A spokesman for France's BEA air accident investigation agency said the signals did not indicate what caused the smoke or fire on board the plane, which plunged into the sea with 66 people on board as it was heading from Paris to Cairo.
But they offered the first clues as to what unfolded in the moments before the crash.
One aviation source said that a fire on board would likely have generated multiple warning signals, while a sudden explosion may not have generated any - though officials stress that no scenario, including explosion, is being ruled out.
Egypt said its navy had found human remains, wreckage and the personal belongings of passengers floating in the Mediterranean about 290 km (180 miles) north of Alexandria.
The army published pictures on Saturday on its official Facebook page of the recovered items, which included blue and white debris with EgyptAir markings, seat fabric with designs in the airline's colours, and a yellow lifejacket.
Analysis of the debris and recovery of the plane's twin flight recorders are likely to be key to determining the cause of the crash - the third blow since October to Egypt's travel industry, still reeling from political unrest following the 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak.
A suspected Islamic State bombing brought down a Russian airliner after it took off from Sharm el-Sheikh airport in late October, killing all 224 people on board, and an EgyptAir plane was hijacked in March by a man wearing a fake suicide belt.
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A message purporting to come from Islamic State urged attacks on the United States and Europe in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan beginning in early June. "Ramadan, the month of conquest. Get prepared...so that you make it a month of calamity on the non-believers anywhere," said the message posted on Twitter accounts that usually publish Islamic State statements.
It made no claim of responsibility for the Egyptair crash.
The October crash devastated Egyptian tourism, a main source of foreign exchange for a country of 80 million people, and another similar incident would crush hopes of it recovering.
Egypt's tourism revenue in the first three months of the year plunged by two thirds to $500 million from a year earlier.
HUNT FOR BLACK BOXES
The signals from the plane "do not allow in any way to say what may have caused smoke or fire on board the aircraft", said a spokesman for the French BEA agency, which is assisting an official Egyptian investigation.
He added that the priority now was to find the two flight recorders, known as black boxes, containing cockpit voice recordings and data readings, from the Airbus A320 which vanished from radar early on Thursday.
Egyptian said it was too soon to reach any conclusions about the cause of the crash.
Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi told reporters an additional challenge in the hunt for the black boxes was the depth of the Mediterranean in the area under search. "What I understand is that it is 3,000 (metres)," he said.
That would place the black box locator beacons, which last for 30 days, on the edge of their detectable range from the surface based on the type of acoustic equipment typically used during the first stages of a search, according to a report into the 2009 crash of an Air France jet in the Atlantic.
"No important devices from the plane have been retrieved so far," Fathi said.
The flight data transmitted before the crash was sent through an automatic system called the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which routinely downloads maintenance and fault data to the airline operator.
Aviation Herald, a respected Austria-based website specialising in air accidents, first published a burst of seven messages broadcast over the space of three minutes. These included alarms about smoke in the lavatory as well as the aircraft's avionics area, which sits under the cockpit.
While suggesting a possible fire, the relatively short sequence of data gives no insight into pilot efforts to control the aircraft, nor does it show whether it fell in one piece or disintegrated in mid-air, two aviation safety experts said.
The data fragments also included alarms related to cockpit window heating and two flight control computers, both of which have backups.
"The question now is whether the fire that caused the smoke was the result of an electrical fault - for example a short-circuit caused by damaged wiring - or whether some form of explosive or incendiary device was used - for example by a terrorist - to generate a fire or other damage," aviation safety expert David Learmont said.
The ACARS data suggested the fire had spread quickly and "that might explain the fact that there was no distress call", Learmont wrote in a blog.
"ALL SCENARIOS" POSSIBLE
The aircraft was carrying 56 passengers, including a child and two infants, and 10 crew. They included 30 Egyptian and 15 French nationals, along with citizens of 10 other countries.
Egyptair said officials met family members and told them the process of gathering body parts and information would take time, while DNA testing to identify victims would require weeks.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who met relatives of crash victims in Paris on Saturday, said there were several possible causes. "At this very moment all scenarios are being examined and none is being given greater emphasis," he said.
France sent a plane and navy ship to help the search, centred on an area just south of where the signal from the plane was lost early on Thursday.
EgyptAir Chairman Safwat Moslem said the radius of the search zone was 40 nautical miles, but could be expanded. The radius is equivalent to an area of 5,000 square miles (17,000 square km), the same expanse covered in the initial hunt for the Air France jet in 2009.
The large area reflects the fact that neither jet could be accounted for in the last few minutes of flying time.
A European satellite spotted a 2 km-long oil slick in the Mediterranean, about 40 km (20 nautical miles) southeast of the aircraft's last known position, the European Space Agency said.
(Additional reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris, Victoria Bryan in Berlin and Abdelnasser Aboelfadl and Amina Ismail in Cairo; Writing by Dominic Evans, Tim Hepher; Editing by Ralph Boulton)
Johannesburg (AFP) - Democratic Republic of Congo opposition figure Moise Katumbi, President Joseph Kabila's powerful rival who has been charged with undermining state security, is to spend a second night in hospital in South Africa, an aide said Saturday.
Concerns have been mounting at home and abroad that Kabila, who took power on his father's assassination in 2001, intends to extend his rule despite being constitutionally barred from a third term.
Katumbi was the leading challenger for the country's top job after announcing plans to stand in the presidential election which is due later this year, but he was swiftly hit with a judicial investigation into claims he had hired foreign mercenaries.
He was charged on Thursday with "threatening the internal and external security of the state" but given the go-ahead a day later to leave DR Congo for medical treatment in South Africa.
On Saturday "he had various examinations including an X-ray and blood tests," an aide speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP.
"He's fine. He's making good progress," the aide said, adding that Katumbi, 51, would spend a second night in a Johannesburg hospital, without giving its name.
Katumbi's followers say he was injured during clashes between police and thousands of his supporters in Lubumbashi on May 13, with a source saying he was suffering from "respiratory problems" after being teargassed.
But his detractors claim he is feigning medical problems.
Katumbi has said the legal case against him, which followed the arrest of four of his bodyguards, including an American, was politically motivated, while Human Rights Watch has condemned it as a "targeted action" against a rival to Kabila.
- 'Grotesque lies' -
There are fears that Kabila will delay elections due to be held late this year at the end of his second five-year mandate.
Last week the Constitutional Court ruled he could stay in office beyond 2016 without being re-elected.
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Katumbi's brother Abraham, who was injured after being pelted with stones, is also in Johannesburg, the source said.
Katumbi, a wealthy businessman and former governor of the mineral-rich Katanga province, has denied the allegations against him as "grotesque lies".
He was once an ally of Kabila but broke with him in September after the president announced he would carve up DR Congo's provinces, including Katanga, into smaller entities.
Britain has warned it may seek European Union sanctions over "acts of repression" against the opposition.
Danae Dholakia, Britain's special envoy to Africa's Great Lakes region, said she hoped the allegations against Katumbi were not "an extension of restrictions" on political freedoms in DR Congo.
"There are lots of red flashing lights," she said.
Kabila's supporters want the presidential elections delayed for two to four years on the grounds of alleged logistical and financial difficulties.
The country has been in crisis since Kabila's re-election in late 2011 in polls marred by irregularities and massive fraud.
Last month police in the southeast of the country fired tear gas to break up a demonstration by 5,000 people in the latest unrest triggered by fears that Kabila plans to extend his rule.
The fierce fight between Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman and board member and possible heir-apparent Shari Redstone spiraled to new heights on Saturday, as the conglomerate issued a statement accusing Redstone of isolating her father in order to take control of the company.
The latest salvo came in the form of a statement from Viacom, which said that Sumner Redstone, the 92-year-old media baron who controls Viacom and CBS Corp., had been shut away and subjected to undue influence. The picture is quite clear, Mr. Redstone is being manipulated and used by his daughter in an attempt to accomplish her long-held goal, which Mr. Redstone has always opposed, of gaining control of National Amusements and Viacom, the statement read, in part.
Shari Redstone responded Saturday afternoon with a one-sentence statement from her spokeswoman: I fully support my fathers decisions and respect his authority to make them.
The latest fighting in the battle for control of Redstones empire erupted Friday afternoon when word surfaced that Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman and longtime Viacom board member George Abrams had been removed by Sumner Redstone as trustees of the Redstone Family Trust that will oversee his holdings in Viacom and CBS Corp. after the moguls death. That move was a shock given that Dauman and Abrams have been friends and confidants of the elder Redstone for decades.
Viacom countered Shari Redstones remark with two new statements: one from Abrams, who emphasized his 50-year relationship with the elder Redstone and called his removal unsettling and sad; and one from Viacom board member, Frederic Salerno, who is Viacoms lead independent director.
Viacoms lengthy statement accusing Shari of manipulating her father came just hours after an attorney, Michael Tu, representing the 92-year-old Redstone that said he had ejected Dauman from the trust in part because of mounting concerns about the performance of Viacom.
Sumner Redstone took decisive and lawful action today which he firmly believes is in the best interests of Viacom Inc. and its stockholders when he removed Philippe Dauman and George Abrams as trustees of his Trust and directors of National Amusements, Inc. The missive from Tu added: Mr. Redstone acted after he expressed his concerns regarding Viacoms performance to Messrs. Abrams and Dauman, both Viacom directors, and received no response from them.
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The pointed nature of the statement from Tu has raised speculation that Sumner Redstone could move to oust Dauman from his CEO perch. That process would take more time as the decision would have to be approved by the Viacom board of directors.
The majority of that 11-member panel has repeatedly demonstrated its loyalty to Dauman, most recently in February when it voted 10-1 to have Dauman replaced Sumner Redstone as chairman, amid pressure from investors because of reports about Redstones mental and physical condition. The sole dissenting vote was cast by Shari Redstone, who is vice chairman of the boards of Viacom and CBS.
Individuals close to Dauman questioned whether the harsh statements coming from Redstone reflected his true feelings. They noted that during multiple appearances when Redstone was still speaking publicly, he defended the Viacom CEO.
The actions taken yesterday in Sumner Redstones name are completely inconsistent with his long expressed wishes and intent and extremely disruptive and damaging to Viacom and all its shareholders, Viacom said in its Saturday statement, which was attributed to a spokesman, not Dauman.
There has been no communication from Sumner Redstone, the statement continued. In fact, during an in-depth strategy session of Viacoms Board Tuesday evening and all day Wednesday, not a sound was heard from Sumner, who was connected by phone. Shari Redstone, also connected by phone, did not raise a single concern during the Board session on any topic.
The statement also suggested Shari Redstone was behind the statement from Tu, calling him a lawyer previously unknown until this week to anyone associated with Sumner other than Shari Redstone, and adding: It is clear that Shari Redstone has isolated her father and put his residence on lockdown, which provides clear evidence of her exercise of undue influence.
The letter said that members of the Viacom board and the lead independent director have attempted to meet with Redstone and been denied access. It concluded with the accusation that Shari Redstone was guiding the actions, to further her goal of taking over her fathers company.
Abrams statement emphasized the depth of his business and personal ties to Sumner Redstone.
I worked closely with him on the building of his theater chain, the acquisitions of Viacom, Paramount and CBS and countless business matters relating to all three of those entities as well as National Amusements. I have also handled many personal matters for Sumner. Above all, he is my friend, Abrams said. The Sumner Redstone I knew would never have taken this action. What is going on now is unsettling and sad.
Salerno, who is also a board member of CBS Corp., said he and other board members have been denied face-to-face meetings with Sumner Redstone. Salerno said that the Viacom boards vote on Wednesday to stop paying Redstone his annual salary came out of concerns about his complete lack of communication in recent months.
We took this action based upon his recent complete lack of communication with the Viacom Board and management team and his silence during recent board meetings, as well as recent public disclosures raising concerns about his health, Salerno said. In addition, despite numerous requests, I, along with the Chair of Viacoms Governance and Nominating Committee, have been denied access to Sumner for a face-to-face meeting.
Saturdays sharp accusations against Shari Redstone come after a whirlwind 24 hours in the Redstone saga that has been as melodramatic and tawdry as any TV soap opera during the past nine months.
First, on Friday Fortune broke the news that an attorney Tu had faxed Dauman and director George Abrams to tell them they were ousted from the board of National Amusements, the Redstone entity that controls Viacom and CBS. Then a spokesman for Dauman said he could not be ousted from the National Amusements Trust, because the 92-year-old Redstone lacks the [mental] capacity to have taken these steps.
Redstones attorney then sharply rebutted that claim with a statement of his own. The public statement made on Mr. Daumans behalf attacking Mr. Redstones capacity is disappointing and incorrect, as reflected by Mr. Daumans own testimony given under oath less than six months ago that Mr. Redstone is as engaged, attentive and as opinionated as ever,' it said. That is exactly the Sumner Redstone who made these decisions today.
Indeed, the rapidly escalating corporate drama marked a sharp reversal of the Redstone-Dauman relationship. While Redstone has had famously contentious dealings with daughter Shari and other members of his family, he has for decades treated Dauman almost like a second son. When the Viacom CEO came under frequent attack for the conglomerates flagging performance and stagnant stock price, Redstone rose to his defense, time and again.
Dauman, in turn, backed his boss and mentor. He gave a deposition in a recently completed court hearing into Redstones mental capacity, saying that his Redstone had difficulty communicating only because of a speech impediment. Daumans statements, under oath, made it sound as if the frail Redstone had barely lost a step in terms of mental acuity. Testimony from an expert witness suggested, however, that the 92-year-old media titan had trouble identifying colors and answering other basic questions. And when Redstone gave his own deposition, he was unable to provide a response when asked how his family had come to change its name to Redstone.
That testimony came in the trial pressed by Redstones long-time companion and ex-girlfriend, Manuela Herzer. She asked a judge to declare Redstone mentally incapacitated and to reinstate her as his health care agent empowered to make decisions should Redstone ever be declared mentally unfit. Judge David J. Cowan rejected Herzers gambit, saying that Redstone had made clear in his 18-minute deposition that he wanted Herzer out of his life. But Cowan made no finding about Redstones mental capacity.
Though the magnate won that temporary victory, it did nothing to stem speculation about his end-of-life challenges and about whether others might be guiding decisions coming out of his Beverly Park mansion. Dauman certainly tried to paint that picture in the Friday statement. He called the action removing him and Abrams from the National Amusements trust a shameful effort by Shari Redstone to seize control by unlawfully using her ailing father Sumner Redstones name and signature.
Here is Frederic Salernos full statement:
In March, the Board of Viacom elected me to serve as Lead Independent Director to ensure a continuation of good governance at Viacom, particularly as a result of Sumner Redstones diminished role.
The majority of the full Board and every Board Committee is comprised of independent directors and we are completely focused on ensuring that the interests of all shareholders are considered and fully protected. The Board has taken a number of steps including, most recently, eliminating Mr. Redstones compensation. We took this action based upon his recent complete lack of communication with the Viacom Board and management team and his silence during recent board meetings, as well as recent public disclosures raising concerns about his health. In addition, despite numerous requests, I, along with the Chair of Viacoms Governance and Nominating Committee, have been denied access to Sumner for a face-to-face meeting.
The Independent Directors are fully engaged and will carefully monitor actions at National Amusements, which is the controlling shareholder of Viacom. We are also continuing to work closely with the management team of Viacom and we fully endorse the strategy for the future of Viacom that the team presented at the Boards day-long strategy meeting this week.
We have great respect for Sumner and what he has accomplished. Our overarching duty is to represent the interests of all shareholders in the same spirit that Sumner Redstone always led our Board to do. We will continue to fulfill that role and uphold our fiduciary responsibility to ensure that Viacoms interests are protected in concert with good governance practices.
Related stories
Sumner Redstone Ousts Philippe Dauman From Viacom-CBS Trust
Viacom Eliminates Sumner Redstone's $2 Million Salary
Sumner Redstone's Lawyers Say They'll Sue to Recover $150 Million From His Exes
Female pilots who served in the military during World War II can officially have their ashes placed at Arlington National Cemetery, per legislation signed by President Barack Obama on Friday.
Women Airforce Service Pilots, known as WASPs, were inurned at Arlington between 2002 and 2015, at which time then-Army Secretary John McHugh ruled that the practice violated federal law, the Wall Street Journal reported. The family of the late 2nd Lt. Elaine Danforth Harmon, who was a pilot during the war, has been fighting since then to officially change the policy, according to the Washington Post.
Today we have righted a terrible wrong, Maryland Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski said in a statement, reported by the Post. If they were good enough to fly for our country, risk their lives and earn the Congressional Gold Medal, they should be good enough for Arlington.
A unit of female pilots was formed in 1942, when the Army Air Forces were understaffed. A total of 1,074 women graduated from training, and 38 women died during their service. When the unit disbanded in 1944, the WASPs were not classified as veterans, the Journal reported. While WASPs have since been recognized and honored for their service in different ways, they were never officially given access to Arlington.
The new law gives WASPs full military honors and allows their ashes to be placed in the cemetery. Eligibility for in-ground burial at Arlington is only given to a select number of veterans.
Fred Bradley, a former Kentucky lawmaker and longtime thoroughbred breeder whose stakes winners included champion female sprinter Groupie Doll, has died. He was 85.
Bradley's son, thoroughbred trainer William ''Buff'' Bradley, said his father died Friday in Wilmore, Kentucky, following a long illness.
Bradley's multifaceted career included a successful law practice and a long involvement with the military, where he rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Air National Guard.
Bradley's Indian Ridge Farm in central Kentucky produced such standout thoroughbreds as two-time Eclipse Award winner Groupie Doll and Brass Hat, a Grade I winner.
''That was his passion - working on his farm and raising thoroughbred race horses and racing them,'' his son said Saturday.
Groupie Doll had the most distinguished career of Bradley's horses, winning the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint in 2012 and 2013.
She was an Eclipse Award winner both years as the champion female sprinter.
Brass Hat, a gelding, won multiple stakes races including the Grade I Donn Handicap in 2006.
Bradley's career as a horse owner and breeder spanned several decades.
His love of horses included his entries in much less-lucrative races, said his son, who is based at Churchill Downs much of the year and also races in Florida.
''If they performed to the best of their ability and that's what they were, he was proud of them,'' his son said.
Bradley's tenure as a member of the Kentucky Senate spanned much of the 1980s and 1990s and included a leadership stint as Senate Democratic whip. Known for his booming baritone voice, Bradley's district included Franklin and surrounding counties.
''The reason that he was very well liked is that he always kept in contact with his constituents,'' Buff Bradley said. ''He returned every phone call.''
Fred Bradley was raised in Providence in western Kentucky.
His funeral will be held Wednesday at Church of the Ascension in Frankfort.
Paris (AFP) - Four men were charged with attempted murder Saturday over the torching of a police car while two officers were inside during a protest in Paris this week, prosecutors said.
The incident, which was caught on camera and widely shared on social media, occurred on Wednesday on the sidelines of a rare demonstration by French police against "anti-cop hatred".
The footage shows a small group of masked protesters hammering the police vehicle with iron bars, smashing its windows before hurling in an explosive device that quickly fills the car with smoke and engulfs it in flames.
The policeman and policewoman inside were able to escape unharmed.
The four suspects, who are members of an anti-fascist movement and whose ages range from 18 to 32 years, were arrested Thursday.
They are also accused of carrying out an armed attack against public officers, destroying public property and of participating in an armed group.
"Investigations are continuing to determine their exact roles in the incident, and whether any other possible suspects should be arrested," the prosecutor's office in Paris said after the charges were read out by an investigating judge.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls earlier this week strongly condemned the police car attack, saying the punishment "must be harsh".
Violence has marred a number of protests across France in recent weeks -- often against controversial labour reforms proposed by the deeply unpopular government of President Francois Hollande.
Much of the unrest has been blamed on small groups of troublemakers who appear bent on targeting the security services.
Over the past two months, some 350 members of the security forces have been injured during protests against the proposed labour reforms, which were forced through the lower house of parliament last week without a vote.
By Ahmed Rasheed and Kareem Raheem BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least four anti-government protesters were killed and 90 injured when security forces ejected them from Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, hospital sources said on Saturday. Iraqi security forces used live ammunition, rubber bullets, water cannons and tear gas on Friday to dislodge the demonstrators from the central district which houses government buildings, parliament and many foreign embassies. The toll, compiled from four hospitals where casualties were taken and Baghdad's central morgue, accounts only for gunshot wounds and does not include cases of suffocation caused by tear gas. Civilians have breached the Green Zone twice in three weeks, raising questions about the government's ability to secure the capital which has also seen a spike in bombings this month claimed by Islamic State. Protesters on Friday included supporters of powerful Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and people from other groups upset with the government's failure to approve anti-corruption reforms and maintain security in the city. Jaafar al-Moussawi, deputy leader of Sadr's political movement, condemned the government for using what he called "excessive force". "Using live bullets against peaceful protesters is completely unjustified and stark evidence that a supposedly legitimate government has turned into an oppressive government," he said in a statement on Saturday. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has condemned the Green Zone breach and warned against chaos and strife as government forces seek to keep up momentum against Islamist militants. The United Nations expressed "deep concern" on Saturday about the incident and warned it could hamper efforts to defeat Islamic State, the ultra-hardline Sunni group that controls large swathes of territory in northern and western provinces. "Only the enemies of Iraq, Daesh at the forefront, benefit from chaos," U.N. Special Representative for Iraq, Jan Kubis, said in a statement, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. (Additonal reporting by Stephen Kalin.; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Stephen Powell)
By Tim Hepher
PARIS, May 21 (Reuters) - An EgyptAir jet sent a series of signals indicating that smoke had been detected on board before it crashed into the Mediterranean on Thursday, France's air accident investigation agency said on Saturday.
A spokesman for the BEA agency said the signals did not indicate what caused the smoke or fire on board the plane, which plunged into the sea with 66 people on board as it was heading from Paris to Cairo.
But they offered the first clues as to what unfolded in the moments before the crash. One aviation source said that a fire on board would likely have generated multiple warning signals, while a sudden explosion may not have generated any.
Egypt said its navy had found human remains, wreckage and the personal belongings of passengers floating in the Mediterranean about 290 km (180 miles) north of Alexandria.
The army spokesman published pictures on Saturday on its official Facebook page of the recovered items, which included blue debris with EgyptAir markings, seat fabric with designs in the airline's colours, and a yellow lifejacket.
Analysis of the debris is likely to be key to determining what happened to the flight.
It was the third blow since October to Egypt's travel industry, still reeling from political unrest following the 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak.
A suspected Islamic State bombing brought down a Russian airliner after it took off from Sharm el-Sheikh airport in late October, killing all 224 people on board, and an EgyptAir plane was hijacked in March by a man wearing a fake suicide belt.
"These messages do not allow in any way to say what may have caused smoke or fire on board the aircraft," said a spokesman for the French BEA agency, which is assisting an official Egyptian investigation.
He added that the priority now was to find the two flight recorders, containing cockpit voice recordings and data readings, from the Airbus A320 which vanished from radar early on Thursday.
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The flight data was sent through an automatic system called the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which routinely downloads maintenance and fault data to the airline operating the aircraft.
Aviation website Aviation Herald published a burst of seven messages broadcast over the space of three minutes. These included alarms about smoke in the lavatory as well as the aircraft's avionics area, which sits under the cockpit.
While suggesting a possible fire, the relatively short sequence of data gives no insight into pilot efforts to control the aircraft, nor does it show whether it fell in one piece or disintegrated in mid-air, two aviation safety experts said.
The aircraft was carrying 56 passengers, including a child and two infants, and 10 crew, EgyptAir said on Thursday. They included 30 Egyptian and 15 French nationals, along with citizens of 10 other countries.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault was due to meet relatives of passengers in Paris on Saturday.
Egypt's navy, with help from French and other vessels, was searching an area north of Alexandria, just south of where the signal from the plane was lost early on Thursday.
EgyptAir Chairman Safwat Moslem told state television that the radius of the search zone was 40 miles, giving an area of 5,000 square miles, but said it may be expanded.
A European satellite spotted a 2 km-long oil slick in the Mediterranean, about 40 km southeast of the aircraft's last known position, the European Space Agency said.
(Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
Sendai (Japan) (AFP) - G7 finance ministers on Saturday voiced concern about the sputtering global economy as they looked for a plan to stoke growth, while a currency policy clash overshadowed their meetings.
The club of rich nations also pledged to tackle tax avoidance in the wake of the Panama Papers investigation and beef up efforts to disrupt the murky world of terrorism financing.
Two days of talks at a hot spring resort in northern Japan focused on how to stoke global growth which they said was under threat from myriad challenges, including terrorism, refugee flows and the threat of Britain's exit from the European Union.
The ministers were unanimous in opposing the prospect of a "Brexit", saying it would inflict a "shock" on the global economy that would only worsen the outlook at a time of geopolitical instability.
Host Japan was keen to get its G7 counterparts on board with the view that fiscal stimulus is the best way to kickstart global growth, but Germany and Britain were cool on the idea.
On Saturday, the group suggested a go-your-own-way approach.
"(We) discussed how to employ a balanced policy mix -- monetary, fiscal, and structural -- taking into account country-specific circumstances," they said in concluding remarks.
Japan's determination to tame the resurgent yen was another sensitive topic, after its repeated threats to intervene in forex markets put it on a collision course with its G7 counterparts.
The yen has seen several steep jumps since the start of the year, soaring more than 10 percent against the greenback at one stage, in a blow to Japan's exporters just as the economy slowed.
US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew kept up the pressure Saturday with a fresh warning, reminding Japan that previous commitments to "refrain from competitive devaluation and communicate closely have helped to contribute to confidence in the global economy".
- Yen clash -
In a statement which presented a clear rebuff to Japan, the group "underscored the importance of all countries refraining from competitive devaluation".
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In response, Japanese finance minister Taro Aso said Saturday that he told his US counterpart Tokyo was merely reacting to "one-sided, abrupt, and speculative moves" in forex trading.
A softer currency has been one of the pillars of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's bid to revitalise the worlds number-three economy since he swept to power in late 2012.
Japan last intervened in currency markets around November 2011, when it tried to stem the yen's rise to keep an economic recovery on track after the quake-tsunami disaster earlier that year.
The G7 finance chiefs also vowed to escalate efforts to disrupt the financing of global terrorist networks.
An action plan that their leaders are to sign at a summit in Japan next week set out measures to step up intelligence-sharing, freeze assets and tighten reporting rules on international transfers.
"Countering violent extremism and bringing perpetrators to justice remain top priorities for the whole international community," said the group which takes in the US, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Britain.
"The G7 commits to working together to strengthen the global fight against terrorist financing," they added.
As the vote on Britain's future in the EU draws closer, finance minister George Osborne said his meetings with G7 counterparts underscored the gravity of the in-out decision.
If voters opt to quit the bloc in a June 23 referendum, Britain would find it "extremely difficult" to conclude trade deals with EU nations while also trying to reach new agreements with non-EU countries, he told the BBC.
During that difficult process, businesses would have "no certainty" about the future and would not take on new workers or invest, he said.
"It hits people's incomes, it hits the value of houses, it hits businesses and jobs. People are beginning to understand that," Osborne said, winning firm backing from German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.
"We were all of the opinion that it would be the wrong decision for the UK," Schaeuble said Saturday.
"But it's a decision to be taken by the British voters. We're concerned that it could have negative consequences for the European and the world economy."
From Seventeen
Prom is a night many high school students look forward to all year! Whether you plan on hanging out with your favorite gal pals all night or you have a cute date, prom is the perfect excuse to get dressed up, put on fancy makeup, and have the best night of your high school experience. A dress, shoes and accessories can get pricey.
Save some money by doing your own makeup for your big night by following these simple steps.
1) After priming your eyelids, apply a light sparkly champagne eyeshadow color to the entire eyelid.
2) Apply a darker matte brown shadow to the outer half of your eye creating a sideways "V" shape.
3) Using a medium brown shade, blend the crease together with the darker outer shade that you already applied.
4) Once all of the shadows are evenly blended, you are ready to apply eyeliner. For a more intense look that will last all night, use gel eyeliner to create the perfect wing.
5) Coat your eyelashes with 1-2 layers of your favorite waterproof mascara. For a fuller lash effect, be sure to use an eyelash primer.
6) Apply your go-to foundation and set your T-zone (forehead, nose, chin) with a loose powder to prevent shine. Use your favorite blush shade on your cheeks and don't be afraid to put a little extra on because the camera flash tends to wash you out.
7) Finish the look off with a makeup finishing spray to make sure your products stay in place all night long.
As if there were any question as to which presidential candidate it would back, the National Rifle Association announced Friday afternoon at the groups annual convention that its endorsing Donald Trump. Now is the time to unite, said the executive director of the groups lobbying arm, Chris Cox, shortly before Trump took the mic. If your preferred candidate dropped out of the race, its time to get over it.
Trumps allegiance to gun rights has been spotty. He once expressed strong support for an assault-weapons ban and criticized politicians who walk the NRA line. Of course, hes changed his mind since he got into politics, and thats enough for the NRA. The group, as divisive as any in American politics, was never going to endorse a Democrat like Hillary Clinton, who unambiguously supports gun control. Bernie Sanders, whom Clinton has targeted for voting against background checks and other gun-control measures, is nevertheless strongly opposed by the NRA.
The Kentucky NRA meeting was an opportunity for Trump to reassure wary conservatives worried about his record, as NBC put it Friday. In his speech, Trump repeated lines hes honed over the course of the campaign. He invoked the good guy with a gun trope, arguing that an armed citizenry could have stopped the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, California, and Paris. The latter might not have happened if the attackers knew people were armed, Trump said. The carnage would not have been the same by any stretch of the imagination. In a bizarre coincidence, just as Trump wrapped up his speech, a shooting was reported outside the White House.
Recommended: The Narcissist
Trump did not sound defensive as he asserted his bona fides; he spoke as though he has always expressed full support for gun rights. Back in February, Ted Cruz knocked Trump and his fellow senator, Marco Rubio, for previously support[ing] banning firearms, which the Trump campaign denied. Cruz would probably be pained to hear some of the praise Trump got Friday. Wayne LaPierre, the NRAs executive vice president, said Trump offers a very different White House and a far more hopeful nation.
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The Democratic candidates, on the other hand, would loathe to get the NRAs backing. Clinton in particular has made shootings like the one at Sandy Hook elementary school central to her gun-control message and has campaigned with mothers who lost their children to gun violence.
Clinton seemed to be on speakers minds Friday. Cox called her corrupt and hypocritical, as she herself is protected by a security detail. Trump, too, offered some of his typical criticism. Crooked Hillary Clinton is the most anti-gun, anti-Second-Amendment candidate ever to run for office, he said.
Read more from The Atlantic:
This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid says Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders wont win their partys nod, but that doesnt mean his campaign has been in vain.
Amid reports that Sanders campaign is burning through its cash, Reid told MSNBCs AM Joy that the self-proclaimed democratic socialist will be a more powerful voice than ever before in the Senate.
Hes coming back to the Senate. I think that he has the ability to be a tremendously more powerful senator in our caucus than he was, he said in an interview that aired Saturday. He was no patsy to begin with. But he can be something much more than what he was.
Reid, a senator from Nevada, said Sanders has been an important part of his caucus and helped him with the Affordable Care Act. He also said he appreciates the direction in which the Vermont senator has pushed the Democratic Party.
I have a lot of positive things to say about Sen. Sanders, but again I believe that the people around him need to be more positive about what his contribution can be and should be, he said, alluding to the uproar at the Nevada Democratic Party convention earlier this month.
Sanders supporters had argued that the Democratic National Committee heavily favored former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the ensuing commotion received widespread coverage.
Afterward, Sanders released a statement dismissing the allegation that his supporters have a penchant for violence as nonsense. He reaffirmed his commitment to nonviolent change and reiterated some of the claims made by his supporters.
If the Democratic Party is to be successful in November, it is imperative that all state parties treat our campaign supporters with fairness and the respect that they have earned.
Reid said he does not think a similar controversy will erupt at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July, where former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is likely to accept the partys nomination.
I really feel everything is going to be OK. And my conversations with Bernie Sanders I just hope the people who surround him, his campaign advisers, give him the right advice, he said.
SENDAI, Japan, May 21 (Reuters) - Finance leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies gathered in the northeast Japanese city of Sendai for a two-day discussion on issues ranging from the global economy, its risks and an appropriate policy response.
Below are key quotes from briefings by the finance leaders after the conclusion of G7 meetings on Saturday:
UNITED STATES TREASURY SECRETARY JACK LEW
On U.S.-Japan rift on exchange-rate policy:
"It's important that the G7 has an agreement not only to refrain from competitive devaluations, but to communicate so that we don't surprise each other and we have a clear understanding on what the potential consequences of actions might be...I've been clear in our analysis of current exchange rate movements. It's a pretty high bar to have disorderly conditions."
"Japan's monetary policy was consistent with the agreement to use domestic tools for domestic purposes. It's very important that it continues to be the case."
On G7 agreement on global growth, challenges:
"We need a balanced use of all the policy tools - fiscal policy, monetary policy and structural reforms to address weak demand, boost employment and tackle long-term challenges."
"The notion that there would be one response in each of our economies using exactly the same fiscal, monetary and structural policies doesn't reflect each economy's needs."
"It's not a one-size-fits all ... When it comes to fiscal and monetary policies, we're not in the same position. Some countries have more fiscal space than others."
On whether Japan should raise the sales tax next year:
"Obviously Japan has to make its own judgment on the course to take. But the critical consideration has to be not to put a drag on the economy, and to take action in a way that's consistent with maintaining growth in the short-term but dealing in the long term with the fiscal challenges."
JAPANESE FINANCE MINISTER TARO ASO
"We (G7) reaffirmed the importance of currency stability given recent market movements. Japan has committed to avoiding competitive devaluation of currencies."
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"I understand to a certain degree that (the yen) may move up or down. However, looking at the past several weeks, the dollar has moved by 5 yen in two days or 8-9 yen in 10 days and we cannot clearly say such a move is orderly. From the U.S. standpoint, they may say the yen was at 70 yen or so until recently. That was natural for them. They are facing elections, we are facing elections too, and both have (the Trans Pacific Partnership). It is our job to make statements. We must prevent such differences of opinions from becoming emotionally complicated by exchanging opinions."
FRENCH FINANCE MINISTER MICHEL SAPIN
"We have growth, but it needs to be stronger and more sustainable. There is a consensus that monetary policy is well-adapted and there are no big discrepancies in currencies, so there is no need to intervene."
"We don't need a big fiscal stimulus package similar to 2008, but countries that can should work on fiscal measures."
"The G7 did not talk about a 'Plan B' to respond to what would happen if Britain left the European Union. We talked about ways to help Britain stay in the EU."
"A Brexit would have heavy consequences. It would be bad for Britain and bad for Europe, because investors would have doubts and this would affect capital flows."
BANK OF FRANCE GOVERNOR FRANCOIS VILLEROY DE GALHAU
"This G7 meeting shows that the economic situation has stabilised. Monetary policies are focused on the situation in each economy. The euro/dollar rate is stable and in line with fundamentals."
GERMAN FINANCE MINISTER WOLFGANG SCHAEUBLE
On Greece and the IMF:
"I have not solved any differences in my meeting with Madame (Christine) Lagarde, because we have none."
On a Brexit-referendum:
"We hope that this will not lead to a Brexit."
"We agreed that (a Brexit) would be the wrong decision."
On economic growth policies:
"We must be careful, that the progress we have reached since the financial crisis of 2008 must not be wiped out because of...too much liquidity in the markets followed by increasing risk-takings."
"We all agreed that the state of the world economy is more positive and less nervous than somebody of us thought some weeks ago."
On growth strategy:
"We all agreed that there are three elements we need to pursue: structural reforms, monetary policy and fiscal policy.:
"The most important are structural reforms...there are more and more recognizing (in the G7) that structural reforms are crucial."
"We also have discussed the high volatility of the global capital movements, which are a high risk for the world economy."
BUNDESBANK GOVERNOR JENS WEIDMANN
"In Germany, growth in the first quarter was pretty strong...but we expect that in the forthcoming months this growth-rate can not be maintained."
BANK OF JAPAN GOVERNOR HARUHIKO KURODA
"As for monetary policy, we shared our understanding on various agreements made in past international meetings. We confirmed that central banks conduct monetary policy consistent with their mandates to support the economy and prices. Japan, the United States and the euro zone each explained its monetary policy. There were sufficient exchanges of views and we were able to deepen our understanding on each other's policy."
(Reporting by Leika Kihara, Tetsushi Kajimoto, Stanley White and Gernot Heller; Editing by Sam Holmes)
Cannes (France) (AFP) - From a hilarious German comedy tipped to win the Palme d'Or top prize to the Woody Allen scandal that just wouldn't go away, AFP rounds up the Cannes film festival:
The hits
Among the 21 films in the running for the Palme d'Or, audiences embraced German director Maren Ade's "Toni Erdmann", a bittersweet father-daughter tale that builds to a riotous final act.
US indie hero Jim Jarmusch also scored a hit with his tender ode to the poetry of everyday life starring "Star Wars" villain Adam Driver as a bus driver with a passion for verse.
"Loving" by US director Jeff Nichols sparked early Oscar buzz with its true story of 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.
And Romania's new wave made a strong showing too with Cristi Puiu's "Sieranevada" and previous Cannes winner Cristian Mungiu's "Graduation" negotiating the ethical minefields of post-communist society.
Rounding off the favourites were Asghar Farhadi's "The Salesman", a taut moral drama by the Iranian director of the Oscar-winning "A Separation", and Paul Verhoeven's rape revenge fantasy "Elle" starring Isabelle Huppert.
The controversies
Cannes loves high-wire acts and a handful of risky films sharply divided critics.
Reviewers said British director Andrea Arnold's "American Honey" starring Shia LaBeouf about disaffected US teens selling magazines door-to-door throbbed with youthful energy, but The Guardian said that Arnold needed "a firmer hand with the plot" of the nearly three-hour picture.
French director Olivier Assayas set off the first chorus of boos at this year's festival with "Personal Shopper", a supernatural drama that nevertheless drew rave reviews for its star Kristen Stewart.
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And Nicolas Winding Refn, the audacious Dane behind "Drive", left audiences slackjawed with his bloody, stylish send-up of the cutthroat fashion industry, "The Neon Demon", a tale of cannibal fashion models set in Los Angeles. One critic shouted "Trash!" at the screen as the lights came up.
The turkey
Sean Penn's fifth directorial effort "The Last Face" landed with a historic thud, earning just 0.2 out of four stars in an international critics' poll by trade magazine Screen -- the worst score in the survey's 13-year history.
The film is love story between aid workers working in West African war zones played by Javier Bardem and Penn's ex, Charlize Theron. The Hollywood Reporter's take -- "a stunningly self-important but numbingly empty cocktail of romance and insulting refugee porn" -- was one of the kinder verdicts.
The scandal
New York director Woody Allen opened the festival with his new movie "Cafe Society", featuring Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg.
But before he and his stars had even walked down Cannes' red carpet, decades-old accusations that he sexually abused his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow resurfaced in a magazine column written by her brother Ronan.
Then French actor Laurent Lafitte made a rape joke at the opening ceremony which many saw as a stab at Allen. The director insisted he was not offended and Lafitte later apologised.
But outspoken actress Susan Sarandon couldn't resist a withering judgement when asked by AFP what she thought of Allen at a panel about women in cinema later in the week.
"I have nothing good to say about Woody Allen, so I don't think we should go there," she said, before repeating the allegations against him, which the director denies and which have never been proved in court.
The fashion statements
After women said they were banished from Cannes' red carpet last year for failing to wear high heels, Hollywood took revenge in fine style.
Stewart sported blue sneakers with her Chanel frock, Julia Roberts simply went barefoot and Theron skipped the de rigueur evening gown for a Dior tuxedo with a white blouse open to her navel.
Meanwhile actor Viggo Mortensen and rocker Iggy Pop, the focus of a new documentary by Jarmusch, refused to take the Cannes rituals too seriously and gave snappers the finger at their respective photo calls.
By Ashley Weatherford
Emily Weiss and Jen Atkin head two nascent beauty empires Glossier and Ouai, respectively that were born and nurtured through social media. And, as often happens, the two moguls became friends. Ahead of a town-hall-style beauty conversation they co-hosted on Into the Gloss (and streamed on Facebook Live), the two sat down with the Cut to discuss how they met, the beauty products they could never part with, and how their brands are carving out a new space in the beauty landscape for Gen Y.
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Whats the origin story of how you two met?
Emily Weiss: We just tried to figure this out. I think we met when I shot Jens Top Shelf like a year ago.
Jen Atkin: More than that.
E.W.: It might have been less.
J.A.: No, no, no. I moved out of that house in September and I just landed from somewhere crazy.
E.W.: I think it was about a year ago.
J.A.: Im gonna say a year and a half.
E.W.: But yeah, I went to her house and I contacted her because we wanted to do her Top Shelf for Into the Gloss.
J.A.: Its the only picture that I really like of myself.
E.W.: She was sitting in her closet. We talked a lot about beauty.
J.A.: And then I feel like we just kept talking and talking and talking and talking.
E.W.: Yeah, we made at least five other plans from that interview including her convincing me to get a full head of hair extensions, which I did, about two weeks later.
So you instantly hit it off.
J.A.: Totally. I was like, Who is this woman, what is happening? Its like 10 p.m. lets do this shoot.
E.W.: You had just landed from Dubai.
J.A.: I feel like I inquired about Emily a lot and obviously knew what she had already created, so I was excited to meet her. There was so much I admired in her and she did not disappoint. And a lot of times people disappoint. But shes gracious and funny and humble and cool and all of these things that I just adore.
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Youre two young women with your own businesses. Do you bounce ideas off each other?
J.A.: Yeah. I am where I am because of the women in my life. Emily weirdly met me at the beginning stages of me building my hair-care line. She has definitely helped me skip the line. Shes given me some really amazing advice. Theres been a number of times, like, I needed a sticker person, so Id text Emily and say, Who does your stickers?
E.W.: Jen was telling me she was starting to work on this line and we were about to drop Glossier. She introduced me to so many people in L.A. I come from sort of the New York fashion world, and theyre very different worlds, L.A. and New York. If you dont know the people in L.A. and youre from New York youre kind of nobody, and I think the same thing with New York. And so Jen has definitely helped spread the Glossier gospel on the West Coast.
Do your husbands use your products?
J.A.: Yes. Hes been there since day one and hes very opinionated when it comes to scents, but hes very honest, which I love. Hes the one person in my life that really tells it like it is, sometimes a little too much.
E.W.: What is his favorite Ouai product?
J.A.: He uses the shampoo-conditioner. He loves Clean. Its funny because he gets really mad when he doesnt have it. At the beginning stages its like, I literally only have these samples, and hes like, Well, Im out of it. I need more of the treatment mask. And I go, I dont have it I dont know what you want from me. So, hes definitely a fan.
E.W.: Diego doesnt use any Glossier stuff, but I definitely took his opinion into consideration when we were beginning to develop our phase-one set. I used to have this one product that I used from a brand that will remain nameless that smells terrible. Every time I got into bed he would say, Ugh trash face, because it does smell like garbage. So we decided not to put any scent in our products. I feel like when you get into bed at the end of the day, and when you snuggle up to somebody, you just want to smell that person, you know?
When you guys are building your brands, do you approach it like, I want to create a trend in this space, or I want to fix a problem in this space?
J.A.: I would say all of the above. I dont feel like I really set my mind to setting a trend, same with doing hairstyles. I think the one thing that has kind of set both Emily and me apart from the rest of the beauty world is that we come from a very authentic voice. In the hair-care space, there was so much that was missing. Everything was overcomplicated and everything smelled like an old woman or a little kid. The messaging was and this is where we have a lot of synergy unrealistic for women, like posters of Kate Moss with wigs on her head. It was never hair that you were actually going to achieve. I wanted Ouai to feel very quiet and classic. I wanted it to live on a Barneys shelf and there was nothing in hair care that really felt like that.
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E.W.: We both looked at each other when you asked that question in a weird way because its so hard to answer this notion of like, "What did you set out for? Im obsessed with reading our feedback from our customers. I just read one from a woman who gave us like a ten out of ten. She bought our products and said, Im in my late 40s and Im not your target market but I love your products, they feel very fresh, they feel like something I didnt even know I needed and its very refreshing. On the question of target market, Glossier and Ouai are very popular with millennials because millennials are very technology-enabled. Theyre interested in buying beauty from new channels; they dont necessarily need to go touch and feel something in a store. They want to engage with brands differently online.
J.A.: And also theyre part of the process.
E.W.: Yeah, exactly. Theyre part of the feedback loop, right? And so with Glossier it really came out of all of this feedback that we were getting from Into the Gloss from all of the interviews that we were doing. I want to encourage women to take ownership of their routines. Theres enough information out there through the internet, through your friends on Instagram, that you can find what you need. You dont need to go and talk to a stranger to tell you about your own face.
J.A.: Or have someone make you feel bad.
E.W.: Or have someone make you feel bad. There are plenty of products and a lot of them are superfluous, and with Glossier we really wanted to create this tightly edited, pre-curated collection of modern essentials that are the building blocks to your greater beauty routine. We dont believe that you necessarily will have all Glossier products, thats unrealistic. But we hope that we can serve as sort of the backbone for you and represent this kind of real-life aspiration, which is to be the best version of yourself. Most major beauty brands are built on this notion of either red-carpet glamour or runway backstage makeup, and the reality is that most of us are getting up and going to work or going to school at 8:30 in the morning. Were not going to a runway show and were not interested in becoming our own makeup artist and creating crazy looks every morning.
J.A.: One of the first notes I ever wrote while developing Ouai was, Lets get real. Everything was either a two-hour tutorial on how to get Hollywood waves or complicated updos, and I thought, You know what? No one is doing this. With the YouTube generation coming up, I thought, this is a community of women that are just begging to be told, What can I do for me? How do we relate this to the everyday girl? Its simplifying things and making it feel like its something you can do on yourself in the morning in five minutes.
E.W.: Frankly, I aspired to help create a brand that democratizes beauty. Period.
Besides your own products, whats really exciting you in the beauty world?
J.A.: I have to bow down to Boy Brow because it was kind of life-changing for me because I dont have to fill in the brow, do the whole waxing thing. So Boy Brow first. In hair care, Im obsessed with a lot of Christophe Robins products. He has this one particular product and Im horrible I dont remember the exact name of it its like a body butter you use in your hair and on your skin. I love a lot of Rita Hazan products, I think theyre great for keeping color.
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Im using a lot of Kylie Lip Kit. I love K beauty, honestly, their straightening iron is my favorite of all time; it works so well. Balmain has a great strong-hold hair spray for when you need to get fly-aways and frizz. Spray it on a toothbrush, it works wonders. I think it might be illegal in the United States, but its one of my favorite hair sprays.
Anastasia has a really great liquid lip color that stays on for, like, two years, its amazing. I use Troy Surratt eyelash curler. There is a really great clay mask by Charlotte Tillbury. Doctor Ourian, all of his skin-care stuff is amazing. Its called Epione Center and he has this cream called Flawless. Your skin drinks it up after long flights. I love Ardells lashes. I wear a full strip or I wear an outer edge every day.
Whoa, really? Thats dedication.
J.A.: Hello, my clients are on TV, like, every day! Weve got to be prepared. And Frank Body I love Franks body cream. And then Ouai texturing spray. I had to say it Im obsessed. Thats my very small beauty routine.
E.W.: Ive got nothing.
J.A.: Youre like, "Vaseline
E.W.: No, to be honest, Im covered in samples for most days. So Im usually trying a bunch of future Glossier products. Im super into this one perfume from Le Labo called Musc 25. Its actually the L.A. scent. They do city-specific limited-edition scents and it is the most beautiful scent. It sort of smells like a musky baby. Its like a baby on a motorcycle at a jazz bar.
I really like Jens dry shampoo. I like using it actually on clean hair, so I dont even use it necessarily on the second or the third day. I tend to wash my hair pretty much every day, but I like using it as a styling product because my hairs very silky and sort of smooth. So if you just spray the shit out of it with dry shampoo once its dry it makes it more gritty and beefed up. Someone on our Glossier team, Claire, taught me that. So I like that.
What else do I use on the regular? I really like Biologique Recherches P50 lotion for keeping your skin exfoliated and glowy. So many things Im using as part of my makeup that I cant talk about yet because theyre future Glossier things.
Oh, you know who Im obsessed with? Cim Mahony. Hes this amazing hair guy. He opened the most stunning hair salon. Its an atelier to call it a salon is like an understatement. Hes so talented, he gave me such a good haircut, and he introduced me to this product line called Less Is More. Its an organic hair-care line. He gave me a conditioner and a shampoo, the shampoo is oil-based, so you can use it every day.
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I use Glossier priming moisturizer as my everyday moisturizer day and night. The other thing I use every day, were working on our priming moisturizer rich. We actually just approved the formula.
What was your craziest or most interesting behind-the-scenes Top Shelf experience?
E.W.: Jen Atkin. Just kidding. Actually, its related to Jen. Can I tell the story of when Emily met Kim and Khloe?
J.A.: Yeah.
E.W.: The best was when I met Jen and Im interviewing her, and she said, Do you want to shoot Khloes Top Shelf tomorrow? And I was like What? And she was like, Yeah, Im gonna go over at like three and were gonna go to Calabasas, do you wanna go? And I was like, Yes, I absolutely want to. I was supposed to get on a flight, I cancelled my flight, and the next day I was literally driving in my rental car to drive to Calabasas to shoot Khloe and Kim.
J.A.: I was listening to part of it but then I went to another room and just said, Guys, so my friend Emilys coming over.
E.W.: First of all, I walked in and then I looked to my left and theres a full glam room sort of where would normally be a mud room. Where you take off your coat and put your dirty sneakers, but it was a full glam. So that was the most bananas. I was completely unprepared. You have to mentally prepare for something like that.
J.A.: I do it every morning: mentally prepare. When you work around girls who look flawless, who get glammed-up every day, the pressures on. L.A. is like that though. We got Instagram hoes to keep up with.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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By Tim Hepher and Ahmed Aboulenein PARIS/CAIRO (Reuters) - The EgyptAir jet which crashed in the Mediterranean on Thursday sent a series of warnings indicating that smoke had been detected on board, shortly before it disappeared off radar screens, French investigators said on Saturday. A spokesman for France's BEA air accident investigation agency said the signals did not indicate what caused the smoke or fire on board the plane, which plunged into the sea with 66 people on board as it was heading from Paris to Cairo. But they offered the first clues as to what unfolded in the moments before the crash. One aviation source said that a fire on board would likely have generated multiple warning signals, while a sudden explosion may not have generated any - though officials stress that no scenario, including explosion, is being ruled out. Egypt said its navy had found human remains, wreckage and the personal belongings of passengers floating in the Mediterranean about 290 km (180 miles) north of Alexandria. The army published pictures on Saturday on its official Facebook page of the recovered items, which included blue and white debris with EgyptAir markings, seat fabric with designs in the airline's colors, and a yellow lifejacket. Analysis of the debris and recovery of the plane's twin flight recorders are likely to be key to determining the cause of the crash - the third blow since October to Egypt's travel industry, still reeling from political unrest following the 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak. A suspected Islamic State bombing brought down a Russian airliner after it took off from Sharm el-Sheikh airport in late October, killing all 224 people on board, and an EgyptAir plane was hijacked in March by a man wearing a fake suicide belt. A message purporting to come from Islamic State urged attacks on the United States and Europe in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan beginning in early June. "Ramadan, the month of conquest. Get prepared...so that you make it a month of calamity on the non-believers anywhere," said the message posted on Twitter accounts that usually publish Islamic State statements. It made no claim of responsibility for the Egyptair crash. The October crash devastated Egyptian tourism, a main source of foreign exchange for a country of 80 million people, and another similar incident would crush hopes of it recovering. Egypt's tourism revenue in the first three months of the year plunged by two thirds to $500 million from a year earlier. HUNT FOR BLACK BOXES The signals from the plane "do not allow in any way to say what may have caused smoke or fire on board the aircraft", said a spokesman for the French BEA agency, which is assisting an official Egyptian investigation. He added that the priority now was to find the two flight recorders, known as black boxes, containing cockpit voice recordings and data readings, from the Airbus A320 which vanished from radar early on Thursday. the head of the Egyptian investigation team was quoted by Egypt's state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper as saying a preliminary report into the crash would be presented in a month. Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi told reporters an additional challenge in the hunt for the black boxes was the depth of the Mediterranean in the area under search. "What I understand is that it is 3,000 (meters)," he said. That would place the black box locator beacons, which last for 30 days, on the edge of their detectable range from the surface based on the type of acoustic equipment typically used during the first stages of a search, according to a report into the 2009 crash of an Air France jet in the Atlantic. "No important devices from the plane have been retrieved so far," Fathi said. The flight data transmitted before the crash was sent through an automatic system called the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which routinely downloads maintenance and fault data to the airline operator. Aviation Herald, a respected Austria-based website specializing in air accidents, first published a burst of seven messages broadcast over the space of three minutes. These included alarms about smoke in the lavatory as well as the aircraft's avionics area, which sits under the cockpit. While suggesting a possible fire, the relatively short sequence of data gives no insight into pilot efforts to control the aircraft, nor does it show whether it fell in one piece or disintegrated in mid-air, two aviation safety experts said. The data fragments also included alarms related to cockpit window heating and two flight control computers, both of which have backups. "The question now is whether the fire that caused the smoke was the result of an electrical fault - for example a short-circuit caused by damaged wiring - or whether some form of explosive or incendiary device was used - for example by a terrorist - to generate a fire or other damage," aviation safety expert David Learmont said. The ACARS data suggested the fire had spread quickly and "that might explain the fact that there was no distress call", Learmont wrote in a blog. "ALL SCENARIOS" POSSIBLE The aircraft was carrying 56 passengers, including a child and two infants, and 10 crew. They included 30 Egyptian and 15 French nationals, along with citizens of 10 other countries. Egyptair said officials met family members and told them the process of gathering body parts and information would take time, while DNA testing to identify victims would require weeks. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who met relatives of crash victims in Paris on Saturday, said there were several possible causes. "At this very moment all scenarios are being examined and none is being given greater emphasis," he said. France sent a plane and navy ship to help the search, centered on an area just south of where the signal from the plane was lost early on Thursday. EgyptAir Chairman Safwat Moslem said the radius of the search zone was 40 nautical miles, but could be expanded. The radius is equivalent to an area of 5,000 square miles (17,000 square km), the same expanse covered in the initial hunt for the Air France jet in 2009. The large area reflects the fact that neither jet could be accounted for in the last few minutes of flying time. A European satellite spotted a 2 km-long oil slick in the Mediterranean, about 40 km (20 nautical miles) southeast of the aircraft's last known position, the European Space Agency said. (Additional reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris, Victoria Bryan in Berlin and Abdelnasser Aboelfadl and Amina Ismail in Cairo; Writing by Dominic Evans, Tim Hepher; Editing by Ralph Boulton)
By Nidhi Verma
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian refiners have cleared part of the $6.4 billion owed to Iran for crude oil imports in euros through Turkey's Halkbank, three sources privy to the payment said on Saturday.
This is the first payment to Iran by India since the lifting of Western sanctions against the Persian Gulf nation earlier this year and comes just ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit beginning on Sunday.
State refiner Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd paid $500 million while Indian Oil Corp has settled $250 million through the Union Bank of India, the sources said.
The refiners had been holding back 55 percent of the oil payments to Iran after the route to make payments through Halkbank was stopped in 2013, although payment of some of those funds was allowed after an initial temporary deal to lift the sanctions.
It is not yet known when the second instalment will be paid, the sources said.
India is one of the biggest buyers of Iranian crude, and is set to import at least 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Iran in the year from April 1. But it built up a backlog of payments when Iran was under sanctions.
Modi is making a first trip to Iran since he took office in 2016, aimed at deepening energy ties. During the visit, India will sign a contract to build and operate the port of Chabahar on the southern Iranian coast that is aimed at boosting connectivity with Afghanistan and central Asia.
(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Kim Coghill)
By Aaron Ross KINSHASA (Reuters) - An opposition presidential candidate in Democratic Republic of Congo, accused of hiring mercenaries in an alleged plot against the state, left the country on Friday night to receive medical treatment in South Africa, his lawyer said. The prosecutor general's office issued an arrest warrant on Thursday for former provincial governor Moise Katumbi but said in a statement on Friday that he could go to South Africa to be treated. Katumbi's lawyer, Georges Kapiamba, told Reuters that his client had been hospitalised since last Friday, when police fired tear gas at him and his supporters outside the prosecutor's office in Congo's second city of Lubumbashi, where he was appearing to be questioned. Katumbi denies the charges against him, which he says are aimed at derailing his bid to replace President Joseph Kabila in a November presidential election. Kabila, in power since 2001, is barred by constitutional term limits from standing again but opponents accuse him of trying to delay the vote in order to cling to power. The government says it is unlikely to be able to hold the election on time due to budgetary and logistical constraints, and denies that the charges against Katumbi are politically motivated. Some of Katumbi's supporters fear that authorities will block the multi-millionaire former mining mogul from returning to the country, but Kapiamba rejected that possibility. "They can't force him into exile," Kapiamba said, adding that Katumbi was headed to Johannesburg. "He is going to return." Political tensions are running high in Congo ahead of the scheduled election. The country's highest court ruled last week that Kabila could stay in power if it did not take place before the end of his mandate. Opposition parties labelled that a "constitutional coup d'etat" and called for marches across the country on May 26 to demand that Kabila step down this year. On Friday, a court also sentenced three activists, arrested hours before a general strike in February to demand that Kabila leave power when his mandate expires this year, to one year in prison, the United Nations said. The director of the U.N. human rights office in Congo, Jose Maria Aranaz, denounced the decision as evidence of "the instrumentalisation of the judiciary and the continued criminalisation of civil society." (Reporting by Aaron Ross; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
By Julien Pretot CANNES, France (Reuters) - Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, who is on course for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival with "The Salesman", sees art as a form of resistance. His latest film centres around a couple who find their middle class intellectual life ripped apart after the wife is assaulted in her home in Tehran. They try to go on, notably playing in Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman' at a local theatre. After "A Separation", which won Best Foreign Film at the 2012 Oscars, Farhadi has plunged into daily life in a Tehran ravaged by real estate speculation. "The oldest, the most ancient relationship in human history is the couple's relationship, the love relationship between a man and a woman," Farhadi told Reuters in an interview on Saturday before the film's premiere in Cannes. "But even being that old and classical, we still feel that there's a lot to discover, because as soon as a man and woman come together all of the problems and difficulties arise from scratch, as if there was no lesson to take from what has gone before. "Because of these complexities I feel that this is potentially the richest relationship to work on and create stories about." These themes also offer a way of resisting. "Cinema is one of the most surprising and unexpected phenomena in Iranian society. Given the pressure under which the Iranian population live, nothing like cinema, like art should exist because in a way it should have been eliminated by the situation," he explained. "But it has been the exact opposite: there has been this response to the pressure, the oppression, by creating and by being all the more creative and spontaneous. "Of course there have been ups and downs but over the year there has been a very vivid and active trend of making new and diverse films and this is something that I feel very grateful to be a part of." (Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A new message purporting to come from the spokesman of Islamic State calls on followers to launch attacks on the United States and Europe during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins in early June. "Ramadan, the month of conquest and jihad. Get prepared, be ready ... to make it a month of calamity everywhere for the non-believers ... especially for the fighters and supporters of the caliphate in Europe and America," said the message, suggesting attacks on military and civilian targets. The authenticity of the audio clip, purporting to be from Abu Muhammad al-Adnani and distributed on Saturday by Twitter accounts that usually publish Islamic State statements, could not be verified. "The smallest action you do in their heartland is better and more enduring to us than what you would if you were with us. If one of you hoped to reach the Islamic State, we wish we were in your place to punish the Crusaders day and night," Adnani said. The militant group, which seeks to establish a caliphate across the Middle East and beyond, has claimed deadly attacks over the past year on civilians in France, Belgium and the United States. But the message made no mention of the EgyptAir flight that crashed into the Mediterranean on Thursday in unexplained circumstances, amid speculation by Egyptian, French and American officials that a jihadist attack was the most likely cause. A U.S.-led coalition, which also includes European and Arab countries, launched a campaign of air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in 2014 after the militants seized vast swathes of territory in those countries. "Their planes do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, man or woman," the message continued, in apparent reference to the strikes. (Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli and Stephen Kalin and Ali Abdelaty in Cairo; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Istanbul (AFP) - Global leaders and key NGOs gather in Istanbul on Monday for an unprecedented UN-backed summit aimed at transforming the world's response to humanitarian crises, despite scepticism the talks will have little impact.
With an estimated 60 million people displaced around the world and conflict and climate change posing a growing risk, there is widespread agreement among governments and aid groups that the current humanitarian system is in desperate need of an overhaul.
The two-day summit aims to establish a set of "concrete actions and commitments" that would help countries better prepare to fight crises, lay out a new global approach to manage forced displacement, and secure dependable financing to respond to such situations.
But participants will need to overcome deep scepticism about the summit's ability to realise its ambitious agenda, and not turn into yet another international talking shop with good intentions but zero outcome.
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has pulled out of the event, fearing it could be a "fig leaf" for a lack of global action.
The choice of Istanbul is symbolic, with Turkey itself hosting at least 2.7 million of the estimated 4.84 million refugees who have fled the conflict in Syria.
If delegates step outside the metal security barriers separating the luxury venue from the outside world, they will see the desperate faces of Syrian refugees begging and selling low-value goods on many Istanbul street corners.
- 'System failing profoundly' -
But with 60 world leaders due to attend including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, participants hope the summit will at least start to make a difference.
"Expectations for the summit have gradually reduced. We still have the feeling there is a lot of good faith going into Istanbul. We also have a restricted view of what is possible to achieve," said Rob Williams, chief executive of charity War Child, which supports and protects children around the world affected by conflict.
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"The number of people in the world who really understand how the world humanitarian system is failing is really small," he told AFP in a telephone interview.
"If that number of people increases during the summit then that would have been worth it. But I think we are in the early days of the world being honest with itself."
He said the current humanitarian system was "failing children quite profoundly" and the summit had to come up with "concrete agreements" to punish war crimes, improve education of children and protect their welfare in camps.
Turkey, which has spent some $10 billion in hosting the Syrian refugees and repeatedly complained of the West's failure to shoulder the burden, is emphasising the importance of the summit and has set up Olympic Games-style countdown clocks around the city.
UN Secretary General Ban has described the event as a "singular opportunity" to show that "we will not accept the erosion of humanity which we see in the world today".
"History will judge us by how we use this opportunity," he said last month.
- 'Less bureaucracy, fewer overheads' -
Kerem Kinik, the chairman of the Turkish Red Crescent, said the summit needed to be a "milestone" for updating the humanitarian relief system and setting development targets.
"We are expecting less bureaucracy from the humanitarian system. The system must empower the local actors -- the small actors, in the local areas, who are facing directly the humanitarian crises."
"The structure must empower these small and medium-sized NGOs through localisation," he added, calling for a more sustainable financial system with fewer overheads.
The credibility of the event was dealt a blow by the decision to pull out by MSF, who lamented the summit's agenda failed to reinforce the obligations of states to uphold humanitarian law and that any commitments made would be non-binding.
Sandrine Tiller, MSF's programme advisor on humanitarian issues, told AFP that the current global humanitarian system was "bureaucratic and risk-averse" and the summit risked making no difference to people suffering from conflicts in places like Syria and Yemen.
"The current content and format of the summit make it difficult to see it as more than a gathering which will state good intentions but not make any real change."
Katrina Kaif is in Morocco shooting for Jagga Jasoos. The actress has been spotted clicking a lot of selfies with her fans in Morocco.
Recommended Read: Ranbir Sets His Eyes on Katrina and Swings into Action as He Shoots for Jagga Jasoos
The actress looks gorgeous in all the pictures. Wearing a cap, a jacket and a pink top, Katrina has the perfect looks chic. We love Katrina without makeup; dont you?
Katrina stars opposite her ex-flame Ranbir Kapoor in Jagga Jasoos. Pictures of the ex-couple on the set of the movie are doing rounds. When the shooting of the movie started, Katrina and Ranbir were very much in love. However, slowly things turned sour between the two due to reasons unknown.
Jagga Jasoos is an upcoming Indian comedy-drama film directed by Anurag Basu and produced by Anurag and Ranbir. The movie was slated to release on June 3 but the release has been delayed. Well, lets see when we get to see the ex-flames finally on the big screen together.
Tokyo (AFP) - Japan's defence minister travelled to Okinawa to lodge a formal protest with the commander of the US military base there on Saturday after the arrest of a base employee linked to the suspicious death of a local woman.
Gen Nakatani's visit to the island comes just days before a high-profile trip to Japan by US President Barack Obama.
"I deliver a strong message of regret and at the same time make a protest," Nakatani told US military commander Lt. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson, according to public broadcaster NHK, as he demanded the US military in Okinawa ensure discipline among troops.
For his part Nicholson told Nakatani: "Our heartfelt prayers and condolences are offered to the family."
The southern island of Okinawa was the site of a brutal World War II battle but is now considered a strategic linchpin by hosting numerous US military bases that support the two countries' decades-long security alliance.
Okinawan police arrested Kenneth Franklin Shinzato on Thursday for allegedly disposing of the woman's body in a weed-covered area in southern Okinawa.
The man, a US citizen and former US Marine, who works at the US Kadena Air Base, has reportedly admitted to raping and killing 20-year-old Rina Shimabukuro, who had been missing since late April.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday expressed "outrage" after the arrest, while Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida summoned US ambassador Caroline Kennedy to lodge a protest, calling the case "very cruel and atrocious".
Obama is due in Japan next week for a two-day summit of Group of Seven countries which concludes on Friday, before venturing the same day to Hiroshima -- becoming the only sitting US president to visit the world's first atomic bombed city.
The Hiroshima visit by Obama, who has a record of calling for global denuclearisation, has been well received in Japan but the issue of the heavy US military presence on Okinawa has long been a periodic thorn in the side of relations.
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More than half of the 47,000 US military personnel in the country are stationed there, and rapes and other crimes by service personnel have sparked local protests in the past.
In 1995 the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old girl by three US servicemen sparked massive protests, prompting Washington to pledge efforts to strengthen troop discipline to prevent such crimes and reduce the US footprint on the island.
But continued crimes by American personnel remain a potent rallying point for Okinawans and others in Japan who oppose the presence of the bases on the crowded island, where pacifist sentiment runs high.
Libreville (AFP) - Former African Union commission chief Jean Ping, a candidate for Gabon president in this year's election, said Friday the regime of incumbent Ali Bongo Ondimba was trying force him out of the race through "Machiavellian" judicial means.
"For some time now, I have became the target to absolutely beat down," the opposition figure told a press conference in Libreville.
He accused the authorities of seeking to "exploit" the judicial system in an attempt to have him declared ineligible to run for election.
To do this, he said, Ondimba's team "with Machiavellian skill" were seeking to attribute inflammatory remarks to opponents.
Last week a government spokesman threatened Ping with legal action over statements in which the former AU chief was said to have likened the regime to "cockroaches", accusing him of seeking to provoke civil war.
A video from March disseminated on social media showed Ping calling on his supporters to battle "to the death" and talking about a war "to get rid of the cockroaches".
On Friday Ping dismissed the video as a montage and said he had instructed his lawyers to take action against the "unscrupulous people who will stop at nothing and will do anything to stay in power."
The presidential election, expected in August or October, will pit incumbent Bongo, seeking a second term, against Ping and several other well-known figures including parliamentary leader Guy Nzouba Ndama and former prime minister Raymond Ndong Sima.
Jessica Alba is lucky in love!
The Barely Lethal star's husband, Cash Warren, wasn't in town to celebrate the couple's eight-year wedding anniversary on Thursday, but that didn't stop Alba from honoring their special day.
WATCH: Jessica Alba, Tyra Banks and More Gush Over Mother's Day Celebrations
The Honest Company co-founder celebrated the occasion with her and Warren's two daughters, Honor, 7, and Haven, 4. Judging by Alba's adorable Snapchats, it looks like the trio had a great day even if Warren couldn't be there!
"My dates tonight on my Anniversary," Alba captioned a pic of her girls walking in front of her down an alley.
Snapchat
In fact, the trio was all smiles as they enjoyed a low-key dinner.
Snapchat
WATCH: Jessica Alba Posts Adorable Videos of Her Daughters From Hawaii Vacation
Even though Warren, 37, couldn't join his beloved in person, he did send flowers and a sweet note to their home. "Mrs. Warren, the last eight years have been the best of my entire life," the card read. "Thank you for being my everything. Happy Anniversary."
Snapchat
Alba also took to Instagram to share a photo of another gorgeous bouquet her hubby sent to her Honest Company office on Thursday.
"Missing my babe on our Anniversary but he sent a super perty flower arrangement to my office," Alba, who said "I do" to Warren in 2008, captioned it.
NEWS: Jessica Alba Opens Up About Juggling Career and Family
Last month, Warren couldn't stop gushing over his brunette beauty on her 35th birthday.
"I still get butterflies in my stomach around you," he captioned a pic of himself giving his wife a kiss on the cheek. "I still wake up in the middle of the night and smile because you're next to me. I still laugh at your jokes. I am still inspired by you. I'm still in awe of your beauty. The only thing that's changed since the first day I met you is our age. Happy Birthday my sweet love!!"
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PHOTOS: Cash Warren Sends Wife Jessica Alba Sweet Birthday Message
Even though the two are getting older, Alba has proved she's completely ageless. A few days before her birthday, she flaunted her toned figure in a sexy tri-colored bikini while vacationing in Hawaii. To hear more on her adventures in "paradise," watch the video below.
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Hi, Im Bryan Cranston, six-time award-winning actor. Im sexy, Im cute and I love the spotlight.
Thus begins the Breaking Bad stars Super Sweet 60th birthday party on Friday's Jimmy Kimmel Live!, planned by the best in the business, Jimby Kimble.
This is my time to shine bright like a diamond, Cranston quotes Rihanna to his parents, who try to keep him to a budget. All Cranston asks for is five crowns, a new car and for Sisqo to perform at his party.
Kimmels spoof of MTVs Super Sweet 16 also includes a tense meeting with a party planner, a spoiled birthday boy, a movie theme (Brion King), even party-boys BFF Bob Odenkirk to help with outfit planning: That hats too hatty."
The spoof segment even includes a major tantrum by the birthday boy in a climactic moment when party planner Jimby Kimble spells his name wrong, then an even worse moment when a certain partygoer shows up in the same outfit.
Watch the full video below.
Read More: ABC Sets New Three-Year Deal With Jimmy Kimmel
A once-emaciated pony that was found abandoned and covered in paintball markings has a new home, thanks to comedian Jon Stewart.
Lily, a white mare, was found in a New Holland Sales Stables in March. She'd been shot more than 100 times at close range with paintballs, was partially blind and apparently abandoned.
On Friday, the Rhode Island man prosecutors say abandoned Lily was found guilty of cruelty charges and fined nearly $15,000.
Read: Jon Stewart Calls Donald Trump a 'Man-Baby'
Philip Price Jr., 65, was found guilty of 5 summary counts regarding his handling of Lily, who Price transported for auction from New Jersey to the stables where she was found.
A judge ordered Price to pay $3,056 in fines and $10,178 in restitution for Lilys extensive recovery-care costs.
It hasnt been determined how the paintball markings were made.
Lily was found at the auction site by Kelly Smith of Omega Horse Rescue and has since been recovering at a Pennsylvania veterinary center.
On Friday, Smith posted some big news to Facebook.
"Today justice was found for Lily, so the next part of her journey will begin. Lily along, with our beloved Anita, are being adopted by the comedian Jon Stewart and his wife Tracey," Kelly wrote.
"Now both will spend their lives with never having to be abused, neglected or unwanted. There will be an official press conference next Wednesday when the horses go to their forever home.
God is good!"
Read: The 7 Things You Didn't Know About 'Daily Show' Host Trevor Noah
Stewart and his animal advocate wife, Tracey McShane, own an animal rescue sanctuary in New Jersey and, according to the Lancaster County SPCA, paid a visit to Lily in April.
The couple have made headlines in the past, when they've come to the aid of other animals whose sad tales became viral news.
In April, the couple adopted a steer that managed to flee a truck bound for the slaughterhouse.
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Watch: Terrified Horse Gets Airlifted to Safety After Falling Down 150 Foot Ravine
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University graduation
You may notice JPMorgan Chase taking over your Snapchat feed this weekend that is, if you're anywhere near a college campus.
The bank is rolling out a massive campaign to honor college graduates around the country. It's part of a plan to help recruit them as employees.
"You have to reach people where they are, and they're on Snapchat," JPMorgan's chief marketing officer, Kristin Lemkau, said.
"And students in particular are living on Snapchat. It's becoming one of the most powerful platforms for brands."
It's the largest themed ad buy on Snapchat, according to the firm.
Starting Sunday, you'll see JPMorgan ads on Snapchat's "Graduation Live Story" as well as on 80 different campus stories and several Discover channels. They'll run until mid-June.
The idea, according to the firm, is to reach students on a day when they are thinking about their next steps.
The 10-second ads will showcase students' various skills that could be applicable to a job at the bank.
Separately, a geofilter ran on Friday on campuses around the country, reading "Congrats Class of 2016!"
Investment banks are turning to increasingly creative ways to remain attractive career choices for millennial employees.
JPMorgan Snapchat Grad filters
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.
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.
And when it comes to college students, Goldman Sachs in September ran a Snapchat ad campaign as part of a campus-recruiting effort.
JPMorgan also has spent millions of dollars on advertising to attract and retain millennials as customers.
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"Advertising is changing very quickly from ads that are interrupting your experience to ones that are permission-based," Lemkau said.
"The user is much more in-control and opting in think of what Google and Facebook have done you can select or scroll past if you don't like it. A geofilter is following that permission format."
NOW WATCH: 2 millennials watched the original Star Wars for the first time
More From Business Insider
To counter Kentuckys battle with heroin usage one school will now hold mandatory drug testing for all students, making the war on drugs a little more unsettling for the nation.
According to USA Today affiliate Cincinnati, Covington Catholic High School officially announced on Wednesday (May 18) their plans to implement the procedure for the 2016-2017 school year. The method is connected to Northern Kentuckys battle with drug overdoses, mostly due to heroin usage. In 2015, it was reported 1,087 residents statewide died from drug overdoses, with 30 percent of the deaths stemming from heroin use. The Office of Drug Control Policy adds Senate Bill 192 (known as the Heroin Bill) was also passed in the same year, giving harsher penalties to dealers and better treatments for addicts.
Principal Bob Rowe says he wants the all-male student body to feel the pressure of saying no to drugs. While the school hasnt had a rampant use of opioids, theyve faced issues with drugs in the past. This program, with technical and financial support from St. Elizabeth Healthcare, Medicount Management, and the Drug Free Clubs of America (DFCA), is intended to provide our young men with an additional tool for deterrence, as well as tools to address usage with appropriate treatment if/when it occurs, the letter to parents read. We try to change the culture to where they say I cant do that, or I have no interest in that, its going to take me down the wrong road, Rowe added.
The random testing will begin when the new school year kicks off on Aug. 10. Positive tests will be kept confidential at first. If a second positive test permits, the student will be axed from extracurricular activities. A third offense will likely lead to expulsion. Counseling and assistance to students will also be provided by the school.
If parents dont want their children to be tested, they will not be allowed to register as CovCath students. Why not educate our young men so they lead and have a safe lifestyle for the rest of their lives, Rowe said.
Naypyidaw (Myanmar) (AFP) - US Secretary of State John Kerry Sunday hailed Myanmar's transition to a civilian government steered by Aung San Suu Kyi as a "remarkable statement" that furthers the cause of global democracy.
In the first high-level meeting with Suu Kyi and her administration since it took office in March, Kerry told the Nobel laureate her country's evolution towards democracy after decades under the military served as a beacon of hope.
"Today my message is very, very simple: we strongly support the democratic transition that is taking place here," he told reporters at a joint press conference with Suu Kyi in the capital Naypyidaw.
Historic elections in November swept Suu Kyi and her party into office and effectively ended half a century of military rule.
Kerry applauded the process as a "remarkable statement to people all over the world", adding that the new government "has already accomplished extraordinary things."
Washington last week lifted a host of financial and trade embargoes, but has kept the backbone of its sanctions as well as a blacklist of cronies and businesses close to the former junta.
"I know that the legacy of more than half a century of military rule has not been completely erased," Kerry said.
Suu Kyi, a veteran activist whose decades-long struggle against the generals won the world's admiration, has much political capital in Washington.
She now serves as Myanmar's foreign minister, while also holding the newly-created position of state counsellor putting her at the helm of government in defiance of an army-drafted constitution that bars her from the presidency.
That role is now held by her longtime ally Htin Kyaw.
In addition to November's landmark election, reforms so far have seen hundreds of political prisoners freed, the press unshackled from censorship and foreign investment flood into a country cut-off from the world for so long by paranoid generals.
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As he enters the twilight of his term in office, US President Barack Obama is doubling down on his "Asia pivot" -- a diplomatic strategy to engage the continent's leaders and tap its growing economies.
- Tension remains -
Kerry will also meet army chief Min Aung Hlaing, as Washington looks to induce further democratisation moves.
The army retains significant economic interests and political clout under a charter it scripted -- including a quarter of all parliamentary seats and control of key security ministries.
Myanmar faces other huge challenges, including decrepit infrastructure, conflicts in resource-rich borderlands, religious tensions and the continued influence of the army and junta-era cronies, who still dominate the economy.
US investment in Myanmar remains relatively low, although some US companies including Coca-Cola and Pepsi, fast food restaurant KFC and carmakers Chevrolet and Ford have already established a sales presence.
Last week Washington rolled back more sanctions, opening up all Myanmar banks to American business, while also extending indefinitely permission for firms to import through Myanmar's ports and airports -- many of which are operated by cronies still on the blacklist.
But tension points remain.
In recent weeks Washington has come under pressure from hardline Buddhists after the US embassy used the term "Rohingya" to refer to the persecuted Muslim minority in the western state of Rakhine.
The term is incendiary to Buddhist nationalists who label the group "Bengalis" and view them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
More than 100,000 Rohinyga languish in displacement camps following sectarian violence in 2012.
Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya are denied citizenship even though many can trace their roots in the country back generations.
Conceding it is a "sensitive issue", a State Department official reiterated America's stance that all people have the right "to self-identify, including the Rohingya."
Kerry will go on to Vietnam Sunday to accompany Obama to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City for a three-day visit likely to focus on trade, security and human rights.
Kim Kardashian West is not a fan of social media bashing.
In a sneak peek clip from an upcoming episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, the 35-year-old reality star slams her brother, Rob, and his fiancee, Blac Chyna, for publicly dissing her famous family on the Internet.
WATCH: Kim Kardashian Says Kylie Jenner's Relationship With Tyga 'Broke Chyna's Heart'
"Hey Rob, look, I never get p**sed and I am so for you being happy, but whatever Chyna and Kylie [Jenner] and all the drama that they have together, like, that's for them to work out," Kim tells Rob over speakerphone as her youngest sister, Kylie, listens in. "[And] mom has bent over backwards doing all this stuff."
The clip then cuts to a solo interview with Kim, who explains that Kris had told her Rob was "making fun" of her for the types of food she had purchased for his new home.
"I mean, my mom literally just helped him move into a new house," she adds. "I have to call my brother out on this, like, there's no way I'm going to let my brother disrespect her."
"Mom is p**sed," she explains to her 29-year-old brother. "When you start publicly bashing my sister and mom, that's not cool. This is just unnecessary."
WATCH: Kim Kardashian Thinks Rob Will Be a 'Great Dad'
"This is not what our family does," Kim continues. "There's way too much drama, so many haters in the world, we don't need it from our own inside circle."
Rob, who is expecting his first child with Chyna, finally chimes in, claiming he "didn't even know what was going on." He also notes that he doesn't think any of it was that serious anyway.
Things get heated, and Kim starts to yell at Rob, insisting that people (aka him and Chyna) really need to stop bashing others over social media.
"You [and Chyna] are a unit now, so it looks like you're blasting mom, and it's petty as f**k."
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WATCH: Khloe Kardashian Refuses to Help Rob Move Into His New House on 'KUWTK'
Watch the full clip below.
While there's been a lot of "blasting" incidents between Chyna and the Kardashian-Jenner crew ever since she and Rob became a couple in January, Kim seems to be referring to that time when the 28-year-old model poked fun at Kris for stocking her fiance's new kitchen with healthy food via Snapchat.
"Baby, what's in your cabinet?" Chyna asked, as she panned her camera phone over fat-free sorbet, a bucket of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, Irish oatmeal and organic quinoa. "What the f**k? Nah, nah. Babe, what is that? Are we supposed to eat this?"
Ouch!
And although Kim doesn't tell us exactly what Chyna-Kylie moment she's talking about in the clip, we have a good feeling she's referring to the not-so-subtle shade Chyna threw at Kylie for her new cooking series, Cooking With Kylie. Back in February, Chyna -- who shares a 3-year-old son, King Cairo, with Kylie's ex-boyfriend, Tyga -- took to Instagram to seemingly call out the 18-year-old lip kit maven for copying her idea.
WATCH: Blac Chyna Bares Bump in Lacy Jumpsuit While Out With Rob Kardashian
"B**ch Bye," Chyna captioned a screenshot of one of her other social media accounts, which consists solely of cooking snaps. "Follow @cookingwithchyna #InfatuatedWitChy."
As we patiently wait to see what else happens on the all-new episode of KUWTK, airing Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on E!, watch the video below to hear the latest update on Chyna's pregnancy.
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At last, women pilots from WWII are getting the recognition they always deserved
At last, women pilots from WWII are getting the recognition they always deserved
Huge props to President Obama and legislation he signed Friday: Thanks to a new bill, women pilots who served during World War II can be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, according to The Washington Post.
From 2002-2015, Women Airforce Service Pilots, aka WASPs, were buried there. That is, until then-Army Secretary John McHugh banned the burials, saying they should not have been allowed under existing laws. (Gasp!)
ICYMI, from 1942-1944, 1,074 WASPs flew noncombat missions during the war while male pilots flew combat ones. The WASP program was created thanks to the Army Armed Forces being understaffed in 1942. These women were groundbreaking pilots, and served the US with great honor. In 1977, the WASPS were regarded as veterans and even awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010despite the fact that, in wartime, Congress did not consider the female pilots to have military status.
via GIPHY
Since Arlington National Cemetery is run by the US Army versus the Department of Veterans Affairs, that meant no burials for women pilots of the WWII era unless there were new laws. Some might not be surprised, as the Army also didnt cover the cost of sending the bodies of 38 WASP pilots back home after they died overseas.
The family of famed WASP, 2nd Lt. Elaine Danforth Harmon of Maryland, fought for the status of her fellow pilots. Elaine desperately wanted the WASPs to be allowed burial at Arlington and even attended the first full veterans funeral for a WASP back in 2002.
Harmon died last year at 95, but that didnt stop her family from continuing her mission to change the laws. Thanks to work from Elaines granddaughter, the longest-serving woman in Congress, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), introduced a bill in the Senate to validate WASP status as military. Then, Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), a retired Air Force colonel, pushed it in the House. It passed through Congress, unopposed.
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Today we have righted a terrible wrong, Mikulski said. If they were good enough to fly for our country, risk their lives and earn the Congressional Gold Medal, they should be good enough for Arlington.
Elaine Danforth Harmons family said they will apply for a new funeral date, so her ashes can be interned as they deserved.
The post At last, women pilots from WWII are getting the recognition they always deserved appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Mormon leaders at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Brigham Young University have responded to allegations that the school punishes victims of sexual assault with disciplinary violations. The church issued statements saying the LDS is "perfectly clear" that they support "reporting, investigation and prosecution to the full extent of the law" and called the allegations "gotcha journalism."
Earlier this year, the Salt Lake Tribune reported it had "interviewed at least a dozen current and former students who say they were investigated or disciplined for Honor Code violations in connection with sexual abuses against them ... of more than 50 people who have told the Tribune they were sexually assaulted while attending BYU, a majority said they did not report the assaults most of them citing fears that they would be held guilty of chastity violations, either for the assault or for prior sexual contact."
BYU is a strictly Christian school with a strict student code of conduct barring immodest dress, premarital sex and drug and alcohol use. According to the New York Times, campus investigations into reported assaults often resulted in penalties up to and including suspension for infractions like drinking for the victims, a possible violation of federal anti-sex discrimination law Title IX.
Source: Rick Bowmer/AP
Occasionally "facts come to light that a victim has engaged in prior Honor Code violations," spokeswoman Carri Jenkins told the paper. The code applies at "all times."
In a statement on the church's website, LDS leaders wrote "Let us be perfectly clear: There is no tolerance for sexual assault at BYU or in the Church. Assault of any kind is a serious criminal offense, and we support its reporting, investigation and prosecution to the full extent of the law. Victims of assault or recipients of unwelcome sexual attention should be treated with sensitivity, compassion and respect and should feel that those to whom they disclose the assault are committed to helping them deal with the trauma they have experienced."
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In the accompanying blog post, LDS representative Eric Hawkins called the damaging press allegations "gotcha journalism."
"The way that BYU has treated me has been so callous that it's been almost as bad as the rape itself," former student Madi Barney, who refused to cooperate in one such investigation and has since been banned from class registration, told the Guardian.
In the statement, the church added it would be seeking changes to how it handled "conflict between meeting Honor Code and Title IX priorities."
Photo credit: Jenny Jimenez
From ELLE
I remember the exact moment I fell in love with Lindy West: Last year, the feminist writer and culture critic confronted a man on This American Life for impersonating her dead father on Twitter in order to send her insults.
Conventional wisdom says not to feed the trolls. It's what they want; it won't make them stop. For West, who writes about women's rights, body image, and pop culture for publications like Jezebel, GQ, and the New York Times, dealing with Internet abuse is practically part of her job description. Yet when she stood up to this troll, calling him out for his misogyny and lack of basic human empathy, something extraordinary happened.
He apologized.
With the release of her first book, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman, West cements her reputation as a woman unafraid to confront (and confound) her critics. The collection of connected essays, spiked with West's signature insight and dark humor, illustrates just how deeply sexism pervades our society while laughing at the absurdities that sexism somehow normalizes. West digs deep into painher struggles with body image, her father's death, the harassment she faces onlineto find humor and grace.
"What I wanted to do was to humanize myself, because I think feminists are dehumanized a lot, and I think fat people are dehumanized," West explains over the phone. "And I wanted to say, 'Here is a very comprehensive and cohesive human portrait of a fat, feminist woman.' If I can charm people and make them like me, then that has an effect on how people perceive those groups."
"I wanted to provide the role model that I didn't have," she adds.
Now a columnist for The Guardian, West also co-founded the social media campaign #ShoutYourAbortion, which encourages women to speak up about their abortions to remind lawmakers that all kinds of women get abortions for all kinds of reasons. Plus, West runs a Tumblr that answers teens' questions around sex and sexuality, with an emphasis on supporting survivors of sexual violence, called I Believe You/It's Not Your Fault.
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West still worked for Seattle's alternative weekly The Stranger when her agent first contacted her about writing a book, but it took about four more years before West realized she wanted to write a series of loosely chronological and "very, very personal" essays.
"At the time, I thought of it as not being able to find the right idea, but really I think in retrospect it was just me needing to find my confidence," West recalls. "There's something really intimidating, and it feels very almost presumptuous, to write a memoir, to say, 'Yes, I think that my life and my opinions are interesting enough to warrant an entire book.' And it took a lot of years of me becoming more experienced as a writer and finding my voice a little bit more before I was ready to do that."
Shrill traces West's evolution from an overweight teen growing up in Seattle, whose best role model for fat womanhood was an animated chicken in Disney's all-animal version of Robin Hood, to a feminist who speaks her mind fearlessly. She also debunks the myth that being overweight dooms a woman to a miserable, unfulfilling, and sexless life. "If an aliena gaseous orb or a polyamorous cat person or whatevercame to Earth, it wouldn't even be able to tell the difference between me and Angelina Jolie, let alone rank us by hotness," West writes in Shrill. "The 'perfect body' is a lie. I believed in it for a long time, and I let it shape my life, and shrink it." The essays also frequently showcase West's loving relationship with her husband.
"A huge part of the book is coming to terms with the factthat I have value, because you can't take care of something well if you think that it's worthless," West explains. "So really just the overarching idea that I'm not broken and I'm not garbage was the most powerful, helpful thing Learning to feel confident and feel okay in my skin is what lets me be bold and confront some of these other issues."
Learning that lesson took years. While writing Shrill, which West says took "eight or nine months" of "sitting alone in a cabin agonizing," West often thought of the confusion and loneliness she felt during her own twenties. Becoming a writer was her solace. Gradually, West realized that even if her opinions were unpopular, they could still be trueand too important to keep to herself.
"You almost get addicted to that process," West says, describing it as "trial and error." "Like, 'Okay, what's the worst that can happen if I say this?' And the worst that can happen is that people yell at you. Butif you're ethically sound in your ideas, and you're careful with what you say, and you listen to people who correct you when you screw up, and you apologize when you screw up, it's a really powerful way to move through the world."
Photo credit: D Dipasupil - Getty Images
In fact, Shrill focuses primarily on West's experiences speaking up for the unpopular opinion, in what West calls her "culture wars." That is, the struggles against society that have defined her life and career: standing up for the fact that rape jokes often wrongly mock sexual assault survivors, learning to embrace her body, and meeting her troll. The victories were far from easy, but West believes these showdowns only made her stronger.
While West was besieged by rape and death threats online after suggesting that people just might have a right to be offended by rape jokes, her comments also opened many comics' eyes to comedy's ability to perpetuate rape culture. "To feel like I made a positive difference for women in comedy, which I hope that I did, that has huge significance to me," West says. "Every time I hear from a female comic who says that public conversation about rape jokes empowered them in some waythat means everything to me."
Shrill was originally only meant to be the book's working title, but "it just always felt right," West says. Not only is it a sexist term, used nearly exclusively to insult opinionated womenWest notes "the way that people talk about Hillary Clinton" as an examplebut it's a trait West wants to cultivate.
"I make my tone harsh and strident, and I use language that's considered vulgar, specifically because I know that it turns people off. I want people to face that instinct, and come to terms with the fact that it's a sexist, gross instinct," West says. "It's this dance of charming people and getting people to like meand then using this kind of unpleasant, ugly language to make the point that women don't have to be pretty. We don't have to be pretty physically. We don't have to be pretty in our words and our ideas. And we can say loud, ugly things and they're legitimate."
Consider Shrill West's battle cry. With every page, she refuses to be shamed for her body and beliefs, or to feel like her story matters less because she happens to be a "fat feminist." Which is lucky for us, because Shrill is only the beginning of West's beautiful literary career.
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A California man faces animal cruelty charges after authorities say his dog tested positive for both meth and heroin.
Tustin police say officers first encountered a little terrier mix named Bubba when they were called to the Tustin motel room of his owner, Joshua West, back in March.
West was arrested for an outstanding warrant, a parole violation, possession of drug paraphernalia, heroin and methamphetamine after drugs and needles were allegedly found.
Read: 'Hero' Dog Saves Owner From Bear Attack on Trail: 'I Never Run Without Him'
Police also called animal control officers to deal with West's little terrier mix named Bubba.
When the officers arrived, they say they found Bubba to be "lethargic," reports KCBS.
Tests of Bubba's blood have reportedly come back positive for both methamphetamine and heroin.
Read: Dog Grieves for 21-Year-Old Owner Killed in Car Crash: 'It's as If He's Looking for Someone'
This strikes me as pretty horrible, Tustin police Lt. Robert Wright told KCBS. This is the first time weve ever heard of someone reporting that an animal has been under the influence.
West has reportedly been charged with animal cruelty and Bubba is in the care of OC Animal Care.
Once Bubba recovers, he'll be put up for adoption.
Watch: Five-Year-Old German Shepherd Named Quasimodo Has Short Spine Syndrome
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KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian authorities detained 14 people believed to have links to the Islamic State (IS) in a series of raids across several states earlier this week. The 14 - all Malaysians - are the latest to be detained by authorities who have been on a concerted campaign over the past few years to stamp out the threat of Islamist militancy in the country. Deputy inspector-general of police Noor Rashid Ibrahim said in a statement that eight of the suspects are believed to have transferred money to the IS in Syria and the Abu Sayyaf militant group in the southern Philippines. All eight are also believed to have ties with Malaysian IS recruiter Muhammad Wanndy Mohamed Jedi, who police had earlier identified as having recruited several Malaysians to launch an attack in the southeast Asian nation. Three others were detained on suspicion of promoting IS ideology, while two men and one woman were arrested for allegedly planning to travel to Syria to join the terrorist group. The raids were carried out between May 17-20 by the police special branch's counter-terrorism division in six states across the peninsula. Muslim-majority Malaysia has been on high alert since Islamic State-linked militants carried out an armed attack in the capital of neighboring Indonesia in January. In March, Malaysian Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said police had foiled an IS plot to kidnap Prime Minister Najib Razak and other senior ministers last year. (Reporting by Joseph Sipalan; Editing by Kim Coghill)
(Reuters) - A gunman killed a man and wounded another on Friday in the famed New York state bar credited with inventing the spicy "Buffalo Wings" snack, police and media said.
The attacker entered the kitchen at the Anchor Bar on Main Street, Buffalo, fatally wounded a 32-year-old man then fled, a CBS affiliate reported.
It appeared the victim was specifically targeted, Buffalo police said on their Twitter feed. A second man was grazed by a bullet, they added.
The Anchor Bar says it was the first place to cook chicken wings in a spicy sauce and sell them as "Buffalo Wings".
In 1964 the bar's co-owner, Teressa Bellissimo, cooked up some leftover wings as a late-night snack for her son. They were a hit and went on the menu.
(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
mark cuban
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An eccentric billionaire business mogul with an over-inflated ego and sense of entitlement, not to mention a penchant for being brash and boorish, running for the highest elected office? Its almost too crazy to be believed. But if this election cycle has taught us anything, its that a glaring lack of qualifications and/or a categorical ignorance of the delicate nuances of foreign and domestic policy should by no means impede anyones path to the presidency as long as you believe really strongly in things and crank up the volume on those beliefs to stupefying decibels.
In an episode of Meet the Press that will air this Sunday, Mavs owner Mark Cuban was, for reasons that remain unclear, asked whether hed consider being Hillary Clintons running mate this fall if the presumptive Democratic nominee came calling. Via ESPN.com:
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Absolutely, Cuban responded while adding that he would seek to alter some of Clintons platform were he to become her running mate. If shes willing to listen, if shes willing to, you know, hear other sides of things, then Im wide open to discussing it, Cuban said.
According to Cuban, this isnt even the first time this month that the powers that be have begged him to throw his hat in the ring. In a recent Washington Post interview, Cuban claimed that the republican leadership had reached out to him about being a potential foil to Donald Trumps candidacy. HRCs camp has been suspiciously mum about the possibility of a Clinton/Cuban dream ticket, so it looks like well have to wait with bated breath to find out whether hes made the short list.
(ESPN.com)
Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban said he would absolutely listen if Hillary Clinton were to consider him as her running mate.
In a Meet the Press interview that will air Sunday, Cuban was asked if he would consider the vice president post. Absolutely, he said. But the key would be that shed have to go more to center.
At an event last week, Cuban joked that he would be willing to be Clintons running mate if he could throw bombs and fight back against Trump, CNN reported.
I like the fact that Senator Clinton has thought-out proposals. Thats a good thing because at least we get to see exactly where she stands, the Dallas Mavericks owner said in the Meet the Press interview. I think Senator (Bernie) Sanders has dragged her a little bit too far to the left. Things like college tuition and, you know, other business elements that really, I think, could hurt the economy. If shes willing to listen, if shes willing to, you know, hear other sides of things, then Im wide open to discussing it.
Cuban was recently approached by Republicans seeking a candidate who could run as a third-party alternative to Trump, but Cuban said he was skeptical it could work, the Washington Post reported.
He could come after me all he wanted, and he knows I would put him in his place, Cuban said of Trump in an email to the Post. All that said, again, I dont see it happening. There isnt enough time.
Matosinhos (Portugal) (AFP) - Britain's Kris Meeke shrugged off having missed the last two races to open a 45-second gap over world champion Sebastien Ogier at the Rally of Portugal on Saturday.
Meeke, who is only competing in a reduced schedule this season, was in complete control in his Citroen, winning the three morning stages to extend his lead to almost a minute.
He maintained his advantage in the afternoon and made the most of the clear track after Ogier's VW Polo, starting higher up the order, had swept away the loose gravel.
"I was thinking about protecting my lead. I took two spare tyres but it was difficult to manage as it changed the attitude and balance of the car on roads that were narrow and required quick changes of direction," said Meeke.
Ogier goes into Sunday's final day under pressure from VW team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen who is just three seconds behind.
"I did everything I could but it was a terrible afternoon for me. The grip was hard to handle and the rear of the car was off line," said Ogier.
The process to have Mexican drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman extradited to the United States became a reality now that Mexicos Foreign Relations Department officially approved the move.
According to NPR, the decision was reached between the two countries Friday (May 20). We understand that the Mexican Foreign Ministry has now approved our two requests for extradition, following their approval by Mexican courts, a U.S. Department of Justice spokesman said. Mexican leaders voiced their wishes to have El Chapo tried in the states earlier this month. As of today, El Chapo is facing charges of money-laundering, and arms and drugs possession from up to seven U.S. federal prosecutors in Chicago, New York, Miami and San Diego.
El Chapos lawyers can delay the process with appeals, ultimately stalling the move for four to six years. The Sinaloa cartel leader escaped from Mexicos supermax Altiplano prison in July 2015 and was later captured in January of this year. It was his second prison escape, leading to assumptions of a third. The 61-year-old is currently being held in a prison in Juarez, the same area where his group caused the death of over 3,000 people during harrowing turf wars in 2010.
The Department of Justice says they will not explore the death penalty in El Chapos potential prosecution.
Sydney (AFP) - Families of victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was shot down over Ukraine in 2014, are suing President Vladimir Putin and Russia for Aus$10 million each in the European Court of Human Rights, The Sydney Morning Herald reported Saturday.
The compensation claim was filed with the Strasbourg-based court by Sydney legal firm LHD Lawyers on May 9 on behalf of 33 next of kin from Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia, the Herald said.
All 298 passengers and crew -- the majority of them Dutch -- died when the Boeing 777 was hit by a Russian-made BUK anti-aircraft missile over war-torn eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.
The documents filed by LHD Lawyers allege that the Russian Federation has worked to keep its involvement in the plane disaster hidden.
Jerry Skinner, a co-associate of LHD whose signature is on the claim, told the Herald that his clients wanted accountability.
"They want enough money to reflect that the Russians take this seriously," the paper quoted Skinner as saying.
Officials with the Dutch Safety Board (OVV) concluded last year as part of an international investigation that the Boeing 777 was hit by a BUK missile.
In February, a separate criminal investigation team said they hoped within months to pinpoint the exact spot from which the missile was fired.
Some families are also considering suing Malaysia Airlines for damages over loss of earnings as well as compensation for the "psychological" trauma of losing loved ones.
Motorcycle gunmen shot dead two Pakistan traffic police in the southern port city of Karachi on Saturday, officials said.
The assailants attacked the policemen while they were on duty in a busy central district, shooting them in the head.
"The constables were targeted while controlling traffic at Ayesha Manzil Road by two motorcycle riders. The terrorists also took with them the weapons of the deceased," Syed Feroz Shah, Deputy Inspector General of the West Zone Police, told AFP.
Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the killings.
A senior Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) official said that, with the latest assaults, the number of policemen shot dead in Karachi in the last five months had reached 16.
"All these cops were shot in the head," Raja Umer Khattab said, suspecting the same group was involved in all the attacks.
Last year 79 policemen -- including four senior officials and nine traffic policemen -- were killed by unknown gunmen.
Tahir Noorani, Assistant Inspector General of Traffic Police told AFP that, after the killing of nine traffic policemen last year, all field staff had been armed and directed to wear bulletproof vests while on duty.
"Both the deceased who were targeted had weapons and bulletproof jackets but they could not get a chance to resist," he said.
Los Angeles (AFP) - "Star Trek" actor Zachary Quinto paid a poignant tribute to Leonard Nimoy as cast members gathered in Hollywood to celebrate the film legend's life at a special fan event.
Nimoy, who played half-human, half-Vulcan science officer Mr Spock in the iconic sci-fi television and film series over more than four decades, died in Los Angeles in February last year at the age of 83.
Quinto, who plays Spock in the rebooted trilogy, told an audience of several hundred fans at the Paramount Pictures lot that "Star Trek" would not have had such longevity without the actor's contribution.
"In a way I feel like he's almost more a part of this film than he was of the other two. We were all so cognizant of his absence," the 38-year-old Pennsylvanian said when asked about filming the upcoming "Star Trek Beyond."
"But I think, in the face of that, we all held him in our hearts so much more fully... On this film, everybody showed up to work in the spirit of celebrating his life and his indelible contribution to this franchise."
Quinto's tribute came during a 50th anniversary celebration and discussion with fellow cast members Chris Pine and Karl Urban, as well as director Justin Lin and producer J.J. Abrams.
Paramount staged a ceremony after the session to name the road outside Stage 31 -- where much of the original 1966 series was filmed -- "Leonard Nimoy Way."
The studio used the event to premiere the first detailed trailer for "Beyond," which shows the USS Enterprise spaceship being ripped apart by a new alien threat.
Lin, who directed several episodes of the "Fast and Furious" action franchise, announced that the movie would debut at San Diego Comic-Con on July 20, two days ahead of its US release.
Lin and the cast are expected at the screening, the first-ever open-air IMAX world premiere, which will feature a live concert performance of Oscar-winning composer Michael Giacchino's score by the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.
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Abrams followed the announcement by telling the cheering fans that every one of them was to be invited to the screening.
"Star Trek Beyond" follows the blockbuster 2009 and 2013 movies "Star Trek" and "Star Trek Into Darkness," which breathed new life into the long-running big and small screen series, which has spawned several spinoffs.
The original "Star Trek" -- adored by millions of fans around the world -- told the story of the flight crew aboard the Enterprise, which ventured around the galaxy exploring new worlds.
It snowballed into a cultural phenomenon in the 1970s and 80s, turning its stars into household names -- Nimoy and William Shatner, who played Captain James T Kirk.
A new television series is due to air in the United States from January 2017 and will be available largely behind the paywall on CBS's subscription channel.
Memorial Resource Development-Range Resources Deal: Is It Solid?
(Continued from Prior Part)
Regulatory approvals
With most mergers, the rate of return is driven by the time it takes to finalize the transaction. In the case of Memorial Resource Development (MRD) and Range Resources (RRC), several conditions must be met before the transaction can close. While there will be an antitrust review, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissions approval of the S-4 will probably be the gating item.
Antitrust approval
Professional arbitrageurs usually go to the respective companies 10K to get a read on antitrust and to see if the companies name each other as competitors. Memorial Resource Development and Range Resources dont name each other as competitors in their respective 10Ks. Both companies describe the environment as intensely competitive. Range Resources is big in the Marcellus Shale region as well as the Mid-continentspecifically Northern Texas and Oklahoma. Memorial Resource Development is based in East Texas and Louisiana. There doesnt appear to be any geographic overlap. The companies will use best efforts to file Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust within 15 days of the merger agreement. Given the lack of geographic overlap and the intense competition in the industry, antitrust shouldnt be an issue for this transaction.
Best efforts language
The companies agreed to use reasonable best efforts to obtain antitrust approval. They agreed to cooperate with each other to satisfy antitrust authorities and to litigate if necessary. They wont agree to any divestitures that would have a material adverse effect on the combined company, but they dont put a dollar value on that number.
Other merger arbitrage resources
Other important merger spreads include the deal between Energy Transfer (ETE) and Williams Companies (WMB). For the basics on risk arbitrage investing, please refer to Merger arbitrage must-knows: A key guide for investors.
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Investors who would like diversified exposure to the financial sector should look at the S&P SPDR Energy ETF (XLE).
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Plunderers of the deep, beware: The site of the sunken ocean liner Andrea Doria is fraught with perils and a long line of casualties, earning every bit of its reputation as the "Mount Everest" of underwater shipwrecks.
During a fateful nighttime voyage in July 1956, the Andrea Doria rammed into another ship while gliding across the Atlantic, resulting in a torn hull that took on water until the ship sank 11 hours later.
Because of the amount of time it took for the ocean liner to sink, the lives of 1,600 passengers were saved before the vessel met its watery grave. For at least 16 divers who attempted to scour the wreckage over the course of the decades that followed, no such luck was to be had.
According to the Boston Globe, the sunken ship, which lies off the coast of Nantucket, presents itself as a veritable booby trap full of obstacles for any divers hoping to explore the wreckage.
"Netting has created a hazardous web around the ship, and the sheer depth of the wreck leads to visibility and water pressure dangers," according to the Globe.
Divers have also "gotten lost in the ship's collapsing compartments or fallen prey to faulty equipment."
Despite the risks, explorers remain eager to plunge into the deteriorating hull of the Andrea Doria in order to map and document its decay.
Stockton Rush, who helped found the ocean exploration company OceanGate, told CBS News that there is a great need in the scientific community for data on shipwrecks like the Andrea Doria.
"The Andrea Doria is rapidly decaying, and using this technology we can build a 3-D map of the wreck with very high accuracy that scientists can use to compare with future decay," he said.
YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Former militants have called for a halt to a resurgence of attacks on oil and gas facilities in Nigeria's Niger Delta, saying it is an unnecessary distraction for President Muhammadu Buhari's administration. The defunct Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), a group of former militants who previously targeted the oil-rich region, made the call in a statement late on Friday. Buhari said on Friday he had heightened the military presence in the region where attacks in the last few weeks - mostly claimed by a group calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers - have driven the country's oil output to a more than 20-year low. "We should give President Buhari the opportunity to fulfil his promises to the Niger Delta people by maintaining peace in the region," former MEND members said in the statement. "The current resurgence of militancy is an unnecessary distraction to the current administration," they said. Nigeria, which relies on oil sales for 70 percent of national income, is going through its worst economic crisis in decades caused by low crude prices. Former members of MEND, many of whom secured lucrative contracts to protect pipelines under an amnesty agreement, are influential, although whether this extends to those responsible for the recent attacks is not clear. (Reporting by Tife Owolabi; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Alexander Smith)
(Adds detail, background)
By Felix Onuah and Anamesere Igboeroteonwu
ABUJA/ONITSHA, Nigeria, May 20 (Reuters) - Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday said he ordered a heightened military presence in the restive Niger Delta region to deal with a resurgence of attacks on oil and gas facilities, a day after yet another pipeline explosion.
British Foreign Minster Philip Hammond warned on Saturday military action would not end a wave of attacks in the southern swamps because it did not address rising anger among residents over poverty despite sitting on much of Nigeria's oil wealth.
The rise in attacks in the Delta in the last few weeks has driven Nigerian oil output to a more than 20-year low, worsening a drain on public finances.
A group calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers has claimed responsibility for several sophisticated attacks.
Speaking at a meeting with Shell's upstream head, Andrew Brown, Buhari said he had instructed the chief of naval staff to reorganise and strengthen the military Joint Task Force to deal with the militancy.
"We have to be very serious with the situation in the Niger Delta because it threatens the national economy," Buhari said in a statement.
"I assure you that everything possible will be done to protect personnel and oil assets in the region," he added.
Nigeria had several times announced army reinforcements to the Delta but diplomats said the military has achieved little as militants were operating in small groups and hiding in the hard-to-access swamps.
"Mr. Brown had appealed for an urgent solution to rising crime and militancy in the Niger Delta," the presidency said.
An industry source told Reuters that major oil firms warned Vice President Yemi Osinbajo this month that a military crackdown was actually fuelling dissent in the Delta.
The presidency statement also quoted Brown as saying Shell would not pull out of Nigeria despite the violence and that it was in talks with state energy firm NNPC for new oil and gas projects.
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Their was no immediate comment from Shell, but its country chair said in an interview published on Sunday the firm was committed to long-term investment in the West African nation.
Buhari's comments came after locals said a gas pipeline operated by NNPC was attacked late on Thursday.
The pipeline, which connects the Escravos oil terminal to Warri, supplies gas to different parts of the country.
Eric Omare, a spokesman for the Ijaw Youth Council, a youth umbrella, said the attack occurred near the village of Ogbe Ijoh, near Warri, "on the pipeline belonging to NNPC.
Resident James Dadiowei said he heard a "loud bang" at the pipeline, but an NNPC spokesman was unable to confirm the attack.
On Thursday, intruders blocked access to Exxon Mobil's terminal exporting Qua Iboe, Nigeria's largest crude stream. And, earlier this month, Shell workers at Nigeria's Bonga facilities were evacuated.
In February, the Avengers claimed an attack on an undersea pipeline, forcing Shell to shut a 250,000 barrel-a-day Forcados terminal.
The group also claimed responsibility for blasting a Chevron platform in early May, shutting the Warri and Kaduna refineries. Power outages across Nigeria worsened as gas supplies were also affected.
The army said on Sunday it had arrested several suspected members of the Avengers, but locals said they had been freed.
"They were released on Wednesday evening," Omare said.
Residents said the military had described them as Avengers but locals had protested they were Chevron pipeline inspectors who had shown the soldiers arresting them their identity cards.
Militant attacks have spiked since authorities issued in January an arrest warrant for a prominent former militant leader who with other rebels in 2009 agreed to stop blowing up pipelines in exchange for cash, a plan Buhari has trimmed as part of an anti-graft drive.
(Additional reporting by Tife Owolabi, in Yenagoa; writing by Alexis Akwagyiram and Ulf Laessing; Editing by Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman)
By Felix Onuah and Anamesere Igboeroteonwu ABUJA/ONITSHA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday said he ordered a heightened military presence in the restive Niger Delta region to deal with a resurgence of attacks on oil and gas facilities, a day after yet another pipeline explosion. British Foreign Minster Philip Hammond warned on Saturday military action would not end a wave of attacks in the southern swamps because it did not address rising anger among residents over poverty despite sitting on much of Nigeria's oil wealth. The rise in attacks in the Delta in the last few weeks has driven Nigerian oil output to a more than 20-year low, worsening a drain on public finances. A group calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers has claimed responsibility for several sophisticated attacks. Speaking at a meeting with Shell's upstream head, Andrew Brown, Buhari said he had instructed the chief of naval staff to reorganize and strengthen the military Joint Task Force to deal with the militancy. "We have to be very serious with the situation in the Niger Delta because it threatens the national economy," Buhari said in a statement. "I assure you that everything possible will be done to protect personnel and oil assets in the region," he added. Nigeria had several times announced army reinforcements to the Delta but diplomats said the military has achieved little as militants were operating in small groups and hiding in the hard-to-access swamps. "Mr. Brown had appealed for an urgent solution to rising crime and militancy in the Niger Delta," the presidency said. An industry source told Reuters that major oil firms warned Vice President Yemi Osinbajo this month that a military crackdown was actually fuelling dissent in the Delta. The presidency statement also quoted Brown as saying Shell would not pull out of Nigeria despite the violence and that it was in talks with state energy firm NNPC for new oil and gas projects. Their was no immediate comment from Shell, but its country chair said in an interview published on Sunday the firm was committed to long-term investment in the West African nation. Buhari's comments came after locals said a gas pipeline operated by NNPC was attacked late on Thursday. The pipeline, which connects the Escravos oil terminal to Warri, supplies gas to different parts of the country. Eric Omare, a spokesman for the Ijaw Youth Council, a youth umbrella, said the attack occurred near the village of Ogbe Ijoh, near Warri, "on the pipeline belonging to NNPC. Resident James Dadiowei said he heard a "loud bang" at the pipeline, but an NNPC spokesman was unable to confirm the attack. On Thursday, intruders blocked access to Exxon Mobil's terminal exporting Qua Iboe, Nigeria's largest crude stream. And, earlier this month, Shell workers at Nigeria's Bonga facilities were evacuated. In February, the Avengers claimed an attack on an undersea pipeline, forcing Shell to shut a 250,000 barrel-a-day Forcados terminal. The group also claimed responsibility for blasting a Chevron platform in early May, shutting the Warri and Kaduna refineries. Power outages across Nigeria worsened as gas supplies were also affected. The army said on Sunday it had arrested several suspected members of the Avengers, but locals said they had been freed. "They were released on Wednesday evening," Omare said. Residents said the military had described them as Avengers but locals had protested they were Chevron pipeline inspectors who had shown the soldiers arresting them their identity cards. Militant attacks have spiked since authorities issued in January an arrest warrant for a prominent former militant leader who with other rebels in 2009 agreed to stop blowing up pipelines in exchange for cash, a plan Buhari has trimmed as part of an anti-graft drive. (Additional reporting by Tife Owolabi, in Yenagoa; writing by Alexis Akwagyiram and Ulf Laessing; Editing by Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman)
By Felix Onuah and Anamesere Igboeroteonwu ABUJA/ONITSHA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday said he ordered a heightened military presence in the restive Niger Delta region to deal with a resurgence of attacks on oil and gas facilities, a day after yet another pipeline explosion. British Foreign Minster Philip Hammond warned on Saturday military action would not end a wave of attacks in the southern swamps because it did not address rising anger among residents over poverty despite sitting on much of Nigeria's oil wealth. The rise in attacks in the Delta in the last few weeks has driven Nigerian oil output to a more than 20-year low, worsening a drain on public finances. A group calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers has claimed responsibility for several sophisticated attacks. Speaking at a meeting with Shell's upstream head, Andrew Brown, Buhari said he had instructed the chief of naval staff to reorganise and strengthen the military Joint Task Force to deal with the militancy. "We have to be very serious with the situation in the Niger Delta because it threatens the national economy," Buhari said in a statement. "I assure you that everything possible will be done to protect personnel and oil assets in the region," he added. Nigeria had several times announced army reinforcements to the Delta but diplomats said the military has achieved little as militants were operating in small groups and hiding in the hard-to-access swamps. "Mr. Brown had appealed for an urgent solution to rising crime and militancy in the Niger Delta," the presidency said. An industry source told Reuters that major oil firms warned Vice President Yemi Osinbajo this month that a military crackdown was actually fuelling dissent in the Delta. The presidency statement also quoted Brown as saying Shell would not pull out of Nigeria despite the violence and that it was in talks with state energy firm NNPC for new oil and gas projects. Their was no immediate comment from Shell, but its country chair said in an interview published on Sunday the firm was committed to long-term investment in the West African nation. Buhari's comments came after locals said a gas pipeline operated by NNPC was attacked late on Thursday. The pipeline, which connects the Escravos oil terminal to Warri, supplies gas to different parts of the country. Eric Omare, a spokesman for the Ijaw Youth Council, a youth umbrella, said the attack occurred near the village of Ogbe Ijoh, near Warri, "on the pipeline belonging to NNPC. Resident James Dadiowei said he heard a "loud bang" at the pipeline, but an NNPC spokesman was unable to confirm the attack. On Thursday, intruders blocked access to Exxon Mobil's terminal exporting Qua Iboe, Nigeria's largest crude stream. And, earlier this month, Shell workers at Nigeria's Bonga facilities were evacuated. In February, the Avengers claimed an attack on an undersea pipeline, forcing Shell to shut a 250,000 barrel-a-day Forcados terminal. The group also claimed responsibility for blasting a Chevron platform in early May, shutting the Warri and Kaduna refineries. Power outages across Nigeria worsened as gas supplies were also affected. The army said on Sunday it had arrested several suspected members of the Avengers, but locals said they had been freed. "They were released on Wednesday evening," Omare said. Residents said the military had described them as Avengers but locals had protested they were Chevron pipeline inspectors who had shown the soldiers arresting them their identity cards. Militant attacks have spiked since authorities issued in January an arrest warrant for a prominent former militant leader who with other rebels in 2009 agreed to stop blowing up pipelines in exchange for cash, a plan Buhari has trimmed as part of an anti-graft drive. (Additional reporting by Tife Owolabi, in Yenagoa; writing by Alexis Akwagyiram and Ulf Laessing; Editing by Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman)
(Reuters) - New York police took a suspect into custody on Saturday in connection with the death of a woman whose body was seen the day before being wheeled on a dolly in the Staten Island borough, officials said.
Acting on a tip, police found the man in the East Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, said spokesman Brian Magoolaghan of the New York Police Department. The man's name was not immediately released and charges were pending.
On Friday morning, a man was seen wheeling a woman's body on a metal dolly in Staten Island, the NYPD said in a statement. He fled when police arrived.
The woman, identified as Obiamaka Aduba, 26, was pronounced dead at the scene and a medical examiner was asked to determine the cause of her death, the police statement said.
It was not immediately clear if the man taken into custody on Saturday was the one seen wheeling the body of Aduba.
(Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by David Gregorio)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi agreed on the need for tighter security in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone after protesters stormed the area, the White House said on Saturday. At least four anti-government protesters were killed and 90 injured on Friday in clashes with security forces in the Green Zone, which is home to government offices and embassies, hospital sources said on Saturday. Obama spoke by phone with al-Abadi and a White House statement said they noted the need for talks so that "the Iraqi people can address this aspirations through their democratic institutions." Obama also commended al-Abadi for the steps his government has taken in finalizing an agreement with the International Monetary Fund and said it is important for the international community to support Iraq's economic recovery amid its fight against the Islamic State. (Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Mary Milliken and Chizu Nomiyama)
Valparaiso (Chile) (AFP) - A security guard died Saturday during protests here as President Michelle Bachelet was delivering an annual address to Chile's Congress, officials said.
Local prosecutors said the guard died as a result of a fire they said was "intentionally" set by protesters who clashed with police.
Bachelet expressed her condolences and condemned "the violence of those who do not respect democracy," her office said on Twitter.
"Nothing can justify the actions we witnessed today and that led to the death of an innocent worker by these delinquents who hid in civic demonstrations," said Marcelo Diaz, the chief of Bachelet's cabinet.
The president's annual progress report to the Chilean Congress -- located in Valparaiso, the country's second largest city -- typically attracts protests, and this year's was no different.
Some protesters set up barricades and hurled homemade firebombs in clashes with police.
Details on the incident involving the security guard were sketchy.
London (AFP) - The FA Cup final between Crystal Palace and Manchester United went to extra time after the match finished 1-1 following normal time at Wembley on Saturday.
Substitute Jason Puncheon gave underdogs Palace a 78th-minute lead by slamming a shot past David de Gea at the near post, but United equalised within three minutes as Marouane Fellaini chested down Wayne Rooney's right-sided cross for Juan Mata to volley home.
If the score is still level after the extra 30 minutes, the match will be decided by penalty kicks.
United, who beat Palace after a replay in the 1990 final, are bidding to win a record-equalling 12th FA Cup, while Palace have never previously lifted a major trophy.
LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. independent refiner Phillips 66 (PSX.N) is in the final stages of selling the only oil refinery in Ireland, a source familiar with negotiations said on Saturday.
Phillips 66 did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Responding to a report on the Irish Examiner website, which said an agreement to sell the Whitegate refinery would be reached within the coming weeks, the source said a deal was "in the offing".
The Examiner said ArcLight Capital, Irving Oil, UK-based PTFPlusOne and Valero Energy (VLO.N) were in the running, and that Irving Oil were the frontrunners.
It was unclear whether the potential buyers intended to keep the plant open or close it and use it for storage only.
(Reporting by Simon Falush, writing by Andy Bruce; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
American Eagle
It's a tough time to be a teen retailer.
Abercrombie & Fitch has been slowly working to regain footing, and Aeropostale filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
But American Eagle appears to be defying the curse that's been plaguing other brands.
The brand posted positive results for the first quarter of fiscal 2016 4%. Even though the company posted a 7% increase in comparable sales this time last year, the positive number stands out in a time that appears to be defined by a metaphorical bloodbath in the mall.
So what makes American Eagle stand out from competitors?
The company credits its signature apparel. In a time when Amazon is threatening most traditional retailers and malls are closing, the company argues that a brand needs solid merchandise and good branding to stay afloat...or else.
Check out the blog at blog.ae.com for photographer @rseabve's take on #LakePowell, Arizona. : AEO #DestinationAEO A photo posted by American Eagle (@americaneagle) on May 15, 2016 at 11:59am PDT on May 15, 2016 at 11:59am PDT
"I think the best things for us is it really is about having a strong brand and exclusive compelling merchandize and is really build around our leading denim," American Eagle's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Michael Rempell said on a conference call with analysts. "I think a lot of the brands, if you are retailer, my belief is if you're retailer who is selling product you can get multiple channels than good luck, Amazon is going to eat you alive."
#Sunday vibes with @NicholeCiotti and #AEOSTYLE. A photo posted by American Eagle (@americaneagle) on May 1, 2016 at 12:00pm PDT on May 1, 2016 at 12:00pm PDT
"But if you have a strong brand and you have good product than you have an opportunity to sell through your vertical channels. You can engage with your customer in compelling ways and get paid for the value you're delivering there. And that's really I said in the prepared remarks, that's really what we're focused on," he said.
Its Instagram account serves as veritable proof that it understands its customer. The customer is laid back and carefree, and its target female audience has a somewhat bohemian flair, too.
It's the weekend! A photo posted by American Eagle (@americaneagle) on Apr 30, 2016 at 7:47am PDT on Apr 30, 2016 at 7:47am PDT
Further, its women's business is currently stronger than its men's business.
The company said on an earnings conference call that the women's business saw comps go up in the "high single digits," but that the "demand from men's was not as strong" and comps declined in the low single digit," though the company clarified that sales were positive for men's pants, tee-shirts, woven shirts, and underwear.
Major cool girl vibes. Oversized and slung low, but still flatters with a relaxed leg that tapers slightly. Shop Tomgirl jeans directly from the link in our bio. #Regram @kristaperez A photo posted by American Eagle (@americaneagle) on Apr 22, 2016 at 6:44am PDT on Apr 22, 2016 at 6:44am PDT
Interestingly, American Eagle's assortment bears most of a resemblance to Abercrombie & Fitch's Hollister brand, which has quietly helped bring its parent company back from the grave.
At the end of fiscal 2015, Hollister reported a 4% increase in comparable sales for the fourth quarter, compared with a slight decline for Abercrombie's namesake brand. The parent company was able to post its first positive quarter since 2012 as a result.
"Hollister is benefiting from a consistency of positioning in ... both in terms of target customer, lifestyle [and] life stage," Abercrombie & Fitch Chairman Arthur Martinez said to Business Insider in March, adding that the "product is designed for that customer in that place."
The same could be argued for American Eagle: it knows its customer and sells clothes that the target demographic wants, and at a time when fast fashion and Amazon are taking over, that's more important than ever.
Paradise found. A photo posted by American Eagle (@americaneagle) on Apr 17, 2016 at 7:20am PDT on Apr 17, 2016 at 7:20am PDT
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By Olzhas Auyezov ALMATY/ASTANA (Reuters) - Kazakh police broke up anti-government protests across the country on Saturday, detaining dozens of protesters and cordoning off the main squares of major cities. Opponents of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has been in power since 1989, had called for rallies in all major cities, extending a series of demonstrations that started last month in response to plans to privatise large tracts of farmland. The protests, which have become an outlet for expressing general discontent with the government, are the Central Asian nation's biggest for more than a decade and continued on Saturday despite pre-emptive detentions of many activists and warnings from the authorities. At least 100 protesters gathered at one police checkpoint that blocked access to Almaty's main square. Similar-sized groups tried to enter the square at other points, some sang the national anthem. Reuters witnesses saw police, some in full riot gear, chase protesters down the street, detaining them one-by-one and putting them into buses. "Why are you just sitting here?" one protester, a young woman in tears, cried out at a group of onlookers. Police also briefly detained two Reuters reporters but released them after driving them a short distance in a police van. In the capital Astana, a Reuters correspondent saw police, who also cordoned off the site of the planned protest, detain a few people including journalists. Raul Uporov, a reporter based in the city of Uralsk in western Kazakhstan, told Reuters by telephone he had been detained by police at the protest. Local newspaper Uralksaya Nedelya, for which Uporov works, posted photographs of another police cordon at the city's central square. Azamat Maitanov, a reporter from Atyrau, told Reuters by telephone that police had used a similar tactic there too, while Nasha Gazeta newspaper based in Kostanai in northern Kazakhstan reported several people had been detained in that city. Although relatively small so far, with the biggest no more than a few thousand strong, the recent protests have become the most visible and geographically broad display of discontent against the president's rule since the early 2000s. The unrest follows a sharp economic slowdown and the depreciation of the national tenge currency by about 45 percent last year as the price of oil, Kazakhstan's main export plunged. Kazakh authorities had warned that the planned rallies were "illegal" and that police would react. "Law enforcement bodies are obliged to prevent any violations and immediately take the necessary legal measures including criminal prosecution," Prosecutor General Zhakip Asanov had said in a statement on Friday. Earlier this week, police and courts detained dozens of activists in several cities who had planned to take part in Saturday's protests. On Saturday, the Interior Ministry declined to say how many people police had detained across the country. Police also said on Friday they had found caches of Molotov cocktails, gasoline and iron rods near the protest site in Almaty - the kinds of improvised weapons used in protests in fellow ex-Soviet nation Ukraine which toppled its leadership. (Reporting by Mariya Gordeyeva, Raushan Nurshayeva and Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
[Warning: This story contains spoilers for the Preacher comics, and potentially the AMC television adaptation as well.]
There's a moment in the first episode of Preacher where a drunken Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper) threatens to make a man sound like a bunny in a bear trap. Confused on the mechanics of that threat? Custer clears it right up in a matter of sickening seconds.
It's not the first moment of gratuitous violence on the new AMC series, either, coming only after viewers have already witnessed an assassin bite another killer's ear off, which in turn follows a hedonistic vampire turning an airplane filled with slayers into a veritable meat factory.
Read More: 'Preacher': TV Review
Though these scenes are not ripped straight out of the Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon comics on which the show is based, they are tonally faithful. In fact, they're rather subdued in comparison to the nasty material contained within the Preacher source material. Across 66 main series issues and various tie-in installments, characters shoot each other's limbs off, others are decapitated (some more fatally than others), eyeballs are removed by holy entities and that's not even counting the endless stream of violent action committed against the antagonist, Herr Starr.
Indeed, there's no better example than Starr when it comes to discussing the violence of Preacher. The highly trained and highly offensive killer routinely finds himself on the receiving end of some very bad, permanent action. One moment late in the series sees him doing battle against an attack dog - and it does not work out well for either party.
(For those brave enough to see the image of Starr's dog fight, click here ... but fair warning, it's not safe for work.)
Read More: How AMC's 'Preacher' Is Different From the Comics
This is the exact type of nastiness found all throughout the Preacher comics. But will it be found throughout the Preacher TV series? Again, from the premiere episode alone, the creators of the show are not shying away from brutal action. Speaking at a press conference attended by The Hollywood Reporter, executive producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg made it clear that they're able to get away with a lot more explicit content than even they expected.
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"If anything, I'm surprised at what we can do," said Rogen. "The Walking Dead has given us a lot of precedent to do a lot of stuff that we might not have otherwise been able to do."
Rogen added that conversations with AMC's network standards and practices tend to focus on storytelling - and what's more, the fact that a conversation even exists is a different mode of operating than he's used to, coming from the film side of the business.
"With the MPAA, you don't have a conversation," he said. "You submit your stuff, you get notes back, and if it gets a rating you're not hoping for then you cross your fingers and re-submit it. But with [television], they call and talk and explain what they like and what they're trying to do. Pretty much every time, we've gotten to do everything we've wanted."
Yes, many details between the comics and the show will differ, but the tone and spirit of Preacher remains across the two mediums - and that includes some of the more gruesome aspects of the story. In other words, if Herr Starr ever appears onscreen with a dog, viewers would be wise to avert their eyes.
Read More: How Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Finally) Brought Violent Comic 'Preacher' to TV
Thousands of Brazilians staged protests across the country on Friday, May 20, in opposition to Brazils interim government, led by Brazilian Democratic Movement Partys Michel Temer. Protesters chanted #ForaTemer, or Out Temer, and called for the return of President Dilma Rousseff, who was suspended from her presidency after the Senate voted 55-22 for her impeachment on May 12.
This video shows the demonstration in Belo Horizonte in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais. Credit: Twitter/RogerioCorreia_
Amsterdam (AFP) - British alternative rockers Radiohead served up songs from their new album mixed with old classics in their much anticipated first live performance since 2012.
The Oxford-based group opened the tour to promote their ninth album, "A Moon Shaped Pool" at Amsterdam's Heineken Music Hall.
Thom Yorke and the band kicked off the two-hour concert with a hard-rock rendition of the first track, "Burn the Witch" from the new record.
The song set the tone for the evening, which also saw the band perform rock tunes including the powerful and growling "There, There," from the 2003 album "Hail to the Thief" and "Bodysnatchers" from the 2007 album "In Rainbows".
Throughout the evening attended by some 5,500 people, Radiohead was backed by a visual display featuring six giant screens showing close-up camera shots of each member.
Usually introspective and abstract, Yorke was in a playful mood and even cracked a joke or two with the audience, thanking them at one stage with a Dutch "Dank u wel," (Thank you very much).
- Surprises -
For diehard fans some of the most pleasant surprises of the evening were Radiohead's live performance of "My Iron Lung" for the first time in seven years and anthem "Paranoid Android" from their seminal 1997 album "OK Computer".
And the fans had high praise afterwards.
"I go to a lot of concerts and this is my fourth Radiohead concert," Jeffrey Leeuwenhaag, 40, told AFP.
"For me it's certainly one of the best ever. The band has achieved greatness," he said.
Radiohead have one more performance at the Heineken Music Hall on Saturday night, before travelling to Paris for their next gig on Monday night at the Zenith.
In total 28 concerts are scheduled including at other European venues, Japan, Mexico and the United States.
Radiohead was formed three decades ago and has become known for its maudlin rock tunes which featuring Yorke's trademark falsetto and various music styles including rock, electronic music, jazz and 20th century classical music.
The group has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide.
Rose Byrne knows a thing or two about nightmare neighbors.
When she was younger, she says, "I did have a guy that was a very paranoid stoner. And he would think I was making noise all the time and write these weird letters that were very nonsensical. That was annoying because I really didn't make much noise - and he thought I was planning and plotting things, and he was just really high."
Byrne, 36 - who stars as Seth Rogen's wife in Neighbors 2, the sequel to the 2014 comedy that earned $150 million domestically - has gone from drama (The Place Beyond the Pines) to superheroes (X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Apocalypse) to comedy. She's also gone from her native Australia to living in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her partner, Vinyl star Bobby Cannavale. With Neighbors 2 out in theaters May 20 and X-Men: Apocalypse out May 27, she's busier than ever.
What are your neighbors like today?
I love my neighbors. It's such a boring answer, but we have these beautiful neighbors that I'm really friendly with. I went to her baby shower this weekend. We have dinner together. They're lovely.
There's a moment in the film when you oil Zac Efron with grease from a meat grill. What was shooting that scene like?
It was disgusting because it was a real piece of meat, and it was all seasoned and baby oil was injected into it. It was also really hard to get off: I couldn't get it off my hands. Poor Zac was sticky, gross, oiled all afternoon. That whole sequence, we didn't have much time for. It was shot in three days. That was the toughest moment. The weather was terrible at times, and it was stressful. We were running out of time, not hitting the right spots and dressed up in these crazy outfits.
Read More: 'Neighbors 2' Premiere: Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne Explain Zac Efron's Absence
Were there any jokes that didn't make the final cut?
Oh, there were loads. Comedy is such a science. Often people think something is really funny on the day, and then it doesn't work. I've learned to not hang onto things too much.
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What was the funniest joke?
The bit when Seth's teaching Zac how to boil water. (Laughs.) It's so stupid, but hilarious.
Read More: 'Neighbors 2' Director Blames His Film's Lack of Female Writers on "Writers Guild Rules"
Who taught you to cook in real life?
I really didn't start cooking until my 30s. [In] my 20s, I don't know what I was eating, but I certainly wasn't cooking it. I'm not a good cook. I would never try and teach somebody.
What was your first job?
I worked at a bakery in the suburb I grew up in [in] Sydney, called Bakers Delight. I was 13, I reckon.
What's the biggest misconception about Australians?
That we all know each other. That we ride to school in a kangaroo. And that we grew up with dangerous animals.
Did you? Are there any you're afraid of?
Sharks. I've definitely been to beaches where you have to get out because there's a shark or something like that.
Do you prefer roles like this with your native Australian accent?
No. I thought it would serve the character in this because it makes her a little more with the association that Australians being wilder and being less likely to respond to authority. She's slightly aggressive and unhinged at times.
You keep your personal life very private. How do you manage that?
I'm generally a private person. It's increasingly hard. People love to talk about your personal life more than the work, often, and that's kind of irritating, too.
At the end of the film, you give advice to the sorority sisters. What's the best advice you've heard?
I really like [a well-known piece of] advice from Bette Davis. She's talking about how young actors can make it in Hollywood. Her advice was, "Take Fountain." That's actually really good advice. It's an incredible street. There's rarely that much traffic, and it gets you right across Hollywood.
What question do you most hate being asked?
"Why are people so surprised that women are funny?" I would like to not be asked that. It's so rude and so boring. It's like, "Oh, my God! That is such a boring question. Can you not come up with something else out of all the things we can talk about?" It's so old and tired.
Are there any male roles you wish you could have played?
Walter White [from Breaking Bad] would be pretty fun. It'd be different.
The MVRDV design and architecture studio has built a 29-meter tall staircase in the heart of the Dutch city to celebrate 75 years of its post-war reconstruction.
This giant staircase, made entirely from scaffolding, is designed to offer a progression of perspectives as users climb, while also providing a means of reaching the roof of the Groot Handelsgebouw building. Once at the top, visitors can take in views over the city from a temporary observation deck. The rooftop is also home to the city's former Kriterion Cinema, a popular haunt of the 1960s, reopened especially for the event. As well as showing movies, the cinema will host debates and performances.
The observation deck has a new line-up of refreshment facilities. Plus, visitors can find out more about the city and its development in a rooftop information center for the cultural event, "Rotterdam Celebrates the City!"
"Back in the day, I would look out over Rotterdam after the film in Kriterion. It offered a fantastic view of the city," explains Winy Maas, co-founder of MVRDV. "The roof of the Groot Handelsgebouw, one of the best buildings from the reconstruction period in the Netherlands, deserves to be used as a basis for the next re-invention of Rotterdam. With these stairs, we want to offer this suggestion and celebrate at the same time."
The 29-meter tall and 57-meter long scaffolding construction nods to the city's reconstruction and references the angles of the neighboring Rotterdam Central Station.
"The Stairs must create more liveliness on the roof and show a second layer in the next step of urban development of Rotterdam. A second coming," continues Winy Maas. "It would be good to make it a permanent fixture."
Cairo (AFP) - Smoke was detected inside an EgyptAir plane shortly before it plunged into the Mediterranean with 66 people on board, investigators said Saturday, offering clues but no answers about why it crashed.
The Airbus A320 had been flying from Paris to Cairo early Thursday when it plummeted and turned full circle before vanishing from radar screens, without its crew sending a distress signal.
Egypt's military released pictures of wreckage recovered so far, including a pink bag decorated with butterflies, a life vest, shredded seat covers and mangled debris showing the EgyptAir name.
France's aviation safety agency said Flight MS804 had transmitted automated messages indicating smoke in the cabin as the disaster unfolded.
While the information may help investigators, more wreckage including the black boxes will need to be found before they can piece together what happened.
"There were ACARS messages emitted by the plane indicating that there was smoke in the cabin shortly before data transmission broke off," a spokesman for France's Bureau of Investigations and Analysis told AFP.
It was "far too soon to interpret and understand the cause of the accident as long as we have not found the wreckage or the flight data recorders", he said.
ACARS -- Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System -- transmits short messages between aircraft and ground stations.
An Egyptian aviation ministry statement also said it was too early to draw any conclusions based on a "single source of information such as the ACARS messages which are signals and indicators that may have different causes".
- Nothing ruled out -
Search teams were scouring the eastern Mediterranean Saturday for more parts of the plane and the black boxes.
While Egypt's aviation minister has pointed to terrorism as more likely than technical failure, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Saturday that nothing was being ruled out.
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"At this time... all theories are being examined and none is favoured," he told a news conference in Paris.
The disaster comes just seven months after the bombing of a Russian airliner over Egypt's Sinai peninsula in October that killed all 224 people on board.
The Islamic State group was quick to claim responsibility for the attack, but there has been no such claim linked to the EgyptAir crash.
Relatives of the passengers gathered at a hotel near Cairo airport on Friday after meeting airline officials as they struggled to come to terms with the catastrophe.
"They haven't died yet. No one knows. We're asking for God's mercy," said a woman in her 50s whose daughter had been on board.
EgyptAir Holding Company chairman Safwat Moslem told AFP on Saturday the priority was finding the passengers' remains and the flight recorders, which will stop emitting a signal in a month when the batteries run out.
"The families want the bodies. That is what concerns us. The army is working on this. This is what we are focusing on," he said.
A French patrol boat carrying equipment capable of tracing the black boxes was expected on Sunday or Monday.
The plane disappeared between the Greek island of Karpathos and the Egyptian coast in the early hours of Thursday.
- Sharp turns -
It had turned sharply twice before plunging 22,000 feet (6,700 metres) and vanishing from radar screens, said Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos.
Experts stressed there was not enough information yet to explain the incident.
"All you can say... is that there was smoke. The smoke could be due to a fire in the plane following a technical problem, or it could also mean an explosion... but it is far too early to formulate hypotheses," Jean-Pail Troadec, a former BEA director, told AFP.
"The fact that there was no distress call doesn't necessarily mean anything.
"The pilots maybe had other things to do, reacting to the event. Sending a message is not the first priority."
Personal belongings and parts of the Airbus A320 had been spotted by teams searching the sea off Egypt's northern coast about 290 kilometres (180 miles) from the city of Alexandria, Egypt's military said.
Kammenos said the search teams, which include multinational aircraft and ships, had found "a body part, two seats and one or more items of luggage".
The passengers were 30 Egyptians, 15 French citizens, two Iraqis, two Canadians, and citizens from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. They included a boy and two babies.
Seven crew and three security personnel were also on board.
The European Space Agency said one of its satellites on Thursday spotted an oil slick about 40 kilometres southeast of the plane's last known location.
In October, foreign governments issued travel warnings for Egypt and demanded a review of security at its airports after the Islamic State group said it downed the Russian airliner over Sinai with a bomb concealed in a soda can.
IS has been waging a deadly insurgency against Egyptian security forces and has claimed attacks in both France and Egypt.
Soulja Boy just confirmed a major business move that had everyone searching for answers when he announced the deals figure on social media.
The Crank That rapper has partnered up with World Poker Fund Holdings, who selected to team up with the artist/producer on a $400 million investment. In a statement issued to Billboard, the company explained why they decided to partner with Soulja Boy as their ambassador, sharing that hes one of the most influential urban entertainers and artist on social media and that he represents the best of the best and we are already seeing the impact from his presence.
Soulja Boy, born DeAndre Cortez Way, will help promote the entitys gaming assets. The Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood cast member also issued his own stance on the lucrative transaction.
I invest in things I understand, he expressed. I enjoy music, and of course gaming. Being an influencer is a form of currency. Having portfolio diversification is critical if you want to be an effective brand ambassador. With regards to World Poker Fund, I believe in its strategy, its team, the vision, and managements ability to target its financial goals.
(Reuters) - The England pace attack ripped out Sri Lanka for 91 after Jonny Bairstow made an excellent century to put the hosts in complete control of the first test on the second day in Leeds on Friday. Bairstow's superb knock of 140 lifted England to 298 in their first innings before James Anderson and Stuart Broad took nine wickets between them in favourable conditions for seam bowling at Headingley. England captain Alastair Cook enforced the follow-on and the touring side negotiated two deliveries to reach one for no wicket before bad light ended play. Sri Lanka trail by 206 runs in the opening match of the three-test series. England had resumed in the morning on 171 for five and Bairstow and Alex Hales extended their sixth-wicket partnership to 141. Hales, on 86, was in sight of his maiden test century when he skied spinner Rangana Herath to deep extra cover. Moeen Ali (nought) and Broad (two) were dismissed by Dushmantha Chameera in the same over but Bairstow, dropped on 70, completed his second test hundred and celebrated the achievement enthusiastically on his home ground. Bairstow found a solid partner in Steven Finn, the pair adding 56 for the ninth wicket before the former skied a catch to mid-on off Chameera. Sri Lanka made a dreadful start to their reply as experienced fast bowlers Anderson and Broad exploited the conditions superbly. Dimuth Karunaratne, Kaushal Silva and Kusal Mendis all edged catches to wicketkeeper Bairstow, leaving the tourists in deep trouble at 12 for three. Dinesh Chandimal, on 15, was well held by James Vince at third slip off Ben Stokes before Anderson trapped captain Angelo Mathews lbw for 34 and then dismissed Dasun Shanaka first ball with a peach of a delivery that the batsman nicked to Bairstow. The dismissal of Mathews was Anderson's 435th in tests, taking him past India's Kapil Dev into sixth place on the all-time list. Herath was smartly caught by Stokes in the slips off Anderson for one, Chameera (2) drove Broad to Finn at mid-off and Lahiru Thirimanne, on 22, was caught by Finn at mid-on off Broad. Anderson completed his 19th five-wicket haul in tests and outstanding figures of five for 16 when he had Shaminda Eranga caught by Bairstow down the leg-side. (Reporting by Ed Osmond in London, editing by Ken Ferris)
By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - New global guidelines on the treatment of heart failure strongly endorse the use of Novartis' Entresto, boosting the prospects for a drug that has struggled to gain traction since its launch last year. U.S. and European heart experts gave the highest "class 1" recommendation to Entresto for use in patients with heart failure, a debilitating condition in which the heart is unable to pump enough blood around the body. The guidance in the key U.S. market says that Entresto should replace two older types of drugs known as ACE inhibitors and ARBs in heart failure patients who have adequate blood pressure and tolerance to standard drugs. In Europe, doctors are recommended to switch their patients to the medicine if they fit the profile of a 2014 clinical trial that proved Entresto was better than standard treatment. "The guidelines read favorably. In fact, they are about as favorable as we could have hoped for," said Bernstein analyst Tim Anderson. Given Entresto's sluggish sales, investors were watching carefully to see what the guidelines said and when they would be issued, since this will influence prescribers. There had been concerns the announcements could be staggered and might only recommend limited use. In the event, the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association and the European Society of Cardiology said they issued their guidelines simultaneously to "unify the message, minimize confusion, and improve and standardize the care of patients". Novartis said the new guidance, published late on Friday, would redefine the standard of care for treating reduced ejection fraction heart failure. "We know patients with heart failure suffer reduced quality of life and remain at high risk of hospitalization or death, and these new guidelines are a strong call to action to ensure patients receive the most effective therapies," said Vas Narasimhan, chief medical officer for Novartis. The guidelines do contain some expected caveats, with experts saying that Entresto should not be given together with an ACE inhibitor or used in patients with a history of a swelling condition known as angioedema. Experts also gave a "class IIa" recommendation to Amgen's new drug Corlanor for use on top of beta blockers for certain heart failure patients who have a resting heart rate of at least 70 beats per minute. Servier sells the product outside the United States. There have been few new drugs for heart failure and Novartis has touted Entresto as an eventual $5 billion-a-year seller. Yet first-quarter sales of the medicine were just $17 million and Novartis now predicts 2016 sales of a modest $200 million, well below initial analyst forecasts. The lack of specific guidelines from professional bodies until now will have contributed to reticence among some doctors to prescribe Entresto - but cost is also an issue. With a price tag of around $4,500 a year, some physicians worry that patients might quit their medication. Novartis on Thursday unveiled a battery of new clinical trials for Entresto designed to boost confidence in the drug and assuage doctors' concerns over switching patients to Entresto when they are stable on older medicines. (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Alexander Smith)
Sumner Redstone appears to have moved out two longtime allies as trustees of the group that will determine the fate of his corporate empire after his death. The move, the latest in the extraordinary battle raging around the mogul in his waning days, is viewed as benefiting his daughter, Shari, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Redstone reportedly sent notices to Viacom chairman-CEO Philippe Dauman and to Viacom director George Abrams, informing both that they would no longer be part on the panel that oversees the trust that will inherit Redstones shares of National Amusements, the company that holds Redstones controlling interest in Viacom and CBS, according to the source.
The news, first reported by Fortune, is likely to help Shari Redstone, an attorney and businesswoman who holds a 20% interest in National Amusements and is a board member of Viacom and CBS. The younger Redstone has been feuding with Dauman, with the two reportedly holding divergent views on the management of Viacom and the question of what will become of Sumner Redstones media empire. When Sumner Redstone stepped down as executive chairman of Viacom in February, under pressure for shareholders, Shari was the only board member who voted against Daumans ascension into the post.
A spokesman for Dauman issued a statement Friday evening, challenging the action to oust the Viacom CEO from the National Amusements post.
These steps are invalid and illegal, the spokesman said in a statement. They are a shameful effort by Shari Redstone to seize control by unlawfully using her ailing father Sumner Redstones name and signature. As she knows, and as court proceedings and other facts have demonstrated, Sumner Redstone now lacks the capacity to have taken these steps. Sumner Redstone would never have summarily dismissed Philippe Dauman and George Abrams, his trusted friends and advisors for decades.
Redstone holds an 80% voting stake in both CBS and Viacom owner of Paramount Studios and MTV Networks via National Amusements. Fortune reported that notices were faxed to Dauman and Abrams Friday, informing both they had been removed from the board of National Amusements and from the seven-member trust that will determine what happens to Redstones holdings after he dies.
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Nothing has been disclosed about who will replace the two men, if their ouster is confirmed. The statement from Daumans spokesman also did not say whether he plans to take any action to block his removal.
Shari Redstone also sits on the National Amusements board and on the seven-member trust, along with her son, Tyler Korff. The rest of the panel had included Dauman and Abrams, a Boston attorney who has been a Viacom director for years; David R. Andelman, a Boston attorney who is a director of CBS and National Amusements; Norman I. Jacobs, another attorney who has advised Redstone and Leonard L. Lewin, an attorney with ties to Phyllis Redstone, Sumner Redstones ex-wife.
Its previously been reported that Shari Redstone and her allies hold a majority, or near majority, on the trust panel, though the sentiments of the members have never been disclosed publicly. Fortune speculated that the ouster of the two long-time Redstone allies would virtually assure majority control by Shari, though the publication did not elaborate.
The action does not directly involve Viacom or CBS, just Redstones holding company. Dauman had long been seen as a trusted confidant of the companys controlling shareholder for more than 30 years, but Redstone now appears removed from the conglomerates routine operations. The company this week took away the magnates salary, which had stood at $2 million for 2015. His other corporate holding, CBS, is soon expected to follow suit, zeroing out his pay. Shareholders had filed a lawsuit, protesting pay for Redstone at a time they said he was contributing nothing to the operations of the two companies.
Related Content Viacom Eliminates Sumner Redstones $2 Million Salary
The businessman, nearing his 93rd birthday is in frail health and receives round-the-clock care at his mansion in Beverly Park. He just weathered a trial over his mental competency. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David J. Cowan ruled that he would allow the billionaire to be in charge of his own affairs, determining that he clearly wanted longtime companion Manuela Herzer out of his life, leaving Shari Redstone in charge of overseeing his health care decisions, should he be deemed incapable of making his own decisions.
Herzer was abruptly ousted from Sumner Redstone s mansion last October, when decisions about the moguls health care were transferred to Dauman and later to Shari Redstone. Herzers suit alleged that Shari Redstone was the force behind the decision because Sumner Redstone does not have mental capacity to make such a decision.
In that case, Redstones lawyers and Dauman repeatedly argued that the 92-year-old had not lost his mental competency. Now that the lawsuit has been thrown out, Dauman is asserting that he has.
Cowan did not make a ruling on Redstones mental capacity, though doubts about it were raised following a deposition in which the magnate did not respond to some basic questions, including about a change in his family name, made earlier in his life.
Fortune described the ouster of the two long-time Redstone confidantes from the panel overseeing his holdings a big victory for Shari Redstone. Representatives for Sumner Redstone and Shari Redstone could not be immediately reached.
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By Jessica Toonkel (Reuters) - Media mogul Sumner Redstone has removed Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman and Viacom board member George Abrams from the seven-person trust that will determine the fate of both Viacom and CBS in the event of his incapacitation or death, two people familiar with the situation told Reuters Friday. Reuters reported Tuesday that Redstone, who turns 93 next week, had the power to remove certain members of the trust, including Dauman. The move by Sumner Redstone, gives his daughter, Shari Redstone, who is also on the trust and vice chair of CBS and Viacom, a victory and more certain control to determine the fate of her father's $40 billion media empire. According to documents faxed to Dauman and Abrams, Redstone also removed Abrams and Dauman from the board of National Amusements Inc, the privately held movie company which owns 80 percent voting stake in CBS and Viacom, one of the sources said. Both sources wished to remain anonymous because they are not permitted to speak to the media. CBS and Viacom also received faxed notifications, according to Fortune, which first reported Sumner Redstone's move. A spokesman for Dauman called the steps "illegal and invalid" in an emailed statement to Reuters. "They are a shameful effort by Shari Redstone to seize control by unlawfully using her ailing father Sumner Redstone's name and signature. As she knows and as court proceedings and other facts have demonstrated, Sumner Redstone now lacks the capacity to have taken these steps," the spokesman said. "Sumner Redstone would never have summarily dismissed Philippe Dauman and George Abrams, his trusted friends and advisors for decades." Abrams did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment. A spokeswoman for Shari Redstone had no immediate comment. Sumner Redstone and Dauman have worked together for more than 30 years, and Redstone has called Dauman "a great friend." Shari Redstone voted against Dauman's elevation to executive chairman of Viacom in February. This month, a judge dismissed a lawsuit by a former girlfriend who argued Redstone was not mentally competent to remove her from his advance healthcare directive last October. The case shined a spotlight on Redstone's health. The mogul struggled to speak when questioned by the ex-girlfriend's attorneys, a transcript of his testimony showed. The Sumner M. Redstone National Amusements Inc Trust owns about 80 percent of Redstone's privately held movie theater company, National Amusements Inc, which in turn owns 80 percent of the voting rights in both Viacom and CBS. After Sumner Redstone dies or is incapacitated, the trust will determine all matters that come to a shareholder vote at both companies, including potential mergers or acquisitions. With the removal of Abrams and Dauman, Shari Redstone will have majority support among the trust's members, who include Shari's son, lawyer Tyler Korff, and David Andelman, another lawyer who is on the CBS board. The trust's other members are Norman Jacobs, Sumner's divorce lawyer, and Leonard Lewin, an attorney who represented Redstone's first wife, Phyllis, in her divorce from Sumner. (Reporting by Jessica Toonkel in New York; Additional reporting by Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Justice Elena Kagans recusal in the Fisher v. University of Texas affirmative action case may have been a significant factor in the Courts deliberations. So why do Justices have to take a break from cases?
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Having acted as Solicitor General before her nomination to the Supreme Court was confirmed in August 2010, Kagans conflicts of interest have been numerous during her first year at the Court. . Between October 2010 and June 2011, Kagan sat out for 28 of the 78 cases heard. While her absence didnt create the deadlock some critics had predicted, the effects of her lost input are impossible to measure, becausebeing recused from a case denies a judge not only a vote at the end, but a place at the deliberation table.
In 2016, Kagan is further removed from her former Solicitor General role, making her recusals increasingly infrequent. That being said, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin is a high-profile case connected with Kagans original legal counsel. Kagan also is the only judge with experience in higher education admissions. . With a potential landmark decision on the line, the nature and merits of recusal prove fair fodder for debate.
Frequent recusals were Thurgood Marshalls problem in 1967 before they were Kagans. The legendary lawyer was the Solicitor General under President Lyndon B. Johnson before being nominated to the Supreme Court. Marshall recused himself from more cases in his earlier cases than Kagan. Recusals, however, are not unique to former Solicitor Generals. Any conflict of interest can theoretically disqualify a judge. Sandra Day OConnor removed herself from cases regarding telecommunications firms on account of her stock-owning. Clarence Thomas was recused himself from United States vs. Virginia because of his sons enrollment at The Virginia Military Institute. From financial incentive to familial bias, recusal has proved far more pervasive in modern times than in the early Supreme Court.
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Consider Chief Justice John Marshall, for instance. In the landmark Marbury v. Madison decision, Marshall set not only a precedent for judicial review, but for lax recusal standards. The case, which was centered on then Secretary Of State James Madison, ultimately intertwined Marshall as well. He was acting Secretary Of State at the time of the midnight judge nominations, so Marshall was essentially presiding over a case in which he had been heavily involved. Though 10 years later he recused himself from the Martin v. Hunters Lessee hearings, it is evident that guidelines for judicial disqualifications were far less stringent and clear in the early 19th Century than they are today.
Before Marbury v. Madison. English common law called for judicial disqualification only when financial interests were at stake. It was not until 1821 that this sentiment was expanded upon, when relatives of a judge involved as parties suddenly cause for recusal under U.S. law. By 1891, Congress enacted what would later be codified as 28 U.S.C. 47. This expansion disqualified judges from presiding over an appeal they had previously tried. By 1911, these specific statues were joined by vaguer guidelines ubder28 U.S.C. 144, which entitles a party to secure recusal of a judge by supplying an affidavit that the judge has a personal bias or prejudice against the affiant or for the opposing party.
However, as a restrictions have grown, so, too has backlash. Enter the duty to sit concept. Widely accepted in 1972 through Laird v. Tatum, the duty to sit idea argues that while it is a judges duty to step down when conflicts of interests are at stake, it is equally his or her duty to stay the course when these said conflicts of interest are unreasonable or unconvincing.
While current precedent follows that the judge disqualifies him or herself, the duty to sit is often re-invoked when a judge, particularly a Supreme Court Justice, authors an opinion after declining recusal for suspect or controversial cases. Antonin Scalia, among others, has authored such an opinion denying a recusal motion in 2004 after he didnt recuse himself from a case involving his friend, Vice President Dick Cheney. Scalia cited numerous incidents where Justices and Presidents saw each other socially, but didnt discuss cases.
While Kagans impartiality might reasonably be questioned under 28 U.S. Code 455, the question remains whether she possesses the duty to sit. With Scalias passing in February and Kagans recusal, the seven remaining judges were left to decide a case in which affirmative action could potentially be affected nationally.
The debate remains. Are guidelines for recusal too restrictive or too vague? Can a Supreme Court justices pertinent expertise ever override a potential bias? That may be up to the next President to decide, based on the background and potential conflicts inherent in Scalias eventual replacement.
Olivia Fitzpatrick is a student at the University of Pennsylvania and a National Constitution Center intern.
ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland hopes to reach a compromise with the European Union in fresh talks on possible immigration limits in the weeks after Britain's referendum on whether to leave the bloc, a Swiss newspaper reported on Saturday. The Swiss government has until February next year to enforce a binding 2014 referendum vote backing quotas on people coming into the country. Any such limits would violate a bilateral pact with Brussels guaranteeing freedom of movement for EU workers - and Swiss officials are keen to find a way to at least minimize the confrontation with their main trading partner. Veteran diplomat Jacques de Watteville, Switzerland's chief negotiator in talks with Brussels, is hoping to find a compromise by July 6 when a meeting will be held, newspaper Tages-Anzeiger said, citing "reliable information". Talks have been on hold until after Britain's June 23 national vote on whether to leave the bloc, as Brussels is unwilling to show any flexibility in the Swiss talks that could encourage the British 'Out' camp, a senior Swiss official said in February. Details on what the compromise might be were "foggy", the paper said, but indications in "diplomatic circles" were that it might involve a qualitative measures rather than quantitative restrictions, it added, without going into further details. Switzerland is not a member of the EU but has signed up to a host of bilateral agreements. The 2014 referendum has jeopardized other Swiss-EU treaties that govern bilateral economic ties and stand or fall together. A deal by July would leave enough time for the Swiss government and parliamentary commissions to sign off on the agreement in regular proceedings. An alternative plan is to conclude negotiations by September at least and then push through a possible agreement in expedited proceedings, Tages-Anzeiger reported. The government could also take a position on a popular initiative seeking to overturn the 2014 vote. The civil campaign called Raus aus der Sackgasse (RASA), or "Out of the impasse", has gathered enough national support to force a referendum. Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the Tages-Anzeiger report. In response to a Reuters request for comment, a spokeswoman for the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs said the government has always maintained it is seeking a solution in the Brussels talks before the summer and that the priority is to find a good rather than a quick conclusion. (Reporting by Joshua Franklin; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
Taipei (AFP) - Dozens of lawsuits brought against former Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou reopened Saturday as his presidential immunity lapsed after the island swore in its new leader.
Ma left the presidential office Friday as Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took the reins as the island's first female leader, after winning a landslide victory in January.
Ma came to power in 2008 partly due to his "Mr Clean" image, favoured by a public fed up with the scandals of former DPP leader Chen Shui-bian, who was jailed for corruption.
However, Ma now faces his own court battles as political rivals hurl suits at him on a range of allegations, including leaking political secrets and failing to declare assets.
His departure from office means he now faces 24 cases, according to the Taipei District Prosecutors Office.
"The office has been actively taking inventory of cases relating to president Ma that were suspended due to immunity to criminal prosecution," prosecutors said in an earlier statement.
"The investigations will restart according to law after the president steps down," it said.
Local media reported Thursday that the High Court had ordered a re-hearing on a request brought by a DPP lawmaker that Ma be prevented from leaving the country due to the cases he faces.
That request had previously been denied at district level.
Seemingly undeterred, a relaxed Ma was pictured going for a morning jog and doing push-ups in his old neighbourhood in Taipei Saturday, after moving back there from the presidential residence.
Ma took the leadership in 2008 by the biggest landslide in Taiwan's democratic history, but saw his popularity plummet during his eight-year run, with the public unnerved by policies seen as linking the island too closely with rival China.
Even though Taiwan is self-governed after splitting with the mainland in 1949 following a civil war, Beijing still sees the island as part of its territory to be reunified.
The United States targeted Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour in an airstrike Saturday in a remote region in northwest Pakistan, with American and Afghan officials saying that they had killed the militant in what would be Washingtons biggest battlefield win against the militant group in years.
A U.S. defense official told Foreign Policy that because the raid took place outside of Afghanistan, it required authorization by the president. The official would not specify where the strike took place, but the Afghan Taliban has long thrived in northwest Pakistan.
The Afghan government confirmed Mansours death Sunday, with its National Directorate of Security saying in a statement that the militant was killed in the Baluchistan region of Pakistan. Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah was more specific, saying Mansour died in a drone strike on his car in the city Quetta, long a Taliban stronghold.
Either way, the militants death would be a major boost for the Kabul government, which has lost hundreds of soldiers and security personnel in recent fighting with the resurgent Taliban. The armed group itself, which maintains an active presence on social media, has so far not confirmed Mansours death or made any other comment about the strike.
Mansour had publicly taken control of the Taliban last August, when the group announced that its charismatic founder, Mullah Omar, died in secret in April 2013. The revelation led to an internal struggle which resulted in some groups unhappy with Mansours elevation breaking off from main Taliban. Notably, Omar is thought to have died of natural causes despite a more than decade-long U.S. effort to find and kill him.
The strike comes as the Taliban continue to seize territory across Afghanistan while showing an increasing ability to carry out strikes inside Kabul.
The Talibans expanding operations in Afghanistans south capturing several key districts in Helmand province has posed a vexing strategic problem for President Barack Obama, who promised to end Americas longest war when taking office. The continued strength of the Taliban, paired with the uneven performance of the Afghan army, leaves the White House with a hard choice: Keep the relatively strict rules limiting the numbers of strikes in place and risk seeing the militants move around at will, or allow American pilots to bomb a broader array of targets at the risk of deepening Washingtons role in Afghanistan and causing more civilian casualties on the ground.
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Speaking to FPs Dan De Luce earlier this month, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford expressed concern over the Afghan governments ability to defend itself without continued U.S. and NATO help. I think we owe the president options to ensure that the Afghan forces are successful in 2016 and beyond, he said. Dunford declined to say explicitly whether he favored giving U.S. commanders more freedom to target the Taliban from the air, but said, I recognize aviation is a gap. And were going take a look at it.
The strike on Mansour is another signal that the formal end of the NATO military mission in Afghanistan in January 2015 hasnt come remotely close to actually bringing the U.S.-led war there to a close. American drones and aircraft have launched dozens of airstrikes a month on al Qaeda and Islamic State targets since then, but have largely been restricted from targeting the Taliban, which lacks the global ambitions of the other two groups.
The exception to this has been when Afghan troops or their American advisors have been under direct assault by the Taliban.
That was the case when U.S. jets pounded Taliban fighters in January after U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Matthew McClintock was killed when his Green Beret advisory team was ambushed by Taliban fighters in Helmand province. American fighter planes launched over 20 airstrikes on Taliban fighters while the Americans waited to be pulled out of the fight. American Green Berets also ordered an AC-130 gunship to open fire on suspected Taliban positions in Kunduz in October. That strike mistakenly killed 42 civilians at a Doctors Without Borders hospital. Sixteen U.S. service members were disciplined for the strike, though no criminal charges were filed.
Still, there has been growing pressure on the Obama administration to expand the list of targets U.S. forces can hit in Afghanistan. When Gen. John Nicholson took over command of U.S. and NATO forces in March, he promised to conduct a 90-day review before making recommendations to the White House.
In a Wall Street Journal Friday op-ed Friday, retired Gen. David Petraeus and Michael OHanlon from the Brookings Institution wrote that Washington needs to take the gloves off in allowing U.S. aircraft to hit the Taliban. Simply waging the Afghanistan air-power campaign with the vigor we are employing in Iraq and Syria even dropping bombs at a fraction of the pace at which we are conducting attacks in those Arab states will very likely make much of the difference between some version of victory and defeat, they wrote.
The strike against Mansour was carried out under the existing, limited, rules of engagement.
The defense official told FP that the strike was conducted under self-defense authorities, since Mansour was engaged in actions that directly threatened U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said Saturday that Mansour has been an obstacle to peace and reconciliation between the Government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, prohibiting Taliban leaders from participating in peace talks with the Afghan government that could lead to an end to the conflict.
Other U.S. military officials have recently stressed that the Taliban and al Qaeda have increased ties since Mansour took control of the group. During a briefing at the Pentagon earlier this month, spokesman for the U.S. military command in Kabul, Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland, said that the relationship between the Taliban and al Qaeda remain somewhat opaque, since at times, we see all of these organizations working together, while other times they act alone.
Photo credit: JAVED TANVEER/AFP/Getty Images
Washington (AFP) - An American drone strike targeted and "likely killed" Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a remote area of Pakistan, US officials said, in a major and rare American military raid in the country.
The air strike, authorized by President Barack Obama, also killed a second adult male combatant as the pair traveled in a vehicle southwest of the town of Ahmad Wal near the Afghan border, a US official said.
"Mansour was the target and was likely killed" by the strikes, which were carried out around 6:00 am (1000 GMT) by multiple unmanned aircraft operated by US Special Operations Forces, the US official added, speaking on conditions of anonymity. There were no other known casualties.
In a statement, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the US military was still assessing whether Mansour had in fact been killed. The deaths of Taliban leaders have often been falsely reported, and Mansour himself was rumored to have been killed in December.
The United States informed both Pakistan and Afghanistan shortly after the strike, a senior White House official said.
News of the strike came as US Central Command chief General Joseph Votel made a surprise visit to northern Syria to witness efforts to build up local forces in the fight against the Islamic State group.
He was the highest-ranking US military official to travel to Syria since its civil conflict began in 2011.
The United States has focused its counterterrorism efforts on fighting IS in Syria and Iraq, but it also is struggling with a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan since most US combat troops withdrew at the end of 2014.
Mansour was "actively involved" with planning attacks across Afghanistan, and presented an "obstacle to peace and reconciliation between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, prohibiting Taliban leaders from participating in peace talks with the Afghan government that could lead to an end to the conflict," Cook said.
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Mansour was appointed head of the Taliban in July 2015 following the revelation that the group's founder Mullah Omar had been dead for two years.
"Since the death of Mullah Omar and Mansour's assumption of leadership, the Taliban have conducted many attacks that have resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and Afghan security forces as well as numerous US and coalition personnel," Cook said.
- 'Keep expectations in check' -
Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution think-tank said Mansour's death may only "modestly" help the US effort in Afghanistan.
"The war has been going on for so long, the Taliban has so many leaders and so much ability to function at the local level even without strong central guidance, that we would be well advised to keep expectations in check," he said.
US lawmakers welcomed the news and some urged the Obama administration to take a firmer stand.
"I appreciate President Obama for authorizing the attack," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said, adding "I strongly encourage the Obama administration to not withdraw troops until conditions on the ground permit their withdrawal."
Republican Senator John McCain, head of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, said he hoped "this strike against the Taliban's top leader will lead the administration to reconsider its policy of prohibiting US forces from targeting the Taliban."
Pressure has been building in recent months for the United States return to direct engagement with the Taliban, particularly via air strikes.
"We need to take the gloves off those forces already in-country," namely those belonging to the United States and NATO, and authorize air strikes, David Petraeus, the ex-CIA director and former commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, wrote in The Wall Street Journal this week.
NATO ended its combat mission in Afghanistan in December 2014, pulling out the bulk of its troops, although a 13,000-strong residual force remains for training and counterterrorism operations.
The Taliban, which announced the start of its annual spring offensive last month, has already stepped up its campaign against the Western-backed Kabul government for the season.
Kabul is desperately seeking to bring the insurgent group back to the negotiating table to end their conflict which began in 2001.
Buoyed by a series of victories on the battlefield, the fighters have so far refused to talk until their conditions are met, including the departure of all foreign soldiers from Afghanistan.
However, Pakistan on Wednesday hosted a fresh four-nation meeting aimed at reviving the long-stalled direct peace talks.
- Part of movement from start -
Born in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar sometime in the early 1960s, Mansour was part of the Taliban movement from its start in the 1990s and has effectively been in charge since 2013, according to Taliban sources.
He has shunned public appearances. The few pictures believed to be of him show a thickset man with the dark beard and turban that are virtually the uniform for senior Taliban cadres.
Mansour spent part of his life in Pakistan, like millions of Afghans who fled the Soviet occupation.
He succeeded Omar, the one-eyed warrior-cleric who led the Taliban from its rise in the chaos of the Afghan civil war of the 1990s.
By Julien Pretot CANNES, France (Reuters) - Solveig Anspach's "The Together Project" (L'Effet Aquatique) got a long standing ovation at a Cannes Film Festival "Directors Fortnight" showing, described by her co-writer as cathartic after the director's death last year. The cast and crew - most of them also involved in Anspach's two previous films: "Lulu Femme Nue" and "Queen of Montreuil" - burst into tears after the screening. Jean-Luc Gaget, a long-time collaborator of the American-Icelandic director, took over the editing process after Anspach died of cancer aged 54 before she could finish the film. "It was solace to see that the film was here (in Cannes), that she was here with us. It was a cathartic moment that we'd been waiting for a long time because it was tough to finish this movie without her," Gaget told Reuters. "We were all very proud that this movie was here." "The Together Project", set in the Paris suburb of Montreuil, tells the story of Samir, who pretends he cannot swim to take up lessons with local life guard Agathe after falling in love with her in a bar. The indie romantic comedy sees Samir following Agathe to a life guard congress in Iceland, posing as the Israel delegate. "The work and the projects helped her live longer," Gaget said. "We worked as if it did not exist, as if there would always be a tomorrow." "I think it gave us more strength. Obviously Solveig felt time was pressing, but it gave her more focus on the present and in cinema present is what matters," he said. Anspach won two Cesars, the French version of the Oscars, in 2000 and 2015. Her last film to show at Cannes was "Stormy Weather" in 2003. (Editing by Louise Ireland)
Initially a Motorola project that was ultimately unveiled at Google I/O 2014, Project Ara has been an intriguing project that has been on our radar for years now. For those unfamiliar, Project Ara is an ambitious program designed to create an entire hardware ecosystem for smartphone modules. So in contrast to the iPhone where the entire device is sealed shut, the Project Ara smartphone would enable users to swap out various components (battery, speaker, camera etc.) as they desire.
DON'T MISS: 10 Marvel movie mysteries that still need solving
So, for example, if a particular user needed an upgraded camera, they would simply swap out their existing camera module for a more advanced version. And while the first incarnations of Project Ara envisioned users being able to swap out all sorts of components, from a device's RAM to its processor, Google wisely reconsidered and has since limited the number of swappable modules.
"After lots of research and testing," Wired reports, Google "made a big decision: rather than turn every single piece of the phone into modules, from the processor to the RAM to the hard drive, theyd consolidate all that into the standard frame. They found that people dont care about, or want to think about, the processor in their phone."
I'm not sure why Google needed research and testing to reach such an obvious conclusion, but the upside is that Project Ara is on the verge of becoming a mainstream reality sooner rather than later.
With Google I/O still ongoing -- it is a 3-day event after all -- the search giant today announced that it's almost ready to let developers start playing with its long-awaited modular smartphone. Google also said that the consumer version of Ara will be hitting markets next year and that Google will be the one manufacturing it. In fact, Google said that progress on Project Ara is encouraging enough that they've decided to spin it out as its own dedicated business unit.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWW5mQadZAY
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Two Syrian Kurds were shot dead by a former member of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) last weekend, in what the executioner said was a response to an incident last month in which the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) killed around 50 FSA fighters and transported them back to Kurdish territory in an open-top trailer.
Tensions have flared as images of both incidents which could not be independently verified circulated on social media over the weekend and into Monday, until the FSA-aligned rebel group Jaysh al-Thuwar disavowed the alleged murder of the Kurdish civilians as a "crime" by a disgruntled former FSA fighter.
"The offender was fired by the rebels a month ago," the group said in a statement published on its website, calling the incident "a false military operation."
The incident is symbolic, however, of the mutual distrust that continues to cast a shadow over the Kurdish-Arab relationship in northern Syria.
"I think this is an individual act by the perpetrator. However some groups want to take credit for it and present as a revenge act for killing their members last month," Mutlu Civiroglu, a Syria and Kurdish affairs analyst, told Business Insider last week.
The incident comes as the US has tried to bring Arab and Kurdish forces together to fight the Islamic State, threatening to add new complications to that all-important battle.
"Amnesty International has in seven months issued two major reports highlighting allegations of war crimes by rebel and Kurdish forces in northern Syria," Hassan Hassan, a Syrian journalist and resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, wrote earlier this week in The National.
He continued: "The two reports are related to a secondary conflict brewing between Arabs and Kurds from Hasakah to Qamashli to Aleppo, which could easily spin out of control and add to the many conflicts that already plague the country."
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Syria map
Kurdish and Arab fighters have a long history of mutual distrust that peaked between 2012 and 2013, when the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) battled FSA-aligned rebel groups for control over the Syrian city of Ras al-Ayn.
Those tensions have reemerged over the past eight months. The YPG-controlled neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsood has come under siege by both Syrian government forces and the rebels, with reports emerging that the rebels have committed war crimes against the neighborhood's Kurds.
In March, an intense battle between Kurds and rebels in Aleppo punctured the relative calm that had been forged by the cessation-of-hostilities agreement brokered by the US and Russia one month earlier.
The rivalry has put the US in a difficult position. The YPG has proven to be the most effective force fighting ISIS on the ground in northern Syria, but the territorial expansion their victories have afforded them is vehemently opposed by Turkey, an important US ally and member of NATO.
Ankara views Kurdish demands for autonomy as a threat to Turkey's sovereignty. It backs many of the rebel groups that have clashed with the YPG.
Complicating the situation further is the High Negotiations Committee's (HNC) insistence that it should be the only opposition group represented at peace talks in Geneva, where multiple attempts to forge a political solution to the more than five-year war have failed. The HNC is a Saudi-backed coalition of Syrian opposition groups created in Riyadh in December 2015.
Turkey has also objected, citing the Kurdish insurgency it is battling in its southeast.
Syria
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were supposed to alleviate Turkey's anxiety by incorporating some Arab and Turkmen groups to offset Kurdish influence. But the SDF was established by members of Euphrates Volcano a coalition that included certain FSA factions but was dominated by the Kurdish YPG and has since clashed with the FSA's 13th division near the strategically important Azaz corridor.
"The US may not want to jeopardise its relationship with a force that has helped it win key tactical battles against ISIL in Syria, but the unconditional support for the YPG is irresponsible because it creates unnecessary conflicts and undermines the long-term war against extremists," said Hassan, who cowrote "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror."
Not everyone would agree that the US's support for the YPG is "unconditional." And the case could be made that the US decision to gamble its relationship with Turkey which has been accused repeatedly of turning a blind eye to ISIS' illicit activities in favor of a closer relationship with the fiercely anti-ISIS YPG was a strategic move.
Still, Washington's insistence that supporting the group is key to defeating ISIS was complicated in February, when YPG forces further west appeared to be actively coordinating with Russia to recapture territory taken by anti-Assad rebels near Azaz.
FSA
As Hassan noted, because one of the YPG's primary goals is to expand its territory in northern Syria by linking its Afrin canton with Jarabulus and because it is more "anti-ISIS" than "anti-Assad" the group is viewed suspiciously by Turkey and Sunni opposition groups in Syria.
"Ive argued all along that empowering the YPG without doing the same for the Sunni Arab opposition would create an acute power imbalance in northern Syria," Middle East expert Charles Lister wrote on Twitter last week, noting that the "imbalance may spark a conflict that could outlast" the one between the regime and the opposition.
"This position has nothing to do with being pro or anti anyone," Lister said. "Its merely the result of assessing broader dynamics in Syria's north."
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Zagreb (AFP) - Several thousand Croatians, including prime minister's wife, on Saturday joined an anti-abortion march in the capital, raising concerns among rights groups over a possible abortion ban by the conservative rulers.
Police said around 7,000 people took part in Croatia's first-ever "March for Life", which was organised by Catholic and conservative groups with the aim of highlighting the "inalienable dignity of life from conception to natural death".
"People are coming from all over Croatia to show that they are for life, family and Croatia," said Zeljka Markic, one of the organisers.
Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic's wife Sanja also took part in the march through Zagreb.
"Every reasonable person should support the March for Life initiative," she was quoted as saying by N1 regional television.
Singing popular national and religious songs, the marchers -- among them Catholic nuns and priests -- waved Croatian flags and held ballons in the red, white and blue of the national flag.
At the same time, some 300 people gathered at a pro-choice rally in the city centre, which was organised by civil society activists.
"Defending the right to choice," read a giant banner above an improvised stage in a Zagreb square.
The marchers "only goal is to decrease women's rights," said Bojana Genov of Women's Network Croatia association, insisting that the country's legislation on abortion should be protected.
Under a law dating back to 1978, when Croatia was still part of the communist Yugoslavia, abortion is legal until the 10th week of pregnancy.
Nearly 90 percent of Croatia's population of 4.2 million are Roman Catholics, and the church plays an important role in the society.
Pope Francis, leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, has described abortion as "a human evil" and a crime, although earlier this year he authorised priests to absolve women who have gone through the procedure.
Ever since January when a rightwing coalition took power in this EU country, civil society activists have raised concerns over what they say is a growing climate of intolerance.
As the Cannes Film Festival comes to a close, THR ranks the five best moments from the festival.
At number five, the list begins with Justin Timberlake's impersonations of both Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger, followed by Steven Spielberg revealing that he will have a "busy couple of years."
Timberlake joined his Trolls co-star Anna Kendrick to discuss the film with THR, while Spielberg joined actors Ruby Barnhill and Mark Rylance to discuss The BFG.
The stars of Loving - Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga - discussed the overwhelming emotion that came with their standing ovation at the film's premiere, while the cast of Two Lovers and a Bear (Tatiana Maslany and Dane DeHaan) described how they kept warm in their terribly cold shooting conditions.
But the greatest moment of all came from Princess Leia herself, when Carrie Fisher described her most memorable moment with a Star Wars fan.
See More: Cannes: THR's Photo Portfolio With Adam Driver, Kristen Stewart and the Stars of 'Loving'
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Cannes (France) (AFP) - Whichever film wins the Palme d'Or at Cannes on Sunday night, there is no mistaking the biggest mainstream hit of the festival.
"Hell or High Water", a modern western starring Jeff Bridges as a Texan ranger on the trail of two brothers robbing branches of the bank that is about to repossess their farm, has had critics reaching for superlatives.
The film industry bible Variety called it a "thrillingly good movie -- a crackerjack drama of crime, fear, and brotherly love set in a sun-roasted, deceptively sleepy West Texas that feels completely exotic for being so authentic."
Scottish director David Mackenzie's clever twist on a cowboys and Indians story has been called a cry of defiance from a forgotten rural America which no longer trusts its institutions.
It has already provoked comparisons with the "lyrical hunger" of Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Executioner's Song", with his cast praised for finally filling John Wayne's boots.
Chris Pine and Ben Foster -- who play the brothers -- swagger across the screen like "Wayne's punk grandsons", Variety declared, saying the film was Pine's "undoubted breakthrough" after years of being typecast as Captain Kirk in "Star Trek".
But others are pointing to Bridges' turn as the ageing lawman as clever "as an old catfish" as a potential award winner come Oscar time, particularly for the low-key comedy of his scratchy relationship with his half-Comanche, half-Mexican partner (Gil Birmingham).
- Distrust of banks -
"The film's ace card is its intertwining of not one but two mismatched buddy relationships," the British film magazine Screen said, calling it "the most commercially appealing and fully achieved" film in the main selection at Cannes.
Director Mackenzie -- who lives thousands of miles from West Texas in Glasgow -- has also won praise for this "authentic slice of Americana" which catches the zeitgeist of increasing distrust of banks and other financial institutions.
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"I think people are asking questions about their place in an increasingly corporatised, globalised world," Mackenzie told AFP.
"There is increasing distrust of the organisations that are supposed to support people. You can feel that in the air," he added.
He said it was this ambivalence about what is right and wrong when banks can legally "steal" your home, which drew him to Taylor "Sicario" Sheridan's script.
"I liked the siding with the outlaws and yet not being sure (about them), and all the grey areas of it. I am a big fan the western genre and I loved the themes of trying to reclaim what was theirs.
"The script had great poetic moments and then it kicks up through the gears" for the action scenes. "I just followed it," he added.
Mackenzie -- whose last film "Starred Up", a gritty prison drama, was also acclaimed -- said in audience tests the film "resonates with both camps" in American politics.
"I am very interested to see how it plays with both sides of the electorate. It feels timely," he said.
But for all the praise of the film's authenticity in depicting dying small towns, Mackenzie admitted it does get one vital thing wrong. "Texas rangers are not allowed to have moustaches, and Jeff Bridges has one in the film.
"But we thought we could get away with it because there's a maverick element to him," he added.
BALTIMORE (AP) -- Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert won a pair of 3-year-old stakes on the Preakness undercard Saturday at rainy and foggy Pimlico.
American Freedom earned a gutty victory in the Sir Barton, and Justin Squared remained unbeaten in the Chick Lang.
Both were worth $100,000.
American Freedom ran hard every step, pressing the early pace set by Fearless Dragon. After the putting away that rival down the backstretch, American Freedom was immediately challenged by Donegal Moon. They raced as a team around the final turn and into the stretch until American Freedom finally edged clear. He finished a length better than Voluntario who closed along the rail.
Rebounding from a disappointing sixth in the Pat Day Mile at Churchill Downs as the 7-5 favorite, American Freedom earned his second win in three starts.
''I was disappointed that he got beat last time,'' Baffert said. ''We've always been really high on this horse. Today it looked like he was almost done, and he came back. Hopefully, he'll have a great summer.''
American Freedom paid $4.60 to win.
One year after winning the Preakness on their way to a Triple Crown sweep with American Pharoah, Zayat Stables and Baffert returned to capture the Chick Lang for sprinters with Justin Squared.
The gray colt improved to 3 for 3 with a front-running victory. The 4-5 favorite ridden by Martin Pedroza held off a late rally from Counterforce by two lengths, covering the six furlongs in 1:11.41.
The horse is named for Justin Zayat, the son of owner Ahmed Zayat. Justin Squared paid 3.60 to win.
In other undercard stakes:
- Takeover Target closed furiously to beat Ring Weekend by a neck in the $250,000 Dixie Stakes, the richest event on the Preakness undercard.
Ring Weekend, making his first start in over year, was poised to claim the victory until Takeover Target launched his belated bid.
A 4-year-old trained by Chad Brown, Takeover Target got his first win in four starts this season. Irad Ortiz Jr. was in the saddle for the 1 1/16 miles in 1:44.76.
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Takeover Target paid $9 to win.
- Always Sunshine rallied to win the $150,000 Maryland Sprint.
The 4-year-old colt trained by Ned Allard sat third as Cinco Charlie set the pace. Always Sunshine and jockey Frankie Pennington took charge in midstetch, beating All Star Red by 2 1/2 lengths.
It was the second straight win-the fifth in 11 races overall-for Always Sunshine. He paid $5.80 to win.
The time was 1:10.49 for the six furlongs in the mud.
Salutos Amigos, the 6/5 favorite, finished fifth.
- Marengo Road pulled a 15-1 upset in the $100,000 James W. Murphy Stakes for 3-year-olds on the rain-soaked turf course listed as good.
The colt trained by Michael Trombetta was overlooked in the wagering despite a solid record of 3 for 9 coming in, including a victory in the Miracle Wood Stakes at Laurel.
Marengo Road and jockey Julian Pimentel held off a late charge from Aquaphobia by 1 1/4 lengths, paying $33.80 to win.
The time was 1:39.04 for the mile.
- The well-traveled Lady Shipman took the $100,000 Very One for distaff turf sprinters as the 2-5 favorite.
The 4-year-old chestnut trained by Kiaran McLaughlin beat Joya Real by 2 1/4 lengths for her second straight stakes victory since running seventh in the Al Quoz Sprint in Dubai in late March.
Joel Rosario guided her to the 11th win in 16 career starts. The time was 57.85 seconds for the five furlongs.
She paid $2.80 to win.
- Mizz Money pulled out a thriller in the $150,000 Gallorette Stakes for fillies and mares on the turf.
The gray 4-year-old prevailed by a head over Vielsalm with Heath only a nose back in third.
Mizz Money, trained by Bernie Flint and ridden by Javier Castellano, improved to 6 for 19.
She paid $11.80 to win. The time was 1:45.93 for the 1 1/16 miles.
Florent Geroux was aboard for the 1 1/16 miles in 1:44.85.
By Emily Stephenson and Grant Smith (Reuters) - Donald Trump raised $1.7 million from donors and loaned his White House campaign $7.5 million in April as he moved closer to becoming the Republican nominee for president, according to documents filed with the U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Friday. The New York businessman had loaned his campaign a total of $43.5 million as of the end of April, the filings showed. More recently, he has made moves to build up his fundraising operation with an eye toward the Nov. 8 general election. Trump became the Republican Party's presumptive nominee in early May, when both of his rivals dropped out of the race. Trump self-funded much of his primary run, but he has said he will not rely as heavily on his own money for the general election, when he will face the Democratic nominee. Both people seeking the Democratic nomination have raised more than Trump. Hillary Clinton, the party's front-runner, brought in $26.4 million in April, including funds from a joint fundraising effort with the Democratic Party. An outside Super PAC supporting her campaign raised $8.6 million. A Super PAC is a fund-raising group that must operate separate from political campaigns but can raise unlimited sums. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton's rival for the Democratic nomination, raised $26.9 million in April. He has disavowed Super PACs. Trump has criticized them too, though a long-time Republican operative in May joined one Super PAC backing the real estate mogul. In May, Trump hired investor Steven Mnuchin as his national finance chairman and entered a joint fundraising deal with the Republican National Committee that will allow donors to write much bigger checks. Friday's FEC filings do not reflect these moves, but they show that Trump's fundraising dipped in April, after he brought in about $3 million and loaned himself $11.5 million in March. He also spent less in April, $9.4 million compared with $13.8 million a month earlier, when more states held nominating contests. Trump spent $2.6 million on advertising in April, less than half the $6.3 million he spent in March. By comparison, Sanders spent $17.3 million and Clinton spent $9.3 million on advertising in April. Trump's consulting and payroll spending also dropped about 30 percent to a total $1.7 million in April, even as he added experienced political staff. At the end of March, he hired veteran Republican strategist Paul Manafort. Trump ended April with $2.4 million on hand, after starting the month with $2.1 million at the ready. (Reporting by Emily Stephenson and Grant Smith; Editing by Robert Birsel)
THE PERFORMER | Julia Louis-Dreyfus
THE SHOW | Veep
THE EPISODE | Mother (May 15, 2016)
THE PERFORMANCE | A spoiler alert about the 2016 Emmy race for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series: Louis-Dreyfus is going to win for a fifth straight year, thanks to her work in last Sundays Veep.
As embattled president Selina Meyer awaited a recount in the all-important swing state of Nevada and learned her elderly mother had suffered a devastating stroke, Louis-Dreyfus hilariously unearthed a new layer of her characters brutal self-absorption, cut with an unexpected dose of relatable humanity.
Louis-Dreyfus beautifully captured the way Selina stuffed down an undercurrent of shock and sadness as, in a rare quiet moment without her staff by her side, she said goodbye to the woman whod brought her into the world. Eyes darting to and fro, she found surprising poignancy by repeating a colleagues empty platitude: Those who you love cannot be lost, because theyre always a part of you. So Moments later, though, the actress brought into stark relief her blindly ambitious characters utter disregard for everyone and everything around her, ignoring daughter Catherines sobs and giddily sharing, We got good news about Nevada!
Later, at Mewmaws funeral, it was clear Selina was well past any kind of mourning phase, nixing her mothers favorite Tim McGraw song (this is a funeral, not a NASCAR race!) and taking a profoundly profane meeting with Qatari diplomats (Theyre into ass-play?). When Selina learned shed been defeated in the recount just seconds before being called on to give a eulogy, however, Louis-Dreyfus grieved deeply and tearfully I have lost so much its just not fair not for her mother, but for her own political future. Sure, Selinas brutal putdown of the deceased Thomas fing Kinkade couldnt paint Memaw in a positive light couldve been uttered about POTUS herself, but thanks to Louis-Dreyfus incomparable comedic skills, we wouldnt have it any other way.
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NCIS
HONORABLE MENTION
| Michael Weatherly saved his very best for last as Tony processed Zivas death and the daughter that came with it in his NCIS send-off. Amidst quieter scenes where he bonded with the lass who knows him as Abba and bid colleagues adieu, Weatherly brought DiNozzos fury to the fore when he found the squad room empty. What am I doing [here]? What are you doing? What are wedoing?! he roared at an arriving Gibbs. Weve lost agents before, and its, All hands on deck!' When Gibbs noted, Shes more than an agent to you, Tony fired back, She was a daughter to you. She was no more to me than anybody. He was of course lying, as evidenced when he moments later avowed, Ill breathe when Trent Kort is dead affirming both his resolve and his deep sense of loss.
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HONORABLE MENTION
| Watching someone grieve is hard. But watching someone who you know hates ceding control grieve man, that hurts. And as Bates Motels Alex fought to keep his feelings of anger and despair in check in the wake of wife Normas murder, Nestor Carbonell made us ache along with, rather than just for, the widower. Whether the sheriff was raging at stepson Norman (Im gonna prove you did it, ya piece of st!) or storming the morgue to tearfully replace his brides wedding ring on her finger (I love you I always will, whether youre here or not), the emotions his portrayer cut deep to unleash were so raw and honest that, at times, we had to look away, if only to dab at our eyes.
HONORABLE MENTION
| Every episode of Orphan Black is a showcase for Tatiana Maslanys unbelievable versatility. Still, this weeks hour was a standout as the actress performance ran the gamut from heartbreaking (as Cosima) to hilarious (as Krystal) to devastating (as Beth). Cosimas tearful goodbye to Kendall Malone was moving enough, but then Maslany released an anguished, piercing cry like weve never heard before when Cosima learned of Delphines sad fate. Never one to rest on just a single clone portrayal, Maslany also brought to life a woman on the brink during Beths final hours, and then did a one-eighty, completely changing her posture and voice as the uproariously clueless Krystal. Maslany was so captivating as each character, we temporarily forgot that two of our favorite sestras Alison and Helena werent even in the episode.
Which performances knocked your socks off this week? Hit the comments!
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(Reuters) - The emergency landing of a blimp near a highway in a Philadelphia neighborhood is under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration, an agency official said on Saturday. The blimp lost power before the emergency landing on Friday, FAA spokesman Rick Breitenfeldt said in an email. Two people were on board but they were not injured in the landing at about 7 p.m. local time in an open area near a major highway. Lt. David Bonk, a Philadelphia police officer in a helicopter tactical unit, posted a Twitter message with an aerial photo of the blimp lying mostly deflated in what appeared to be a construction zone. "Not something #TacAir sees everyday," Bonk said on Twitter. "The blimp had a hard landing, had engine problems, it was overheating," Ray Evers of the Philadelphia Police Department told reporters, according to video from local television station NBC 10. A Philadelphia police representative did not immediately return calls for comment. Breitenfeldt could not immediately say which company was operating the blimp, which was displaying advertising and came down in Fishtown, a neighborhood that historically was the working-class center of a large fishing industry and has many restaurants and music venues. The blimp, which had been flying over the Delaware River earlier in the evening, was captured on video descending over the highway and striking a concrete barrier with its passenger capsule, according to NBC 10. (Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Richard Chang and David Gregorio)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter called his Japanese counterpart on Saturday to express regrets after an American working at a U.S. military base in Japan was arrested on suspicion of dumping the body of a Japanese woman. The case in Okinawa has sparked a protest from Tokyo and could add to resentment of the large U.S. military presence on the island, where Japanese have long been upset by crimes committed by Americans. It also is likely to stir anti-U.S. sentiment as President Barack Obama visits Japan next week. In his call to Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani, Carter "extended his sincere apologies to the victim's family and friends," Defense Department spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement. "He also expressed his sympathies to the people of Japan," the statement said. A 32-year-old American working at the base on Okinawa admitted to abandoning the corpse of a 20-year-old Japanese woman but did not comment about whether he had killed her, an Okinawa police spokesman said earlier this week. The Pentagon has said the man was a contractor but did not name him. The Pentagon statement said the Defense Department would cooperate with the Japanese government in the investigation and work to prevent similar incidents. Obama is going to Japan for a Group of Seven summit and also will become the first U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, a city destroyed by a U.S. atomic bomb 71 years ago in World War Two. Okinawa, the site of a bloody World War Two battle, hosts the bulk of U.S. military forces based in Japan since the war with U.S. installations taking up about 18 percent of the island. Earlier this year, a U.S. serviceman stationed in Okinawa was arrested on suspicion of raping a woman. In the most infamous post-war case involving Americans on Okinawa, three American servicemen raped a 12-year-old girl in 1995. (Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Bill Trott)
Washington (AFP) - Defense Secretary Ashton Carter spoke by phone Saturday with his Japanese counterpart after an American who works on a US air base in Okinawa was arrested for his links to the death of a local woman.
In the call to Gen Nakatani, Carter "conveyed his sadness and his regret" over the murder of the young woman "and extended his sincere apologies to the victim's family and friends," the Pentagon said in a statement.
Okinawan police arrested Kenneth Franklin Shinzato on Thursday for allegedly disposing of the woman's body in a weed-covered area in southern Okinawa.
Shinzato, a US citizen and former US Marine who works at the Kadena Air Base, has reportedly admitted to raping and killing 20-year-old Rina Shimabukuro, who had been missing since late April.
Nakatani on Saturday traveled to Okinawa to lodge a formal protest with the US base commander.
"I deliver a strong message of regret and at the same time make a protest," Nakatani told US military commander Lieutenant General Lawrence Nicholson, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, as he demanded that the US military in Okinawa ensure discipline among troops.
In the phone call, Carter told Nakatani "that the United States hopes the perpetrator of this crime will be held accountable under the Japanese legal system."
Carter also said the military "is determined to cooperate fully" with the Japanese authorities to investigate the case.
The statement described the murder as a "shocking and tragic incident."
The statement was released as President Barack Obama departed Saturday on a trip to Vietnam and Japan that will include the first visit by a sitting US president to Hiroshima, site of the world's first nuclear attack.
The southern island of Okinawa was the site of a brutal World War II battle but is now considered a strategic linchpin by hosting numerous US military bases that support the two countries' decades-long security alliance.
DailyFX.com -
USD/CAD to Eye Fresh May Highs on Hawkish Fed Rhetoric, Dovish BoC
Fundamental Forecast for CAD: Neutral
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The near-term advance in USD/CAD may gather pace in the week ahead should the Bank of Canada (BoC) endorse a dovish outlook for monetary policy, while Federal Reserve officials show a greater willingness to implement higher borrowing-costs over the coming months.
The BoC is widely anticipated to retain its current policy at the May 25 interest- rate decision, but Governor Stephen Poloz and Co. may adopt a more cautious outlook for the region as Finance Minister William Morneau sees the Alberta fire having a modest impact on economic activity. Despite the stickiness in Canadas Consumer Price Index (CPI), the slowdown in job growth accompanied by the weakening outlook for global growth may prolong the rebalancing of the real economy, and the loonie stands at risk of facing near-term headwinds should the BoC adopt a more cautious tone this time around.
At the same time, fresh comments from St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, San Francisco Fed President John Williams, Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan, Fed Governor Jerome Powell and Fed Chair Janet Yellen may fuel a further advance in USD/CAD as the central bank appears to be on course to further normalize monetary policy over the coming months. Even though the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) remains data-dependent, the central bank may continue to prepare households and businesses for higher borrowing-costs especially as the U.S. economy approaches full-employment.
With that said, growing speculation for a looming Fed rate-hike may pave the way for a fresh monthly highs in USD/CAD, and the long-term upward trend may reassert itself over the near-term amid the deviating paths for monetary policy
original source
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London (AFP) - Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal refused to discuss his future on Saturday amid reports that Jose Mourinho is on the brink of being appointed as his successor.
Van Gaal saw United come from behind to beat Crystal Palace 2-1 in the FA Cup final at Wembley, giving him his first trophy at the club, but within minutes of the final whistle, media organisations including the BBC and Sky were reporting that his days at Old Trafford are numbered.
Van Gaal has been under fire for months, with United crashing out of the Champions League in the group phase and then failing to qualify for next season's competition, but the Dutchman would not be drawn on his position in his post-match press conference.
Asked if he expected to keep his job, he gestured to the FA Cup trophy, which was sitting on a table in front of him, and said: "I show you the cup and I don't discuss it with my friends of the media, who already sacked me for six months.
"Which manager can do that, what I have done?"
The BBC reported that Mourinho, sacked by Chelsea for the second time in December, would be officially announced as United manager early next week.
When Van Gaal was asked if victory in the cup final meant that he would go out on a high, he replied: "I don't want to talk about leaving the club."
Mourinho was also in London on Saturday, attending British boxer David Haye's heavyweight fight against Arnold Gjergjaj at the O2 Arena, but when asked to comment on the reports by Britain's Press Association, he declined to do so.
Van Gaal had earlier highlighted his record of having won domestic cups in four countries, following previous successes with Ajax in his native Holland, Barcelona in Spain and Bayern Munich in Germany.
"It is fantastic to win this title for the club, for the fans and also for me, because I now have won the cup in four countries, and not many managers have done that," the 64-year-old told BT Sport.
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Palace took a 78th-minute lead through Jason Puncheon, but Juan Mata equalised within three minutes before substitute Jesse Lingard slammed home a memorable extra-time winner to give United a record-equalling 12th FA Cup.
United's victory came despite them having had to play Bournemouth on Tuesday in a game held over from the previous weekend due to a bomb scare at Old Trafford, as well as an extra-time red card for Chris Smalling, who was dismissed for two bookable offences.
"With 10 players, and we have played Tuesday evening also, but we have deserved it, I think," Van Gaal added. "It was a super goal, eh?"
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu will pass constitutional amendments to reserve seats in parliament for women, Justice Minister Ronald Warsal said. There are currently no women in Vanuatu's 52-seat parliament. The nation, made up of a string of islands, has a population of 250,000 people. Amendments to the constitution could take place as early as next month, Warsal told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "We do not have a fixed number yet as to the number of seats, but the amendment will be to the constitution to say parliament will prescribe a system which will include reserved seats for women," Warsal said. "It has been over 10 years since we have had a woman in parliament ... It is very hard for women to win seats in Vanuatu, so it is better that we amend the constitution," he said. According to the French Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) women hold an average of 22 per cent of seats in parliaments across the world. The Pacific is the worst region for female representation with women holding only 16 percent of seats. (Reporting by Jarni Blakkarly)
Caracas (AFP) - Venezuela's armed forces, which are conducting exercises against perceived internal and external threats, hold immense power in the government of President Nicolas Maduro and notably have interests in the vital oil sector.
The military boasts Russian and Chinese systems, including Sukhoi strike jet fighters, missiles and tanks.
- Political power -
Of the government's 30 ministries, 10 are held by active or retired military men.
They include the ministries for food, for agricultural production and land, and for fishing and aquaculture -- key portfolios during Venezuela's current food crisis.
The opposition-controlled Congress last month ordered that Food Minister Rodolfo Marco Torres be fired for the severe lack of basic food stocks.
But the Supreme Court, stacked with judges loyal to Maduro, voided that measure.
Venezuela's critical electricity shortage is being handled by the energy ministry in the hands of General Luis Motta Dominguez, who implemented rationing.
The minister for housing, habitats and ecosocialism is General Manuel Quevedo, tasked with battling the opposition over the issue of free social housing. While the government has started giving deeds to occupants, it is with the condition that the property cannot be sold.
- Economic power -
The military owns businesses including a television network, a bank, a vehicle assembly enterprise and a construction company.
In February, it created a new oil, mining and gas industrial group called CAMIMPEG.
The entity handles some activities already managed by the state-owned PDVSA oil company such as terms maintaining oil wells, and selling and distributing mining, petrochemical, oil and gas products.
Maduro said CAMIMPEG was part of an array of companies set up to challenge private interests in Venezuela that he accuses of waging an "economic war."
- Armed power -
Venezuela's National Bolivarian Armed Forces commands 165,000 active-duty personnel, 25,000 reservists and several thousand in civilian militias.
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The United States in 2006 banned the sale or transfer of American military weapons and technology to Venezuela, driving the president at the time, Hugo Chavez, into the arms of Russia and China.
Control Ciudadano, a non-governmental body monitoring military activity, said it has been unable to establish how much, and precisely what sort of weapon systems Venezuela acquired between 2005 and 2012 because of laws making that information secret.
It said Russia has supplied rifles, anti-tank rockets, armored vehicles, tanks, infantry combat vehicles, anti-aircraft defense systems, fighter planes, helicopters and missiles.
A factory to make AK-103 and AK-104 assault rifles and another to make munitions are due to open next year.
China, meanwhile, has provided Venezuela with military communications, uniforms, anti-riot gear, radars, armored vehicles, aircraft and helicopters.
Cannes (France) (AFP) - A twisted rape thriller by "Basic Instinct" director Paul Verhoeven drew rave reviews Saturday in Cannes as one of two films about a woman trying to prise back control from her attacker.
With its radical take on the aftermath of a brutal sex crime, the Dutch director's latest movie "Elle" had everything to set critics on edge before the screening.
But the story of a powerful woman played by French actress Isabelle Huppert, who is assaulted and embarks on a dangerous game with her attacker, was a surprise hit for its portrayal of a woman taking matters into her own hands.
Verhoeven told AFP his film was not a traditional tale of revenge, but a woman who "takes another route" and draws her rapist back into her life.
Huppert, 63, who some critics said had delivered the performance of her career, told journalists that it was the fact that her character "does not react in a predictable manner that creates the tension."
There is little to explain her motivations or true feelings towards her attacker, and there is an intentional "ambiguity to everything", said Verhoeven.
French website L'Express hailed the film which also drew plenty of dark laughs from the audience.
"One can already hear screams of bloody murder about the unacceptable link between rape and pleasure. It has nothing to do with that," wrote its critic.
The movie is based on the book "Oh..." by Philippe Dijan and Verhoeven said the moral aspects of the story were never taken into consideration.
"We all felt that this was a story that had meaning, but not a feminist meaning or an anti-feminist meaning," said Verhoeven.
The Guardian's Nigel Smith tweeted that the film was "perverse, hilarious and insanely pleasurable".
- Not to America's taste -
The author and screenwriter Dijan dismissed views that Huppert's character had fallen in love with her attacker.
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"She is someone who tries not to obey all the codes of society," he said.
Huppert said she was not worried about the reaction to her character's bizarre relationship with her rapist.
"It is not a statement about a woman being raped and accepting it. It doesn't mean it happens to all women in the world. It happens to that woman in particular as an individual," said Huppert.
Variety said "Elle" could be a career high for the 77-year-old Danish director of "Showgirls" and "Robocop".
Verhoeven said he returned to Europe for his first-ever French film as its angle on rape was seen as too "amoral and unacceptable" in the United States.
"At least in France I believe that people get it. That people are willing to accept this somewhat strange, not middle-of-the-road kind of thinking.
"For the rest I don't know, it might be easier for Europeans to accept it."
- Iranian revenge flick -
The question of how a woman reacts to her attacker was also raised in the latest film by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, "The Salesman", which also premieres Saturday.
A couple is thrown into turmoil after an attack on the wife (Taraneh Alidoosti) in their home -- the full nature of which is never clear -- sends her husband on a revenge mission.
However she does not want him to exact the retribution he plans, and presents him with an ultimatum that she will leave him if he goes ahead with it, handing power back to her traumatised character.
"I think both men and women are capable of violence, and a violence they think is legitimate," Farhadi told AFP in an interview.
"Around the world one of our main challenges is violence that appears legitimate to those who carry it out."
- Japan qualified for their fourth successive Olympics in women's volleyball after an inspired captain's performance from Saori Kimura. The Japanese were beaten 23-25, 27-25, 27-25, 21-25, 15-9 by Italy in the Tokyo qualifiers but clinched the two sets they required to book their ticket, helped in no small measure by Kimura's 31 points. Her heroics ensured Japan joined Italy, the Netherlands and Asia rivals South Korea in this summer's Games in Rio. Japan, bronze medallists behind Brazil and the United States at the 2012 London Olympics, have posted four wins and two defeats to claim the fourth and final spot for Brazil. Antonella Del Core led Italy with 22 points. Meanwhile, the Dutch thrashed Peru 25-16, 25-14, 25-17 to qualify for their third Olympics and first since the 1996 Atlanta Games.
AFP
Photo courtesy of Sheryll Donerson.
The following is an interview with Sheryll Donerson, as told to Taylor Bryant. Donerson is a beauty blogger and expat who lived between South Korea and Vietnam for four years. She recently moved to Thailand to explore, write, and focus on her blog, The Wanderlust Project.
Standing Out
The last time I was in Korea, two years ago, I think the population was around 98% Korean something ridiculous like that. It is very, very much a closed society. Aside from the military bases, there arent many foreigners, and even fewer Black men or women, so I chalk a lot of peoples behavior up to curiosity.
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I would constantly get stared at. There would be people trying to touch my hair. This didnt happen as frequently in Vietnam or Malaysia because they have a sizable community of Africans and darker-skinned Malayans, but in Korea it was persistent. On the subway, shopping at stores I felt like I was on display all of the time. I even had a kid start crying once when he saw me at the grocery store. I was like, Seriously? I dont know why youre crying.
I taught English at a very small middle school during my first year in Korea. This was pretty much the first time any of the students had seen an African-American teacher in real life. Theyre taught what curly hair is, so its not really an excuse, but my kids would call me reggae hair or ramen hair constantly.
Curly Concerns
Before I moved to Korea, I thought my biggest struggle would be finding skin-care products. I thought everything would be whitening, because thats all I had heard (which definitely isnt the case). In reality, skin-care products were the easiest thing to find. Hair, on the other hand, was a whole other story.
Related: Gigi Hadids Manicure Costs More Than Our Rent
Its very difficult if almost impossible to find products for natural hair in Asia. There is a website called iHerb that ships to Korea and, at the time, they had a great selection of natural hair products. I would either order items from there, or, whenever one of the women in my Black-girl tribe would go home, we would all send her a list of stuff and she would bring items back. We had a whole system going. When I went home to Alabama, I would bring an extra empty suitcase and come back with it filled up with hair and makeup products. I had to stock up and ration out.
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The water quality in both Korea and Vietnam is terrible for natural hair. As soon as I moved to Korea, my hair was so dry and brittle it felt like straw. I was part of an expat Facebook group where members shared their tips about hair. I went online and was like, What is happening? And everyone was like, Girl, you need to get a water filter! So, from that point on I installed one in my shower, which would help to filter out chlorine and other minerals. I even experimented with using bottled water because my hair was terrible. The texture changed completely, it was so strange.
Hair-Cutting Woes
Pretty much all of the Black girls that come to Asia learn how to do their own hair. My friends will go to Bangkok if they need braids or extensions because no one here can do that. You kind of have to become self-sufficient, which, when youre used to somebody doing that stuff for you, can be hard.
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Once, when I lived in Korea, I went to get my hair straightened. I went to a salon that everyone mentioned was great with non-Korean hair, which I guess translated to caucasian hair. I dont find my hair terribly difficult to style its very thin, its fine, I dont really have that much. So, I was like, Hey, its not going to be that difficult, Ill explain, Ill show a picture. But as soon as they started washing my hair I was like, 'No, this isnt right. Heres how it went: She shampoos it all on the top of my head and it immediately turns into a tangled mess. She finishes washing my hair, takes a towel, and starts rubbing it all over my head Im just like, 'Oh. God. What did I get myself into?
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I go to sit in the chair and the guy looks at me, dumbfounded. My hair is still curly and wet and he reaches for the flat iron. I had to shout, No, no, no, no! Blow-dry! He then takes the blowdryer and just places it over my head doesnt brush it through to straighten it first or anything. I physically had to take the blowdryer and the brush and show him how to do it. He finally finishes flat-ironing and the end result was okay. But, at that point, I thought, 'Im never going to a salon in Asia again, ever. Its been two years since Ive had a haircut now. Its one of those things where theres a language barrier. If it was America, I probably wouldve said no and left. But there, I wasnt sure if they would understand me. So, you just kind of suck it up and deal with it.
With The Bad, Comes The Good
Theres a little breakfast shop that I usually go to in the mornings, and one day I saw a mother and her daughter there; the little girl was half Vietnamese, half Black and the first time she saw me, her whole face lit up. She has curly hair like me, shes brown-skinned like me, said this beautiful little girl. She ran up to me like I was her aunt or something. And her mom was like, Oh my gosh, she hasnt seen a brown woman like you, shes just so happy. Shes always telling me that she wants different hair and then she saw you.
Older women in Korea would actually come up to me and ask what kind of perm I had, because they wanted curly hair, and they wouldnt believe me when I told them it was natural. Even though everyone has straight hair there, the whole wavy/curly perm movement is huge.
Teachable Moments
Most people are very friendly in Korea. I never encountered someone being outright rude or racist. I know some Black expats get annoyed that people stare and try to touch their hair, but it made me realize that my hair is badass! When you can turn heads and have people try to take photos with you because your hair looks so good (this literally just happened to me at the Bangkok airport!), its a confidence boost. When my kids would call me reggae or ramen hair, I was slightly annoyed, but I realized that a) theyre kids, and b) theyre kids who are learning English so maybe thats their closest point of reference. They never said it in a malicious way and I used it as a teaching moment to tell them no, its not reggae or ramen hair. If you see someone with hair like me, its called curly hair.
Related: Is Sex Good For Your Skin?
Having natural hair in Asia shows people in different parts of the world that Black people are varied we have different textures of hair, we have different skin tones. A lot of Asians know Oprah, they know Barack Obama, but thats about it. Its a very narrow perception of what an African-American person should look like. To them, they think Americans are white with blonde hair and blue eyes. They dont consider that Black people come from America, too.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Thankfully, things have improved since Ive left. There are Black women who have opened up their own beauty supply stores with products for natural hair, and there are more hairstylists in Seoul that cater to Black women. I definitely think the shift had to do with the natural hair boom in America. Before, most of the hair retailers in Korea that did sell Black products carried mostly relaxers and weave and oil-sheen products.
Theres a store in Korea that recently opened up called Honey Hair thats mostly catered toward natural hair. The lady who owns it has aztec clay, apple cider vinegar, coconut oil, Shea Moisture, etc. Honestly, I thought about opening up a place myself, or bringing back extra products and selling them because it was so rare. There are definitely people willing to buy these things, they just cant find them.
Expat Advice
I would tell anyone living abroad or living in Asia in general to not be put off by what you assume is going to happen, or what youve heard everyone has different experiences. YouTube has been a great resource for finding different ways to do protective styles, to trim my own hair, or finding different DIY treatments. It is pretty disorienting when you first move somewhere and you realize you cant just run to the local CVS. But, while its hard at times, it wont always be. Bring your own stuff, watch YouTube, and youll make it through.
By: Taylor Bryant
Theyre the fastest-growing demographic in the United Statesincluding both people who are newly arrived to these shores and folks whose families have been here for generations. Now the White House is backing an effort to collect audio recordings of the diverse experiences of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, or AAPIs.
For its #MyAAPIStory project, the White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs has teamed up with StoryCorps, the New York Citybased nonprofit that has recorded thousands of Americans stories over the past 13 years.
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The contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to this country are countless, diverse, and meaningful, Alissa Ko, the associate director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, wrote in an email to TakePart. Through #MyAAPIStory, the White House hopes to share and document AAPI stories, perspectives, and experiences so that they are represented in our nation's narrative, wrote Ko.
The White Houses commitment to collecting AAPI stories made teaming up with StoryCorps a natural fit. We maintain a real focus on building a diverse archive with diverse voices. The Asian American and Pacific Islander population is among the groups of folk we look to make sure is represented in our archive, Colleen Ross, the director of marketing and communications for StoryCorps, told TakePart.
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StoryCorps was started in New York City by radio producer and documentarian Dave Isay. Through the process of filming his documentaries, Isay found that when he gave the microphone to people and let them tell their own stories there was a real moment of empowerment, said Ross. With a booth in Grand Central Terminal he launched StoryCorps in 2003 with the goal of recording, preserving, and sharing the life experiences of people from diverse backgrounds.
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The premise was that two people come to a booth, and a facilitator would work with them to help them have a 40-minute conversation, said Ross. In the end they would get a copy of that interview for themselves, and another would go to the Library of Congress. Those conversations are part of a digital archive that is now the largest collection of human voices in existence.
Through several in-person booths across the nation StoryCorps has amassed more than 65,000 interviews. The experiences of AAPIs have been included in those stories, and some, such as the video of grandmother Kay Wang, have been animated and uploaded to YouTube. To enable a broader cross-section of people to participate in StoryCorps, last year the nonprofit launched a mobile app that enables people to have conversations whenever and wherever they want. Since then it has had another 55,000 stories uploaded through the app.
Once users download the StoryCorps app it guides them through the "Great Questions List," a broad set of questions designed to unpack a persons personal history. It includes questions like What was your first job?' 'When did you first fall in love? and more personal questions like 'Can you sing me a song from when you were a child?' Those prompts can be an effective way to shape some of those stories, Ross said.
The initiative comes at a time when the invisibility of AAPI actors and storiesand stereotypical movie and television portrayals, such as the trope of the nerdy AAPI friendis being increasingly called out on social media. Last year director Cameron Crowe was widely condemned for casting white actor Emma Stone as a part-Chinese character in his film Aloha. In early May after the trailer for the upcoming film Dr. Strange was released, Marvel Studios received similar criticism for casting white British actor Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One, a character originally written as a Tibetan monk.
As a result, over the past two weeks the hashtags #StarringJohnCho and #StarringConstanceWu have trended on Twitter, with people reimagining a Hollywood where Asian American actors are cast as the leads in major movies and television shows.
In a post on the White House blog, Ko encouraged AAPIs to share stories about whatever topics they wantmeaning that actors such as Cho and Wu could upload a story about their experiences with typecasting and whitewashing in Hollywood. Ko also suggested themes such as being the first in a family to go to college, sharing what it was like to immigrate to the U.S., and dealing with the model minority myth. Helping smash that myth is also the focus of the U.S. Department of Educations new commitment to gathering accurate data on the experiences of AAPIs in public schools.
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This isnt the first time that the White House has used the StoryCorps app as a tool for collect peoples stories. In the summertime they did some work around older adults in conjunction with their Conference on Aging. They did a story collection around the anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, said Ross. But this latest opportunity to work with the White House really excites us and is consistent with the work that we do. Opportunities like this with the White House help promote ways to continue to develop the diversity and dimension of the voices that are in the archive.
Take the Pledge: Dont Be Silent: Take the Pledge to Be an Ally for Racial Justice
Related stories on TakePart:
Asian American Activists Are Refusing to Join the Fight Against Affirmative Action
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Central Americans Rerouted: A U.S. Immigration Crisis Gets Outsourced
Original article from TakePart
Analyzing Nokia's 1Q16 Results: What It Means for Investors
(Continued from Prior Part)
Opportunity to build licensing income in the future
Last month, Nokia (NOK) announced plans to acquire Europe (FEP) (EFA) Withingsa leader in the connected health revolution business segment. Withings has been a pioneer in the connected health market since the company launched its first product in 2009.
This deal also gives Nokia an early position in this market and an opportunity to build future licensing income.
Rajeev Suri, Nokias president and CEO, stated that With this acquisition, Nokia is strengthening its position in the Internet of Things in a way that leverages the power of our trusted brand, fits with our company purpose of expanding the human possibilities of the connected world, and puts us at the heart of a very large addressable market where we can make a meaningful difference in peoples lives.
Nokia reenters the consumer electronics business
In 2014, Nokia sold its Devices & Services unit to Microsoft (MSFT). Now, it announced its return to the consumer market with this acquisition. The deal is worth $195 million or 170 million euros.
Withings released a number of smartwatches. It accounts for almost 4% of the smartwatch market according to Statista. The companys products are carried by popular retailers like Best Buy (BBY).
According to the IDC, wearables unit shipments grew 172% in fiscal 2015. As shown in the above chart, the major players in this space include Fitbit (FIT), Chinas Xiaomi, Apple (AAPL), Garmin (GRMN), and Samsung with market shares of 26.9%, 15.4%, 14.9%, 4.2%, and 4%, respectively.
Continue to Next Part
Browse this series on Market Realist:
By Ivy Josiah
Every day, he would give her a list of household tasks she must complete and when he returned home from work, he would grade each task, scoring it between A and E.
Who is he?
a. A parent delegating chores to his child
b. An employer delegating chores to the domestic worker
c. A husband delegating chores to his wife
The answer is C, a batterer. Control of ones wife is a key trait in wife batterers. If this abuser was displeased with her quality of work he would not only grade her but also batter her physically, usually with a belt. I dealt with this case in 2013.
Recently it was reported in the Malaysian media that a man, charged with beating his wife in an elevator, told the press that he did not mean to discipline his wife.
To quote him: Saya minta maaf kepada semua kaum wanita. Saya tidak sengaja mengajar isteri saya (I apologise to all women. I did not mean to teach my wife a lesson).
This man had no qualms about teaching his wife a lesson. Men have traditionally believed and unfortunately many still do that as head of the household or simply being a man entitles them to discipline their wife, children, servants and pets! Where do men derive this entitlement?
In the 1500s, common or customary law (not written law) in England, Wales and Ireland permitted a man to beat his wife with a stick or rod as thick as his middle finger and as long as his forearm. The absence of laws to protect women from domestic violence and punish wife abusers also adds to the false notion that wife beating is a personal and a domestic matter.
Malaysia took 11 years to enact a Domestic Violence Act; during campaigning, the predominant obstacles that stood in the way were religion, culture and custom.
Religious teachings and practices contribute to societys belief that males are dominant whereas women are weak. Men occupy central sacred spaces while women are placed behind screens, or separated from men during worship. Almost all religions have taboos around menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth and widowhood. Religious institutions that still do not accept women as priests demonstrate the unease these institutions have with gender equality.
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The most abused verse from the Bible that reinforces male dominance is, Wives be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Saviour. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands (Ephesians 5.22-24 NRSV). Many choose not to read this verse during Christian wedding services.
The most abused verse in the Koran is ayat 34 of Surah four: Men are the protectors and maintainers of women because Allah gave more to the one than the other, and because they support them from their means. So devout women are extremely careful and attentive in guarding what cannot be seen in that which Allah is extremely careful and attentive in guarding. Concerning women whose rebellious disloyalty (nusbooz) you fear, admonish them, then refuse to share their beds, then hit them; but if they become obedient, do not seek means of annoyance against them.
A Hindu verse from the Manusmriti reads: Girls are supposed to be in the custody of their father when they are children, women must be under the custody of their husband when married, and under the custody of her son as widows. In no circumstances is she allowed to assert herself independently.
I emphasise the word abused because there are many other liberal interpretations from religious texts we can draw upon to uphold the rights of women. However, society can be selective as it seeks to maintain and favour male dominance by exploiting religion. This is how patriarchy works.
So while we may find that the community is urging women to forgive and forget, I want to urge women to remember and look out for these signs in men, especially during the courtship period.
Is he extremely jealous and suspicious of your friends, especially males?
Is he possessive and wants you to account the time spent without him?
Does he forbid you to be in contact with your family members?
Does he get angry if you do not answer the phone immediately?
Does he tell you what to wear?
Does he blame you for losing his temper?
Does he dismiss his anger or violence as a small matter?
Does he not allow you to work late at the office?
Is he very sweet and apologetic after a violent episode?
Does he want you all to himself?
It is the continued belief that men have the right to discipline women that has made violence against women a deadly serious problem. I am only talking about men who abuse their wives and girlfriends, and I do acknowledge that women too can be perpetrators of violence. Statistically though, one out three women are abused worldwide.
Men can change their bad behaviour and it has to start with throwing way the belief system that says men have the right to dominate over women.
Ivy Josiah was formerly Executive Director of Womens Aid Organisation(WAO), one of Malaysias leading womens rights organisations. She is currently WAOs fundraiser and host of the web-based talk show, The IvyGram.
By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) - - The World Bank on Saturday said it was launching a $500 million, fast-disbursing insurance fund to combat deadly pandemics in poor countries, creating the world's first insurance market for pandemic risk. Japan has committed the first $50 million towards the facility, which will combine funding from reinsurance markets with the proceeds of a new type of World Bank-issued high-yield pandemic catastrophe bond, the bank said. In the event of a pandemic outbreak, the facility will release funds quickly to affected poor countries and qualified international first-responder agencies. The genesis of the new facility was the slow international response to the Ebola outbreak in 2014, when it took months to muster meaningful funds for affected countries as death tolls mounted. "The recent Ebola crisis in West Africa was a tragedy that we were simply not prepared for. It was a wake-up call to the world, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim told a media conference call. We cant change the speed of a hurricane or the magnitude of an earthquake, but we can change the trajectory of an outbreak. With enough money sent to the right place at the right time, we can save lives and protect economies, Kim added. The so-called Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility will initially provide up to $500 million that can be disbursed quickly to fight a pandemic, with funds released once parametric triggers are met, based on the size, severity and spread of an outbreak. The facility was developed in conjunction with the World Health Organization and reinsurers Swiss Re and Munich Re, which are acting as insurance providers. It will include catastrophe, or cat bonds, in which purchasers would lose principal if fund flows are triggered by a pandemic outbreak, the World Bank said. But the insurance mechanism is limited to certain classes of infectious diseases most likely to cause major outbreaks, including several types of influenza, respiratory diseases such as SARS and MERS, and other deadly viruses including Ebola and Marburg. Kim said the types of qualifying diseases had to be limited in order to secure the insurance policy, for which the World Bank will pay premiums. The mosquito-borne Zika virus now spreading in Latin America is not included in the insurance scheme, but Kim said funds for Zika and other diseases that could lead to pandemics would be made available through a separate cash window, which is likely to be in the $100 million range. Kim, who announced the facility at a Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank governors' meeting in Sendai, Japan, said he expected more contributions from G7 and other donors. He said he hoped the new facility would spur development of a market for pandemic risk, similar to that for natural catastrophe risk since the 1990s. The bank estimated that had the facility existed in mid-2014, an initial $100 million could have been mobilized as early as July of that year to severely limit the spread and severity of the Ebola epidemic. Instead, it took three months for that scale of money to begin flowing, a period in which the number of Ebola cases increased ten-fold. The disease eventually killed more than 11,300 people and has cost at least $10 billion more than $7 billion in international aid and some $2.8 billion in gross domestic product losses in Guinea, Libera and Sierra Leone. (Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Paris (AFP) - French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Saturday that no theory on the cause of the EgyptAir crash has been ruled out, after revelations of smoke in the cabin minutes before the disaster.
"At this time... all theories are being examined and none is favoured," he told a news conference after meeting with around 100 relatives of passengers who were aboard the doomed A320 that left Paris early Thursday for Cairo with 66 people aboard.
"The reports circulating here and there, which by the way are sometimes contradictory, give rise too often to nearly definitive conclusions," Ayrault said, warning of the "painful tension" caused to the families of the victims.
"Finding the plane is of course the priority, along with finding the black boxes to analyse them, which will allow us to answer legitimate questions," he said, referring to the voice and flight data recorders.
France's "dual goal" is to offer "solidarity with the families but also transparency... on the circumstances of this plane's disappearance," said the foreign minister, who was joined by Egypt's ambassador to France at the meeting with the family members.
"I strongly emphasised the desire of the French authorities to tell the entire truth about what happened," he said. "It's a legitimate and essential expectation for all the families."
The meeting took place "in a climate of intense emotion and great dignity," Ayrault added.
Crash investigators briefed the relatives on what is known so far and the procedures for establishing the cause.
"Methods and procedures for identifying the victims" were also explained to the families, Ayrault said.
The passengers included 30 Egyptians, 15 French citizens, two Iraqis, two Canadians, and citizens from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. They included a boy and two babies.
Seven crew members and three security personnel were also on board.
As United States legislators continue to debate transgender bathroom access at the national level, Yale University has announced a sea change: Ahead of next Monday's commencement ceremony, the school has mapped out gender neutral bathrooms in 23 of its buildings.
According to the Associated Press, the announcement comes in the wake of a number of other policy adjustments the school has unveiled over the course of the past year.
Students are permitted to request that the name that they use, rather than the one on their birth certificates, be the one written on their diplomas. They are also allowed to change the names listed on their school identification cards and within Yale's online portal.
Source: Elaine Thompson/AP
Professors have also begun using students' preferred pronouns when requested, and, perhaps most substantially, the school's student health plan now covers gender reassignment surgery and hormone suppression therapy.
Tamar Gendler, dean of Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, told AP that the changes were part of a larger movement to make the campus friendlier to transgender students, faculty and visitors.
"Yale aims to be a leader on this front," Gendler said. "Part of what is important about the all-gender bathroom project, and about putting it at the top of our commencement site, is this is about public signaling."
Isaac Amend, a rising senior who is currently in the process of transitioning to male, told AP that he and other students noticed the most substantial changes at Yale only after Caitlyn Jenner brought the transgender community to national prominence.
Source: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images
Amend said that he was excited that the school has chosen to unveil the new bathrooms at commencement, when many alumni are likely to be present.
"That's music to my ears," he said. "And what's the greatest harm that can be done? An old white guy makes a snide remark? Who cares?"
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) meets with Apple CEO Tim Cook during a meeting in New Delhi on May 21, 2016 (AFP Photo/) (Indian Press Information Bureau/AFP/File)
New Delhi (AFP) - Apple chief executive Tim Cook met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi Saturday, launching a new version of the Indian leader's eponymous app on a visit aimed at pushing the technology giant's expansion plans.
Cook, shown in a video using the premier's gold-coloured iPhone, launched an update to the Narendra Modi Mobile App to include a new volunteering network.
"Thank you @tim_cook! Friends, welcome & happy volunteering. Your views & efforts are always enriching," the prime minister tweeted afterwards.
Apple does not currently have any stores in India, instead selling phones through third-party retailers such as Vodafone and Airtel, but has applied for permission to open shops.
Cook used the meeting to raise the possibilities of manufacturing and retailing in India, as well as tapping its great software expertise for app development, the government said.
"Thanks PM @narendramodi for a great meeting. Already looking forward to next visit to India. Best wishes on the app!" Cook tweeted.
The Apple boss has spent several days in the country after jetting in from China, in a visit seen as an extended Asia charm offensive.
He has announced investments including an app design centre in the southern technology hub of Bangalore and a mapping development office in Hyderabad.
India is a compelling market for the technology giant, with nearly a billion Indians -- among a population of 1.2 billion -- still not online, especially as sales of the iPhone slow in more saturated markets.
Yet Apple products are too expensive for the vast majority of Indians, with taxes taking the cost of a basic iPhone to almost $600.
In April Apple reported its first drop in global iPhone sales since launching the smartphone in 2007.
During his trip to China, Cook announced Apple had invested $1 billion in Chinese ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing, rival of US-based Uber.